Tag Archive for: seo

How to Start Successfully Marketing Your Blog

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A blog can be an extremely valuable asset to a business’s overall success. Over the last decade or so, businesses have increased revenue, improved brand awareness, and boosted conversions with valuable written content published for their target audience and customers. But for this to be accomplished, you must market the blog itself. 

Follow these best practices for promoting and marketing your blog content. 

Keep buyer personas top of mind.

When creating your blogs, you should always be thinking about who your ideal customer is and why they need your product or service. This way, you’ll be able to create content specifically suited to your audiences’ wants, needs, challenges, pain points, etc. When you create your blogs with these points in mind, it will be easier to use it as a conversion tool. 

Watch your competition. 

Competitors can provide insight into what’s working or not working when it comes to blog content and your target audience. Watch for thought-leaders in your industry and see what they’re writing about or experimenting with. How is their audience reacting? What gets the most traffic and drives the most discussion? This can help you determine what you need to do to stand out and provide your readers valuable content. 

Perform SEO and keyword research. 

An additional way to help you stand out among your competitors is by making sure your blogs rank higher on a webpage. Dedicate some time to keyword research to identify the phrases your target audience is searching the most. You can then tailor your blogs around these keyword phrases and include them in the blog when they naturally fit. You’ll want to perform this research prior to writing your blog. You can start by creating a list of 5-10 keyword groups you want to rank for, along with their associated long-tail keywords. 

Determine where the content will be distributed. 

It’s important to strategically determine where you’ll be distributing your content. Depending on the blogging software you use to host, it may be simple to add your articles to their corresponding landing page. Other ways to distribute your content include social media and online publishing platforms. You could also work with industry experts or influencers to share your content on their platforms as well. 

Final Thoughts 

Creating a successful blog in your niche is a great way to reach and nurture potential customers. Consistent content that solves common challenges of your readers can help build trust and advocacy. This will inevitably contribute to your overall business success. 

At Onimod Global, we’re your in-house marketing team, your partner experts for specific marketing verticals or some nice balance in between. We excel in customer service and serving as our clients consultative marketing team. If you need assistance with your blogging strategy, contact us today. 

Google Core Update December: First Insights

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Google’s December 2020 Core update was a notable change according to several data providers. The Google core update is now completely finished rolling out as of December 16, 2020 and while the December core update is not figured out completely, experts at Onimod Global wanted to share significant first insights that can be made so far based on first data.

What is a core update?

Google changes their algorithm on an almost daily basis.  A couple of times a year, they release significant changes to their core search algorithms and systems that are much more noticeable. Potentially in the past, your website may have experience a decline in traffic following a Google core update. This most likely is related to the fact that Google’s algorithms have determined that there are other pages on the web that are more relevant and helpful than yours. It can be frustrating to SEO’s to not know how Google does this.

How search works

  1. Organize content on the internet:
    As Google crawls the internet and all of the web pages that can be searched in a search engine, they organize the pages in an index. They take note of key signals on each page such as which keywords are on the page, how up to date the page is, and more.
  2. What is the meaning of the user’s search query:
    In order to know what to recommend, Google needs to understand exactly what the user means with their search query. Algorithms determine whether a query is looking for fresh, new content or not. Some words in a query may be easy for Google to decipher. This has become quite advanced with the featured snippets showing you a small graph or snippet of information that is a fast answer to a search query.
  3. What pages are the most helpful:
    Once Google understands the intent behind a query, their goal is to return web pages that are the most helpful to answer this query.

Patterns from the latest update

  1.  Google may have made changes to how they assess alternative medical topics
    According to Search Engine Land, several company sites in the medical industries have performed better after this update. It’s possible that Google may have made strides in being able to understand which of these pages are trustworthy. In the past, SEL says that a lot of alt-med content was simply discounted by Google even though it was the type of content many people were searching for.
  2. UX becoming a factor
    If you declined with this update and have a large number of ads, especially ads that interfere with a user’s ability to read the main content, it may be worth experimenting with showing fewer ads. But know that if Google did change something with this core update in regards to ads, you may need to wait until there is more data about the core update and its improvements.
  3. More attention to headings and content structure
    This allows for faster skimming, and searchers like to skim headings to determine whether an article is one with which they want to engage. One of the questions Google lists in their post on core updates is, “Does the headline and/or page title provide a descriptive, helpful summary of the content?” This is telling of the fact that this update has placed an emphasis on this type of content.

More from Onimod Global

Onimod Global is looking forward to the future and helping your business reach your full digital potential. Interested in growing digital presence for your company? Reach out to us here!

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

Top 4 Digital Marketing Trends For 2021

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Many businesses have completely altered the way they operate in 2020. More and more products and services move online and many employees will continue to work remotely or in a hybrid setting for much of next year. What are the most relevant digital marketing trends for 2021 that your business should keep in mind to build customer loyalty and generate more traffic, leads, and revenue? Check out the top 4 areas Onimod Global experts recommend to invest your time and resources into next year. If you’re not sure where to begin, this list is the perfect starting point.

Businesses must embrace the digital transformation

The post-COVID world we will hopefully experience in 2021 will make a digital presence for companies almost mandatory. “Digital transformation” has become a popular buzzword since March 2020, and all types of companies are investing heavily in the migration to digital platforms. This includes platforms such as e-commerce, chatbots, email, apps, artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, omnichannel marketing and augmented and virtual reality.

Google listings and local SEO will be a top priority for small businesses

If you own a small business, one of the most important things you can do is ensure your local listings are verified and kept current on various search platforms. For B2C businesses that draw in primarily local traffic, the Google My Business listing provides valuable information about your hours and whether or not they are affectd by COVID, services, and geographical location. It’s one of the key factors in search and business owners are often blown away to learn how many directories there are out there.

One tip you can easily implement today: make sure that you have a geographically-defined service area in your local listings. Doing this will help your business show up in “near me” searches. That’s because Google and other search engines will prioritize relevance in their search algorithms.

Voice search and its power

Voice search queries will often populate different results than if the user had typed in a text-based search. Even though voice search is not a part of Google’s algorithm, it still dictates current search results. This means that businesses should be up to date on voice search components for their consumers who are adapting and switching over to that medium.

Content must be specifically optimized for voice searches, according to experts in voice search. The content needs to be more direct and conversational, and by doing so it will accurately sync with search queries. This will help boost traffic by staying relevant and more visible to consumers.

Influencer marketing a key pillar of marketing for consumer brands

Consumer brands have historically used social media influencers to present authentic unbiased advertising to appeal to prospects and customers. The pandemic amplified the impact influencers have on the purchase of products, due to a limited ability to shop at stores and increased online shopping traffic.

A recent study found that 40% of people reported that they purchased a product online after seeing it used by an influencer on YouTube, Instagram or Twitter. Influencers and their impact are expected to gain even more popularity and followers and businesses to use influencers more than ever before.

More from Onimod Global

Onimod Global is looking forward to the future and helping your business reach your full digital potential. Interested in growing your digital presence for your company? Reach out to us here!

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

5 Ways to Boost Your Brand Awareness and Grow Your Business in 2021

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Looking to increase your brand awareness and grow your small business in 2021? Utilize these 5 psychological factors and strategies to achieve just that. 

1. Social Influence

Today, around 80% of consumers’ purchasing decisions are influenced by their friends’ social media posts. On top of that, consumers are around 70% more likely to make a purchase based on a social media referral. So, being active on social media has a number of benefits for brands. It not only helps you increase your brand awareness, but also allows you to influence user perception. Consistently engaging with your target audience and positioning your brand how you want to be seen can deliver great results. 

2. Consistency and Transparency 

In the current climate, honesty is extremely important to consumers. Be transparent about your products and services and keep your promises. This means if something goes wrong, be upfront to your consumers about it. Odds are people will find out eventually, and it looks worse if you’ve attempted to hide it. Share information freely and be consistent with your branding to help build trust among your audience. 

3. Color 

Colors have a significant influence on customer perception and purchase decisions. In fact, research has shown that 90% of subconscious judgements about a product are based on color alone and 85% of shoppers consider color and the primary reason for making a purchase decision. You want to use colors that coincide with your brand personality and brand image. 

4. Customer Experience 

Almost 90% of consumers say they are willing to pay more for a great customer experience. As we discussed above, staying active on social media can increase brand awareness and also allow you to influence user perception. You can deliver value by sharing content that’s useful, builds brand authority and increases consumer trust. If a user has already had a positive experience with your brand on social, they’re much more likely to take that to their purchasing decision. 

Additionally, encourage your customers to share their experiences online. People trust people significantly more than brands themselves. If a user sees that someone else has had a great experience with you, they will remember that when it comes time to make their purchase decision. 

5. Visual Storytelling

Lastly, it’s essential to incorporate visual storytelling. Telling intriguing stories that align with personal and social identities of your target audience helps boost brand loyalty drastically. People stay loyal to brands who share the same values as they do. Not only that, but 75% of website visitors visit a site after watching a branded video. 

Final Thoughts 

There are a number of ways to boost brand awareness and grow your business, but these strategies are a good place to start. It’s important to note that both of these goals can take time organically, but can be sped up by being paired with paid ads.

If you need additional assistance in any area of digital marketing, we can help. At Onimod Global we’re experts in all areas of social media and digital marketing. Learn more about who we are and what we do, and contact us here today. 

We also release the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. 

The Top 5 Google Ranking Factors – SEO Guide

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With so many different ranking factors for Google, over 200 in total, it’s important to identify which are the most important that are essential to your success. Overall, there are several ranking factors that do little to nothing in terms of SEO, so we’ve created a definitive list of Google ranking factors that can make or break your search optimization strategy.

Mobile Optimization

Google announced that starting from September 2020 all websites without exception will be judged on their mobile version, not the desktop version. So essentially if you want your website to have any chance of ranking, it definitely needs to be optimized for mobile landing pages. It also provides your customer with a better user experience, so it’s a win win for everyone involved.

Structured Data

This is where you implement tags that are crucial to Google understanding everything about the content you are posting. Structured data can be used to tag authors, ratings, product features, locations, and so much more. This is a not-so well known SEO tool that can do wonders for you in terms of ranking — creating links between entities, pin your location, and enhance your search snippets with rich elements.

Google My Business Listing

Creating the listing, optimizing, and then maintaining your Google My Business listing is hands down the most important thing you can do for your local SEO. It helps establish your company as an entity, which in itself is a great asset to your SEO. Even more, it will skyrocket your local search performance. Once you create a listing, it becomes eligible for the local business panel as well as Google maps, opening your business to nearby searchers. For example, if someone is shopping and stopping for a coffee, your Google My Business listing will help show you in the search results of a nearby option.

Backlinks

Google has said that they are planning to move away from backlinks in the future, but for now they still remain the most important ranking factor for your pages. Except now you have to be very straightforward with your SEO strategies — your links have to come from a variety of high authority websites that are similar to yours. Furthermore, there are Google sources who say that freshness and traffic may also be important backlink metrics.

Avoid Content Saturation

In the past, you could overload your content with keyword rich information. Now things have changed, and for the better including everyone involved. Your SEO content has to contain an appropriate amount of relevant keywords, entities, and images for the length of the copy. The content should not be completely filled, like in the beginning days of SEO, it should rather be a natural-sounding copy written in an informative style.

More from Onimod Global

Looking for an agency to help your small business with your search engine optimization? Reach out to us here!

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

Google Search Results: Page Experience Update Coming 2021

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Roughly a full year after the first announcement, Google confirms a new page experience update is coming to Google search results May 2021. This gives us all another 6 months to ensure pages are optimized to full user experience potential.

But what exactly does the new page experience update entail and how can you start prepping early? Onimod Global experts are here to dish all there is to know and prepare for.

What exactly is page experience?

Google will evaluate a set of signals that are meant to understand how a user will perceive the experience of a specific web page. These signals will cover topics such as how quickly a page loads, mobile-friendliness, runs on HTTPS, has invasive interstitials and whether content jumps around as the page loads.

A great resource for more information on this topic is Search Engine Land’s Guide to Core Web Vitals for a deeper dive into what you need to know about these vital user experience metrics.

Google page experience update: What you need to know

With user experience gaining ever-increasing importance for brands and consumers, it’s only natural that the world’s dominating search engine takes into consideration this element. Another area Google wants to experiment with is testing a “visual indicator that highlights pages in search results that have great page experience,” and how they will perform, according to Google.

“We believe that providing information about the quality of a web page’s experience can be helpful to users in choosing the search result that they want to visit,” Google wrote. “On results, the snippet or image preview helps provide topical context for users to know what information a page can provide. Visual indicators on the results are another way to do the same, and we are working on one that identifies pages that have met all of the page experience criteria.”

– Google Webmaster Blog

Google plans to measure a website’s performance based on user experience by using Core Web Values. The metrics’ role is to identify how a user would rate their experience on a given page. Some of the factors that will be looked at include loading speed, mobile-friendliness, if the page is HTTPS-based, use of advertising, content structure, and more.

How You Can Prepare

It’s likely that even with the 6 month buffer period to prepare, several companies will fall far behind in SEO and quickly.  In fact, research from August revealed that no more than 15% of websites could pass the assessment of Core Web Vitals due to poor optimization.

According to Search Engine Land, The Core Web Vitals report in Google Search Console is a great place to get started with understanding your initial benchmark and get a good sense of how your site is performing in these page experience areas.

Contact Onimod Global

Still need help to prepare for this new page experience update and to be part of the top 15% of websites that will pass Google’s user experience assessment? Reach out to us here!

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

The Guide To Optimizing For Featured Snippets

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Rising to the top of Google’s search results is no simple feat, but definitely doesn’t mean you can’t win. Even if you aren’t in position 1 you’re still able to outrank it. How so? The holy grail of SEO: featured snippets.

In this post from Onimod Global’s experts, we’ll discuss what are featured snippets, what are their benefits for SEO, and how to optimize for them.

What is a featured snippet?

A featured snippet shows up as a block that contains the exact answer to your query. It’s a two to three sentence summary of text that appears at the top of Google. Featured snippets provide a fast and straightforward answer for a user’s query directly in the search results. Receiving a featured snippet is shown to result in more traffic for a given page.

The featured snippet appears to work on a more simplistic algorithm than Google’s “primary” one. This search result is significantly more influenced by simple on-page adjustments that very clearly define the topic to users and their search queries. See a simple example of a featured snippet below, allowing for users to get a fast answer to their question and also an opportunity to receive more traffic to their page.

featured snippet example

How to optimize for the featured snippet

  1. Add a “what is” heading.
    To start your featured snippet optimizations, you’ll want to look for a place in your content to add a “What Is [Keyword]” heading tag. This is a clear signal for Google that you have a fast and efficient information to share with a user with a specific search query. You will even notice at the top of this article, the first headline contains a “What is” statement, queuing Google to recognize information to include and what they can pull into the featured snippet.
  2. Use sentence structure “is”
    It is very important to use an “is” statement when optimizing for featured snippets. Structuring content this way appears to act as a trigger that allows Google to easily find the text that’s relevant for the featured snippet.
  3. The topic must be fully explained in 2-3 sentences
    Being concise is key. Feature snippets are meant to give users as much information about the topic as possible in a short amount of time.
    Here are some general guidelines from Search Engine Land to follow while concisely defining featured snippets:
    – The first sentence should define the topic
    – The second and third sentences should describe 2-3 must-know facts about the topic
    – Try to avoid using any extraneous phrasing in your definition

Contact Onimod Global

Looking for an agency to increase your SEO and optimize your website content? Reach out to us here!

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

10 Ways to Audit Your Website to Increase Your Search Rankings

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When it comes to SEO, consistent tracking, testing and measuring is crucial to verify your strategies are effective. This includes auditing your website to ensure there are no errors holding you back. 

Here is a checklist of 10 things to audit on your website that can help increase your search engine rankings. 

1. Make sure your pages can be indexed. 

The most crucial aspect of SEO is making sure your pages can be found. You never want to block important pages by mistake. To ensure all your pages are available to be found you should: 

  • Check your index status on Google. Use the index status report in your Google Search Console to see the number of pages Google has crawled from your domain. You want to see that the page count has continued to increase over time. 
  • Check your robot.txt file. Do this by adding /robot.txt to the end of your domain to ensure there are no pages that are “disallowed.” 
  • Review site and URL errors. This is something you can also do through your Google Search Console. Locate the site and URL errors report and see if there are any problems. 
  • Search your website. Simply do a Google search for site:yourdomain.com and you can retrieve a list of indexed pages. 

2. Secure your website. 

In  a recent update, Google announced that it favors websites encrypted with HTTPS. So if you haven’t already, now is the time to make the switch. HTTPS provides encrypted communication with a web server. You can secure your website with HTTPS using SSL.  

3. Check your meta data. 

When pages are crawled by search engines, Noldex meta tags can occasionally be inserted. As a result, this will block Google. Check the source of a page for the code <meta name = “robots” content =”noindex”> and make sure this does not exist on your pages. 

4. Check your link profile. 

A large part of SEO success depends on earning links from trusted domains. You can conduct a complete backlink audit through Google Search Console, Ahrefs or SEMrush to track your backlinks and monitor your progress over time. 

5. Optimize page load times. 

Every digital marketer is aware that search engines favor faster sites. Not only that, but a slow site increases the likeliness of visitors bailing early. You want to aim your page log time in 3 seconds or less. Here are some tips for optimizing site speed: 

  • Use speed testing tools. 
  • Evaluate WordPress plugins. 
  • Reduce image file size for optimum performance. 
  • Remove any redirect chains. 
  • Speed up your Javascript. 

6. Eliminate any duplicate content. 

Duplicate content dilutes the authority of the primary URL and threatens the capability of your search rankings. Be sure to use canonical link tags to combat things. This lets Google know which is the primary URL to pages containing duplicate or similar content. 

7. Remove low valued pages. 

You want to ensure pages that are indexed by Google contain rich, original content and relevant keywords. You can accomplish this by de-indexing low valued pages. You obviously need campaign-specific landing pages, but if they’re not robust pages, they only harm your search rankings. Remove them from the index and redirect these pages to content-rich URLs by using a 301 redirect. 

8. Generate useful links. 

A well-planned internal link structure brings a number of benefits to your overall search rankings. Here are some additional tips for optimizing your site’s link structure for SEO. Also be sure to use descriptive anchor text, making links that feature the same keywords as the page they link to.  

9. Optimize for mobile. 

Google has been favoring mobile-first site designs for a while now, meaning it’s critical to appear in mobile searches. A few ways to ensure your site is optimized for mobile is by: 

  • Using responsive design. You can update your site to feature responsive design that creates an optimum experience regardless of screen size. 
  • Using Google’s testing tool. The Google Search Console offers a mobility usability report that identifies problematic pages and gives you a score for mobile friendliness. 

10. Master the basics. 

Continue to implement the fundamental SEO tactics, such as: 

  • Using unique title tags. Be sure to write unique title tags that include a keyword phrase to accurately describe the topic of your pages. 
  • Implementing relevant keywords. Always include keywords you’ve selected in your headings, subheadings, body copy and URL appropriately. 
  • Creating meta descriptions. Lastly, indexed pages should always include a meta description that features keywords to encourage readers to click through. 

More from Onimod Global 

Struggling with your SEO or any area of digital marketing? Contact the experts. We specialize in SEO and helping our clients dominate organic search and map results. Learn more about us and contact us today!

Top 5 Most Important Google Algorithm Updates

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Almost every day, Google introduces changes to its ranking algorithm. They even claim to update their search algorithm several thousand times per year. Some are tiny tweaks, usually too small to notice. But, every once in a while, Google introduces a change so fundamental, that it completely alters the way we do SEO forever.

#1. Panda

Hazards: Duplicate, plagiarized or thin content; user-generated spam; keyword stuffing.

How does it work? Panda assigns a “quality score” to webpages; this score is then used as a ranking factor. Initially, Panda was a filter rather than part of Google’s ranking algorithm. In January 2016, it was officially incorporated into the core algorithm. Panda rollouts have become more frequent, so both penalties and recoveries now happen faster.

#2. Penguin

Hazards: Spammy or irrelevant links; links with over-optimized anchor text

How it works: Google Penguin’s objective is to down-rank sites whose backlinks look unnatural. This update put an end to low-effort link building, like buying links from link farms and PBNs.

#3. Hummingbird

Hazards: Keyword stuffing; low quality content

How it works: The Hummingbird algorithm helps Google to better interpret search queries and provide results that actually what the search was intended for (as opposed to the individual terms within the query). While keywords still remain very important, the Hummingbird algorithm makes it possible for a page to rank for a query even if it doesn’t contain the exact words the searcher entered. According to Search Engine Land, his is achieved through the natural language processing that relies on latent semantic indexing, co-occurring terms and synonyms.

#4. Pigeon

Hazards: Poor on- and off-page SEO

How it works: Pigeon affects those searches in which the user’s location plays an important part. The update created closer ties between the local algorithm and the core algorithm: traditional SEO factors are now used to rank local results.

#5 Mobile

Hazards: Lack of a mobile version of the page; poor mobile usability.

How it works: This, and subsequent mobile search updates (2018, 2020) have shifted the focus from a desktop to a mobile version of your website. Today, Google ranks all websites based on how fast and user-friendly their mobile versions are. This automatically puts you at a huge advantage compared to competitors. The faster the content is mobile optimized, the higher Google will prioritize your ad.

Contact Onimod Global

For more on the latest digital marketing news and information, follow Onimod Global! Our experts release the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday. To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

6 SEO Techniques to Enhance Your Search Traffic for 2021

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As marketers, we’re always looking for new ways to improve and enhance our strategies, especially when it comes to SEO.  

Here are 6 link building SEO techniques that will not only increase the amount of traffic you drive to your website, but the quality as well. 

1. Create and maintain a strong blog strategy. 

It’s not enough to have created a blog calendar if you’re not sticking with it. It’s essential to consistently post blogs that are valuable and relevant among your audience members. Your goal is to get people to want to link back to your blog content. This is one of the best ways to organically generate inbound links. Ultimately improving your search rankings and generating more traffic back to your website. 

2. Utilize infographics. 

People love consuming and sharing visual content. An easy way to get topics for infographics is from your already created blog posts. There are also plenty of online tools that can make graphic creation easy, such as Canva. The goal is to create infographics with valuable information and data that people will share and link back to you as the original source. 

3. Link back to other blogs on your blog. 

A blog is ultimately a social tool. The more you link to others, especially when you do it in a consistent, opportunity-driven way, the greater the likelihood of one of the other bloggers will return the favor. 

4. Write guest blog posts.

Similar to linking to other blogs, you can shop your best performing blogs around to others it would be a good fit for. If you find a taker, it’s just another opportunity for another inbound link back to your site. 

5. Curate and publish helpful resource lists. 

Resource lists are great link bait and increase your chances of getting a featured snippet on Google. Creating a comprehensive resource list makes it easy for other sites to link back to in their own content. Both which are great for your rankings and traffic. 

6. Consistent brand monitoring. 

Consistently perform searches for your name to see if there are any mentions floating around that you’re unaware of. If you find some in a place you want to be, contact the owner of the site to see if you can turn that into an inbound link. And if you find one that might be negative and unwarranted, get that removed, so it doesn’t harm your reputation or SEO. 

Final Thoughts 

At Onimod Global we understand how vital SEO can be. Search engine optimization is our core attribute and a pillar of our strategy. We develop  organic search engine optimization campaigns that deliver increases in organic traffic through an increase in natural rankings on major search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. We are a trusted Google Partner and continually excel with their products. If you need assistance with SEO, or in any area of digital marketing, contact us today.