Day: November 28, 2020

How to Choose The Right Technical SEO Agency

Got a crawling, indexing, or site-wide ranking problem?

SEO traffic isn’t just about having the right content.

One wrong technical SEO setting can bring your entire site down.

And many technical errors are so obscure that they go unnoticed for years.

Even small problems can add up, slowing you down and resulting in less traffic.

Technical SEO audits require specialized skills and in-depth expertise. Google is constantly changing it’s algorithms. If you want the audit done right, you’ll need someone that really knows that they’re doing. 

Well, I have good news. 

Step-by-step, I’ll walk you through how to choose a technical SEO agency that’s right for your business.

Whether you’re a small business that just needs an audit done right, or a major corporation that needs a complete SEO program, there’s an option for you.

Know Your Goals and Desired Outcomes

Most people only give technical SEO a second thought when things have gone south. It shouldn’t be this way. 

Why? 

Technical SEO is the backbone of every successful, long-term SEO strategy.

Here’s a few examples of when it’s worth making technical SEO a priority. 

Example #1: Traffic Drops After Publishing More Content

Let’s say you started your content push to get higher Google rankings.

You created, published, and promoted in-depth blog posts. 

After a while, Google rewards your efforts with higher rankings for some keywords. Your site traffic starts to increase. 

Things are going well.

So you keep publishing more content. And that’s when things go bad. 

Your traffic tanks. 

More content doesn’t always yield more traffic. Sometimes, it shrinks your organic traffic from.

I know it sounds crazy but this happens all the time.

Bloated sites with duplicate content make it really hard for Google to figure out which pages of yours to rank.

What does Google do when they’re not sure what to rank? They usually rank nothing.

Duplicate content on your blog, a ton of similar pages that were created automatically, or telling Google to index internal URLs can all lead to problems.

If you see anything like this, get a technical SEO to help you.

Example #2: An Abrupt Traffic Drop

If you play the SEO game long enough, one of your sites will fall off a cliff overnight.

Years ago, our blog at KISSmetrics saw traffic drop by 40% in less than a month.

That dropped our monthly traffic by hundreds of thousands of visitors. The team scrambled to fix that.

Everyone goes through one of these.

And the first thing you want to do is reach out to a technical SEO.

Hopefully, it’s a simple fix like a bad robots.txt file. Even if it’s a bigger problem, you want a serious expert to pinpoint the issue and chart a course to get that traffic back.

4 Characteristics That Make a Great Technical SEO Company

Not all agencies can develop, let alone implement, advanced technical SEO strategies. A reason for this is that it requires specialized skills and vast experience. 

So, how do you recognize those who can not only develop a technical SEO plan unique to your business but can also implement it for maximum results?

Such agencies work with a team of experts and the other characteristics I’ll discuss below.

1. Experience With Massive Sites

Smaller websites rarely have issues with technical SEO that are difficult to fix. In most cases, any problems can be solved by checking the robots.txt file, making sure the site is on a good platform (like WordPress or Shopify), and upgrading to a good web host.

If a small site struggles to rank, it’s usually because they need a lot more content and authority. Rarely is there a quick fix.

Large sites, however, are completely different.

When a site has millions of URLs, all sorts of insane problems come up. There can easily be thousands of junk URLs that never should have been indexed to begin with. Or terrible canonical errors that cause rampant duplication problems. Not to mention keeping everything clean between dozens of languages.

For sites like this, make sure you’re working with someone that has tons of experience working on larger sites.

Otherwise, they won’t have the experience need to spot your technical problems quickly.

2. A Holistic Process that Includes Technical SEO

As I’ve mentioned earlier, technical SEO is the backbone that gives your site structure. Occasionally, you will see some quick technical SEO fixes bring you traffic.

But what then?

After you fix your technical SEO, what’s your plan for growing SEO traffic over the long term?

We’ve seen lots of folks work on quick fixes and then never take the next step to growing their site by 2X, 5X, or 10X what they have now.

If it was me, I’d want to work with someone that could keep growing my site year in and year out. That’s where the real impact comes from.

If you have a gnarly technical SEO problem, work with a specialist. But an agency with deep SEO expertise across content, technical SEO, and promotion will take your business to an entirely different level.

3. Thought leadership

It takes patient experimentation to develop, plan, and implement technical SEO strategies.

And to show their processes and how they achieve results, exceptional technical SEO agencies publish their findings from experiments.

That’s one of the easiest ways to look for a top tier technical SEO agency. Find the folks that product the best content in the space.

After all, if they’re already doing great SEO, they can likely help your business too.

4. Been in the SEO Game Long Enough to Spot Patterns

Technical SEO can move really fast.

Google is always releasing new features, shutting down others, and changing their priorities.

It’s a shifting landscape.

Getting a great technical SEO that knows the rules today isn’t enough. Ideally, you’ll want to work with someone that knows where SEO is going in the coming months and years. Or at least can take a good guess at it.

The last thing anyone wants is to restructure their site and then have Google go in an entirely different direction.

How to Work With a Technical SEO Agency

Once you’ve picked an agency, then what?

How do you work with one? What should you expect when you hire technical SEO specialists?

Typically, the process looks like this. 

1. In-house Team Alignment

Most technical SEO agencies work as an extension of your in-house marketing team.   

To ensure the partnership between both parties starts smoothly, you should:

  • Hold an in-house stakeholder meeting to align your teams.
  • Communicate why you need to work with a technical SEO agency and how their work would impact your site and business.
  • Make sure everyone is truly onboard with getting help. The agency may help find problems but internal teams need to be motivated to fix them.
  • Appoint front-facing employees that’ll work directly with the agency. 

When you do this, it ensures there’s team alignment between your company and the agency. It also keeps the agency in sync with your goals. 

2. Discovery Session

The first task to expect when you contact a technical SEO agency is an invitation to share your business problems and needs relevant to technical SEO. 

A reason for this is to understand your business situation better and get ideas from their vast pool of experience on the best approach to take. 

This process starts with a discovery session.

The best technical SEO agencies are first there to help organizations develop customized strategies that drive business growth. But for them to help you, expect to share your needs via a discovery session.

3. A Paid Audit

For a lot of marketing agencies, they’ll do a bunch of research for free and pitch you a proposal on how they’ll accomplish your goals.

This usually makes a lot of sense. The marketing agency gives you a taste of what they can do, they charge for the execution of the plan itself.

Technical SEO agencies rarely work like that.

In their case, the value is the research. You’re hiring them to do a ton of digging on your site and surface every problem they can find.

So don’t expect free audits.

The agency usually has a standard rate based on the size of your site.

4. Audit Results

Once the audit is finished, expect a document that goes into every issue that the team found. You can also expect a call to go over all the results.

Have your team ask followup questions, get clarification, and get as much advice on implementation as possible.

Because after this call, you’ll have a choice.

Some technical SEO agencies will help with implementation too. They’ll go over what that looks like. Many will have a proposal ready to go just in case you want to move forward right away.

If you want to implement everything in-house, make sure that this work doesn’t get neglected. It’s easy for it to get lost in the hand-off. Break up the work as necessary and get all deliverables assigned to individuals that can carry them to completion.

5. Ongoing Work

If you’ve decided to work with that agency on an ongoing basis, you’ll get into a regular cadence of status updates, invoicing, and execution.

Since you’ve already completed an audit with the agency by this point, there shouldn’t be any surprises in how they work.

As long as they keep delivering great work, keep working with them. 

How to Find The Right Technical SEO Agency For You

To choose a technical SEO agency that’s right for you, I recommend you start with these steps: 

  1. Know your desired outcomes for technical SEO. 
  2. Make sure the agencies on your shortlist specialize in these goals.
  3. Pick the one with the best track record in that area. 

To make the selection process much easier for you, below you’ll find the best technical SEO companies below. 

The 5 Top Technical SEO Agencies

1. Neil Patel Digital – Best For Technical Content Structuring

No doubt, content is king. But content without a strong technical SEO foundation doesn’t yield long-term SEO success.

Ideally, you’d have both. Great content and smooth technical SEO.

At Neil Patel Digital, we excel at developing and implementing SEO-optimized content structuring that meets the necessary technical SEO requirements.

I truly believe we have one of the most comprehensive SEO programs in the world. We’d be a great fit if you really want to go for it.

Quite a few Fortune 500 companies have picked us to do just that.

2. Webris – Best for Technical SEO Audits

Let’s say you feel really good about your SEO strategy. But something on your site is a little off. Or you just want to double check and make sure nothing’s missing.

In that case, a technical SEO audit would be a great fit for you.

The company I recommend for this kind of work is Webris. 

Their entire process is published here, take a look before you decide to contact them.

Led by Ryan Stewart, Webris boasts a talented team of advanced technical SEO experts trusted by government agencies and enterprise companies. 

3. Salt.agency – Best for Technical Organic Optimization

Salt.agency’s core differentiator is how they blend industry-leading technical expertise with organic growth strategies to drive organic optimization.

They’re a good option for business that need more than just a technical SEO audit. If you know that you have SEO problems but aren’t sure where they are, they’ll be happy to dig in and give you guidance on your strategy.

They have offices in Leeds, Boston, and London and  customers that include Travel Supermarket, Cloudflare, Hartley Botanic, and many others.

4. Ayima – Best for Enterprise Technical SEO

Ayima positions itself as the technical SEO agency for enterprise companies. And this agency’s minimum project size is $25,000. 

This may seem on the high side from afar, but it only reflects Ayima’s vast experience and expertise, working with huge companies like eBay and British Airways. 

Ayima didn’t become the technical SEO agency for enterprise brands overnight. The company earned its stripes after transitioning from a search engine technology startup into a technical marketing agency.

In any space, the best agencies have people that have built products in that exact space. They really understand how it all comes together.

If you’re looking for hardcore technical SEO expertise, reach out to them.

5. Orainti – Best for eCommerce Brands

Orainti, a Spanish-based SEO agency, works mostly with ecommerce brands selling globally. 

This agency is excellent for developing SEO-optimized multilingual domains and a robust site structure for category pages and products.

Ecommerce sites have a lot of technical SEO problems that are completely unique for them. If you have a large ecommerce site, I’d definitely recommend working with an agency with deep ecommerce experience.

Most importantly, most of Orainti’s services is around technical SEO.

Founded by Aleyda Solis, a veteran SEO practitioner, author, and speaker, Orainti has an impressive portfolio of premium brands likeUnder Armour, Zillow, Sage, Eventbrite, and others.

Have a Plan for Technical SEO from Day One

Most businesses make the mistake of relegating technical SEO to the backseat.

Why?

Because from the onset, it doesn’t have much impact on rankings and traffic. 

A little time invested today could gain you thousands of extra visitors without any extra work later.

Don’t wait for things to go south. Make it easy for Google to find, index, understand, and rank your content.

No sense in jumping on the SEO treadmill while trying to carry a bunch of extra weight that will only slow you down.

Get a solid plan for technical SEO from day one. 

And if you need help, reach out to an agency that specializes in technical SEO.

The post How to Choose The Right Technical SEO Agency appeared first on Neil Patel.

Why It’s Risky to Change Your Business Name

Are you feeling inspired  to change the name of your business?  It’s understandable.  Sometimes something just strikes you as perfect and you feel you need to take action right away.  However, you might want to hold off on that for a minute.  Don’t change your business name until you understand how risky it is. 

STOP! Don’t Change Your Business Name Until You Read This

Even if the name of your business is super boring right now and you have an idea for the catchiest name ever, it is a big risk to change your business name.  The name of your business is incredibly far reaching.  It is on all insurances, licenses, bank accounts, credit accounts, and it is tied to your EIN if you have one.  

Imagine, every legal document and identification number that relates to  your business has your business name on it.  Furthermore, if you have a web presence, your social media accounts and website connect to that name.  If your URL has your business name in it, that complicates things even further.

Learn more here and get started with building business credit with your company’s EIN and not your SSN.

Why You Can’t Just Change It Everywherechange your biz name credit suite

Of course, you’re thinking you’ll just change it in all the places and you’ll be good.  That’s great, but what if you forget something random from a long time ago?  What if your business name is on a document you forgot even exists?  You may not think it matters much, but it does. Your business name can affect almost every aspect of fundability. Do you know why it’s risky to change your business name? Understanding exactly what fundability is and what affects it can go a long way toward helping you understand.  

What is Fundability

Fundability is the ability of your business to get funding. When lenders look at funding your business, they consider if it is a good idea to make the loan.  What do they look at to make that determination? It’s a lot more than you may think, and I guarantee that it reaches further than you realize. 

The first aspects of fundability have to do with how your business is set up. 

Consistent, Separate Contact Information

This is your business phone number and address that is separate from your personal phone number and address.   That may not mean you have a separate phone line, or even a separate location however.  

Honestly, you can get a business phone number and fax number pretty easily that will work over the internet instead of phone lines.  Then, the phone number will forward to any phone you want it too so you can simply use your personal cell phone or landline.  Whenever someone calls your business number it will ring straight to you. 

You can use a virtual office for a separate business address. This isn’t what you may think.  A virtual office is a business that offers a physical address for a fee, and sometimes they even offer mail service and live receptionist services.  In addition, there are some that offer meeting spaces for those times you may need to meet a client or customer in person. 

But imagine if your phone number and address are listed under one name, and then you change the business name.  It is complex and time consuming to change your information everywhere.  Something is almost certain to get missed, and customers are going to be confused. 

EIN

This is an identifying number for your business that works in a way similar to how your SSN works for you personally.  You can get one for free from the IRS.  However, if you change your business name, you’ll have to make sure you have an EIN that is attached to the new name.  Furthermore, you’ll have to ensure all the accounts that you have using that EIN are changed to reflect your new name. 

Incorporate

Incorporating your business as an LLC, S-corp, or corporation is necessary to fundability.  It lends credence to your business as one that is legitimate. It also offers some protection from liability. 

Which option you choose does not matter as much for fundability as it does for your budget and needs for liability protection.  It’s best to talk to your attorney or a tax professional about that issue.  However, when you incorporate you are going  to lose the time in business that you already have.  You essentially become a new entity.  Basically, you have to start over.  You’ll even lose any positive payment history you may have accumulated. 

This is why it is important to incorporate as soon as possible.  Is necessary for fundability and for building business credit, but so is time in business.  The longer you have been in business the more fundable you appear to be in the eyes of lenders.  That starts on the date of incorporation, regardless of when you actually started doing business. 

If you want to change your business name and you are not yet incorporated, then when you do incorporate is the best time to make it happen.  Do it sooner rather than later. 

Business Bank Account

You should already have a separate bank account for your business transactions. If you don’t, you need to make that happen now.  There are a few reasons for this.  First, it will help you keep track of business finances.  It will also help you keep them separate from personal finances for tax purposes. 

There’s more to it however.  There are several types of funding you cannot get without a business bank account.  Many lenders and credit cards want to see one with a minimum average balance.  In addition, you cannot get a merchant account without a business account at a bank. That means, you cannot take credit card payments.  Studies show consumers tend to spend more when they can pay by credit card. 

Now, here is how your business name, and the risk when you change your business name, comes into play.  This account has to be in your business name.  If you change that name, you’ll have to go through the hassle of changing the name on that account. Not only that, but if you have any drafts coming out, you will have to make sure information is updated with those accounts.  Otherwise, you could end up with unpaid bills.

Licenses

For a business to be legitimate it has to have all of the necessary licenses it needs to run.  If it doesn’t, warning signals are going blare.  Do you know what else will set off some major red flags?  If your business name and the name on your license do not match.    

Business Website

I am sure you are wondering how a business website can affect your ability to get funding.  Think about it.  These days, if you don’t have a website you may as well not even exist.  Yet, having a poorly put together website can be even worse.  It is the first impression you make on many, and if it appears to be unprofessional or confusing it will not bode well for you with consumers or potential lenders. 

Spending the time and money necessary to ensure your website is professionally designed and works well is vital.  Paying for hosting is important too. Don’t use a free hosting service.  Also, your business needs a dedicated business email address. It should have the  same URL as your Website.  

Now, imagine your URL and email are tied to your business name.  If you change that, you have to redesign  your whole site to reflect the new name.  Changing those things takes time and money. That’s not even to mention how confused people will be when they do an  internet search for your business using a different name, or when they get to your website and see a name they aren’t expecting.

Learn more here and get started with building business credit with your company’s EIN and not your SSN.

Business Credit Reports

These are reports, like your personal credit reports, that detail  the credit history of your business.  It is a tool to help lenders determine how credit worthy your business is.  

Where do business credit reports come from?  There are a lot of different places, but the main ones are Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, Equifax, and FICO SBSS.  

Lenders see this report.  They rely on it heavily when it comes to making lending decisions.  Even if your business credit is stellar, seeing your business listed under a bunch of different names can cause a problem.  They start worrying about things like fraud, and that can cause an automatic denial.  

Even worse, if things aren’t taken care of properly, you could end up with accounts reporting to two different credit reports, wrong accounts on wrong reports, or some other confusing credit report fiasco simply from choosing to change your business name.   

Other Business Data Agencies 

In addition to the business credit reporting agencies that directly calculate and issue credit reports, there are other business data agencies that affect those reports indirectly.  Two examples of this are LexisNexis and The Small Business Finance Exchange. These two agencies gather data from a variety of sources, including public records.  This means they could even have access to information relating to automobile accidents and liens. While you may not be able to access or change the data the agencies have on your business, you can ensure that any new information they receive is positive.  Enough positive information can help counteract any negative information from the past. 

The same issues apply.  If your business name doesn’t match across the board, lenders could get uncomfortable.

Identification Numbers 

In addition to the EIN, there are identifying numbers that go along with your business credit reports.  Some of them are simply assigned by the agency, like the Experian BIN.  Some, like a D-U-N-S number, you have to apply for, of course using your business name.  

Here’s another place where you have to follow through if you change your business name.  You have to make sure your new name isconnected to your old D&B number, or get a new number.  It can become very complicated. 

Then other numbers, like your BIN from Experian, will need to be updated as well. 

Business Credit History

Your credit history has everything to do with everything related to your credit score, which is a huge factor in the fundability of your business.  

Your credit history consists of a number of things including: 

  • How many accounts are reporting payments?
  • How long have you had each account? 
  • What type of accounts are they?
  • How much credit are you using on each account versus how much is available?
  • Are you making your payments on these accounts consistently on-time?

Learn more here and get started with building business credit with your company’s EIN and not your SSN.

The more accounts you have reporting on-time payments, the stronger your credit score will be.  I’ve already touched on this above. When you change your business name, this information can become very confusing unless you handle things very carefully.  The less confusing things are for lenders, the better.

Is it Really that Risky to Change Your Business Name? Yes!

When you change your business name, you start a sort of domino effect.  The problem is, the dominos weave in and out of a spider web formation that reaches further than you can probably imagine.  If just one is out of place the whole thing can fall.  Lenders hone in on discrepancies, and sometimes the result is simply denial.  No questions asked, they just deny the loan based on too many inconsistencies.  

The only really good time to change your business name is when you incorporate.  Still, even then it is best not to.  Consistency is key, and trying to backtrack and make changes everywhere they need to be made costs time and money. Trying to explain gaps and changes on a report and how everything ties together is even riskier.  The more complicated things are, and the harder a lender has to work to see that you are fundable, the less likely approval becomes.  

To make a long story short, you need to carefully weigh any benefit you think you may gain from changing your business name against all the costs.  While there could be a few very specific situations where this isn’t the case, as a general rule the benefit doesn’t outweigh the cost.

The post Why It’s Risky to Change Your Business Name appeared first on Credit Suite.

The Best Luxury Marketing Strategies

Have you ever seen a Facebook ad for Chanel? Or an Instagram ad for Lamborghini? Me neither. That’s because luxury marketing strategies don’t follow the same rules as mass-market brands. Selling to high-end consumers requires a different approach. But that doesn’t mean popular digital channels are off-limits. SEO, PPC, even some social media sites can drive …

The post The Best Luxury Marketing Strategies first appeared on Online Web Store Site.

Raycast (YC W20) Is Hiring Fullstack Software Engineers (EU, Remote)

Article URL: https://raycast.com/jobs/software-engineer-fullstack Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25217586 Points: 1 # Comments: 0 The post Raycast (YC W20) Is Hiring Fullstack Software Engineers (EU, Remote) appeared first on ROI Credit Builders.

The post Raycast (YC W20) Is Hiring Fullstack Software Engineers (EU, Remote) first appeared on Online Web Store Site.