Digital Marketing Reads: Volume 28

Here’s the latest instalment of Digital Marketing Reads, a roundup of some of the more interesting articles we’ve read lately in the digital marketing world. Missed the last one? Read Volume 27.

Google Shows How To Use Alt Text For SEO

Are you still optimising image alt tags on your website or blog?

If so, good: you should be. (And if not, or you’re wondering “what the heck is an alt tag?”, contact our Mildura SEO team.)

The purpose of an alt tag is to give the reader more information about the image, which is particularly handy if for some reason they’re unable to see it. In other words, it should be a brief description of the image, in the context of the webpage content. Alt tags also help Google’s algorithm get a better idea of what the webpage is about when it’s crawling it.

According to this article, it’s not a good idea to use AI to generate alt tags, because AI isn’t able to describe the image in the context of the webpage. Your best bet is to thoughtfully write the alt tags yourself (or have an SEO specialist do it for you).

Why Your Keyword Strategy Isn’t Driving Enough Traffic (And How to Fix It)

This article, written by the fine folks at Moz, is an excellent (if overwhelming) overview of why your site might not be performing as well as you’d like in the Google search rankings.

In short, they present 4 mistakes you could be making that are hurting your organic traffic:

1. Failing to target user intent (why are they searching and what do they want to find?)
2. Not conducting competitor or SERP research (look at the Google search results page, see what competitors are or aren’t doing and adjust your SEO efforts accordingly)
3. Not organising your keyword research (you must check and adjust your keywords over time and refine your SEO strategy)
4. Not building entity and topic maps (you must build maps of context around various topics, which will position you as an authority on those topics)

Whew. If that seems like too much for you, we can help put it right. Get in touch with our Mildura digital marketing team and we’ll set you up with our SEO specialist.

How to handle negative Google reviews: Remove, respond, recover

Ever received a negative Google review for your business?

If not, it’s probably only a matter of time, because most successful businesses attract a negative review sooner or later (often unwarranted).

This article lays out what to do if or when you get a bad Google review, which breaks down to the 3 R’s: Remove, Respond, Recover.

• Remove: it’s not likely, but sometimes you can get a review removed if it breaks Google’s guidelines (for example, it’s spam, off-topic or misleading).
• Respond: reply to negative reviews with grace rather than combative words. Apologise, take accountability, show that you’re listening to their concerns and offer a solution. Prospective customers will see not just the bad review but your good response to it, which may cancel it out in the end.
• Recover: learn and grow from it. Keep providing excellent service to your customers and encourage them to leave positive reviews, so the one bad review isn’t the first thing people see.

We recommend you give this one a read and take the advice in the article, as Google reviews matter for your business and bad reviews can damage the trust that your (potential) customers have in you.

Rock Solid Marketing helps businesses in Mildura and across Sunraysia with SEO and web design. Contact us to talk about your website or your search plan.