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4 Ways To Simultaneously Succeed With Web Marketing

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Web marketing can be tricky business, especially if you don’t have the staff or bandwidth to devote to it.

Digital marketing firms like ours have the expertise and time to devote to working on your web marketing and search engine optimization to help bring you new and repeat business. Let’s look at 4 ways you can help your business succeed with web marketing, either on your own or with the help of a digital marketing firm.

4 Ways To Simultaneously Succeed With Web Marketing

1. Knowledge CardCohlab Google Business Listing

Your Google Knowledge Card might be a potential client’s first interaction with your web marketing, or it could be how a returning client is able to quickly access your phone number or website.

A knowledge card, seen here, is a way for Google to quickly display the gist of a business to a searcher on any device. On a larger display the knowledge card appears on the right-hand side of the screen, on a smaller device it appears above search results but below other forms of web marketing, like paid ads and map results, if there are any.

Having an up-to-date knowledge card allows you to display your correct phone number, address, accurate hours, as well as reviews, photos and other great information. This is a really effective web marketing technique to make sure your company is known, especially over other companies with similar names.

2. Back-End Optimization

Another huge piece of web marketing is optimizing the many parts of your website you might not normally think of adjusting.

Page descriptions don’t actually appear on the pages of your website, but they do appear in the Google search results, and so needs to be an accurate reflection of what people will find on the page when they arrive; the same goes for your page title. Both of these also need to be between a certain number of characters to fit in the space Google provides.

The text on your page should also be separated by headers, defining different sections. Google likes to see headers, especially when one contains your chosen keyword/phrase for the pages. The headers also need to cascade in size, depending on the topic.

Images are another important piece of web marketing. The images should be unique to your website, as well as tagged with an “alt tag” and “caption” which are both accurate and contain the keyword for your page.

And don’t forget to make sure any links in your page are working and are related to the topic. If you have a blog on how KFC chicken is the best fast food in the world, there shouldn’t be a link to the dolphin page of your local zoo on that page anywhere; for effective web marketing, the links should be to another page you have written about different fast food chicken and a link to the KFC page.

3. Content/Keyword Optimization

Content should pretty much be over 300 words for any page, but different lengths are good for different types of pages/blogs, so you’ll need to experiment.

Each page should have it’s own, unique keyword/phrase related to the topic of your website as a whole, and the keyword/phrase should make up about 2-3% of the words on the given page for effective web marketing.

4. Reputation ManagementCohlab Reviews

Another key driver of web marketing and traffic to your website is your online reputation. You’ll need to get control of reviews of your business from across the web, whether the reviews are on Google, Facebook, Yelp, Yellow Pages, Houzz, Fandango or elsewhere. Ask your happy customers either in person or via email to give you a review on their chosen site, and be sure to collect those reviews on your website. At Cohlab, we actually have a great tool, Cohlab.Reviews, which can do a lot of this automatically for you.

Feel free to take these tips and run, or, if you’d like more details on how we can help take your web marketing to the next level, contact us. We’d love to help.

Working on laptop while drinking coffee

6 Email Blast Basics From Your Friends At Cohlab

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Whether you have a newsletter or a big sale to announce, an email blast is usually a marketer’s first choice to get the word out.

An email blast let’s you contact a ton of people at the right time, but there are many ways this can go wrong for a company or individual marketer, even if you’re using a system like MailChimp. For advanced tips, definitely let us help you out, but for now let’s take a look at 6 quick email blast tips to help you get off on the right foot.

Email Blast Basics

1. Bigger is not always Betterpexels-photo-30814

Let’s pretend that, through your sales force’s prospects and friendly contacts as well as a list of customers who have already purchased from you, you have about 2,000 email addresses.

Having a bunch of email addresses which aren’t properly vetted isn’t ideal. We would much rather see you email blast a new product release to 200 customers who have agreed to receive information from you than 2,000 who aren’t expecting product information.

Your click-through and engagement rate with the 200 will be much higher, and you will see better returns from being able to more directly target this group.

2. Commit. Commit. Commit.

An email blast is not a one-time affair. You’re not going to get a great return off of just sending one blast; people need reminders. The ‘why’ behind your blast will remain the same, but the specific wording and images should adjust to keep it fresh on your second and third blast.

This allows you to test as well, which we will talk about a bit later.

Consistency is also important, you can build momentum for your email blast by staying on a schedule to keep your brand at the top of mind for your customers.

3. Stay Above The Fold

Most people won’t read much of your email blast at all, or might only preview it, so you want your “call-to-action” to be above the fold. This means you want to put whatever you want them to do near the very top of the email blast, whether it’s a link to a product page, a survey, or a coupon.

You don’t want them to have to scroll to get to your call-to-action, or the vast majority will never see it.

4. Keep It Short

Brevity is your friend. Do you read lengthy emails? You might skim them if they truly interest you, but most you read the subject line and maybe the first paragraph before deciding to trash it or invest your time.

Keep your email blast short and sweet. If you have a lot of information to get across, write a blog post and link them from the email to the blog, using the link as your call-to-action.

5. Test. Test. Test.

Multiple email blasts work best, as you can test how different subject lines, body text, images and calls-to-action work on different individuals.

You should also test your email blast on yourself or your coworkers multiple times, and to different email providers (Google, Yahoo, Outlook, etc.) to see if your email is presented in the right way; do images come through, is your subject line too long, does your call-to-action show up above the fold, etc.

6. Watch And Learn

If you want to learn from your emails, you’ll need to send them from a client like MailChimp, HubSpot, or setup a tracked link or contact form on your website. It’s important to know how your email blast performs, so you can improve in the future.

For more help with your email marketing, contact us today!

6 Email Blast Basics From Your Friends At Cohlab

/in ,

Whether you have a newsletter or a big sale to announce, an email blast is usually a marketer’s first choice to get the word out.

An email blast let’s you contact a ton of people at the right time, but there are many ways this can go wrong for a company or individual marketer, even if you’re using a system like MailChimp. For advanced tips, definitely let us help you out, but for now let’s take a look at 6 quick email blast tips to help you get off on the right foot.

Email Blast Basics

1. Bigger is not always Betterpexels-photo-30814

Let’s pretend that, through your sales force’s prospects and friendly contacts as well as a list of customers who have already purchased from you, you have about 2,000 email addresses.

Having a bunch of email addresses which aren’t properly vetted isn’t ideal. We would much rather see you email blast a new product release to 200 customers who have agreed to receive information from you than 2,000 who aren’t expecting product information.

Your click-through and engagement rate with the 200 will be much higher, and you will see better returns from being able to more directly target this group.

2. Commit. Commit. Commit.

An email blast is not a one-time affair. You’re not going to get a great return off of just sending one blast; people need reminders. The ‘why’ behind your blast will remain the same, but the specific wording and images should adjust to keep it fresh on your second and third blast.

This allows you to test as well, which we will talk about a bit later.

Consistency is also important, you can build momentum for your email blast by staying on a schedule to keep your brand at the top of mind for your customers.

3. Stay Above The Fold

Most people won’t read much of your email blast at all, or might only preview it, so you want your “call-to-action” to be above the fold. This means you want to put whatever you want them to do near the very top of the email blast, whether it’s a link to a product page, a survey, or a coupon.

You don’t want them to have to scroll to get to your call-to-action, or the vast majority will never see it.

4. Keep It Short

Brevity is your friend. Do you read lengthy emails? You might skim them if they truly interest you, but most you read the subject line and maybe the first paragraph before deciding to trash it or invest your time.

Keep your email blast short and sweet. If you have a lot of information to get across, write a blog post and link them from the email to the blog, using the link as your call-to-action.

5. Test. Test. Test.

Multiple email blasts work best, as you can test how different subject lines, body text, images and calls-to-action work on different individuals.

You should also test your email blast on yourself or your coworkers multiple times, and to different email providers (Google, Yahoo, Outlook, etc.) to see if your email is presented in the right way; do images come through, is your subject line too long, does your call-to-action show up above the fold, etc.

6. Watch And Learn

If you want to learn from your emails, you’ll need to send them from a client like MailChimp, HubSpot, or setup a tracked link or contact form on your website. It’s important to know how your email blast performs, so you can improve in the future.

For more help with your email marketing, contact us today!

Over the shoulder shot of a woman viewing her mobile phonePhoto by Radu Mihai on Unsplash

Google Introduces Changes To Make Being Mobile Friendly More Important

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If your website isn’t mobile friendly, or easy to use on multiple different devices (desktops, laptops, tablets or mobile phones) Google will begin penalizing it by ranking it lower on mobile search page results.

In April 2015, Google first started ranking non-mobile friendly websites lower, but now, in May 2016, the strategy has been amped up. Let’s explore a bit more what this might mean for you.

Why Is Being Mobile Friendly Important?stocksnap_gs53c70s0a

More Google searches are now executed through mobile devices than through desktop computers. So if your website isn’t mobile friendly, visitors will organically gravitate away from you and move to websites which are easier to navigate.

Being mobile friendly is part of a movement called ‘responsive web design’, wherein no matter what type of device your website is seen on, even a device which has not been manufactured yet, your website should adjust in size appropriately. Being responsive will entice visitors to stay on your website, which will organically increase your search pagerank.

Having a responsive website is very important, because 95% of people do not go past the first page of search results, and 60% of clicks happen within the top three search results.

How To Tell If Your Website Is Mobile FriendlyStrata-mobile-home

A mobile friendly website is one which has a minimum or no need for scrolling, resizing or squinting to see content, no matter what device a user might be on. The website will have a single URL so that the adjustments to certain devices are automatic; a user shouldn’t have to click to visit a mobile website.

How To Become Mobile Friendly

If you’re not a web developer yourself, you’ll likely need to hire a responsive website design company to help you out. A company like Cohlab Digital Marketing will be able to either convert your current website or build an entirely new website, creating a responsive design, and laying the groundwork for optimization of your website to make it rank better in search engine results.

At Cohlab, we have worked closely with many businesses to help them achieve great success in their responsive and mobile friendly web design efforts. We are happy to answer any questions you may have!

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What Can Internet Marketing Services Do For My Business?

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Stay with me folks, this might be a bit of a longer blog.

Internet marketing services are basically anything a firm like ours does. Cohlab in particular offers an array of services, from reputation management to email marketing, responsive web design to content marketing.

But how do these activities affect your bottom line in the real world? Let’s take a look at a number of internet marketing services Cohlab offers in detail to see what we can do for you.

Drive Organic Traffic With SEOInternet Marketing Services

Search engine optimization (SEO) drives organic traffic to your website. In essence, this is free advertising.

An internet marketing services provider like Cohlab is hired to execute a myriad of SEO strategies, including content marketing and backlinking, both described below, in order to increase the ranking of your website for search terms relevant to your industry and services.

In general, the higher ranked and more frequently a website appears in relevant search results, the more valuable visitors it will receive.

Find Customers With SEM

Search engine marketing (SEM), or PPC, is a great way to quickly locate customers who are searching for your industry or services. While SEO can take time, SEM is faster but more costly.

This type of internet marketing service creates advertisements within Google searches, either at the top or bottom of a search results page, targeting whichever relevant keywords we choose.

These ads are extremely effective at driving traffic to your website quickly.

Keep Them Interested With 10x Content

No matter how nice looking your website is, or how amazing your ads are, if you have nothing to entertain or educate your visitors, they won’t stay on your site long enough to have an impact on your business.

Content refers to anything on your website which is consumable: text, audio, videos, photos, graphics, etc. 10x content is content which is impossible to improve on. It is created by observing the competition in the keywords a company wants to rank in searches for, then creating content which is 10x more interesting than anything the competition has.

Bring Them Back With Email Marketing

Sometimes, customers don’t bring you their repeat business. Maybe they’re too busy, or it’s inconvenient to get to your store, or some other reason.

Email marketing is a great way to bring them back in, by creating a compelling call-to-action for them to grab onto, whether it’s a used car trade-in, or a 30% sale. These emails are going to a group of people who you know will buy from you, they just need a reason to get back in the habit and email marketing is a great way to bring them back.

Build Trust With High-Quality LinksSearch engine marketing

Link building is a huge part of how well a website ranks in Google searches. Creating high-quality links between your website and others great websites, both back and forth, means Google believes your information is worth sharing or talking about, which means they will want to show it to people who are searching for the keywords you rank for.

Increase Traffic By Getting Responsive

A responsive website is one which fits whatever screen size it might be displayed on, whether that is an iPhone, tablet, laptop or desktop computer.

The website won’t look exactly the same in every case; it will respond accordingly and adjust itself at certain size intervals, displaying the most important parts of the website where the viewer is most likely to need them. Having a responsive website will also increase your search engine ranking, and will make people on mobile devices more likely to stay on your site longer and utilize your services since it will be easier to navigate.
Thanks for staying with me through the whole blog, and I hope you have a better understanding of what internet marketing services can do for your business!

At Cohlab, we have worked closely with many businesses to help them achieve great success with internet marketing services. We’re happy to answer any questions you may have, just let us know!

What Can Internet Marketing Services Do For My Business?

/in

Stay with me folks, this might be a bit of a longer blog.

Internet marketing services are basically anything a firm like ours does. Cohlab in particular offers an array of services, from reputation management to email marketing, responsive web design to content marketing.

But how do these activities affect your bottom line in the real world? Let’s take a look at a number of internet marketing services Cohlab offers in detail to see what we can do for you.

Drive Organic Traffic With SEOInternet Marketing Services

Search engine optimization (SEO) drives organic traffic to your website. In essence, this is free advertising.

An internet marketing services provider like Cohlab is hired to execute a myriad of SEO strategies, including content marketing and backlinking, both described below, in order to increase the ranking of your website for search terms relevant to your industry and services.

In general, the higher ranked and more frequently a website appears in relevant search results, the more valuable visitors it will receive.

Find Customers With SEM

Search engine marketing (SEM), or PPC, is a great way to quickly locate customers who are searching for your industry or services. While SEO can take time, SEM is faster but more costly.

This type of internet marketing service creates advertisements within Google searches, either at the top or bottom of a search results page, targeting whichever relevant keywords we choose.

These ads are extremely effective at driving traffic to your website quickly.

Keep Them Interested With 10x Content

No matter how nice looking your website is, or how amazing your ads are, if you have nothing to entertain or educate your visitors, they won’t stay on your site long enough to have an impact on your business.

Content refers to anything on your website which is consumable: text, audio, videos, photos, graphics, etc. 10x content is content which is impossible to improve on. It is created by observing the competition in the keywords a company wants to rank in searches for, then creating content which is 10x more interesting than anything the competition has.

Bring Them Back With Email Marketing

Sometimes, customers don’t bring you their repeat business. Maybe they’re too busy, or it’s inconvenient to get to your store, or some other reason.

Email marketing is a great way to bring them back in, by creating a compelling call-to-action for them to grab onto, whether it’s a used car trade-in, or a 30% sale. These emails are going to a group of people who you know will buy from you, they just need a reason to get back in the habit and email marketing is a great way to bring them back.

Build Trust With High-Quality LinksSearch engine marketing

Link building is a huge part of how well a website ranks in Google searches. Creating high-quality links between your website and others great websites, both back and forth, means Google believes your information is worth sharing or talking about, which means they will want to show it to people who are searching for the keywords you rank for.

Increase Traffic By Getting Responsive

A responsive website is one which fits whatever screen size it might be displayed on, whether that is an iPhone, tablet, laptop or desktop computer.

The website won’t look exactly the same in every case; it will respond accordingly and adjust itself at certain size intervals, displaying the most important parts of the website where the viewer is most likely to need them. Having a responsive website will also increase your search engine ranking, and will make people on mobile devices more likely to stay on your site longer and utilize your services since it will be easier to navigate.
Thanks for staying with me through the whole blog, and I hope you have a better understanding of what internet marketing services can do for your business!

At Cohlab, we have worked closely with many businesses to help them achieve great success with internet marketing services. We’re happy to answer any questions you may have, just let us know!

Desk with laptop, desktop, phone, and tabletPhoto by Domenico Loia on Unsplash

How A Responsive Web Design Firm Improves Your Search Ranking

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A web design firm, especially a responsive web design firm, can help your business in a lot of ways, from helping choose fonts and colors, to organizing your menus and content.

But certain things a responsive web design firm does have a huge impact on your search rankings. So when you are choosing a new designer, make sure they can help you out in the following ways.

How Does A Responsive Web Design Firm Increase My Ranking?Rankings

Speed

Studies show that if a website takes more than 3 seconds to load, 57% of your visitors will move on. Those users either close the window, frustrated, or hit the back button, looking for a different, faster answer or result.

As a business owner, you want to serve your customers well. If the doors to your business had a 3 second wait before opening, you’d probably have a lot fewer walk-ins. The only people who would come in are those who are already determined to buy something; it would be hard to get new business.

Check with your web design firm and make sure the speed of your website is up to par.

Future Proofing

A responsive website design effectively “future proofs” your site. Whether someone comes to your website on a desktop, iPhone, laptop, tablet or any other device, your website should automatically adjust to properly fit the screen your visitor is using.

This responsiveness is not “set in stone;” in fact, it’s the opposite. No matter what type of device your website is seen on, even a device which has not been manufactured yet, your website should adjust in size appropriately.

Most Google searches and browsing time is now done on mobile devices, so having a responsive website for the many sizes of screens out there is important so you don’t exclude any potential customers.

Clicks Beget Clicks

Having a responsive website design which is also fast will help improve your rankings, which means more people will be able to visit your site. Those visitors will have a better experience, staying on your website longer and possibly sharing or linking to your content or merchandise. This will also improve your ranking!

Having a responsive website with a good rank is very important, because 95% of people do not go past the first page of search results, and 60% of clicks happen within the top three search results.

“Cohlaboration” With Cohlab

At Cohlab, we have worked closely with many businesses to help them achieve great success in their responsive web design efforts. We are happy to answer any questions you may have and provide Cohlaborative digital marketing solutions to meet your company’s needs.

Woman standing in front of colorful wall holding smiley face balloon over her facePhoto by Lidya Nada on Unsplash

3 Creative Ways To Get More Positive Online Reviews

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The goal of any business should be to get more positive online reviews.

Online reviews drive consumers to visit your website or brick-and-mortar location, creating more opportunities to create loyal customers. In a recent survey by BrightLocal, 57% of consumers visit a local business’ website after reading online reviews and another 15% call the business directly.

Here at Cohlab, we have our own online reputation management tool which helps businesses like yours get more positive online reviews and display them. For only $75, you can have the peace of mind that you are gaining and monitoring those testimonials while also driving additional customers to your website.

Let’s look at 3 creative ways our tool helps you get more positive online reviews.

1. Ask For Reviews

Why should you ask customers for reviews? Research by Emarketer shows that if asked directly, 20% more users will post a testimonial as compared to not asking at all!

Asking is a powerful tool, and our online reputation management allows you to automate asking so you don’t have to think about it. Once a customer’s information is in the tool, it will send them an email asking them to review your business, and will remind them periodically if they have not done it yet.

2. Make Reviewing Easy

Our tool guides your customers through the process, making it easy. Through a link in their email they are taken to a page where they can choose where to leave a testimonial. They can choose from any set of websites you would like including Facebook, Google, Yelp, Fandango, YellowPages, etc.

3. Solve Negative Reviews Before They Are Posted

Research has shown 70% of customers who post negative reviews do so only in the hope the business will respond, so it is a huge advantage that Cohlab’s online reputation management tool allows you to see negative testimonials before they are posted online.

This allows you to contact the customer privately, solve their problem, and possibly leverage them into a positive review instead!

Are You Ready To Get More Positive Reviews?

Click the button below to start gaining positive reviews and monitoring your brand across more than 50 review sites.

Click to Buy Now

 

How Does Your Business Compare?

Use our free Review Scan to generate an instant reputation report and see how your business currently appears on local review sites.

“Cohlaboration” With Cohlab

At Cohlab, we have worked closely with many businesses to help them achieve great success in their online review management efforts. We are happy to answer any questions you may have and provide Cohlaborative digital marketing solutions to meet your company’s needs.

3 Creative Ways To Get More Positive Online Reviews

/in ,

The goal of any business should be to get more positive online reviews.

Online reviews drive consumers to visit your website or brick-and-mortar location, creating more opportunities to create loyal customers. In a recent survey by BrightLocal, 57% of consumers visit a local business’ website after reading online reviews and another 15% call the business directly.

Here at Cohlab, we have our own online reputation management tool which helps businesses like yours get more positive online reviews and display them. For only $75, you can have the peace of mind that you are gaining and monitoring those testimonials while also driving additional customers to your website.

Let’s look at 3 creative ways our tool helps you get more positive online reviews.

1. Ask For Reviews

Why should you ask customers for reviews? Research by Emarketer shows that if asked directly, 20% more users will post a testimonial as compared to not asking at all!

Asking is a powerful tool, and our online reputation management allows you to automate asking so you don’t have to think about it. Once a customer’s information is in the tool, it will send them an email asking them to review your business, and will remind them periodically if they have not done it yet.

2. Make Reviewing Easy

Our tool guides your customers through the process, making it easy. Through a link in their email they are taken to a page where they can choose where to leave a testimonial. They can choose from any set of websites you would like including Facebook, Google, Yelp, Fandango, YellowPages, etc.

3. Solve Negative Reviews Before They Are Posted

Research has shown 70% of customers who post negative reviews do so only in the hope the business will respond, so it is a huge advantage that Cohlab’s online reputation management tool allows you to see negative testimonials before they are posted online.

This allows you to contact the customer privately, solve their problem, and possibly leverage them into a positive review instead!

Are You Ready To Get More Positive Reviews?

Click the button below to start gaining positive reviews and monitoring your brand across more than 50 review sites.

Click to Buy Now

 

How Does Your Business Compare?

Use our free Review Scan to generate an instant reputation report and see how your business currently appears on local review sites.

“Cohlaboration” With Cohlab

At Cohlab, we have worked closely with many businesses to help them achieve great success in their online review management efforts. We are happy to answer any questions you may have and provide Cohlaborative digital marketing solutions to meet your company’s needs.

Computer screen showing website statistic percentages and a line graphPhoto by Web Hosting on Unsplash

3 Bold Lies: You Get What You Pay For With SEO Prices

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When you are unfamiliar with search engine optimization (SEO), the pricing structure can seem arbitrary. Even though it can be difficult to understand without experience, be wary of firms who seem to promise something which doesn’t quite seem right or possible at all, or at least given their SEO prices, because you get what you pay for. Let’s go over 3 bold lies told about SEO ‘black hat’ firms tell to watch out for.

1. “We Can Make Your Website Rank #1 On Google.”Organic Local Search on Google

What a load of hooey! No honest SEO firm can guarantee your website will rank #1 on any search engine, no matter the price. Google’s webmaster guidelines state very clearly to be wary of firms and consulting agencies which guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.

While everyone would love to rank first, it is simply never guaranteed and never should be. In fact, reputable companies will admit outright they can’t guarantee results.

2. “We Can Fix Your SEO In 1 Month.”

The Internet is a living, breathing beast. Change is constant, with websites moving up and down in search engine rankings as users find value in their information or layout.

SEO requires constant monitoring and adjustments to strategy based on Google’s ever-changing algorithms as well as the changing needs of your customers. A firm’s first obligation is to make your online presence useful to customers and second to improve your alignment with Google’s algorithm. Search engine optimization does not happen in a vacuum; your competitors are also constantly working and improving which can place them above you in search results if you don’t keep up.

One month is a completely unrealistic timeframe to work on an SEO campaign for two reasons: 1. If you stop working on it after 1 month, you will fall behind; and, 2. One month is simply not enough time to have any sort of impact. Most work done needs 3-6 months before results can be seen. No amount of money can create long-lasting, effective search engine rankings in 1 month.

You need a firm who can work with your company for the foreseeable future and make recommendations and improvements as you go.

3. “We Use Foreign Contractors To Save You Money.”Money

While this one might not technically be a lie, it is still a terrible tactic for a good search engine optimization firm to pursue.

Yes, using foreign workers may save money in the short-run, but the quality is going to be much lower. Google’s rules change quickly and are intricate. Experience in the field as well as a strong grasp of the language surrounding SEO are paramount to executing a strategy.

You get what you pay for, and often outdated tactics will get your website penalized in the rankings by Google.

You Get What You Pay For With SEO Prices

When hiring a firm, do your homework. The second you hear one of these lies, or feel their SEO prices don’t match their promises, it’s time to start looking at other options.

Always be sure to check out a firm’s website and reviews to make sure they can do the things you are looking for.

Cohlab Digital Marketing has great reviews and tons of information about search engine optimization. If you’d like to learn about our pricing, let us know.