According to Google, more than 80% of people look for local information in online searches, which demonstrates the importance of providing people with the right information when they are searching for your business. In order to help businesses make sure the information they include in local listings is meeting their customers’ needs, Google recently rolled out some new features:

Updating Business Information in Google Search

Google My Business helps business owners control the information that appears for their company in Google’s search results. Google recently made updating this information easier by providing a dashboard that is accessible directly in Google’s search results.

Today, the primary way people find information is by searching for answers on Google or other search engines. It is important to rank high in search results for queries related to your area of business, which is why Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a key part of any modern marketing strategy. In Google’s search results, sites can greatly benefit from appearing in featured snippets.

What Are Featured Snippets?

Google’s standard search engine results pages (SERPs) typically feature a list of relevant pages related to a user’s search query. However, for some queries, Google SERPs also include a featured area at the top of the page that excerpts content from one of the search results and provides a quick answer to a user’s question.

New and old businesses alike often wonder how much of their overall budget should be spent on marketing. In 2019, more than $103 billion will be spent on search engine marketing, social media marketing, display advertising, and email marketing. However, most businesses do not have million of dollars to invest in digital marketing. So, just how much of your budget should you spend in this area? 

The amount you should spend on marketing depends not only on the size of your business, but your industry and business goals as well. In general, businesses that are around one to five years old should use about 12 to 20 percent of their revenue on marketing. Businesses that have been around for more than five years should use about 6 to 12 percent of their revenue on marketing. 

It has happened to the best of us. You put all of your time, resources, and creative energy into creating an amazing piece of content, hit “publish,” and then...*crickets.* If you struggle to gain traction on your content, you may need to reevaluate your content distribution and marketing strategy. Here are eight ways you can distribute your content for maximum reach:

1. First things first: create valuable content.

Your content distribution and marketing efforts will be in vain if the content is of low quality and is not engaging. Provide your target audience with content that is interesting and of value to them, and you will see a high return on investment (ROI) for your content marketing. 

It’s no secret. Backlinks are one of the top factors for building a website’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Search engines like Google view a link to a website as a vote of confidence for that site. If your website is being linked to by authoritative sites, then search engines will perceive your site to be trustworthy, which increases your chance of being ranked high on a search engine results page (SERP). But how do you get these much coveted backlinks for your site? Find out by following these tips:

1. Seek backlinks from authority sites. Search engines place value on sites that are linked to by authority sites. Authority sites are sites that have a high domain authority and provide valuable, accurate content. They are trustworthy. You can gauge whether a site is authoritative by looking at a number of factors, including the domain authority and keyword rankings.

You can also measure a social site's authority by looking at the number of followers on the site and the number of comments posted under the site's content. In addition, examine the website’s social media presence. Are the site's managers posting consistently, and is the content they are posting valuable?