Author: Free Web Shop

Why Should I Focus On SEO For My Law Firm Instead Of AdWords?

Business & Legal Advice, Web Marketing
SEO vs AdWords

Although Google AdWords marketing is a very successful tool which is essential for most online and many offline businesses, it isn’t as good for lawyers and law firms. In fact, a lot of people go as far as saying that as a law firm, you shouldn’t waste a cent of your money on AdWords.

Now, this may be true if you have a small marketing budget, but it isn’t always the case. Using AdWords for law firm related keywords can be extremely expensive, with some keywords costing upwards of hundreds of dollars per click. As you can imagine, this sort of cost can quickly drain the budget of a small law firm, which is one of the reasons why you should focus on search engine optimisation (SEO) instead.

SEO Offers A Much Greater Return On Investment

Although it will take longer to get results when you spend money on SEO instead of AdWords, you will thank yourself in the long term. Working to get your website to the top of the search engine rankings for your chosen keywords might cost you a bit, but you will be able to remain near the top with minimal work once you’re there.

This means that you will continually be getting new clients from your investment in SEO, while an investment in AdWords will only get you a predetermined number of clicks on your ad.

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Your Financial Planner Can Be Beneficial To Your Health

Business & Legal Advice
Financial Planner

Ever heard of the phrase ‘Prevention Is Better Than The Cure’? It can apply to many things in business issues but none more so than your health. If you have money worries they can negatively affect your health, so you’ll most likely visit your doctor for treatment. Whilst they can prescribe all sorts of pills and potions to treat the symptoms, they can’t take away your financial woes. This is where a financial planner such as andep.com.au comes to the rescue, as they not only ‘cure’ many of your financial woes, they can prevent any further deterioration.

The negative impact on health caused by money worries is well documented. There are several physical, and psychological ailments that worrying about your finances can produce. Here are four of the most common.

Chronic Stress: Stress can be the catalyst to a whole catalogue of illnesses, and in recent years its impact on health has become more and more obvious. Stress can lead to eating disorders, heart conditions, respiratory conditions, upset digestive system and low immunity. Nothing will reduce your stress more than allowing a financial planner to assess your finances and create a sensible workable plan to get everything manageable for you.

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Workplace Harassment – Fundamentals and Beyond

Business & Legal Advice
Workplace Harassment

The past year has seen an explosion of harassment claims in the employment marketplace.  No business sector has been left untouched:  Hollywood, Las Vegas, Professional Sports, the Education Sector as well as well established businesses have all seen high profile, highly toxic revelations about misconduct in the workplace.  Commercial lawyers will tell you this is dangerous territory for a company.

A few examples stand out:

Hollywood: Hollywood, particularly the revelations about Harvey Weinstein has been the focal point for many of the claims.  Celebrity newscaster, journalists, movie makers, musicians and even chefs have all seen their share of upsetting revelations.  To name just a few: Matt Lauer, Ben Affleck, Dustin Hoffman, Geraldo Rivera, Steven Segal among many others.

Las Vegas:  The gaming industry has not been immune to its share of harassment claims, Steve Wynn, the CEO of Wynn Resorts and perhaps the most high profile figure in Las Vegas suddenly stepped down as Chairman and CEO after allegations surfaced chronicling a years-long pattern of abuse.

Sports:  The University of Arizona fired coach Rich Rodriguez after sexual misconduct allegations.

Automotive: Raj Nair – Ford’s president was ousted for unspecified inappropriate behavior.

Politics:  The number of offenders in this category are almost too numerous to mention, but a few names of those accused of misconduct are: Bill Clinton, Senator Al Franken and Judge Roy Moore.

Unfortunately, the phrase sexual harassment has been so co-opted into our modern vocabulary that it sometimes leads to erroneous idea of what “sexual harassment” actually is.  To clear things up, let’s go straight to the law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964:

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What Is A Farm Management Deposit And Should I Use One?

Business & Legal Advice
Farm Management Deposit

When it comes to accounting and bookkeeping for small businesses, one of the hardest things to control is your profits and losses for the year. This is especially true for businesses owners like farmers or fishermen who can earn highly variable incomes.

Luckily, the Australian government has made a number of allowances for people who own businesses like this to make it easier for them to keep their taxes in order. One of the more popular things that they have done is introduced something called a farm management deposit.

What is a farm management deposit?

According to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), farm management deposits are designed to help primary producers deal with the effects of having a highly variable income. For example, in drought years, a farmer may make a complete loss, meaning that they don’t have any taxes to pay. However, in a good year, a farmer may make more than enough money, pushing themselves into the top tax bracket. In this case they would pay a lot more tax than would necessarily be fair.

Farm management deposits provide something of a compromise, and help primary producers pay something of a fairer amount of tax. Basically, on very good years, you can make a tax deductible farm management deposit, which will reduce your taxable income. You can then withdraw this deposit on a poorer year and pay tax on it then. Although the benefit of doing this may not seem obvious immediately, you will obviously pay less tax by keeping more of your income in the lower tax brackets.

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3 Web Design Trends for 2018

Web Design
Web Design

Web design is a crucial element of the online presence of many businesses. It is the one digital medium which is constantly seeing changes from one year to the next. With trends in web design shifting from one thing to another in almost a blink of an eye, it is important for businesses to keep their company’s web design up to date with the latest trends or they risk being left behind.

2017 saw many technological advancements impacting the digital realm and with more and more traffic moving to mobile devices, it is only logical to point out that web design is now going to be more focused on making websites mobile friendly. Here are some of the most notable changes in the trends for web design that will be important in 2018.

  1. Vibrant Color Themes

One thing that is for sure going to be important 18 years into the new millennium is the excessive use of vibrant colors in the online realm. In the past, technology had not advanced enough or was not very accessible to everybody so web design was limited to making use of color schemes that would be easier to handle for devices across the board. That will no longer be the case in 2018.

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Three Factors To Check When Selecting An SEO Rank Tracker

Web Marketing
SEO Rank Tracker

Whether you are an SEO agency, or are personally responsible for your website’s SEO, an SEO rank tracker can be a very useful tool to use. The best ones can monitor multiple search engines, check local rankings and monitor mobile results too. Before choosing an SEO rank tracker there are three important factors you must consider.

Accuracy

As with any tool, an SEO rank tracker is only of any use to you if the results it provides are accurate. After all, the decisions you are going to make about improving your website’s ranking, or those of your clients, will be based on the information it gives you. If it is inaccurate then you could be making changes that will harm, rather than improve a website’s ranking.

Obviously, each tracker company will make claims about how accurate their software is, but don’t rely solely on this to make your decision. Check out online reviews of the trackers, seek testimonials for current users, and best of all ask other website owners or SEO agencies, how accurate the SEO rankings have been from the tracker they use.

Speed

Just as you would take action to optimise the load speed of a website for users, then as a user yourself of an SEO rank tracker, you will be looking for one that works quickly. The frustration of having to wait lengthy periods of time whilst the software carries out its functions is not something you want to experience.

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5 Ways To Get The Best Results From Google Adwords

Web Marketing

Google has such a dominant position within the search engine arena that anyone who wants to use the internet to promote their business, needs to know how to rank highly within its search results. The problem is doing it the free way via SEO can take months with no guarantee that your website will ever get close to the first page. The second way is to use Google Adwords which is quicker, and sometimes instant, but which also costs money.

To make the most effective use of Google Adwords and to also get the monetary returns you want for your investment there are some basic criteria you need to follow. By following these 5 tips your ads will perform better, get more clicks and thereafter get more sales.

#1 Competition Research

There are businesses large and small who have lost thousands of dollars by setting up Adwords campaigns without proper research. The research should definitely cover your competition to see what sorts of ads they are posting. Never copy them but at least ’emulate’ what the top ads are doing.

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ATO Checklist for a Deceased Estate

Business & Legal Advice
Deceased Estate

When a person dies their estate must be ‘administered’ which can mean different things for a person who owned a business than for someone who did not.  If the deceased person was a business owner, it is important to seek advice from a lawyer immediately as there are many things to know about and to do, especially when it comes to tax compliance.

If the persons who has died was near and dear to you it may be difficult to focus on the administration of their estate, especially if it includes a business that is operational. If this is the case you may want to appoint a deceased estates lawyer as an executor. This will save you a lot of stress at a time you are least able to bear it.

Otherwise, it is important to know exactly what you should do as the executor of the estate. Here is an ATO checklist to help you.

  • Find out if the deceased had a Will and who they appointed as executor. You may already know this if it is yourself. If not, the public trustee in your state may be asked to act on behalf of the deceased.
  • If you have been appointed executor, you may need to establish your ID and authority in order to deal with the tax affairs of the deceased.

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How to Avoid Legal Issues in Business

Business & Legal Advice

Once you start running a business, whether it be a local plumber or painter, you are likely to find a whole host of legal issues that must be solved quickly to avoid fines, litigation and loss of reputation, amongst other things. The best way to do this is to have good lawyers on hand so you can get the advice you need quickly. Keeping the same business solicitors is best, because they will be familiar with your business and know exactly what is likely to be a problem and how to avoid it.

It is far better for your business and your peace of mind to avoid a problem than have to solve it. Working to solve a problem will take a lot of time and effort away from running the business, even though this must be done. Avoiding the problem in the first place will cost a lot less, even when you take into account paying your legal advisor.

Don’t let problems escalate

Many problems tend to escalate, especially if you don’t get onto them straight away. The end result can be litigation or having to appear in court for another reason; both scenarios are something to be avoided at all costs. Even a small business can suffer from legal problems, especially if no legal aid was sought in the beginning. It is common sense in business to surround yourself with professionals who can guide you through what appears to be a maze of legalities.

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5 Concepts to Help Keep Your Brand Relevant

Web Marketing
Brand-Relevance

Most business owners give some thought to branding their company, however if you are only just going online with your business, some of what you know about branding may be old hat. It is important to keep up with the times, which is why you are now getting an online presence. But what you did for your offline company may not work for an online one.

Here are 5 concepts to help you keep up to date with branding.

  • Yours is not the only business in the market and those that have gone before you – and are still there – have done the work of defining the brand for your industry. What you need to do is see it is delivered on a consistent basis on your website. To do this you need a brand strategy that defines what you stand for including what you promise and your personality.
  • People are not as trusting as they used to be. Rather than take note of advertising from a company, they prefer to ask family and friends or even total strangers what they think. Why? Because these people don’t stand to gain anything by promoting a company they like, so their opinion is real and authentic.
  • You need to find out what is really working with your marketing strategies and the only way to do that online is to track everything. It is only by examining the results carefully that your marketing team can say for sure what is working and what is not working. They then have to double their efforts on the former and quit the latter to ensure a good ROI.

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How a Healthy Appearance Can Advance Your Career

Business & Legal Advice

It’s a well-known fact that psychologically speaking, people feel better when they are surrounded by a beautiful setting and in business, this includes the appearance of employees. Management in business usually understands this, which is why employees are chosen partly by their looks, especially for those positions that have to do with the public. Employees that want to make the most of their business opportunities often choose a Botox to give them a youthful and healthy appearance.

A Botox treatment can certainly give you a more youthful and healthier look by removing facial wrinkles. Wrinkles between the eyebrows and across the forehead not only make you look older than you are, they can make you look harassed and bad-tempered. This is not the image you want to project in the office.

Rather, you want to look stress free and in control, to project the image of a person at ease in their job; someone who copes well with whatever they have to handle. In this way you will give the impression of being in control while ensuring that there is no bad tempered look on your face, which can easily turn people away from dealing with you.

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3 Steps to an eCommerce Website

Web Design
eCommerce-Website

Having a successful ecommerce website from which to sell goods globally is the dream of many people. It would allow them to work from home or have a second job that could be done from home while they still keep their day job. Some people have become so successful that they were able to give up their day job altogether.

If you dream about doing that, it’s a good idea to put some thought and research into it first, so here are 3 steps to help you.

    • Choose the product. It may take some time to work out what is best for you. It needs to be something you are interested in or even passionate about, that is also a popular product in the market. There is no point in trying to sell stuff that no one wants. Choose a product by (a) the selling price – it needs to be enough to give you a good return over your investment (ROI). So make sure your cut on the sale is enough to make you a nice profit. (b) Make sure the product is not available in locally. If people can’t get it locally they have to go online to shop. (c) Make sure the product is not too big and heavy, or shipping costs will be very expensive. It should not be breakable either so less packing will be needed.

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Who Should you Use for Conveyancing when Buying a Business

Business & Legal Advice
buying-a-business

A commercial lawyer along with a business consultant is the best person to provide professional legal advice for any conveyancing work when purchasing a business.  Conveyancing is the transfer of a land title from the seller to the buyer and is the last chore in a long list of things to be done when purchasing real estate. Not everyone will need to purchase the land and buildings when buying a business because often these are leased and you just take over the lease in order to continue running the business.

However, in some cases it is necessary to also buy the real estate which consists of land and buildings, but is generally referred to as property.  Sometimes you simply purchase the property with no business and you then have to have a suitable building erected and apply to startup your own business there. Since these proceedings can take many months, most people prefer the property lease option.

If you do go the route of purchasing property it can be dealt with by a conveyancer, but they are not legally allowed to give financial advice or do legal work that is not considered to be part of the property transfer. What can they do?

  • Prepare agreements to do with the conveyancing
  • Complete transfers
  • Draw up leases
  • Deal with mortgages

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Just How Receiving Stolen Goods Is Illegal

Business & Legal Advice

Have you ever been offered the sale of goods that were just “found” by the seller? Maybe when you asked about the origins of the goods, or how the person came into possession of them, you were answered with a sly smile and told they “fell off the back of a truck”. While it might seem like a stroke of luck to be there at the right time in order to take advantage of these “bargain” items—it’s more likely that the law is being broken. Many people will be surprised to learn that receiving these types of goods is in fact illegal.

It seems like a harmless thing, buying some cheap goods that mysteriously turned up. The lawyers opine that after all, you don’t know where they came from, so how can you be culpable if there was any crime committed? There are many different aspects to this offence, so there’s no need to become suspicious of every single item that you see for private sale.

Technically, it is an offence to receive stolen property if you are aware that they were actually stolen. There is absolutely no question about what this is, and no grey area to think about. If you’d like to get technical and see the actual offence guidelines, taken from the Criminal Code 1899 of Queensland, here they are:

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4 Reasons Why a Good Web Design Is So Important For Your Business

Web Design

In this digital age, one of the best ways to substantially promote your business is by launching a website. However, it is very important to be aware of what kind of website you need before you make a decision.

A site with a good web design is the best way to increase marketing for your business. But the problem here is that although it is easy to launch a general website, it is very hard to come up with an idea that exactly satisfies the buyer’s needs.

A well-defined set of skills is required to come up with a website that serves the client’s needs and although, it can be costly and time-consuming to develop in the beginning, an effective web design will surely benefit you in the long run. Some of the advantages a good web design can provide to your business include:

1.     Help in Achieving Sales Target

This is especially true for business websites. If the basic objective of your website is to generate leads or increase sales for your business, a good web design will make it much easier to achieve the targets. It will also become more convenient to reach the right audience. Without any distractions or obstacles, the user will be able to reach exactly what they are looking for on your site. You can also add your call to action at the right spot to suggest the next step you want your user to take.

But along with all this, it is very important to have a website which is not only visually appealing but also easy to navigate.

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New Crowdfunding Laws Might Affect Startup Capital Raising in Australia

Business & Legal Advice
crowd funding

Legislation changes have been passed to allow public companies, which are unlisted, to use crowdfunding to raise money from small time investors (otherwise known as “mum and dad” investors). This legislation has been successfully passed in the lower house of parliament.

There was a lot of criticism of this bill from the opposing parties. The bill will allow companies to raise as much as $5 million, even if they are not listed, and have a combination of assets and turnover that is less than $5 million already. This can be done once per year, using the highly popular method of crowdfunding.

Those who are wondering what exactly crowdfunding is, might need to consult experienced commercial lawyers or do some research on the subject. But a basic explanation is, crowdfunding allows people and companies to ask for money from potential customers and investors, for products, services, and business ventures that have not actually come into fruition yet. This type of thing is commonplace in countries like the USA, so many people see no issue with bringing that kind of practice to small businesses in Australia. After all, small companies are typically in need of the most help from legislation. However, there are some deeper issues to look at.

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5 Questions You Must Ask a SEO Firm

Web Marketing

Very few people go beyond the first page of their search engine results. This is bad news for anyone whose website does not appear on that page because that means that your potential clients, customers, consumers etc will not be having even a clue about your existence. This is why business owners stress so much on their site’s visibility. However, doing this on your own can be difficult because there are certain strategies, certain approaches that are to be followed that help increase your site’s visibility.

Your best bet in a situation like this is to hire a SEO agency that will do your work for you and help boost your site’s visibility on search engines. With so many SEO firms out there, it can be confusing to select one. Of course, knowing what you want always helps in narrowing down the options. Other than this there are a few questions that we think you should always ask a SEO firm before finally selecting one.

1.     Ask for a list of clients that firm has previously served

This is the number one question you should be asking any SEO firm because once you contact the people who have already availed the services from that particular SEO firm, you will know exactly what this SEO firm is about and what they claim to be.

2.     Ask them specifics about their SEO services

This should be the second question; ask them about what all SEO related tasks would they be assisting you with? Are they only going to be limiting themselves to of page and on page tasks or do they also include technical services? Answers to such questions will help you understand just exactly how much work would be covered by the firm and how much would you have to look for from somewhere else. Ideally, always go for a firm which does all three tasks for you.

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What You Should Know About Liability Insurance for Directors and Officers

Business & Legal Advice

Liability insurance for directors and officers has typically been viewed as a routine thing, in the past. It’s just one of tasks things that needs to be done, and many people give it little thought. However, it is important to understand what the implications of this “box ticking” activity really are.

Here are some of the most important aspects of these insurance policies, as well as the potential problems that might be encountered. These pitfalls should be carefully noted or get some expert advice from lawyers, to avoid falling to them.

Notification Timing

Different policies will typically vary, regarding what will trigger a notification. That means directors and officers will not always be notified by the same events, depending on their company and the policy it holds. If an insurer is notified, it is important to be aware that proceeding events might not actually be covered. This will, of course, run the risk of exposing directors and officers to potential claims, even though they believed they were covered.

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How AdWords Can Help Startups

Web Marketing

Starting a business is never easy, and quite honestly, one could use all the help they can get. With few options and limited budget using features like Google AdWords is among one of the most effective ways to get the kick start that we want. In fact if AdWords are utilized skillfully and strategic search campaigns are conducted then a startup can soon grab investor’s attentions, give a heads-up to the startup if they are heading in the wrong direction and help them stay up-to-date with the latest features and ideas and more importantly help them get the attention they need in order to begin on the right note.

Listed below are some of the ways in which AdWords can help a startup:

1.     Gmail Ads:

Gmail Ads are one of the most interesting and helpful tools for the startups to get the instant attention of their audiences and gain maximum exposure. Interesting thing about businesses is that we are only aiming to snatch out competitors customers. For instance everyone use mobiles, but some use Apple’s while others use Samsung’s. Now with all the marketing and advertisement Samsung is just trying to grab the customers of other mobile manufacturing companies and not looking to find a new target audience.

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Top 3 Things You Need to Know about SEO in 2016

Web Marketing

SEO experts and digital marketing companies come up with new strategies, tips and techniques to help people level up their SEO game on the regular. One of the main reasons why some people complain that despite following some of the advice of these SEO experts their websites are still not doing well is that they are following outdated advice.  Re-evaluating and revising your pre loved SEO strategies is one tip that everybody should keep in their back pocket at all times.

So, what are the current SEO trends of this year? There are many and while some of these current SEO trends are completely new, some of them are still in place and effective from previous years. Let us have a look at them.

1: Go Mobile:

If your website still has not boarded the Mobile Plane, it is high time you should. One Google study reports that consumers from around the world end up spending as much as much 15 hours looking up for things on the internet using their smartphones. The importance of going mobile is again reflected in the algorithm updates that we see Google immersed in. “Mobilegeddon” is an algorithm update which specifically just boosts the rankings of mobile friendly pages.

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Squatters and Property Title Claims

Business & Legal Advice

You really don’t need to be any sort of expert to know that Australian property prices are incredibly high, even compared to other affluent countries around the world. The dream of owning one’s own home seems to grow further and further for the average Australian citizen, but what if there were an alternative? Getting familiar with this little term might help: “adverse possession”.

While this type of talk might be little more than hyperbole for the typical person, it’s a rather interesting law and one can gain understanding of it, though not expertise of lawyers, which is worth learning more about.

What Is It?

Simply put, adverse possession relates to a person gaining title over a property that they have been living at for a certain length of time. The truly interesting thing about this law is, the “squatter’s” title to the property might actually grow greater than that of the real owner.

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4 Key Elements to Developing Modern Web Design

Web Design

There are numerous plans you can follow when it comes to building a website. However, the basic points remain the same. If you want to generate higher traffic, it is very essential to focus on a few critical factors when developing good looking and effective web design.

You should take in consideration whitespace, great images, clear calls-to-action, search functionality and other elements that can make a lot of difference. Some of these key elements are described below:

Right Use of Spacing

When it comes to an effective web design, it is very important to manage space effectively. It helps in dictating flow, readability and navigation of the page. More designers now use space in an effective manner to increase web traffic and increase user engagement.

The key is to use spacing between lines of text, expanding open space and maintaining spatial relationships. There should be a consistency in spacing and the amount of space between lines should remain the same throughout a page. The right usage of space is also essential in creating a focal point. Any image or text which is surrounded by white space will seem larger and heavier than other material on the page.

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Do These 3 Things Only If You Want to Get Banned from Google AdWords

Web Marketing
get-banned

While to normal people, this may sound as nothing big, but believe me when I say that getting banned from Google AdWords might be a living nightmare for advertisers and online business owners. No one will be happy to have worked day and night to drive traffic on their websites only to receive the horrifying mail from the Google carrying the news about the dreaded ban.

In some cases, the ban serves as a warning and allows the advertisers to reinstate some of their accounts. However some bans are of more serious nature and may lead to the companies never being allowed to advertise on Google again. Terrifying right?

So in order to save you from ever experiencing this, we have put together a list of common reasons and mistakes that will definitely put you at a risk of getting banned from Google AdWords. Read on and learn:

1.     Free of cost but not really:

Ever had the experience of downloading an eBook that says free download only to be directed at a page that’s says free version is too slow, why not buy the premium one? And then true to their word, the free download is so slow that you could actually wake up from a nap while the book downloads.

Another offending example involves downloading software for your PC only to find out that you had to fill 100 something forms in order to get what you came for.

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Generate More Traffic by Observing Your Competition

Web Marketing

One of the major goals of SEO practices is to help business owners generate more traffic for their website and almost every SEO practice revolves around this concept only. If you are looking for ways you can boost your site’s traffic, one simple strategy is to pick out one of your leading competitors and have a look at what they are doing, what keywords they’re using, business directory they are registered and how they are doing it.

If you feel that despite using the right keywords you are still not being able to get the desired amount of traffic, analyze the keywords your competitors are using, the ones that are apparently getting them so far ahead in the competition.  A large number of tools available online cannot only just help you in identifying the keywords of your competitors, but they also tell you the exact number of searches that are being done for each of these keywords. Once you have picked out those keywords, start incorporating them in your site’s content.

Other than keywords, another thing that you can observe is the sites that are linking themselves to your competitors. Getting high quality links from other websites is considered as a highly effective SEO strategy that helps with improving search engine rankings. However, a thing to remember here is that these links need to be high in quality and the only way your competitor’s sites is going to want to link itself with you as well is when you have high-quality content as well.

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