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Search Influence Adds 8 New Employees

This past month, Search Influence was named a Best Place to Work by New Orleans CityBusiness. As a two-time nominee, we can say with certainty that the key to creating a great work environment is hiring smart people who embody our core values: collaborative, hungry, agile, reliable, genuine, effective, and dedicated. These eight new Influencers are no exception and were thrilled to join our team in September.

Ann Wanserski

Ann arrived in New Orleans a year and a half ago by way of Chicago, IL, where she earned a dual degree in journalism and anthropology from Loyola University Chicago. She found a passion for marketing (and pizza) while working for a restaurant startup in Chicago, and she most recently served as an AmeriCorps VISTA with a local nonprofit. In her free time, she enjoys biking around the potholes of NOLA, attempting to garden, and adding to her rock collection.

Amy McIntosh

Originally from Atlanta, GA, Amy graduated from Georgia State with a degree in Art History and minor in Marketing. She moved to Louisiana over three years ago, where she worked in outside sales in Houma, before relocating to New Orleans. Amy is a self-professed dog lover, and in her spare time, she enjoys learning about the English Monarchy.

Joel Willson

Meet Joel. He is from Baton Rouge and is the father of three boys. He loves music and anything tech. Joel regularly performs as a singer/songwriter and with his band, Minos the Saint.

Roane Babington

As a New Orleans native, Roane is happy to come home after being away for 22 years. He has spent the last two years in New York City working as a sales executive at two different tech companies. Prior to NYC, he went to James Madison University in Virginia where he studied history and education and played football. In his free time, Roane likes to cook and go on runs when the weather is nice.

Rosalie Nolan

Rosalie (or Rosie for short) is from Jackson, MS, and moved to New Orleans in 2013 after graduating from Millsaps College. She earned a B.A. in Communication Studies with a minor in English. She spent one year as a Corps Member for City Year New Orleans and two years teaching Kindergarten and 1st grade at Firstline Schools before joining the Search Influence team. Three of her most favorite things are her Calico cat (Piper), peanut butter, and naps.

Sabian LaGarde

As part of Search Influence’s commitment to YouthForce NOLA, a program that helps match students with local businesses to offer real world work experience, we have welcomed Sabian LaGarde to our team this fall. Sabian is a senior at Sophie B Wright Charter School, where he is part of both the track and robotics team. He wanted to intern at Search Influence to learn more about online marketing. After high school, he plans to attend Tulane, Loyola, or LSU on his way to becoming a doctor.

Sam Merritt

Born in Lubbock, TX, and raised in Batesville, AR, Sam relocated to New Orleans in August of 2015, after graduating from the University of Central Arkansas in May of 2015. Before working at Search Influence, Sam worked as a booking agent for a talent and modeling agency where he worked on a number of feature films, television shows, and national commercials. Sam is a pop culture junkie and foodie, and enjoys anything outdoors.

Trace Allen

Trace is from Vacherie, LA, and earned a B.S. in Psychology with a Sociology minor from Mississippi College in May 2015. After graduating from MC, Trace spent a year in Portland, OR, working with the Portland Leadership Foundation, where he was able to work directly with local nonprofits, mentor local coaches and student athletes, and a lead a humanitarian trip to work with orphans and vulnerable children in Jinja, Uganda. Trace is a lover of 90’s R&B and Hip-Hop, bachata dancing, traveling, and all things related to sports.

Welcome aboard!

October 11, 2016
Here Are Our Top 5 Blogs From September

Another month, another top five blogs from Search Influence! All of these posts are chock-full of information that will help you keep your website in tip-top shape and give you some insight into life at Search Influence. Subscribe to our blog to stay up to date on what’s going on in the world of SEO and Search Influence.

#5: How Google Possum Has Affected 3 Pack: A Before and After Review

Google’s newest update has had some drastic effects on the search results 3 pack. Amy Arnold gives us the lowdown on some listings that are pretending to be dead.

Look at that beautiful Google update devouring those listings.

#4: What Happened to Facebook’s 20% Text Grid Tool?

Michelle Neuhoff Boyd is back at it again this month and refuses to leave the top five standings. Whether you’re a Facebook fiend or a business taking advantage of the social platform, this blog entry has mountains of information about the inner workings of the Social Media giant.

#3: Happy Working Parents Day: 10 Influencers on Lessons From Their Working Parents

To celebrate National Working Parent’s Day, Mary Silva whipped up a heartfelt blog post complete with written and video interviews of some of our employees. Tears may be shed by the time you reach the end of the video, so be sure to have that tissue box ready.

#2: Search Influence Adds 3 New Hires in August

Search Influence added three more employees in August and a lot of people were interested. Learn more about our new team members in this post compiled by Melissa Verzwyvelt.

#1: Barnacle SEO – Local Search Engine Optimization for the Sam’s Club Crowd

Last but not least, Mr. Barnacle SEO himself, Will Scott, saw a massive resurgence in popularity of his blog where he coined the industry changing term. Take a gander at this super informative blog.

While you’re at it, follow our blog to get the latest updates from Search Influence.

October 7, 2016
New Orleans Nonprofit Spotlight: Rebuilding Together’s Annual October Build

October is one of my favorite times of year. Reason 1: It’s the beginning of fall (though only a mild change from the normal New Orleans heat). Reason 2: It’s Halloween-month, of course. And reason 3: I get to take part in Rebuilding Together New Orleans‘s October Build.

About Rebuilding Together New Orleans and October Build

October Build is an annual event organized by Rebuilding Together New Orleans (RTNO), a New Orleans Preservation Resource Center program and chapter of the national Rebuilding Together organization. They’ve worked since 1988 to help local elderly, disabled, veteran, and single head of household homeowners repair their homes. RTNO services seven neighborhoods in New Orleans year round.

Check out my original post for Rebuilding Together New Orleans’ 25th Annual October Build to learn more about the history of the organization and the event.

Getting Ready for October Build 2016

For two weekends, I take a brief respite from my somewhat sedentary lifestyle, and join hundreds of volunteers in providing necessary home repairs to local homeowners who otherwise are unable to do it themselves.

What’s more, this year a few other Search Influence employees and I started work early! While October Build takes place October 7, 8, 14, and 15, we were able to help prep Mr. Ernest Watson’s house this past weekend for volunteers to finish during October Build. We met up at 8:30 AM on-site and worked with Rebuilding Together’s own Americorps and employees to scrape paint and prime the Bywater house. While I’m by no means a skilled laborer, RT’s members also worked on replacing fascia and siding that had been damaged by fire or was rotting.

*Fun fact: Fascia are the bands of boards directly under the roof edge.

Employees at Rebuilding Together New Orleans have been working tirelessly for months to coordinate volunteers and houses for October Build. This past weekend was just one of the many pieces of prep necessary to get these houses ready for volunteers of all skill levels.

Next weekend and the one after, these volunteers from sponsor organizations, local businesses, and other local & national groups will gather to finish repairs on 8 different houses. The work will range from scraping and painting to flooring installation and accessibility ramp building in one huge community effort.

For more information about this year’s event, check out RTNO’s own October Build 2016 news post. Here, you’ll find stories about the homeowners they’re helping (including Mr. Watson’s) and how you can contribute!

Rebuilding Together New Orleans Images Credit

October 6, 2016
Like Our Facebook Page and Help a Worthy Cause

Here’s Your Chance to Help a Worthy Cause

For the fourth straight year, Search Influence is proud to be promoting breast cancer awareness through a unique initiative it calls “Likes for Lives.” The ask is simple: for each new “like” the Search Influence Facebook page receives between October 1 and 31, the company will donate $1.00 to the Breastoration Fund. Created by three breast cancer survivors, Breastoration provides educational resources and financial assistance to women seeking breast reconstruction after breast cancer.

Search Influence offers the “Likes for Lives” program to its clients and partners, including elective surgery practices that wish to increase awareness of their services and commitment to the cause. In an early example, in 2011, Search Influence client Donaldson Plastic Surgery gained 332 fans during the month of October to support its charity of choice, the Stefanie Spielman Fund in Ohio. The practice rounded up its donation, giving the breast cancer research fund $500.

“We saw the program succeed with our clients, so we thought it was appropriate to implement it ourselves and raise some money for a good cause,” Search Influence CEO Will Scott said. “Since we are a primarily female organization, including some women who have been touched by breast cancer in their families, the Breastoration Fund’s mission resonates with us.” Since 2013, Search Influence has donated $5,000 to help fight breast cancer.

This year, the goal is 700 new likes. To kick off the “Likes for Lives” campaign and to increase awareness of breast cancer, team members wore pink today. We encourage other NOLA tech companies to do the same.

So what are you waiting for? Like the Search Influence Facebook page. Share it with your friends and family, and ask them to like it, too. Let’s exceed the goal this year!

October 4, 2016
Search Influence Jobs: What Does an Internet Marketing Associate Do?

As Search Influence continues to grow, we often get asked by job applicants, “What exactly does an Internet Marketing Associate do?” So last week, I took over the Search Influence Twitter and shared my day with all of our followers. In short, being an Internet Marketing Associate on Content Team consists of a whole lot of reading, a fair amount of writing, and lots of laughter. Here’s a recap.

Our Morning Meeting

The meeting starts off sedately enough, with a breakdown of the number of tasks due for the week and for the day, as well as yesterday’s achievements. After announcements, and an overview of current projects if it’s “Tuesday Touch-Day,” it’s time for Word of the Day. Each team member takes turns presenting an interesting word to the team, and we have until the next morning meeting to submit a sentence containing that word. The word’s presenter chooses their favorite sentence, and that sentence-writer is the daily winner. The person who wins the most sentences during the month gets to wear a sparkly gold Word Wizard cape for the next month. (And yes, I won for Monday’s word and am now in the lead for the cape.)

My Annual Review

Monday was a particularly interesting day for me, since it was my work-iversary! I had completed one year at Search Influence, and after my star ceremony, when a star is added to our name banner to mark another year, it was time for my annual review. I’ve heard rumors that at other companies this is a super scary thing. But not at Search Influence. That’s because once a week, every team member meets with their manager and talks about their workload and performance. By the time reviews roll around, there are no surprises.

The Workload

Once my review was over, it was time to begin my daily workload. Content Team works with all the words that are part of an SEO or Social Media campaign. We edit website content, blogs, and social media posts all day, and write video scripts, sponsored articles, and paid ads. I work a lot on what we call ‘high-touch’ deliverables—things that require a bit more knowledge and time to complete. This includes product descriptions, LinkedIn social media campaigns, PPC ad copy, image optimizations, and site audits. My favorite, by far, is the site audit.

Site audits are the most technically oriented pieces of content we edit. A member of the Tech Team (our IMA cousins) goes through every aspect of a website and checks for things like canonicalization errors, coding issues that could confuse search engine crawlers, and site load speed. They then make recommendations on how issues can be fixed. It’s my job to go through these recommendations and clean them up, taking care of any grammatical errors, as well as reworking some sentences so they’re more clear to someone who has no idea what ‘canonicalization’ means. Site audits can be 40 pages long, so it takes a good bit of focus, but I absolutely love learning about the techy underbelly of SEO.

Our Afternoon Check-In

After my site audit was all sorted out, it was time for my favorite part of the day—the afternoon check-in! When 2:30 strikes, it’s time to take a break, chat with the team, and just get re-pumped for content. We discuss how many tasks we have left for the day, but we also discuss anything weird or interesting people learned over the course of their editing. One time, we started talking about a pig that was a witness during a witch trial, and our manager started crying she was laughing so hard. We also do some group stretching, since one of our fun facts that wasn’t so fun was about how sitting around at a desk all day can kill you. Doing a bit of office yoga makes us all feel more relaxed and less likely to have our muscles solidify in a sitting position.

Winding Down

With a pretty hectic morning, I was glad for a “more of the same” kind of afternoon. I edited some tasks, which helped to clear out the team bucket (the list of all the tasks on the team for the day). When you’ve got a robust workload, it’s surprising how fast the day goes by.

Before I knew it, it was 5 o’clock. If it was Friday, it would have ended with “This is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan blasting from someone’s computer. Since it was only Monday though, the denouement was more casual, with a chorus of “bye, y’all’s” echoing around the office. Friendly place, New Orleans. Speaking of, if you live in New Orleans or want an excuse to move here (and who doesn’t?), and you read and write English (or French or Spanish), you really should apply to join Content Team. With every day being as fun as this one, it’s sure to be a career, you won’t forget.

September 29, 2016
Link Building: How to Develop a Winning Link Profile

Backlinks are a significant factor in a website’s search visibility. When a site links back to your website, it signals to search engines that it’s authoritative enough to be an information resource for other websites. That’s why it’s so important to any SEO strategy.

However, SEO’s and businesses alike walk a thin line when it comes to generating backlinks for their sites. Each backlink has a different value depending on that source site’s own authority and trustworthiness. The goal is to develop a diverse but high-value link profile of authoritative links from a variety of source types. This process is called link building.

Link building can be categorized into two different types of work: manual link building, where a link is submitted to directories or included in profiles, and editorial link earning, where a site links to your website organically because they want to share or refer to your content.

Manual Link Building

It may seem like this is not the preferred method for link building. However, don’t forget that we want a diverse link profile. The character of your link profile reflects the character of your business to search engines.

It’s natural to place your website and information on sites that potential customers may use to find a business like yours (i.e. directories) or in your social profiles. This is the same as adding your business’s information to a phone book or business card that you share with people.

When doing manual link building, just remember that you want the sources of your links to make sense and reflect the authority and relevance you’d like your website to have. Ideally, these links come from sources like your social profiles, local directories like Google Maps or Yelp, and niche directories that apply to your industry (Healthgrades.com for doctors, for example).

Editorial Link Earning (aka Link Attraction)

It’s a little more difficult to build out the other side of your link building strategy—editorial link earning. You can’t control these links like those that you manually build. However, link earning is a great opportunity to show the internet just how great you are at what you do and can result in some of the most valuable links out there. It should also already fit into your overall branding strategy.

So, what are editorial backlinks? These are links that people have shared on their own websites or social media back to your website. For example, if someone read a blog post that you wrote for your business and thought the content was so engaging and noteworthy, they shared it on Facebook or wrote their own blog referring to yours, you’ve just received an editorial backlink.

This type of link building starts with creating great content and ends with sharing and strategically placing that content for the most relevant and influential users to see and engage with it.

That’s it, the basic composition of any good link building strategy. Link building definitely takes some thinking but it is immensely valuable to your overall SEO. Directory and social profile links are important in building brand awareness, and creating and sharing great content is highly integral to exhibiting your business’s overall value and capabilities both on- and offline.

To find out why link building is important for dentists, click here.

Image 1 Credit

September 27, 2016
How Google Possum Has Affected 3 Pack: A Before and After Review
Throughout September, the local search industry has been watching the results of the dubbed Google Possum update.

In August 2015, Google shook up local search results, which changed the Map Pack from a 7 Pack to a very exclusive 3 Pack. This change was a dramatic one by omitting many local businesses and by making inclusion nearly impossible for businesses in the exterior of city limits and in suburbs.

Fast-forward two years, and we now have Possum.

“Possum?”

Joy Hawkins wrote an excellent blog post summarizing the effects observed by the Possum update, and in that post she attributes Phil Rozek with creating the Possum moniker because “it is fitting since many business owners think their Google My Business listings are gone, when in fact they are not. They have just been filtered — they’re playing possum.”

And officially? … Possum is an unannounced update, meaning the SEO community collectively compared notes and decided this was an algo update. Google did not directly announce or confirm this update. However, John Mueller did Tweet a comment, which I completely paraphrase as “if you see stuff happening, maybe the Google Engineers are doing something.”

“Google is now filtering based on address and affiliation.”

In her post on all things Possum, Joy Hawkins cleanly lists the effects of this change. Among her list is the observation that Google is now filtering results based on duplicate address, website, or affiliation.

We see duplicates all the time in map results for local searches for any place that has multiple practitioners:
- Doctors (plastic surgeons, orthopedists, dermatologists … )
- Lawyers
- Dentists and orthodontists
- Hair salons
- Etc.
For example, a doctor’s clinic can have numerous Google-allowed listings: one for the practice and one for each physician or practitioner seeing patients at that practice. Each of these listings will have the same address, phone number, and website, so one clinic or practice can end up with multiple listings and dominate the results landscape.

But user experience for such a repetitive Local Pack is not ideal, and Google is all about user experience. We have a plastic surgeon client, Deluca Plastic Surgery in Albany, NY, who has been fighting this battle for a long time.

Dominating the Local Pack No More

Anyone searching “plastic surgery Albany NY” back in April 2016 would have seen the 3 Pack all leading to the same practice. In fact, in the “More Places” Maps results, the same practice completely dominated with positions 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 16. What the heck, Google?!

I had copied and pasted the Maps results into a spreadsheet just for fun back in April. I’m glad I did, because I can share this story with you. Here are just the first eight results from that April 2016 Maps search—those in yellow all lead back to the same practice:

Our client was ranked at 18th and 20th. Our client is in Albany, and the website had and has stronger Domain Authority, stronger NAP, more reviews, and on and on, so it just didn’t make sense.

We did some work to mitigate those results. We had some minor success, but fighting a battle against Google’s algorithm, you might not always come out a winner.

And Then Possum Came Along

Today, we now see Deluca in the 3 Pack. Woo hoo!

We are feeling pretty good about this (don’t take the wind out of my sails), but we acknowledge that all is not perfect in this scenario. In this 3 Pack, the doctor in the second listing is a plastic surgeon at the practice represented in the first listing. He has the same address and phone number, but he has his own, personally branded, website.

This is one example among millions of searches, but it may suggest that domain is a primary indicator of the duplication filter. This needs lots more observation and input, and I encourage you to let us know if you have seen 3 Pack changes this September.
September 26, 2016
Pow! Ka-Blamo! Celebrate National Comic Book Day With These Classics

September 25th is National Comic Book Day. A day set aside (by whoever makes up holidays) to celebrate the genius that is comic books!

Now, before I get any further, I have something to confess—and you cannot judge me for it. I am not immersed deeply into the world of comic books. I have accompanied my siblings to many a comic book shop, and even been to a convention, but I am by no means an expert.

However, I want to tell you about the comics that I hold close to my comical heart.

1: Archie

According to Wikipedia, Archie came alive on pages starting in 1946. In a world recovering from World War II, Archie was used to be an example of the perfect American teen, albeit with hilarious hijinks. I really can’t tell you when I first read Archie, but I remember they were always next to the checkout at the grocery store. I would run through all the lanes to find the right one with the Archies, paying no mind to the other people trying to pay for their groceries. I had my favorites and read them with my mom in a time when we couldn’t agree on TV but we could agree on Archies. Jughead, Moose, Betty, Veronica, and even Reggie became part of my family through those many comics. I think there is still a tower of them hiding somewhere in my parent’s house.

2: Maus

Art Spiegelman’s comic book about the Holocaust’s impact on his family is a haunting visual way to present the horrors of war and discrimination. This was the first comic book that I read that, to me, had a purpose beyond telling a story. For a story relying so heavily on images, it is hard to describe how much impact Maus had on me without words. Spiegelman also drew In the Shadow of No Towers, which draws on his personal reactions to 9/11. This second book creates a much more visceral reaction from someone like me that, for the most part, grew up in the aftermath of 9/11.

3: X-Men

My sister definitely got the visual creative genes in my family. She can draw, paint, sew, and construct beautiful things. I, on the other hand, can draw a mean stick figure. In high school, during the heights of both of our angst years, we bonded over her drawing us into the world of X-Men. We argued about powers and how we would fit into the canon of X-Men. Finding a place with my sister into their world of misfits made a couple of band nerds in high school feel a bit better.

4: Superman

I don’t think any comic book list would really be complete without mentioning Superman. He’s a bird, a plane, a man of steel! I read and watched Superman with my neighbor growing up. I can’t see the classic Superman without thinking about fighting over who got the top bunk at a sleepover. Superman also taught me that good deeds don’t need good recognition. If Superman can save the world without people knowing who he is, I can help a stranger with a door and be ok without a thank you. #payitforward

Now, that might not have been a list of comic books that you would have thought go together, but to me, they are all intertwined. Everyone has a specific story about a comic, a movie, a restaurant, even a car dealership that you might not expect. Images and stories can greatly impact lives, which is a reason to celebrate National Comic Book Day, National Movie Day (Jan. 16), National Ad Day (Jan. 7), or even National Commercial Day (August 3).

Credit Image 1 | Credit Image 2

September 23, 2016
Here’s How to Take Advantage of Google’s Expanded Text Ads

In May, Google announced a major expansion of the traditional 25-35-35 text limits we’ve come to know and begrudgingly abide. Trying to squeeze your brand name, unique selling propositions, an emotional appeal, a sense of urgency, and a killer call to action into just 95 characters, at times, amounted to a game of linguistic Tetris.

Now, with double the characters to convince potential customers why they should convert, it’s become crucial to rethink how we think about ad copy and develop new tools for improving our Paid Search ad copy strategy.

1: ALWAYS Use All of the Available Characters

Take full advantage of Google’s generous gift! There has been some debate in the PPC realm concerning the truncation of ad copy based on the user’s device. However, an overwhelming majority of the literature suggests that you should be trying to get as close to that 30-30-80 limit as you can.

2: Lead With Your Most Important Copy

Put the most important information at the start of a line, such as your call to action or promotional text. Headline 1 will always show, but depending on the screen size of the searcher’s device, Headline 2 and the Description could be truncated depending on the pixel width of your text.

Even though you should be trying to hit the full 150 characters, you do want to ensure that the absolutely crucial information in your ad copy is placed at the start of each line.

3: Brand + USP + Emotional Appeal + CTA = Click!

We all have a variation of a similar formula for winning ad copy, now you can make sure that your ads are checking each of those boxes. Expanded Text Ads allow you to include content that previously may have been bumped from an ad in lieu of the more important call to action or brand name. Now, you have the space to try out new versions of your formula and find what works for your business.

4: Develop Thematic Content

Don’t treat the different elements of the ads as separate entities. Use your extra characters to create content that flows from Headline 1 to Headline 2 and through the description.

5: Provide Pre-Qualifying Information

Are your landing pages seeing a lot of traffic but not converting visitors into customers? Now you can pre-screen would-be bounces by including qualifying information in the ad copy!

For instance, if your plastic surgery practice only accepts candidates for Breast Lift surgery who are physically healthy, non-smokers, you can include this information in your ad to prevent users who won’t end up converting from initiating that first click (and spending your ad dollars!).

Bonus Tip: Path Fields = Not Optional

The “optional” Path 1 and Path 2 fields have replaced Google’s Display URL with the domain name now automatically populated from the Final URL. These combined 30 characters are a great area of opportunity to showcase the relevancy of your landing page to the searcher’s query. Highlight topical keywords, location specific services, or even promotions that show the user that your business provides exactly what they’re looking for.

The number one rule is to be creative and try new things, so get started augmenting your ad copy today and share your results with us in the comments! Need help? Call the experts at Search Influence.

September 22, 2016
Here’s an Idea to Increase Your Facebook Following This October

With 58% of Americans now on Facebook, it’s now more important than ever to make sure your customers — and those potential ones — LIKE your business’s Facebook page. But let’s face it, sometimes it is hard to convince your targeted audience to press that little LIKE button. But, we have a plan.

Introducing LIKES FOR LIVES.

What Is Likes for Lives?

Just in time for October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Likes for Lives is a Facebook fan-building initiative that encourages your targeted audiences to “like” your Facebook page. They simply like your page, and in exchange, your business makes a $1 donation to your choice of breast cancer awareness/research non-profit organizations.

Likes for Lives Works. Here’s 3088 Reasons.

In October 2013, Search Influence launched our own Likes for Lives campaign. We wanted to increase the number of people who liked our Facebook page and pledged $1 for each new like. We designed a special cover photo for our Facebook page that told people what we were doing:

We also launched a paid ad campaign on Facebook, targeting business owners who didn’t already like our page, who lived in the United States, with interests specific to industries we have done work. Here is an example of the ad we did (the arrow pointed directly to the LIKE button on our page):

The results? In just one month, we earned 3,088 new followers, and we decided to donate $5,000 to The Breastoration Fund. Now that’s a true win/win.

Since 2013, many of our clients have also incorporated Likes for Lives into their October marketing plans, many with similar results. They increased their Facebook following and were happy to donate to their own local breast cancer research/treatment non-profits.

Are you interested in learning more about this program? Contact us today to get started.

September 19, 2016