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The Conco Companies Retain WSI for a Fourth Year of Comprehensive Digital Marketing Services

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The Conco Companies are one of the USA’s largest commercial concrete contractors, and holders of the Guinness World Book of Records record for the largest continuous concrete mat pour, on the Wilshire Grand in LA scheduled to be completed in 2017.

WSI is one of the largest digital marketing agencies in the world, with over 1,000 offices in 81 countries.

Given the strength of our respective organizations it is only fitting that WSI and Conco have agreed to strengthen a mutually beneficial partnership that has dramatically improved Conco’s online presence and lead generation. First initiated in July 2013, the engagement initially focused solely on SEO, and has since blossomed into a comprehensive digital marketing service offering including: SEO, web development, e-mail marketing, social media marketing, PPC and mobile app development.

Over the last 12 month’s WSI has created a new responsive site leading to 23% growth in mobile traffic, added 49 pages of content to the site, created a new micro site for the Denver market, with a white paper lead capture feature, optimized the site for dozens of SEO terms and doubled nearly every social media metric.

Moving forward, WSI will continue to optimize Conco’s web presence through an increased focus on lead capture, an integrated concrete pump truck rental drive, a regional focus on the LA market, and some opportunistic SEO. The LA Section of the site has been expanded to encompass the following pages:

Some of the notable projects that Conco has been involved with recently include the following:

970 Denny Way located in the South Lake Union neighborhood in Seattle, Washington

The redevelopment project is from the Holland Partner Group and is a blend of both modern and classic styles. Holland Construction is serving as the general contractor and the Seattle-based architectural firm of Weber Thompson designed the contemporary style building.

Conco successfully completed part of our concrete services when our crews poured 4,900 cubic yards of concrete last month to form the 15,300 square foot mat foundation. In addition to the concrete, the foundation required 1.3 million pounds of rebar. The pour was done over approximately 15 hours and the concrete was supplied by CalPortland.

350 Bush Street, San Francisco

The Conco Companies are providing concrete services for a new office building in downtown San Francisco located at 350 Bush Street. The new 20-story high-rise will have 18 floors of office space, one lobby level, and a roof terrace as well as a two-level subgrade parking structure. In addition as the office tower will incorporate the San Francisco Mining Exchange, a historic landmark, as its primary entrance, the project also includes the “Historic Renovation of San Francisco Mining Exchange Building.”

The Mark at 5th & Columbia Project

The Conco Companies are providing concrete services for The Mark, a 48-story high-rise tower in Seattle, WA that will consist of 528,000 sq. ft. of Class A+ office space, as well as a luxurious 189-room SLS hotel and spa. Conveniently located in the city’s central business district, the stunning beautifully designed tower will incorporate a wide range of “green” building features such as rain water management, photovoltaic glass and light pollution reduction. Scheduled for completion in April, 2017, the tower will bring to the area first-class office space that is highly divisible and offers 9’ 6” windows for natural light and spectacular views.

Conco and WSI are looking forward to a mutually beneficial relationship for many years to come.

Google Penguin 2.0: How Will It Impact Your Business?

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According to Google, the Penguin 2.0 update will penalize websites that adopt black hat web marketing techniques to rank high on search engines. Penguin 2.0 will identify websites that purchase links, employ spam, publish bad content, create low quality backlinks, and adopt other such questionable online marketing practices. The previous Penguin updates were also aimed at catching black hat techniques such as these. Penguin 2.0 takes this stringency several steps further, and is a much more comprehensive update that will test websites on several parameters.

What can you do to avoid a drop in your ranking?

If you have built a backlinks profile that that goes against Google’s guidelines then your page ranking can drop significantly. Key areas you need to watch out for are listed below:

  • Low-quality inbound links will be given less weightage, so you need to improve the quality of your links or face Google’s wrath
  • Start auditing your backlinks to ensure that they are aligned to the new Google standards
  • Your content needs to have depth and demonstrate industry expertise
  • All advertorials and spam links across your website need to be eliminated
  • Avoid heavy usage of exact match anchor text links
  • Become an authority in your target market: Build your online authority by offering a wide variety of content types. Websites that provide visitors highly authoritative content are likely to rank higher. Companies that are dealing in niche areas and targeted markets have an advantage here. Provide fresh, high quality content on a regular basis.
  • Leverage social media: Post links to your content on Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn, and other social media sites relevant to your business; market your content using the Like and Share features most social media sites offer, and most importantly, build a strong online network.
  • Avoid Keyword Misuse: Penguin 2.0 will enable Google Web crawlers to assess the anchor text being used to link to your website. Avoid using too many keywords as your anchor text. Google could misinterpret this as a black hat tactic and lower your rankings.
  • Earn your links: Penguin 2.0 will strictly penalize sites that buy backlinks. Create quality, authoritative content to earn links.

How to Benefit from Penguin 2.0?

SEO Moving Forward

If you are building a new website or revamping your existing one, don’t wait till the site is ready before you call in an SEO expert. Your website architecture is integral to the success of SEO. Involve an SEO expert right from the planning stage to maximize benefits. Additionally:

  • Ensure your information architecture is intuitive: Your information architecture is as important if not more so than the web technology you use in the backend. Don’t focus purely on the aesthetics of the website. Take usability into consideration while planning your information architecture.
  • Eliminate duplicate content: Don’t deploy the same content for related webpages. If you are running an online campaign, don’t reuse the content from a related product or service description page. Create fresh content for each new page you add to your website.
  • Plan your keyword strategy: Align your keyword strategy with the needs of your business. Analyse the websites of your competitors. Don’t overuse your keywords in your anchor texts but leverage them effectively.
  • Content is still king: Ensure that your web pages provide relevant information with all the necessary information a potential customer is likely to seek. Think human—if you were the buyer what information would you require to aid you in your decision making process? Make sure that information is available on your website.
  • Website search functionality: If you have a comprehensive website, offering information about multiple products and services, you need to provide your visitors an internal search function. Don’t expect users to spend time hunting for information on your website. But if they found interesting information on your website they are more likely to run a search query for related information. You can also leverage these insights on search patterns within your site to refine your keyword strategy.
  • Analyse, analyse, analyse: Create dashboards, pull out site visit details, check which keywords work best, identify pages that are most visited and list the pages with maximum bounce rates. Now analyze this data to fine-tune your content and keyword strategy so you can make it more effective in driving traffic to your website.

Contact WSI Connect to help you plan an effective SEO strategy and stay on the right side of the Google Zoo!

Tips for writing a great press release

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Press releases have always been a useful marketing tool in building exposure for major events; and, they are increasingly becoming an important part of an effective off-page SEO strategy. While there are many different schools of thought on press releases, here are seven points to keep in mind when crafting your own, for any purpose:

Be concise

First and foremost, be concise. No one will read a three-page press release; shorten it to a page or a few paragraphs and get it done. Get in, get out, and let people get on their way with more information about your company or product without overdoing it.

Spell & grammar check!

It may seem simple, silly, or stupid, but it is critical that your press release is grammatically correct! Double check spelling and punctuation, and make sure you are writing like a true professional.

Tell them ALL the information

Press releases are not teasers – they are supposed to be chock full of information. Who, what, why, when, where, and how are the key points. Make it a point to include all of these points in your press release.  Leaving nothing to be desired, media and local journalists will not have to guess as to what your press release is actually about, or what it all actually means.

Leave your contact information

Another one that may sound obvious, but is actually done far less frequently than you’d think, is the idea that you need to leave your contact information after a press release is sent out! How will the media or others contact you if they don’t know what number to call or where to send the email? Many sites will even all you to include your LinkedIn profile.

Provide actionable items

Provide items that make sense and are actionable. Press releases aren’t announced and published from non-events.  Instead, make sure you are releasing information about specific things such as event announcements, product launches, and more. Providing an actionable item with a specific takeaway, allows media members and viewers to figure out why something specific matters to them and their needs.

Maximize it for SEO

Your press release may be for one specific event, but the content will live on in the Internet long after that event is over.  Be sure to include hyperlinks pointing back to the most relevant pages (no more than 3 links).  Include content about your company and relevant keywords that have the best performance for your specific topic.

Good syndication

There are a number of websites that will submit your press release for free or for a small fee.  At WSI Connect, we leverage the advanced syndication from PRWeb.  It allows our press releases to get maximum exposure while often being picked up by major online publishers.  Not only does this increase awareness of your event, but it also provides long lasting backlinks from authority domains.

Need help with your next press release?  We both write and syndicate them for many of our customers.  contact us today for more information.

Digital Marketing Strategies to Generate Leads for your Business

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Almost every business should leverage digital marketing for lead generation. After all, competition often seems like it is encroaching from every angle. It can no doubt feel like a chore to get the most out of your business and track down the right sales leads to help you in the long run.

In spite of the difficulty associated with all of this small business work in and around a variety of industries, there are things that you can do to generate leads for your business, and gain customers over time. Primarily and chiefly, it all starts with digital marketing strategies that can help you gain the most out of you brand awareness and recognition, and in turn, get the most out of your leads to develop potential long-lasting customers.

Search Engine Optimization

First and foremost, search engine optimization is a phenomenal way to build awareness and reach new heights in business on the digital sphere. No matter what industry or sector you are in, people are likely searching for your company and your products, and SEO helps you, to help them, find your business quickly.

Online Advertising

Online advertising, through programs such as pay-per-click, are a powerful way to reach targeted audiences.  They allow you to market your business based on keywords that are relevant to your products and services.  It also allows you to specifically target local markets by geo-location.  Best of all, you only pay when someone clicks on your add.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a great digital way to stay in touch with people who are your past customers, or those who may consider becoming your customers in the future. Through email marketing, you can work in tandem with customers to provide specials, stay in close communication, and never be more than a phone call or message away.

Social Media

Finally, social media is all the rage today.  For many businesses, it can be a useful tool for engaging and communicating with your current customers. You can connect with individuals and answer their questions, showcase your products, and more – for free on these simple and available social sites like Twitter and Facebook. Your customers are already on them and talking about you – why not make it a point to get on there, as well?

Promote your business is critical for growth.  The above digital marketing strategies for lead generation are useful for driving this growth.   Customers and potential leads are out there online – in order to leverage them for what you want, you need to be online as well.

Interested in learning about how WSI Digital Marketing can help you leverage the Internet to grow your business? Contact us today to learn more.

Tips For Hiring A SEO Consultant

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There are plenty of different consultants out there when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO) and helping you and your company with getting noticed. But if you own a local business, chances are you have some very specific needs. That means you need to be smart about who you hire as an SEO consultant and what you end up getting as a final product.

So what can you do, and what can you ask when it comes to finding a good SEO consultant for your local or small business needs? Use the following questions as a road map about not only what you should ask a potential SEO consultant you are considering hiring, but also as a way to weed out impostors and find strongly-reviewed candidates to help you and your business.

What Methods Will They Use?

Off the bat, this may be the most important question of them all; “black hat” SEO, as it’s called, is the use of spammy or at the very least ethically questionable practices to get you to land on the first page of search engines. You may not care or know about that, or care how you get to the first page, but it does matter.

After all, if your business is found to use black hat tactics to move up in search engines, you can be penalized by Google and others. That doesn’t hurt your SEO consultant – that hurts your business. Make sure they use only acceptable and professional techniques to get on the first page.

Do You Have The Money?

You need to ask this question of yourself, but you also need to ask it of a potential consultant.  Figure out and stick to a budget with a consultant, so they know what they are getting, you know what you can expect, and more – right off the bat, without confusion or concern.  Keep in mind that there are a lot of consultants out there that offer super cheap rates.  The results are often even lower than their prices.  High quality SEO can feel expensive, but can often lead to a much larger return on your investment.

Do They Come Recommended?

Ask to see references, and ask for examples of work that they have done in the past and that they can push forward and prove as being part of their total package. A good SEO consultant won’t hesitate to provide references and past success stories, allowing you to figure out how well recommended they come, and if others are saying good enough things to work with them in due time.

What Success Have They Had In The Past?

Linked to the recommendation issue, has a potential SEO consultant you are tracking gotten good results in the past? Have they had success getting people on the front page of Google? If the answer is “no,” well, they may not be as good as they’d like to think! Ask them about their past successes and determine for yourself how well they have done, and if they can do work on your behalf in turn.

Contact us today to learn more about our SEO services.