Acceptance of Circumstances, AEO, AI Search, Being Found On Bing, Being Found on Google, GEO, keeping up with trends, keywords, local search, Marketing Planning, organic SEO, prompt research, prompts, pull marketing, Search Engine Optimization, search terms, SEM, SEO, SEO tags, staying current

What’s The Difference Between Keyword Research and Prompt Research?

Over the years, we’ve talked a lot about both keywords and keyword research in our digital marketing agency’s blog (you can view a list of those keyword-related blog posts at https://allintheresults.com/category/keywords/), so we won’t repeat all of the valuable information about the keyword-research benefits shared there. Such research is just one piece, but an important piece, of an overall SEO/GEO/AEO strategy, and often is the foundation of all other SEO/GEO/AEO (search engine optimization/being found online) tactics, particularly when it comes to being found in traditional search engines.

Keyword research and prompt research differ on a number of fronts, including the factors outlined below.

How Keyword Research and Prompt Research Differ

  • Nature of What Is Entered In Search Tool By Searcher/Prompter: Traditional keyword research is/was all about discovering what topics (in the form of one word or several words (a phrase or statement)) individuals, in geographies your organization serves) are/were entering into traditional search engines on an average monthly basis. Eventually, keyword research expanded to “light” question research, using tools like Answer The Public. Prompt research is about discovering the various questions vs. statements or phrases that individuals are putting into an AI search/answer engine, like Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, or ChatGPT, to get an answer to a specific question.
  • Geographic Focus: as discussed above, keyword research is/was focused on understanding what terms/phrases/words target audiences in an organization’s geography were entering into traditional search vs. AI search tools to determine which phrases the target audiences were using most. With prompt research, there is far less geographic/physical-location focus, and it is far more difficult to obtain what questions individuals specifically in your geography are putting into an AI search tool, like ChatGPT, to get their question answered.
  • Ultimate Search Engine Optimization (SEO/GEO/AEO) Goal/Objective: Keyword research is all about helping an organization “rank well” in relevant search results fo relevant searches. Prompt research is about identifying the types of questions anyone anywhere is entering in an AI/answer engine that are either directly, tangentially, or very indirectly related to the products or services your organization offers.
  • How Research Is Used: Keyword research is used to inform the content that one includes on their website — whether it be post or page content — but particularly, the words used in/the phrasing of headers and subheaders, and behind-the-scenes meta/SEO tags. Prompt research is about identifying which content on your own website or a competitor’s website is being cited (linked to) by AI search engines, and therefore, being served up to “prompters” in the answer they spit back. This research can help inform the format and content nature of future blog posts or Q &A (housed in an FAQ website page). In addition, a different set of prompt research should be conducted to learn the exact phrasing/the nature of prompts that your target audiences are regularly putting into AI search/answer engines.
  • Tools Used To Conduct Research: Free and paid tools exist to conduct keyword research, and our team uses the free keyword planner tool in Google Ads to conduct such research. Prompt research involves the two types/branches described above and can be conducted by 1) adding the “first user source” dimension to your Google Analytics “pages and screens” report (see image below) and entering the names of various AI search engines, such as Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot, and Gemini, into the search query bar so you can see to which pages/posts on your site AI search engines are referring visitors. If you have a visitor coming to a specific post/page on your website, then the AI engine in-question must have cited (provided a link to) the website page or post in-question; and 2) using a paid tool like SEMRush which has a distinct “prompt research” tool within it to gather broader/more general target-audience prompt behavior, and therefore, behavior that goes on beyond your particular website.
This image is a print screen from a Google Analytics report where the page report has an added dimension of the first user source name so the user can see what AI search engine is referring traffic to which pages and posts of their website.

Need Help Conducting Prompt Research Or Keyword Research?

Reach out today for a complimentary discussion regarding keyword research and prompt research to support an overall SEO/AEO/GEO strategy!

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Our Journey With LLM Advertising: How To Optimize and Set Up ChatGPT Ads

We never like to recommend, or try to implement, a new form of online advertising, until we’ve tried/tested it with our own business. That way we can understand the pros and cons of running advertising on a new advertising vehicle, plus all the “inputs” we’ll need to provide to the tool to launch the campaign. That makes it easy to know what questions we need to ask of our clients related to a new ad campaign launch on a vehicle that is new to them, or what we need their approval on.

We waited to try this new vehicle until they offered pay-per-click (PPC) vs. just pay-per-impression (CPM) advertising because, quite frankly, most of clients are small-to-mid-sized businesses (SMBs) and nonprofits and they have far smaller marketing/advertising budgets than large firms and need their ads to really work for them and generate leads and sales vs. just awareness-generation!

This gray image that runs horizontally is a print screen of Results Communications & Research's ad running on ChatGPT and It is truncated but says "Looking For Expert Advice For Bein..Learn How We Help Organizations Appear in AI and Traditional Search..." and contain a small powder blue image that says "SEO."
Results Communications & Research’s ChatGPT Ad

As of the original publish date of this blog post, It’s been about 1.5 weeks since we rolled out ads for our own business, Results Communications & Research, on the ChatGPT LLM-powered (large-language-model-powered) answer engine/AI search platform. We’ve documented below — and will continue to document — our 2026 journey with this new form of online advertising. So, be sure to check back!

  • Days 1 & 2 (June 11 and June 12) – set up our ad and associated targeting for our campaign at ads.openai.com (ChatGPT is owned by OpenAI) — it was not a large lift at all! Needed to determine and document in OpenAI’s ad tool how much we were initially wanting to spend for a click (we initially put this at $3.50) and our daily budget ($25), plus in what geographies (Providence RI and Boston MA) we wanted the ads to appear. And, also provide context hints (OpenAI instructions explained this exercise this way: “describe the conversations, topics, or keywords where your products or services may be relevant; these hints guide matching, but aren’t exact-match targeting rules.” We also documented the images and content we wanted to use in our ads. We are testing two ads — one with longer and one with shorter headlines — but to keep something consistent, so we’d feel comfortable drawing conclusions about our headlines, we used the same image in both ads. We also had to share with the ad platform what page of our website we wanted ad clickers to land on (we created a brand new page on our WordPress website for such purposes — which is an online advertising best practice).
  • Day 2 (June 12) – launched our campaign by activating it in our OpenAI Ads dashboard.
  • Day 5 or 6 (June 15 or 16) – of course, being the digital marketing and analytics geeks that we are, we checked our advertising dashboard at openai.com countless times to see if the ads were being served up and generating impressions and/or clicks. Seeing zero movement on either the impressions or clicks front, we decided to expand our geography to NYC and our daily budget to $35 and what we were willing to spend for a click to $5.00, in case what we were willing to pay for a click (and the competition to have ads shown by competitors in the same geography for the same types of prompts) was causing the ads to not be shown or we needed a bigger geography to have enough opportunities for our ads to be shown to relevant “prompters” on ChatGPT.
  • Day 7 (June 17) – we saw in our advertising dashboard that our ChatGPT ads were starting to accrue impressions, and therefore, were being served up, but not to any great degree.
  • Day 8 (June 18) – we increased what we were willing to pay for a click to $7.50, and also added in the whole state of New Hampshire to our geographic targeting.
  • Day 9 (June 19) – seeing an alert in the OpenAI ads platform that we were often being outbid by competitors because of what we were willing to pay for a click, we increased our click bid to $10.00 from $7.50 – our first 2 clicks were achieved somewhere between the 18th and 19th, and at that point, our ads had a 0.66% click-thru rate (meaning less than 1% of individuals having our ad served up to them, clicked on it — not surprising for reasons outlined in the next bullet.)
  • Day 12 (June 22) – we just checked this morning and the increase in budget and what we are willing to spend for an ad click, plus the expanded geography seems to be paying off! As of this morning, our ChatGPT ads have generated 2,762 impressions (been served up that number of times), 13 clicks (a 0.47% click-thru rate), and an average cost-per-click of $6.44. We aren’t surprised by any of this. We had seen competitors running ChatGPT ads in our space when we were entering relevant prompts into ChatGPT, so we knew as a business-to-business advertiser we were more likely to have to pay more for a click than a business-to-consumer advertiser might. We also know that ChatGPT is a different animal than Google Search ads — the new form of ads discussed in this post is served up to individuals entering prompts into ChatGPT that might indicate they’d be interested in our services, but it’s not the same as someone entering “keywords” into Google and then Google serving up ads to those individuals because an advertiser provided those keywords as ones they wanted their ads to be served up for. We changed our daily budget to $50.00 today — we should have increased the daily budget a few days back in keeping with our increasing the amount we were willing to pay for a click! We also paused the shorter of our two ads since the longer ad was performing far better. To-date, we have not generated any leads — in the form of phone calls, e-mails, or appointment set-up — from these ads. We’re not discouraged by this at all, since, when it comes to a business engaging a firm for B2B services — or even reaching out to them — there can be a long lead time!
  • Day 17 (June 27) – we paused our ads today. Not because they weren’t generating impressions or clicks, but simply because we are a small marketing agency/SEO company who deliberately keeps our fees/rates very reasonable so that small businesses and nonprofits can afford to work with us. Going into this pilot, we planned to only spend about $300, but ended up letting the ads run until ChatGPT ads had spent $364.12, based on our daily budget and what we were willing to spend per click.

How Successful Was Our ChatGTP Ads Campaign?

Because businesses often take some time before purchasing business services, and therefore, like to research a number of companies before they decide to reach out to the one organization or the few organizations whom they are most interested in, we have yet to receive any inquiries from our ads, but still hope to get some inquiries from those who have clicked on the ads. At least we’ve generated some “awareness” among appropriate parties. We’ve also found in our many years of running online ads for our own business, that often, fellow marketing agencies/competitors click on our ads to see what we are offering and what we are all about. We did ensure our landing page for our ad clickers adhered to best practices, such as demonstrating why we are experts, including “social proof,” therefore, a review or testimonial, and much more!

Ultimately our ChatGPT ads yielded:

  • 11,321 impressions (this number of sets of eyeballs viewed our ads as part of entering an appropriate prompt into ChatGPT)
  • 46 clicks
  • 0.41% CTR (we aren’t concerned or scared off by this low click-thru rate — we’ve seen similar with Reddit and nextdoor.com ads
  • Average cost-per-click (CPC) of $7.92 – not horrible for a B2B (business-to-business) lead

As we recommended at the top of this blog post, keep coming back to learn more about our ChatGPT advertising journey! We’re all in this together when it comes to understanding this particular form of new advertising and how effective it will be in generating leads and sales, not just awareness, and if ROI makes sense for advertisers like our clients who need their ad $$ to work for them pretty quickly.

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What Does An SEO Audit Reveal?

One of the services we offer our clients — on both a one-off/one-time and monthly/ongoing basis is conducting an SEO audit that, then, allows us to make recommendations for what our client might do differently on the SEO (search engine optimization) front to be better found online by target audiences for relevant keywords (search terms) in relevant geographies.

What Can You Learn From An SEO Audit?

As we explained in this previous blog post about the mistake most people make when they manually conduct an SEO audit, your organization is better off hiring an SEO expert to conduct an audit, so that the results you get are unbiased. For most businesses/organizations, i.e., ones that have both a website and a Google My Business Profile, an SEO audit will provide information related to both your website and your Google My Business Profile, since Google may serve up either in search results (and as of the date of this post, the traditional Google search engine is still the one most used by search tool users, followed by YouTube, and ChatGPT.)

This image shows two hands of an older adult male peeling the skin off the onion.
Peeling Back An Onion Skin To See What Lies Beneath

Listed below is the information you can glean from having an SEO company or digital marketing agency, like ours, conduct an SEO audit for you:

  • what external websites and certain other digital properties (not owned by your organization/business) have links on them to your website, and therefore, are providing “referral” traffic via backlinks to your site — these may include other websites or discussion-forums like Reddit
  • as of the date of this post, any website traffic coming from searcher clicks on links to your website that appear in AI/chat/answer engine content is reported as referral traffic in Google Analytics, and information on how much traffic you’re getting from AI engines such as ChatGPT and Perplexity are included in an SEO audit
  • does your website and/or Google My Business Profile rank differently in Google in a particular geography for a particular keyword (search term), based on the device used by the searcher, i.e., mobile phone vs. desktop/laptop
  • what keywords your website and Google My Business Profile are ranking best for on Google and in what geographies
  • whether your Google My Business Profile or your website is being served up higher in search results in certain geographies for certain search terms — this will help you determine whether or not you should be putting more energy into getting your Google My Business Profile ranking better (you always want that to be served up for “near me” searches) and/or your website ranking better (ideally this would rank better for non-near-me terms)
  • missed SEO opportunities — these include best practices which haven’t been implemented by your organization, such as writing and entering SEO page title and meta description tags on your website platform/CMS for every page and post on your website, and writing an entering image alt-tags
  • mistakes/issues/challenges with your website that are likely causing it to be served up less than it could/should be in relevant geographies for relevant search terms, such as slow site load speed or broken links on your website
  • how much organic/search-engine traffic your website is getting from traditional search engines like Google, and how much website traffic you’re getting from AI search engines, and what traditional and/or AI search engines drove the most traffic to your website during the audit timeframe
  • what are the top 10-20 search keywords that Google is serving your website up most for
  • how many individuals are clicking on a link in your Google My Business Profile to arrive at your website
  • what are the most-viewed pages of your website
  • what pages of your website are being served up the highest in search results by Google
  • what marketing activities/vehicles are driving website traffic and what percentage of your overall website traffic is coming from AI or traditional search tools
  • what geographies/locations are your website visitors coming from
  • what devices do people use most to access your website, i.e., laptop/desktop vs. mobile

Hire An SEO Expert To Conduct Your SEO Audit

Want to learn more about our SEO audit services or ready to have us conduct an SEO Audit for you and to provide recommendations on SEO steps to take next, based on what the audit reveals? Reach out today to schedule a complimentary discussion about SEO audits.

Acceptance of Circumstances, Being Found On Bing, Being Found on Google, competitive advantage, keywords, marketing best practices, organic SEO, Search Engine Optimization, search terms, SEO, website

When You’ve Exhausted Your Starters, Let Your SEO Bench Step In

Anyone who’s interacted with me in a lot in the last five years knows that I’m a huge Boston Celtics fan. I started watching them during the pandemic and while they were playing in the “bubble.” I got hooked pretty quickly, and the rest is history. By the way, I also like the Boston Bruins and the Boston Red Sox , and have enjoyed watching both of the aforementioned teams for many years.

In fact, the Red Sox had my sports heart way before the Celtics did. But, since it’s still 2025 NBA playoff season, and my beloved Celtics recently endured a lot of hardship in the form of injured/ill players (which definitely played a role in their NBA Championship journey ending far sooner than fans hoped or expected), my sports-related analogy will be basketball-related vs. hockey- or baseball-related.

When To Bring In the SEO Back-ups: H2, H3, and Other Sub-headers

Anyone who knows SEO best practices and commonly accepted SEO wisdom knows it just makes good SEO sense to include high-volume keywords and questions in your public-facing website page and post titles, which usually take the form of what’s known as an “H1 header.” An H1 header is the first heading that appears in any website post or page. In the case of this blog post our H1 header is “When You’ve Exhausted Your Starters, Let Your SEO Bench Step In.”

Let’s say you’ve employed the above SEO tactic already, along with these other commonly known and respected SEO best practices, such as:

And, the above aren’t taking your site to where you want and need it to be, i.e., higher up in search-engine results for search terms and questions regularly entered into search engines by target audiences. Maybe, it’s time to give the players who get less play time, more play time! Call them what you will — the bench, the scrubs, the B team, etc. — these non-starters might be exactly what you need to help you score some SEO baskets, including 3 pointers!

This image was taken from Loge seats at a Boston Celtics game and shows the TD North Bank stadium packed with fans, but also the Celtics' players out on the court and the jumbotron.
Last Regular Season Celtics Game At TD Bank Garden, Boston

What Is An H2, H3, H4, etc. Header?

At Results Communications & Research, we like to refer to any headings that are used on a website page or in a blog post and aren’t the first/main header on the page as sub-headers. These are headers that appear below the primary header on the page, tend to be smaller in font size than the main header, are formatted as an H2, H3, H4, etc. header and are often used to break up and/or introduce content — making it easier for both readers and search-engines to consume/absorb the content that appears below the sub-header. The “What Is…” header directly above is formatted as an H3 header, and the “When To” header above that as an H2 header.

As the creator of any blog post or website page content, you will have to decide when to use H2 headers vs. H3 headers, etc. If a sub-header feels more like a sub-header of another sub-header, then it should use a header format that is lower in the header hierarchy (with H1 being 1st in the hierarchy).

Why Use H2, H3, H4 Sub-headers?

The reason to let the sub-headers take a chance at improving SEO game results is because they provide additional and new headings/headers for search engines like Google to crawl. This means they provide more detail and/or more opportunities for you to re-share previous information with search engines so they know what a website post or page is all about and when to serve it up in search results. It’s just one more way to make it easier for search engines to quickly and easily identify and understand when it should serve up a particular website post and page in response to a particular search query.

We’ll Always Bring Our A Team To Any Clients’ SEO Game

Regardless of encouraging you to clear your SEO header bench, we’ll always bring our A team, i.e., our starters, to any SEO discussion or engagement with you, so schedule a complimentary discussion of your marketing challenges and opportunities with us today!

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Are You Making These 3 Mistakes Related To Your Google My Business Profile?

As part of our organization’s organic SEO (search engine optimization) services, we ask to have access to a client’s Google My Business Profile, or at least have a chance to review the behind-the-scenes information/set-up with our SEO clients via a Zoom call where they access and share their Google My Business Profile dashboard.

Whether you want to think of it as a mistake or a missed opportunity, here’s three Google My Business capabilities you may be missing out on to get your organization ranking better locally on Google (remember, Google is more likely to serve up your Google My Business Profile vs. your website) for “near me” or “city/town” terms) :

  1. Providing Google with 20 services areas. Make sure you capitalize on these. And, remember, the further out your business is physically from the geography in which a searcher is searching on relevant terms, the less likely Google is to serve up your Profile, so keep any service areas you add to your Profile within a two-hour drive of your physical office, and ideally far less than two-hours.
  2. Identifying up to 10 business categories. You need to pick a primary category — a category of business that best describes your products and services, but you can pick 9 additional “secondary” categories. Right now, there are over 4,000 business categories in Google My Business from which you can select. And, Google keeps adding to the list, so even if you don’t see a category that fits a particular product or service you offer now, you should revisit your Profile information every 3 months or so to see if there are any new categories you can select that are appropriate to your business.
  3. Providing specific product or service lists underneath your various business categories that employ keywords (search terms) on which your target audience(s) may be searching. See example below where we listed our SEM (paid SEO/Google and Bing Ads) and organic SEO services under our primary business category.
This image shows information you can see within your Google My Business Profile dashboard. It shows an example of service listings that have been added under a primary business category in Google My Business. The primary business category says "Marketing agency" and underneath it there are service listings for "Local and Global (Organic) SEO and "SEM/Paid Search."

We Can Help You Optimize Your Google My Business Profile

Reach out today to learn more about our local SEO services! And, learn about another Google My Business best practice!

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A Day In The Life Of An SEO Consultant

If you’re considering a career in digital marketing, and particularly within that, a specialty or expertise in SEO (search engine optimization), read on to learn what a typical work day look likes.

How An SEO Consultant Starts Her Day

8:30a.m. – 9:30a.m.

Check/read (and send response e-mail) e-mails, which inevitably include the following:

  • Notifications from paid search (SEM) ad platforms (Google Ads or Microsoft (Bing) Ads) about:
    • Policy changes that have caused a Google or Bing Search Ad to be disapproved
    • Ad extensions and ads that have become disapproved because “page destinations” are no longer working (sometimes, clients of ours take down or move website pages to which site links (one form of ad extension/asset) point or ads point and forget to let me know that pages have been taken down, moved, etc.
    • Payment form (credit card) can’t be charged — therefore, the credit card information that a client provided to Google Ads or Microsoft Ads is no longer accurate/has changed
  • E-blasts and e-newsletters about SEO and invites to various SEO webinars and classes (due to the large # of search engine optimization experts we follow)
  • Client questions about how well their website is or isn’t ranking in search engines, particularly Google
  • Questions or comments from other marketing professionals with whom I collaborate, including social media specialists, branding/graphic design specialists, and website designers and developers
This is an image of Gail Snow Moraski, our Boston SEO Company's Founder/Owner Who Is An SEO Consultant. Gail has blonde shoulder length hair and is waring and orange crew-necked sweater that reads "Carpe Diem" She is wearing classes and smiling and is standing in front of a field of black-eyed Susans in her backyard.

9:30 a.m. – noon

  • Use Google Analytics data, Google Search Console data, paid search platforms, and SEO rankings audit reports to analyze and document KPIs (key performance indicators) for upcoming monthly/standing client meetings
  • Have a mid-to-late morning #SEOStrong snack, particularly one with lots of protein like swiss cheese or hummus because you definitely need a sharp brain and a lot of energy to do SEO work!
  • Employ “Answer The Public” and Google Ads keyword planner tools to conduct keyword research in relevant geographies using approved “inputs” from client about what terms they believe their target audiences would use to identify someone who offers the services, products, and solutions to problems they offer
  • Check client Google Ad and Microsoft Bing Ad campaigns (including Google Nonprofit Ad Grant ones) to see how they are performing, including reviewing cost-per-click (CPC) and click-thru rate (CTR); plus, review and apply or dismiss recommendations from Ad platform to improve optimization score, and check for appropriateness of “search terms” for which ad platforms are serving up ads.

12p.m. – 6:00p.m.

  • Review SEO diagnostics reports to determine possible website issues and/or missed SEO opportunities related to a particular client’s website ranking situation.
  • Facilitate client discussion about next steps/implications of their SEO rankings audit, diagnostics reports, and/or monthly KPIs. Where do we go from here to move the SEO needle and drive more relevant searchers to the client’s website in the month ahead?
  • Write a blog post for my own website or for a client website to support SEO by addressing topics and answering questions that are important to clients, but also to show search engines, that the website in-question is being kept “fresh”
  • Write and enter SEO page/post title tags (this might be in WIX, GoDaddy, Joomla, WordPress, Expression Engine, or a propriety software such as a CMS platform used in a particular industry), and submit the revised pages/posts for indexing by Google and/or Bing using Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster tools.

7:00p.m. – 8:30pm

Check e-mail again and/or continue to complete client SEO work of the nature outlined above. Being an SEO consultant is not just a 9 to 5 job!

Considering Hiring An SEO Consultant/SEO Expert?

Reach out today to schedule a complimentary discussion about your particular organization’s marketing challenges and opportunities!

alt-tags, Being Found On Bing, Being Found on Google, Blog, Blogging, Consulting, Google Ads, keywords, lead generation, marketing consultant, meta tags, online advertising, online presence, organic SEO, paid search, Quora, Reddit, Search Engine Optimization, search terms, SEM, SEO, SEO tags, technical SEO, Uncategorized

What Is An SEO Consultant?

While I’ve referred to myself and my business as a marketing consultant or marketing consulting firm, it never struck me that individuals would use the term “SEO consultant” to refer to someone who offers the SEO services (search engine optimization services) that I and my firm does.

Just by chance, while conducting some keyword research for a client that offers business and management consulting services, I stumbled across the term and the average monthly search volume for it. Did you know that 27,100 individuals a month, across the whole U.S., search on this term in Google? That’s a lot of searches on an annual basis!

So, I’m using this blog post as an example of how you can write a blog post to support being found for a term relevant to your business and services you offer, but also to explain to individuals who are searching on the term, what “SEO Consultant” means and what an SEO Consultant does.

An SEO Consultant is an individual or firm who can help your organization be found on Google and on other search engines for relevant terms, and in relevant geographies.

This is a square gray image with black and turquoise and blue text which reads "Did You Know That There Are Consultants Whose Sole Or Primary Focus Is To Help Your Organization Be Found in Search-Engine Results Listings By Your Target Audiences? They Are Known As: SEO Consultants. The image also contains the logo of our Boston SEO Company, Results Communications and Research.

So, What Exactly Do SEO Consultants Do?

Every SEO consultant’s approach to SEO is likely slightly different, but, in general, SEO consultants not only help your website rank well “organically (via unpaid/non-advertising tactics)” in search engines, but also your Google My Business Profile or Bing Places Profile (collectively referred to in this post going forward as “Business Profiles”). In addition, they may also help you identify presences you can have on social media platforms and discussion forums, like Reddit and Quora, to support your organization being found in search engines, since social media presences and discussion threads can also be served up in search results — not just your website or Business Profiles.

We believe that, ideally an SEO assessment to arrive at an SEO state-of-the union (an understanding of how your website and Business Profiles already support or don’t support your being found on search engines) should be completed first. Hey, we and you don’t want to break something that’s already working and doesn’t need fixing, right? That, should, then, be followed by implementation of various SEO tactics and best practices, based on what the audit/assessment reveals is warranted and appropriate.

Step 1: Initial SEO Assessment/SEO State-of-the-Union Evaluation

To achieve the objectives above, common initial activities that an SEO consultant may complete to arrive at an SEO state-of-the-union include, but are not limited to:

  • Conducting keyword research to identify what terms your target audiences are searching on most to identify someone who offers the services, products, and solutions to problems your organization offers — and in the right geographies.
  • Employing website diagnostics tools to run reports that assess how well your website employs best practices, including what’s known as technical SEO practices (think your website performing well and loading quickly), and provides for a good user experience.
  • Reviewing what’s known as your “behind-the-scenes” meta tags to ensure that they inform search engines and searchers what your website is all about.
  • Analyzing your Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Bing Webmaster data to see what percentage of your website traffic comes from search engines, and for what terms Google and Bing are serving up your website most.
  • Conducting an SEO rankings audit to see just how well your Google My Business Profile and website rank on Google, and how well your website ranks on Bing.

Step 2: SEO Tactic Implementation To Address Areas For SEO Improvement Revealed By An SEO Assessment

Once the analyses listed above are completed, an SEO consultant will come up with a list of one-off/one-time SEO tactics and ongoing/regular/monthly tactics that should be implemented to support your website and various Business Profiles ranking better, plus your organization being found more online. These may include, but are not limited to the following:

One-Off/One-Time SEO Tactics To Support Being Found On Search Engines

  • Making your Bing Places and/or Google My Business Profiles (Business Profiles) more comprehensive.
  • Rewriting, or if they are missing, writing your meta tags for various website content (pages, posts, and images), and implementing and/or working with you or your website developer to implement them on your website.
  • Suggesting and/or writing new blog, FAQ, or website content to support your site ranking better in search-engines for certain high-volume keywords (search terms.)
  • Submitting any revised website pages and posts for indexing/crawling by Google and Bing by using Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster tools.
  • Developing and implementing paid search/search-engine advertising via Google Ads, Microsoft Bing Ads, or both, for organizations who don’t have the luxury of the long window required to rank better in search results, and need to rank well immediately!

Ongoing SEO Tactics — Since SEO Is Not A One And Done Marketing Activity!

  • Posting content regularly, including new blog post links, on Business Profiles
  • Writing, or making suggestions for blog topics, plus ensuring meta tags are appropriate and new website blog content is submitted for crawling/indexing by Bing and Google
  • Using Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster, and SEO rankings audit tools and diagnostic reports to monitor how your website and aforementioned Business Profiles are ranking in search-engines and making regular recommendations about tactics to improve rankings, as necessary

Speak With An SEO Optimization Consultant To Learn More

Want to learn more how we help and collaborate with organizations to ensure their websites, Business Profiles and other online presences are optimized for search? Reach out today to schedule a complimentary, no-obligation discussion with an SEO consultant!

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To Continue To Succeed At SEO, “You’re Going To Need A Quality Shoe”

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Mark Knopfler fans will understand where the quoted phrase in our blog headline comes from. I was first introduced to Mark’s wonderful storytelling abilities by my husband, Jay, when we were dating or first married. One of Mark’s songs that I first took a great liking to was his song “Quality Shoe.” Be prepared for the earworm that comes from wanting to listen to this song over and over!

“Quality Shoe” by Mark Knopfler YouTube video

What Do Shoes Have To Do With SEO?

The answer to the question above is this: a great deal!

As we’ve called out in a number of blog posts over the past year, the SEO landscape continues to shift — and on a daily basis. As we recently expressed in this blog post about thriving — not just surviving — in the SEO jungle, it’s our belief at our Boston SEO Company/digital marketing agency that the organizations who will continue rank well in search-engine results, despite all the change on the search-engine front, are those that really try to walk in their target audiences’ shoes and answer the questions and concerns they have. And, keep in mind, that these questions and concerns may be related to the product or service the organizations who succeed at SEO offer, or they may be unrelated, or only distantly related.

Sure, as we discussed in another blog post about succeeding at SEO, entitled “Give The People What They Want, you can use keyword research tools to determine on which topics, particularly questions, your target audiences are regularly conducting Google searches. But part of walking in your target audiences’ shoes also includes:

  • digging down deep mentally and emotionally to really understand your marketplace and your organization’s place in it
  • making and taking the time to think about what are the likely questions your target audiences have about your products or services, plus, about working with/buying from/engaging your organization
  • brainstorming with individuals at all levels of your organization, particularly those who are in customer-service roles, or who actually provide or deliver your product or service, to determine what client “pain points” your product or service addresses
  • reaching out to customers with whom you have a strong and longstanding relationship to ask them for feedback about why they chose to work with your organization or buy your product, and how the product or service has made their life or job easier
  • In addition to chatting with your organization’s staff and clients about the problems your products or services solve and using those to inform website and other online content your organization publishes, as part of such internal and external discussions, ask about other pains/challenges your target audiences deal with regularly (even if you don’t offer a solution to them). Simply providing helpful information online on topics or questions that are tangential to your products or services, but important to your target audiences, is a great way to have search engines serve up your website or Google My Business Profile in related to searches being conducted by your target audiences even if they aren’t directly related to your organization. It’s a win-win.

So, break out those quality shoes and start the walking-in-your-clients’-shoes process today! And, check out this blog post that speaks to another reason you and your organization are “going to need some quality shoes.”

Plus, if you’re an avid walker (literally vs. figuratively) like us, check out our many blog posts about walking by selecting walking as your category when you visit our blog.

Need Help Determining What Online Content Would Benefit Your Target Audiences?

Schedule a complimentary SEO discussion today!

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Three Website Meta Tags That Still Matter In The Game Of SEO

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Let’s dive right in about the three website meta tags that we believe, and are witnessing, still matter in the game of SEO (search engine optimization).

#1: SEO Page Title Tags And SEO Post Title Tags

In countless posts about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), we’ve talked about how important it is for organizations to use appropriate high-volume keywords and geographic “triggers” in their behind-the-scenes meta SEO page title and meta SEO post title tags.

Some digital marketers may believe that tagging pages and posts appropriately to be found on Google in relevant geographies is far less important with the introduction of AI search tools, including Google SGE. Of course, that could always become the case down the road, but based on what we’re currently seeing related to one-off and ongoing SEO-tactic implementation and Google rankings audits we continue to complete, we continue to believe that constructing your SEO tags appropriately and entering them in the appropriate spot in your website CMS (content management system) is extremely important to achieving optimal SEO results. Whether it be via WordPress plug-ins like Yoast or AllInOneSEO (the SEO plug-in we use on our site) or capabilities that come with a Web Builder platform like WIX or GoDaddy — entering page and post title tags is one of the most critical, if not the most-critical of SEO steps to take if you want your website to rank well for relevant, desirable search terms used by your target audiences in relevant geographies.

We always like to say “SEO Page and SEO Post Title Tags are your most important piece of SEO real estate.” They tell Google what a particular page of your site or blog post is all about, including the products and services you offer, and where you offer them. As Google crawls/indexes your website it looks for direction and information about the former from your site. And, now, unlike 5 years ago, these tags are likely to be included in reader-facing search-engine results (plus, they appear in website visitors’ browsers), so it’s important to get these right! And, It’s worth hiring an expert like our SEO company, Results Communications, to ensure your website title tags are optimized to achieve the best possible Google rankings results.

This is a gray square image with a dark powder blue text that reads "3 Website Meta Tags That Still Matter In The Game Of SEO (Being Found On Google." It includes the following bulleted list: SEO Page & Post Title Tags, Meta Description Tags, Image Alt Tags

#2 Meta Description Tags

The above tags may or may not be included in the description (lines of text) that Google serves up in a search engine results listing along with a link to your website since, as mentioned above, Google will likely include your SEO page/post title tag now, plus pull other snippets of content from your site. We used to say that, “meta descriptions don’t directly influence how organizations’ websites rank in Google.” But rather, that they indirectly influence it because if meta description content/copy is compelling and includes a call-to-action like “learn why SEO page title tags are your most important piece of SEO real estate” or “read why you shouldn’t expose yourself to blue light before bed,” more individuals will be likely to click on the link to your website that accompanies such content.

And the above-mentioned, in turn, drives more traffic to your website. And, Google gives preference to serving up higher-traffic-volume sites in its search results because it likes to serve up the most creditable sites, and Google uses traffic volume as an indicator of a site’s positive reputation/credibility.

What Is Website Click-thru Rate (CTR)?

It’s important to note that we’ve recently read that Google does now take into consideration a website’s click-thru-rate (CTR) when deciding how to rank various competing websites. Per Google’s own AI overview related to this, “Google uses CTR as a signal of how engaging and reader-friendly content is, and it can indicate how well a website is performing in terms of SEO and user engagement. High CTRs can tell search engines that people like what a website has to offer, which can help it rank higher in search results.” So what is the CTR and how can you find out what yours is?

Your website CTR represents the percentage of search-engine searchers who, after having a listing with a link to your website served up to them in search-engine results, actually click on the link to visit your website.

Since Google still reigns by far as the most-used search-engine, it’s most important to understand your website CTR as pertains to Google searchers who are searching on relevant terms in your desired geography. As the below print screen taken from Google Search Console shows, you can get information on your website click-thru rate using your Google Search Console account (reach out to us if you need help setting up a Google Search Console account or understanding the value of having one).

#3: Image Alt Tags

Like the other two types of website meta tags, we’ve talked about image alt tags in previous posts, including this blog post about the need to tag website infographics so that visually impaired site visitors can have these tags read to them by their screen reader.

We recently conducted an audit to try to assess why a professional-services client’s website wasn’t ranking as well in Google as some of their competitors. The audit revealed a key differentiator between the client’s website and their competitors was that the competitors’ sites had higher website diagnostic scores related to accessibility.

Accessibility impacts user experience, without a doubt, and Google continues to place great emphasis on user experience when deciding which websites to serve up first for various search terms in various geographies, so it stands to reason Google would reward “accessible” websites from a user-experience standpoint.

We encourage all of our clients to make ‘n take the time to write effective alt-tags that make their website a positive user experience for ALL website visitors, including those challenged by disability — not just because this activity supports SEO, but because it’s the right, human thing to do.

Let Us Write Or Rewrite (Revise) Your Meta Tags To Support Being Found On Google

Our team has years and years of experience writing/constructing optimized SEO tags to support websites being found on Google. Reach out today to learn how we can help with putting the right meta tags in place on your website!

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Why Our Boston-Area Digital Marketing Agency Specializes In SEO

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As we were pleased and proud to share in a spring 2024 blog post about our Boston digital marketing agency’s and SEO company’s 10-year anniversary, Results Communications & Research has been serving for-profit and non-profit clients for more than 10 years!

After 30 years working in corporate roles, and many of them in marketing and marketing leadership, our Principal, Gail Snow Moraski, decided to launch a digital marketing agency that would allow small business owners and nonprofits the same breadth/depth of experience they’d get from a larger marketing or adverting agency, but at lower rates, and more personal attention.

From corporate roles, our Principal knew a decent amount about paid SEO (Google Ads) because of working with ad agencies (for whom she was a client) on various campaigns, but her knowledge of organic SEO (search engine optimization) was fairly limited. Since she’s always been a very technical and analytical person — characteristics that are required to really succeed at both paid SEO and organic SEO — needing to slice ‘n dice data and use technical skills really appealed to her. So she set out to better educate herself on both organic SEO (tactics that support ranking well in search engine results without paying for a media/advertising buy) and paid SEO (search engine marketing/SEM).

Gail’s first marketing job after completing her MBA with a marketing concentration at Boston University was at a market research firm where she oversaw market research studies for well-known consumer brands. She loves “peeling back the onion,” to see what the data reveals and that’s an exercise she does all day long related to all of the following activities (and many more!):

  • Conducting and analyzing keyword research using Google Ads keywords planner tool or Keywords Everywhere Chrome extension
  • Employing website diagnostic and SEO ranking audit tools to access whether or not an organization’s Google My Business Profiles and/or website are ranking well in Google search results for relevant terms in desired geographies
  • Making and/or recommending organic SEO revisions to websites and Google My Business Profiles, or revisions to Google Ads campaigns, and assessing how those revisions impacted results
  • Employing various digital marketing accounts like Google Analytics (GA4 Analytics), Google Search Console, and Google Analytics to obtain and analyze data to inform current and future marketing strategy and activities.

Plus, per our recent blog post, “Is Social Media Worth It?,” our Principal has always been a bit apprehensive about organizations relying too heavily on social media posts to move the marketing & sales needle. Based on years of analyzing Google Analytics website visitor data and behavior for a diverse mix of clients, our experience has been that social media posts, in most cases, do not generate sales, leads, or inquiries. There are exceptions to this, particularly when it comes to consumer goods and service organizations, but we’ve seen many an organization invest a very disproportionate amount of their marketing $$ and time in social media post creation and scheduling when very little, if any new business, is generated from it. Should all organizations maintain a social media presence of some sort? Sure. You want your organization to be viewed as “relevant,” and social media also creates awareness, the first step in the sales cycle, but don’t expect social media to move mountains.

Given the above, Our Principal wanted to focus our energy and time for clients on marketing activities that most move the sales needle and has always believed that, as long as your products, services, and solutions are ones that research shows individuals are searching to find, why not put a good chunk of your marketing $$ and time in being found by those individuals since they are “hot” leads?

And, quite honestly, our Principal also saw that offering Google Ads campaign set-up, monitoring, optimizing, reporting, and analysis, plus organic SEO services related to employing best practices to support websites and Google My Business Profiles ranking well in Google, separated her from a number of other marketing consultants and small marketing agencies who didn’t offer such services, or have such knowledge.

Let Us Bring Our Passion For SEO To Helping Your Organization Be Found On Google (and other search engines, of course!)

We can regularly be seen on LinkedIn responding to SEO conversations, and we read everything we can get our hands on about SEO. We also passed a number of Google Ads certification exams. Plus, as mentioned above, we constantly test and evaluate ideas for getting our own Google My Business Profile and website, and well as those of our clients, ranking higher in relevant search results. Let us bring that passion, knowledge, and expertise to your organization’s SEO efforts. Reach out today to schedule a complimentary discussion with us about your marketing challenges and opportunities!