Blog Posts

Image with copyright text in the center. Chat bubbles extending out noting copyrighted materials.

Copyrighted Material: Do NOT Copy

Posted on

When first starting in the land of digital, it’s easy to grab some photos off the internet and post them on your website. After all, anyone who has social media does exactly that. It’s encouraged to share memes, photos, funny stories, quotes, etc. Most everything is meant to be shared these days; that must mean anything is up for grabs, right?
Unfortunately, no.

Unique Content

When it comes to creating a website, content is king. No matter how you feel about Bill Gates, he was 100% correct in stating that fact. Original content is necessary when setting up your website. Not only is it illegal to use copyrighted material, or use images without permission, Google knows when you plagiarize. Google indexes millions of websites every day; therefore, it can recognize when a site has been plagiarized and ding you for it. There are plenty of writers that would be happy to write copy for your site. Don’t where to look? Start with TextBroker.com, Upwork.com, or Articlez.com.

Free & Paid Images

Using images without permission can also get you into a sticky situation. It can cost thousands of dollars in fees if you are caught using an image without permission. Stock images are easy to find and cheap to purchase, if not free! iStock.com, Shutterstock.com, and Dreamstime.com are all great “paid-sites” to buy stock photos from. They offer monthly subscriptions, as well as individual credits. Places like Pexels.com, Pixabay.com, or even Canva.com are excellent resources to find “free use” photos. They do ask for a small donation to the owner of the images, but it is not required. Just remember, they’re trying to make a living too! You can also take your own photos; remember to take them landscape and not portrait as computer screens are already set up in “landscape” mode.

 

 

Copyrighted Material

Not only will you be better off in Google’s eyes because of your unique content, but you’ll also stand out from your competition. You created your business because of something you have to offer that everyone else doesn’t. That should be reflected on your website. Digital Bombers is happy to help you in growing your digital presence. Contact us today, and let’s make it happen!

Google Business Listing logo under a magnifying glass against a blue backgorund.

Google Business Listings: What?

Posted on

Get On the Map with Google Business Listings

When people search locally (i.e., “privacy fence Lexington KY”), Google’s first page displays a map with three businesses listed. These listings are what’s call a Google Business listing (also known as Google My Business, or GMB for short). The first page of Google captures 71% of search traffic. It’s easy to fill out a GMB and get your business verified. Google wants your basic information – where are you located, your hours, what products/services do you offer, etc. They even include a one-page website to populate if you want. They don’t tell you what you need to do to get your business listed in the top three on the map, which you need to snag that 71% of traffic.

Digital Bombers has a tried-and-true plan for building out GMB listings:

Google Business Listing Optimization

Complete Google micro-site build-out

Add directory listings

Build your Google Reviews

Add 360 photos

Digital Bombers will optimize your listing, adding posts, photos, products, and services. The microsite build-out focuses on keywords related to your business. Directory listings drive local visibility, and one of the tools we use generates positive Google Reviews.

Our 360 Photos

360 Photo of Hartland Park in Lexington, KY.

The 360 photos layer your business into multiple Google applications. We upload 360 photos through Google Street View, manually linking the images back to your Google Business Listing; we optimize the listing in both applications. Our 360-degree camera is unique. This specialty camera provides users with a virtual perspective of your business. Searchers using 360 photos have the feeling they are standing inside your business space. Companies not offering a physical location to customers can still optimize their listing with an exterior 360 photo. Our camera provides a flawless 360-degree image, all of which we can do for you to prevent any issues stitching pictures together.

How We Can Help

When you bring Digital Bombers on to optimize your Google Business Listing, you are 75% more likely to land on the first page of local search results. Be sure to check out our SEO services to get your website listed on Google’s first page. An organic website listing AND a map pack listing puts your business in TWO of the 13 spots available on the top search results page. Landing in the top three spots will give you a 700% increase in clicks than brands outside the pack. Contact us today to get this party started.

Person in light blue shirt holding cellphone, resting their arms on a table top.

AMP up Your Mobile Pages

Posted on

 

One way to attract and retain customers is to give them the information they need, when and where they need it. To really embrace this mindset, businesses need to make sure they’ve got a strategy for each of their channels, taking advantage of the pros and cons of each channel. We’d like to talk about how you can specifically optimize your mobile view.

 

Speed Rules

 

Mobile users are looking for speed—they want their search results fast, and they want the pages they visit to load ASAP. Data shows that around 40% of users will only give a page three seconds to load, any longer, and they’ll go to another site.

Speed also sets you up for search success. Pages that load quickly get more views and a lower bounce rate; users are also more likely to visit other pages. Sites with higher traffic and lower bounce rate earn Google’s “stamp of approval”—a higher ranking.

 

AMP Up Your Pages

 

So how do you make sure your pages are loading quickly? We recommend using Google’s Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP) framework. For WordPress sites, there is already a plug-in to make your site AMP-compatible. For non-WordPress sites, you’ll need to check out Google’s AMP help.

 

Give Users a Better Experience

 

The AMP plug-in pares your mobile pages down to the bare essentials, which dramatically speeds up the time it takes to load. Your users quickly get what they need, because loading isn’t slowed down by unnecessary (and distracting) elements, like a nav menu, forms, popups, and even a header image.

 

Easily Track Your Users

 

As much as user experience matters, we understand that many businesses are looking for something more concrete. Fortunately, AMP has analytical tools that make it easy to see how your AMP-optimized site is doing. You can track how many people are coming to your website, how many are new visitors, how many are repeat visitors, and maybe most importantly, you can track clicks/conversions.

 

Make Your Ads Work Harder

 

If you’re running a blog or site that hosts third-party ads, you can use the AMP-ads functionality to quickly ensure the ads on your site load and catch the user’s eye. In addition, since AMP-optimized pages don’t load distractions that compete for your user’s attention (like nav menu or header element), the ads are more likely to earn a click.

 

How to Get Started

 

Want to start optimizing your mobile pages? Digital Bombers can help you take advantage of AMP. If you’d like to implement it yourself, we recommend checking out AMPProject.org for information on how you can get started.

May Contain: Gold Visa and Mastercard credit cards that have fallen victim to identity theft.

Are You Safe from Identity Theft?

Posted on

Ahhhh, the holidays are coming up. Time with family and friends, great food, nothing could interrupt the good times, right? Maybe. Last year I was at the mall doing some last minute shopping and someone had an RFID scanner in the crowd so they picked up my debit card info and wiped my checking account out. Not a fun way to spend the holidays especially without identity theft protection.

Recently, a co-worker had to take a few days off because her husband’s identity was stolen. He woke up one morning and was checking on their finances before going to work and noticed several thousand dollars missing from all of their accounts. Needless to say, it took quite a bit of time to get things back on track. From meeting with the bank to fill out paperwork to having to wait for new cards so they could set up new payment methods with their subscription services, any time this happens, it takes up quite a bit of time.

Following that incident, the Equifax data breach was in the news. If it can happen to a company that large, it can happen to any of them. “I’m safe because my bank monitors things for me.” That may be true for your bank accounts, but who is monitoring your driver’s license number? Your email addresses? Your passport number?

What is a service like that worth?

There are several companies out there who offer full identity theft protection but how do you know which one is right for you and your family?

After doing some extensive research, we recommend ID Shield to offer identity theft protection for $9.99/month for a single person or $19.95/month for a family plan. This covers everything that needs to be monitored. Best of all, it’s backed by Kroll. Kroll is the company that all the major insurance companies use to back their claims. Setup is a breeze and they start monitoring everything as soon as you enter the information on the site.