You may have heard it said that “Citation services are a secret SEO marketing tool.” In 2016 it’s true. Citation services are incredibly effective, incredibly important and incredibly overlooked. Because so few businesses even know where to begin with citation services, we recently conducted a short webinar where we let the cat out of the bag and shed some light on what citation services are—and why they are important.

While the benefits of video advertising are well-stated, many business owners remain reluctant to embrace YouTube and other video advertising opportunities. The most common objection is price. It is widely believed that effective video advertising requires professional-level film equipment, advanced video editing technology, and potentially even space at a real recording studio. None of this is the case, and in fact many business owners make successful YouTube ads using simply their iPhones and some basic editing software. For those looking to dive head-first into video advertising, the DIY method really does tend to work well.

This has always been a basic concept of retail: You’re not going to sell any products if nobody knows that your store exists. This was true in the brick and mortar era, and it’s still true today. Online stores can have perfect business models, outstanding products, incredible prices, and amazing customer service—but if the store itself is not well marketed and made highly visible, it’s simply not going to do well. It is imperative that ecommerce merchants do anything they can to make sure people are aware of their store.

The layman might assume that Google is a fairly static, non-changing entity—but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Actually, Google’s search engineers are constantly tweaking and revising the algorithms to provide users with a better search experience. Most of these adjustments are exceedingly minor, but some of them are significant—and one of the most significant Google search updates in recent memory is the one known as Penguin.

The Internet can be a dangerous place, and we all know it. For as much as we take online communication for granted, we’ve all seen the reports about online scams, malware, information theft, disreputable e-commerce merchants… the list goes on and on. The point is, consumers know that they have to be careful with the websites they frequent, and especially with the websites they entrust with their credit card information. As a business owner, the onus is on you to create a site that exudes this trust, and that makes it easy for consumers to feel comfortable with your online offerings.

If you pay any attention at all to what’s going on in the world of SEO, you’re probably familiar with accelerated mobile pages—or, as they are more commonly known, AMP. For the uninitiated, here’s a speedy synopsis: AMP is effectively a coding language that allows for websites to be designed with speed in mind, ensuring that, when the site is opened on a mobile device, it loads quickly. AMP matters because more and more search engine queries are happening on mobile devices, and users don’t want to wait for their content to load; Google, meanwhile, takes loading times into consideration when determining rankings, and AMP content is now being indexed by Google’s algorithms—meaning it’s a good way to enhance your website’s mobile SEO.

Facebook is all about connecting—connecting individuals to their friends and family members, but also connecting brands to their consumer base. Actually, using Facebook to facilitate meaningful brand interactions has become increasingly difficult for small business owners because Facebook has made a number of changes that put small companies at a disadvantage. For one thing, recent algorithmic shifts favor personal Facebook pages over business accounts—meaning the posts from a small business page are less visible than they used to be. In addition, Facebook continues to emphasize the need for paid ads in addition to winsome content, which means that small companies looking to expand their reach often feel as though they must up their budget to do so.

Having your company website redesigned can be exciting, but also a bit nerve-wracking. While the thought of a sleek new presentation is certainly appealing, there is also the possibility for miscommunication and frustration. This can be mitigated and even avoided, of course, by simply ensuring clarity in expectations. To do this, you’ll need to be willing to ask specific and pointed questions of your Web designer—but what kinds of questions should you be asking, exactly?

Email is a critical platform for marketing and outreach, something that most business owners are well aware of. You put attention and care into the marketing emails you send, and hope that each message is actually read. Of course, it doesn’t always happen that way. In fact, some emails never make it to customer inboxes at all—not because of a technical mishap, but because the sender has been blacklisted.

If you’re like most search engine users, you conduct a lot of search queries that include the phrase “near me.” Seeking out close-by businesses is one of the most common uses of online search, so it goes without saying that local businesses need to optimize for these queries. The troubling reality is that many businesses don’t optimize for local search queries, however, which means they forfeit opportunities to be discovered by local consumers.