What You Need To Know About Google’s AI Overview Feature Learn More
312-285-2489
Get Started

What's New

Marketing Insights For Your Practice. Find out more
about what's new in Search Engine Optimization.

hero

Why Updating Old Blogs Is Crucial for Your Content Strategy

While fresh content is essential, revisiting and updating old blogs can offer substantial benefits. Here’s why refreshing existing content should be a...

Learn More

Seasonal Marketing Tips for Home Service Businesses

As the leaves start changing colors and a crisp takes over the air, homeowners begin thinking about preparing their homes for the...

Learn More

What are UTMs?

UTMs (Urchin Tracking Modules) are snippets of text, or code, added to the end of a URL that identify tracking parameters allowing...

Learn More

How to Design a Website That Converts

Imagine having a website that turns visitors into loyal customers. It's not just a dream—it's achievable with the right design. A high-converting...

Learn More

Optimize Your Website for Voice Search

Have you ever asked your phone a question? If so, you're among the growing number of people using voice search, which is...

Learn More

What is Google E-E-A-T & Why it Matters for Your SEO Strategy

In the ever-evolving world of digital marketing, success depends on staying ahead of the curve rather than just riding it. it’s important...

Learn More

The Strategic Advantage of Hiring A Digital Marketing Agency

The online medium continues to evolve. Small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) face unique challenges in establishing and maintaining a robust online presence. In this...

Learn More

Why Website Speed Matters for SEO

In today's fast-paced digital world, every second counts; strike that, every millisecond counts. Imagine clicking on a website and waiting several seconds...

Learn More

How Blogs Humanize Your Brand

Showcase the Heartbeat of Your Brand Making a genuine connection with your audience is more important than ever. One of the best...

Learn More

Mastering Social Media Advertising Across Key Platforms

Effective social media advertising is important for businesses aiming to boost engagement and connect with their target audiences. Each platform offers unique...

Learn More

Google Ad Extensions: 12 Ad Assets to Boost Your Campaign Performance

Imagine your ads capturing the attention of potential customers like never before. Ad extensions can transform your Google Ads, making them more...

Learn More

Google’s Search Document Leak: 11 Ranking Factors to Pay Attention to

In March 2024, the SEO community discovered an unprecedented leak of documents that originate from Google’s internal Content API Warehouse. This cache...

Learn More

The Future of Search is Here: Google Tests AI-Powered Results with Ads (and What it Means for Your Business)

Exciting news! Google is exploring a new way to connect users with information and businesses like yours. They're testing the integration of...

Learn More

Which Performance Max Audience Delivers The Highest Quality Lead?

Opportunity: Performance Max represents Google's cutting-edge campaign type designed to empower advertisers in reaching users across multiple Google Channels, including Google Search,...

Learn More

Customized SEO Deliverables: The Key to Success

Our Proven, ROI-Driven SEO Strategy In the ever-evolving digital landscape, search engine optimization (SEO) is pivotal in driving organic traffic to websites....

Learn More

2024 Digital Marketing Trends to Watch For in the Trades

With the digital marketing arena continually evolving, 2024 holds promise for groundbreaking shifts in strategy and approach, especially for businesses involving home...

Learn More

5 Quick-Win Link Building Strategies for Business

Boost Your Domain Authority There are so many aspects of your website that affect your SEO (search engine optimization) that it can...

Learn More

Micro-Moments: How to Win the “I Want It Now” Moments

What are micro-moments in marketing? Micro-moments are intent-rich moments where consumers turn to their smartphones and Google Search in order to satisfy an instant want. These moments can be broken down into four main groups: I want to know The consumer is researching a product or service but is not necessarily ready to buy. I want to go The consumer is searching for locations near them. This often comes in the form of “near me” or city-specific searches. I want to do The consumer needs new information in...

Learn More

Can TikTok Help Your Business?

If you haven’t heard of TikTok by now, it is an iOS and Android app that is used for creating and sharing...

Learn More

How to Recognize a Phishing Scam

We’ve all been there: mindlessly scrolling through our email only to see an unexpected message in your inbox. The subject may be...

Learn More

Determining a Smart Marketing Budget

Business owners are often asking themselves how much to budget for marketing expenses. While the answer varies from business to business, there...

Learn More

Bid Like a Pro with Automated Bidding

Let’s discuss an innovation that your business needs to more effectively compete in the Google advertising race: automated bidding. What is Automated...

Learn More

Responding to Your Google Reviews

Any business that is hoping to attract new customers knows the importance of having a great rating online. Consumers who are looking...

Learn More

Creating Ad Campaigns in a Variety of Languages

Engaging with your customers in their primary language helps to establish long term meaningful relationships. Writing content is an opportunity to show...

Learn More

Email Marketing Made Simple

Email marketing is a cost-effective way to promote your business and connect with your customers. It allows you to get up-to-date messages...

Learn More

The Value of Call-Only Ads

As the mobile landscape continues to expand, it is essential to cater your digital advertising efforts to a mobile format. When it...

Learn More

The Many Benefits of Facebook Advertising

With 2.60 billion monthly active users, Facebook’s audience is hard for marketers to ignore. In March 2020 alone, Facebook reported 5.7 million...

Learn More

Industries & COVID-19

Here at EM Search Consulting, we are closely monitoring our clients and how COVID-19 has affected them. In addition to our individual...

Learn More

Is it Time to Ramp Up Your Marketing?

Although many businesses may be experiencing some uncertainties in the short-term, one thing all business owners can and should do now is...

Learn More

$100 Million in Small Business Grants from Facebook!

To help boost small businesses negatively impacted by the current situation, Facebook announced earlier this week they will be giving away $100...

Learn More

Online Behaviors Are Changing – Here’s What You Can Do.

The stay at home order has brought about many challenges for small businesses and EMSC remains committed to ensuring the health of...

Learn More

Beware of Phishing Schemes

Many cybercriminals and scammers use phishing schemes, which involve email or text messages that trick you into giving them your personal information....

Learn More

Social Media Advertising with EMSC

The most compelling way to expand the reach of your business’ social media profiles and grow the number of people following them...

Learn More

The Value of Good UI/UX Design

User experience and user interface design is the umbrella that contains everything from research and planning through the designs and animations of...

Learn More

Why Your Business Needs Google Search Ads

For many businesses, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising on Google’s Search Network is the fastest and most cost-effective way to get in front of...

Learn More

The Importance of a Quick, Modern and Responsive Website

Every second counts! Don’t let that brand new customer or new patient not give you a call because your website didn’t load fast...

Learn More

Updating Your Digital Marketing Strategy for 2020

One thing that we can always count on regarding digital marketing is that it is ever-changing. Think about it: It wasn’t so long ago that posting to Google+ was an important aspect of a digital marketing strategy. As trends change in the world of digital marketing, make sure that your company is following suit. At EM Search Consulting, we are always researching new trends and ensuring that our clients’ strategy reflects what is important in their industry, as well as what is important to the digital world at...

Learn More

SEO Friendly Website Launches 

Websites need to deliver on two primary objectives: provide relevant information and obtain conversions/leads. A website that is not optimized to do...

Learn More

The Importance of Landing Pages for Your Paid Advertising Campaigns

Landing pages are an indispensable part of paid advertising campaigns and more specifically, lead generation efforts. A landing page is a stand-alone...

Learn More

5 Digital Marketing Trends for 2020

Now that we’ve officially started a new decade, it’s time to turn our attention to the emerging marketing trends. Voice Search Over...

Learn More

Industry Conversion Rates: Are You Beating the Competition?

Do your digital marketing results stack up against the competition? Unbounce, a leading marketing company, used artificial intelligence (AI) technology to analyze...

Learn More

How To Optimize Your Social Media Profiles for SEO

While you might already know that holding a variety of social media profiles is great for getting your business name out there,...

Learn More

How to Effectively Utilize Remarketing Ads

We are all familiar with the feeling that advertisers are following us around the internet. This happens because advertisers are utilizing remarketing,...

Learn More

The Value of Link Building

There are often contradicting arguments about the importance of link building for SEO. Some will say that it’s an old practice and...

Learn More

How to Effectively Use Your YouTube Page

YouTube Is Powerful YouTube is the second largest search engine. Users are viewing more than 180 million hours of video every day,...

Learn More

The Benefits of Using Chat Software

Chat software is a great way to give site visitors an option to get in touch with a business and have their...

Learn More

More About Responsive Search Ads

You may remember a newsletter from us a few months back that introduced responsive search ads, or you may already be aware...

Learn More

Introducing: Our New & Improved Reporting Platform

EMSC is excited to roll out an enhanced reporting platform as soon as this week, which will include a 100% transparent dashboard...

Learn More

2019 Marketing Trends That May Affect Your Business Directly

With the rise of technological advancements, marketing trends are changing almost daily. It’s important to keep up with these changes as it...

Learn More

Store Visits Conversion in Google Ads

Are Store Visits Important to Your Business? If visits to a physical store like a car dealership, office, hotel, or store are...

Learn More

Google Ads is Removing the Average Position Metric: What This Means for Your Business

Digital marketing is constantly changing, and it’s important to keep up with the changes that impact the industry. Google, an obvious industry...

Learn More

How to Effectively Use Google My Business Posts

A properly claimed, verified, and optimized GMB profile is one of the best and easiest ways to make your business stand out...

Learn More

Voice Search for SEO

Voice search allows users to speak into enabled devices to conduct search queries rather than type them directly into a search engine....

Learn More

What Are Bumper Ads?

In today’s digital world, we are constantly bombarded with distractions such as emails, Instagram notifications, texts, alarms, or whatever alert is popping...

Learn More

How to Build an Effective Google My Business Page

In today’s world, we are accustomed to having a huge amount of information at our fingertips. That being said, why would anyone...

Learn More

Your Google Ads Quality Score & Why It Is Important

To run a successful PPC campaign, it’s important to understand quality score and the influence it has on both the effectiveness and...

Learn More

Best Tactics to Promote a Product or Service Launch

If done correctly, digital marketing can play a crucial role in spreading the word about your new product or service. Use these...

Learn More

What Customers Want From Your Social Media

Whether your business is big or small, using social media to market your brand is no longer optional. Social media delivers measurable...

Learn More

Frequently Asked Digital Marketing Questions

In the world of digital marketing, it is nearly impossible to know everything about this ever-changing discipline as a business owner. This...

Learn More

Making Your Site More User-Friendly

A bad website = a poor customer experience. Let’s face it, your company’s website is your chance to reel in a new...

Learn More

Amplify Your Online Reviews

Where’s the first place you check before trying a new place of business? You guessed it: online. Ninety-seven percent of participants said...

Learn More

The Importance of Personalizing your Website

In any industry, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of businesses competing for the same customers in a given geography.  Not only...

Learn More

Do You Need Site Speed Improvements?

It’s no surprise that Google uses site speed as a factor to determine page rank. Simply put, the slower your site, the...

Learn More

How Google Determines Search Results

Google’s ranking algorithm follows three steps in generating search results: crawling the internet, indexing the web pages it finds - which means...

Learn More

Where Do You Direct Your Paid Traffic?

Directing paid traffic to your website can be an effective strategy, but did you know you can also direct your paid traffic to a conversion page...

Learn More

Ch-ch-changes 🎶

EMSearchConsulting.com Is Now EMSC.com! After seven years of dreaming about a shorter domain name, we finally obtained the domain of emsc.com! Gone are...

Learn More

EMSC Turns 7

On June 28th, 2019, we officially turn 7 years old! Olin Erickson and Matt Makris founded EM Search Consulting in 2012. Ah,...

Learn More

EMSC Gives Back

Event Info EMSC Gives BackDate: 7/25/2019Time: 1pm CTLocation: 330 N. Ashland Ave., Chicago, IL 60607 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJJ3z4pFf1o There are roughly 10,000 families in...

Learn More

Impression Share: What is it?

Your impression share is the number of impressions that you have received divided by the estimated number of impressions that you were...

Learn More

Are You New To Google Analytics? Here’s What To Look At:

When it comes to using Google Analytics, you may find yourself wondering what areas deserve your attention and what areas aren’t as...

Learn More

What It Means to be a Google Premier Partner

When you sign up to work with our team at EM Search Consulting, you trust that we have the expertise to guide...

Learn More

Just In: Customer Testimonial GMB Posts

By now, we are all aware of the importance of customer reviews. Positive customer reviews are a testament to your business, helping...

Learn More

How Geotargeting Improves Your SEO

SEO campaigns consist of many moving parts, and all must work in sync with one another in order to be successful. A...

Learn More

Digital Marketing FAQs

Digital marketing is best described as marketing that reaches people who use Internet-connected electronic devices. It can reach computers, tablets, and smartphones....

Learn More

How Site Security Can Have A Major Impact on SEO

A website is hacked every 39 seconds. Yes, you read that correctly. You may think that your website will never be the...

Learn More

Straight Outta Beta: Responsive Search Ads

That’s the great thing about Google Ads: it’s never satisfied with current functionality. Google Ads now offers responsive search ads (still in...

Learn More

An Underrated Way to Dominate SEO

By now, we are all aware of the importance of content for SEO. But an important piece of the content puzzle is...

Learn More

Keep the Momentum Going: Q2 is Around the Corner

Quarter one is rapidly coming to a close. Can you believe that 2019 is already one-fourth over? If that sends you into...

Learn More

Google Ad Extensions & How They Help Your Business

When it comes to your business ranking on Google, every competitive edge helps. One way to get an extra leg up on...

Learn More

Are You Using Remarketing? You Should Be.

At one point or another, we’ve all found ourselves browsing a company’s site and contemplating purchasing a good or service, only to...

Learn More

A Beginner’s Guide to Google Knowledge Graphs

Tips on Obtaining a Google Knowledge Panel When you search for a particular business or individual on Google, you’ll see a large box on the right hand side of the page results. This contains information such as address, hours, phone number, appointments, Q&A, reviews, posts, popular times, and more. Essentially, everything that a consumer would want to know about a business is located in the Knowledge Panel. There are two types of Knowledge Panels, and they differ based on the process of verification: Local panels are verified via...

Learn More

Farewell, Google+

It was fun while it lasted. If you haven’t heard the news, Google announced last October that they will be shutting down Google+, the social network facet of G Suite. Since the start, Google+ has had a small and unengaged user base. There was also a privacy lapse that came to light in March 2018; this breach impacted more than 500,000 users. To put things into perspective, 90 percent of Google+ user sessions lasted longer than five seconds. Rest assured that Google has updated its User Data Policy in the...

Learn More

Video Marketing: What’s the Big Deal?

Put video marketing at the top of your to-do list for 2019. It’s no surprise that consumers want information and they want it now. What better way to do so than via video? Videos are versatile, easy to digest, and have the potential to deliver a huge ROI. In fact, 72 percent of businesses say that video has improved their conversion rate and 70 percent of consumers report sharing a brand’s video. Why Videos? Build brand trustEducate consumers about your product or serviceReplicate face-to-face interactionsCasual, engaging updates What Platforms...

Learn More

Your 2019 Budget & Strategy

The time to say goodbye to 2018 is right around the corner, meaning it’s time to focus our attention on what 2019 has to offer! After the champagne bottles are empty and the confetti is thrown, start to think about how your business could improve in the upcoming year. Below are some of the top digital marketing trends for 2019: Online Review Solutions Review quantity and quality is a primary ranking factor for Google Local Listings. We offer software that helps you get more authentic customer reviews. Facebook...

Learn More

Holiday Social Media Etiquette

We are in the full swing of the holidays, meaning that your company’s social media is as well! As you know, what...

Learn More

Are You Ready For Mobilegeddon in Chicago?

Google has officially launched "mobilegeddon" and your site could be in severe danger of losing its current rank or falling further into the archives of search if you do not pass the mobile test. Organic results on mobile devices will now have a bias towards sites that are considered mobile friendly. To find out if your site is mobile friendly you can take the mobile friendly test . This announcement is not new as it was originally announced earlier this year but today is the day that the update began...

Learn More

The difference between GOOD SEO companies and BAD SEO companies

Here is a great article listing red flags when choosing your SEO agency. Check out #1 and #5 especially. See the list...

Learn More

Your Yelp Reviews Never Sounded Better

Stumbling upon a negative Yelp review about your business can be unsettling, aggravating and downright the worst. Gotta Kid to Feed Productions has published a YouTube channel with videos of seasoned actors and award-winning narrators reading real Yelp reviews of actual businesses. If you had to discover a negative review one way or another, wouldn't it be nice to this way? Start watching >

Learn More

A Creative 404 Page Design

There is nothing more annoying than getting an error when you click through to a website. The last thing you want is to create a negative experience for your website's visitors. Designing a good 404 "Not Found" error page is a good way to ease back on your users' frustration meter, which will increase the likelihood of them sticking around for a few more pageviews.  The North Face took their 404 Error Page to the next level by adding a little humor to an otherwise aggravating situation. Instead of screaming, "ERROR WILL...

Learn More

SEO is Changing… Time to Diversify Your Content

From Penguin to Panda – 24 Panda updates to be exact – Google is upping their ranking standards. It's not about links and meta tags so much as it is about content diversity, accessibility and freshness of content. When it comes down to it, Google is all about user experience and wants to make sure that every search result they display to be just that. Google's search algorithm isn't just favoring websites that have the most off page content and links, they are looking for the most useful,...

Learn More

WordPress website getting hacked?

Not too long ago, a few of  our clients' WordPress websites were the victims of brute force attacks, which is when a hacker uses software which systematically checks all possible combinations of characters in the password, until they are granted access. Unfortunately, WordPress doesn't come with any basic defenses to avoid such an attack. I tried a few security plugins that protect your site against brute force attacks – the one stuck out was Limit Login Attempts. It's extremely easy to use and lightweight and has some key features:...

Learn More
image

Build & Solidify Your Online Presence

Schedule A Free
Marketing Consultation

Learn how our digital marketing programs can help turn
more clicks into paying customers.

Get Started

Stay Informed:
Get our best digital marketing secrets, directly to your inbox.