Category Archives: SEO

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website value

Top 7 Things to Do Now to Maximize Website Value

What do I mean by “maximize website value?” I mean now is a good time to look at how to maximize the business value of your website.

I recently needed to shop for new homeowner’s insurance on my home island of Kauai. Being a digital marketing guy I started searching with Google for who might be local agents that I would want to speak with. I was surprised to find that not all local agents had a website. I was also surprised to find that some gave no information on their website as to whether they could assist with the type of insurance I was looking for. And even more surprising was that some of the websites failed to have basic contact information, like email, phone, and address!

I assume that if you don’t have accurate contact information on your website then you may not be a very professional agent to handle my insurance needs. (One insurance company that did have a professional looking website asked me to leave a voicemail for a return call and they didn’t call me back for over two weeks!…..but that’s a different business issue….)

So if you are a small business without a website, the number one thing to do is to get one. You are missing out on new business!

If you do have a website, it’s a good time to check over updates you may need to make to maximize its marketing value to your business. You may have spent money to have a website that really isn’t driving business value. Here I have compiled what research and my own personal experience have shown to be the top 7 things you should do now, if you haven’t already. Now is the time to check the list and make any updates!

1. Content is up to date, accurate, and informative

Does your website clearly lay out the value proposition for your prospective customers? Does it clearly communicate the benefits to them of doing business with you? For example, in my business a web design is not a benefit. Being found online and growing your client base is a customer benefit.

Does your website clearly communicate what differentiates your company. Why should a prospect do business with you versus your competitors?

Does your website make it easy and clear to contact you via email, phone, and social media? Does it have your address if you serve customers at a brick and mortar location?

Does your website have lots of photos? Most people don’t read very much. They are scanning and absorbing visual information before they may read any text. Are you posting to a blog on your website that helps to provide insights and demonstrate your expertise in your particular business? It also signals to search engines that you are a relevant and up to date source for key words related to your business. It’s a business blog, not what you had for breakfast or the fun thing you did on Saturday night.

2. Responsive for mobile devices

Half of all Google searches are done on mobile devices. More than 60% of emails are read on mobile devices. Younger generations live on their mobile devices. Your website now should be using responsive technology to adapt to various devices.

If you are found in a search, but your web page is not easily readable, your prospective customer may just move on to the next company. And Google has started to tighten down and penalize some pages in ranking if they are not mobile-friendly. Expect that to get even tighter in the next couple of years.

See my related blog posts: Mobile First Marketing, Responsive Web Design Critical to Your Bottom Line, and How to Avoid Mobile Website Meltdown.

3. It is easy to find information and navigate your website

If your website still looks like it’s 2010 or before, you’re cheapening your brand image and dissuading potential customers from contacting you. The look and feel of websites is evolving. If you haven’t already, it’s time to declutter. White space is in! Focus on relevant images and key information. Make it simple, clear, and relevant. Your menu and navigation should be simple and easy for people to follow.

4. Social Sharing should be enabled and easy to use

Your website should be the content hub about your business. Social Media is a channel to help drive prospective customers to your content. And it should also be easy for people to share content from your website to social media. They will actually help you to market and spread awareness with their family and friends if they find interesting and useful content and an easy share button.

5. Email capture

Someone who visits your website today may or may not be ready to make an immediate purchase. But they have shown interest in your brand. Give them an incentive on your web page to opt-in to your email list. If you offer them some information of value in return for opting-in, you will see a much higher signup rate. By opting-in they are giving you permission to market to them over time in a personal way. They are much more likely to open your email than they are to see one of your social media posts.

6. Speed and performance should be optimized

If your website is too slow to load, you may lose a prospective customer. There is a trade-off between lots of images that tell your story and the speed and performance of your site. A tool set like Google PageSpeed Tools will analyze your speed and give specific recommendations for improvement. Make sure you are using a web host with adequate performance relative to others. Also make sure that all images are highly compressed.

7. Optimize for search engines

Check Google Search Console to make sure there are neither errors nor resource blocking for your site. Follow best practices for focus keywords, titles, snippets, photo alt text, and text so that search engines will recognize and reward your valuable content with higher rankings. Reach out to other relevant high value websites to request a link back to your site. Create relevant links between different pages of your website. Make sure your address and contact information are consistent across all sites and social media. Search Engine Optimization experts may chuckle at this simplified list, but these are good first steps to address or to discuss with your web designer.

Maximize website value

If you started the new year without updating your marketing plan and checking the health of your website, now is the time to maximize website value!

mobile website

How to Avoid Mobile Website Meltdown on April 21…and Beyond

It’s almost here! I’m calling it Mobile Meltdown Day. April 21 is the date that Google will lower your web page rankings if your site is not deemed by them to be mobile friendly.  Some big brands and lots of smaller businesses may wake up to a surprise on April 22 unless you take action now. Google announced this change in a blog post on February 26. It may only impact your mobile search rankings for now, but there is widespread speculation that it may also affect desktop search rankings later.

What are Google's goals?

Google isn’t making this change just to make work for your business. More and more of your and Google’s customers are shifting their time and attention to mobile devices to search for information and interact in email and social media. As Google wants to maintain their dominant market share for search, they have some goals they are trying to achieve with this change:

  • Have a better mobile search experience for their users
  • Give their users exactly the information they are looking for in the most usable format
  • Make money – they will be seeking to expose apps and media in search results on mobile devices

Why is this important to your customers, not just Google?

In a July 2012 study conducted by market research firms Sterling Research and SmithGeiger for Google they found:

  • 67% of smartphone users say a mobile-friendly site makes them more likely to buy a company’s product or service, and 74% say they’re more likely to return to the site later
  • 61% say that if they don’t find what they’re looking for (probably within about five seconds), they’ll click away to another site. Half say that even if they like a business, they’ll use its site less often if it doesn’t work well on their smartphone
  • 72% of users say a mobile-friendly site is important to them

How do you know if you are at risk?

  1. Look at your website on a smartphone. Does it appear cut off on the screen? Do you have to scroll left or right? Is the text so small that you have to pinch and zoom to read anything?
  2. Run the Google Mobile-Friendly Test by entering your URL.

What can you do?

Chances are good that if you have not updated your web site in the past few years, you are at risk.

If your website is based on WordPress, you can convert to a responsive theme that will detect and adapt the display for different types of mobile devices.  Look for a responsive theme that enables you to follow mobile design best practices.

Here is my top ten list of mobile best practices:

  • Do not require any scrolling right or left
  • Make it easy to find your location and operating hours
  • Use bigger buttons
  • Enable finding important information in one or two clicks
  • Create a simple home page with a short menu
  • Highlight your site search so customers can quickly find information on your site
  • Add a click to call button
  • Simplify data entry for forms and minimize typing – use drop downs and choices to select
  • Don’t require customers to pinch to zoom to be able to read the text on your page
  • Keep the user in a single browser window

Are you ready for Mobile Meltdown Day? Have you tested your company’s web site? Have you at a minimum put an action plan in place to become compliant with Google’s mobile friendly policies?

Are there other mobile best practices that you have identified?  Please share in comments so we all benefit.

If you have found value in this or other blog posts please also sign up for our email newsletter to keep up with the latest updates.

 

social media marketing

Couldn’t I do social media marketing and a web site myself?

You may be looking at our site and wondering if you could do all this yourself.  Can’t anyone do online and social media marketing?  The answer is yes.  There is nothing magic here.  It is not rocket science.  But will you or should you do it yourself?  It’s

  • time consuming
  • requires learning new skills
  • needs new tools
  • is easy to forget or de-prioritze

 

Marketing strategy

You know the most about your business.  You’re the one who runs it every day.  You may know the most about your current and potential customers.  You can talk to your own customers and prospects to understand their buying behavior and how they search and use information online related to your product or service.  You can research and monitor your competitors online.  You can create your own logo and brand identity or hire a graphic designer to assist.  You can research marketing best practices and new technologies.  It takes time.  It may take even more time until you have gained some experience.

You could use a soup to nuts digital marketing platform, like HubSpot.  It will cost you more money, but it will provide all the tools and already has them integrated.  We looked at HubSpot for our business, but thought we could be more economical, have more flexibility, and do our own integration to achieve a higher return on investment.   Many small and medium-sized businesses are going this direction for digital marketing.  It’s not cheap and it will take time.  You will be locked into their tools and integration platform, but it may easier and faster to do it this way.  And you have complete control of what or what isn’t done.

Web site

Yes, you can develop a web site.  There are tools available now to do a simple web site using drag and drop.  It will get you a web site, but will it communicate in the way your audience looks for information?  Will it lock you into using one particular company’s technology?  Are they stable and well-established or are they a start-up that may disappear?

We use WordPress to develop a web site.  You could install and learn it, too.  It’s the most popular web site development tool.  You could take a class on it.  It will still take some trial and error to learn the ins and outs.  And there are lots of options, like themes and plugins to consider and choose as part of your design.   You will also have to register a domain name, select a web hosting service, and install whatever web design tool you choose.

You can choose the topics and write/edit your own blog posts.  You can keep your site up to date both with the latest technology updates and compelling content.

You can also learn and do SEO (search engine optimization).

Email newsletters

You can also do this on your own.  You will need to manage your own email list.  You will need a design for your newsletters.  You will need to write and edit.   You could use a service for this, like Constant Contact.

Social media marketing

You can decide which social media platforms you want to use for your customers.  You can write, schedule, and post compelling updates.  You can decide whether or not to run ads on social media.  You can create and post ads and monitor their results.  It just takes getting familiar with each platform, best practices for using it, etc.  You can also get a tool like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to help manage and monitor your social media marketing.  We use Hootsuite so that we can schedule posts across multiple social media sites at once.

Analytics

You can set up Google tracking code for your web site and use Google Analytics to analyze its performance (and performance of your social media to drive web site traffic)  relative to your marketing strategy.  You can get and monitor analytics for ads placed on social media sites.  It’s all available online.  You can read about it or take a course.  It takes some time and some analytical skills.

 

So yes, you can do all this digital marketing stuff yourself.  Do you have the skills or the time to acquire the skills?  Is it where you want to use your management time and creativity?

SEO

SEO: Do I care and how do I get it?

We see a lot of web design and other digital marketing sites highlighting that they offer SEO (Search Engine Optimization) services.  We have intentionally not labeled it as a separate service that we offer.  We have done that for a couple of reasons:

  • As a small or mid-sized business owner you may not know what SEO is, why it matters to you, or what constitutes a good SEO service
  • Why would you have a web site and NOT want it optimized for search engines to display your content to customers and prospects?  Why would it be something separate from web site design and development?

Yes, we offer SEO services, but as an integral part of our Design and Development services.  As a business owner, you shouldn’t have to care about the technical details of how web sites get optimized for search engines.  But you should care that your valuable, relevant, compelling content is being displayed to customers and prospects when they search for information.

We use WordPress as the primary tool to develop web sites.  With that, there are some other tools and techniques that we use.  (And we think you should look for them as part of any web design and development project.)

It's primarily your content

If someone else is speaking with you about SEO and not starting with your content, they are too far down in the weeds of technology.  A blog may be your most important tool for SEO.  The first and most important way to be noticed effectively by search engines is to have plenty of well written content.  It should be written in the way that your customers and prospects look for information on the Internet.   It should be embedded in links and images as well.  And your site should use good, straightforward navigation links.  Your site and content are deemed more important if they are also linked to by others, including social media.

Other tools and techniques

  • Meta tags provide search engines with places and content to index
  • robots.txt help search engines know where to look for content
  • WordPress categories become technorati tags and others can be added
  • Permalink make it easier for search engines to find your content
  • A sitemap may also enable a search engine
  • Search engine submissions may also be helpful to raise the visibility of your content

So, yes, you should care about SEO.  Start with your content and we can assist.

Quicksprout has put together this very useful infographic as well:

SEO infographic

SEO

 

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