In a recent post, I told the story of a client that enjoyed $550,000 in new revenue from online lead generation during the first 7 months of 2017. In actuality, the total is significantly higher, since that only includes form fills, and not web-generated phone calls. For the purpose of this discussion, form-fill data works just fine. Let me provide some context and break that down a bit. Prior to the start of our campaign, this company was averaging $5.5M annual revenue. $0.00 of that was generated by attracting new business online. I should mention that our efforts began a few months prior to January 1st., so we had a bit of runway leading up to FY17. Monthly, $550K breaks down to $78,571.43. Annualized, that’s a pace of just over 17.1% year over year. To understand what that means in terms of ROI (return on investment), we’ll need to dig a little deeper. Two key metrics are (1) the number of customers making up that revenue; and (2) how many times each customer will purchase over a lifetime. We know the cost of the contract, so we can calculate the cost per acquisition (CPA), as well as the lifetime value (LTV) for every new customer attracted through SEO. The formula is simple: ROI = LTV - CPA Determining the cost per acquisition is also simple. Just add up all the promotional costs and divide by the number of new customers generated from those efforts. Lifetime value is the amount each of those customers spends. If you are calculating the total return for a given effort, count all of the customers attracted by the campaign. For the above campaign, monthly sales of $78,571.43 represents 3.4 customers. So the average revenue per sale is $23,109.24. Most customers spend that annually and stick around for at least 3 years. Lifetime value (LTV), then, is $23,109.24 X 3, or $69,327.73. Still with me? The entire cost is the amount spent on SEO, which happens to be $5,500 per month. We just divide that by 3.4, the average number of customers acquired through online search in a given month. $5,500 ÷ 3.4 = $1,617.65. Now we can calculate the actual ROI using the formula. ROI = $69,327.73(LTV) - $1,617.65(CPA) ROI = $67,710.08 per month. ($812,520.96 per year) As a side note, that’s a CPA of about 2.4% of revenue. Most industries establish their marketing budgets around 4% to 6%, so 2.4% is very low. Obviously, not every business sells $23,000+ items, but the ratios are the same for every business. It is the relationship between CPA and LTV that determines the success of any marketing effort. It’s what our clients are really interested in, even if they’re not used to thinking in those terms. So, as you put together a plan leading into next year, using hard data in your lead generation planning will keep your forecasts as accurate as possible. Maintaining the relationship between revenue from each generated lead, relative to the cost of acquiring it, will also help you scale your plan.
Matt Siltala is the master of the career change. He was a successful foam mattress retailer for close to 14 years, starting in 2004. Then in July of 2012, he made the unlikely move into digital marketing, where he quickly became an industry leader.
His company, Avalaunche Media handles the usual range of online marketing services like web design, SEO and PPC, but the agency hits its stride in visual communications. Serving clients like GoPro and Salesforce, you’re probably familiar with the company’s infographics and motion video, without realizing who created them.
One of the things I love about Matt Siltala’s background is the absence of the usual collegiate pedigree. He’s got an AAS degree in CIS and a high school diploma. He’s carved out a career in business and marketing by being brilliant and getting results for his clients.
A quick scan of his LinkedIn profile shows that he’s anything but new to marketing and business. He’s got agency experience and SEO skills that reach back a long way.
I first became aware of Matt Siltala when his face started popping up on speaking rosters for marketing events. Then I began making the connection to his work that I was seeing around.
In many ways, Matt’s story is similar to my own. Before launching my first agency, I had spent many years in retail (in my case, musical instruments), and had an AA degree. I also spent a lot of time providing SEO services to businesses while running that business.
Matt is fast becoming an Internet marketing icon because he is a great Internet marketer. He has aptitude, passion and drive. It’s great to see, and a true inspiration.
Effective internet marketing for any business often starts with SEO, that is, Search Engine Optimization. Google is constantly updating its search algorithms in order to connect customers to the most relevant results. This can make it difficult for small, local businesses to stand out among the top pages. Local SEO services provide a way for physical businesses to improve their online website rankings. By branding your company to a specific location, you become visible and relevant to customers in your area. Targeted keywords and educational content help boost businesses among the top ranks.This roots you into a community and connects you to an ideal local customer. Local SEO services typically include the following:
Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Safari use keywords to link potential customers with websites. Keyword research is one of the most valuable steps in your SEO process. In order to have effective keywords they need to:
Consistent content like blogs can be the key to a company’s success. Targeted content or blog posts can drive shares on social media as well as traffic to your website. Here are other ways that good content can boost your business:
Ultimately, your website is where you want leads to end up. It’s where their journey to conversion continues. If you aren’t getting traffic to your website, or are seeing a high level of bounces, your website may need to be optimized for local searches. These services will help increase your traffic and conversion rates:
OCG Creative is here to help with any of your SEO and Reno web design needs. Call us, we’ll answer your questions. 775.324.1644
For those unfamiliar with local SEO services (Search Engine Optimization) it is worth taking time to define and explain the diffe
rences between local and global SEO, especially within the context of Google My Business and its relationship to local searches.
Large scale search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo perform countless searches each day, but have you ever considered how these search engines prioritize and display this information back to users? Did you know that given the right information, your local or small business could consistently appear as one of these top positions? When a potential customer searches for goods or services, your name could be made to appear at the top of list through the use of targeted keywords and relevant content designed to educate.
Local SEO is just that - local. This is important for local or regional businesses that operate within a targeted and specific city or region. Local search engine optimization allows for the use of targeted and specific keywords that focus on increasing a webpage's relevance so as to better target local customers. By comparison, global SEO (also known as international SEO) refers to the optimization for search engines on a more global or international scale. Google stores and recalls information differently from its global index than it does for local searches. Here, business and companies compete for keywords targeted to specific audiences, but without specific emphasis on physical location. While local SEO efforts center around your Google My Business profile, global organic search efforts rely on content relevance and inbound linking (backlinks), social media activity and other cues. Both forms of SEO are important, but your business size and goals will determine what resources and how much energy should be put into each.
Search engines accommodate a myriad of "near me" mobile or desktop searches. As an example, when out searching for a restaurant "near me", or similar local modifier, Google and other search engines often display convenient, mobile-optimized views of search results based not only on proximity to a given restaurant, but on its keyword and content relevance to the query. Google My Business is essentially a compact, public profile that displays your business' relevant information and is often optimized for mobile platforms. It is then incredibly important that your business interface local SEO with Google My Business to properly optimize and display information pertaining to your business's location, hours, description and relevant information. Local SEO is the process of optimizing your business' Google My Business profile, potentially drawing in more customers and simultaneously providing them with all of the relevant information they need to make an immediate buying decision. So before you do any SEO on your website, have a specific plan and strategy. Know what mix of SEO you need: global and local, what location you are targeting, who your target audience is, what your keywords and relevant information is and how all of this might be properly displayed through Google My Business. If you have further questions about local and global search engine optimization or you are unsure where to begin; we can help. OCG offers local SEO services for all types of organizations. Call us. We'd love to help. (775) 324-1644.
In Part I of this article, we explored primary website performance metrics and ways to ensure your data isn't influenced by scumbag spammers. Now that you're looking at unbiased numbers, let's explore ways to make sure your efforts align with the goals you have for your business.
To get there, it is worthwhile to reexamine your business goals and make an assessment about what matters most. It's easy to set broad goals like "get more sales," or arbitrary goals that have no basis in history or reality. An example of that might be a 100,000 monthly visitors to a new website, growing organically from zero.
For a goal to be valuable, it needs to specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. You may recognize that as the formula for a SMART goal. There's lots of discussion about SMART goals in business school and around the web. Measured this way, you can see that my first example, "get more sales" isn't specific. The second, 100,000 monthly organic visits, probably isn't realistic.
A brand new website, on a new domain with all new content is going to have very different goals than a website that is already competitive. At this stage, your goal should be to get everything right, and lay a foundation to become truly competitive as your website gains traction.
At this point, traffic and visitor goals are far less valuable than those related search engines. Setting aside PPC (AdWords, etc.), if your website is genuinely new, your goals should center around what you can control.
1) Website content. Most owners of new websites get completely wrapped up in the design. In reality, the website design is secondary to the writing. Most of the time, the best way to improve a website's design is to take half of it out, but that's a topic for another day.
Online, it's your writing that brings new business. In the beginning, your website content is the one thing you have 100% control over. It's also the most important factor related to search engine rankings. So, if you are not a good writer, you have two options—either hire a good writer, or become one.
Website content goal: Write and publish a greater volume of better, more complete, compelling and interesting website content than your strongest competitor.
To make your website content goal a SMART goal, make it tangible and set dates.
S = Specific: List your top competitor's webpages. Paste each page into a word processor to get a word count. Jot down a list of keywords used on the page and note the number of times each one was used. Make an additional note of any text links and where they go, as well as all levels of headings used throughout the website. Do this for EVERY PAGE, even if it takes a week or more.
M = Measurable: Having quantified the the website details of your toughest competitor, next you'll need to decide what to measure. In this case, you don't need anything more than a word processor. When you have more pages, with better focused, better written copy, using the same keyword density, plus at least as many links, you're good… for now. Measuring these items is as simple as counting.
A = Achievable: This goal is achievable as long as you, or someone you hire has the skill to write meaningful website content. It must follow the "rules" you outlined by assessing your competitor's website. As long as you know what to write, and have the ability to do it, this goal is achievable.
R = Realistic: If you are writing your own website content, the only thing you need to assess is whether or not you will actually do it. We, as business owners, are an industrious lot. We do things ourselves and tend to take on a lot. You are probably very busy running your company. Is writing and editing what could be tens of thousands of words really realistic? If not, you may want to hire a writer.
T = Time-bound: So far, so good, but it's not a goal until you set a date to finish. Some people can write 600 words an hour. Others take 600 hours to write a page. Set your deadline based on your business objective, balanced with a reasonable assessment of what you are capable of. There is an "opportunity cost" for not having your website published and ready to compete. Don't let excuses or your own busy schedule set you back. If it looks like plan A is going to put you beyond your deadline, have a plan B ready to go. [coach voice] This is business, people, so let's make it happen.
2) Unique Titles and Descriptions. This is SEO 101 kind of stuff—something I like to describe as the Onsite SEO Top 5. Our content goal covered the first three items; keyword density, headings and anchor text (the actually words used for links). That leaves page titles and descriptions.
HTML TITLE Tags: The page title is created by using a special tag in the head of the html document used to create the page. The browser loads this page and displays your title in the browser tab. More importantly, search engines display your title as the link in the SERP (search engine results page).
Google, Bing, Yahoo! and all the others use this title as a primary means for determining what the page is about. Therefore, it makes sense that these should include your target keywords. Making sure they do should be standard practice. Your titles should match the content of the page, and also be unique. Don't use the same title for every page on your website.
Meta Descriptions: The head of your html document should also contain a meta description. There is considerable debate over the direct value of the description relative to SEO. Nevertheless, you should ALWAYS include a unique description on every page of your website.
Like the page title, the meta description you write will be displayed in search results. This is the descriptive text just below the line containing the webpage URL.
You should always use keywords in your meta description, even if you don't believe they will have an impact on rankings in Google. This is because a) searchers will often read the description when deciding whether or not to click the link, and b) Google is not the only search engine. (Though it does seem like it is.)
Make unique titles and descriptions part of your content goal. It's not as technical as it sounds. Many content management systems have built-in tools for including these. If you are one of the millions of WordPress users, a plugin like Yoast SEO will make your job easy. The challenge will be making them unique and readable for humans, as well as search engine spiders.
I framed this as a content goal for new websites, but if you haven't already done so, you should make a similar assessment even if your site has been online for time and is performing well. Website content forms the foundation of your online marketing strategy. It is vitally important that you keep your online content competitive and up to date.
The working word in that statement is competitive. With every passing day, the likelihood your competitor will hire a top SEO firm to crush you, increases. To combat that, you need to pay attention to what's happening around the Internet relative to your market or industry.
It is important to realize that without sufficient website content, nothing you can do will achieve a consistent, stable result. In nearly every case, websites that are thin on online content will suffer, not only in rankings, but with visitors seeking information.
Part III of this series will focus on taking your effective Internet marketing strategies to new heights. To do that, we'll put out nerd hats on and dig deeper into the data. In the mean time, feel free to email me (joe@ocgcreative.com) or comment below with your questions or comments.
If you’ve been brushing up on your web terminology, you may have heard the term “landing page” floating around. What is that exactly? In the marketing world, a landing page refers to a web page designed with one specific purpose in mind: to convert visitors into leads.
Let’s take a minute and break this down into simple terms. These pages solely exists to get visitors (i.e. the people visiting your site) to perform a specific action like filling out a form or clicking a call-to-action. By completing this action, you are able to collect important information about this person or direct them further into the sales funnel. Once you have their information, they became a “lead” that you can add to your database of potential customers.
If you’ve ever been enticed to sign up for an e-book or free sample, there’s a good chance you were lead without even realizing it. A well-designed landing page will persuade you to exchange your contact information for an attractive offer, such as a discount code or newsletter. Basic design elements combined with the right page layout can also help boost your conversion rate.
As mentioned above, these pages help guide visitors toward completing an intended action on a website. By definition, a landing page should not have global navigation linking back to your main website. This keeps visitors from clicking off the page and getting distracted from the main conversion goal. To learn more about how landing pages are used, check out our previous blog post.
Landing pages come in two basic forms: lead generation landing pages, which direct you to fill out a form and click-through landing pages which direct you to another page. Both types are important and serve different purposes to maximize conversions. It does no good to place random forms or buttons all over your website in hopes that people will click them. Instead, placing these strategically on a landing page statistically leads to better conversions. Thanks for reading! We love hearing from you. If you have more questions about landing pages or Reno web design, contact OCG Creative.
Last month I conducted an email survey asking one simple question: Given the choice, which of the following is more important for your business website? There were only two possible answers: Your website's design, or search engine rankings. Here are the results:
Although the survey was unscientific, the results show that website owners clearly understand the importance of search engine rankings. With few exceptions, I believe search engine rankings are the most urgent factor contributing to business website success. Simply put, if people can't find you, it really doesn't matter how great your website looks. That's not to say website design isn't important. It's vital. However, it is easy to get wrapped up in design and put everything else on hold. Here, we design around search. By that, I mean literally putting ranking factors above design elements and publishing content around specific search terms. We predict visitor volume based on specific keyword rankings and known search volumes. Our goals for design are to provide an elegant, polished, branded experience for users that is lightening fast on any device. That happens to be Google's goal too, so favor is being given to sites that meet these criteria. In many ways, I think it's time to rethink design. In the old days, the goal was to keep the total weight of a webpage under 100K. Even better, under 65K. As broadband became widespread, that kind of went out the window, although I personally never bought into the idea that a page could be as big as you want. With something like 2/3 of Internet searches being conducted on mobile devices, that 100K limit makes a lot of sense. So, while web design is critical, it is important to keep things in perspective. Rankings and user experience are what drive sales. Design complexity is fun, but frequently stands in the way of other critical goals.
Blogging on a consistent basis for your business can help boost your overall marketing and SEO efforts. Not to mention—it can be fun! However, if you’re new to blogging, the process can seem daunting. Where do I start? What do you I write about? These are all questions that might run through your mind at the thought of blogging for your company. Aside from being great for SEO, I always look at blogging as a way to take information that's unique to your business and share it with the world. For example, Danielle Litoff, a Doctor of Physical Therapy and Health Coach over at Battle Born Health, blogs monthly about physical therapy and various health related topics. Without the power of blogging, people wouldn’t have access to her years of experience and expertise on a large-scale. Think of it this way, you are the expert in your field, and now you’re able to share valuable information to educate and inform others. If you’re new to blogging, don’t worry—you can start small and build from there. Here’s some tips to help you get you started:
One of the things that business owners get caught up on most is the question, “What am I going to write about?” You'd be surprised by how much information you can share on your blog. That’s why it's a great idea to grab your team and brainstorm topics together. Make a long list, and don't leave anything out. That way, you’ll always have fresh ideas to choose from. If you need inspiration, you can browse other blogs in your industry to see what they’re writing about.
Blogger Tip: If you’re a beginner blogger, I recommend blogging once a week. If that intimidates you, start with a monthly or bi-monthly post and build momentum from there. The key is to pick a consistent schedule and stick to it!
Now that you have your topics picked, it’s time to set a deadline for writing, editing and posting blogs. In the world of writing, it’s absolutely imperative to stay organized and set reasonable deadlines that you can communicate clearly with your team. I promise you that 90% of the battle with writing is staying organized! If your team knows what day their writing is due, it makes the process much less stressful for everyone.
Organization Tip: Keep a digital calendar that can be shared across your team. Writing your personal deadlines on paper also helps keep them sharp in your memory.
List of interesting and engaging topics? Check. Deadlines set? Check. Now, it’s on to making an editorial calendar. Depending on your preference, you can manage your calendar online using a number of tools. Some tools that I like include: Google Calendar and Trello. Or, you can keep it old-school with paper. The most important thing is to keep it up to date and share it with your team. Setting up a google alert on your calendar can help remind you when to start writing posts, so you won’t miss a deadline. Now… it’s off to get some coffee so you can start writing! Happy Blogging!
In loose terms a website landing page is simply the webpage your visitor “lands” on when first entering your site. The page might be the result of a keyword search, an online ad, a link from another page, or even a directly typed URL from a printed coupon or a commercial.
A landing page differs from the rest of your website in that it has a specific purpose, and all of its copy, images, etc. are focused on meeting that purpose. Later, I suggest every page should be viewed as a landing page. Nevertheless, here are a few common reasons for creating landing pages…
There are as many reasons for creating landing pages as there are reasons to do business online. The point of a landing page is to support a single, undiluted purpose and outcome.
Many books have been written on the topic of landing pages. Most will tell you to provide plenty of information and be liberal with your placement of calls to action (CTA)—at least that’s the takeaway of most Internet marketers. The reality of creating effective landing pages is a far more complex statistical exercise. (A great book on the subject is “Landing Page Optimization,” by Tim Ash.)
I like to view landing pages like infomercials. Those paid 30-minute segments for the blend-o-matic or some such thing are catchy and conversational. They always feature people you feel like you could get to know. Usually there’s a product expert and one or more stunned onlookers, amazed that he/she has gotten by this long without a blend-o-matic of his or her own.
Over the course of 30 minutes, the advertiser takes you through the entire buyer’s journey (awareness, consideration, decision). If you watch closely, you’ll see them bolster interest and overcome objections until anyone with a telephone and a credit card places an order.
Starting at the top of the page, your only purpose should be to create interest. In fact, that pretty much sums up marketing in general. Too often, marketing messages center around the seller rather than the buyer. “We’re the number 1 this…” or “In business since 1878.” Trust me, no one cares—at least not yet.
Read any book on sales and it’ll tell you to sell the benefits, and demonstrate the features when there’s interest. In other words, start with the why, and work toward the how. The blend-o-matic will save you hours in the kitchen and make your hair grow back. How? It’s as easy as pushing a button.
If you are effective, your webpage visitor will scroll further down the page. The idea is to underscore the benefits in as many ways as it takes until you hit on the message and delivery that resonates with the reader.
You never know what that will be, so I often try them all. I’ll use testimonials, video, info-graphics, lists, headings and catch-phrases. With so many elements, you run the risk of creating very messy web pages, so they need to be divided into segments using white space and typography to define clear, digestible messages.
If you’ve been in business for a while, you already know what motivates your customers or clients. Ours come to us because we bring them more business. How we do it is secondary. The primary motivator is more business.
Our business is all about credibility. Chances are, yours is to. A business owner or decision maker has to believe we will solve the problem or meet the objective. YOU DON’T BUILD CREDIBILITY BY DOING WHAT YOU PROMISE. YOU BUILD CREDIBILITY WITH THE RESULTS.
One of our promises is more traffic and better qualified leads. If we don’t deliver that, it doesn’t make any difference what we did.
One powerful way we build credibility is by showing what we’ve done for other clients. It’s even better if it comes straight from the client in his or her own words. Testimonials are powerful motivators. However, most business owners that use them blow it by creating a “testimonials” page with a long list of quotes.
For a testimonial to be effective, it must be timely and contextual. The best way to achieve that is by using individual testimonials that give credibility to the point you’re making, in that exact spot on the page. It’s best when they are accompanied by a real name with a picture of a live human being your landing page visitors can relate to.
There is nothing more powerful than an enthusiastic customer or client gushing about how your product or service made his or her life better. Forget about making a polished, highly produced video piece. It takes too much time and costs money you don’t need to spend.
Grab your iPhone and ask your happy customer to tell you what she likes best about whatever you did or sold. Let her go on as long as you still feel flattered, or she remains interesting to watch. Clip out the best 45 seconds to a minute and get the video up on YouTube (or Vimeo, whatever you want…) so you can embed it in just the right spot on your landing page.
If you don’t have anyone to talk about you, talk about yourself. Be genuine, honest and human. People have a high tolerance for questionable production quality, but none at all for BS.
As a side benefit, if you tag and describe your video properly, you’ll get a boost directly from YouTube. Also, modern smartphones shoot pretty incredible video, so it’ll probably end up looking pretty darn good. Trust me, online video is worth it.
It is important to recognize that your site visitors might enter through any page on your website. In fact, the entrance could even be the result of an image search. Whatever page, post, picture, video, pdf file, Word document or text file happens to be the most relevant to a given search phrase, that is what Google will display on its search engine results page (SERP). Therefore, it is in your best interest to make sure you provide enough information to at least get through the interest stage of the buyer’s journey.
Have a purpose and a plan for every page on your website. Support that with keyword goals, and even conversion goals. Know what keywords you want that page to rank for, and do everything you need to to make that happen.
Also it is important to use tracking tools so you’ll know how each page ranks compared to your goal (and your competitors). Do the same for other website metrics like the number of visits, average time on the page, etc.
Treat every page as a landing page, because it may be the only page your visitor sees. You’ve only got about a second and a half to be interesting, so it better be pretty obvious to your visitor why he or she should keep reading.
You’ll find that it takes planning, follow-through, and a bit more work, but you’ll be rewarded with more visitors that are better qualified. More qualified visitors means more leads. More leads means more sales. More sales means you’ll have a bigger house, more vacations, you’ll save time in the kitchen, lose 20 pounds and your hair will grow back.
Having spent most of the last two decades planning, developing and marketing websites, I've learned a lot about what works and what doesn't when marketing your business online. For the most part, I can sum up website planning in one word: relationships. Thousands of books and articles have been written about building relationships online. In the end, it isn't any different than building relationships offline. Business relationships are often compared to dating. The metaphor works in the sense that you start by talking a little, then maybe go out for coffee... Over time, a lot of other stuff happens until, shazam! One day you get married. The point here is that beginning a relationship with a marriage proposal pretty much never works. And if it does, your odds of marrying a desperate, toxic nut-job are pretty high.
I think a better comparison is a student-teacher relationship. Outside of our marketing agency, I teach scuba. I am passionate about diving, especially deep diving, using exotic breathing gasses and hundreds of pounds of highly specialized equipment. Although a student brand new to diving has no need to understand the effects of high oxygen partial pressures on the human body, my expertise is never questioned. The rationale being that if I can survive dives in excess of 100 meters, breathing gasses I mixed myself, surely I must be qualified to teach a new diver to swim around in the top 60 feet or so. When that same diver is ready to buy equipment, who do you think he/she goes to? My students won't even consider making a purchase without talking to me first. That concept translates to virtually every business relationship and should form the basis of your website planning. Reno web design and website planning is relationship planning.
The absolute first rule in website planning is to make sure the right people see it. 7/11 stores are located on busy neighborhood intersections because people who like Slurpees live there. In today's world, 'busy intersection' means Google's search engine results page (SERP). If you stop reading right here, take away this one concept: Make a plan to reach your audience in Google search before you even think about website design. I see it over and over. Clients toil over every pixel and make countless revisions spanning months to make their websites "perfect" before allowing us to take them live.
Meanwhile, not one human being is exposed to their business online. With this in mind, website planning essentially means Google planning. I've never been comfortable with the term, search engine optimization (SEO). Partly, that's because so many of the people and agencies that claim to be SEOs fall somewhere between incompetent and crooked. I just don't want to be lumped in with that group. I also don't think SEO is as hard as it is time consuming. At least, not for most businesses.
After over a decade resisting the term "SEO," I've grudgingly come to embrace it. If you want your website to bring you customers, you have to play by Google's rules. That means the written text has to take priority over design. Yet, I'm told over and over, "people don't read online." Really? Scores of bloggers make their living writing content people read online. It is more accurate to say, "people don't read boring crap online."
The fact is, people DO read online. They read a lot. It's just that they are very choosey about what they read. If you are a sucky writer, don't expect people to read your sucky writing just because you want them to. Be the expert in your business, but hire pros to do the writing for your website. A website writer must understand how to write engaging content for humans that also supports the relevancy requirements for search engine rankings. Writing for SEO purposes is an essential website planning strategy.
The myth that people "don't read on the internet" is partly made believable because large blocks of text are miserable to read online. You can solve that problem by making content readable. Unless and until we (we being OCG Creative) bring it up, typography never enters the conversations about website planning we have with our clients.
Typography includes all the elements related to your website's written content. The creative use of headings, type styles, font choices, sizes, color, italics, bolding, lists, etc. all contribute to the readability of your website content. Website text must be well-sectioned and scannable by the reader. Online readers will scan your page for specific terms in about 2 seconds before deciding whether to read it or go back to Google and search some more. Therefore, it is essential that typography be central to your website planning.
Right from the start, accept that your website will never be done. Your planning process must include a strategy for ongoing updates. In nearly every instance, websites that are easy to update get more attention than those that aren't. Generally speaking, the more complex the website design, the more difficult it is to make changes. Plan your website for your visitors, not your designer, or worse, your ego.
It's funny. Our Reno web design team ask new clients every day to describe what elements they feel are most important to their websites. 9 times out of 10, the first word they'll use is "clean." Yet, 9 times out of 10, the same client will want everything he or she can think of thrown in once the design phase begins. At the same time, all attention shifts away from content and search engine rankings in favor of graphics.
By now, it should be clear that search engine rankings and speed win out over everything else about your website. Once you make it to the top of Google, you'll have the luxury of dialing in your website for conversions. At that point, you can make all the design changes you want. But early on, plan your website around rankings. I promise you'll thank me later.
We understand. When your web developer revealed your new website in 2004, it was love at first site. Your employees were excited, your clients were excited, business boomed, and you still look at it with affection every time you pull it up in the morning. It’s a beautiful but is also a slow website. Unfortunately, if it takes more than three seconds to fully load, and many websites with outmoded technology or development standards even just a few years old do, it’s costing you money. Consumers have become conditioned to hyper-fast load times, and are increasingly unwilling to wait more than a few seconds for websites that don’t provide them—an allowance that would have seemed ridiculous ten years ago. But today, 40% of web users say they’ll abandon a website if loading takes more than three seconds. Even more startling: Studies show that a delay of just one second on an e-commerce web site can reduce sales conversion rates by up to 7%. If your web site earns $25,000 per day, that’s a loss of $625,000 every year. Kissmetrics has a rundown of surprising stats on how un-optimized web page load time can effect your business. And isn’t just consumers giving your slow website the snub. Google, in service to demanding consumers, penalizes slow web sites in search rankings. Google’s model revolves around providing useful and easily-accessible information for its users. A slow-loading web site isn’t easily-accessible, and as such, isn’t considered useful. That means all the hard work you’ve put into boosting your SEO rankings could be deeply undermined by even a few seconds of delayed load time. A comprehensive web site with load times that meet modern standards should be at the top of your Internet marketing checklist. You can check your website’s page load times at Pingdom. Not cutting it at the three-second mark? Try these three adjustments to help bring those wait times down and get more visitors to stick around: 1. Optimize your images and videos. These are often the biggest culprit in older web sites. Most photo- and video-editing software has a “save for web," "quick export" or similar options that helps keep file size down. 2. Keep your script and CSS files compressed into a single file. If your Javascript is spread across several files that have to load every time a visitor refreshes your page, or clicks on another page in your website, your load times can plummet while the browser renders all of them. 3. Make smart use of caching. Caching allows the browser to keep certain elements of your website pre-loaded, so that when a visitor loads your page multiple times over a given timeframe, it doesn’t have the render the whole page from scratch each time. If after implementing those changes, your website is still loading too slowly, it’s time for a major tune-up.
Whether your business is new to the social media world or you’re unsure if your accounts are properly established, sometimes it’s important to go over the basics of social media for a business. Often there are small elements missing that can make a difference for your business. Setting a good foundation for your accounts is all in the details.
It’s never good enough to just have social media accounts and it may seem obvious, but the first question you should ask yourself is, “Do I have access to all of my accounts?” It’s not uncommon for businesses to have had a previous employee or twice removed cousin create an account and then leave without providing access to it.
It may seem easier to simply start over rather than deal with tracking down these inaccessible accounts, but it is important to try re-gaining access or have them deleted. Don’t give up! Duplicate accounts can cause headaches down the road and continue to pop up in search engines, causing inconveniences for customers seeking the real account. In some cases duplicate accounts or pages may have been created automatically without your knowledge. If you need assistance, don’t hesitate to contact OCG Creative for help.
Woo! Now that you have access to all of your social media accounts it’s time make sure they’re properly set up.
It’s the king of social media, but the jack-of-all-trades as far as influence is concerned. Facebook has made more strides to assist business pages than any other platform, with LinkedIn as a close second. The social network is consistently evolving and optimizing to influence businesses to be more social and people to be more engaged.
Some businesses don’t realize you can and should make a business page separate from your LinkedIn profile. The difference between a personal and business page is that you have to verify with an employee email address to be able to create the business page. Once it’s approved, you can begin filling out all of the information.
Speaking of Facebook and LinkedIn, be sure to follow OCG Creative to stay updated.
Google Plus is like the secret juggernaut of the social media world and Google Plus business pages hold a lot more value in a google search compared to other social media networks. This is especially important for all local businesses.
Again, many of these steps may seem like no-brainers, but it’s not uncommon for businesses to be missing these easy, but important, elements. By following this easy checklist, you can make sure your social media accounts are properly created to maximize your business branding presence. OCG Creative is a full service web design and Internet marketing powerhouse; contact us today to find out how we can take your business to the next level.
