6 Elements of an Outstanding Small Business or Nonprofit Website – Quiz and Checklist
There are currently over one billion websites online - that's almost one website for every four Internet users - but few of them stand out from the crowd. Many have a sense that their websites blend into the background noise of the Internet more than they should but they don't know precisely why... or what to do about it. Yet how to stand out from the rest of the Web is not a secret (and if it was a secret we're about to break the story). The majority of those 1 billion + websites are poorly maintained, difficult to navigate, not up to modern Web standards, and don't offer their visitors much value. It isn't difficult to get your website to truly stand out. Follow this checklist and do whatever it takes to get a 100% and we guarantee that your website will get more visitors and more conversions than it has previously. [text_with_frame id="368c1dbfefba91dceb946d322e0e86bc" content="‹¨›p‹˜›‹¨›em‹˜›If you find this article helpful consider giving it a share‹¯›nbsp;‹¨›/em‹˜›?‹¨›/p‹˜›" line_color="rgba(0,0,0,.07)" text_font="body" heading_font="heading" animation="none" animation_speed="2" animation_delay="0" __fw_editor_shortcodes_id="e6852c2dacc162bc8c34ba646905e841" _fw_coder="aggressive"][/text_with_frame] #1. Well Maintained Is your website well maintained? Web standards change over time - and so must your website. Does that upset you or make you feel pressured by our ever-evolving computerized society? We feel for you. We really do! Our own company has to keep up with the changes and that means constantly reeducating ourselves. The good news is that you probably don't need to be constantly re-learning the Web's virtual landscape. Your web-developer or friendly drag-and-drop-site-builder-app should be doing that for you. You can tell that your site isn't well maintained without getting technical if your site has: Broken links Broken images Visible…
What Your Facebook-Only Business is Missing
Most businesses these days have a Facebook presence. Some business owners have a Facebook presence and little – if anything – else. But are Facebook-only businesses missing out? Let’s take a look at some of the weaknesses of the Facebook-only business model. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXfPzSQYyLg&feature=youtu.be Facebook’s Audience is Huge. Everyone’s on Facebook. Or at least almost anyone with an Internet connection is. Facebook is free and it’s an easy place to connect with others, which theoretically makes it the perfect place to launch and operate your business. However, Facebook is free for a reason. Zuckerburg and the Facebook HQ team know that everyone is on Facebook. They also know that you, the business owner, want to interact with all of the people on Facebook and sell them things. It is not advantageous for Facebook to have a free open marketplace for every John and Jill who wants to sell widgets from their corner of the world. Oh no, it is not. Facebook needs to act as the gatekeeper between you and all of the people that you want to reach. How do they do that? Ads. If you want people on Facebook to actually see and interact with your Facebook-only business, you need to pay for advertising on Facebook. This is pretty much the only way you can guarantee that your messages end up in (some) people’s newsfeeds (somewhere). Will the posts show up in your friends’ newsfeeds? No. Probably not. Will they show up in your target audiences’ newsfeeds? Maybe. Maybe not. The Facebook advertising algorithms are veiled behind a thick shroud of mystery. There’s even some speculation that the accounts that your ads are shown to don’t actually belong to…
Do Keywords Still Matter in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
What keywords are you ranking for?You want your website to rank for words and phrases that your ideal customers are using in their search queries.Some online marketers still advocate for a high percentage of the words on any page containing the key words or phrases you are attempting to rank for. Other online marketers are touting a new era of interconnected topical and contextual ranking methods that utilize keywords more deftly.This has led many businesses (and organizations) to question whether or not keywords still matter in their SEO strategies. Psst! Keywords still matter for SEO... but shouldn't be used quite like they were in the 2000s. https://www.youtube.com/embed/lNk7n_V3uqM What's a keyword anyway? A "keyword" or "key phrase" contains the idea or topic your content is about. If, for example, you run a cleaning business and you write a post about best window cleaning methods some of the natural keywords for that content may be "clean", "windows", "wash", "how to", and others. Hopefully, if your content is well written, many of these keywords would show up in close proximity to one another within the same sentence to make up a few "key phrases" or "long tail keywords". If your content is naturally using keywords that your target market is searching for you have a higher chance of driving organic search traffic over time. Effective keywords are, essentially, the topics and ideas on the minds (and screens) of both your business and your ideal customers. The obsession with keywords Search engines still primarily crawl text when determining what your webpage is about. (That's why lengthy well-written content still matters online). Consequently, at one time, the most important part of your SEO strategy was…
A Marketing Primer for Online Sales
In today’s online marketing vernacular, there seems to be little, if any, distinction between marketing and promotion. Many marketing “experts” even use the terms interchangeably to refer to the act of selling products online. In truth, marketing and promotion are two separate but interrelated activities. Both are essential for pushing products or services and attracting new customers. But there are some significant differences. [text_with_frame id="368c1dbfefba91dceb946d322e0e86bc" content="‹¨›p‹˜›‹¨›em‹˜›If you find this article helpful consider giving it a share‹¯›nbsp;‹¨›/em‹˜›?‹¨›/p‹˜›" line_color="rgba(0,0,0,.07)" text_font="body" heading_font="heading" animation="none" animation_speed="2" animation_delay="0" __fw_editor_shortcodes_id="e6852c2dacc162bc8c34ba646905e841" _fw_coder="aggressive"][/text_with_frame] Promotion is a Part of Marketing… But Not All Marketing is Promotion You may have learned in geometry class that all squares are rectangles, but that not all rectangles are squares. Similarly, promotion is part of marketing, but the whole of marketing is not promotion. Sure, the primary goal of a successful marketing strategy is to land sales. But it’s a mistake to assume that promoting the product is the ultimate goal of a marketing strategy. The Marketing Mix At its core, marketing is the flow of four activities that make up a package called the “marketing mix”. These activities are: Product Price Placement Promotion (My business school professors would be so proud that I remember this ? ) The four pillars of the marketing mix work in tandem to ensure that a marketing strategy is successful. I like to think of them as the four legs of a table – without one or two, the table would be entirely useless. When it comes to online sales strategies, there seems to be an overwhelming emphasis on the promotion pillar. After all, products live and die by whether or not a company can adequately promote them on its…
What’s The Real Cost of Creative Content?
When you think about working with a creative content professional to boost your brand or business, there are probably two things that immediately come to mind: First: “I’m going to get a personalized product that perfectly fits my business and brand!” And: “Holy crap! This is expensive!” If you were to order something like a customized ceramic pet food bowl from an artisan potter, you expect to pay more than you would for a similar product from, say, Walmart or PetSmart. You might pay three or four times more for a bowl that’s made without toxic chemicals or has a color scheme that you picked and your pet’s name etched into the side. The same rule applies when you are in the market for intangible creative products, like photos, design work or custom content. It’s hard to value creative intangibles when you’ve never shopped the market for them before. Often, people imagine that creative work should only cost them a little more than an out of the box product, like a subscription to a drag-and-drop web builder (Weebly, Wix, Squarespace), for example. And unfortunately, the internet – which connects businesses and individuals to any type of creative professional we could ever imagine – does a lot to devalue the hard work that creatives put into the products that they offer. This is a huge problem. [text_with_frame id="368c1dbfefba91dceb946d322e0e86bc" content="‹¨›p‹˜›‹¨›em‹˜›If you find this article helpful consider giving it a share‹¯›nbsp;‹¨›/em‹˜›?‹¨›/p‹˜›" line_color="rgba(0,0,0,.07)" text_font="body" heading_font="heading" animation="none" animation_speed="2" animation_delay="0" __fw_editor_shortcodes_id="e6852c2dacc162bc8c34ba646905e841" _fw_coder="aggressive"][/text_with_frame] What Happens When Businesses Devalue Creative Work? As a writer, I spend a small portion of my time browsing writing job postings to stay on top of emerging niches and content types that companies…
12 Ways to Use Value Added Content to Generate (and Nurture) Leads
Value added content is exclusive content that your audience cannot get anywhere else.Perhaps you have a blog and you've even been expanding into other forms of value added content. Yet you still are not generating the leads you want with that content.Value added content is the core of any robust inbound marketing strategy but you still need to leverage it. Merely publishing your content won't (usually) earn you customers.So here are 12 ways to use your value added content to generate leads: 1. Genuinely Help Your Readers Your content is not "value added" unless it is adding value to your readers. Your first goal with every piece of content you publish should be to help your readers - add value to their lives and businesses. Your potential customers can usually sense self-serving and useless content within seconds of loading your page. And when they sense this they "bounce" to another website. Keep your bounce rate low and generate more leads by genuinely helping your readers. 2. Build Trust in Your Brand Trust is an important part of any sales process. A purchase is an act of trust. Your customer is trusting that your service or product is going to solve a problem, improve his life, or help him reach his goals. A purchase is an act of faith in you, your business, and what you offer your customer. You need to build this trust early. Value added content is the perfect vehicle for building that trust. As you genuinely help your readers you build trust with them. Help them whether they buy from you or not and, paradoxically, they will be more likely to buy. 3. Invite Subscribers Email marketing…
How to Use Business Reviews to Boost Your Organic Search Results
Your business is awesome. You know it, we know it, but do your potential customers know how great you are? Having a wealth of happy customers may be the best word of mouth strategy but it does little to boost your organic search results online. When you transfer this word of mouth power to the Web great things happen! This is why many businesses are including online business reviews as part of their overall search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. You can use business reviews to boost your organic search results and drive additional traffic to your website. Online business reviews may be just the confidence boost your potential customers need before clicking on your link. [text_with_frame id="368c1dbfefba91dceb946d322e0e86bc" content="‹¨›p‹˜›‹¨›em‹˜›If you find this article helpful consider giving it a share‹¯›nbsp;‹¨›/em‹˜›?‹¨›/p‹˜›" line_color="rgba(0,0,0,.07)" text_font="body" heading_font="heading" animation="none" animation_speed="2" animation_delay="0" __fw_editor_shortcodes_id="e6852c2dacc162bc8c34ba646905e841" _fw_coder="aggressive"][/text_with_frame] Searchers Rely on Business Reviews Many of your ideal customers do not know who you are yet. They need to be introduced to you and your great product or service. Unfortunately, too many people think of online marketing as tricking the-great-Google-list-making-robot into including you near the top of its list. To the contrary, successful online marketing is about building relationships - not lists. Someone needs to introduce your ideal customer to you - their ideal solution. That someone is often Google. Yet Google listing you doesn't carry much emotional weight. Searchers tend to trust you more if you are on page one but there is still little emotional connection. Relational marketing happens often on social media. Yet it can happen on Google, Yelp, and industry specific websites as well! Business reviews are one of the most effective means of having your business introduced to…
The Mobile Trend
Online browsing habits have changed greatly over the last decade. No longer are users relying on their PCs for opening your emails, searching for your services, or purchasing your products. The majority of hours spent, search queries made, and emails opened are now from mobile devices. The smartphone trend has changed and will continue to change the Web. A slew of new smartphones are expected in 2018 including new iPhones (likely a total of three new handsets), new Google Pixels, and the LG G7. Innovation in mobile has slowed but not stopped with manufacturers now releasing handsets with always listening voice assistants, multiple cameras to detect depth, facial recognition, and processors faster than most office PCs. Thankfully your website can look beautiful on these mobile devices. You may not even need to completely rebuild your website to accomplish this. There are multiple solutions to mobile optimize your website including separate mobile URLs, adaptive design, and responsive design. Regardless of which method you choose to optimize your site the statistics show that your website must be mobile optimized to continue to generate traffic and convert visitors. An outstanding website is mobile optimized. Sales In 2016 the CEO of Intel, Brian Krzanich, stated that the upgrade cycle for PCs was slowing from an average of four years to an average of five to six years. He stated that "Right now, it's easier to move your phone to a new phone than your PC to a new PC". This comparison is telling. Buyers are using their phones to replace some of what their PCs do and PC sales are suffering. At the close of 2016 smartphone buyers were upgrading their devices at an…
Stock Photos are Killing Your Image (And What to Do About It)
Stock photos… To use them or not? Is that a question you’ve been considering for your brand? As a new year approaches, you may be reevaluating your content branding strategies to make a more solid impact in 2018. When it comes to your brand, there are some obvious refresh points to cover, like website design, written content and online marketing strategy. But some less obvious detractors - like stock photos - may be lurking on your site and harming your brand without your knowledge. [text_with_frame id="368c1dbfefba91dceb946d322e0e86bc" content="‹¨›p‹˜›‹¨›em‹˜›If you find this article helpful consider giving it a share‹¯›nbsp;‹¨›/em‹˜›?‹¨›/p‹˜›" line_color="rgba(0,0,0,.07)" text_font="body" heading_font="heading" animation="none" animation_speed="2" animation_delay="0" __fw_editor_shortcodes_id="e6852c2dacc162bc8c34ba646905e841" _fw_coder="aggressive"][/text_with_frame] Take in the Whole Picture Images are a great way to tell a story, and indeed, image-driven marketing continues to perform well year over year. There’s a lot of pressure to deliver a glossy picture-rich site and churn out clickable social media content on popular image sharing sites (notably Pinterest and Instagram). If a picture says a thousand words, then your site and social media images have a lot to say about your brand. What are they saying? A thoughtful, visually driven photo campaign can powerfully impact your brand’s messaging across platforms. But if you’re not delivering photography services, this may be difficult to achieve. After all, you’ve got content to write, clients to meet with or widgets to make. In an effort to save time, and maybe a little cash, you may be tempted to turn to stock photos to tell your story for you. However, they may be costing you more than you think. Yes, stock photos tell a story, and it’s not your story. Consider brands with websites that you really connect…
Quiz Powered Lead Generation
So your website has regular (and hopefully growing) web traffic. Your bounce rate is even improving. Yet you still aren't generating leads (or making sales). You may need a new means of converting visitors into leads. Well placed calls to action (CTA) within your value added content is the most effective form of lead generation. This is often called "content marketing". An increasing number of websites are now including interactive quizzes in their content marketing strategies. Quizzes are growing in popularity - both for increasing website traffic and for generating leads. Buzzfeed uses them to drive traffic to their website. Perhaps you have even taken a quiz a friend has shared on Facebook. What if you could custom build a quiz that matches your brand, hooks to your product or service, and is easily sharable - all without knowing any CSS, HTML, or JavaScript?That's what Interact is for.[*] Interact Interact is software as a service that helps your website generate leads, drive sales, and grow your social reach - all through quizzes.Here is just one example of what you can do with Interact: Interact makes it easier than ever for you to include interactive quizzes on your website and social media channels.Every quiz can include an optional subscription form asking quiz takers to subscribe to your email list to see results. Interact claims that an average of 50% of quiz takers subscribe to an email list. That's a much better conversion rate than those sidebar subscription forms you're using!You may also include a CTA on each quiz completion screen pointing quiz takers to an article, product, or service that matches their results. Personalized product recommendations have a much better…