Author: Nancy Boisvert

3 Reasons You Shouldn’t Ignore The Homepage

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homepage

Reports of the death of the homepage have been greatly exaggerated.

Once upon a time, the homepage was a valued part of the website. It served as the gateway to the company’s brand and was the driver of client engagement. In fact, it was so important that some companies had designated employees to manage their homepage.

Then everything changed. Along came our new best friends, “search” and “social”.

For several years now the way information is found over the Internet has evolved dramatically. Google, the dominant search engine, has continued to create more and more intuitive ways for information to be searched online.

Let’s add in the rise in social. Hundreds of social sharing platforms now exist, with the major players maintaining a stronghold on users and engagement. Indeed, in some instances, these social platforms have created entirely new ways for brands to engage with clients and prospects without them ever having to visit company’s homepage.

Thanks to leaked data from the New York Times in 2014 that showed a plunge in its homepage visitors, it soon became a commonly accepted belief that the homepage had lost its value.
Based on recent data, it has been found that as little as 5% of website visitors actually enter through the homepage, with the other 95% landing on specific pages that are mentioned via search or social media postings. This has led to marketers focusing their efforts in these areas, and rightfully so. However, ignoring the importance of the homepage can be a detriment, as it still serves an extremely valuable segment of your client and prospect pool.

Check out the following three reasons why you should not ignore the homepage:

1. Visitors to your homepage spend more time on your site.

Visitors who enter your website through the homepage signify loyalty to your brand. Based on some recent research, although only 5% of visitors come through the homepage, they actually account for 50% of all page views. This same data shows that visitors entering from search and social only view an average of three and 1.8 pages respectively per session, while visitors who enter from the homepage are more likely to view 10 to 30 pages per session. Research has shown that the longer people engage with the brand’s content, the higher the conversion rates, the larger the purchases, and the better the loyalty.

It’s true that “everything old is new again”. Companies are now starting to recognize that their homepage offers the opportunity to improve engagement with occasional visitors and convert them to loyal users. A corporate homepage is easy to personalize to provide visitors with content that will encourage them to engage, based on their interests.

2. Homepage visitors are interested in a wider range of information and offerings.

It makes sense that those visitors to your website who entered through social media or search results are there for one thing: to check out that article or product that was shared via social media postings. The visitor drops in to check out the article and then immediately leave your site.

When a visitor enters through the homepage, it is generally because they are looking for a number of articles pertaining to a specific issue. They usually have a broader scope of interests, making it easier for companies to showcase their content. Viral content, such as that shared on social media platforms, is most likely clicked on because of a compelling headline, whereas articles found on a homepage are more likely to be clicked on because of the topic.

Many publishers are beginning to recognize and knowledge that the homepage has been ignored and is largely an untapped resource. By curating content on a homepage, your business can provide visitors with the most recent and relevant articles, making it easy for them to find those topics that interest them. While search and social can deliver a visitor to your website, a compelling homepage can encourage an ongoing relationship.

3. Check your website statistics. Homepage traffic indicates your marketing successes.

There are three things to focus on when it comes to your website: developing an audience, acquiring new users, and existing client engagement.

Perhaps one of the most difficult challenges today is getting the one-time visitor to return to the website for more information after they checked out that article that they found on social media. Measuring the number of visitors who end up on the homepage after finding the site via search or social is a good indicator of how well those campaigns are performing.

Investing in a well-designed, thoughtful homepage is simply good business. Although it may not pull the traffic numbers, there are other ways to measure its value. And experience has shown that a great homepage experience can deliver an extraordinary result that search and social simply can’t produce.

Until next time…

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.

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Four Ways To Ensure Your Website Is A Reflection Of Your Brand

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Brand website

Some companies are still under the assumption that their corporate brand is simply a matter of a logo, corporate colors, and a font style.

I’ve written articles and produced videos in the past that point out that corporate branding has evolved. You may have already seen or read this information.

In today’s business environment, your brand is far more inclusive. Think of it as your company’s personality.

Branding in this day and age includes every aspect of how your company is perceived by clients and prospects in the marketplace. So, yes logo, colors, font style; all these do matter. But it is far more than that. It is much more about the customer experience.

Rather than rehash the elements of branding that I have discussed in previous posts, today I want to focus on how your website affects your brand.

Although your website is simply one tool for communicating with your clients and prospects, it can be an extremely powerful one. Your online presence is more important than ever, now that most consumers shop and compare products and services using the Internet. Therefore, take the time to create a website that is a true reflection of your corporate values and communicates this important brand messaging to your clients and prospects.

Review your website for these four key elements to ensure that it is properly reflecting your brand identity:

1. Include information that is valuable to your clients and prospects.

First and foremost, be sure that your company’s website is providing content that matters to your clients and prospects. Yes, you want to tell them about you and your services, but remember that what will attract them is what you can do for them. Failing to give visitors what they need and want will only result in a high bounce rate, and you may as well not even have an online presence. Know your target audience, provide information that is relevant to them, and presented in an organized and easy to consume fashion ads a huge amount of value.

2. Include calls to action to engage your site visitors.

Let’s face it, the purpose of having an online presence is to help drive business. And in order to do this, you must include statements within your site that will not only capture the attention of your visitors but will also elicit a response. Using phrases such as “visit us today” could entice a prospect, especially someone on a mobile device, to drop in. Or, perhaps you would like them to sign up to receive notifications of specials that you run from time to time. Be sure to include a simple to use call to action button that will entice visitors to click. And make the form simple, as statistics show that the more information you are soliciting, the lower the opt in rate will be.

3. Make sure your website is interactive.

We have all received brochures or pamphlets that are jam-packed with information. And we all know what we do with those-we throw them out. Poorly designed information, regardless of how valuable it is, will ultimately be discounted and discarded by your prospect. Make sure that your website isn’t cluttered with information. Back to our point about making information easily accessible to site visitors, tried to ensure that you have interactive features for them as well. This can not only make a more individually tailored experience for your visitor, but it can also help to build loyalty to your brand. For example if you are a financial professional, consider including an app such as a calculator that gives your clients and prospects the opportunity to get a clear picture of the services they are seeking.

4. Consider the design of your website.

How your website looks and feels to visitors should reflect the true essence of your brand. Ensure that the logo, colors, font choices are consistent with your overall brand. Your site design should speak to your visitors about your corporate “personality”. Remember what I said at the beginning of this article, and make sure that are everything that you are providing on your website gives clients and prospects a sense of the integrity of your business.

These four tactics are crucial to ensure that your website will optimize your brand identity. As a business owner, you need to take seriously how you project your online presence and how this creates the type of experience you are providing to clients and prospects.

Until next time…

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.

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Six Audits To Measure Your Website Performance

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website audits

Okay, so you’ve got your website out there, but now what?

Chances are that you have done some sort of audit to see how well your website has been performing. We’ve all heard that we should be considering everything from speed of page load to rankings, so you’ve probably found some tests online and have put your website through those. However, in order to get a true picture of your website performance, you should consider more than one type of audit.

Your website is an essential part of your business, and as such needs to be evaluated properly to make sure that it is performing in a way that enhances your online presence.

With this in mind, we wanted to provide you with the following six key areas to consider for your website audit.

1. SEO & Organic Reach Audit

Although the face of SEO has changed over the years, it is still an important factor to consider for your site success. Even if your main focus is not on obtaining clients and prospects through search, it is important that you are not invisible. Therefore, how your website fares in organic search is a major part of a proper website audit. A critical part of making improvements to your site, not only from a strategic perspective but also to find opportunities, is understanding the traffic to your site and the rankings and keywords that deliver this traffic. This audit should provide you with information about what is driving traffic to your site, helping you to plan for further growth.

2. Paid Visibility Audit

Since most organic and paid campaigns are usually run separately from each other, a paid visibility audit is key to understanding if your ad spend is targeting the right keywords. By auditing your website’s paid campaigns, you will gain an insight into what keywords are generating visitors to your site as well as the cost of those visits.

3. Technical Audit

The usability and functionality of your website matters more today than in the past. Not only are users becoming smarter and demanding more from your site, but search engines give preference to websites that are technically sound. This includes such technical elements as page load speed, optimization of images, content to code ratio, etc. And given the importance of mobile responsiveness these days, remember that you must review the technical foundation of your website for both desktop and mobile users.

4. Backlink Profile Audit

We all know that backlinks are important, even if not all of us know exactly what that means or how they work. Learning about the health of your backlinks is often overlooked in a website audit. But the quality and the origin of these links to your website are very important to establish your websites authority, and Google’s ranking algorithm has placed a lot of emphasis on a website’s link profile. But getting authoritative, quality back links has become more and more difficult. Discovering where your own links are coming from can help give you a perspective of just how authoritative your website is in the eyes of the search engines.

5. Competitor Audit

Are you looking for a report, or do you want an audit? You can’t have an audit without having something to compare to. When enlisting the services of someone for your website audit, ensure that they include a competitive audit that will allow you to compare your website among your competitors. This may give you awareness of online competitors that you were previously unaware of. It should also give you a better idea of how well you compare among your competitors; understanding how strong their online presence is can help you identify areas to improve your own online presence.

6. Local Audit

It’s important that you have accurate business information available on your website. Lack of information, or wrong information, can cost you business. A local audit shows existing local profiles, and gives you the opportunity to identify any problems that could be turning customers away.

Without question, your website is an important part of your business. Regardless of whether you’re B2B or B2C, a properly functioning website is critical to help acquire and retain customers. By ensuring that your website has been reviewed for these 6 six key elements, you can ensure that your website will perform well and help grow your business.

Until next time…

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.

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Content Marketing Made Easy

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Content marketing

Providing informative, useful content should be the driving force of your marketing.

We all know that the face of marketing has changed significantly over the past several years. Sure, at its core the fundamentals and the principles of marketing remain the same. But how clients and prospects engage has shifted, thanks to the advancement of technology, and content marketing is the best way to reach them online.

Clients and prospects now, more than ever, have control over what they see. TV remotes and DVR’s have allowed us to skip advertisements and channel surf to find those shows that we find most engaging. Traditional cable is also suffering, as more and more people see the advantage of streaming the shows and content that they want to see, without being locked into packages and programming that is dictated to them by the cable companies.

Savvy marketers who have kept up with the times understand that they need to adapt to this ever-changing landscape to keep their clients relevant within their niches. And one of the best ways to do this is with content marketing.

Simply defined, content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.  The purpose of content marketing is to attract and retain customers through the consistent creation of relevant and valuable content intended to sway or enhance prospects behavior towards your business.

Content marketing is not something that you do once and walk away. Just like the more traditional forms of advertising, repetition is important. By providing consistent, interesting and valuable information to your clients and prospects, you develop an engaged audience that learns to trust your authority.

But remember, content marketing is not about selling; it is the art of communicating with your clients and prospects. Rather than pitching your products or services, the focus is on providing information that helps make your prospective client more intelligent. This strategy is based on the belief that through the delivery of consistent, ongoing content that provides value to your prospect, you will be rewarded with their business and loyalty.

repeat-customer-marketing

And history has shown that this strategy works! Content marketing is being used successfully by some of the largest global organizations. But the beauty of content marketing is that you don’t have to be a big player to implement this strategy successfully. Properly developed and executed by small businesses, content marketing has proven itself to work over and over again.

Content marketing represents the current and the future state of marketing.

Remember our earlier definition of content marketing?

The key difference between content marketing and other types of marketing is that content marketing is not focused on selling your “stuff”.

Keep in mind that companies are sending us information all the time. But is it relevant? Most of the time it’s not, so clients and prospects become conditioned to delete so much of this. What makes content marketing so in trading in today’s marketing space is that one key point of differentiation – relevancy. Good content marketing engages the audience, changing the way they think and behave in reaction to the materials they are being sent.

You just can’t market without great content.

I’m sure you are using many different types of marketing tactics. But regardless of what you are doing, be sure that content marketing is a part of these processes not something distinct and separate.

Indeed, quality content is a part of all types of marketing. Consider the following:

• Social media marketing: integrate content marketing into the posts on your social media profiles
• SEO: Search engines love businesses that publish quality, consistent content.
• PR: Successful PR strategies address issues that people care about. PR is not about selling.
• PPC: PPC is an expensive experiment that is unlikely to give you a proper ROI without great content behind it.
• Inbound marketing: to drive inbound traffic and leads, you need good content.

To be effective at content marketing, it is essential to develop, create and follow a documented content marketing strategy. We can help you with the development of this strategy.

Until next time…

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.

If you like the information you are receiving, please consider forwarding this post.

Entrepreneur Series – Paralysis By Analysis Podcast

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Last week, I posted an update to the Entrepreneur Series, presented by Frank Thomas of the Small Business Tips Show and myself.

The episode was entitled “Paralysis By Analysis“ and we spoke about how small things can become big obstacles in moving your business forward.

Today I am posting a link to the podcast of this episode so those of you who don’t have the time to watch the video can download it and take it with you.

I hope you find it inspiring!

Listen here or listen to the podcast.

Until next time…

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.

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Paralysis By Analysis

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Paralysis by analysis – guilty as charged?

Today, we continue our new Entrepreneur Series by discussing the issue of paralysis by analysis.

I’m sure we have all been guilty of this at one time or another. We have an idea, create a plan and get all the back end prepared, and then? We do nothing with it, or shift views, or something…

What makes us do this, and how can we avoid it? Join Frank Thomas and me as we explore this aspect of human nature and talk about ways to avoid falling into this trap.

Watch our video here or on YouTube.

Until next time…

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.

If you like the information you are receiving, please consider forwarding this post.

Entrepreneur Series – Intro Podcast

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About a month ago, Frank Thomas and I launched our new series for entrepreneurs,

and I posted the introductory video here, on our website.

As a reminder, the series is focused on helping small business owners and entrepreneurs to be successful. The first video is an overview of what to expect in the series, as well as a discussion on roadblocks on your path to success and how to overcome them.

We are back on track with our schedule (at least for now) and look forward to presenting Part Two of our intro to the series on Thursday.

Meanwhile, as a refresher, you can watch the video by checking our earlier article or listen to our podcast of the episode.

Listen to our episode here, or listen to the podcast.

Until next time…

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.

If you like the information you are receiving, please consider forwarding this post.

Give ‘Em What They Deserve!

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client experience

How do you take care of your clients and prospects?

There are many facets of running your own business that can be challenging. But one of the most important aspects is to ensure that you are giving a great client experience. After all, without customers you have no business.

You spend lots of time hiring the appropriate support staff, creating the perfect products and services for your ideal customers, developing and promoting your brand, etc.

However, the preparation is simply the prelude to the success of your business. Once you have laid the foundation, it is essential to capture and retain your market share in order to run a profitable business-and to stay in business!

Now, I do not believe in that old adage “the client is always right”. While the vast majority of your customers have reasonable expectations, you will always find the rarity who either believes they deserve special treatment, or will never be satisfied with what you provide no matter how hard you try. So don’t focus your time and energy on these few bad apples; instead focus on providing the best experience to the majority of your clients and you will have success.

There are three key ingredients that will help you define and deliver quality service to your clients, ensuring loyalty. Let’s break them out.

1. Provide good quality to your clients and prospects.

Okay, that’s easy to say, but what is good quality? The key factor here is for you to define what good quality means to you. How do you want your product or service to look and feel? What guarantees or warranties do you provide for your product or service? Do your employees represent you and your brand in a way that is consistent and matches your values? Do you have proper policies and procedures that are easy to understand and easy to follow?

2. Evaluate your products or services regularly.

The secret here is to continually monitor your product or service to ensure that you are delivering something of value to your clients. Consider sending an email survey to your clients on occasion, asking for feedback. Invite them to express comments or concerns they may have during delivery of your product or service. If you’re working on a project that has deliverables over time, evaluate each step of the process. Take the time to follow up personally with clients on a random basis. Make sure that you address any issues that are brought to your attention immediately. This doesn’t mean that you have to change your product or service, but ensure that the client feels that they have been heard and understands why things are done the way that they are.

3. Never underestimate the value of a testimonial or review.

Remember to ask your clients to share their experiences with your company. Nothing is as effective as a positive review or positive feedback on the experience you have provided to a client. Expressing why they prefer to do business with you, instead of one of your competitors, can be one of the most compelling reasons for new prospects to choose your business in the future. These reviews and testimonials can be provided by the written word, an audio file, or video testimonial. Think about making it a policy to send a follow-up email or make a follow-up phone call with each and every client, asking them about their experience with your business, and then asking for the testimonial. Be sure to get permission to share this information, and post it on your website, social media profiles, and any other appropriate place.

It truly doesn’t take that much effort to ensure that you are providing a quality experience for your clients. Following these three simple steps will help provide the foundation to build a client user experience policy that will give your customers that loving feeling and help you grow a successful business.

Until next time…

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.

If you like the information you are receiving, please consider forwarding this post.

7 Reasons You Should Be Using Video To Market Your Business

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video marketing

There are many reasons why you should be using video to help market your business.

But for the purposes of this article, let’s focus on the top seven:

1. It works!

Those of you who have been following my articles and post page for the past year have seen me struggle with video. Like most of us, I’m not the biggest fan of the camera and was concerned about getting my face out there in front of everyone. But the reality is, video works! So it’s important to “get over yourself” and start integrating video into your marketing plan.

2.  It’s powerful.

Video is clearly one of the most powerful ways we have to deliver our messages to our clients and prospects, and to ignore it is to miss out on a huge opportunity to market your business and get in front of more prospects.

3. It’s social.

Video has also become much easier to integrate into the major social media marketing platforms. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram… All these platforms allow you to incorporate video to share with your friends and followers. And you’ll find that many people are willing to share video content with their network.

4. SEO value.

Video is extremely effective for SEO. Indeed, video ranks higher than any other online communication method. And although SEO, and its attendant algorithms, continues to morph, it is still an important factor in being found online. We all know that YouTube is owned by Google, and we all know that Google is still the world’s number one search engine. But did you know that YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine. With over 1 billion users and many billions of views every day, YouTube actually reaches more people between the ages of 18 and 49 than any cable network in the United States.

5.  It’s a preferred medium.

Video has quickly become a preferred marketing tool because it delivers information in a way that is easy for our brains to process. It has the benefit of demonstrating, not simply outlining, how to do, use, or implement a product or service.

6.  It’s personal.

Another benefit of video is that it humanizes online experiences for people. Through the production and delivery of video to your clients and prospects, you are no longer the faceless entity behind a website. This experience helps people engage more personally, increasing loyalty and cementing your brand in the minds of your viewers.

7.  It’s entertaining.

And let’s not forget about the entertainment value of video. Even if you are providing a demonstration video, your message will be accepted much better by your audience than the written word. Through the active stimulating the visual and auditory senses of your viewers, you are able to engage them in a much more significant fashion. Additionally, providing an entertaining, educational, or informational video can reach huge audiences on a global basis, increasing your reach and your authority in ways that were previously prohibitive.

Until recently, most people obtained their visual and auditory stimulus through the television. Big brands bought commercial timeslots, which are expensive to produce and expensive to deliver to the viewer. But now, and in ever increasing numbers, people are choosing to stream their visual content, and are able to pick and choose what they want to watch, when they want to watch it. So why not start to create your own visual content and get in front of your preferred audience.

Until next time…

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.

If you like the information you are receiving, please consider forwarding this post.

What A Difference A Year Makes!

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rebranding

One year ago this month, I rebranded Agapi Marketing & Consulting and launched our new website.

Prior to April 2015, my website was old, not mobile responsive, and I was marketing like I had been 10 years earlier.

Some of you know that I started the new millennium by doing things a little bit differently. Although marketing was always a key part of everything that I have done, I branched out into a couple of other areas. From 2002 to 2006, I was taking advantage of the changing real estate market in Calgary and was working with the company who invested in, and then flipped, houses. I became a licensed financial planner, and focused much of my marketing on the financial services industry. From 2009 to 2013, I worked with a company that focused on taking businesses public.

And then I decided to become less dependent on individual contracts and get back to helping business owners from all verticals learn how to effectively and efficiently market and promote their companies.

But there was a bit of a learning curve involved. After being out of the marketing mainstream for many years due to focusing on individual and specific contracts, I had to rebuild my network and my reputation. At first, I tried to run my consulting business as I had prior to 2002, providing planning and fulfillment services. This proved to be a challenge; when you’re busy doing fulfillment, you can’t be taking care of the myriad of responsibilities required in the running of a business.

So I re-branded my business. I decided to focus on my core strength, which is helping people develop their strategic marketing plan. After all, without this foundation, your marketing will cost you more, be less effective, and be inconsistent.

I met and worked with business owners who could provide fulfillment services that met with my high standards. After all, if it’s not good enough for me, it’s not good enough for my clients.

I rebuilt my website and re-branded my Corporation, honing my focus to better deliver that message.

I began participating in webcasts, podcasts and interviews, and began writing articles for various publications.

I wrote a couple of books which are now sold on Amazon.

I developed and built out my corporate, as well as my personal social profiles on twitter Facebook and LinkedIn.

I began providing our “Expert Interview Series” to our newsletter subscribers.

And I got over my intimidation and fear of the camera, launched a YouTube channel and began posting videos.

And the result?

The response has been great! More and more people are watching my YouTube videos and connecting on my social profiles. My web statistics show that people are not only engaging with, but are expecting my twice-weekly posts. People are spending time on my website; approximately 10% of all visitors to my site are spending a minimum of an hour there. I have successfully built a following, authority, and a solid group of experts to assist me with fulfilling the needs of my clients.

So thanks for being a part of my phenomenal growth over the past year. It has been an experience – and sometimes a frustration – but always fun and always a privilege.

Until next time…

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.

If you like the information you are receiving, please consider forwarding this post.

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