Tag: website marketing

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.

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

Facts And Fallacies About Social Media

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social media

This is been a really interesting week.

I have had the opportunity to work with a couple of different social media marketers, and it’s always fun to get the different perspectives! Of course, I have experience with social media marketing. And, over the past several years, I have had the opportunity to work with many strategic alliance partners who are experts in the field of social media and online marketing.

Lots of times, people think of social media just in the context of various platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. But social media marketing is a subset of online marketing, and there are many layers to marketing online beyond these communication platforms.

Social media marketing is certainly about setting up profiles on those social media platforms that are most closely aligned with your business model and your target audience. But it is also about getting attention online to your business, amid all of the noise out there on the Internet.

I’m sure you’ve all heard by now about SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. The goal of being online is to be found online, so you can gain clients and prospects for your business. And with the vast number of businesses marketing their services and products online, you must be able to be found. Search engine optimization is kind of the Godfather of this process, and is at the core of a why all other online marketing methods are employed.

But let’s get back to social media.

When looking to establish a social media program for your business, it is important to ensure that you are reaching them on those platforms where they are most likely to be found. Different platforms have different purposes, different reaches, and attract a different audience. There is, of course, some overlap. For instance, Instagram is a great platform to showcase your products, given that it is a social platform for posting pictures. LinkedIn, on the other hand, is a platform that is meant to engage a more business-focused audience, providing opportunities to share knowledge, discuss topics, and network with other business professionals.

But what all these platforms have in common is that they are about social interaction, and that is where many businesses fall short of the mark.

You want to be sure of your purpose for social media interaction as well. Why are you on the various platforms? Are you looking to share knowledge and expertise? Awareness of your brand or your product? Are you looking for social interaction with people who have similar interests as you?

Whatever your purpose, make sure that you approach your social media marketing with a plan. Unfortunately, many less-than-ethical individuals and businesses exist in the big, wide world of Internet marketing who will make extravagant promises to businesses, for a specific fee, over a period of time – usually a minimum of three months. And then they fail to deliver on the promises. These entities are doing a great disservice to everyone involved; the business who paid and didn’t receive the promised results, the optics of the value of social media marketing, and the services of legitimate marketing professionals.

But there is some complicity on the part of the client here as well. We’ve all heard that adage, “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”. So if someone approaches you and promises you a front page Google listing practically overnight for a mere $XXX per month, do your homework and find out how this will be delivered. Too many of these unscrupulous marketers will engage in black hat techniques that could end up getting your company banned from Google listings completely. And once these folks have your three month fee in their pockets, they just move on to the next company, without care or concern about your level of satisfaction with their services.

And another important note – don’t get hung up on the number of Likes, Friends, Followers etc. that you have, compared to others on social media platforms. Stay focused on the purpose for being on these platforms and don’t get sucked into thinking it is a popularity contest. It is better to have 1000 legitimate, engaged Followers who are most likely to convert to clients than to have 154K Followers who never engage.

We’re responding to requests to provide more information about this topic, and are in the process of developing a new video series about the 10 best ways to utilize social media marketing, so watch for it soon. And until then, be clear on your intent when integrating social media marketing into 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.

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

The Secret Sauce To Engaging Your Audience

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engage your audience

How to engage your audience – not as hard as you might think…

Well folks, I try to provide quality tips and marketing information every Tuesday and Thursday to post on our Articles and Posts Page. And, to be perfectly honest, sometimes I struggle with the content. This is because I don’t just want to fill space, but I want to make sure that I am providing you with something that will be beneficial to you in your own business.  I like to engage my audience.

I’ve written about many topics over the course of the last several months and it is my intention to ensure that I am providing you with information that is timely, effective, and relevant. I want to provide you with new information and not just rehash the same old messages.

Which brings me to today.

I started the day by reflecting on what I have posted over the past several weeks, and I realized that, although I’ve given many tips and strategies about various elements of the science of marketing, including ideas about how to use video and various other marketing tools, I really haven’t addressed the topic of content in very much detail.

But I didn’t just want to talk about the usual aspects of content marketing. I didn’t want to talk about keyword optimization. I didn’t want to talk about guest blogging. I didn’t want to talk about syndication. All of these are important elements of content marketing, and I likely will address these in future posts. However, to me, the most important element about engaging your clients and prospects through your content is to be compelling.

So, are you ready to learn exactly what the secret sauce is to engaging your audience?

It’s not really that much of a surprise. In fact, it’s actually pretty simple.

It’s called telling a story.

When we are trying to tell our point of view, or teach something, or share something with our clients, our prospects and our readers, we want to capture their imagination. The best way to do this is by telling a story.

Since the early days of man, storytelling has been part of our culture. Look at the cave paintings of our far distant ancestors. Reflect on the history that are taught by archaeologists of how our indigenous people would sit around a campfire and relate the stories of things like hunting and traveling and setting up camp. These were times of celebration; of sharing and of ensuring that the stories would be carried on from generation to generation to generation. Of course, this was before we had invented a way to write an alphabet of some sort, and communicate through the written word. And, although the written word makes it easier to ensure that stories are passed on for generations are not lost over time, we still must ensure that these words are delivered in a way that is compelling, compassionate and interesting to keep our audience engaged.

Let me give you an example of how storytelling can help engage audience rather than just simply relating the facts.

If I was to tell you that I found a way of creating a following on Twitter that would enable you to increase traffic to your website, and capture the attention of more potential business, that tells you a reality of exercising a certain marketing technique.

Now, if I was to tell you that at the beginning of July, I employed a method that enabled me to increase the traffic on my website by 800% through simple technique on Twitter, would that capture your attention? If I was to tell you that I engaged personally with every person who followed me on my Twitter account, responded to direct messages, thanked people for mentions, retweeted information that was relevant to my followers, and made a point of personally engaging with some of these people, not just on Twitter but also on LinkedIn on Facebook, would that paint a bit of a better picture than simply saying that creating a following on Twitter could increase traffic to your website?

Both stories have the same ultimate message. The difference between the two is that the first simply states the facts, while the second speaks more personally about some of the things I did, making it relatable to my audience.

So don’t be afraid to use examples when you’re communicating with your clients and prospects. Everybody has a story to tell, and everybody understands some aspect of everybody else’s story. Telling a story humanizes your article. It helps make your message more relatable, and resonates better with your clients and prospects. It changes your message from that of a clinical approach to a personable, friendly piece of information that helps build trust, familiarity and engagement.

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.

Likes, Tweets, Shares, and Subscribes …Oh, My!

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social media marketing

Social media accounts are important, but…

I was having a discussion with a business colleague the other day and the topic came up about how clients perceive their followings on social media platforms.

During this conversation, he mentioned that one of his clients was not satisfied with the number of subscribers she had on her YouTube channel. She has lots of views, just not too many subscribers.

That led us to an exchange about social media engagement in general.

So let me play devil’s advocate for just a minute.

Read more

9 Ways To Drive Traffic To Your Website – That Aren’t Spam!

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drive traffic to your website

Spam is bad! We all know that.

Getting found on the internet can be a daunting task, especially if you are working with a limited budget. Sure, you can engage in pay-per-click campaign (and yes, they do have benefits in many instances), but most companies and entrepreneurs look to gain organic traffic.

One of the most effective strategies to grow organically is to develop inbound links. These links will serve you best if they are not links that your competitors can easily recreate, giving you a competitive edge and helping build both authority and traffic. Here are 9 ways to earn credible inbound links to your website.

1. Give a Presentation:

Most industries hold conferences and seminars, and many of them provide opportunities for guest presenters. In most instances, the conference will have its own website or will be mentioned on a related site. Be sure that you are mentioned on the site as a presenter, with a link to your site.

2. Become Involved in Your Community:

Becoming known in your local area can be a huge benefit to you and your business. Through the simple act of volunteering in your community, you can land tons of traffic to your site and mentions from authority sites such as non-profit organizations. Read more

How To Market Your Business: 5 Proven Strategies

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Market your business

Welcome to our latest video series:” How To Market Your Business: 5 Proven Strategies That Are Easy To Implement”.

It had been our intention to get this live-streamed yesterday, but we all know what can happen with technology. And tech glitches right after a long weekend… well, we know how that goes!

Regardless of the delay, here is the introduction to our latest video series. This series will be run each Tuesday and Thursday, so keep watching for updates. Watch to learn how to implement 5 easy strategies and increase your marketing results.

Watch our Video Now, or watch 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.

Orange Is The New Blue???

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Oil after the election

Huge political upset in Alberta – what does it mean for you?

By the time this article is published, the huge political upset in Alberta will be over a week old. No one forecast this outcome, least of all the governing Tories who allowed arrogance and their sense of entitlement to call an election more than a year before it was required. This decision has cost Albertans in many ways; first, for the election itself; secondly, for an immediate by-election that will now have to take place, since the former leader of the PC’s decided to take his marbles and go home after the stunning defeat; and thirdly, the cost (potentially) to the province economically, depending on what the new government decides to legislate over the course of the next 4 years.

The Premier-designate has stated publicly that she does not intend to bring sweeping changes to how things are done, and that she will work ‘collaboratively and in partnership’ with our oil industry. As one analyst stated, surely this Party will not be so foolish as to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Read more

How to Make Your Website More User Friendly in 3 Easy Steps

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web design

There is no arguing that a website is a must for your business.

But if your website isn’t user friendly and is not engaging visitors, you’re wasting your efforts.

Creating and maintaining a site that is pleasing to your visitors will greatly enhance your business by appealing to your existing clients and attracting more business prospects, eventually enhancing your bottom line.

Follow these 3 steps and you should be well on your way to providing a website that is attractive and engaging for your visitors.

1. Keep your content concise, paying close attention to it’s readability.

Content is the biggest influence on visitors to your website. By providing content on a regular basis that is current and easy to read, you are not only making your site more user friendly, but you are also more likely to have your visitors return and share information.

Make sure that your content is easy to peruse. Most internet users scan content rather than reading all of it. Formatting your content by keeping the paragraphs short, using tables or columns will assist in the readability factor. Breaking up text through the use of bullet points, headings and sub-headings will also make it easier for your visitors to find the key points of your message.

Ensuring that your content is provided in a visually pleasing manner will also improve the visitors’ engagement. Watch for things like finding the right contrast between your site and the content. Don’t let the background color overpower the content.

Also pay close attention to white space. Too little, and you risk ‘tiring’ your visitor and they will simply leave your site without reading your message.

Improper font usage is another error that can cause subliminal fatigue in your visitors. Keep your fonts clean and easy to read, and note that san serif fonts are easier to read online, while serif fonts are more appropriate for printed materials. Avoid using more than 2 or 3 fonts per design, using highlighted or bold keywords or links instead.

While we are on the subject of links, be sure to test all your links to ensure that they are working. Broken links are not only confusing but are also unprofessional, making a negative impression and lowering the credibility of the content you worked so hard to provide. Review your links from time to time to make sure that they have not broken and continue to point to the appropriate pages.

2. Make navigating your site simple.

This simple step is one of the easiest and best things you can do to improve the appeal of your site. Creating navigation that is clear and clutter-free makes it easier for your visitors to find information and they are therefore more likely to dig deeper into your site. Limit the number of menu items as much as you can, while still ensuring that visitors can find salient information.

When looking to improve navigation, check your layout first. If the layout is cluttered or confusing, you will lose visitors. You can highlight specific pages to make them more visible, or include a call-to-action at the top of the site.

Also, the placement of the navigation menus are very important, so be strategic. The best place for the menu is either at the top or the left-hand side of your site. Regardless of which of these 2 choices you use, be sure that the navigation is above the fold – keeping in mind the use of mobile devices as well.

3. Be sure your site loads quickly.

The online experience has impacted our attention spans. More and more, visitors are looking to get information quickly, and are impatient with websites with long load times. Don’t risk losing potential business simply because your site takes too long to come up! Your site should ideally load within 4 – 6 seconds. Besides that, long load times also negatively impact search rankings.

Some of the things that slow down your site’s speed are large videos, photos, and flash files. Although multimedia elements can certainly engage a visitor, they take a long time to load, and you risk losing the visitor before they ever get to it. Consider minimizing the use of these elements on your site, and opt to link to them externally from within your site.

When you do use images on your site (and, of course, you should have some visual elements!) compress them for web use and be sure to use the right file type.

Following these pointers will help you keep your site user-friendly and ensure that people come back – as well as share your site with their friends. Your attention to your website is the difference between a ‘so what’ experience for you visitors and a ‘what’s next’ reaction. By taking the time and a little effort, you can achieve great results from your site, turning it into a powerful promoter of 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.

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

Are Your Website Visitors Engaged?

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website visitor engagement

Engaging you website visitors.

No, we’re not talking about tying the knot here. Is your website pulling your visitors in and providing them with reasons to explore?

Pretty websites are easy to create. But if the site isn’t engaging visitors, well… is it really worth anything or is it just wasting everyone’s time?

The main purpose for any website that is being used to build and promote a business is to draw visitors in and propel them to interact with the site. Without engagement, your visitors will leave and never come back. You need to give clients and prospects a reason to come back to your site, and the only way to do that is to encourage engagement.

So just how do you get your website visitors to do what you want while they are on your site? By creating a site that encourages engagement. Without engagement, your visitors won’t buy from your site, they won’t share your information about products and services, they won’t sign up for your newsletter, and they certainly won’t come back.

There are lots of ways to increase visitor engagement.

Design and appearance of your site is one important factor. If your site is muddled or too busy, the visual effect will turn visitors away. Clean design is important to make the site welcoming to your clients and prospects.

Be sure to watch your wording. This applies not only to your content, but also to any sign up forms you may have on your site. After all, the best engagement is to capture the names and email addresses of your visitors.  When developing your opt-in’s test the wording. Also, be sure to remove any questions that can be answered ‘no’. Once ‘no’ pops into a prospects head, they will disengage, i.e., leave your website – the exact opposite of your intent.

Another thing you can include on your site to encourage and increase engagement is a blog. Providing interaction with prospects and clients on a regular basis through a blog gives them a reason not only to continue to come back to your site, but also to share your information with their circle of influence. Make sure your blog is relevant, current, and informative.

If your business is such that it necessitates more immediate interaction with clients’ and prospects’ questions, you might want to consider adding live chat. Several platform options exist, and this could give your company an edge over your competition. If live chat isn’t really an option for your business, be sure to give excellent customer service. There is no substitute for great customer service.

And what about video? This means of communication is becoming more and more popular as it engages visitors on a more personal level. Even if you, like most of us, are a bit camera shy and uncomfortable in front of a webcam, consider doing a number of short videos to promote your business and let people get to know you and your team a bit better. And, trust me. I speak from personal experience – it does get easier the more you do it!

Surveys are also a good tool to use for visitor engagement. People love to be asked their opinion, especially if they can respond in a non-threatening environment.  When creating your survey, be sure to include some open-ended questions that will obtain more information than a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response. Consider offering an incentive to your visitors for completing the survey to attain more participants.

Another technique that is gaining popularity is the exit poll. Similar to a survey, they typically ask only one question when a visitor is leaving a website. The most effective exit polls focus on objections that a visitor may have, such as ‘What prevented you from purchasing from us today?’

So what’s the bottom line?

By now you are starting to understand just why visitor engagement is so critical to growing your business online. A boring site that does little or nothing to engage visitors and encourage them to interact is actually detrimental to your bottom line. And, as you have read, it doesn’t really take too much effort to implement techniques and strategies that will improve your visitor engagement. Using the tools described in this article – and there are many others out there as well – will enrich your visitors’ experience, converting more browsers into clients.

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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