You have probably visited a company’s website and never completely understand what the business offered or what they were selling. A company can spend a significant amount of time developing a well-designed website or writing tons of content, but you may not understand what it is they do. Far too often, the company has overlooked a crucial component – the message that they need to communicate.
Improving your company’s messaging can make all the difference between getting leads for your business or scaring off visitors. It takes time for a business to develop content, however, it is not effective if it neglects to clearly showcase what you’re offering. Communicating what you do and what separates you from your competitors is something that you must get right from the get-go to attract new business, or it may cost you potential revenue.
Effective Messaging
Your website must solve a problem and create value for potential clients. You have a short window of time to convince visitors to your site that the service or product you offer is what they are looking for or need. If the audience can’t understand your message or understand the website content, they will leave in matter of seconds and move on to another business.
Communicating your company’s message isn’t always easy. Most business owners make the mistake of believing that visitors to their site view the business the same way they do. Remember that visitors don’t know your business inside-and-out, and you need to showcase what you do in the clearest way possible.
There are three relevant questions to ask about your website’s messaging, which include:
1. What Is Your Business About?
It’s important to communicate the value your business creates for your market. Although this may sound obvious, sometimes this is overlooked. You need to think about how you would pitch your business to a total stranger in an elevator. When you meet someone for the first time and describe your business, do you use similar words as your company’s home page? It may be wise to ask people who are not familiar with your business to read your homepage and then ask them to explain what your business is about.
While it may not be easy to describe your business in a brief elevator pitch, you can ask this question to narrow down the focus of your business content and to help visitors see the value your business creates.
2. What Makes Your Business Different from Your Competitors?
Working in a competitive world brings challenges. Regardless of how unique or unusual our product or service is, there may already a similar product or service that is offered elsewhere. If you are unable to communicate on your website how your business is different from your competitors, potential clientele may assume your business offers nothing different and lose interest. You need to highlight the strengths of your services or products on your website homepage and make it stand out.
It is also important to refresh content on a regular basis. Adding new content that includes the latest information about your company and your brand is important attracting more customers and drawing in more business. Remember that the content on your site is also a reflection of your brand and its principles.
3. Have You Set the Right Expectations?
Not only should the message on your website communicate the value the business creates and what makes you stand out, messaging also plays a crucial role in establishing credibility for your business and turning visitors into clients.
Some websites lure visitors with clever messaging, but they fail to deliver on their promises. Your message must set the right expectations and convince potential clients that you will deliver the products and services as stated on your business site.
By effectively communicating what your business offers, how you differ from the competition, and setting and delivering on expectations, you can demonstrate your company’s value to visitors and boost business based upon the message and content listed on your website.
The more content you have, the better the website, but don’t forget that the focus is on quality above quantity. Your business content and messaging can only be useful if your audience finds the information on your web site insightful and valuable in the long run.
There are many different digital marketing strategies that will increase the demand for companies’ products or services. Some of these strategies include social media, chatbots, artificial intelligence, video, and live video. One essential digital marketing trend for 2019 is live video. Live video goes one step further than video in that it instantly allows consumers to connect deeper with the specific brand. Forbes magazine states that, “Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text.” This one fact alone should encourage companies’ to experiment with live video. Companies can easily stream videos through Facebook Live, Instagram Live, Livestream.com, and YouTube Live. The ever increasing amount of live streaming platforms allows companies to easily market themselves with live Q&A’s, behind the scenes experiences, and product demonstrations.
We hope these facts encourage you to take your marketing videos to the next level. The Search Engine Guys can implement live video into your digital marketing strategy and help your brand soar.
Search Engine Friendly
This is pretty plain and simple. SEO experts have performed case study after case study that show that Google ranks sites that use WordPress higher than those built on other platforms. The reason for this is because the WordPress framework makes it easier for Google to crawl and index the pages on the site. The easier you make it for the bots to crawl your pages, the better off you will be.
Adaptability
The adaptability of WordPress sites cannot be overlooked. WordPress is flexible enough to accommodate any plugin, extension, or update you need. There is no easier way to update your site compared to other platforms. Whether you are a small business, e-commerce, or personal blog site, WordPress has the ability to adapt whatever you need.
Mobile Friendly
Google penalizes sites that aren’t mobile-friendly by displaying them lower in their results. With WordPress, you don’t have to overhaul your entire site to make it accessible on tablets and smartphones, since most themes are automatically responsive. WordPress also has an option for websites to be viewed in “mobile view” for themes that aren’t responsive.
Cost Friendly
Whatever the focus of your site is (commercial or personal), it doesn’t cost a penny even when your traffic increases. Any update you need to the site can be done by you or your developer without any additional WordPress publishing costs.
Integration
WordPress has the ability to integrate with popular third-party platforms to help make the site more efficient. There are plugins that you can use for just about anything you can think of that would be useful for a site. WordPress can integrate with just about anything out there, which makes it invaluable for publishers in any industry!
Working with a digital marketing agency can increase the speed and return on your digital advertising investment. An agency most likely has the resources and experience to achieve better results than either an in-house team or the up-and-down world of freelancers that come with widely varying skills and ability.
However, while most agencies will be quick to assure you that they have the capabilities to meet your digital marketing needs, you don’t want to be oversold. Choosing the right agency can reduce costs and lead to faster and more pronounced growth, while choosing the wrong agency for you can mean the wrong fit, a lack of results, and can be costly.
To choose the right agency for you, it is a good idea to ask some specific questions to see how they align with your expectations:
1. What is your process?
You can tell a lot about how well a business understands your digital marketing needs when they describe how they’ll meet those needs.
This slightly less-common question (compared to the standard “how can you help me?”) requires the agency to tell you how they work and how they’ll handle your campaigns. You can also tell how experienced and knowledgeable they are about your specific needs by how well they can describe their process to you.
2. What experience do you have handling clients in my field?
Here, you get more directly into the experience of the agency. While many will claim to be able to meet your expectations, not everyone will have experience in your particular field.
Ask to see examples of their previous work for clients that are similar to your business and your marketing needs. If they can’t produce them, they may not have as much experience or expertise as they claim.
You may be tempted to go with an agency that is unproven in your field, in the hopes that they’ll bring a fresh perspective or new skills to your campaigns. That decision is up to you – and could pay off with the right agency. For other business owners, trusting your campaign to an experienced firm that can show results in your field lessens the risk that you’ll spend money to get little or no return.
3. How do you use digital marketing for your own brand?
Perhaps experience isn’t as important to you as the skillset available at the agency. In that case, you’ll discover a great deal from how they market themselves. You might ask to see how they’ve handled their own campaigns to get a glimpse of the creativity they will show your campaign.
This isn’t the most important factor, however. Many successful agencies do little for their own brands, largely because they are focused mainly on their own clients’ success.
4. When will I see results and what will those results look like?
Agencies can be either too reluctant or too eager to answer this question, and that’s telling in both cases. If they aren’t willing to pin down precisely what success looks like within a reasonable span of time, that may indicate they lack the capabilities to deliver.
On the other hand, a time frame that seems too short with results that sound too optimistic should also make you reconsider.
Look for a reliable, scientific means of proving positive results and a time frame that gives enough time (but not too much) to start seeing those results. Digital marketing should take half a year or more to start seeing improvements, depending on your industry and area of focus. Make sure you have a way to measure the success of the agency with some data at some point during the working relationship.
5. What will this cost?
Cost is always a significant concern any time you are investing in your business. Before settling on your digital marketing agency, make sure you set some hard numbers, and there’s an understanding of just how much you are willing to invest to meet the results you expect.
Once you’ve received the right answers to these questions from a digital marketing agency, you’ll be in a much more comfortable position to select the team that is right for you. It’ll be easier to decide on the agency with the capabilities to meet your expectations and to deliver the results you are looking for.
What do you define as a conversion? A conversion, in internet marketing, occurs when a visitor on a website completes a desired goal, such as filling out a contact form, calling the phone number, or engaging in an online chat platform. That is the simple way to look at a conversion. On the other end of the spectrum, a conversion to a business owner may be defined as a purchase or a potential client sign-up. This is what makes our conversion numbers so important and something we always want to focus our efforts on.
Of course, it is not reasonable to expect all conversions will be high-dollar purchases for an e-commerce business or million dollar cases for a law firm, but at some point the conversion must be valued. Too often, I see a disconnect in communication between the marketer and the client when discussing which conversions from a paid ad campaign were worthwhile. This information is important to the marketer so they can figure out what keyword brought in that million dollar conversion and they can continue optimizing their PPC campaign. With this information, paid search experts can really focus on what is worth their time and effort, versus wondering, “Sh*t! Are these actually leads?”
Most marketers find themselves wasting time focusing on conversions/leads that may not be a qualified lead. This stresses the importance of following up with your clients to make sure that the leads you are bringing in are worth their time and money.
To sum this up, it’s important to ask yourself and your client the questions below when considering what to focus the campaign budget on and how to tailor the ads for those big-money keywords.
- What does an ideal lead look like?
- What are things that can make a lead disqualified?
- What are you willing to spend for a qualified lead?
Communication is KEY. As a marketer, we can create pivot tables to analyze our ads and keywords with our conversions to better optimize our campaigns. But if the client says that 80% of those leads were junk, then our optimization is thrown out the window. We must follow up with clients on a consistent basis to make sure our efforts are giving them great return on investment. By implementing this practice, we can set up a pivot table of QUALIFIED leads and focus our efforts where they really need to be.
Spending money to advertise on Google is not cheap, so it’s a smart question for any business to ask how effective paid search marketing is in 2018. Have browsing habits evolved? Do people still click on ads?
In a 2017 study of Google users, 60% of participants responded that they will click on any result that is relevant to their search, regardless of whether it is an ad or organic result. Only 24% of participants responded that they would actively avoid clicking on ads. This means that 3 out of 4 people will still click on your ad if it is relevant to what they are looking for.
Because these potential clients are already looking for your product or service, it’s merely a matter of a click and an action (phone call, internet purchase, email, contact form, etc.) on their part to convert that into a sale or a potential sale.
Inbound marketing strategies like paid search advertising tend to generate a more significant return on investment (ROI) than outbound marketing strategies (email campaigns, scattershot social media advertising, postcards, flyers, etc.) because your audience is specifically looking for your services.
It is important to hire an experienced and reputable internet marketing firm as a resource to handle your online marketing efforts, including creating and managing your paid search campaigns. It is entirely possible to spend (and lose) quite a bit of money if you do not set up and manage the campaigns the right way. By hiring a firm that has experience in running successful campaigns, you can rest easier knowing that your money is being spent the right way.
If you are considering hiring a firm to help you take advantage of the more than 160 billion searches per month on Google, there are a few questions that you will want to ask your rep, including:
- Have you handled campaigns in my specific industry before?
- What type of ad spends have you worked with in the past?
- What is the spend-range that you recommend for my specific campaign?
- What is the communication process like? What type of reporting do you provide?
Once you have discussed their experience and plans for your particular campaign, you can be comfortable in handing the keys to your paid search advertising over to professionals who do this on a daily basis. As always, make sure to select a firm that you trust, and someone who you know will be looking to maximize your return on investment.
Have you ever purchased a service from a marketing company who promised to be there for you no matter what happens? After signing up, did your account manager fail to answer your call, or return your call much later in the week?
This is a clear sign that the company is either a.) unable to keep the commitment they made or b.) are trying to hide something from you. Companies don’t usually stay silent when they have positive results to show and are often quick to avoid you when something negative happens. The whole key to successful marketing is figuring out what is is working and what is not. Your success should be their success. Marketing is not a science and there isn’t just one equation that is successful for everybody.
Every account is different and there needs to be an ongoing dialogue between the account rep and the client. Marketing companies should use the data from campaigns that are not working just as effectively as they can from campaigns that are delivering. An unsuccessful campaign can tell them what efforts are not worth the time, effort, and investment, and they can instead put more work into strategies that are currently working for others.
As the client, it is essential that you feel comfortable to contact your rep whenever you have questions about anything. At the end of the day, the marketing company needs to be responsive to your concerns, feedback, and suggestions. They don’t have to agree with you and should be comfortable enough with you to voice their own concerns or tell you why they disagree with specific suggestions, but again, a healthy dialogue needs to take place.
Make sure you get to know the history and the strategy of the marketing company that you are signing a contract with. Also, be sure that your representative gets to know you as well. You should have a very good idea of what kind of company they are and how they handle their business by the flow of the conversation leading up to the signing of the contract.If they are missing scheduled calls or are rescheduling meetings consistently, these are red flags that most likely will not change when you sign up with them. Also, communication should not be limited to emails. There need to be phone calls included here and there to maintain that communication, trust, and professional relationship. It’s better to over-communicate than to not talk at all. Communication is the first step to solving any issues and alleviating concerns and needs to be present in every step of business.
When I began my career at Cloud 8 Sixteen, Inc., I never imagined that I would have the opportunity to photograph attorneys from one of the most prestigious law firms in America. Fast forward two years and I am pulling up to Williams Kherkher’s office, a massive building located in Houston, Texas. Williams Kherkher is a personal injury law firm that was founded in 1983. Over the last 35 years, the firm has recovered billions for victims across the country. Photographing a firm of this caliber was both scary and exciting at the same time. I knew the shoot would be a challenge, but it was one I was ready to take on.
When I was first asked to do custom photography for this client, I thought, “Wow, what an honor! I wonder if I’m ready for this?” While I have years of photography experience, I had recently taken on this new role at work and was honored to be given such a huge opportunity. I spent the next few weeks mentally preparing for the assignment. I knew that this photoshoot would be very different from photoshoots I have done in the past. These lawyers were not my close friends or family. In fact, it was the first time I was meeting them. The only thing I knew about them was they were a big freaking deal.
I was so anxious the morning of the photoshoot. I couldn’t stop thinking about all of the unknowns. It was my first time seeing their office and I didn’t know what kind of space I would be working with. Lucky for me, all my nerves disappeared as soon as I was introduced to the lawyers at the firm. I finally realized that the day wasn’t about me but was about all the awesome people standing in front of me. The rest of the day was better than I could have ever imagined. I really enjoyed being pushed outside of my comfort zone and loved learning more about their practice. I left the office feeling extremely grateful for the day I had.
The most valuable thing I learned from this experience is that the client always comes first. If I would have continued the photoshoot believing that the day was about me and my photos, I would not have gotten the shots my client needed. Understanding this allowed me to capture images that highlighted the special qualities Williams Kherkher has to offer as a personal injury firm. When I look back on the day, I am proud of what I accomplished. I captured photos that I loved, but more importantly, I took photos my client was proud to show on their website.
It’s no secret that everyone is confused about the new algorithm change that Instagram decided to move forward with. In March of this year, Instagram changed the way posts are shown on the platform – no more chronological order. This month, Instagram decided to change the algorithm again. Now, posts show up in terms of engagement. This change could be perceived as positive or negative. From a business standpoint, this change makes it a lot harder for someone to see your branded posts, but it gives you the urge to work harder for your recognition. Here are four ways you can stay relevant on Instagram after its algorithm adjustment.
1. Give and Get
If you want people to interact with your posts, you have to be sure you’re interacting with them as well. If someone comments on your picture, try responding as quickly as possible to keep your engagement rates high. By engaging with your audience, Instagram rewards you by pushing your post to the top of your audience’s feed. Keep comments as personal as possible. The smartest way to go about this is by not responding with generic comments like “Thanks!” or “Good image.” If you respond generically, your audience will think you use an automated platform that pushes those comments out and they might unfollow you. Also, “like” the posts that you know are relevant to your brand because this will create a better relationship between you and your audience.
2. Run Instagram Ads
Running an ad on Instagram is a great way to increase your brand awareness, because you are in full control. Not only does it help with awareness, it might increase brand engagement by gaining more followers. When you create an Instagram ad, you have the option to pick what goal you are after. If your goal for an Instagram ad is to increase traffic to your website, you have the option to link your website to the ad so the user can easily visit your site. The best part of running Instagram ads is that you can create specific target audiences. You can choose between demographics, age, location, and interests. For example, you can configure your ad to only appear for males within the age range of 18-24 who are in Miami, FL. By creating a specific target audience, it is more likely that the user seeing your ad will want to engage with your account.
3. Day/Times are Important
It is important to check when your followers are most active on Instagram. If you registered your Instagram for business purposes, you can view multiple insights on your followers. Post your content during these times and try to increase engagement from the second you post. A lot of engagement in a short amount of time lets Instagram know that the content you posted is of quality and will rank higher in the algorithm (more people will see your post).
4. Utilize Instagram Stories
Why are Instagram stories more important than ever? Instagram cares about all engagement, not just a post or comment/like. Try posting a story on your account using a poll. You can accomplish this by creating a new story, taking a picture or video, and clicking on the square faced icon at the top right of the screen. Once you’ve clicked on that icon, you have the option to “create a poll.” Creating a poll is a great way to make people engage with your account. The more your users interact with your stories, the more likely your posts will show up in their feed. Use calls to action including action words like “Comment below” or “Swipe Up” because it influences the user to want to engage with your account.
Just because Instagram changed their algorithm to favor engagement, you shouldn’t neglect the other factors of running an Instagram account. Remember, an Instagram account is more likely to get a follow if the brand stays consistent. Try using the same filters and similar content to keep your account authentic. Lastly, use as many trending hashtags as possible. By keeping up with trending hashtags, your post is more likely to show up in the explore section and increase your chance of engagement. Instagram has been constantly evolving with the increase of users and it is important to follow their footsteps!
Follow us on Instagram to see how we use each of these strategies to keep our followers engaged.
Starting November of 2017, The Search Engine Guys is saying “adios” to Yahoo’s search engine. After years of collecting data from Yahoo, we’ve decided to let go of our old friend to redouble our efforts into Google and Bing.
Why Goodbye?
In recent years, the world of SEO has seen a decline in search volume coming from Yahoo. As of October 2017, Yahoo’s search engine market share has dropped to 4.51% as reported by NetMarketShare.com.
On top of dropping below 5%, The Search Engine Guys‘s clientele has expressed less and less interest with search rankings in Yahoo in comparison to both Bing and Google. As a result, we will no longer report rankings on Yahoo.
Additionally, Yahoo offers less in terms of access to search data and statistics. This is a major factor considering Google’s Search Console and Bing’s Webmaster Tools do just that: provide us with all the insights and diagnostics about our websites that we need. While Yahoo doesn’t have its own webmaster tool, Bing’s Webmaster Tools can serve some, but not all, functions for both search engines.
Yahoo and Bing
Since 2009, Yahoo has been a part of the Bing network. The partnership originally focused on paid listings in the SERPs. Search pages on Yahoo had to display advertisements from Microsoft (Bing) on all desktop searches. The organic listings in Yahoo were also powered by Bing’s search engine. Part of the deal included Yahoo giving up it’s search engine tech to be replaced by Bing’s.
Yahoo gained more control of the ads displayed on their search pages in 2015 in a new deal with Microsoft that limited Bing’s ads to only display on 51% of searches done on Yahoo. This part of the deal only covered desktop searches – Yahoo had complete control of the ads displayed on searches conducted through mobile devices.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, Yahoo is a mask for Bing when looking at organic search results. The TSEG team believes that abandoning Yahoo to monitor the rankings more closely on Bing while continuing to focus on Google will provide us with richer insights for the future of SEO strategies without compromising the 4.51% of total searches done in Yahoo.
If you would like to learn more about how SEO can help your website, contact us at (512) 394-7234. We’d be happy to walk you through the benefits of optimizing your website for Google.