Author: Jarod

  • Keep It Fresh: Steps for Updating Your Website Content

    Stale content got you down? When was the last time your website got a little TLC?

    If you’ve been putting off a website refresh, stop it already. The time is now. And here’s how.

    Game Plan

    Wrap your head around the situation that is your website. You know what you want it to do for you: assist your business. Now get specific about the goals your website should accomplish for your business and its visitors.

    Define conversions: You may already have done this at some point but it’s worth doing again — from scratch. List the conversions you want performed on your site and then compare that list to your previous site goals. Maybe they’ve changed. Maybe you forgot about something that you needed to be reminded of. If you didn’t have a list of conversions as part of your website strategy from before, now you do. Let it guide your site design and content offerings.

    Conversion examples are:

    • phone call
    • quote request
    • store locator
    • schedule an appointment

    Assign priority: Take a list of site pages and silos and give them a rank of importance to the business goals. On a spreadsheet, indicate the goals a landing page or silo is responsible for. Key pages and/or sections of your site can be addressed first. You can use this spreadsheet throughout the refresh project to manage the updates to keywords, body content, Meta data and calls to action. Create a column for each of those essential elements on your spreadsheet as well.

    Set deadlines: This is simply time management 101. If you have set dates for when you want certain pages or sections of the site reviewed, edited and published, the project is likely to keep moving forward.

    Read More (Source: Virginia Nussey, Brue Clay, Inc., bruceclay.com)

  • Consumers Increasingly Using Mobile Devices as Their Default Gateway to the Internet

    Consumers are migrating away from PC-based Internet usage and are increasingly using mobile devices as their default gateway to the Internet, according to the latest release of the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide New Media Market Model. The United States leads that trend, with Western Europe and Japan only about two years behind. In the U.S., the number of people accessing the Internet through PCs will shrink from 240 million consumers in 2012 to 225 million in 2016. At the same time, the number of mobile users will increase from 174 million to 265 million.

    In 2015, for the first time ever, there will be more U.S. consumers accessing the Internet through mobile devices than through PCs.

    “In the consumer world, mobile Internet usage is already beginning to displace PC usage, and the United States is leading this trend,” said Karsten Weide, program vice president, Media & Entertainment at IDC. “There has been much talk about how the future of the Internet will be mobile first and PC second. In the United States, that future is now.”

    Additional findings from the New Media Market Model include the following:

    • Online PC activities will also be impacted as consumers take their usage mobile. IDC expects that the share of users accessing social networks such as Facebook on their PCs will decline from 66% in 2012 to 52% in 2016.
    • Worldwide mobile advertising will almost quintuple from $6 billion in 2011 to $28.8 billion in 2016
    • Worldwide business-to-consumer (B2C) m-commerce spending will grow six fold between 2011 and 2016, reaching $223 billion at the end of the forecast period

    “The Great PC Exodus on the Internet is happening because the PC was never truly a consumer product,” added Weide. “Many consumers use them because there was no better alternative. Now, with the huge and growing installed base of more user-friendly tablets and smartphones, there are.”

    The IDC study, Worldwide New Media Market Model 1H-2012 Highlights: Internet Becomes Ever More Mobile, Ever Less PC-Based (IDC #237459), features the most interesting findings from IDC’s latest Worldwide New Media Market Model.

    Source: Karsten Weide, IDC, www.idc.com

  • How to Attract More Customers With Content Marketing

    Are you looking to attract prospects, convert them to customers and keep them coming back?  Then social media and content marketing are a match made in heaven.

    The key to success is to make the connection between content marketing and social media.

    Let’s look at the content needed to get your marketing to that lucrative intersection.

    #1: Attract Prospective Customers

    The first question on a prospect’s mind when considering a purchase is, “What solutions are available?”

    Your goal is to create awareness and make sure that your solution meets the buyers’ need when they’re ready to make a decision.

    According to data from Google and Shopper Science’s Zero Moment of Truth report, consumers in 2011 consulted an average of 10 sources before making a buying decision. That’s up 100% from five sources in 2010.

    zmot sources used
    The number of sources a buyer consults before making a decision doubled year over year.

    Successful businesses are communicating with prospects on social networking sites and directing them to the material the prospects need to make an informed decision. How are they doing this?

    One way is to create informational articles.

    Social network users are constantly sharing, curating and consuming informational content. Often, the headline or a short description of the content appears on the social network together with a link to view the content on a company website.

    Businesses need to share this informational content and have it written for prospects who are in research mode, learning about the solutions that are available.

    Charles Schwab, a financial planning company, distributes links to resources via social networking sites and makes them available for prospective leads who reach out via social media.

    Read More (Source: Russ Henneberry, Social Media Examiner)

  • How online HR/Benefits administration can benefit your business

    As companies grow, the demands on human resources departments also increase. To satisfy demands, employers have to be aware of the advances in self-service technology in HR that can increase productivity and create real cost savings.

    HR departments can see tremendous benefits from technological innovations such as online HR/Benefits administration.

    “Online automated HR/Benefits administration is attractive to companies with a sizable work force — generally 200 or more employees — because at this size, HR departments can become bogged down with daily administrative activities,” says John Galley, president of EBenefits Solutions, which is part of the UPMC Insurance Services Division. “Automation of these activities via the Web can eliminate these daily tasks for HR departments so that they can focus more of their time and energy on strategic initiatives that have a greater business impact. Online HR/Benefits administration also saves companies money, while increasing efficiency and security.”

    Smart Business spoke with Galley about the benefits of online HR/Benefits administration and why it matters to employers.

    Why would an employer want to make use of online HR/Benefits administration?

    For many companies, the HR function has become more complex, difficult and time consuming. Oftentimes, more strategic initiatives can be squeezed out by the daily demands and volumes of administrative issues that must be addressed because they affect the work force every day. Fortunately, solutions are available.

    The advantages of online HR/Benefits administration to an employer are many. Massive amounts of paperwork associated with benefits and payroll can overwhelm an HR department. There is a need to handle a number of documents that need to be filled out, signed, dated, reviewed, entered into various internal and external systems, such as carrier databases and the employer’s payroll/HRIS (Human Resource Information System) platform, and then filed. But online HR/Benefits administration can automate much of that process for employers.

    Online HR/Benefits administration frees staff from duplicate paperwork, prevents errors and places all employees’ files in the same system, making it easier to access and retrieve. Other databases, such as a carrier system or payroll/HRIS platform can then be securely updated in an automated fashion via an electronic exchange.

    Read More (Source: Smart Business Online)

  • 4 Things You Need to be Doing on Social Media — Now

    By now, if social media isn’t a critical element in your online marketing strategy, it should be. Having a presence on sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn can add value to your product, to customer service and ultimately to your brand.

    But simply having an account and broadcasting company news isn’t enough. To attract and keep customers — and to build a strong brand online — business owners need to be active on social media. They have to provide valuable information and engage with their followers.

    Here are four things businesses should be doing on social media in order to grow the brand online:

    1. Engage with followers and provide customer service.
    Your customers are engaging with your brand wherever they are — including over social media. Don’t miss this opportunity to listen to what they’re saying to and about you, and to provide the best customer service.

    Why is this so important? Responding to customer questions and resolving issues over social media shows everyone who’s following you — and potentially anyone who is online — that your company cares about its customers, potential customers and goes the extra mile for people.

    Related: 10 Tips for Using Twitter Like a Pro

    Tools like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck can be handy for monitoring mentions of your brand over social media. As for when and who you respond to, set the tone early. If you reply often, people will expect it. If you don’t reply a lot, people will see that as well and might stop engaging with you as often.

    2. Crowdsource ideas.
    Use social media as a marketing research tool. Just as people can reach out to you, follow you and stay connected with you, business owners can do the same with their customers. Social media is a two-way street.

    Say, for instance, you’re getting ready to launch a new product. You can ask your fans and followers what they think about specific details like which colors they prefer or what types of features they want. Not only can you get real, valuable market research at no cost, you’re involving the consumer in decisions. Asking customers for their opinions can help show that they matter, and when they see their ideas become a reality, ideally you create brand and product champions.

    Read More (Source: Scott Levy, entrepreneur.com)

  • Characteristics and Benefits of Good Web Design

    There is a general perception that good web design pertains only to a good-looking site, graphics-wise. But good web design is far more than the looks. There are several factors contributing to the effectiveness of a website because good design is aesthetically-appealing, content-relevant, and technically-savvy.

    Characteristics and Benefits of Good Web Design

    Characteristics of a Good Web Design
    • Search engine friendly. The goal of developing a website is to drive traffic to your business. Even if you have excellent graphics and most relevant content, if you cannot drive traffic to your website, its purpose will be useless. Traffic can be driven through search engine optimization. SEO uses the right key words or phrases for your website. A good web designer knows how to identify the exact keywords for the topic of your website. If SEO is done properly, more users will visit your website and it will eventually be on top of Google searches.
    • User-friendly. Navigation is an important part in web designing. A good web designer must be able to consider the user experience that visitors of the site can have. There are websites which are too technical for ordinary internet users. Some may ask users to clear their cache or validate site security which may be difficult to comprehend. There are also websites which consume a lot of computer memory because of the media files embedded therein. Keeping the website as simple as possible helps in user navigation.
    • Relevant content. Do not underestimate the ability of web users to appreciate content. Although some of them rely on the graphic design to give good website ratings, many of them are actually reading. Thus, a good web design contains relevant information related to the keywords intended to cater to a specific group of audience. The content has to be engaging, entertaining and free of grammar flaws.
    • Active links. Links to direct site users to other pages or external websites should always be active. This is the part where the web designer conducts maintenance to check if all links are live and active.
    • Site structure. This spans throughout the coding and programming language the website is made from. The web designer should always consider the type of coding process to use as there might be compatibility issues with browsers and the JavaScript used to embed media files.
    • Contact page. It is important to include a contact page on your website so the visitor can get in touch with you in case of inquiries or site breakdown.
    • Internet service provider. The host of your website should have an excellent internet service provider to minimize instances that the site is down or under maintenance.

    Overall, good web design can impact the traffic on your website. It increases your chances of making it to the top of Google searches which means effective advertising for your business. It also benefits establishing good reputation in the online community, thus expanding your network of customers and business partners. Good web design is always user-centered and continues to improve based on the needs of its audience.

    Read More (Source: webdesignservices.com)

  • 5 Top Benefits Of Using Google Analytics For Your Business

    Google Analytics can be a valuable tool for monitoring and tracking the efficiency of your online campaigns and get the best results in your marketing efforts. Whether you are a small or big enterprise, Google Analytics can be handy in providing statistics on the number of visitors to your site including information related to page views. Additionally, it can also give you an overview of the total number of new visitors who may have viewed your website. In short, it allows you to measure the online traffic to your website and helps in making further improvements in your advertising campaign. Google Analytics can be the best choice for marketers, as it is completely free and works well for small companies with small advertising budgets.
    One of the major benefits of using Google Analytics is to gain complete freedom in managing your website content. If you are not satisfied with the performance of your website, then you can make changes to your content as and when required. Additionally, this tracking tool can be used to drive targeted traffic to your website and improve conversion rates for your website for greater revenue. There are plenty of advantages of using Google Analytics as it helps your website to get a high ranking on the search engines and also boosts the productivity of your online business.
    Besides, companies who aspire to create a unique brand value for their products in the market can use this tool in real time tracking of the visitors coming to their website. Google Analytics can provide accurate statistics on the number of visitors who come to your website and the time spent by each one in viewing your website. In short, this tool can be valuable in measuring the bounce rate of your website that may be able to indicate the effectiveness of your landing pages in attracting the visitors. Generally, a low bounce rate is associated with more percentage of satisfied visitors, who are able to get more relevant and useful information from your website.
    Some advantages of using Google Analytics to succeed in your business:
    Target your online visitors
    By using Google Analytics as a monitoring tool, you can target a niche audience who may be keen on purchasing your products. You can provide greater online visibility to your business with more exposure to your company’s brand using this marketing approach. It helps you to keep track of the kind of visitors coming to your website and use popular keywords that may be used in the process of searching for specific products. Hence, you can cater better to the demands of the potential customers and stay ahead of the competition.
    Measure the results of your marketing campaign
    Google Analytics can be used to optimize your website performance and attract more number of customers for boosting your sales prospects. You can also use targeted keywords as part of your SEO marketing strategy with the help of the statistics derived using Google Analytics tool. There are different functionalities using which you can determine whether your marketing campaign will be successful or not. As a result, you can get lots of opportunities for growing and diversifying your online business with the help of this amazing tool.
    Read More (Source: Shobha Atre, fulltraffic.net)

  • 10 Basic SEO Tips To Get You Started

    Every business with a Web site should make Search Engine Optimization — trying to get your site as high up as possible on Google and Bing search-results pages — a part of their growth strategy.At its most basic, “SEO” means finding ways to increase your site’s appearance in web visitors’ search results. This generally means more traffic to your site.

    While intense SEO can involve complex site restructuring with a firm (or consultant) that specializes in this area, there are a few simple steps you can take yourself to increase your search engine ranking.

    All it requires is a little effort, and some re-thinking of how you approach content on your site.

    Monitor where you stand

    You won’t know if your SEO efforts are working unless you monitor your search standings. MarketingVox suggests that you keep an eye on your page rank with tools like Alexa and the Google toolbar.

    It’s also important to check your referrer log regularly to track where your visitors are coming from and the search terms they’re using to find your site, according to PC World.

    Keywords, keywords, keywords!

    You should be conscious of placing appropriate keywords throughout every aspect of your site: your titles, content, URLs, and image names. Think about your keywords as search terms — how would someone looking for information on this topic search for it?

    The title tag and page header are the two most important spots to put keywords, PC World notes.

    BEWARE: Putting ridiculous amounts of keywords on your site will get you labeled as a spammer, and search engine spiders are programmed to ignore sites guilty of “keyword-stuffing.” Be strategic in your keyword use.

    Link back to yourself

    There is probably no more basic strategy for SEO than the integration of internal links into your site — it is an easy way to boost traffic to individual pages, SEO Consult says.

    You should make it standard to link back to your archives frequently when creating new content. MarketingVox advises that you also make the anchor text search-engine-friendly: “The more relevant words point to a page, the more likely that page is to appear in search results when users run a query with those terms.”

    As with all other SEO approaches, be sure your links are appropriate, and be careful not to cross the line into excessive linking — you don’t want your visitors to get annoyed.

    Read More (Source: Bianca Male, BusinessInsider.com)

  • 5 tips for a rockstar web design strategy

    In an age of digital communities, your website should be more than “just another website.” It should be as distinctive as your business and offer a visually engaging and intuitive experience for your visitors.

    Your website is your digital stage. You don’t have to be a superstar to engage with your customers, but with the right strategy in place you can make that impression.

    1. The 10 second impression

    Your website should tell any visitor what your business is about instantly. The moment someone lands on any page, blog post or even a 404 error page, your website should make them want to find out more – not click away.

    2. Who are you?

    How does your brand make visitors feel? Your web design strategy should ensure visitors feel what’s aligned with your business personality. Achieve that cohesion by using complementary colors, typography, images and site layout.

    3. Where’s the “any” key?

    If a visitor can’t find what they’re looking for, they will look elsewhere. The evolution of web design has implemented standards of usability that people have become accustomed to – such as the location of the navigation menu. While you don’t have to be rigid in your approach (in fact, a creative approach is often the best one), your website should be easy to use and explore.

    4. No two websites are created equal

    You’re not in business to be like someone else, so your website should reflect your unique approach. A poorly designed or “identikit” website could actually do more harm than good. Consumers have always been visually engaged and in a digital era of instant web-access your design strategy is an ongoing investment in your business.

    5. Integrate and assimilate

    Your website may look good but if you haven’t integrated social media into your design strategy, you may lose potential future admirers. Your design should be consistent across all social media platforms and instantly recognizable as YOU. Incorporating cross-platform functionality into  your design is an essential part of your strategy. Using a Facebook “like”, “recent tweets” or “recently pinned” button on your website makes it easy for visitors to interact with you. A unifying design approach across multiple platforms reinforces your brand message.

    Read More (Source:  Jules Robson, waveapps.com)

  • The Benefits of Crowdsourcing for Small Businesses

    Small business owners live and thrive in a world full of buzzwords, trends and fads; and innovators are always looking for the next “it” when it comes to running your business. How many headlines do we see on a weekly basis claiming that your business will sink without marketing method X or that Internet innovation Y will make or break your business in 2012? The world of marketing moves quickly. It’s easy to get hung on marketing’s flavor of the week and obsess over whichever buzzword claims to rake in millions in minutes.

    A business isn’t built on buzzwords, unfortunately. What creates a successful business is patience, innovation and resourcefulness. Take away the smoke and mirrors and one quickly realizes that there’s no shortcut or quick-fix when it comes to entrepreneurship.

    That said, some buzzwords are worth their buzz. Some innovations are worth looking into, and aren’t be-all, end-all if a business wants to get on board; one such example is crowdsourcing. Low-risk, high reward, and flexibility. Sounds like marketing snake oil, doesn’t it? Think again.

    Crowdsourcing. You’ve probably heard the term thrown around on marketing blogs or perhaps just heard it in passing. It sounds like a token buzzword, doesn’t it?

    The concept behind crowdsourcing is rather simple. Need a task done? Outsource it. Who performs the task? The crowd; a group of workers as small or big as you’d like, and most of the time, you don’t necessarily even know who’s doing the work. Sounds problematic, doesn’t it? Worry not, as crowdsourcing allows you to make the rules and determine which work makes the cut. You often only pay for what you need, meanwhile also having the flexibility to do work that needs to be done quickly and easily without relying on employees or in-house resources.

    Read More  (Source: Brent Barnhart, ChamberofCommerce.com)