Posts Tagged Website Content

Authentic Website Content and Blogs – The Tao of Enlightened Story Telling

On June 16, 2015   /   Branding - Marketing, Entrepreneurs - Small Business, General   /   1 Comment
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authentic website content and blog posts - June image
Content, content, content. What Google wants, Google gets.  The best part of feeding Google accurate, credible, relevant and authentic website content is that search engine inquiries return fairly accurate results. Local companies can compete with national chains, customers can find you quicker and they keep coming back because your information is current and is trustworthy.

Blogs

One of the most powerful ways to drive traffic to your website are blogs. Rich with keywords, when updated regularly search bots love to crawl and index blogs. What topics are of interest to your customers that also highlight company products and services? Make sure your blog is part of your website and is not a separate blog with a completely different domain name. Share industry information and make sure you have the same voice each post. Add some personal anecdotes in there – personal to youauthentic website content categories or situations your company has encountered. People want to read stories, not just statistics. Truthful, authentic website content will resonate with your audience.

List a few blog topics of interest to your customers. Can you cover multiple categories (products, local news, upcoming releases, etc.)?

Page Content

Let your website work for you. Websites should also serve to help your visitor make a decision. Be proactive and consider what questions your customers typically ask and answer them on your site!
Do some research. What do people call and ask you most often? Can you include these answers on your website? Do you offer a unique service or go the extra mile with customer service or off referral discounts. Share this information on the pages of your company website – blogs are not the only parts of your website that get crawled by search engines. Having clear, authentic website content that answers your website visitors questions will get you further ahead.

What website information can you expand on?

Keywords

Still powerful generators for standing out in search engines, keywords perform best in search results when they are included in paragraphs such as articles, bios, descriptions, etc. What are known as key phrases are the best for search results these days.
For instance instead of saying we provide content writing and use content writing as the keyword the suggested approach is we write a longer phrase.  For example: we develop authentic website content for Lansing area businesses. Note website content for Lansing area businesses is more targeted than just blog writing. By adding a targeted phrase to our local market we reduce the amount of websites we are competing against when people search for content writing for Lansing area businesses.
Consider how you would search in Google for your product or service. Choose words and phrases that are relevant to your product or service for a higher return. For example since we design responsive websites for small businesses, we could use mobile friendly website designs for Lansing area small businesses as a relevant keyphrase. Writing about my vacation in St. Petersburg Florida or penning a how-to on business networking is not relevant to our responsive website design service.  Google will not return our website in results when people search responsive website design for small business in Lansing, MI if we only write about the fabulous sunsets in St. Pete . Remember to feed the keyword and keyphrases in your blog and the pages of your website. You can also use Google’s Keyword Tool to get some ideas on search volumes for particular words and phrases.

What are some keywords and key phrases to start with?

graphic54d91c52c35e6-800x800.jpgPhotos / Graphics

Looking for attention? Want to stand out from the millions of website content shared each day? Post a photo or create a graphic. Product photos, image and text slides in a moving slideshow can help with promotions, or services. Sharing statistics in visual formats keep visitors on your website twice as long. Can you add professional custom photos of your building, staff, products or even stock art that represents your product or service? Can you create a graphic with an inspiring quote to post to Facebook, Instagram or Twitter and include your company logo on it? How about adding interaction with an automated slide show?  Authentic website content is not just copy, website content includes images, moving or static, photographic or illustrative.

Make a list of photos you have to use on the website and a wish list of photos that would add relevancy and visual interest.

Now search your harddrive, get out your smart phone or search Google for a local photographer in your area.

Videos / Animations

Google owns YouTube. Need we say more? Post videos on your YouTube, channel and link them to your website. Share them on other social media sites and increase your search result returns. Videos increase your search ranking and get higher page feeds in Facebook’s current algorithm. Create instructional videos, product videos, video tips, video testimonials, compile photos for products or your your office and stream them together in a video app.. There are so many options these days, you don’t have to be a professional videographer – although a professional quality video with good sound and story boarding is always best!

Which type of video will benefit your customers and your business?

Social-Media-Infograph.jpgCustom Infographic Creation:

Everyone loves a well designed infographic! Why? Because they are visual and pack a ton of information in a clear, concise manner. Design some infographics just for fun and see how far they travel in social media when people share them. What industry or local statistics of interest to your customers could be converted to
an infographic? Make sure if you are sharing stats that they are accurate and cite your sources!

Do you have stats for your company or industry stats that are impactful? What types of stats are of interest to your customer?

 
Now you have a lot of ideas for website content to drive searches and answer client questions. No time to develop all of this important content? Connect with us today. We will meet with you to discuss best options for your company website content and develop copy and visuals to increase your credibility and drive  targeted web traffic.
God luck and stay connected!

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Master the Art of Marketing for Small Business in 2015

On December 16, 2014   /   Branding - Marketing, Entrepreneurs - Small Business, General   /   Leave a comment
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Mastering the Art of Marketing for Small Businesses ebook coverBegin 2015 with a clear direction of marketing for small business. Mastering the Art of Marketing is a compilation of marketing and design strategies your small business can implement right away. Explore the workbook on your own or with your team.
Mastering the Art of Marketing is a resource for start-ups and small businesses ready to go to the next level. Each month learn new steps to connect with your target audience.

January: Set Your Course

5 step master plan for your 2015 Small Business marketing –Production, brand manufacturing, service firms, wholesale e-commerce businesses, brick and mortar retail, local bars and restaurants, increase growth opportunity when you have a plan.

February: Practice Kindness

People Helping People: Social Media Connections Transform Your Business – Coaches, authors, professional speakers, real estate agents and service firms begin building on your fan base.
Master the Art of Marketing e-workbook is a 12 step monthly marketing for small business strategy. Start the new year with all the information you need to get the 2015 small business marketing results you want.

Sample Workbook Topics:download button - marekting for small business

• internet marketing for small business
• marketing plans and editorial calendars
• brand marketing and development
• internet advertising

worksheet-page-marekting-for-small-business-mastering-teh-art-fof-marketing

Sample monthly marketing worksheet

The exercises in this e-book have been laid out in the form of a calendar year. We chose this formatting so small businesses or solo-preneurs with limited staff and time may be able to take on business branding and marketing in bite size chunks. We don’t want you to feel overwhelmed and abandon the effort part way through by attempting to complete it all in one day!
We also recognize entrepreneurs are a different breed of animal – which is why we love working with growing small businesses – our jobs are NEVER boring! Because of the unique personality traits and individual style of each business owner we also recognize some of you are not going to follow a designated path. We encourage you to skip around the book and choose the practices that are most important to your small business right now. All of the worksheets relate to marketing for small business, branding and advertising for business growth. There is no set order in which you must follow. Some of you may choose to begin at the end with the worksheet on branding. If you have not already defined your brand promise I would encourage you to do so.
Our hope is that this ebook will help you to begin the new year with goals and plans in place to build your business by delivering the very best product and service in the way your ideal customers want to receive it.
Whether you choose to take it all on at once and begin the new year with plans in place or whether you choose to tackle a worksheet each month throughout the year it is up to you. We have designed the content so you may use this ebook outlining marketing for small business for years to come. Social media platforms and resource links may change but the essence of mastering your marketing for small business will remain the same.
If you find some of the tasks to be burdensome or difficult to complete, please contact us. Connection Group provides all of the services contained in this packet. If you are part way through and just need a nudge of support or if you have decided your efforts are best directed to run your company. Outsourcing the tasks of marketing for small business and all the items involvedis a smarter use of your energy, connect with us today. Connection Group can help you with your corporate branding, graphic design, marketing, web design, and web maintenance.
Download today and attract what you desire for your business in 2015. Be inspired to create relevant marketing for small business that will captivate your ideal customers. All of the best to you as you move forward with the process of your small business marketing.
May 2015 bring peace and prosperity personally and professionally.
Stay connected!

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Why is website content king?

On July 23, 2014   /   General   /   Leave a comment
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By Connie Sweet
Content, content and more website content. Every move we make in internet marketing is to drive more content. From content management systems of custom designed websites, to blog entries, to custom infographics, to white papers, our travels around the web are leading us to more and more website content everyday.
As a marketing firm our days are filled with designing and developing unique content for websites, blogs, social media and business print communications for ourselves and our customers. We write and design new website content and upload it to websites through content management systems (the administrative area or back end of a website). We do this because Google told us to.
As we all know Google is the largest search engine on the web, the second largest (at last check) is YouTube, owned by Google. We do what Google says because we want positive results.

What drives the need for all of this website content?

Googles’ strategy for feeding content is truthfully helpful to all of us. For many years search engines we’re pretty much worthless because many ‘SEO experts’ abused the system and dumped keywords and phrases into websites that had nothing to do with the search term people were entering. Websites selling watches would saturate their sites with keywords like ‘graphic design services Lansing’, ‘website design services mid-Michigan’, etc. to get organic traffic to their website. So a search for ‘website content services in Lansing’ would send you to an e-commerce site that sells watches and doesn’t have anything to do with website content services.
Googles’ content driven approach matches actual relevant website content with keywords. When prospects do search for graphic design Lansing, Michigan the search engine will look to see if graphic design and Lansing, MIchigan are mentioned in the website and if so, are the terms relevant to the other information on the website. For instance is there also mention of logo design, website design, etc., other terms that are related to the search query. This results in more accurate results when search queries are entered in search engines.
A few blog articles covering graphic design will help. The other component that feeds the results are key content pages throughout the site with more details on the subject. Along with regular blog entries, your website pages should offer information about your specialties.
Take a look at some of your competitions’ website content and evaluate against your website. Do they have five pages discussing their service in detail and you have one small paragraph? They win. They will win the search war and they may also win the customer because their information answers the visitors questions instantly.

So if you have content why isn’t your website coming up higher in searches?

Enter the frequency quotient. Search engines also place relevance on how current a websites’ content is. A search robot will crawl thousands of websites each day. If new website content is not detected since the last visit, the bots will skip over your site and not index it again. If your competition adds new website content to their site regularly and search bots crawl and index it each time, they will always come up higher in search results than you.
Unfortunately, this requires businesses to create and post relevant website content on a regular basis to compete in the market place. This can be burdensome for small companies who do not have the work force, time or budget.

Options available for driving website traffic

  • compile and create original website content in house
  • outsource content to an internet marketing firm
  • purchase internet advertising including google adwords, social media, etc.

New businesses, especially small start up companies who come to us first for a website design typically attempt the first option for adding website content. Sadly, more times than not other business responsibilities take over and entrepreneurs realize four months have passed without one blog entry or website update. (This goes for social media posting too.) Now desperate, small businesses start looking into other options.

What to consider when choosing to outsource website content development

  • amount of website content to post to be relevant to your target market
  • types of website content that will resonate with your target market
  • do they offer a variety of content, writing, graphics, etc.
  • custom, original content
  • where content will be shared (industry forums, groups, LinkedIN, Facebook)
  • who will moderate online responses
  • what is an affordable monthly budget

What to be cautious of when choosing to outsource website content development:

  • one sized fits all policy
  • limited product solutions
  • tricky SEO practices
  • duplicated content
  • outsourcing / guest blog posts, etc.

Keep in mind website content is not just page copy or blog posts, content is also photos, graphics, logos, e-books, pdfs, and infographics, etc. Mixing up the types of content presented helps to reach a variety of prospects. Considering our eyes process visuals 90% faster than straight text, using graphics on your website can capture the visitor quicker and leave a lasting impression. Another benefit to adding graphical content to your website is that the content is easily shareable in social media and messaging.
As with all marketing, to achieve the best internet marketing results an individualized plan for each business is key. The good news here is this custom approach requires less effort and less expense when implemented correctly. Give us a call today to review your website and discuss what forms of website content will help you to win the organic or paid search war.

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