The world of marketing is ever-evolving, and though there is no universal marketing strategy that will “just work” for every type of company, some marketing professionals make it seem like they possess the secret formula. Now that digital marketing has taken over, there are many new aspects of marketing that we must take into consideration when creating our marketing strategies. I went to multiple masterclasses on digital marketing that were held during weekend one of SXSW, and I’m here to share my key takeaways on where to focus your efforts when creating your digital marketing strategy. There are also several trustworthy websites that share news of digital marketing trends and helps you to make an informed decision.

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Have you been hearing Google’s drum roll these past few days? Google announced earlier this year that it will be using mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor, and this update rolled out yesterday. If your website already provides an optimized mobile experience, you should be benefiting from it immediately. Google has clearly stated that it’s in favor of a responsive design approach, yet two in eight websites are not mobile responsive. If you website doesn’t provide an optimized experience for mobile users it’s safe to say that Google will take this into consideration and your site will be listed lower in the mobile search results.

To get started, we would suggest testing your web pages to see if they are currently mobile friendly. Also, visit Google.com using your mobile device and search for your business. Google search should come back with your website near the top and with a “mobile friendly” tag next to the link, if your site is compliant.

We’re here to help! If you have questions about how this update affects your organic search ranking and/or what can be done to make your current website mobile friendly/responsive please let us know.

It shouldn’t be a shock that having appropriate and relevant content on your website will aid to its overall success. The reason we mention it, though, is because often times people are not quite sure what “appropriate” really means for their brand, and why it is so valuable. With quality content comes not only quality engagement with your readers and target market but also increased search engine rankings for your web content as well. Sounds pretty valuable doesn’t it? Lets break it down more and take a closer look at why all of this is so important.

Consumer Engagement

The first thing you should think about when trying to write content for your website is, “Why do we have this website?” You need to understand what you are trying to accomplish with the site, and then mold your content to accompany those goals. Every time you write copy for a site, you should aim for it to entertain, inform, and entice the reader. It doesn’t matter how much you spend on SEO, if readers are not interested in reading it, they will leave the site. The reader and your goals should ALWAYS be the center of the writing, no matter what you are discussing on the page.

You see this over and over again were a company depends too heavily upon the weight and popularity of their brand to drive traffic to their site. Of course, it’s great that they have established their name or product in the minds of the public. But if you have one competitor who has done the same, and also provides quality written content on each page of their website, you’ve just lost a share of the market for no good reason.

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Drumroll please…… We are finally at #1! We saved not only the “best” for last, but also the most important as well! With the staggering growth of mobile devices like smart phones and tablets, as well as mobile device usage, via games, apps, social media, and websites, it is now more essential than ever that your business website is mobile friendly. Your website should be versatile in every way so that your clients and prospects can easily browse and find information, regardless of what type of device (phone, tablet, desktop, etc.) they are using.

You may be asking yourself, “What is responsiveness?” Responsiveness is basically exactly as it sounds, responsive. As mentioned above, people are accessing websites from a multitude of platforms these days. When a website is responsive, it’s display and overall functionality molds and forms to whatever platform is being used at the time, in order to keep a consistent flow for the user. We have all gone to a website on our phone before and been frustrated because it was to big for the screen, or you had to zoom in and out throughout your entire time on the site… This is not fun at all, and is very detrimental to your audience!

We have done our best to outline the benefits of a responsive website for you below, and we highly recommend you read these thoroughly so that you understand the true value as well as necessity of responsiveness in todays world.

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WordPress, the most responsive web designers for your business, has been around since 2003 and is the most popular blogging software on the market. WordPress is the world’s most popular tool for creating and managing websites — any kind of website, from a simple blog to a full-featured business website. Here are our TOP 15 reasons why WordPress is so popular and why you should consider switching to a WordPress platform for your company’s website.

1. Less $$$ Spent on Maintenance

With WordPress, you will no longer need to call your web designer every time you want to make a change. With WordPress, you can make the edits yourself, whenever you want, and save the money you would’ve paid your designer for more important things by adding new pages on your own.

2. Your Site becomes 100% Customizable

It shouldn’t come as a surprise but it is wort highlighting that WordPress gives you 100% customization freedom. Do you want a big website? Small Website? Blog? Lot’s of images? Social media integration? All of those are up to you, and can be done with ease. Change your mind later on? Fear not, you can always make changes to the site layout/design whenever you want.

3. Generate A Conversation With Your Visitors

Because of things like comments, you are now able to actually talk back to people via your webiste. Sure, you can always have a “contact us” page on your traditional Web site, but blog comments allow for anonymous two-way discussion between you and your readers. And, every time someone makes a comment to one of your posts, the inclusion of their content full of keyword phrases helps you to build better search positioning. It’s like getting free SEO help from the general public!

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There’s no denying SEO is important. There’s also no doubt there are multiple factors that go into an SEO strategy—but did you know there are hundreds of different ranking factors and tactics that you can utilize to ensure you stay at the top of the search list? This infographic, thanks to entrepreneur.com, breaks down and categorizes each of these crucial factors. Take a look – we bet you’ll learn something you didn’t know!

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Often when designing or redesigning websites, we mostly think about the design and overall aesthetic, and less about the ability for users to find the site, or the overall optimization. What’s the point of a website that looks amazing but can’t be found and isn’t functional? Or even a site that can easily be found but isn’t visually engaging? The whole purpose of a website is for it to be found and for relevant content to be delivered to its visitors. The design and optimization of your website affects your SEO campaign, PPC campaigns, and the overall user experience of your website, reason why you need to makes sure to use a low code development software.  When building or redesigning a website or pages, it’s crucial to incorporate aspects of both SEO and PPC. These tactics should be utilized during the design process and also used for future optimization further down the line. Let’s take a look at some of the most useful SEO and PPC tactics and practices you should apply when creating a new website.

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The digital environment is constantly changing. Consumers are consistently taking in information through various channels, which include: laptops, desktops, smartphones, tablets, and even smart TV’s. Smartphones especially, have become so indispensable to our daily lives that 80% never leave home without their phones in hand. Given this shift in devices and usage, organizations need to adopt websites that are functional, searchable, and provide a great user experience to visitors in all aspects. There are SEO’s for all types of businesses such as plastic surgeon SEO. This is where responsive design comes into play. Responsive design refers to having a website that is designed and programmed specifically so that the design layout is universal across all platforms. The chief benefit of having a responsive design is that you don’t need to have separate mobile, tablet, and PC versions of your site. Responsive design is a shift in how we view websites across all devices. However, most don’t realize that a responsive design layout is a little different from a mobile design layout. A mobile website refers to designing a website that will appear on smartphones and tablets in the most user friendly way possible for those screen sizes and the correlating style of interaction. Design layouts for mobile websites aren’t usually the same or largely congruent to the desktop version of the site.

Although design layouts and aesthetics for responsive sites are meant to span across all devices, optimization is still an important aspect of any website. Let’s take into consideration the following statistics:

• 50% of mobile searches lead to purchase
• 95% of smartphone users have searched for local information
• 61% of users call a business after searching and 59% visit the location
• 90% of these people act within 24 hours

Given that more and more people are searching for information through mobile devices, search engine optimization is an important piece of the puzzle that may sometimes get looked over. According to Google, responsive design and seo hamilton go hand in hand, more specifically mobile SEO. Mobile SEO consists of numerous best practices that should be implemented for optimal mobile usage, but here are a few key things to remember:

• Fully optimize all local listings on both Google and Bing. Most mobile cenaless comprar search results are largely influenced by geo-location.
• Target shorter keywords in order to show up in mobile search results. Most users searching through mobile devices tend to use shorter keywords, which indicates that these searches are usually fast or quick in nature.
• Enable mobile web analytics in order to make data driven improvements to your mobile SEO efforts.
• Focus on usability and ease of use.  Users are more likely to bounce from a mobile site if they can’t (1) easily find the information they’re looking for, (2) the load time of the mobile site is slow, or (3) the website isn’t optimized for mobile use. These among other things will deter a mobile user form your site.

It’s easy to see that responsive design and fully optimized mobile websites are a sign of the next frontier of the digital landscape and should be adopted by any organization that doesn’t want to be left behind.

Need a hand establishing your company’s online presence, specifically in the mobile space? Give us a call or shoot us an email today. Over the years, we have established a proven method to help our clients achieve their marketing goals. We have also built lasting relationships with strategic partners such as Apogee Results. Together, we can help your business be a dominant player on and off the field.

Web design has changed exponentially since the advent of web 2.0 in the early 2000’s. What used to be static-only websites have now been replaced with dynamic ones that incorporate many design features including widgets, social plugins and much more. Here are 12 tips to keep in mind when building or rebuilding your website.

1.  Show value– give people a reason to visit your site and keep them there.

2.  What does your website do? Are you informative, are you selling something? Include a call of action and let it be seen on the site!

3.  Simplicity– Keep it simple while still getting your point across.

4.  Myspace is out! That means no blinking text or magic cursors!

5.  Popups– Do I really have to explain this?

6.  Keep the home page accessible. I’ve been to many sites where once I click a link on the navigation bar, I cannot get back to the home page- so frustrating!

7.  Follow in Apple’s shoes and drop Adobe Flash– it’s processor heavy and there’s no place to embed SEO.

8.  I KNOW THIS MAY SOUND DUMB BUT DON’T CAPITALIZE ALL OF YOUR CONTENT.

9.  Speaking of words and content, check your grammar and spelling please!

10.  Use keywords and descriptive text that relates to your business. However, don’t over-embed keywords in your content- keep it natural.

11.  Be accessible, yes add a Contact page and put an email, phone number, something!

12.  Navigation is key! Keep a global navigation bar that allows accessibility to all of your pages.

I know the post reads “12 Tips” but I’m throwing in a BONUS, yay! 

13.  Social media integration- the key to the popularity and national/global success of your website and business.