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Why Staying up-to-date With Your Website is Important!

Mon, 07 Feb 2022 12:00:04 GMT

Why Staying Up-to-Date With Your Website is Important

If you’re a website owner, or if you are a marketer for a company that has a website, then it is important to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and news. Your site is your business’s face on the internet, so why would you want to leave anything up there that could potentially deter people from visiting? You wouldn’t!

To get the most out of your website and make it work for you and your business, you need to stay up to date with it. This includes everything from updating content on the site regularly through blogging or adding new pages every few months or even updating old content.

In this blog, we will give some tips on how to keep your site fresh and up-to-date as well as the benefits of updating your website.

Why is it Important?

As mentioned above, your website is the face of your business on the internet and you should always be up to date and not have outdated content on your website. Out of date content will negatively impact the user experience on your website.

For example, if you have a website for a restaurant and have your hours posted they should be your accurate hours. If you have times posted for your restaurant from when you went on vacation 8 months ago and had reduced hours, but never updated it back, it will impact the user experience because they won’t know your hours now.

The same thing goes with updating the content you have on your site. If you have had no updates on your website for the past year, some users that find your website might not think you are even in business anymore due to the lack of updates.

People love things that are in real-time and like to know what is happening NOW, so keeping content updated will help retain and gain more visitors to your site.

Another thing that will negatively impact the user experience that can be fixed by frequent updates is spelling and grammar mistakes on your website. We all know the feeling of reading over content multiple times before posting and there is still a few grammatical errors or spelling errors hidden in plain sight after posting.

Spelling and grammar mistakes, no matter how small will make the user experience bad, so it wouldn’t hurt to go through your content and find any spelling or grammar errors that can be easily fixed. When these changes are made that counts as an update in the eyes of search engines and will count as new content. This will cause search engines like google to re-index your content which will help the SEO of your website and possibly boost your rankings.

How often should I update my website?

There are a lot of factors that play into this answer, but on average it’s best to update about once a month, or as often as it needs to be. Technology moves fast and Google is constantly updating its algorithms. Updating your site at least once a month will keep your site fresh and new for your visitors as well as show the search engines like Google that your site is active and up-to-date.

Design trends are always changing as well. Full site overhauls should be done every 1-2 years depending on how fast design trends are changing. You may notice that websites from 2010 look nothing like they do now, and this is because as technology advances, websites become more and more responsive and web designers need to stay on top of these design changes.

Along with changing algorithms and changing design trends, there is also trends in the language we use. With time some terms that people use may fall out of favor or be updated to a more “politically correct” term. This is something that website owners need to pay close attention to because if you are using an “old” term it may effect the user experience.

For example, LGBT is now LGBTQ+. Terms will fall out of favor after a while, like how the term COVID-19 has been big the past 2 years, but in a few years the term will fall out of use and will need to be updated. In a few months this very blog will need to be updated to stay current with the times

What are the benefits of updating my website?

Keeping your website up to date is one of the best ways to ensure your business’s success. It will show prospective customers that you are current, relevant, and engaging with their needs. Some benefits of updating your website regularly are:

Improved search engine optimization (SEO)
Builds domain authority
Keeps your audience engaged and informed
Gives you an upper leg on your competition

Fresh and relevant content are one of the major ranking factors when it comes to how Google decides who to put at the top of the search engine results page. When you update the content on your website, Google will see it as new and relevant and give you a better opportunity to rank higher.

Updating broken links on your website, along with the regular content updates will build your domain authority as well. This is another factor that Google looks at when deciding who to place at the top of the results page.

New content on your website will entice readers to keep coming back to check out what has changed. It also keeps them engaged and informed with what you and your company are doing.

Ways to keep your site updated and fresh

There are many different ways that you can keep your site updated and fresh, most of which we have briefly talked about above. Some of the simple ways to make sure everything is up-to-date would be reviewing old blogs and old content that are on your site. See if you can optimize anything including keywords or the tone of voice they were written in.

Reviewing all of your content for spelling and grammar errors is another way to make sure your website is updated. If you have a large website it might be a good idea to go page by page and split this task up between days so it is less stressful. This doesn’t have to be done often unless you are constantly creating new content, because once you review it and change all the errors, there won’t be any more until the next piece of content is created. I would suggest checking your site bi-weekly for any spelling or grammatical errors.

Checking bad or broken links can be quite easy with help from some outside resources. One of my favorites is AHrefs.com , it has a free broken link checker where all you need to do is enter the domain or URL of a website and it will crawl the website for you and inform you of any broken or bad links. From there you can go into your website and either enter a new link or get rid of the bad ones completely.

Conclusion

By now you should have a better understanding of why updating your website is important for your business. To touch back on some of the things we talked about above, remember that out-of-date content is bad for the user experience because consumers love real-time. They are usually searching for your business because they plan to visit or learn more about it, so having it up-to-date is crucial.

You should update your website every 1-2 weeks checking for grammar, spelling, and anything else you might have missed the first run through. You should also do a full site overhaul every 1-2 years due to design trends changing. There are lots of benefits to doing this including improved SEO, building domain authority, keeping your audience engaged, and many more.

Now it’s time for you to go check out your own website and dust off some cobwebs and get that old content out of there and update it with some fresh, new, and refreshing content.

Happy editing!!

Using Viral Content on Your Website

kristin@wamplermacgregor.com (Kristin Wampler) — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 12:00:03 GMT

Using Viral Content on Your Website

Today, there are billions of people on the internet, searching, clicking, and enjoying content. Some of this content has gone “viral”

meaning that it has circulated quickly and widely from one person to another.

To become viral, your content is going to have to be creative as well as shareable. This isn’t a walk in the park, especially if you are just starting out.

First, you have to have good equipment as well as good editing skills. Then you will have to come up with a good idea.

Ideas don’t grow on trees, but you can get them from sites that already have viral content on them. Believe it or not, a lot of businesses have trouble coming up with ideas of their own, so it isn’t bad to get inspiration from somewhere else.

After this you have to try to persuade your audience to do whatever you want them to do. As we’ve learned in English class, the three modes of persuasion are Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. Ethos appeals to ethics, pathos to emotions and logos to logic.

So, when writing your content, use numbers, data, and statistics so it seems more reputable to your audience. I highly recommend keeping these modes in mind when you create your content.

If you want your content to go viral, you have to be consistent. Consistency is important because the more consistent you are with post trying to make them go viral, the better changes you have for one of your pieces of content to take off.

First, get your strategy in place and learn how to create emotionally driven content that people will not resist sharing on their social media.

It’s a good idea to create content based on positive feelings, but some people also share things that are sad or have to do with modern change. That’s why so many people click on headlines with the word “Trump” or “COVID-19” in it.

Start with your headline

Your headline is going to be the first thing that catches your visitors’ eyes. So, make it interesting so they will want to read whatever you are posting.

Buzzfeed is great at this. Here are some of their headlines;

Also, use power words that will compel people to click on your content. Words such as confessions, broke, secret, reveal, incredible, stunning, etc. After you do this, make sure your points are easily digestible so people will be persuaded to share your content.

Viral Marketing Tools

If you are online or offline you need to connect with your audience. With marketing campaign tools, it can save you time, and make your life easier, so you can make more money. It gives you a competitive advantage over marketers who do not use them.

They can double your traffic, generate leads, and automate your sales process. Obviously, with automation, you can put less time into sales and more time into personal things, such as networking and speaking at events.

Measure the Virality of Your Content

When you do anything that has to deal with marketing, you should ALWAYS measure the campaigns effectiveness? Say 2,000 visitors joined your email subscription, you will need to track how many of those visitors will turn into leads, and eventually buy a product.

When your content becomes viral, you will be generating visitors from all different types of sites. You will want to measure how many these types of people come there. With this information, you can market your products to these specific groups.

We know the power of viral content. Even the silliest of ideas can generate conversation. Content that involves laughter is the most shared. For instance, the world record egg.

This eggs alone received almost 54 million likes (including myself). Because of this one post, this account now has 8.1 million followers, and have received at least 1 million likes on each post. So, this isn’t impossible, it just takes an idea and action.

Facebook is Your Business' Best Friend

kristin@wamplermacgregor.com (Kristin Wampler) — Mon, 24 Jan 2022 12:00:08 GMT

Facebook is Your Business’s Best Friend

Who is your audience?

You must have a basic idea of who you want to market your products to. How old are they? What is their gender? Where do they reside? Where are they on Facebook?

To do this, you need to familiarize yourself with Facebook demographics. Facebook Audience Insights is a tool that will tell you about potential customers age, gender, relationship status, location, education, language, Facebook usage, and even past purchases.

Set Goals

What do you want to get out of marketing on Facebook? Whatever your goal is, make sure that it is specific and measurable. Everything you do on Facebook should work towards your goals.

Your business’s Facebook mission statement can be your overall strategy as well as a stimulus to help you maintain your brand's voice.

Now, what kind of content do you want to put out? Your content should be creative and appealing to the eye. It needs to grab your customers and pull them in enough that they are curious about who you are and what your business does.

Create a Facebook Business Page

Now that you have your audience, goals, and content strategy down, it’s time to create that Facebook page.

Profile photo and cover image

Your logo should be your profile picture. The cover image can be whatever you want it to be. It can be artwork, contact information, your employees, etc. It should, just like your content, catch the eye of your visitors because the photo will enhance your page.

“About” section

The about section is self-explanatory. It’s there so you can tell your visitors who you are and what you do. Make it short and sweet because, in the full about section, you can make sure to add more details.

Your visitors want to know what you do and what makes you different from all the other companies. They also want to hear a little about the person who owns the business.

Start Posting

Now you’re ready to start posting.

Facebook text post

This is a normal post that contains only text. Most businesses use it to ask questions so that they can understand their audience more. It can also be used to bring engagement to your page.

Pinned post

This is a post that you have pinned to show up at the top of your page. This is used when certain content is considered better than others, usually when it brings in a lot of visitors and likes.

It captures your brand and the eyes of your potential followers. You can only have one pinned post at a time, but you can change it as often as you would like.

Facebook photo post

This is just like the normal posts, besides the fact that it includes a picture. Visitors are more likely to like a post with a picture attached than a post without one.

Facebook video post

People watch over 100 million hours of video on Facebook every day. If you want to do this type of post often, then they should be at most a minute long.

A short video with a strong visual appeal can compel your visitors to like, comment, or even share your post. A few longer videos here or there aren’t bad, but if it isn’t interesting it's more likely that they will not finish it.

New Paragraph

Social Media Marketing

kristin@wamplermacgregor.com (Kristin Wampler) — Mon, 17 Jan 2022 12:00:08 GMT

Social Media Marketing

It’s significant that you understand the fundamentals of social media. The creation of social media has to be one of the most important factors for marketing products to customers since the adoption of advertisements for television.

Set Goals

What do you want to get out of social media, and are they realistic? You should shoot for smaller, more realistic goals that are reasonable and affordable. Your goals will influence how much money you will have to spend on social media platforms. Here are some sample goals:

Increase brand awareness
Focus on content that will put your image and personality out on the market. If your content isn’t up to par, then there is no reason to put yourself on social media.
Get quality sales
Target your customers through keywords and hashtags because it can help you get to your goal a lot faster. Believe it or not, some people are interested in the hashtags you put on your posts.
Create a loyal fanbase
Your customers are the ones liking and sharing your posts. Therefore, it makes sense to generate content based on their likes and needs.

Research your audience

Don’t make assumptions about what your customers might like. There are analytic tools that can help you figure that stuff out. It’s the internet, everything is out in the open.

For instance, if you were looking to attract a younger population, you can find them on Instagram. A majority of people using Instagram are below the age of 30.

Create engaging content

Your social media is obviously going to be centered around your content. At this point, you have a good idea of what you want to be published based on your goals. All you have to do is make content that will catch the eye of your audience.

You have to feel confident enough to post these on social media and allow reality to set in. You are not going to get a million likes in one post, but over time you can see the activity around it. Soon you'll see that you have likes on certain content and maybe fewer likes on others. That just means that you are going to have to focus on content that will reach your audience.

Picking the right creative action and creating captions can be hard to do because you don't know how people are going to react to it.

Some things that can help you get engagement are user-generated content and content themes.

I can't stress enough that it is important to use user-created content that has been branded from hashtags. People love authentic content that isn't always professional. Clicking on hashtags to see what other people have posted or created can give you some ideas for your own content.

Post on as many social media platforms as possible, don’t stick to only one. Some platforms like Facebook and Instagram, allow you to post on multiple platforms from one. You can link Facebook to your Instagram and when you post on your Instagram, it will generate an identical post for Facebook. This allows you to kill two birds with one stone, or should I say “two posts with one click”.

Accessibility

You need to be there for your followers. So, don’t publish content and then disappear, because then your audience will too. That doesn’t mean that you have to post content multiple times a day or every day.

You only need to post enough so your audience knows that your brand didn’t fall off the face of the planet, I would recommend posting somewhere between 3-5 times a week. You should post anytime you have new content, products, or promotions.

Sometimes it’s good to post about yourself and things you and your company have done. That could be volunteering, galas, you name it. Put yourself out there, but don’t annoy the people. For younger audiences, a spammed social media timeline is like a blocked artery. Quality trumps quantity.

Patience and Reciprocity

You aren’t going to get success overnight. This is something that you should know, owning your own brand and all. You have to commit. Also, don’t expect others to share your content when you are not sharing theirs.

You have to be public in your social media venture. Some portion of the time you spend on social media should be focused on sharing, talking, and publicizing others. It’s a simple case of, ‘I scratch your back, and you scratch mine’. Make genuine connections with other content creators and brands because those connections will last longer than being fake.

What’s working and what’s not?

Always look at the work that you have already put out because this is where you are going to see the results of your hard work. It's going to show you where you need to improve and what you have been doing right.

Keep up the good work, and you’ll reach your goals.

Keyword Research Best Practices

kristin@wamplermacgregor.com (Kristin Wampler) — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 11:00:04 GMT

Keyword Research

Keyword research is a fundamental part in the SEO process. When performing keyword research you are trying to identify popular words or phrases that users are putting into the search engine. You are also figuring out the different variations of how people are searching.

Performing research on keywords helps give marketers and SEO's a better understanding on what keywords to use on their website. In this blog we will talk about five steps that you can do to start researching keywords on your own to better optimize your website for keywords.

Step 1: Write a List of Topic Relevant to your Business

First things first, come up with at least 5-10 topics that you think is important to your business. For example, if you are a blogger, your topics would mostly pertain to the topics of your blogs. Ask yourself, what type of topic do you think your target audience is searching for in order for your business to be found.

After you find some search words you can look them up on a program that can show you the monthly search volume of each of them. This allows you to see how important these topics are to your audience.

Step 2: Fill in those topic buckets with keywords.

Now we have to figure out what keywords can fall into the topics you picked. For instance, you’re a blog, and one of your topics is about, SEO. Brainstorm some keyword phrases that are related to this topic, which may include:

What is SEO marketing
Types of SEO
SEO tools
Search engine marketing
SEO tutorial
SEO marketing strategy

Once you have a final list, it’s time to figure out which keywords are most likely to rank well. It’s important to repeat this process because optimizing your website once isn’t going to get you the traffic that you want. If it makes it easier, you can ask your customers what terms they used to search for you online.

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Step 3: Research Related Search Terms

If you cannot think of any more keywords, some people search for a topic or word and then look at the related search results. Also, after searching, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and it will show you suggestions that are related to what you input.

You can then research those suggested terms and look at their suggested terms. Keywords can always spark inspiration for other keywords and phrases.

Step 4: Use Short-tail and Long-Tail Keywords

The difference between short-tail and long-tail keywords is that short-tail is one to three words, and long-tail is four or more. Short-tail keywords are usually more generic (searched more) and generate more site traffic. It is important to have a balance between these two because even though you can generate a lot of traffic through short-tail keywords only, long-tail can give you extra traffic that you didn’t even know that you could get.

Long-tail words are more desirable because if someone is looking for that specific topic, they are probably going to be more interested in your content. The words “how to create a blog” would satisfy the searcher way better than the word “blogging” will. Long-tail words are specific, so it makes it easier to tell what people are actually searching for, which is called searchers intent.

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Step 5: How are your competitors ranking for their keywords?

A lot of people say to follow your competitors lead, but that doesn’t always have to be the case. Therefore, just because a keyword may be important to your competitor, doesn’t mean that they apply to you or your content.

However, if your competitors are ranking better for the same search words, that means that you need to do some work to improve yours.

You can find the keywords you need for your site by researching it. Keyword research is an important factor in its success. It takes time and determination, but it will be worth it in the long run.

You cannot use keywords that aren’t relevant to your webpage’s content. Unique keywords should be used on your page so that the people clicking on your site know that they are getting what they searched for.

Provide correct title tags and body content so that people don’t think that your site is clickbait. Your content should be compelling because that is what people value.

Make sure to optimize your keywords every month, then every few months. Remember, your end goal is to create a list of keywords that help provide traffic but to also help make your progress bigger.

The Importance of SEO

Mon, 06 Dec 2021 11:00:05 GMT

The Importance of SEO

You might have heard the term SEO once or twice but you might not know exactly what it means or why it is important for the success of your website. If you are a business owner, no matter how big or small it may be, you will need SEO and its benefits to take your company to new heights.

In this blog, we will discuss the basics of SEO and help you understand some ways it can improve your business’ website. We will also talk about some things to avoid when putting your SEO strategy into action.

What is SEO?

SEO is an abbreviation for “search engine optimization” and is the practice of increasing the quality of a website through on-site, off-site, and technical strategies which will increase traffic to your website when done correctly. SEO will increase your website’s visibility and the better visibility your website has, the more likely new visitors will find it on the search engine results page when searching for something related to your business.

Consider SEO a “free” investment into the future of your business. This is because as compared to paid ads, SEO will not give you immediate success on the first day. Planning and continuously updating your SEO strategy is important to the success of your website.

Why is SEO Important?

Search engine optimization improves your company’s online presence and can help achieve the goals you have set for your website. The majority of online traffic comes from search engines like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and many more. Although, Google has the majority of the market share when it comes to search engines that people use so most SEO follows the rules of Google.

When people search for something on Google they trust that they are going to get results that match their query, so it is important for your site to be credible. To build credibility there are several factors that play into it including backlinks, how fast your site loads, and having quality content on your site. When these factors are optimized and set up properly, your website will rank higher and pay dividends over time.

Not many people scroll past the first page when they are using a search engine, so having a quality website with quality SEO will help your website get closer to that first page over time and can take your company to the next level.

Ways to Improve your Website

Content on a website is one of the most important factors because you can strategically use keywords to help you rank higher. Keywords should be placed in your website’s copy organically so that it flows well. A trick for this is to do your keyword research before creating the content on your website because the keywords will then flow more naturally while still ranking on Google and other search engines.

You want your content to deliver clear information to the search engines and to the potential customer on your site. Websites should be built for the customer and be able to make their experience as seamless as possible while being optimized for search engines.

Updating your content regularly is a good indicator that your website is relevant and staying on top of new trends in your industry and other outside factors. Search engines really enjoy relevant information and will rank relevant information higher than irrelevant information.

For example, in the past couple of years websites needed to update their content to reflect what is happening with Covid-19. This is a good indicator that the website is still active and relevant, which will result in higher rankings. Content should be updated about 2-4 times a year to keep the information fresh, informative, and relevant to your business.

Having fresh, informative, and relevant information on your website will help visitors learn more about what they are searching for on your website. When this information helps them they are more likely to link your website to other websites.

Having links is crucial in ranking highly on Google because the more links you have, the more authority and credibility your site will have. Being credible is a great indicator for search engines to rank your website higher on search engine result pages (SERP) due to only credible and trusted sites being at the top.

What to Avoid (Black-Hat SEO)

So far we have talked a lot about content and how content can help your site gain authority, credibility, and how it can help you rank higher with search engines, but there are some things that Google will penalize websites for. In this section, we will talk about some of those factors that will be bad for your website and some practices to avoid when implementing an SEO strategy for your website.

By now you should know content is very important for your website and the quality of that content matters. Duplicate content and spammy content however are frowned upon in the eyes of Google and other search engines. If multiple pages have the same content (duplicate content) then Google will recognize that and penalize the rankings of your website for using “Black-Hat SEO practices”.

Black-Hat SEO is the act of manipulating search engines to get higher rankings, basically cheating the system and trying to do things “unethically” in terms of SEO. Black-Hat SEO goes against search engine guidelines and breaks the rules and Google will penalize websites for this.

As stated above, spammy content and duplicate content are just some of the ways that Google may penalize your website. Spammy content can be classified as content that is filled with only keywords and no real content or information. Cloaking is another black-hat practice that can jeopardize the rankings of your website.

Essentially cloaking is the practice of putting hidden text into your website that users can’t see but the search engines would. Hidden links are also considered cloaking and are not good SEO practices and you should stay away from doing this if you want your website to be successful.

Conclusion

SEO is a very useful tool for any size business when it comes to building a reputation, developing integrity, and gaining authority. With a good action plan, research, and good practices you should see an impact from SEO within six months to a year. You will need to maintain your SEO constantly and have a set goal in mind to strive for, whether it is more customers, or simply more site visits.

SEO is a cost-effective tool that will pay dividends over time when done correctly, and after reading this article you should be able to get the groundwork for your own SEO started. Building a trusting relationship with both customers and search engines will help your business in the long run.

How To Make Great Content for Your Website

Mon, 29 Nov 2021 11:00:03 GMT

How to Make Great Content for Your Website

Writing content isn’t easy. It takes time and dedication. In order to boost your SEO rankings, and/or gain traffic, you have to write great content for your blog or site. So, I’m going to say this now, don’t waste your time reading this article if you are choosing to write poor content that will ultimately get you nowhere. Your writing should be original so that the search engines can help your website gain more exposure. Before we get started we will go over some Do’s and Don'ts of creating good quality content for your website.

DO NOT publish your content and never look at it again

Your traffic and conversation rates surely diminish if you do this. You have to stick to the plan and continue in order to make it work.

DO create a content strategy

Create a content strategy that you think that you will be able to follow. If you are a blogger, it can be writing and posting two blogs a week, or if you can every other day.

DO NOT create dull content that anyone else could have made

Your content has to be, well-written, unique, relevant and exciting. Boring content isn’t going to bring anyone to your site. If you don’t have time to put in effort into your work, either lower the amount of content you create a week so you can put more effort into it or hire someone to do it for you. Don’t write an article for the sake of writing it, or without proper research.

DO make your point clear

Create quality content with a purpose. Be upfront with what you’re writing and get to the point.

DO NOT create content with mistakes

Writers make mistakes, that’s understandable. This just means that you have to reread what you have written and correct anything that may be a mistake you have made. Personally, I would invest in Grammarly. Spelling and grammar can hurt the quality of your content.

DO stay on topic

This is important because your visitor came to your site for one reason, and one reason only, and that is for whatever they are searching for. So, if you are writing about, let’s say birds, no one wants to read about how you went shopping for clothes. Pick only one idea to talk about and stick to it.

DO NOT ramble without a point, or being overly verbose

No one wants to get information in a roundabout way. Also, your article doesn’t have to be 3 pages long. All that matters is that you get your point across and you do it clearly. It’s likely that people will read the whole article if it is informative and a short length.

DO experiment with different types of content

Many creators do not step out of their comfort zone. If you write blogs, why not switch it up and create some videos. Not everyone learns the same. Some learn from visuals while some from reading. If you cannot come up with ideas, try repurposing your existing content for a different format. Turn the information in your blog, into a video.

DO NOT duplicate content

You shouldn’t copy and paste other people’s content on your page. It’s okay if you like what someone has done and ask them if you can use it. Any other time, it is wrong. Cite where the information came from and put it in your own words.

DO research

Reaching keywords, topics, trending content, and your competition can give you an idea of what to expect when you get into your respective industry.

DO NOT go after only keywords that have a high volume

While keywords with higher search volume might help you get visitors, it’s also harder for them to be ranked. Use keywords with lower volume for those people who don’t always search simply in the search engines.

Now that we have gone over the basic Do’s and Don'ts of creating great content for your website we can get into some tips that can help anyone have create content on their site. below we will cover many different topics from creating original content, to making updates on your site and how often your content should change. Writing is a challenge, but these tips should relive some of the stress that comes with creating content.

Create Original Content

Copying content from another creator will be penalized by Google. Your ideas should be original because as said before, it helps Google and your visitors. Many will be tempted to tell you that you should not create content based on things that are “played out”. But sometimes it isn’t a bad idea to do so. Everyone learns in different ways, and if you can take one piece of content and switch it up for another media, that can expand the number of people coming to your website or blog.

Focus On Strong Headlines

Your headline is just as important as the information you are writing about. The headline is the first thing your visitor is going to see. 80% of people read your headlines, while only 20% of those people click and read the rest of your content. Take your time writing your headlines. Create a few and try to pick which one is best. Ask colleagues which one they would want to read.

Provide Answers

This is obvious, but people end up on your site because they want answers and Google is great a this. If you have an inquiry about something, put it in google, and you get links, pictures, videos, etc. They want answers to their questions, and if you cannot provide it in an easy way, they will more likely leave your website before reading all of the information. Therefore, get to the point.

Be Factual

Your information should only include facts because some people believe everything they read online. It isn’t okay to deceive your readers with information that isn’t factually correct only because it supports your writing. Do your research, it isn’t that hard.

Also, this shouldn’t have to be said because we should all know it’s not okay to steal someone’s information or ideas, BUT I’ll say it again anyway. You shouldn’t steal someone else’s information or ideas!! Always give them credit by linking them to the information in your content, or even have a work cited at the bottom of your page. Do whatever you choose to do, as long as you give them credit. They worked hard to create their content as well.

Add Images and Videos

Like I said before, everyone learns differently. Your job is to help them out so that they can take in your information as easily as possible. Add videos, images, diagrams to your content to further illustrate your point. No one only wants to look at words, unless they are reading a book. Either way, only add images when they help or add value to your writing.

Make Continual Updates to Your Website or Blog

By now, you should know that you cannot create something and then leave it behind especially if you have goals in mind. It’s like creating a business and then expecting it to go places by itself. That’s not realistic. It takes time, dedication, and most importantly work. As soon as you create something, it’s a commitment. If you do not have time to create good content, hire someone else to do it or have fewer expectations. Create a plan that you know you can achieve. If you are creating blogs, that can mean sitting down and busting a few of them out one or two days a week, then scheduling them for certain days so you don’t have to worry about them later.

Conclusion

Again, writing isn’t easy. But as you continue it does get easier and your writing gets better. It’s also easier to write about something you are passionate about. Keep that in mind when it comes to your goals.

How to Increase Your Customer Acquisition Strategy

Mon, 22 Nov 2021 11:00:03 GMT

How to Increase Your Customer Acquisition Strategy

In order for a business to grow and succeed they need to bring in new customers. No matter how many customers you have, it’s a good idea to have a roadmap for customer acquisition. Honestly, it’s unlikely that a web crawler visiting your site for the first time will buy one of your products. You have to have your prospective customer’s full attention to get engaged with your brand before they purchase. Build a solid acquisition plan by developing relationships with your targeted audience. Below are some helpful tips for you to increase your customer acquisition.

Targeted

First, you have to know who your customers are. Who are you targeting? You can waste a lot of money, resources and customer acquisition if you don’t know who you want to market to. Create a community that focuses on the customer experience. Have informal conversations with existing customers. You can ask them what they would like to know more about. Loyal customers won’t mind if you are asking them for ideas. Social media is also effective when trying to build engagement. Just by clicking on hashtags you can find what shoppers are saying about different brands, negative and positive. Have conversations with prospects and encourage your team to set up 1-2-1’s interactions.

Sustainable

A sustainable customer acquisition strategy means that the investments you make now can benefit you in the future. If you want to gain new customers through a blog, make sure you can produce content throughout your career. You can make one blog and leave it to fend for itself, but that won’t bring you the results you may want. If these posts are well written and informational, they should bring sustainable traffic and new customers.

Develop Partnerships

Gain exposure by teaming up with other brands that allow both of you to benefit. This allows your company to be exposed to their customers, and vice versa. For example, Spotify and Uber teamed up allowing customers to play their favorite playlist while in the car they hired for a better ride experience.

Flexible

Be flexible because marketing and sales, and the way people respond to them are always changing. I would be lying if I said I didn’t hang up on reps for trying to sell me something. Gaining customer trust is important because most first time visitors will not have immediate trust. Having testimonials and other trustworthy elements is imperative to gaining trust. Consumers trust the advice of their peers more than a business. Change it up. When creating content, think about remaking it in different media. Everyone learns differently, and if they can learn from your company in an easy way, they may view you as a reliable resource.

Limit Spending

I wouldn’t recommend recruiting a large sales team. It’s important to have a few, but if your sales team isn’t bringing in customers, you’re wasting money. Have a few sales reps and use marketing automation software to nurture those leads. There are many different companies that sell CRM software. Build a relationship with the customers you do have because they can give you business from word of mouth.

Using Graphic Design in Content

Mon, 15 Nov 2021 11:00:04 GMT

Using Graphic Design in Content

Graphic design is “the art or skill of combining text and pictures in advertisements, magazines, books, or websites”. Today, we will touch on why using graphic design is essential for content, specifically for websites. People in today’s day and age are very much visual learners and more people will associate businesses with the visual aspects they see, or their branding.

Graphic design is the face of your company, it's what people first see when being introduced to you and the last thing they see when pulling out of your lot. Lots of big companies have very recognizable brands, such as Apple, Coca-Cola, Nike, and many others. One of graphic design's main goals is to identify with a target audience, while still representing your company.

Good graphic design can make all the difference in the way your audience views you and experiences your brand. These foundational elements of good content marketing are what will help influence their decision-making process and lead them towards conversions, all through visual representation alone.

Visual Aesthetics

When using graphic design in content, or anywhere really, it is important to have a good color scheme that matches your brand's color scheme. For example, our color scheme here at Wampler Macgregor & Associates is yellow, blue, and pink, so when we are creating graphic designs for our content we will try to stick with those three colors to stay on brand.

Graphic designs are used to persuade your audience and at the end of the day, those colors are who you are, so you want to choose inviting colors so your audience is not scared off by colors that do not mesh well together.

Having graphic designs in content like blogs helps readers break up all the text. It also helps encourage the reader to continue reading the blog. They can be used to illustrate a specific topic using an infographic. Infographics are easy to look at and can give a lot of information to the reader in just a glance.

They are the best of both worlds, being informative and visually appealing. Both are elements that will enhance the reader’s experience while reading a blog because people process information faster through visual content as compared to text. Photos and graphics help spark interest and gain the reader's engagement, which is what you want when writing a blog.

User Experience

People love information, but nowadays they want it instantaneously and don’t want to read through large blocks of text. Whether the text is on a website, a blog post, or a flyer, people do not have the patience for lots of text. This is where graphic design comes into play, it can help the user take in larger amounts of information without having to do all the reading.

Graphic design converts text into easily digestible information for the user which will enhance their experience. Time is money and when a viewer doesn’t need to take a lot of time to receive information it is always a good thing.

Making your graphic designs colorful to pull the readers eyes towards it but making it pleasing to the eyes is important. As mentioned above the colors you choose have a big impact on how your graphic design is viewed.

Typically you want to stick to a color scheme that matches with your brand or compliments your brand colors. This will keep the design consistent and enhance the user experience.

Different Visual Elements

There are many different visual elements that you can implement in your graphic designs that will help with user engagement and influence your prospect's decision-making process. Some of the major elements include:

Call to Action (CTA)

Call to Action is a basic element that belongs in every piece of content. CTA is “a short phrase that prompts a reader to take a particular action”. Whether the action is to subscribe to a newsletter, click a link to browse your website, or even leave a comment, it is important to have it on your graphic content.

CTAs help lead the reader along the customer journey and providing specific actions to follow will make the customer experience easier. When a customer has a good experience they are more likely to share it on social media or directly to their friends.

Infographics and Graphics in Blogs

Infographics are super important because of how much they stand out among other graphic content. Infographics use a collection of images and data visualizations along with text to create an easy-to-understand view of a topic. They present information much quicker than any other form of media due to the content-filled design.

They are great in blogs because they can help the reader understand a topic quicker which will improve the user experience.

Brand Logo and Color

Brand logos are a great element to put on every graphic design you create and use so that people know it is yours. When a random user finds your blog and it has your brand logo on the pictures and the page, they are more likely to remember it.

When you match the color scheme with the colors of your logo that also plays a huge part in customer retention because they will remember it better.

Conclusion

Good graphic design is a great tool that can be used to help your customers keep coming back. Graphic designs with lots of information that are easy to look at and align with your brands color will tie your content together and make the user experience better.

Websites should always focus on how the user will interact with it and when it comes to graphic design, the users are drawn to visual information quicker than text information. There are many different elements you can add to your graphic designs and we mentioned a few, including CTAs, and your brands logo.

All these things will help your customers along the buying journey and make their experience on your website more enjoyable, and who doesn’t want to have a good time?

How To Build SEO-Friendly Landing Pages

Mon, 08 Nov 2021 11:15:05 GMT

How to Build SEO-Friendly Landing Pages

SEO is an industry in itself, meaning there is a lot to explore. However, you can get started on boosting your landing pages’ SEO with these best practices:

Target long-tail keywords.

These are highly specific keywords or key phrases that tend to be 4 or more words. For instance, “best copywriting tips for landing pages” is a long-tail key phrase, unlike the much simpler keyword “landing pages.”

As a rule, it’s much easier to rank for long-tail keywords than short-tail keywords because long-tail keywords are less competitive. And because landing pages feature very specific CTAs, it’s easy to place long-tail keywords on them naturally.

Segment your traffic.

It's likely that your target audience consists of more than 1 persona. For example, if you’re selling reusable water bottles, you’ll want to market to several kinds of buyers: athletes, travelers, hikers, and so on. Because these buyer personas are different, you’ll need several approaches to appeal to them.

Consider creating separate landing pages for each segment of your audience . This will require researching the keywords each persona would use to find what you're offering. When you segment your traffic, you can boost your visibility in search engines and tailor your message to appeal to people with different needs.

Improve page loading speed.

It’s hard to hold a potential customer’s attention when so many other companies are competing for it. Users can be impatient and easily distracted, so if your landing page loads slowly, your chances of them converting get smaller.

To maintain a high conversion rate, landing pages have to load at lightning speed. Fortunately, because they only have 1 purpose, it’s easy to optimize them. Reducing image sizes is just one way you can speed up your page’s loading speed.

Earn backlinks .

These are links that point from other sites back to yours. They send traffic to your landing pages, essentially acting like votes of confidence in the eyes of search engines. When they come from well-established, high-authority websites, backlinks show that what's on your page is valuable. As a result, your site’s rankings on search engine results pages will increase.

Consider contacting other websites for guest posting opportunities to build backlinks, but beware of any site that asks for payment—Google frowns on link-building schemes of this nature.

Make your content shareable.

That means making it unique or novel in some way. Remember, all of your potential leads are connected with others who might also want what you have to offer. When you allow them to share your landing pages, you can tap into these larger networks. Besides driving more leads to your page, this added traffic will boost your search engine rankings.

Optimizing landing pages for conversions

SEO is only half the battle. As much as it is important for your landing page to rank well on google it is also important to optimize your landing pages for conversions. Here are 12 tips on how to do that.

1. Write an enticing headline.

Reel users in with an intriguing and well-written headline. You can draw attention with specific keywords like “free” or “now.” Couple your engaging title with strong copywriting to keep your users on the page long enough to convert.

2. Match your H1 heading to the meta title that your users clicked to get to your landing page.

This reassures users that they've landed in the right place. Doing otherwise can damage your reputation and your search engine rankings, because both readers and search engines tend to regard inaccurate meta titles as deceptive and misleading.

3. Try to position your CTAs above the fold.

Your CTA should be one of the first site elements that visitors see. Unfortunately, this isn’t always possible, especially when you’re designing for mobile users. In such cases, refer to tip #4.

4. Use directional cues to guide users to your CTA.

Good examples include arrows or a picture of someone looking toward your CTA. This is especially important if your CTA isn't above the fold. Skillfully placed cues encourage visitors to scroll, keep reading, and convert.

5. Show your product or service in use.

A video or product demo can provide context if you offer something uncommon or not widely understood. This information also helps potential customers picture themselves using your product or service.

6. Provide social proof.

Do you have testimonials from happy customers? If so, include them in your landing page copy. If your product or service is popular, you can also note how many people have already taken advantage of your offer. Providing social proof can convince others to hop onto the bandwagon and try your product or service themselves. Most customers looking for a product or service will look at reviews from other customers before purchasing said product or service. This is because people want to know how the product or service actually benefits people after purchase.

7. Use bullet points.

There's likely more than 1 feature or benefit to what you’re offering, so list them out using numbered lists or bullet points. This is more reader friendly because it’s easier on the eyes and more scannable than a large block of text.

8. Repeat your CTA.

If your page features a heavy amount of text, it can help to place your CTA at the beginning and the end—and even in the middle. Presenting more conversion opportunities to your readers increases their chances of taking action, but be careful not to overwhelm them. Too many CTAs can be considered “spammy” by readers and cause them to leave your page.

9. Provide your contact info.

Giving your leads the option to reach out to you with questions or concerns will put them at ease, even the ones who won’t actually do so. Why? Providing your contact info is a sign of legitimacy, telling customers that you’re there to help should they need it.

10. Deliver your message via video.

Not everyone will stick around to read the copy on your landing page, which is a part of why video content is rising in popularity. This doesn't mean that your website should be free of text, though. Pairing text with video content can be an effective way of capturing and maintaining users’ attention. Because many users don’t turn on their sound, it’s also a good idea to include subtitles whenever possible.

11. Test several variations of your pages.

Different headlines, visuals, calls to action, and more can produce different results. Conduct A/B tests to experiment with variations of your landing pages and see which ones perform the best. This can help you optimize your landing pages for the most success.

12. Create must-click destinations

Because they help convert leads into paying customers, landing pages are a critical part of your digital marketing strategy. These pages help guide users further along your customer journey because they act as a nudge to take action. This action should be either purchasing a product or service, signing up for a newsletter or email list, or checking out your full website for more information.

How many landing pages should I have?

Every unique landing page is an opportunity, and there's no limit to how many landing pages your website can have. Most studies show that the more landing pages a website has, the more conversions it sees, so long as its landing pages aren’t competing with each other. To ensure that your landing pages aren’t competing for traffic, make sure that each one targets a different demographic or encourages your users to take a different action.

Now that you know what landing pages are and how to optimize them, you’re ready to create one .

5 Reasons Why Your Website Should Be Fast & Responsive

kristin@wamplermacgregor.com (Kristin Wampler) — Wed, 01 Jul 2020 13:56:30 GMT

Speed is Key

We all want a fast and responsive website, but we don’t always do the work to get it there. Either you don’t have time, or you might not have the funds to do it. All the same, you still have to get it done if you want real results. Here are some reasons to get you off your butt and optimize that website.

1) Increased Mobile Usage

More people own phones than a personal computer. Thus, there is no surprise that mobile internet use has hit the roof. Especially now with the pandemic and stay at home orders. Having a responsive website it critical. Unfortunately, a lot of businesses websites are not optimized to be mobile-friendly. This for one, causes a headache for your visitors, and two, it disrupts the amount of traffic that you would have gotten from those mobile users. Be careful, because there is a difference between a mobile-friendly site and a responsive website. While a mobile-friendly website might look okay on mobile devices, it may be harder to navigate and/or have glitches (jumbled text, images do not align). A responsive website is a website design that allows your site to adapt to any screen size.

2) Positive User Experience

When someone lands on your website, you must make sure that the experience is always positive. Your visitor shouldn’t feel overwhelmed or frustrated because there is a high chance that they will leave your site immediately. The same goes when they cannot find the information that they are looking for with relative ease. It’s also said, logically, the better the experience people have with your mobile website, the more inclined they will be to buy a product or service.

3) Blogging and Social Activities

Speaking from experience, blogging and social activities can bring you a lot of conversation. If you have a strategy down for your blogs and social media, good for you. You’re on the right track. Those of you who do this must have seen increased mobile traffic. Those of you who haven’t, it’s time to get on the ball. This being said, don’t give out links to your website if it isn’t mobile-friendly or responsive. This results in you getting high bounce rates as well as low conversation rates, and a very irritated audience.

4) Responsive for SEO

Having one URL makes everything so much easier for our friend Google. It helps look over your site as well as reduces the number of SEO errors. Responsive websites are more likely to have a high ranking in SERPs (search engine result pages).

5) Lower Cost And Website Maintenance

There is a lower need for maintenance when you have one website that can adapt to be seen on any mobile device. It will be expensive in the beginning, but when you have the hang of it, it takes less time and money to optimize it.

Reasons Why You Need a Digital Marketing Strategy

kristin@wamplermacgregor.com (Kristin Wampler) — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 01:57:05 GMT

Don’t be cocky and go into digital marketing without a strategy.

Provides equal opportunity for every business

Digital marketing isn’t only for big corporations or multinational companies. Small businesses can benefit greatly with the help of digital marketing, you can actually give it leverage. Digital marketing provides equal opportunity for every business, so you will be able to see your small business grow. You can use digital marketing to its full extent by engaging with clients on different platforms. This means is social media, your personal site, or blogs.

The cost-effective form of marketing

With some digital marketing, there are many ways where you can advertise to your specific audience without breaking the bank. You can take on the task of finding followers on your own or you can pay for ads on these sites. For example, on Facebook, you can pay $10 to boost a post. You can also go on other people’s posts and have conversations that would lead up to the liking and following of your page. Prices vary based on this site you’re on and what kind of ad you’re trying to show your audience.

Helps in conversions

Small businesses should try to gain more conversation so they can build customer loyalty. This means that they will have to create great sustainable content. Digital marketing allows you to communicate directly to your customers who see your content. these sites usually have comments, messages, reviews, or social media posts. Communicating with your customers show that you care about what they say and think. It also allows you to gather data on your specific consumer audience. The customer tends to engage more with brands when they combine multiple types of content; photos, videos, and audio.

Increases revenue

Successful digital marketing gives you more conversation meaning more revenue. Companies that use social media obtain 78% more business compared to companies who don’t. These companies usually get high responses from email marketing. Being successful in these two groups will definitely help increase your revenue.

Targeting the right audience

Digital marketing is deemed the highest individualized form of marketing. Before you make a product, you have to know who your target audience is. If you make a product and you don’t know who it’s for, it’s most likely that no one’s going to buy it. People like to buy things that seem like it’s for them. With digital marketing, finding your audience has gotten a lot easier. With email marketing, you can focus on a single person.

Helps in mobile marketing

You’re blind if you cannot see that a lot of people have mobile phones. For that reason, companies are optimizing their websites to be mobile responsive. Mobile phones aren’t only for calling and texting. People also shop, search, read the news, watch videos, etc., on them. Can buy ads to be put in front of consumers when they are using specific apps.

Increases brand reputation

Every business aims to attract more customers. When people start to recognize your brand, its reputation increases, especially when you offer them precisely what they are looking for. A better reputation means that customers are more willing to trust you.

This also helps you win the trust of your customers.

Gives measurable results

There are certain tools that can help you measure your outcomes for each and every digital marketing platform. This will help you to evaluate how well you are doing so you can make important decisions.

Flexibility

There are so many different forms and uses of digital marketing. This includes banner ads, email marketing, content marketing, and social media. Using digital marketing can open numerous possibilities for publicity strategies. You can stop poorly performing campaigns in real-time.

Small business should use digital marketing. Nowadays it harder to be just a brick and mortar store. This process is slow, and you can lose a lot of money during the downtime. You need a place where you can publicize your business alone. The more people to see it and like it, the more people willing to go to your store. Digital marketing helps increase sales, visibility, engagement, and it is cost-effective, sometimes free if you do it yourself. Start building your digital marketing strategy as soon as possible if you already haven’t.

For Inquiries contact us at:

Office Line: (413) 301-7962

Email: info@wamplermacgregor.com

Website: http://www.wamplermacgregor.com

Tips for writing great posts that increase your site traffic

kristin@wamplermacgregor.com (Kristin Wampler) — Fri, 08 May 2020 17:12:23 GMT

Write about something you know

If you don’t know much about a specific topic that will interest your readers, invite an expert to write about it.

Speak to your audience

You know your audience better than anyone else, so keep them in mind as you write your blog posts. Write about things they care about. If you have a company Facebook page, look there to find topics to write about.

Take a few moments to plan your post

Once you have a great idea for a post, write the first draft. Some people like to start with the title and then work on the paragraphs. Other people like to start with subtitles and go from there. Choose the method that works for you.

Don’t forget to add images

Be sure to include a few high-quality images in your blog. Images break up the text and make it more readable. They can also convey emotions or ideas that are hard to put into words.

Edit carefully before posting

Once you’re happy with the text, put it aside for a day or two, and then re-read it. You’ll probably find a few things you want to add, and a couple more that you want to remove. Have a friend or colleague look it over to make sure there are no mistakes. When your post is error-free, set it up in your blog and publish.

western_mass_advertising

Why Staying up-to-date With Your Website is Important!

Why Staying Up-to-Date With Your Website is Important

Why is it Important?

How often should I update my website?

What are the benefits of updating my website?

Ways to keep your site updated and fresh

Conclusion

Using Viral Content on Your Website

Using Viral Content on Your Website

Start with your headline

Viral Marketing Tools

Measure the Virality of Your Content

Facebook is Your Business' Best Friend

Facebook is Your Business’s Best Friend

Who is your audience?

Set Goals

Create a Facebook Business Page

Profile photo and cover image

“About” section

Start Posting

Facebook text post

Pinned post

Facebook photo post

Facebook video post

Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing

Set Goals

Research your audience

Create engaging content

Accessibility

Patience and Reciprocity

What’s working and what’s not?

Keyword Research Best Practices

Keyword Research

Step 1: Write a List of Topic Relevant to your Business

Step 2: Fill in those topic buckets with keywords.

Step 3: Research Related Search Terms

Step 4: Use Short-tail and Long-Tail Keywords

Step 5: How are your competitors ranking for their keywords?

The Importance of SEO

The Importance of SEO

What is SEO?

Why is SEO Important?

Ways to Improve your Website

What to Avoid (Black-Hat SEO)

Conclusion

How To Make Great Content for Your Website

How to Make Great Content for Your Website

﻿

DO NOT publish your content and never look at it again

DO create a content strategy

DO NOT create dull content that anyone else could have made

DO make your point clear

DO NOT create content with mistakes

DO stay on topic

DO NOT ramble without a point, or being overly verbose

DO experiment with different types of content

DO NOT duplicate content

DO research

DO NOT go after only keywords that have a high volume

Create Original Content

Focus On Strong Headlines

Provide Answers

Be Factual

Add Images and Videos

Make Continual Updates to Your Website or Blog

Conclusion

How to Increase Your Customer Acquisition Strategy

How to Increase Your Customer Acquisition Strategy

﻿

Targeted

Sustainable

Develop Partnerships

Flexible

Limit Spending

Using Graphic Design in Content

Using Graphic Design in Content

﻿

Visual Aesthetics