How (and Why!) to Add Value to Your Website

Published On: October 1, 2018

When prospective customers visit your website, they’re usually after something: information to solve a problem, details about products to purchase, pricing, or facts about your company to name a few. How you meet those needs, both immediately and in the long term, will determine whether that website visitor becomes a hot lead, and eventually a customer.

The key to making that conversion happen is value, and here’s what you need to know about it.

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Creating Successful Manufacturing & Industrial Websites

Published On: September 3, 2018

If you feel like all the digital marketing advice out there doesn’t exactly apply to your industrial or manufacturing company, you’re right. There’s lots of information for retail and professional services, SEO tips for pushing products, and content marketing strategies for keeping readers engaged.

But what about companies that sell unattractive widgets and functional electronic bits and pieces? Or assemble and repair machinery? What’s to even write about that people would be interested in? Here’s what you need to know about creating manufacturing and industrial websites that work.

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Using Photos That are Truly Worth a Thousand Words

Published On: August 1, 2018

The idea that a picture is worth a thousand words--or that complex ideas can be conveyed with a single image--has been a common saying for more than a hundred years. Once photography and reproducing images became mainstream, people began to see the value in the perfectly captured image.

Of course, not all photos are equal. For every hardworking image doing its job to showcase products, people, and brands, there are dozens that would probably be better off keeping quiet. Here’s what you need to know about successfully using photography in your marketing materials.

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Indexing vs. Quality Content

Published On: June 25, 2018

What is Indexing?
When you register your website with search engines such as Google, they will use programs called spiders to crawl and index your pages. When the page is indexed, information is gathered from the page to create a summary. The summary is used generate a ranking and specify how relevant that information is to the user’s search. The purpose of this is to create a list of your pages that users can search and find.

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What is HTTPS and Why You Should Care

Published On: June 18, 2018

Hardly a day goes by without headlines in the news talking about breaches, hacks, and other security problems online. Security is such an important topic that Google has incorporated important security measures into their ranking algorithms. In other words, Google doesn’t want to send searchers to potentially dangerous websites so it actively looks to see how secure a site is before it’s listed in the search results. 

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Email Marketing Quick Start

Published On: June 11, 2018

When it’s done right, email is a powerful tool that will boost your digital marketing efforts by slowly guiding leads toward a sale. The idea is to carefully consider your recipients and send highly relevant messages as part of an ongoing conversation. If you haven’t taken the dive into email marketing yet, here’s how to get started!

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Hiring Employees through Digital Marketing

Published On: June 4, 2018

It’s rare these days to find someone scouring the Help Wanted section of the local newspaper, red marker in hand, hoping to land their dream job. Many prospective employees will still check the paper periodically, but most adults in the U.S. have turned to the web during their most recent search for a position. 

If you want to land top talent for your open positions, digital marketing can get you there. Here’s what you need to know.

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Social Media: How to Make it Work for You

Published On: May 28, 2018

Does social media really help small businesses improve their marketing results? That’s the question on many minds as marketing strategies are created and budgets divvied up. The good news is that social media marketing can be an effective channel in itself while also boosting the return on your other digital marketing efforts, too.

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How to Maximize Your Digital Marketing Budget

Published On: May 21, 2018

Your digital marketing strategy is a multi-faceted plan that usually involves a lot of moving parts. From social media marketing to search engine optimization, it can be difficult to know which elements will give you the most bang for your buck, and which can be pulled back when the budget requires you to.

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Landing Pages: What They Are and Why You Need Them

Published On: May 14, 2018

Landing pages are an often misunderstood component of a digital marketing plan. In some cases, people refer to any website page that a visitor “lands” on following a search or call to action as a landing page. We think that definition is too broad and takes away from the role that dedicated landing pages play in your lead generation strategy.

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Leverage The Power of Customer Reviews

Published On: May 7, 2018

Reviews and ratings are an important part of the buying process, especially in today’s digital landscape. Yelp, Google, and Facebook are the three most common review platforms, and there are many more like it out there. Plus, many businesses present reviews on their own websites.

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Branding is a Two-Way Street

Published On: April 30, 2018

In a previous post, we talked about branding books and how you can use them to keep your marketing messages on point. As helpful as tools like branding books and style guides are, they’re not going to work if your whole team isn’t on board. Marketing is more than just a customer-facing activity; the most successful companies know that the entire team needs to believe in the messaging of the brand.

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Using Data to Drive Decisions

Published On: April 23, 2018

Today’s marketers have the tools and the technology to collect incredible amounts of data from website visitors, social media followers, app users, and more. Lifting useful, actionable information from that data can be another story. However, it’s worth the effort as 75 percent of leaders in data-driven marketing are seeing increased engagement and more than 65 percent are seeing an uptick in new customers.

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Customer Experience Marketing 101

Published On: April 16, 2018

Customer experience marketing means putting the customer experience at the center of all your marketing activities. Content marketing touches on this idea by focusing on consumer questions and needs and providing solutions. Customer experience marketing lets this seep out into all aspects of your business strategy. It means taking the old adage of the customer always being right and putting that wisdom into everyday practice in a digital world.

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Video Marketing in 2018

Published On: April 9, 2018

Every year, the video experts at Wyzowl release the results of their State of Video Marketing Survey, and the 2017 numbers are in. It’s no surprise that 2018 looks like another year that video is set to be a headliner, but there are a few revelations that will help you improve your video advertising game so you get better results this year. Let’s take a look.

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Marketing Trends to Follow in 2018

Published On: April 2, 2018

Keeping the attention of your online audience also means staying on top of the trends that set the rules of engagement. Sometimes these trends are fleeting and only useful for riding the wave in the moment while others are changing the way we approach marketing entirely.

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I Feel the Need for Speed

Published On: December 4, 2017

Along with the I Want to Know, Go, Do, and Buy micro-moments comes one more demand from your customers: I want it now. 

While most people use better manners when speaking to people, when engaging with content on their smartphones, most users are quick to get frustrated with even momentary delays. In fact, about 20 percent of smartphone users will immediately switch to another site or app if it takes too long to load, or takes too many steps to achieve a task.

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5 Tips for UX Mobile Design

Published On: November 27, 2017

How do you use the internet? Do you run to your computer every time you want to Google something? If you're like most people, you probably do a lot of your research on your phone. Last year StatCounter released a study showing that mobile devices accounted for 51.3% of internet usage while desktop only accounted for 48.7% of traffic. Mobile usage is on the rise and will only continue to grow.

How can you make sure your mobile design is up to snuff? We’ll look at 5 things that can make your mobile site more attractive to your users.

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Being There: I Want to Buy Moments

Published On: November 20, 2017

Finally. After all this time of patiently supplying visitors and potential customers with the helpful information they need to get places and complete tasks, they are ready to get out their wallets.

In I Want to Buy moments, people tend to know what they want, but need a little help deciding where or how to make a purchase. Some need just a bit more information to choose between closely related products. Many will already be familiar with who you are and what you offer because you’ve been there for them in their Know and Do moments.

However buyers arrive at their I Want to Buy moments, this is the most critical time for your presence to be visible, accessible, and helpful.

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Being There: I Want to Do Moments

Published On: November 13, 2017

When people want to get things done--from cooking to repairs to crafting--they often turn to their smartphones for help. In these moments, companies can demonstrate their expertise and helpfulness to potential customers to start gaining trust and earning a reputation as a leader in the industry.

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