How A Consumer Friendly Web Design Can Help Your SEO Efforts

There are some people today who think web design will not have an impact on your SEO score. Many studies show that the opposite is true. Consumers demand the best web design from brands. A brand’s landing page is the first impression it makes to its site visitors. It can make a difference whether or not consumers will choose you or your competitors.

You’re likely thinking about how web design can improve your SEO game. Today, I’ll discuss ways a consumer-first web design can help accomplish your mission. I will also dive into how to achieve a web design that will make you and your consumers proud.

Faster Site Speeds

Search engines view your site speed as an SEO ranking factor. Every second can make or break a decision whether or not consumers do business with your brand. Pages with long load times will more than likely have high bounce rates. High bounce rates signal to search engines that consumers don’t have a good UX on your site. Your page rankings will see a drop as a result of a slow site speed.

According to Load Storm, 25% of site visitors would exit a page that loads longer than 4 seconds. 64% of shoppers from the same study would shop elsewhere in the future resulting from a subpar site UX.

Here are some tools you can use to help enhance your site speed:

Bing Speed Test
Google Page Speed Insights
GT Metrix

Adjusting your pics and videos to the proper size will help make a positive impact in meeting your site speed goals. As site visitors easily access your page, they’ll be more likely to visit you in the future. Search engines will then notice your efforts and reward you with higher page rankings.

Scripts You Can Externalize

Search engines look at your site through what is in an HTML document. If CSS and Javascript are in the doc, they’ll see more code lines and be ahead of your site content. These internal scripts can slow down how search engines crawl your site and cause your UX to decline.

As you code your site, look to place the scripts outside your HTML doc. Adding these measures will help search engines access your site content fast and attract your audience to your page.

Block Pages You Do Not Want Search Engine To Index

You have the option to block pages you don’t want search engines to index. Pages under this category usually add no value to your site and may contain server-side scripts. There are also some site sections where you may have test design projects.

If web bots expose these pages, your site could end up with repeat content and have a weaker content density. They can also cause site visitors to bounce from your page and harm your search rankings. Robots.txt files help you block those bots from getting to those pages. If you have page sections you use as test centers, look to use password protectors. Web Dev platforms like JSP or Wamp Server can also help you resolve web crawl issues on test sites.

Utilizing these tactics help your site to only show content you want your visitors to view. They can go a long way in helping you upgrade your SEO game.

Sites That Adapt To Any Screen Size

Sites that have exceptional UX exist across every screen size and device. Responsive design helps you design your site to auto-scale your content to match the screen size of devices. These adaptable features help users avoid pinching their screens to view site content.

Search engines value sites that are mobile-friendly and responsive to devices (e.g., desktops, mobile phones, tablets). A Digital Examiner study shows that 80% of the world’s top-ranking sites are mobile-friendly. Sites with responsive design will provide your audience with the best experience and grow your SEO efforts over time.

URLs That Are Easier For People To Find Online

Search-friendly URLs have keywords that accurately describe a page’s content and make sites more crawlable by search engine spiders. Here are some examples of URLs for a sandwich shop that offers different types of foods:

sandwichshop.com/menu/low-fat-sandwiches
sandwichshop.com/menu/vegan-sandwiches
sandwichshop.com/menu/veggie-sandwiches
sandwichshop.com/menu/italian-sandwiches

As you choose page URLs, look to avoid the usage of content management tools that use random codes or numbers. The best CMTs give you many ways to customize your URLs to meet your exact needs.

Fresh Content Search Engines Can Read

Authoritative and informative content is a website’s star power that grabs the attention of search engines and consumers. As you build or upgrade your site, check that it has these clear content structures:

Headings
Links
Paragraphs
Subheadings

Sites with little content or poor content structure usually struggle most in search results. You can address these problems by planning in the design stage. If you use images with text, look to use CSS background image replacement tools. For blog posts or guest article writing, save some room for excerpts of recent posts to place on every page. When you make excerpts, look to avoid showing off the whole post, as this can lead to repeat content issues.

Search engines will prioritize fresh content since it means your site is active and engaging to consumers. When your page crawl frequency increases, you’ll be on track to attract the right people to your site. You may even win up gaining new customers in the process.

Web Design That Focuses On People Is The Key To SEO Success

As you put together your web design, look to have your consumers in mind and give them the best UX. People-First web design efforts will help your brand stand out to your audience and boost your SEO game. When you tailor your web design to your consumers, your brand will be on track toward moving up the search results page and having more sales.

What else do you feel is the best way to create a web design that can help your SEO plans? How else does web design play a role in SEO success for brands? Questions? Comments? Please feel free to share your thoughts below. Also, feel free to share this blog post online and follow me here or on my social media platforms.

Best Ways To Transform Your Google Business Profile

Photo by Blake Wisz on Unsplash

Are you a small or mid-size business looking to grow your online presence? As you seek methods to enhance your SEO game, look to those that help your brand stand out. By making factors like these a priority, you’ll be able to attract the right people to your website.

The best way to grow your online presence is to select SEO methods that best address your audiences’ needs. When you go with strategies that put people first, you’ll be on a path toward long-term business growth.

You’re probably wondering how adjusting your Google Business Profile (GBP) helps improve your SEO game. Today, we’ll discuss the top ways to help make that happen and how you stand to benefit.

Check That Your Contact Data Is Consistent With Your NAP

One great way to optimize your GBP is to ensure your NAP is correct. NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number of your business. Taking this step may be simple, but your business does change over time. Not only that, but you may also have had different addresses in the past.

As you update your information, check to ensure your contact data on other directory sites is consistent with your NAP. By keeping your data consistent and up to date, you can build trust with your audience. Not only that, but you can also grow your rankings in the maps section of the search results.

Select The Right GBP Categories That Best Describe Your Business

Choosing the right GBP category is an important SEO factor as it can impact your local search rankings. For these reasons, make sure to select your categories carefully.

For example, if you have a store that sells coffee, you might consider choosing “coffee shop” as your category. These steps can help those looking for coffee online find your business in the local search results.

If your business does more than one thing, make sure to include subcategories too. For instance, your coffee shop may also sell cupcakes and donuts. In this case, “donut shop” and “cupcake shop” would be your subcategories.

Selecting the proper categories and subcategories helps you attract the right people to your business online. It also plays a crucial role in helping you outrank your competition in the long run.

Fill Out Your GBP Products Section

One of the most visible elements of a GBP profile is the products section. If you have a non-product business, filling out this section can bring you benefits. GBP also allows you to display photos of your service offerings. With your GBP products section, your business can gain visibility from your audience.

Google arranges your products/services photos in a carousel-style design. These features help go a long way in helping you drive more views, calls, and sales. You can categorize and add descriptions, images, and calls to action to these product profiles.

One thing to note is that the final product you enter will be the first to feature on your profile. Before adding products or services, make sure to organize them per your needs. You can also add GIFs as your product image by saving them as a JPEG. With these GBP tools, you can leverage your product section to help attract consumers.

Use Photos To Help Your Cause

Google also provides you with many options for photos you can include for your GBP. Here is a list of photo types you can add as you put together or update your profile:

360-degree view
Indoor pics
Outdoor pics

Businesses with photos receive 42% more driving direction requests to their location than those without them. They also receive 35% more clicks to their websites. These findings are according to research Google has done over the years.

The best photo practice is to include at least three pics from each of these business aspects:

Employees
Products
Services you perform

By following these measures, you can increase your web presence and get online searchers to explore your business further.

Write A Compelling Business Description

You can also optimize your Google Business Profile by writing a rational business description. On your profile, Google gives you a max of 750 characters to describe your business. One thing you want to avoid including there is sales jargon. It can potentially alienate your audience and go against Google’s rules.

Here are some things you can include in your GBP business description:

Company mission and vision
History
Products and services
What makes your business unique?

With a top-tier business description, you can give your audience the best details about your business. They also would be more likely to look into your business further.

Keep Your GBP Q&A Section Up To Date

You can also improve your SEO game by optimizing your GBP Q&A section. Google gives you the option to create a question and answer vault within your profile. They do this to ensure the answers consumers receive are the ones you want them to.

As with many portions of your GMB, consumers can contribute and control how others view your business online. To provide people with the right questions and answers, use the consumer data that comes up in your Insights section.

By adding the best questions and responding to them, you’ll have more control over the narrative. You’ll also ensure that people will perceive your business better.

Post Regularly From Your GBP

Keeping in touch with your audience is a prime SEO factor. Posts that originate from your GBP are pretty much mini-blogs. They provide your audience with important information along with updates from your business.

Below are two key benefits of how posting from your GBP can improve your SEO efforts:

Posting Boosts Your Keywords And Phrases

As you post from your profile regularly, you can boost your primary and halo keywords you want to rank for to Google’s algorithms. Over time, they build up your association with your goods and services. With these measures, you can reach the right people and influence consideration for your business.

Posting Drives Up Engagement

Google also evaluates engagement when it comes to SEO factors. They measure how much you engage with your profile.

As you provide your audience with regular updates via posts, you can drive up your engagement levels. The more you engage with your GBP, the more likely Google will reward you.

With top-quality posts, you’ll achieve better search rankings and more customers.

Check On Your Online Reviews

Review signals are another prime factor when it comes to SEO. They also influence whether people will do business with you or your competitors.

Research shows that 89% of people check online reviews before setting foot in a specific business. 84% of those consumers also trust online reviews as much as their peers. Also, 31% of them will do business with those that have great reviews.

If your business receives a bad review, that doesn’t mean doom for your business. When this happens, look to address the consumers’ concerns and work towards solutions that best address their pain points. With these approaches, consumers are more likely to view your business positively. They may even turn around to upgrade their rating to a positive review.

When it comes to reviews, make sure to also be proactive in requesting reviews. As they leave a positive review, make sure to thank them. With a people-first approach like this, you’ll be on track to gain the trust of your potential customers.

Choose People-First Approaches when Updating Your Google Business Profile

As you update your GBP, look to SEO methods that engage your audience and tell the best story about your brand. With these people-first methods, you’ll drive engagement and be on track toward building long-term consumer relations. By focusing on the needs of people, you’ll be on a path toward strategic growth for your brand.

What else do you feel is the best way to optimize your Google Business Profile? Which other SEO methods can also help you build trust with your consumers and drive business growth? Questions? Comments? Please feel free to share your thoughts below.

Six Website Optimization Tips To Help Increase Your Search Engine Rankings

As we’re now in the second half of 2021, we’ve seen many events occur that affect consumers and brands alike. That’s especially the case when it comes to the Digital Marketing industry. This makes improving your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts that much important going forward.

Today, we’ll discuss a few website optimization tips that will help increase your search engine rankings. In the end, you’ll gain a better idea of how your brand can compete in a fast-evolving online world.

Improve Your Site Speed

Site speed is a key factor that determines the success of brands online. With every second it takes for your page to load, the number of people bouncing from your page increases too. This will cause your overall page ranking to suffer a drastic drop.

For this reason, you’ll want to make addressing your page speed a top priority. To test your site speed, there are free online services that can help you optimize your page. Below are some great examples of these types of services.

Google Page Speed Insights
GT Metrix
Pingdom Tools
WebPage Tests

With a faster website speed, you’ll stand to gain more visitors and increase your overall page rankings.

Make Sure Your Site Is Readable And To The Point

Always keep your audience in mind when writing website content. Strive to write it in a way most people understand. To attract their interest, make your key points right at the beginning. Use headings and subheadings to explain the topic without having to read further. This helps guide readers into reading information that’s most essential to their research.

Another writing tactic you should use is what’s called the Inverted Pyramid Method for best SEO results. To attract the interest of readers, make your key points right at the beginning. This helps entice the readers to read more about what you have to offer. If they can find value by scanning the text, they’ll be more likely to consider your brand.

It’s also best to use transition words like “less than” to compare and “thus” to conclude. This will help you make your points while bringing clarity to your audience.

Utilize Top Quality Outbound Links

Outbound links are another crucial SEO factor to keep in mind. When making claims, it’s always a great idea to back them up. For that reason, make sure that you link your claims to trustworthy sites. Here are two great tips to follow when using outbound links.

Make sure the target site is of high authority.
Use facts that have been published within the past 12 months.

By taking these steps, you’ll be able to gain credibility with your audience.

Use The Right Keywords For Your Website

Gone are the days where you could pick any random keyword, write a 500-word article, and rank for that keyword the next day. SEO has since gone through so many changes due to many algorithm updates by search engines.

That’s why researching the intent of your target audience has become a crucial need. This will help you determine which long-tail keywords work best at bringing those people to your website. Here are some examples of keyword research tools that can help assist you in your keyword research.

Ubersuggest
Moz
SEMRush
Ahrefs

The key here is to think about how your audience would search for a keyword. Also, think about what kinds of content they seek to find on a page. When using these tools, start by typing in a broad keyword. They’ll provide you with a list of keyword suggestions you can use to attract a specific audience.

Repeat this step over again as you create more website content. Aim to write top-quality articles that provide others with as much information on the topic as possible.

Use The E-A-T Method

Another great way to ensure you’re developing high-quality content is to use the E-A-T method. This stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

Expertise

Expertise refers to the high knowledge and skills a content creator has in a particular field. For YMYL (Your Money, Your Life) topics, formal expertise is a must. An example of this type of topic is providing medical advice to others.

As for Non-YMYL topics, it all comes down to one’s everyday expertise. For example, someone on a support page sharing their experience of recovering from an injury counts as that. Expertise is a crucial part of developing content that provides value to others.

Authoritativeness

This refers to the reputation of the content creator. When others see a website or an individual as their go-to source for information, that is authority. A great example of this is people searching for symptoms on WebMD. Due to WebMD’s credibility over time, people see them as their primary source for medical information.

Raters check authority through independent sources like reviews, expert recommendations, and references. As you create content, you always want to make authoritativeness a key part of your plans.

Trustworthiness

What this talks about is the legitimacy and transparency of the content creator. Raters look at three main things as they evaluate trustworthiness.

Content accuracy
Content information
Proper citation of trustworthy sources

These three pieces are crucial as you create content for your website. After all, trust is a major factor in helping you attract your ideal audience.

The E-A-T method goes a long way in helping build your online presence and growing your search engine rankings. It also helps you avoid any surprises that may come from any Google Core Updates.

Show Users And Search Engines Your Website Is Secure And Consistent

Website security and consistency are both major page ranking factors you’ll need to take note of. That’s why it’s crucial to follow these steps to ensure the best results.

Maintain Consistent Contact Data

Ensuring consistent contact data across local directory sites helps build trust with your audience. When using Google My Business (GMB), always include your name, address, and phone number (NAP). You should also check to make sure your business listings are consistent with your GMB listings. This helps go a long way in helping you rank high in the maps section of the search results.

Stay Up To Date With Security Updates

You always want to stay up to date with security updates. This fixes loopholes in systems to ensure secure site data. It also keeps your site from being exploited.

If you must delay any updates, make sure to set up a time that works best for you. Just be sure to perform the updates as soon as possible.

Use HTTPS

Utilizing HTTPS can also help keep your website secure. It uses the SSL/TLS protocol to protect data so that attackers can’t compromise it. This helps make HTTPS-protected sites more trustworthy in the eyes of a user.

When you demonstrate consistency and solid security practices, search engines will reward you for it.

People Focused Website Practices Lead You To The Best Results

Website optimization strategies that focus on giving your audience a top-tier experience will drive the best SEO results. It’s also important to make your information quick and easy for them to find. That way, you’ll be able to advance your cause positively and increase your search engine rankings ten-fold.

What else do you feel is key to helping increase search engine rankings over time? How do you feel these tips will help translate towards growth for brands? Questions? Comments? Please feel free to share this blog post and share your thoughts below.

Four Tips To Using Local SEO To Increase Your Online Presence

Ski Lift In Aspen — Photo by Chase Baker On Unsplash

Are you a local small business or an eCommerce brand looking to move up the search engine results page (SERPs)? Whatever the case, you’ve come to the right place. Today’s consumers are searching online for products or services that can best fulfill their pain points or needs. That’s why it’s vital that you make Local SEO a part of your online marketing plans.

Today, I’ll discuss four tips on how to grow your online presence and attract your ideal consumer via Local SEO.

Make Use Of Local Link Building Tactics

Link signals like domain authority are among Google’s top-ranking factors. Local SEO will require these kinds of tactics, as does SEO overall. That’s why linking domains should be geared more towards your target location.

A great way to achieve this is to target top authority sites in your area. Let’s say that you’re a local shop in Aspen, CO, that sells skiing gear and offers ski lessons to beginners. You could target local tourist sites as a potential linking partner. When you gain valuable backlinks from sites like these, you’ll be on a path towards gaining credibility with search engines. You’ll also be on track towards growing your brand.

Use Long-Tail Keywords Within Your Content

If you’re a small to mid-size brand, it’s highly likely you’ll be competing against big brands for short-tail, broad keywords. That’s why you need to work on using long-tail keywords as you create content. These types of keywords are long and more specific that people use as they get closer to making a purchase. They don’t yield as much web traffic, but they’ll help attract the right audience to your site.

Using short-tail keywords like jersey is more competitive and won’t help you reach your target audience. For best results, use keywords like women’s Denver Broncos football jersey. These keywords are more detailed about what type of product you’re selling. This helps you gain more targeted traffic and will help increase your conversion rate.

When seeking to attract your audience, do these two things.

Seek quality over quantity when it comes to online traffic.
Use long-tail keywords to attract your ideal audience.

This will help you lead to long-term success with your Local SEO efforts and help grow your brand.

Build On Your Brand’s Reputation Management

Review signals are a key player in your local search rankings. That’s why you need to respond to reviews, good or bad, in a timely manner. It’s not the end for your brand if you receive a bad review. It all comes down to how your brand responds to adversity.

That’s why you should be attentive to the consumers’ concerns and work towards solutions that best resolve their pain points. Consumers will be more likely to think highly of your brand, and they may even change their rating to a good review.

Ensure Your NAP Is Consistent Across The Web

Search engines assess citation signals such as your brand’s NAP (name, address, phone number) consistency in local search results. This means that you’ll need your information to be on major citation sites like these below.

Google My Business
Yelp
Bing
Social Media Sites

You also need to take steps to ensure your brand’s NAP is consistent across all sites. Check for any misspellings, address, and phone number differences. Also, keep track to ensure that there are no duplicate listings. If there are any, work to resolve them promptly to improve your Local SEO efforts.

Make Local SEO Part Of Your Digital Marketing Plans

When it comes to Local SEO, always put the needs of people first before anything else. Make sure you take these steps to ensure that your content is easy to find, consistent, and reputable. This will help attract your ideal consumer and earn you respect from the search engines. In the end, you’ll be setting your brand up for long-term growth.

What else do you feel is key to using Local SEO to increase your online presence? How do you feel these tips will help translate towards growth for your business? Questions? Comments? Please feel free to share this blog post and share your thoughts below.

What You Need To Know About The June 2021 Google Core Update

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Once again, change has come to the Digital Marketing world. What this means is that Google has launched another algorithm update. During this week, Google launched what is called the June 2021 Google Core Update. This comes as SEOs have been awaiting an update since the one that occurred last December.

There already have been reports that some sites are going through website traffic gains and losses. Some sites gained up to 125% in traffic, while others lost up to 70%. At the same time, they cautiously await what will occur in the July Update.

You’re likely wondering what this is all about and what this means for SMBs, mid sized brands, and enterprise firms. Today, we’ll discuss exactly that and what your brand can do to get ahead of these core updates.

What Does A Google Core Update Do?

Each day, Google makes a few changes to help improve the search experience for their users. Some are noticeable while some are not, but it helps them improve over time. With that said, there are several instances during the year where Google makes broad, significant changes to its search algorithm. These types of big changes are what are known as Core Updates.

Core Updates are made to ensure that Google is doing its part to present relevant and authoritative content to searchers. Google works to confirm these updates since they produce notable effects like drops or gains in some sites.

They do this to ensure that sites going through drops don’t try to fix the wrong things. These changes are all about how Google is working to improve how they assess content overall. Big changes like these can cause pages that were not rewarded properly in the past to perform better.

What This Means For Brands Like Yours

You’re likely wondering what this means for brands small to big. It all comes down to providing top-tier content for your audience that provides unique value. That’s how you help brands as yours get ahead of these Core Updates. Here are some questions for you to answer on how you can improve your content.

Does your headline provide a helpful and accurate summary of your content?
Do your subtitles describe each section of your content well?
Does your content provide unique or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
Is your content written by someone who knows the topic at hand well?
Is your content free from spelling and/or grammatical errors?
Does your content pass the Readability Test (a score of 60 or better)?
Does your website provide a seamless user experience across all devices?
Is your content within the appropriate keyword usage percentage (0.5%-3%)?
Does your content provide original value that helps contrast your site from similar sites?
Is your content made to focus on the needs of others or to please search engines?
Is this the kind of page that you would share with a friend?

You also should consider doing an audit of the pages that were most affected by the core updates. You’ll want to pay close attention to how they fare against these questions. This helps you figure out which areas you’ll need to address to maintain and grow your online presence.

What Can Your Brand Do To Ensure That Your Content Is Top-Tier?

It all comes down to delivering content that addresses your audiences’ pain points and points them in the right direction. To make that happen, you’ll need to use what is called the “EAT” Method. This stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

You’re probably now thinking about what these three parts of this method are all about. Read on, and I’ll tell you all about it.

Expertise

This refers to the high skill level or knowledge the content reader has in a certain field. For YMYL (Your Money, Your Life) topics, such as medical advice, formal expertise is a must. As for Non-YMYL topics, it comes down to showing everyday expertise. For example, someone on a support page sharing their experience on how he/she beat cancer counts as that. Expertise is a big part of creating top-tier content.

Authoritativeness

As for this part of the “EAT” method, this refers to the reputation of the content creator. When others see a person or a website as their go-to source for information, that is authority. A prime example of this is people searching for symptoms and treatments on WebMD. Raters check for authority through independent sources like these.

Reviews
Expert advice
References

This is surely something to keep in mind as you create website content.

Trustworthiness

This crucial piece of the “EAT” method talks about the legitimacy and transparency of the content creator. Rates look at many key things as they evaluate trustworthiness.

Content information
Content accuracy
Proper citation of trustworthy sources

These three pieces are crucial as you create content for your website. After all, trust is a major factor in helping you attract the right people to your website.

The “EAT” method goes a long way in helping you ensure that your content is of top quality. To add to that, it helps avoid surprises or negative results from core updates like this one.

Always Put People Over Search Engines To Help Grow Your Online Presence

As you seek ways to overcome any core updates from search engines, always keep your audience in mind. Create content that speaks their mind, addresses their pain points, and inspires them to take action. In other words, seek to please people instead of just trying to please search engines.

To achieve this, ask yourself the hard questions on how you can improve your content. Afterward, use the “EAT” method to help guide your content creation efforts. When you take a People-First approach, you’ll be well on your way towards being ahead of core updates. Most importantly, you’ll grow your online presence, and eventually, your brand overall.

What else do you feel is essential in helping brands get ahead of core updates? Which steps should brands take to ensure that they’re producing top-tier content? Questions. Comments. Please feel free to share your thoughts below.

Aaron’s Top Nine Digital Marketing Trends For 2021

Without question, so much has happened this past year. Many of these events have drastically altered the Digital Marketing landscape. From changing consumer habits due to the pandemic to Google updates, those changes are surely here to stay. What worked early last year may not work today. The same could be said when working with different types of clients.

With that being said, Digital Marketers should take note and work to adjust to these changes. In Digital Marketing, it’s all about adapting to constant change and being flexible in changing your online outreach strategy. When it comes to trends, there are nine trends we as Digital Marketers need to get ahead of. Let’s take a look at these, shall we?

Voice And Visual Search

Today’s consumers are looking for easier ways to find what they’re looking for online. At the same time, they’re also looking for more convenient ways to do that as well. They would really love it if they didn’t have to type or leave their couch. With this in mind, it’s no surprise that voice search has become more important by the day.

The same can be said about visual search. The infamous saying that ‘a picture means a thousand words’ has become truer today than it has in the past. When it comes to visuals, marketers need to focus on image alt-text and sitemaps to ensure success. As for voice, they need to focus more on conversational keywords as opposed to computer text. For more tips about optimizing for voice search, check out my previous blog post here.

Experience Marketing

Experience Marketing (EM) has also become an evolving trend to look out for in 2021. This talks about how customers define how businesses respond to them and not vice versa. Every customer touch point – online reviews, web chats, surveys – turns into opportunities to discover vital insights to enhance the customer experience (CX).

That’s why you want to go further than just traditional feedback methods than just metrics like the Customer Effort Score (CES). While these do tell you how happy customers are, it doesn’t tell you what to do with that information. EM does that via these three ways.

It deepens the reach of data mining across customer reviews and survey responses.
It develops insights in seconds via machine learning.
It alerts the right people and uncovered patterns in customer data.

This helps teams to move quickly and make more informed choices on how to improve that CX.

User Generated Content (UGC)

When it comes to content, online consumers are much likely to trust that of regular folks than they do traditional advertising. Consumers today crave experiences with brands that are enjoyable and inspire them to take action. They also want proof before they buy and want to make sure that they’re making the right choice.

UGC helps build communities, relates to regular folks, and allows brands to meet their customers where they’re at. On top of that, it goes a long way in helping brands generate lots of content. UGC not only helps provide that social proof brands. It also helps build relationships with customers. With that said, brands should consider making UGC part of their online marketing strategy.

Reputation Management

With what has happened during this past year, It has become increasingly important to manage your reputation online. Whether you get good or bad reviews, you always want to respond to them promptly. It’s not a deal-breaker for potential customers if your brand gets a bad review. It all comes down to how you respond to it. The best way to respond is by showing that you’re committed to resolving their situation

One thing you should never do is try to game the system by creating fake reviews. That never ends well as customers look to multiple review sites to ensure that a certain brand is legit. Customers also check to ensure that brands will positively advance their cause. The best way forward is to listen to the customers’ concerns and work towards a solution that best benefits them. By going this route, they’ll view you more favorably and you’ll be more likely to end with a great review.

Personalization

In today’s online world, people prefer brands that best relate to them and are more human. In fact, 80% of consumers are more likely to buy from you if you provide them a personalized experience. That same HubSpot study also states that 99% of marketers say that personalization helps advance customer relations.

Whether you’re starting an email marketing campaign or creating web content, you must keep these stats in mind. Work to tailor that content to better meet the specific needs of online consumers. Also, don’t be afraid to share your story. After all, people love stories that speak their minds and make them feel that your brand relates to them.

That’s why you want your content to be relatable to your audience and not just about your brand. That’s how you’ll be able to stand out amongst the crowd online and gain good-paying customers.

User Experience (UX)

Without a doubt, it’s vital to give your online audience an excellent user experience (UX). This means that you need to do several things to make that happen.

Make Sure That Your Website Is Up To Speed

Site speed is a key factor when it comes to consumers choosing to stay or leave a site. Each second matters in this case. If your site takes too long to load, people will leave your site for your competition. That’s why you need to work to make sure that your site is up to speed. The GTmetrix Speed Test is a great tool to use to check your site speed and will give you details on how to do so.

Make Sure That Your Website Is Seamless Across Devices

You always want to make sure that your site is easy to navigate across all devices whether it’s mobile, desktop, or tablet. This means that you need to do these three things to make that happen.

Use responsive design to allow your website to adjust to the screen size of the device being used.
Make your content easy to see.
Ensure that site users don’t have to pinch to zoom in.

By keeping these steps in mind, you’ll help ensure that the UX of your site will be very good.

Content That Is Easy To Consume

In this day in age, people are always on the go. With that said, making your content scannable and easy to read is vital. This means work to create content that is easy to read via a standard reading level. You must have a Flesch Reading Ease Score between 60 and 79 to achieve success. To go the extra mile, aim for a score of 80 or higher.

The Ease Calculator helps check your score and guides you while you write your content. Grammarly also helps you make your content easy to read for your readers. It also helps you catch mistakes you thought you’d never make.

Here are some tips below on how to make your content easy to read.

Make your paragraphs no more than 3 to 5 sentences long.
Divide your content with sub-headers and make sure your H3 headers are below the H2 ones.
Add bullet points as needed.

Also, use the Inverted Pyramid writing style. This is where you put your key points at the beginning and then work to entice readers to read more. With this method, your readers will be able to better scan your content text and be able to derive value. This makes it more likely that they’ll take the actions that you want them to take.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer Marketing will be even bigger this year compared to last year. As mentioned earlier, today’s consumers look to brands that are authentic, human, and can relate to them. Study shows that 92% of consumers trust an influencer more than they do corporate ads or celebrities. That’s why brands should take note of this and make influencer marketing part of their plans.

When considering influencers to partner with, go for those who would best relate to your brand. It can be tempting to court macro-influencers like baseball players but that might not work for your brand. If you’re a smaller brand, you should consider micro-influencers. They may have a smaller following but they are cheaper and would do best at relating to your audience. All this is vital to keep in mind when considering influencer marketing.

Link-Building

Link-building is an essential part of any brand’s Digital Marketing plans. With that said, it will only work if you don’t cut corners and actually use this practice to build relationships. One thing you never want to do is to seek links that are not relevant to your brand’s cause. You also don’t want to buy links either. Those type of Black-Hat SEO tactics makes you look spammy and loses you credibility with your audience.

The best way forward is to seek links with others who will best benefit your brand’s cause. It will help you build trust with your audience and gain credibility with the search engines. Once again, Quality over Quantity is the way to go with link-building as is the case in other marketing situations. It will be a win-win scenario for both you and your linking partner thanks to your disciplined approach to seeking high-quality links.

Consumer-First Strategies Help Transform Your Brand For The Better

There’s no doubt that putting the needs of your valued consumers front and center is key to success. It will also help you overcome these fast-changing trends and help you stand out amongst the online crowd. This will also help you in your quest in helping your brand become that next great story. With that said, keep these nine trends in mind and you’ll help transform your business for the better.

What other Digital Marketing trends should brands keep an eye out on in today’s online world? What other strategies should brands adapt to grow their online presence and ensure success? Questions? Comments? Please feel free to share this article and share your thoughts below.

Four Keys To Having A Top-Notch Social Media Strategy

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When it comes to social media, it plays a huge role in helping grow your online presence. It is one of the most powerful ways to connect with your audience. In fact, 78% of consumers have said that they will visit the physical retail store of a brand they follow according to Sprout. This just comes to show you the importance of having a top tier social media strategy.

Social media is not just about gaining the most followers. It is all about giving your audience an excellent experience and giving them what they’re looking for. These four tips will go a long way in helping you achieve just that. Let’s take a look at them, shall we?

Engage In Social Listening

One key tip that helps you have a top tier social media strategy is what we call social listening. Social listening is the practice of tracking, analyzing, and responding to conversations across the Internet. Social media is not just for posting pictures and life updates. It is also a powerful listening tool.

A great way to use social listening is to keep an eye out for mentions and conversations about all aspects of your brand. This can help you find new leads about new product ideas or features for existing products. On top of that, social listening can also help you differentiate your brand from the competition. Offering people something that is unique and gives them value is how you set yourself apart from others.

Know How To Measure Success

A key aspect of success for your brand via social media is knowing how to measure success. For that, you need to set the appropriate Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). KPIs are quantifiable measures that are used to determine the success of a brand in meeting performance goals. One thing to be careful of is to not fall for vanity metrics. For example, getting likes on your Facebook page doesn’t necessarily mean that you will make more money.

Setting KPIs all depends on your business goals. There are four possible social media KPIs to use when measuring success. Here they are below:

Reach

If your goal is to increase your online presence, then setting KPIs based on reach is the way to go. Key things to watch for are follower count, impressions, mentions, and share of voice. These four things are key to measuring the success of your outreach strategy.

Engagement

If your goal is to get your audience to engage with you on social media, then you’ll need to set engagement KPIs. Things to watch out for are likes/favorites, comments, shares, retweets, ratings/reviews, and inbound website links. All these metrics are important when it comes to measuring your success with engagement strategies.

Return On Investment (ROI)

To check if your campaign is bringing you money, you’ll need to set KPIs based on Return On Investment (ROI). Key metrics to watch for are direct sales revenue, lead conversions, support costs-per-customer, and lifetime value. These things will help tell you which campaigns are earning you money and which need to be evaluated.

Retention And Loyalty

To check if you are attracting repeat customers or getting referrals, then you should set Retention & Loyalty KPIs. Key metrics to watch out for are reviews/ratings, issues resolved, service-level agreements (SLAs), time to resolution, customer satisfaction, and sentiment. All this helps you determine if you’re doing your part to satisfy customers and gaining referrals along the way.

For every type of KPI, make sure to revisit them every 6-12 months. This will help you determine whether your efforts are working or if they need to be adjusted.

Set Your Brand’s Voice And Tone To Make It Be More Human

In today’s world, people want to do business with brands that are more human as opposed to acting all boring. With that said, making your brand more human is a must. A voice and a tone are two things your brand must have in order to be more human.

A brand’s voice is the distinct personality or style of your brand. This helps give your customers a clear picture of what your brand feels like. For instance, HubSpot’s clear and inclusive voice helps them appear helpful and supportive in the minds of others.

A brand’s tone refers to the moods of specific content pieces. This can change based on the channel, situation, and audience. When choosing your brand’s tone and voice, ask yourself these questions below:

What purpose does my content bring?
Who am I addressing?
How does my audience feel?
What message should I convey to my audience?
Which tone of voice should I use?

By answering them, you’ll know what kind of content you should create for others in an appropriate tone and voice.

Provide Top-Notch Social Customer Service

A crucial aspect of having a top-notch social media strategy is providing your audience with top-notch social customer service. 49% of consumers say that they’ll unfollow brands that bring them poor customer service. 90% of consumers rate an immediate response important when they have a customer question. These reasons alone are why brands need to make social customer service a top priority in their social media plans.

Customers these days expect quick responses to their questions. Timely responses not only help problems get resolved faster, it also helps make customers more loyal to your brand. Even pointing your customers in the right direction gets your customers to think highly of your brand. All this makes it more likely for customers to stick with your brand in the long run.

A People-First Approach Leads To Success

No doubt that great social listening, great social customer service, and making your brand more human brings your brand success. It’s also crucial to set the right goals in order to help your brand get where you want to be. With these four great tips, your social media game shall lead your brand to great successes and long-lasting customer relations.

What do you feel is key in using social media to help bring your brand success? What are your thoughts on how social media helps build great customer relationships? Please feel free to share this blog post and share your thoughts below.

Four Ways Emotional Marketing Helps Connect With Consumers

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Have you thought about what it takes to stand out amongst the online world of brands to attract consumers? People today are driven by their emotions when they weigh their buying options. Today, the importance of knowing every aspect of your consumer is a huge deal. Not only that but working to tap into their emotions in a way that connects with them is key. As Alina Wheeler once said, “Brand is the promise, the big idea, the expectations that reside in each customer’s mind about a product, service or company. Branding is about making an emotional connection.” In other words, working to connect with them in a human way is how your brand stands out. In this blog post, we’ll discuss some emotional marketing methods that will help your brand reach your consumers.

Use Colors To Build Your Brand Name

When it comes to colors, brands use that to build their identity in ways that help attract their customers via emotional tactics. For example, Texas-based Whataburger uses orange to bring to mind feelings of hunger and nostalgia. Bright, warm colors like orange, red, and yellow can invoke feelings of comfort and warmth as they do for Whataburger. That being said, these colors can also bring to mind feelings of anger and hostility.

Dark, cool colors like blue, purple, and green can evoke feelings of calm and relaxation like the blue ocean breeze. At the same time, colors on the dark, cool side can also bring to mind feelings of sadness and indifference. When it comes to making the choice of color for your brand, it’s crucial to keep in mind how you want your consumers to feel. What-A-Way to be creative in order to stand out just like you like it.

Support A Great Cause

Doing good for others will help your cause with building trust with your customer base. For example, many brands are going the extra mile to honor the work of doctors and nurses during this pandemic. Companies like The North Face have really stepped up to do just that by giving them a 50% discount for their efforts. Supporting great causes like these will help people see your brand as one who cares about others. This would make it more likely for your brand to gain new customers in the long run.

Address Consumer Pain Points

This is where research will be key to the success of your brand. Brands who are problem solvers are those who will have the most success at gaining new customers. For example, Utah’s Nature Pro Cleaning works to address the concerns of chemicals in traditional cleaning options. They also address the concerns of tough stains, grimes, and other particles on carpets, tiles, and other home surfaces. What they do is offer non-toxic power washing options that are chemical-free and remove those foul particles from surfaces at the root. This helps those surfaces be free of them for good which allows people to enjoy a healthy home. By working to address consumer pain points like these, you’ll build trust with them in a big way.

Provide A Customer Experience (CX) That Speaks Their Mind

What will really help brands win over customers is providing them an experience that speaks their mind. Research is key in this regard which then leads to getting best results. Consumers love them offers that are tailored just for them. After all, 54% of them say that they’ll feel rewarded with offers that speak their mind. The mattress brand Purple is a great example of providing just that for its customers.

Their campaign of offering those in the military a 10% discount was received well by them. Purple did a great job connecting with them via their “Made In USA” brand identity. This kind of CX helped Purple up their conversions by 6X. This proves that providing your customers with that kind of experience makes a big impact for brands of all sizes.

Emotional Marketing For The Win

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

No matter what the goals of your brand are. Working to build your consumer outreach via these emotional tactics is key to growing your brand for the better. Even more important is getting to know your customers in order to better connect with them. That way, your brand will lay the groundwork towards giving your consumers that great CX. Brands who work to relate to their customers are those who will find the most success. By taking a Consumer-First approach to emotional marketing, your brand shall grow in a way people will be proud of.

What other emotional marketing tactics do you feel will help brands better connect with their customers? Questions? Comments? Feel free to share this blog post & share your thoughts below.

Three Tips To Improve Your Online Reputation Management

Online Consumer Searching For Products — Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

When it comes to today’s online world, consumers today are looking for brands that they can trust. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen brands both big and small make today is not paying attention to the needs and concerns of the online consumer. In other words, they’re taking them for granted, and in this competitive online world, that is a difference maker in determining whether or not consumers will do business with your competitors. A great way to combat that is with a little something that we like to call Online Reputation Management (ORM). ORM is the online practice of shaping public perception and reputation of a business online. With that being said, we will now go over three key tips that will help your ORM flourish for the better.

Respond To Reviews

One common mistake some brands make is that they ignore reviews and don’t comment on them whether they’re good or bad. This can make the impression that your brand isn’t human and could care less about their customers. No brand wants to have that happen to them so responding to reviews is crucial. In fact as ReviewTrackers has reported, 52% of customers expect a response from brands within 7 days after leaving them a review, especially reviews that are negative. When you receive a positive review, make sure to respond to it in a way that shows appreciation towards your customers. When you receive a negative review, make sure to respond to it in a way that shows that you’re taking responsibility and showing commitment to resolving their inquiries in a timely and efficient manner. By doing those things, they would be more likely to do business with you in the future and recommend others to do the same.

User-Generated Content

Another great way brands can improve their online reputation is with User-Generated Content (UGC). This strategy is a winner as 70% of consumers consider UGC when making their purchasing decisions. This just comes to show you that what consumers trust the most before making their buying decisions are their peers. A great way to make use of that UGC is to highlight those positive reviews along with testimonials in order to help your brand stand out in a big way. If you really want to go the extra step in accomplishing that, invite one of your customers to do a video testimonial like Dove did.

Molly Burke Testimonial For Dove

Video is of the most easily consumable forms of content for potential consumers. Dove sure went the extra mile in highlighting how Molly Burke had a positive customer experience with them. This type of content will help your brand stand out towards your customers in a positive way and the search engines will reward you for it. The best SEO is indeed what I like to call “People-Based Marketing”.

Influencer Marketing

When it comes to Influencer Marketing, it can help bring quality results to your ORM strategy. Influencers aren’t not necessarily celebrities but they are people who have a decent-size following on social media and are much more in line with the persona of today’s consumers. Having an influencer on board in helping get the word out about your brand can help increase your brand reputation and online presence. After all, 8 out of 10 consumers have purchased a product or service as a result of a recommendation by an influencer according to a study by Rakuten Marketing [4]. This comes as no surprise as online consumers are much more likely to believe the recommendations of their peers than they would traditional advertising. It all comes down to finding the right influencer that best resonates with your brand. By doing just that, you’ll be on your way towards success online.

Consumer-First Strategies Help Your Online Reputation

When it comes to ORM, it is similar to dating. Only difference is that you’re working towards building relationships with many people. You have to always work each day towards building that relationship and do it in a way that shows care towards the needs and inquiries of the consumer. Like in any relationship, it takes so long to build and can only take mere moments to destroy. With ORM, the importance of being proactive in ensuring that you always build trust with your consumers because without trust, you have nothing. People may think that ORM is small but in reality, it’s a big deal. These three tips that we just went over will help your brand make that next big step in improving your online reputation. By adopting a consumer-first strategy, you’ll be on your way towards success with your ORM and eventually, a loyal consumer base.