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Tag: digital marketing

Rookie Website Mistakes, Part 4: You Have a Single Page Website

Single page websites are very popular right now with web designers. With so many new ways to develop websites, they’ve become a unique and scroll-friendly way for users to interact with a company in a way that they’re used to (cue the token image of people scrolling through phones). And, to be fair, they can be quite beautiful. For example, take this design from 415-Agency, a San Francisco-based design firm that works with healthcare companies to make their digital products user-friendly, seamless, and as they put it, “awesomely good looking.”

It’s an understatement to say that ton of work went into this site—it won them an honorable mention award from Awwwards, an organization that gives awards for the best designs, talent, and web dev agencies across the world. I’m a huge fan of exciting visual content, interactive graphics, and designs that enthrall. But, where some entrepreneurs get into trouble is when they try to manage a killer single page website while also optimizing it for SEO. They may come to discover that, for all its glitz and beauty, they’re the only ones actually finding it online.

Form Must Follow Function

Just as the customer is always the top priority, your website should follow that same line of logic. When thinking of how to design your website, think of not just how users will react to the visuals, but also how they will eventually interact with the site’s navigation. Give them clear avenues for finding more information, ordering products, or exploring your blog or testimonials. While a single-pager may seem simpler, it can often be easier to get lost and frustrated with trying to find a relevant page of content. To quote marketing guru Neil Patel, “website usefulness is more important than website beauty.”

If a user comes to your site and thinks, “wow,” then give your web designer a bonus or yourself a pat on the back. But, the more important thing you should worry about is if their next word they is, “how?” Users should know how to interact with your site pretty easily. If they don’t know what to do or how to do it, then your site is harming you, not helping you. This can also lead to high bounce rates—users will eventually get frustrated and leave your site for one with better navigation.

Another thing that can contribute to high bounce rates from your one-page design? Slow load times. I wrote about this in a previous blog in this series, but it’s worth mentioning here as well. Whether you’re using Flash (which, please don’t) or not, data-heavy load times due to unoptimized, large images that occupy your page’s whole screen can strangle your page load times.

Single Page Websites Lack the Opportunity for Detail Laden Content

Single page websites don’t have the space to allow for specific, rich content. From a user perspective, this limits the opportunity to provide a visitor with detailed, relevant content on topics they want to learn more about. Instead, they’re likely only able to view around a paragraph on specific topics. From an SEO perspective, this also gives search engines fewer opportunities to crawl your site for content that can help you move up in rankings while asserting yourself as an authority on your subject. It puts a great amount of pressure on a small amount of words. And, if you do manage to get a lot of content onto a single page, it ends up looking like it’s fighting for space.

Google likes to see that you’re updating your site with relevant content. If you have a single page site, you could make the argument that new content could be added to the bottom, creating an endless scroll of text and images. But, that method still doesn’t address the problem of not allowing search engines to crawl multiple pages of relevant content, and it also creates a headache of a user experience for visitors.

By building out pages for your content to live, you give visitors designated, clean spaces with which they can explore your services, products, or ideas (blog posts) to their heart’s content. They don’t have to scroll for a minute or two to find your latest blog post, and search crawlers can find it easier, too.

Forget About Performing Wide Keyword Targeting

Since single page sites are generally designed around one main concept, the opportunity for using multiple keywords is very limited. With a multi-page site, every page has a chance to introduce a new topic or genre that can include different types of keywords that target different users and open up multiple avenues for ranking.

With a single page site, it becomes extremely difficult to rank for varying keywords. For example, say you’re an owner of an HVAC company. You provide installations and repairs for furnaces, A/C systems, ductless A/C, water heaters, as well as air quality testing. By building separate pages for each of those services, you have an opportunity to move them each up in Google’s rankings, all while showing an increase in your authority. Putting all of your content in one page is like putting all of your keyword goals in one basket and hoping Google magically picks them up.

Missed Opportunities for Quality Tracking

Having multiple pages means multiple opportunities to track user behavior. You can track if someone spends 5 seconds or 5 minutes on a page about one of your services. With that valuable data, you can then focus your goals on what pages need work to bring in more visitors and convert them into customers. Obviously, this would be a difficult task for a single page site. The data showing time spent by your users will be very general, leaving you unable to tell what they love and what they dislike.

Are There Examples of Single Page Designs That Work?

There should and will always be design diversity on the internet. And sometimes, a single page site may work for you. For instance, take this site made by firm Gin Lane for GE that explores everything about the inside of volcanoes. Not only is the site visually satisfying, filled with video and interactive graphics, but the scroll feature of a single page makes sense because you’re literally venturing down into a volcano. Educational sites like this can have the luxury of not worrying about how SEO-friendly their content is because their main goal is to inform, not sell a product or service. Also, it doesn’t hurt that GE has the budget to build a site like this.

Another example of a single page site working to your advantage can be when you’re utilizing it as a promotion. FBC Creative Tech Design created a site for FOX’s upcoming show, “The Gifted,” a show based on the X-men series of comics. The site, using the fictional “Sentinel Services” organization from the show, details the reasons why people should get tested for the “x-gene.” There have been numerous pre-launch sites built to create a buzz around upcoming movies or shows, and this is a fantastic way to build awareness. They’re almost like temporary landing pages. It’s worth noting again that it’s no coincidence that some of the better single-pagers are tied to large organizations—they simply have the budget to pull it off.

Combining the Storytelling Approach of Single-Pagers Into Traditional Navigation Sites

There’s no denying that some single page websites create curiosity. They can encourage the user to explore by simply scrolling instead of clicking, and they (ideally) tell a story about their company along the way. Businesses looking to wow users with a cool site while also being optimized for SEO should try to incorporate this same type of organic curiosity into a multiple-page, traditional navigation website. It’s completely possible. Take this blueprint of a popular WordPress design scheme from Undsgn—Uncode.
Make each page a rewarding experience for users, where they can sit and really get comfortable with your content. If you design your multi-page site with the same goal of clean content without a lot of clutter and clear calls to action, then you’ll achieve a lot of the same aesthetic ideals of a single-pager, and with better SEO capabilities! Also, consider using visual content on your pages, like animation headers and background video. Just make sure they’re optimized so that they don’t slow down your load times.

The ultimate decision on whether or not you choose a single page website for your business will be up to you. Every website is different; it may work for you. But, it will also be that much trickier to see your site move up in Google’s eyes and, inevitably, in rankings. If you decide that more than one page fits your business, you should learn more about SEO services which are imperative to the health of your website.

Stay tuned for our next blog in the series, Rookie Website Mistakes, Part 5: The Content Is Weak.

Images:

Digital Design for Healthcare

Volcanoes

Blog Masonry

September 15, 2017
Nine Brands Who Have Mastered Instagram

Each social media has its distinct character, but Instagram is a beast that many small businesses aren’t familiar with. Twitter is quick and to the point, Facebook friendly, and Linkedin professional. But what about Insta? We can look at these nine companies that are effectively using Instagram to uncover the secrets to its members’ hearts.

Beautiful Images Are the Core

Instagram is an image based platform. It’s where hobby photographers, style setters, food artists, and more come together to show off their photos. If your business wants to get noticed, you have to have images that resonate.

Boutique-style online fashion retailer ModCloth uses magazine quality photos that feature their staff members wearing some of the pieces they carry. Some are more glam and others silly, but they are all well lit and intentionally shot.

Let Your Hashtags Run Wild

On Twitter, it is best practice to keep your hashtags to a minimum, and most people only use them on Facebook when they’re being glib. Nothing could be further from the way hashtags are used on Instagram. It’s not uncommon to have 10-20 hashtags on a single image, covering every different way you can describe the image.

Inspirato uses multiple variations such as #luxuryhome and #luxuryvilla to widen the scope and make it more likely someone searching will find images of their vacation homes. They also use trendy hashtags like #travelgram to make sure they are part of the greater conversation.

In addition to using hashtags to be found by potential customers, hashtags can help you find your customers. Camp Brand Goods created the hashtag #keepitwild and encouraged their followers to use it when they took photos with their products. They then “regramed” those photos, showing off the testimonial while building a relationship with their customers. Customer spotlights are a creative way to build hype and fan loyalty, and they’re easy to leverage using hashtags.

Build an #Aesthetic

The most popular Instagram feeds have a coherent theme or aesthetic that appears in each of their photos. This doesn’t mean you need to have your logo in every single photo (but if you can find a creative way to do that, then go for it!). However, having a consistent color scheme, lighting, and subject matter will help to solidify your brand identity. While the three images below from Havenly all have different subjects, the color scheme ties them all together. They all invoke the same feelings and reveal what the brand is all about—decorating spaces with a sense of calm and modern femininity.

Sell a Lifestyle

Your brand identity is who you are as a company, but the lifestyle you depict in your images is who your customers are. If you’re a car dealership, what kinds of people buy from you, and what do they value? All things USA, the outdoors, family BBQs? Then show those things in your images.

You don’t have to limit your posts to just pictures of your products. Four Barrel Coffee shows images from the coffee-creation process, as well as the final product. They also post images that appeal to their hipster demographic, such as this photo of their new record player.

If you want to show your products, take a page out of Sphero’s book and showcase some of the features and unique selling points of your business. Their little toy robots roll around all sorts of obstacles, and their photos and videos actually catch them in action.

‘Gram in Real Time

In addition to sharing staged and styled photos, Instagram can be great for showing off things that are happening at the moment. Testing a new prototype? Take a short video of it in action to use as a teaser. You can also share photos from events, like Dolphin Browser did. This is especially great if you’re hosting an open house, since it can show people how much fun they’ll miss if they don’t head over right away!

You can also share photos of your office, a day in the life, or other images of your energetic, smiling employees! It’s something we do here, as well, so you know it’s got to be a great idea 😉 Make sure you follow us on Instagram for updates.

Get Local With It

Small businesses often have close connections with their local community. Take advantage of that by following other local businesses, Little League teams, and other community organizations you want to foster a relationship with.

Kawaii NOLA is a New Orleans clothing and novelty store that specializes in Japanese imports. In addition to showing pictures of their products, they often share flyers and other information for small businesses, local artists, and Japanese cultural events throughout the city.

By cross-promoting other nearby businesses, you can unlock a new potential audience.

In this example, classic anime and film fans can learn more about Kawaii NOLA, and Kawaii NOLA customers may choose to see another film at this theatre after this event is over. Everybody wins!

Instagram is a brave, beautiful new world for businesses. At the center of all of the examples above is one simple piece of advice: be authentically you. Whoever you are as a company and brand, show that off, and you’ll find the customers you’re looking for.

If you want help managing your social media accounts, reach out to us to see how we can help!

Images:

All screenshots by Meaghan McCarthy. Taken September 2017.

September 14, 2017
How to Write Clear CTAs That Convert
According to Small Business Trends, “70% of most B2B websites lack a call to action.”

With millions of websites in existence, the odds are slim that a user will visit your site and miraculously remember your URL or bookmark it for later viewing. Without a continued, personal connection through an email newsletter, a white paper download, a podcast subscription, a special offer, or another form, it may be the last time that person connects with your business online.

A call to action, or CTA, attempts to establish that connection with your potential customers once they click on your PPC ad and head to your landing page. Even if you’ve got a CTA on your site, it may be deterring visitors rather than inviting them to explore your business. Here are some tips to make your CTA convert visitors into customers.

Start Strong With Action Verbs

There’s not a lot of space to get your point across, so it’s important to get straight to the point. Use an action verb to start your call to action. If you’re in the eCommerce world, consider using words like “shop” to start your CTA, possibly followed by “and save 50%.” The goal is to be direct and informative, highlighting the exact action you want your potential customer to take.

Focus on Value and Benefits

As a general rule, think of how you might be able to finish your potential customer’s thoughts for their desires/pain points/expectations, and then use that action verb at the end of the following sentence: “I want to _______.” What was the first thing that came to mind that your clients might choose? Grow more leads? Find shoes that slay? Get My Custom Ad Analysis? Start My Free Software Trial? The answers to this hypothetical question are completely dependent upon your business, but one thing remains true—they need to focus on how you can delight your customer by providing them relevant solutions and unique selling points that make their life or job easier. Instead of phrases like “Buy Now,” which focus on an action a user has to do, get more creative by emphasizing what he or she will get out of clicking that CTA.

In a case study from Unbounce, a B2B website owner reported a 38.26% increase in conversions after replacing just one action verb—Order Information vs. Get Information. With the former, “order” puts the customer in a difficult position—there’s either purchasing the service or not. But with “get,” the potential customer gets to see advantages or rewards. He or she is potentially awarded valuable, relevant information for choosing to continue the buyer’s journey. It’s this combination of value and relevance that can make or break a click.

Another tip about delivering benefits: Don’t make claims or offers you can’t deliver on. This is going to be the start of a potential relationship with a new customer. The last thing you want to do is promise something you can’t afford.

Keep It Short and Be Specific

According to research performed by Dan Zarrella at Hubspot, the most engaging Press Release headlines are between 90–150 characters. The same holds true for crafting landing page headlines and their corresponding CTAs. Be concise, focused, and goal-oriented. Going back to emphasizing value for the customer, consider these more focused and value-driven options.

Generate Leads ⇒ Generate {higher quality} leads by {unique qualifier}

Drive Sales ⇒ Drive {higher value or more} sales by {unique feature}

Measure ROI ⇒ Measure ROI {across all channels} with our {unique product}

Sure, the first versions were about as short as you could get, but the amended CTAs remain concise while giving a more in-depth and accurate portrayal of what the customer will get. Clear copy should help reduce any anxiety or confusion that someone may have about exploring your company. And let’s face it; people have a limited amount of time to explore your content. Make the time they spend on your site valuable, not wasted.

Use Natural Language—Submit or Click Now? No Thanks.

These antiquated terms used to be exciting when it really was a novel concept to be able to click on something and get immediate results. After all, most CTAs before the internet involved a number that you had to call. Now, though, that novelty isn’t the selling point; what you can provide your customer is. When thinking about writing your CTA, think about how you can connect with them. One way to use this in your writing is to use the words “you” and “my/our.” For example, “Drew Brees Can’t Stop Talking About Our Training Program. Learn Why and Get Fit.”

Steer clear of using ornate language by cutting unnecessary adverbs and adjectives. These words may seem like they add value to your copy, but they’re hiding the value that you can provide your customer.

Also, avoid using industry jargon in your copy. This can include words like, “franchise,” “utilize,” “virtualization,” “capitalize,” and especially acronyms that only a limited number of potential customers would even understand, like these marketing big ones: KPI, RSS, CAC, CSS, CRM. Doesn’t look too inviting does it?

Does the Size and Layout of the CTA Matter On a Landing Page?

Just like your copy, your page layout should be neat and clean. Kissmetrics recommends: “The size of your CTA buttons is also important. A too-small version won’t command attention, while a supersized one will make you seem desperate.”

Think about how your landing pages look from a visual standpoint. Avoid the color red for your CTA. There are too many associations with danger, stop signs, stoplights, aggression, etc. You’ll likely see more positive results from calm colors like blue or green.

Also, consider the size and spacing of your text on the page. It should be scannable so that a visitor can instantly pick out the information they’re interested in. Cut out the clutter. For instance, here’s an example from Macy’s current main landing page. Aside from the mixed messaging of the different values, can you spot the call to action?

Their “star rewards” offer is shifted to the right of the page. The goal for a button’s CTA is to predict where the user will look next. This one missed that mark. Also, it’s hard to tell what “JOIN NOW” means until you read the tiny print at the top indicating this CTA is for their rewards program. And finally, they’re asking a lot of their visitors to read the fine print on all of these different offers. A cleaner example of a landing page with less clutter and more clarity would be like this one from Teambit, an employee feedback, recognition, and survey startup.

The value? Your team could be the best it can be. Sounds great. How do I go about doing that? Oh, I’ll get started for free. They have detailed information if you scroll through their page about just how they help people. But the reason why it succeeds is because it doesn’t worry about that up front. It focuses on the why with a compelling headline followed by clean copy and a simple CTA. Sometimes, it really is that simple.

A Few Final Ideas for Crafting Great CTAs

In addition to the previously mentioned points, here are a few examples of how you can make your CTAs stand out and drive conversions.
1. Make sure to always display the benefits. If you’re offering a free guide, then say so right away (e.g. “Get the Knowledge You Crave – Download Our Free Guide.”).
2. Try using a pain point that your potential customers may be hitting. For example, “Tired of Not Seeing Results In Your Ad Campaign? Watch Our Free Webinar to Find Out…”
3. Also, you can try using an Influencer who supports and promotes your brand. This adds authority and intrigue to your CTA. Viewers who see that “Mark Zuckerberg Is Crazy About Our Team’s Marketing Ideas” will likely want to click on the corresponding, “Discover Why” button.
4. Lastly, utilize testimonials from your current clients. This is a source that people often overlook. Your customers should be the biggest proponents of your brand. If a client has said that you’re the best company they’ve ever worked with, then take that and condense into copy to go along with a short, action-oriented CTA. Of course, always make sure to attribute ownership of the testimonial, and it goes without saying that creating a fake testimonial is a horrible idea for your brand. You’ve got to earn them.
5. Numbers are great. If you have some success metrics, consider including them on your landing page. Are 100% of your employees certified in the service you’re promoting? Visitors should know that.
Have any great examples of CTAs in landing pages or other types of content that you’ve seen? Share them with us! A great CTA can have your business seeing more conversions and fewer bounces. Need some more guidance on building a landing page that has strong calls to action that focus on your company’s brand and values? Reach out to us at any time.

Images:

Macy’s

Teambit
September 12, 2017
Security! This Site Isn’t Safe! What Will Google Do About It?

Business is booming, leads are pouring in from your homepage form, and it seems that the direction of your company couldn’t be brighter. Then your leads seem to stop in the tracks and business slows down considerably. What could’ve happened? Your landing pages and main site call to action are perfect for getting users to fill in forms. Then, as you peruse your site, you notice something new, and now one of your greatest assets is your greatest foe.

Google and The Internet

I’m sure everyone here is familiar with the fact that Google got its start as a search engine and is now the most popular. After conquering the way people search, Google decided that it was time to innovate how people browse the internet itself. In September of 2008, Google Chrome was released in its beta format. This new web browser boasted being integrated with Google technologies and quickly put a foothold into the internet browser market. Now that Google controls a majority of the internet browser market share, their next big move is about to launch—security.

Internet and Privacy

The internet has come a long way since my childhood days of signing into AIM over a 14.4K dial-up modem. Now, I play League of Legends (yes I am using them as my example) with my gaming rig linked directly to my cable modem with a T1 cable that provides download speeds of at least 150mbps. With this rapid transfer of information constantly happening, one has to worry about the downsides, right? Right? Most of us don’t think about the downsides, but Google has thought of this for us. Back in January of this year, Google released its first major security update from the scope of usability.

Previously, a lowercase “i” was displayed in the address bar and could be clicked to display more information about the particular web page including the security of your connection, how many cookies the page uses, and a plethora of other tidbits of information. Now, whenever you enter a password or a credit card number on a site that isn’t secure, a handy message pops up to indicate that your connection to the website is not secure.

So What Exactly Is a “Secure” Site?

A website that doesn’t have an SSL Certificate installed transmits all data as plain text. Meaning, if I type my name “Jared” or my email address, or even “281-330-8004” into a field on an http website and send it to the server, it will be sent and saved on the server as plain text. What this means is that any vulnerability that is exploited in one of these sites would hold a nice, tasty database of personal information for would-be attackers to exploit. Sites with https servers work a bit differently. Your computer and the secure site initiate what is commonly referred to as the “SSL Handshake” to confirm that it is trustworthy. The https sends its SSL Certificate over to prove that it is a source that can be trusted. Any information shared over this connection is encrypted, which means that even if an attacker is able to procure a database of information that doesn’t belong to him, it will be encrypted and unable to be read.

And This Has to Do With Google How?

At Search Influence, it is our duty to know Google as well as we know ourselves. Through various means, we keep tabs on Google and exactly what this robot and its creators are really up to. In our findings, we’ve discovered that Google is about to shake up the internet. On October 1st, Google Chrome will receive a security update that will change how it displays sites that are not secure.

The graphic above displays past, present, and future versions of Chrome. As you can see, the “not secure” notification in the address bar will not only display on password and credit card form fills, but on **ANY** form fill. Google is using its bots to track down any <input type=”x”> elements on your page and flagging them according to the notice that webmasters received in Google Search Console.

That Doesn’t Seem THAT Bad

If you feel this way, I’m personally inclined to agree with you. Most of my online purchases and passwords are already behind secure sites like Amazon and the like. If some hacker gets my email or my alternate email, why would I care? Well, if you think like me, there will be an eventual rude awakening. Google has already announced that it plans on marking all non-secure sites with a nasty red triangle and red text reading “not secure” in the address bar (see below).

That tiny addition to the address bar may not cause a slowdown in form submissions on October 1st, but in the future, when that beautiful red triangle and glorious red text appear next to your web address, I’m sure people will think twice before submitting their personal information to your website. There’s no need to panic about this quite yet; Google hasn’t announced an official time of release for that update and, luckily, they’ve given us ample time to comply.

Will This Slow My Site Down?

Barely. Previously, this was an issue with https websites sometimes taking a half a second longer to load, but in this day and age, technological advances have reduced this slowdown time to a few milliseconds. If you do migrate your site to a secure server and notice significant slowdowns, it more than likely means that your site isn’t optimized for a secure server. Cloudflare has an in-depth article about bolstering your site’s configurations to improve speed after migration. The benefit of a visual that proves your site is secure is definitely worth the cost of a negligible increase in load time.

In addition to migrating your website to a secure server, some auxiliary tasks must be completed to ensure your search rankings aren’t affected. Here at Search Influence, we know that your business is very important to you. Contact us for help ensuring your website is safe and secure for your visitors.

If you want some more information about Google’s push for secure sites, check out the talk below by Emily Schechter, Google’s own Security Project Manager.

September 8, 2017
Rookie Website Mistakes, Part 3: Your Site Isn’t Mobile-Friendly

Now that you have learned how to get your website found in Google searches, Part 3 of our Rookie Website Mistakes blog series will explore how to get mobile visitors to stay.

It’s no secret that the current generation is keen on the combination of mobility and technology. We are a group who thrives off convenience and being able to get the information we need while on-the-go. It’s no wonder the level of frustration when a website we want to reach is not properly formatted for mobile use. Many of us quickly move on, searching until we find a site that is mobile-friendly and can also provide us with the information and services we need. According to Google, 58 percent of Americans use their smartphone (instead of a computer) to access a website. This means that over half of your potential audience—individuals who use the internet—are searching via cell phone. Visitors are also typically multitasking, leaving you with a limited amount of time to impress and engage them. You would be remiss to not format your website accordingly. Let’s dive a little deeper into what you lose and what you stand to gain with a website formatted for mobile visitors.

Not Using Responsive Design

One of the main differences between a site that’s built for mobile use and one that’s not is the responsiveness of the design. Consider the size of the interface or screen on a desktop computer or laptop versus a smartphone. Because mobile phones are smaller, websites cannot afford to have lofty navigation that hangs out in the margins—nor can they afford to have a surplus of text that hides below the fold. Often, the entire design of the website should be optimized for how visitors will need to navigate the page on a 5×3-inch device. Font size, typography, and single-column layout are also some items to consider.

Optimizing for mobile does not mean that a business will have to create two different sites. Responsively designed websites are flexible and can detect screen size and orientation. The flow and readability of the design are crucial for a pleasant user experience that will keep visitors on your page, allowing them to receive the valuable information you are providing.

Lack of a Touch-Friendly Interface

Because visitors to your website are most likely accessing your page from their handheld device, it is imperative that the site can be easily navigated by touch. Visitors are frequently using touchscreens to find your business online, and once they arrive at your website, they need to be able to use their fingers to scroll, move between pages, click links and videos, and request more information.

Consider enlarging the font and adding more space between navigation buttons and links so that it’s easier to select items on the page. Unlike using a mouse on a desktop, fingers are less precise, so the use of buttons is vital to a friendly interface. Be sure to also have indicators on items that can be selected, such as adding a highlight or indentation marker to the button. This lets visitors know that their phone has recognized their selection. Another element is utilizing dropdown menus for navigation. They can be used on desktop screens and are ideal for mobile phones. Also, make sure the phone numbers are click-to-call and emails listed on your website are designed to open a compose window. This adds even more convenience for potential customers and visitors to your website.

Images That Aren’t Optimized

In previous blogs, we’ve made a case for the importance of having quality images on your page. But what happens if these images are slow to load? According to a study done by Equation Research, 60 percent of mobile users expect a site to load within 3 seconds, and 74 percent are willing to wait up to 5 seconds for it to load before abandoning the website entirely. Visuals that take too long to configure to the page also slow down the general responsiveness of your website. Scale images through code or optimize them by using new HTML markup that prevents the browser from downloading pictures that are larger than what is needed.

Content That Isn’t Mapped for Mobile

Take inventory of each piece of content on your website and evaluate how effective it will read on a mobile phone. The size of the font and the typography style is something to consider, but the length and relevancy of the content are important, too. Trim down the fat. Use your analytics intel to determine which pieces of content your visitors are actually reading, and consider removing or optimizing content they are not. Review your website and be sure each piece of existing content is essential and can be easily digestible on all screen sizes.

Having a mobile-friendly website is not something to be overlooked. With more and more of your potential customers using their phones to search for your business, mobile-friendly optimization is vital to the health of your business. If you have any questions or concerns about how to optimize your website and grow your business, our team is happy to help. Drop us a line!

Stay tuned for the next blog in the series, Rookie Website Mistakes, Part 4: You have a Single Page Website.

September 1, 2017
Paid Search, SEO, and the Evolution of Google
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man. –Heraclitus

One thing that’s certain in the world of search is that technology and user habits are always evolving. David Mihm recently wrote an excellent blog on the ever-changing landscape of search engines otherwise known as “SERP Topology.” We recently had the honor of hosting David as a guest speaker for a lunch & learn for the whole team. He provided us with some powerful insights about the evolution of Google. Here are some key takeaways.

As you can see above, based on his predictions it is highly likely that Google search results will be more and more driven by paid advertising as opposed to traditional SEO in the next 5-10 years.

Practically, this will impact your business in a few different ways. Some industries will continue to stay relevant with a traditional SEO approach, but for many, it will become a less effective strategy.

If you’re a business owner, here are some things to keep in mind:
1. What percentage of closed business is coming from digital marketing efforts?
2. Where, specifically, are your leads coming from?
3. How is your team converting those opportunities?
Brand Awareness

If you’re producing content, it will become increasingly important to promote that content using social platforms and other advertising options, such as Google Display Ads. Marketing your brand through ads will continue to be an important and useful strategy.

Referrals

The connection economy will continue to increase in importance. Who are the influencers in your industry online? Where are they? Find out what platforms the thought leaders are on and connect with them.

Also, find out where your customers are hanging out. If it’s Facebook, then you should seriously consider developing a strong presence there.

Lead Generation

Organic SEO is very powerful, however, one of the downsides is that it can take a long time to grow results. Google ads are a great option to compliment SEO and content marketing strategies because you get instant feedback from your target audience. From there, you can take that feedback, find those great leads, and nurture them into customers.

SEO

Search engine optimization is not going away anytime soon. And, in the next 10 years, it will remain relevant for many industries. However, it won’t be quite as effective in the near future. As Google continues to generate the majority of its revenue from advertising expenditure, it inherently implies a push toward incentivizing businesses to use those tools.

If you’d like to understand more about how to advertise your business online, or how you can best take advantage of SERP Topology, reach out here to chat with a strategist.

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SERP Topology
August 31, 2017
Marketing Myths Small Business Owners Should Stop Believing

When you’re running a small business, it’s often up to you or a member of a very small team to research and make all decisions for the business. And when you’re trying to allocate a marketing budget, being well informed is essential to the future of the business’ success. If you’re considering investing in SEO for your company but aren’t sure if it is going to pay off in the end, get the real facts about common SEO misconceptions.

Myth 1: Only businesses of a certain size, in particular industries, or with certain audience demographics need a website.

Some of you might be shaking your head at this one, but of the 500 small business marketers surveyed by highervisability.com, 20 percent said their company didn’t have a website. Having a website in today’s world is essential for getting found by customers, and everyone can benefit from one. SEO will help you get found by the right audience, no matter how niche your market may be, from HVAC companies and mom-and-pop shops to CNC engineers and doctors.

Myth 2: Keyword stuffing and duplicate content are good SEO practices.

While a majority of those surveyed believed copy-and-pasting content from other sites wasn’t ok, 12 percent didn’t see anything wrong with duplicating content from another site or page of your own site. When you copy from another person’s site, it’s plagiarism, and Google will penalize you for it. But even if it’s your own content repeating on different pages of the site, Google still flags it as duplicate content and therefore dings you for failing to provide new and useful information for your readers.

Keyword stuffing was considered a good idea by 38 percent of responders, but this is another practice that will get you in trouble with Google. Keyword stuffing involves cramming a chosen keyword into your content as much as humanly possible, even if it makes the content sound stilted and unnatural. Not only will Google penalize your site for it, but it also makes things difficult for readers, and pleasing them is the most important thing at the end of the day.

Myth 3: SEO is all about keyword rankings.

Keyword rankings are obviously an important metric for gauging your site’s performance, but there’s more to SEO than sprinkling some keywords into your content and calling it a day. Content creation, link building, local search optimization, and technical aspects of your website, like page speed, are all necessary components of a well-rounded and robust SEO campaign.

If you’re having trouble evaluating the technical side of your SEO, request a site audit from us.

Myth 4: Social media is just for sharing pictures of my kids at the beach.

19 percent of small businesses don’t have any social media presence. Of those 19 percent, only 35 percent are happy with their Google rankings. It then stands to reason that social media is a very important piece of the puzzle.

Social media helps you promote your content, share industry news with your followers, show off a bit of your personality and your brand’s tone, and engage directly with your customers. It’s the personal touch that matters in today’s business world. Plus, social media lets you find your customers where they spend the most time.

Myth 5: All of this should cost me less than $100 a month.

SEO services are a marketing investment. And like all investments, you have to spend money to see money. According to Pigzilla, we’re in the middle of a pandemic where shady SEO companies are charging rock bottom prices and not delivering the kind of results their customers are hoping for. Positive results require consistent efforts in content creation and quality link building, not just a few tweaks to your site or a handful of spammy links. A reputable SEO company is charging you for their expertise in the industry coupled with a truly hands-on approach for your campaign. Even if your budget isn’t huge, a good company will tailor their work to give you the most bang for your buck.

There’s a lot more to SEO than most small businesses realize. Whether you’re just starting to allocate some of your marketing budget to digital marketing or you’ve been burned by a bad SEO company in the past, talking to one of Search Influence’s sales executives can help you determine what your next best steps are for building an SEO campaign that will give you results.

August 29, 2017
5 Questions Your Medical Practice Should Ask Before Hiring a Paid Search Firm

When it comes to choosing a marketing firm for your paid search campaign, it’s important to do your homework—especially if you’re in the medical industry. According to Pew Research Center, 8 in 10 online health inquiries start with a search engine, and 72 percent of internet users said they looked online for health-related information. Beyond patients frantically Googling their symptoms, they’re also searching for medical care providers. The right ad agency will make sure you show up on page one of the search results.

But on top of a highly competitive and saturated market, medical practices also face added challenges to adhere to strict medical guidelines and discuss sensitive and highly personal topics appropriately. All said, a paid search campaign can do wonders to both improve your brand awareness and get new patients in your door. Here are five questions you should ask your prospective paid search agency before signing a contract.

1. What Experience Do You Have Working With Clients in the Medical Industry?

Your ad agency shouldn’t just know costs per click and search engine optimization, they should also know how to speak your language. More than that, they should know how to speak your language to your prospective patients. Search Influence has been helping clients in the medical industry stand out and rank in search results since 2007. In that time, we’ve worked with medical clients in 30+ cities across 18 states. Our experience ranges from plastic surgeons and dermatology clinics to hospitals, counseling services, and physical therapists. We use a holistic approach for every campaign to create brand recognition, improve ranking, and—most importantly—deliver qualified leads.

Our years of experience have helped us build a database of technical and demographic knowledge in order to strategically reach your desired patients where they’re at. In fact, we have helped our clients stay on the frontline of innovation by optimizing their sites for procedures as soon as they are approved and available to the public. For example, when the FDA approved gummy bear implants in 2013, we already had content written for our clients and were ready to run promotions to highlight this highly desirable option at the time.

We also understand the meticulous detail required to accurately reflect the standards and restrictions of medical societies, HIPAA, and the platforms where we promote your content. We know how to accurately post images in accordance with both American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS) and American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) promotional guidelines or how to use language that aligns with Google’s expectations for websites in the medical industry—an issue that can even cause Google to suspend your site.

If you’re curious about the current state of your website or worried about a site suspension, you can contact us to help you get on the right track.

In addition to meeting all of the medical industry standards, it’s also important that you position your practice as a thought leader. Our deep knowledge of the subject matter ensures that your content is optimized and technically accurate. More than just knowing that gynecomastia is the condition and breast reduction surgery is the procedure, we also understand the discreet and laser-precise writing required to appeal to men who are searching for this sensitive topic. As your PPC agency, we will deliver results because we start with strategy, and we understand your business.

2. What Is My Cost Per Lead?

Your cost per lead will depend on market factors such as seasonality, the size of your city, and the number of advertisers in your area. However, at Search Influence, our typical target for plastic surgeons is $50-$60 per lead. For us, we care most about delivering you qualified leads that actually become patients.

So how do we actually calculate your cost per lead (CPL)? Let’s say, as an example, that you offer a procedure for $5,000, and you’re willing to pay 10 percent (or $500) in order to get a lead for that procedure. However, you know that not every lead that contacts you is going to become a patient. Let’s say that 1 out of every 10 leads who contact you about the procedure will actually become a patient. That’s a 10 percent conversion rate, which results in a CPL of $50.

Of course, if your conversion rate is higher or if your cost for acquisition is higher or lower than the example, we can adjust accordingly. The table below outlines seasonal averages for some of our plastic surgery clients to show how we can achieve results for your practice.

As a medical practitioner, your bottom line all comes down to how many patients are walking through your door (and how much you paid to get them there). For you, a worthwhile investment in paid search results in qualified leads that can translate into actual patients. We get that. That’s why we have built-in systems to seamlessly track your leads, and a post-launch schedule to fine-tune your campaign as quickly as possible. Not only will you have clear reporting, but you can also use our lead tracking system to create an organized database of qualified leads, allowing your team to close leads faster.

3. How Do You Measure Return on Investment?

PPC is not a “set it and forget it” machine. Successful online ad campaigns should run on a continual loop. You have to look back to determine what’s working and adjust in real-time to build on successes. Our reporting can help you pinpoint the average cost per patient so you know your exact return on investment. You’ll know if your leads prefer to call or fill out a contact form, and you’ll gain valuable insights like location demographics.

Your PPC agency should also collect continual feedback from you about the quality of your leads in order to apply that information directly to your campaign and avoid any wasted ad spend. With endless customization opportunities—not a prix fixe package—your marketing firm should have a system in place to make things easy, but also be ready to break the rules to fit your budget and make your campaign a success for you.

4. What Procedures Are You Promoting and What Drives the Most Leads?

Remember that thing about endless customization? Yeah, that applies here, too. Your ad agency should have the know-how to build a holistic strategy that both grows your brand and promotes your most important services.

Brand building and search engine optimization are definitely comparable to the age-old chicken and the egg situation. You have to have some brand recognition if you want to rank high on search engines, and once you rank, you’ll get greater brand recognition. So what does that mean for you? Well, if you don’t rank yet, you’ll need to do more than simply optimize your content and build your link profile. You’ll have to create a dynamic strategy to build the overall awareness of your brand. After all, in the age of the internet, who says you can’t have all your eggs in your basket and eat some chicken, too?

Your online marketing agency can help you do just that. That’s why at Search Influence we start with a comprehensive kickoff meeting to understand the details of your business. Why? It’s simple. Formulating the right strategy first will save you money and get you the right leads.

Once we understand your business goals, we can target the right procedures and help you establish your brand around specialties and services that matter to you. We can also help you identify missed opportunities. For example, while aesthetic services aren’t the highest revenue driving procedures, they’re a great way for plastic surgery practices to continue generating revenue even when the doctor is booked with another client. Or, perhaps you specialize in rhinoplasty and want to be established as the leader in your market for that procedure. We can center your campaign on your qualification as a rhinoplasty surgeon to build your brand as the preferred specialist. It all depends on your needs, and your ad agency should do the setup work to understand those needs from day one.

5. On What Page Do Leads Land During a Campaign?

You can have beautifully written ads, but without the right landing page, your leads are highly unlikely to convert into patients. Especially when it comes to AdWords, you have to optimize for both your human readers and Google’s Quality Score. Google can spot landing pages that don’t align with the search term in the ad and actually make you pay more as result. For example, if someone searches for liposuction, clicks on your ad all about liposuction, then lands on a general page about body contouring services, then you’re missing the mark on user experience and Google’s best practices.

Without optimized content and a dedicated landing page, your chances of converting are slim.

A recent report from Unbounce placed the average conversion rate in the healthcare industry at only 2.9 percent. And if you’re using your homepage as your landing page, then you’re totally missing out. Your ad agency can create dynamic landing page content that makes it easy for prospective patients to take an action, with custom forms and click to call buttons that prove your return on investment. In fact, the same Unbounce report shows that healthcare businesses in the 90th percentile achieve conversion rates at 9.3 percent, and the right content and strategy can help get you there.

Landing pages are just one key element in a successful ad campaign. At Search Influence, we care about delivering a holistic advertising strategy focused on results. Contact our team to see how we can help optimize your medical practice’s online presence.

August 25, 2017
Search Influence Makes Inc. 5000 List for 7th Straight Year

Inc. magazine has recognized Search Influence on its 36th annual Inc. 5000 list, making this our seventh straight year achieving this coveted recognition! It’s important to note that the Inc. 5000 list includes an exclusive ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies and represents the most comprehensive look at the most esteemed segment of the economy—America’s independent entrepreneurs. The distinguished ranking started in 1982 and has since become the hallmark of entrepreneurial success.

Recognized as one of 47 Louisiana firms included in the 5,000 fastest-growing companies, we remain amongst the ranks of groups such as Yelp, Pandora, Timberland, Dell, Domino’s Pizza, LinkedIn, and Zillow, as well as many other industry leaders who gained early exposure as members of the Inc. 5000.

A Company Built From Search Discovers Its Niche

Our company founded on the basis of search engine marketing began its journey in 2006 when Angie and I obtained our first client in need of SEO services. Three years later, we began delivering Google, Bing, and Facebook paid ads, becoming a Google Partner in 2011 and a Premier Partner in 2016. Having handled paid media budgets from as little as a few hundred dollars to hundreds of thousands per month, we were able to achieve direct and sustainable results for our clients. Our successes span the nation and even bolster the initiatives of major-league companies like ALCC American Language with their international goals. It has been milestones like these that have fueled our expansion and ultimately become the cornerstone of our agency’s mission in helping our customers to successfully market themselves online by developing tools, technology, and the knowledge of experts who support them.

By 2010, we had begun redirecting our focus on the homefront and started our first enterprise work in the local community with Audubon Nature Institute, thus establishing our dexterity in the areas of tourism, non-profit, and event marketing. Other current and past local clients of note include industries of expertise, like New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation, Center for Restorative Breast Surgery, The National World War II Museum, and Tulane School of Professional Advancement.

Recognition as a Result of Innovation

We’re certainly excited to celebrate this recent accomplishment, especially on the heels of our newest announcement which details notable advancements to our employee experience. Our dedicated team consists of 50+ in-house employees and dozens of contractors. Our team includes specialists in content marketing, online advertising, technical SEO, local SEO, social media marketing, advertising, and online PR.

Our ability to sustain long-term growth can be attributed to the dedication of many key employees, like Gabrielle Benedetto, who joined our ranks in January 2012 and has spent 5 years deep in technical challenges & strategies for digital marketing.

Gabrielle notes, “Search Influence is known for crafting a team of collaborative, enthusiastic, and dedicated employees. Around the office, you see tenure flags covered with stars representing the number of years Influencers have spent with Search Influence. It’s our long-standing employees who drive this company forward. We’re encouraged to be leaders and pledged to do what’s best for our clients. When you empower a team to put the client first, the company will always move forward. I’m so excited to be part of this growth, and can’t wait to see what we tackle next!”

It is precisely this kind of dedication that has been the basis for the restructuring of our compensation philosophy. Our recently updated perks and pay reflect a leading-edge approach to talent management reflecting our belief that only with happy employees can we have successful clients.

We recognize our employees are our greatest investment and we’re hopeful that with the recent changes, prospective employees and current team members will see Search Influence as a progressive employer when it comes to pay, benefits, and paid time off, providing the ability to work hard, do great work, and take advantage of all of the great things that life in New Orleans has to offer.

Interested in Learning What Sets Us Apart?

Our drive to help clients find more customers online has enabled us to become the largest digital marketing agency on the Gulf Coast. It has been our ability to achieve reliable results and our desire to teach what we’ve learned that has made us a recognized national leader in digital marketing.

If you’re interested in learning more about how we help businesses grow, please get in touch. To learn more about our approach to talent management, read about our recently updated compensation philosophy and please visit our current openings to learn how to join our team of dedicated professionals.

August 24, 2017
Rookie Website Mistakes, Part 2: Not Allowing Google to See Your Website
Congrats, you’ve finally created a website for your business! And in the last post in our Rookie Website Mistakes blog series, you even learned how to bring your site up to speed. Now’s the part where you pat yourself on the back and start thinking about how to work your way to the top of the first page in the search results.

Well, hold your horses—Google’s really smart, but it’s not magic. Think of the search engine results pages (SERPs) as an insanely big library: if you’ve written a novel, the book doesn’t automatically appear in the correct place on the correct library shelf. You’d have to get someone to read it, decide what it’s about, and figure out how to catalog it somewhere in the existing shelves. In the same way, Google needs to actually “read” your website before it can make a decision about where it fits in in the SERPs.

And if you’ve accidentally prevented Google from reading your site at all, it has no way to fit it into its library. As a result, the “if you build it, they will come” mindset definitely doesn’t apply: potential customers won’t find you if your site isn’t showing up when they search for it. Failing to allow search engines to actually find your website is a very common rookie mistake when moving WordPress sites from staging to a live server, but a little knowledge of how Google works can help bring your site up to speed.

How Does Google Find and “Read” Your Website?

According to Verisign‘s Domain Name Industry Brief, there were approximately 330.6 million domain name registrations in the first quarter of this year alone. Google’s a huge company, but its employees don’t have time to read all of these new sites. Instead, they entrust that task to specialized bots, called “spiders,” “crawlers,” or “Googlebot,” that automatically discover your website and analyze its contents.

These bots “crawl” websites by moving through one link to the next, bringing back information for the search engines. Google also uses these spiders to analyze updates to your site, but since you’re just starting out in the website ownership process, let’s focus on site discovery. “Indexing” is the process of discovering your site and deciding where it fits into Google’s library. A page has been indexed when Googlebot’s results have been recorded in Google’s index, or the massive database of the search engine, allowing the page to actually show up in the SERPs.

One interesting thing to point out is that the terms “crawl” and “index” are related but not necessarily dependent on each other. In other words, just because a bot has visited a page doesn’t necessarily mean that the page has been indexed. Similarly, it’s possible for a page to be indexed without ever having been crawled (in rare cases).

What Happens When Googlebot Is Blocked?

If Googlebot is unable to see what’s on your site, it means that no crawling and indexing is happening. This, in turn, might mean a loss of rankings in the SERPs.

There are a few ways your site might be blocking Googlebot:
- Firewalls – Using a firewall or DoS protection system is always best practice, but your systems might be recognizing Googlebot as a potential threat. Because Googlebot tends to make far more server requests than your average human user, the firewall on your site might flag this as threatening behavior, preventing the bots from crawling your website.
- Intentional blocking – The webmaster of your site might intentionally block Googlebot in an attempt to control how the site is crawled and indexed.
- DNS issues – Your DNS provider may be inadvertently blocking bots.
How Do You Ensure That You Aren’t Telling Helpful Bots to “Get Lost”?

Here are a few things to double check to be sure you’re putting out the welcome mat for your helpful crawlers.

First things first: check for noindex meta tags, which basically tell bots “thanks, but no thanks.” It seems obvious, but removing a line of code may be all you need to do to get indexed.

Next, check your robots.txt file. It’s not a mistake to use this file at the root of your site; when used effectively, it allows you to give bots exact direction as to which pages you want crawled and which bots you want to access your site. However, if you’re using it incorrectly, you might be blocking Googlebot from seeing your site at all. You can learn more about robots.txt here, and Google offers plenty of additional information to help you understand how to use robots.txt files effectively with Googlebot.

You might also want to configure your URL parameters through Google Webmaster Tools to control Googlebot’s access without a loss of search ranking.

Finally, if a firewall or any kind of bot blocking script is the culprit, you’ll need to manually remove the block. For DNS issues you can’t fix on your own, try contacting your DNS provider.

How Long Does it Take Google to Crawl Your Site?

Note that even after making these changes, you’ll need to give Google a few days (at least) to index your site—it won’t happen instantly. And once you’ve made sure Google is able to access your site for crawling and indexing, you can move forward by optimizing your website for spiders to make it easier to crawl. If you need help with that next step, our team would be happy to get you on the right track. Contact an expert from our team anytime.

Stay tuned for our next entry in our blog series: Rookie Website Mistakes, Part 3: Your Site Isn’t Mobile Friendly.

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