Secure, Mobile Responsive Websites

Archives for November 2015

How The Science of Choice Affects Your Website

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Todays infographic looks at the Science of choice.

People make fast choices every day in the blink of an eye. Scientists come up with complex algorithms and formulas to try and determine why they make the choices that they do. Sometimes the reasons “why” aren’t that complicated. These same types of decisions are made by your website visitors every day

This infographic combines some photo comparisons and some statistics on how your sites design affects credibility, along with some website design tips. Take a look and let us know which ones would you choose?

If visitors to your site aren’t licking their lips, maybe it’s time to update your website.

4 Steps to Improve Your Manufacturing Marketing

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The buying process has been changing in the manufacturing industry over the last couple of years. In years past manufacturing marketing budgets were primarily allocated on paid listings in industrial directories, catalogue ads, trade shows, magazine ads and more. Buyers are relying more on the internet. These four steps will help you improve your manufacturing marketing.

With the amount of information available online its estimated that 60% of the purchase decision is already made before the buyer contacts a company or sales rep. If you want to compete moving forward your manufacturing marketing strategy is going to need to be inline with the manufacturing buyers evolving process. (Not a manufacturing company, no problem. These tips are relevant to any company looking to improve their online marketing.)

Here are four key areas where you can improve your marketing effectiveness to drive more traffic, capture more leads and close more sales…

1. Create a Website That Gives Visitors What They Want

Your manufacturing website is the hub of your online marketing. Prospects coming to your site need to be able to quickly find the content that they are looking for. Based on a 2014 B2B Web Usability report, here are the types of content B2B buyers are looking for:

  • Address and Contact Info (68%)
  • Pricing Info (43%)
  • Technical Info (38%)
  • Case Studies / Blogs / White Papers (38%)
  • Shipping Info (37%)

In terms of visual appeal some of the top noted issues visitors have with websites include:

  • Confusing Navigation / Hard to Find Information
  • Site Doesn’t look Professional or Up-to-Date
  • Copy is too small or crammed together

If your site isn’t performing up to expectations you may be lacking the right content or visual appeal. Be sure to check out our blog post Awesome Tips to Improve Your Manufacturing Website.

2. Be Sure Your Site is Optimized for the Search Engines (SEO)

SEO is all about driving traffic to your website. But not just any traffic, but rather targeted traffic. 100 of the right visitors will always be more beneficial then 1,000 of the wrong people. So how do you get the right people to your site?

Simple. Make sure your site ranks for the keywords your prospects use when searching for information on problems, threats, opportunities, etc. that your products or services solves for them.

It takes time and effort to rank for the right keywords. It would be a shame if you spent any of this time ranking for the wrong words. The most important thing you can do before building or redesigning your site is keyword search. Forget about assuming or guessing and let your research guide your decisions.

3. Create Compelling Content

If you’ve done your keyword research, then you’re in a better position to began crafting content that is relevant to your target audience. Make sure that for each page and piece of content that you have a primary keyword. Then do on page optimization to improve your ranking chances.

Your prospects are going to be in one of the three stages of the buying process:

  • Awareness: Problem Identification
  • Consideration: Problem Solution
  • Decision: Problem Resolution

Make sure you create content for all three stages.

4. Create Pages That Convert

If capturing leads is one of your website goals then you need to avoid wasting website visits. Utilizing calls-to-action is the perfect way to create value from prospects visitng your website. Many of the manufacturing websites we work with have one or both of what we consider major conversion issues:

  1. No Calls-to-Action
  2. Unclear Calls-to-Action

The first is east to fix. Create an offer that a visitor would be willing to give you there name and emaill address to access. Then add a clickable call-to-action tied to a form.

The second issue requires that you make your calls-to-action stand out visually and that the messaging you use clear conveys the offer.

Once you have clear calls-to-action on your page, then you can start optimizing them to improve your conversion rate. To learn more about using AB testing to improve conversions visit our Conversion rate optimization page.

Remember, you already have the visitors at your site, now you just need to get more to take the specific action you want them to take.

Wrap Up

As buyers move more of their research and purchase process to the internet, your website, or your competitors websites, is increasingly becoming the sales resource in the best position to capture prospects attention. Will they find your site when they search? Will they stay on your site if they vist? Will they take a conversion action and at a minimum become a lead and prospect?

A complete online marketing strategy has a lot of integrated components, but it all starts with your website.

On-Page SEO Checklist

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The success of your website is highly dependent on the success of your SEO. Use this On Page SEO Checklist to optimize your website.

In an earlier blog post this week we discussed What is On-Page SEO? Today we move from definitions to action with a On-Page SEO Checklist., but before we do let’s cover one more definition by defining “search engine optimization”.

Wikipedia defines search engine optimization as the “process of affecting the visibility of a website or page in a search engines unpaid reults”. Below is a checklist of items based on THE PERIODIC TABLE OF SEO SUCCESS FACTORS which breaks on-page SEO into three areas: Content, Architecture and HTML.

**The higher the number the more important the factor is. For negative numbers, a -3 will harm you more than a -1.

Architecture

Crawl (3)

You want to make it easy for search engines to crawl the pages on your site to understand what each page is about and index it. We covered website crawlability in a previous post.

Duplicate Content (2)

Google defines duplicate content as “substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar.” Be sure that when you create content it is as original as possible. There will be times when you need to duplicate content (for example the definition of duplicate content is probably on 1,000’s of pages), just be sure to add your own perspective so that its a small part of your original content.

Mobile Friendly (2)

In April Google released a new algorithm that will penalize sites that are not mobile friendly. As Google states, “either your site is mobile-friendly or it is not”. The first thing you should do is head over to the Google Mobile testing tool to see if your site is considered mobile friendly. If it is, check this one off your list. If its not, time to contact your web developer or someone (like us 🙂 who specializes in building mobile friendly sites.

Speed (1)

Speed kills in sports and in websites. How fast does your website load? To check you page load speed try Pingdom Tools Speed test. You should aim for a page load time of less than 1.5 seconds. While this is a google ranking factor, less than 10% of sites have rankings that are affected by speed. the bigger factor is the impact it has on potential visitors.

Keywords in URL’s (1)

Do your page url’s have relevant keywords in them? Each page of your site should have a focus keyword. Be sure to use the keyword in your page url.

Cloaking (-3)

Cloacking is simply showing one page to search engine crawlers and a different page to humans. It’s a big no-no. If you’re doing it stop. If you don’t know if you’re doing it, then you’re probably not.

Content

Quality (3)

Make sure you are creating Quality Content. Google does’nt directly define quality content but they do provide some general guidelines: create content for your users that is unique, informative and relevant. If you content addresses the issues and opportunities your prospects have then its likely that you are on the right track.

Research (3)

One of the most important things you can do to improve your content success is to do keyword research to determine the topics,words and phrases that your prospects use to answer questions and address problems and opportunities. These will be what they use when conducting their own research. Bes ure you’re speaking the same language.

Words (2)

Do you use the correct keywords on pages that you hope to rank for? Each page on your site should have a purpose and should be optimized for a keyword that supports that purpose. In addition you’ll want to use additional words and phrases that naturally belong in the same content.

Fresh Content (2)

Google loves fresh content. The best way to keep your site fresh is through the use of a blog. This allows you to continue adding pages to your site for search engines to index. A Hubspot study showed that companies that blog drive 55% more traffic, 97% more inbound links and 434% more indexed pages than companies that do not blog.

Vertical Content (2)

Do you hae additional content on your site like images, news, local info, videos, etc. These additional pieces of content allow you to drive traffic from vertical searches in search engines.

Thin Content (-2)

Thin content isn’t about the size of the content but rather about the value to readers. If your content is original, educational and relevant than this should not be an issue. Just remember to write for the benefit of readers and not search engines.

HTML

Page Titles (3)

The title of each page is one of the most important factors. Be sure that you include your page primary keyword in the title of the page.

Page Descriptions (2)

Page descriptions are actually not a ranking factor in Google’s algorithm. Where they are important is that in search results this is the content users will see when deciding what links to click on. Be sure that your description includes your primary keyword written in engagin manner to give the searcher a reason to click on your link in the search results.

Structured Data (2)

Structured data helps Google better understand what you content is about. It also helps search engines better index your content. For more information visit Google’s Structured Data page. There you can learn more about the options to enhance your content and use the structured data tool to make sure you’re doing it right.

Headlines and Subheaders (1)

Like including your primary keyword in your URL’s and page titles, you want to use headlines and subheader to include your keywords. The goal should be to provide better clarification, readability and structure to the page. That in turn should help your content be more effective.

Don’t Keyword Stuff (-2)

Keyword stuffing used to be an SEO technique, but those days have long since passed. Typically you don’t want to have any keywords exceed 3-5% of total content. Google has gotten very good at discerning searchers intent, so its more important to have words and phrases that would be expected on a page relevant to your keyword.

Don’t Hide Content (-1)

Another no-no. Like cloaking there is no purpose in hiding content on a page so that it’s viewable to search engine but not visitors.

Each year the Periodic Table of SEO Succes Factors is updated, so plan on reviewing this great resource annually. Then tweak as needed to ensure that your site is optimized for search engine success.

Manufacturers Adopt Content Marketing Strategy to Outbox Competitors

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The fight for prospects is heating up as manufacturers adopt content marketing strategies to outbox their competitors. This infographic is based on the 2015 B2B Manufacturing Content Marketing Trends—North America, published by the Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs, looks at some of the key findings.

This info graphic looks at the percentage of manufacturers who have a strategy, tactics usage, spending and more.

If you like this infographic please consider sharing it with a retweet or post. Thanks.

 

What Is On Page SEO?

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With search engine optimization there are two types of SEO you need to consider: On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO. Today we define “what is On Page SEO?”

Defining On Page SEO?

“Its the process of optimizing the individual pages on your website to rank higher for specific keywords in order to drive relevant traffic.” You have complete control over on-page factors so its important that you take the time to get them right.

Top Three On-Page SEO Factors

The Periodic Table of SEO Success Factors defines 20 different on-page seo factors. Here are the three that will have the highest SEO impact on your website and pages.

1. Quality Content

Defining what is “quality content” can be somewhat difficult when you think about the competing interests. On one side you want to publish content that your reader will find relevant and informative. On the other side you want to make sure that the search engines also like your content and find it relevant for a specific set of keywords. After all, you want Google to index your content so that potential readers will find it based on certain keyword searches.

Google doesn’t provide an actual definition to Quality Content but they do provide some basic principles:

  • Create pages and content for users, not search engines
  • Don’t trick or deceive your users
  • Don’t manipulate the page to improve search rankings
  • Be unique

The take away is that your content should create content for your reader; not search engines. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t optimize web pages, but just don’t do so at the expense of the readers experience.

2. Search Engine Crawlability

Crawlability is the ability for search engines to go through and index the assets of your site. These assets include:

  • Pages
  • CSS
  • Images; and
  • Javascript

Search engines should be able to index your site without session id’s or arguments to track the bots crawl path.

Other ways you can improve crawlability include the use of:

  • A robot.txt file
  • Have readable site navigation
  • Have a submitted xml sitemap
  • A html sitemap; and
  • Utilize internal links.

3. Relevant Keyword In Page Titles

One of the most important elements on any web page is your Title Tag. The title of each page should include your most relevant keyword for the content on the page. Your page title will also be likely shown in:

  • The title of the tab in your browser.
  • On Search engine results pages
  • On external sites such as Twitter or Facebook as anchor text

To optimize your title tag do the following:

  • Use only one per page and place it in the site head tag.
  • Use your best keyword or keyword phrase.
  • Don’t use a bunch of different keywords to form your title.
  • Put your best keywords in the title and secondary keywords in body tags.
  • Keep the title length to 50-60 characters when possible.
  • If you have your company name in each page title make sure it comes after the keywords (the exception is where the brand is really strong and will make a difference in the number of clicks you would receive).
  • Each page on your site should have a unique page title.

Both On and Off-page SEO are important, so its not a case of one or the other. In terms of control, though, it’s easier to control on-page factors as all of the work takes place within the code and content of your website. With some planning and execution you can ensure that you maximize your search engine optimization efforts and put your self in a position to capture attention from search engines and searchers.

 

Social Media Ads Underperform

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I used to be a “Social Media Expert”, though I never made that claim. Or at least I had the bonafides of what one would expect. I wrote the Social Media Sonar blog which won the 2009 BlogOff II competition. The company I partnered with managed social media marketing for clients. And I had social media in my web URL (just kidding I think).

Towards the end of 2010 I came to the conclusion that while our small to mid size clients were tweeting away and gaining friends, likes and follows, they were not doing so well gaining leads and sales. Social Media wasn’t enough by itself. I spent a couple of months researching, reading and scribbling on paper, the end result being that I believe that social media can be part of an overall marketing plan, but by itself it’s just a lot of hot air.

There still seemed to be hope, though, of utilizing the ad networks of the social networks to reach some highly segmented audiences. After all in an advertising campaign your list is probably the most important element. Once again social media failed to live up to the hype.

In 2011 the numbers paint a clear picture when comparing the king of social networks, Facebook, and the king of search Google.

% of Online Ads in 2011

  • Google Online Ads: 9%
  • Facebook Online Ads: 17.1%

Sales Revenue Generated By Online Ads

  • Google: 36.4 Billion
  • Facebook: 3.7 billion

Facebook served almost twice the number of online ads as Google, yet barely generated 10% of the sales revenue of Google. Wuh Oh Shaggy! What most people who look to social media to drive sales miss is “Intent”. People on social networks are intent on keeping up with their family, friends and connections, sharing information with them, and interacting. Buying something is nowhere on their radar.

People who search Google are “Intent” upon finding content whether it be informational, educational, entertaining or sales related. They are looking to solve a question or problem and willing to purchase the right solution. A majority have a “Purchase Intent”.

In a previous post I discussed how social media was irrelevant to Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. In this post I’m showing that advertising on social media networks isn’t working so well. So what’s left for social media? Does it have a place in the marketing world? Of course it does. There are just too many people using social media to ignore it.

One of the conclusions I came to in late 2010 was that social media was a good fit to help syndicate content within a larger content marketing strategy. Here are some ways we use social media to syndicate content:

  • LinkedIn: Status updates and LinkedIn group posts.
  • Twitter: Tweets.
  • Facebook: Wall posts, photo albums and video albums.
  • YouTube: Videos.
  • Google + (slowly becoming one of my favorites): Tie in Authorship of Google + profile to our blog. (*Google’s cancellation of Authorship has dented my enthusiasm).

As a final note if I had to narrow down what I would recommend for your online marketing efforts it would be the following:

  • Review your website to see if you can improve it o help you drive more sales.
  • Start a Content Marketing program that utilizes social media to share content.
  • Put a lead capture and nurturing system in place.
  • Use Conversion Optimization to make your online presence more efficient.

And most importantly continue to engage on social networks because the one thing we do know is that things continuously change.  More consumers will continue to utilize social media and the companies will continue to add new functionality.  At some point something good is bound to develop.

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