A Detailed Guide to Creating a CRO Plan

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So, you decided to take your business to the next level and invest in a nice website?

Awesome!

But, what you should know is that despite the beautiful design and good overall usability, your sleek new website needs tweaking and fine-tuning if you want it to live up to your expectations in terms of conversions and bottom line.

Many people make a mistake by thinking that once the website is finished and live, their only task is to update content and fix potential bugs.

The truth is that the real work begins only after your audience gets a chance to visit your website thus allowing you to monitor its performance in the real world and optimize it for conversions.

This means that you need a solid, easy-to-follow CRO plan, so let’s see how to craft it.

Why Do You Need a Plan?

That’s a good question.

The main reason for having a conversion optimization plan in place is to establish the right goals, methods, and tasks which will help you make the most of your website and turn it into a conversion machine. Without a plan, it’s easy to lose focus and waste your time on things that don’t particularly matter.

It’s about setting your priorities and identifying what the problem is and how to solve it in the most effective and efficient manner.

Although the approach “Let’s see if it’s possible to convert more people if I change this or that element” is a good starting point, it needs to evolve and cover different areas of your sales process, and your business in general.

1. Collect Data

You’ve probably heard that popular phrase “People don’t buy products; they buy better versions of themselves,” and it perfectly sums up why you need to have a deep understanding of your customers, their needs, interests, and issues, as well as how they perceive your business and website, if you want to optimize your conversions.

Having the right data is essential for gaining valuable insights into what works and what doesn’t, that is, what areas, pages, and elements of your website should be optimized.

This step is crucial for helping you see where you stand and what assets you have.

As this is a pretty comprehensive process, it’s a good idea to break it down into three main categories.

In other words, you need to gather data on the following areas:

  • The company itself. Dig deeper and identify the “why” of the company – why it exists and why customers like it. It’s not always about superb products and services. There’s that special X factor, which makes a particular company and its messaging appealing, and it’s up to you to pinpoint what it is and implement your findings into your CRO plan. Identifying the unique sales proposition is essential because it’s what distinguishes your company from competitors who sell similar products or services. The USP is integrated into your marketing messages and its role is to capture your customers’ attention and give them a reason to explore your website further. Finally, learn what your customers’ common objections and complaints are. Talk to your customer support reps and they will provide you with customers’ feedback. If we bear in mind that 67% of customers name bad experiences with a brand as their main reason for churn, but only 1 out of 26 will actually complain, it’s self-explanatory why this step is a must. So, knowing what your customers feel about your company is a make-it-break-it factor when it comes to improving your CRO.
  • The website. Your website analytics should be accurate and detailed. Be in the know about all the relevant metrics such as the amount of traffic, dwell time, bounce rates, conversion rates, as well as the demographic information. The data about the browsers and devices they use to access your website is extremely important, especially after Google officially rolled out mobile-first indexing in July 2018. The fact that most people visit your website from their computers might indicate that there’s something that they don’t like about the mobile version.
  • The customers. This is, perhaps, the most important area and you should use different methods and tools in order to feel the pulse of your audience. Use heatmaps to find out what pages they visit and engage with most and use surveys to hear their first-hand opinions and experiences.

2. Create a Hypothesis

After this lengthy and demanding first step, it’s time to put these findings to good use.

You’ve probably identified a couple of issues on your website that need to be solved. There are two options when it comes to testing a page that returned poor results – you can either build it from scratch and test that new version, or you can change a couple of elements and A/B split test them.

For example, if the data shows that your CTA button doesn’t generate clicks, you can introduce a number of changes, such as the copy, different colors, and fonts, and test them.

But before you start experimenting, you should be able to clearly state why you believe that a particular change will improve your conversion rates and what problem it solves.

Again, you need to know:

  • What you’re testing. Let’s say that you’ve found out that a lot of your customers abandon their shopping cart and that your customer support reps frequently answer questions about how secure the checkout process on your website is. This clearly shows that you need to introduce some trust signals which will convince your customers that it’s safe for them to trust you with their personal information. For example, using an SSL certificate and switching to the HTTPS protocol, offering multiple payment methods, and showing payment assurance certifications are some of them.
  • Who you’re testing. There are different ways to split your audience, not just based on demographic data. You can, for example, test your repeat customers, one-time customers, or those who abandoned their shopping cart. Segmenting customers based on the browser they use is also helpful because you won’t test Opera users if the element you want to test doesn’t load properly in this browser.

3. Test Your Hypothesis

It’s showtime.

Although implementing new design and testing it might seem like a complicated task, there are useful tools that can significantly simplify the process.

Some of them include Optimizely and Visual Web Optimizer.

There are a couple of things to bear in mind:

  • Make sure that your new design displays properly across different browsers before it goes live.
  • Choose how much traffic you will direct to your test pages. If you have a lot of visitors, then this step can help you control possible risks in case that your design fails and your conversions on the test pages drop.
  • Don’t neglect the average order value, because although your conversion rates might be low for the pages you test, the average order value might go up.

So, set all these things up before you launch your tests if you want to get accurate readings. If you want to run your tests efficiently and effectively, it’s a good idea to enlist the help of experts from respectable web design agencies who will offer you their take on your ideas and implement everything properly.

4. Review Your Results

In this stage, you’ll review your results and see whether your hypothesis has been correct.

However, before you get down to work, it’s important to establish whether statistical significance has been reached. This is a complex concept, so check out this article which will tell you more about it.

Luckily, even if you’re not familiar with statistical significance, most optimization tools will give you this information.

If your hypothesis is correct, then implement these design changes properly and send all your traffic there. However, it’s important to keep track of your metrics closely to see whether everything works as expected.

If your hypothesis isn’t correct, make sure to save all your data from these unsuccessful tests, and go back to square one – create another hypothesis and do it all over again.

It’s crucial not to give up because failed tests are gold mines of data that you can use later.

These 4 steps can help you get to the bottom of a CRO plan that everybody can understand and implement.

Harris Norman is a 35-year-old web developer, born and raised in San Francisco Bay Area. Harris is also very passionate about spending time in nature, which is why he spends all of his free time hiking, sailing and mountain climbing. His design skills are admirable, which is why he’s got a special place among the writers of designrush.com. When he’s not running around chasing adventure, he likes to play the trombone, though not very well.

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Is Your Website Costing You Business?

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Investing in a website is a step in the right direction. The operative word in our preceding statement is “investing”. It implies that you expect your investment to pay dividends in the future. Indeed, the website has come a long way.

Before broadband, businesses set up websites to function primarily as online marketing brochures. The website has evolved since then.

Today, the website is a facility that can provide amazing user experience with the power to convert simple interest into a stream of revenues for your business. Properly managed, a website can help you achieve your business goals.

You can use the website to generate leads, streamline business costs, acquire followers, expand your market base, improve the efficiency of business operations, provide top-notch customer service, enhance your business reputation, or increase sales.

In contrast, improperly managed, your website can drive away customers, tarnish your business reputation, and affect its ability to generate revenues.

Do you feel that your website has not contributed to the growth of your business? Are you under the impression that your website has not performed according to expectations? Do you think your website has not delivered quantifiable results? Are you starting to think that starting the website was not a good investment?

Is your website costing you business?

If you answered “Yes” to any of these questions, read on! We will discuss the possible reasons why your website could be costing you business and what could be done to fix these issues.

Don’t give up on your website! It remains a good investment and a viable tool to help you take your business to the next level. We will show you how to maximize its strengths so you can turn it into a money-making machine!

8 Reasons Why Your Website is Costing You Business

The factors we listed as possible reasons why your website is under-performing are basic, fundamental requirements for an effective, fully-functioning website.

If you have a webmaster, he/she knows that these factors should not only be in place. They have to be routinely checked, evaluated, and updated.

A website should be dynamic. It must be allowed to evolve and change with the times. If your website remains stagnant, it will be left behind and ignored on the Internet. The beneficiaries will be your competitors.

1. Your Website is Not Mobile Responsive

Mobile responsiveness has been a ranking factor in Google’s search algorithm since 2015. If your website is not mobile responsive, get your webmaster on the line this very second. Google could well be punishing you in the search rankings for it.

If you can confirm that your website was mobile responsive when the webmaster turned it over to you, can you confidently say that it remains highly responsive to mobile devices today?

Mobile technology continues to evolve. Screen sizes and resolutions change to give mobile users better experience. There is also a great demand for the latest mobile devices. Consumers will pay top dollar for the latest iPhone or Android smartphone with the most innovative features.

Your webmaster has to constantly test the responsiveness of your website. It should be able to set up effortlessly in different screen sizes. Keep in mind that when mobile devices evolve and become more advanced, they will require more information.

You can read up more on why you should update mobile responsive design in our article “What Does My Website Look Like To Mobile Users?”

2. Web Page Loading Speed is Very Slow

According to a study conducted by Akamai, slow loading web pages are bad for business:

  • 47% of mobile device users expect a web page to load in under 2 seconds.
  • 40% of mobile device users will discontinue the search if a web page does not load in under 2 seconds.
  • For every second that your web page is delayed in loading, you lose 7% in conversions.

Again, your website design and its features have to be updated. It has to conform to the demands of today’s mobile community.

Your webmaster should check which of its features are no longer be supported by mobile devices particularly the images you use. You may also have files that are uncompressed.

3. Customers Perceive Your Website is Not Safe

All you need to do is read today’s news headlines to learn all about the latest hacking attempt. 2017 was a banner year for hackers and it doesn’t seem like these cyber-criminals will be slowing down their nefarious activities any time soon.

Consumers are becoming more cautious about their online activities. A survey done by Blumberg Capital showed that hacking has affected the online shopping behavior of American consumers. It will not keep consumers from shopping at their favorite e-Commerce retailer, but they will be more selective of the sites they visit.

Google has seen this. For the reason that the biggest search engine on the Internet is big on User Experience (UX), Google has required all websites – not just e-Commerce websites – to get SSL Certificates.

SSL or Secure Sockets Layer is a program that encrypts data that is transmitted from browser to server. You can read more about SSL in our article, “SSL: What Is It And Why Your Business Needs It”.

If your website does not have SSL certificates, Google will mark it as “Not Secure”. Those two words can have an impact on the decision of a site user to explore your website. Ask yourself, “Would you proceed your search with a website that Google has marked ‘Not Secure’?”

In view of this, consider getting SSL certificates for your website. The cost of having your website covered by SSL certificates is negligible considering the size of the business that you might lose.

4. Design Looks Old; Outdated

Do you have a favorite neighborhood bar? It may have been there before you were born. And yes, age does add character.

However, what would you do if another bar opened right beside it and it had 60” HDTVs mounted in key locations so you can watch the latest sports events wherever you are seated? And what if it had wi-fi, comfortable modern-designed furniture, and 18 barrels of self-serve craft beer?

Goodbye to the old and hello to the new!

Maybe the classics are timeless but when you are engaged in the digital age, your design must conform to the times. Your customers will appreciate a newer and better experience. Often that includes your website’s design and functionality.

Always keep in mind that your audience’s online behavioral patterns can change. They can be influenced by other websites. The changes in the functionality of their mobile devices will likewise have an effect on how they interact with websites.

Make it a point to have your webmaster audit your website. Come up with ways to update its look and functionality. The website may be for your business but its value is to your customers.

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5. Poor Quality Content

Search is the number one online activity. People are constantly looking for content that provides the information they are looking for. In your industry, there could be thousands of businesses publishing content on their websites. The one that publishes great content on a consistent basis will be patronized the most.

If your website offers content that is not relevant, useful, or informative to your audience, they will not find value in it. Worse, your brand can take a hit. Prospective customers may view your website as “incompetent”, “outdated”, “poorly managed”, “unqualified” or “uncaring”.

Content must always be kept current. In order to get the best results from your content marketing strategy, you should blog at least 16 times a month. Studies show that businesses that blog at least 16 times per month generate 3.5 times more leads than businesses that blog fewer times per month.

And it’s not just the quantity that matters. You must assure your audience of high-quality blogs every time. This means blogs that are:

  • Well-researched with links to reputable references.
  • Easy to read; short sentences and short paragraphs.
  • No spelling and grammatical errors.

Here’s a valuable tip: When writing blogs and other forms of content, always keep in mind you are writing for an audience that needs your expertise. You are the expert. They are on your website to learn from you. Do not make the learning experience difficult by using technical terms.

6. Absence of Testimonials or Product Reviews

Do you remember those weight-loss supplement ads that showed users lose weight after using the product for only a few weeks? It created a huge demand for those weight-loss products. Consumers thought they could experience the same results and lose weight by taking the supplement.

In an expose years later, it was shown that instead of “Before” and “After”, those pictures were really taken “After” and “Before”. By this we mean, the supplement companies got models who were already lean and fit, to begin with. The models were described as “actual users”.

Then by having the models eat potato chips and other processed foods, they got their bodies to fill out and look heavy and bloated.

It was a scam but it worked. The “fake ads” were a huge success and made those companies millions of dollars.

Our point in mentioning this is not to encourage you to scam customers. Rather, we want to emphasize the power of testimonials and product reviews. This is called the power of social proof.

Social proof is a type of behavior whereby the decisions or actions of one person are influenced by the decisions or actions of another. You can read more about social proof in our article, “Social Proof: The Natural Way To Build Trust And Reputation For Your Website”.

In our previous example, consumers were influenced by the decisions of supplement users to give the product a try in order to lose weight.

Testimonies and product reviews have that kind of influential power. When you go to Amazon and are faced with hundreds of selections for the latest fitness tracker, how would you arrive at your decision?

Chances are you would check out the product reviews section. You will probably click on a few of the four and five-star reviews. For purposes of establishing a check and balance, you should click on a few one and two-star reviews as well.

If your website does not have social proof from your customers, you will be undermining its opportunities for success.

Invite customers to share their experiences with your products and ask them if you could publish them as testimonies on your website.

Conclusion

The website is your office on the Internet. This is the place where your customers go to find your products and services. The biggest advantage a website has over a traditional brick- and- mortar office is that it is open 24/7. Anyone, anyone on the Internet can visit your website at any time of the day.

Unlike a brick- and- mortar office, you don’t have to place a manager on 24-hour duty. Therefore, you have to be 100% sure and confident that your website can accommodate anyone who visits a page and is interested to learn more about your products and services.

Your webmaster knows this. Rather, your webmaster should know this.

Managing a website is a big responsibility. However, it is doable and with proper planning, it can be done effectively without inconvenience and issue to the website owner.

Failure to manage a website effectively is a sign of irresponsibility that will cost your business customers and potential revenue.

Managing your website is the job of your webmaster. If you don’t have one, find one that can do the job properly.

Or you can sign up with us. Allow us the opportunity to manage your website.

We have managed hundreds of websites and our customers are very happy with the results so far. Do you own a WordPress website? Sign up for our Extreme WordPress Care Plans. Clients who have signed up are glad they did!

We are managing their WordPress websites for them so they can focus on the day-to-day demands of their business.

Our clients no longer spend time checking on their websites. They no longer have sleepless nights thinking if their website is being hacked or infiltrated by cyber-criminals.

We have amazing people on our team. Our content has been cited multiple times by the digital marketing community website UpCity as among the top 25 marketing- based articles on the Internet.

Do you have 30 minutes? Consult with us for free! We will let you know how we can help you get the most out of your website.

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What Does Your Website Look Like To Mobile Users?

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Maybe clothes do not make the man, but mobile will certainly make your website. If your website does not set up well or look good in mobile devices, you might be leaving money on the table.

Mobile devices account for 57% of online traffic compared to 43% for desktop. Globally, smartphones alone account for 52.2% of online traffic.

Consumers will depend on their mobile devices, particularly the smartphone, to account for their daily needs. Whether they are searching for products or services, they will use their mobile device to find the information they need.

Why Your Website Should Look Good For Mobile Users

How would you feel if you clicked on a website from your mobile phone and realized you had to zoom in so you can read the content? Not only will you have to zoom in, but you will also have to move the screen around in order to navigate the page.

It is certainly an inconvenience and will not contribute to a great user experience. What will be your course of action? Chances are you will click out of the website and search for another one that will set up better on your mobile phone.

Now, imagine that was your website. What would your site visitors do? Probably follow the same course of action as you did: Click out and look for another website.

Your competitor’s website.

First impressions last. If discomfort and inconvenience were the impressions created by the site visitor’s first experience with your website, it is possible you will never see him/her again.

It is not enough for your website to look good on a desktop, a laptop or a tablet. Likewise, or rather, more importantly, your website should look good while viewed on a smartphone.

Investing in a website is a step in the right direction. It will help market and promote your business; its products and services. However, unless it is mobile responsive, you will not be able to stay ahead, much less, keep up with competitors that have mobile responsive websites.

A mobile responsive website is one that sets up clearly and seamlessly on the screen of various mobile devices. Keep in mind that not all screen sizes of mobile devices have the same dimensions. The screen size will have an effect on how your web page appears on the mobile device.

A good example is your Facebook home page. On a PC desktop, the layout covers a wider area. Your contacts list in Messenger sets up on the right side of the screen, the news feed is in the middle, while on the far left of the home page, you will find the different icons to access your settings, groups, and features.

Facebook will appear differently on your smartphone. The home page sets up vertically. Your Messenger contacts are located on top of your news feed. The icons do not appear and can only be accessed by clicking on the button with the 3 horizontal lines located on the top right corner,

If you open Facebook on a tablet or a laptop, it will set up differently depending on the size of your screen.

Mobile responsiveness is no longer an option. It is a must. Google has made mobile responsiveness a prerequisite in the quest for higher search rankings. The search engine giant has included it as a ranking factor in its algorithm as far back as 2014.

The reason, of course, is User Experience (UX). Google is big on UX. Its ranking algorithm has periodically undergone changes in order to drive home the point to website owners that they should prioritize UX.

We discussed the benefits of having a mobile responsive website in our article, “Why Your Website Needs Responsive Design”. However, it is worth emphasizing the value of having a mobile responsive website from the perspective of consumers.

First, mobile consumers behave differently. They are more impatient and compared to PC desktop users, tend to react on impulse. The following key statistics support our observation:

Second, mobile consumers respond more favorably to brands that have a mobile responsive website. Mobile consumers tend to multi-task. If they can do everything from the palm of their hand they would.

Mobile responsive websites make multitasking easier. Thus, it creates trust and fosters a stronger relationship with the consumer.

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3 Reasons Why Your Website Does Not Look Good On Mobile Devices

Even if you have a mobile responsive website, you still have to check if it sets up or looks good on various mobile devices.

It is possible that the resolution of your website’s text and images will not come out clear. Some of the content that is available on the desktop or laptop versions may not appear on smartphones or tablets.

How did this happen?

Your website designer assured you that your website was mobile responsive. In fact, you were present when the website designer ran some tests before turning over the website to you.

The first thing that you need to do is to breathe and relax! There are perfectly good explanations on why a supposedly mobile responsive website does not set up properly on a mobile device.

1. New Technology Demands New Information

Every few months a technology company will bring out its latest version of its smartphone, tablet, or laptop. Each company will try to outdo each other by developing mobile devices that have the best cameras, most-advanced features, and most compact designs.

Cases in point are the latest versions of the iPhone from Apple and the Galaxy from Android. The built-in cameras of both smartphones capture images in amazing quality. You would think the pictures were taken by a professional photographer’s digital SLR camera.

As these smartphones continue to press forward with higher and more intricate resolution, consequently, these mobile devices will demand more information from your website. Your website designer can fix this by rewriting your site’s programming code.

2. Content is Not Optimized

Even if your website structure and its text look good on your smartphone, your logo and the images used may appear hazy or blurry. It is possible that these images were not optimized to accommodate screens of mobile devices.

If you are familiar with iPhone version 8 and the iPhone X, these models use a retina display. The screens on these phones look gloriously sharp. To do this, Apple jam packs at least 4 pixels in an area that would only accommodate 1 pixel in a normal desktop.

Then Apple would proceed to double the resolution for text and graphics so that it would not look small onscreen. If your graphic is smaller compared to how it is shown on the screen, it will look “stretched out” and blurry.

A quick-fix solution would be to use images that were designed to accommodate mobile phones with retina displays.

3. Type of Media is Not Supported by Mobile Browser

Assuming your website loads successfully on a mobile device but some of your content is missing, it could be that the type of media you are using is not supported by the mobile browser.

A good example is Flash which is often used for animations and video-based content. Flash is not supported by a number of smartphones.

If your website designer incorporated Javascript and JQuery components for the desktop version of your website so that it would become more interactive, these elements would not display on mobile devices.

Conclusion

If you want to find out how your website looks like for mobile users, run a series of tests yourself.

Visit your website using your smartphone. Give an honest assessment of your experience. Go to the different pages of your website and evaluate how fast the images and text loads.

Ask yourself if the quality of the images; its overall resolution is good enough to impress the site visitors. Check if all the features and content that are available in the desktop version can be found in your smartphone.

From your smartphone, run the same tests on a tablet. Don’t stop there! Borrow a friend’s smartphone. Make sure it is different from your smartphone. Apply the same tests and evaluate your website’s performance.

If you are not satisfied with how your mobile responsive website sets up or looks on mobile devices, give us a call or drop us an email.

We will give you a free 30-minute consultation. We will take a look at your website and see what can be done to improve its performance on mobile devices.

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Extreme WordPress Care Plans: Why You Need Them And What We Can Do For You

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WordPress is the most popular content management system in the world. More than 500 websites are built daily using WordPress and it has been the most dominant CMS the last eight years. Overall, WordPress runs nearly 30% of all websites operating on the Internet.

There’s a reason for this; and that is because WordPress is easy to use. Business owners can manage content on their own. They have their choice of plugins which they can use to improve design and functionality. Google loves WordPress websites because its code makes site content easy to read and index.

However, technical issues can arise which could affect the performance of your website. For example, you may want to improve certain features such as its download speed, accessibility, and level of security.

It is no different than a physical office or retail outlet that wants to improve efficiency and security. It may improve the office or store layout and introduce stricter and more elaborate security measures.  

Improving site performance while enhancing security are good enough reasons for you to seriously consider getting an Extreme WordPress Care Plan.

What Are Extreme WordPress Care Plans?

Extreme WordPress Care Plans are customized sets of maintenance and repair options that have been put together by our web development professionals to help you manage and protect your website according to individual need and budget.

Continuing our analogy with a brick- and- mortar business, a physical office would hire professionals to cover its needs for security, accounting, legal expertise, cleaning and maintenance services.  

With your website, care and maintenance are best left in the hands of web development professionals who have the experience and expertise managing WordPress platforms.

What could happen if your WordPress website does not undergo regular care and maintenance procedures?

  • Your website will not function properly, which will make it difficult to access, also site speed speed and security could be compromised.
  • Your message queue has grown considerably and you have a backlog of comments to attend to.

None of these incidents can be good for business. Instead of becoming a platform for development, the website has made it difficult for you to build business.

Our Extreme WordPress Care and Maintenance Plans have been proven effective and highly successful in ensuring the performance of our clients’ WordPress websites.

Let’s find out what our clients have to say about our Extreme WordPress Care and Maintenance Plans:

Testimony No. 1

Client – Randy Bowman

Website – www.sqrdup.com

“I was very concerned about SSL security. As an online retailer, I wanted to make sure customers would feel very confident and assured when using our site. We were paying another company a lot of money for untold hours of work that did not meet expectations.

I was about to give up until Josiah and the team at Mountaintop advised us to sign up for their Extreme WordPress Care Plan. Josiah suggested we give the plan a try. We did and it was the best decision we ever made for website security.

It is great! I don’t have to think about this part while going about my busy days! Life and work are so much easier! Mountaintop’s Extreme WordPress Care Plan is fantastic. It takes all the worry off my shoulders.”

Testimony No. 2

Client: Christy Smith

Website: www.halloweeneventsco.com

“As a first-time owner of a business website, I needed to know my site was well-maintained and secure. Purchasing the Extreme WordPress Care Plan was a no-brainer. Everything is done in a timely manner and what is promised is exactly what you get!

The work Mountaintop does is amazing! I am very satisfied with their excellent customer service and how they have taken care of my website. If you want to secure and protect your website, sign up with Mountaintop’s Extreme WordPress Care Plan.

The prices are very reasonable and Mountaintop goes the extra mile to make sure you get your money’s worth. Mountaintop has the experience and expertise to make sure your website is running and functioning properly.

Most of all, you will have peace of mind knowing your website is safe and sound under experienced and expert hands. I highly recommend their services to anyone who needs a website designed and managed.”

Testimony No. 3

Client – Lynn Ann Huizingh

Website – www.swshelternetwork.com

“Our previous web provider was very frustrating to work with. It was a difficult website to update and frequently I could not figure out how to do what I wanted to do. Customer service took more than 48 hours to hear from and they very rarely answered my question.

I spent hours trying to get done what I wanted to do and it didn’t always work like I thought it should.

After building a website with Mountaintop, we decided to sign up for Mountaintop’s Extreme WordPress Care Plan. It has been a totally different experience! The design process was fun and easy for me because Josiah is so easy to work with.

I never heard, ‘I can’t’. I have often heard, ‘Let me check into how we can make that happen’, although he already knew the answer. Josiah has the ability to point out the rare problem before I noticed it. He would fix it and tell me after what happened and how they approached the problem.

Updating content is so much easier! If I wanted some pages and the format updated, Josiah is just one email away and he would give updates within a 24-hour period.

The plans are also very affordable. We set up an auto-pay system so we don’t have to worry about paying the monthly fees on time. The coverage of our plan included support for web updates and coaching.

So grateful! I highly recommend signing up with Mountaintop’s Extreme WordPress Care Plan.”

Extreme WordPress care - what types of plans we offer

FAQs: Extreme WordPress Care And Maintenance Plans

Q: We’ve come across other companies that offer WordPress care plans. Why should we go with your company?

Testimonies are the most powerful forms of validation. As you have read from 3 of our clients, they are very happy with their decision to sign up for our Extreme WordPress Care Plan. We can assure you of our expertise in website management and excellent customer service as proven by our large number of loyal customers. With Mountaintop, we provide high-value service for only a small monthly cost.

Q: Once I sign up for your WordPress care plan, what are the next steps?

When you are ready to take the next steps, let us know and we can setup a website evaluation. We typically charge $150 for one of these website evaluations as we like to dig into the website to see what is going on.

As part of the evaluation, we will give you a report containing information like a list of pages & posts, users by security level, plugins, themes, speed of your website, possible security issues like malware, broken links, Google’s mobile friendly test, Domain authority, and we make backups of the site.

We will also include our recommendations on how to make the website faster and better overall. We want to make sure we have your website needs covered from start to finish. Once your website goes live, we will work to keep it secure, up to date and functioning properly.

This way, we can keep track of your site’s performance and become more accountable for the work we’ve done for you.

Q: What kinds of security measures do you provide?

We work hard to stay on top of current WordPress website best practices. We use a combination of plugins/code/server changes that make your website stronger against potential attacks.

We also run regular backups of your site as well as malware scans as another line of defense. We want to make sure we can identify potential vulnerabilities and have them addressed as soon as possible. You can be assured that if something goes wrong, we are ready to take care of the situation before it becomes a full-blown problem.

Q: Can you manage e-commerce websites?

Yes, on the top two care plans we work with “WooCommerce”. If your website uses another ecommerce platform, get in touch with us and we can discuss requirements.

Q: I have multiple websites. How would you manage them?

Managing multiple websites will not be a problem. We have the experience, expertise, and professional know-how of using the correct tools and processes to manage and monitor multiple websites for many of our clients.

Q: Are you particular about the web host services provider or can you work with anyone?

We prefer a host that allows us to have the most access to the hosting platform. We work quite a bit with GoDaddy and that is our preference, however we do work with lots of platforms. These Extreme WP Care Plans are not limited to a single platform.

Q: Can you fix a hacked website?

This one is tricky. Yes, we definitely can. However, depending on how bad a website has been hacked there might be extra work to get the website safely operational before the Care Plans can maintain it.

Please note that we will fix hacked websites if they are on our care plan (prior to being hacked) at no additional cost.

However, if a website that is being moved over to us for care has been hacked, we would probably have to charge you to have the site cleaned first. For the purpose of transparency, we will provide an estimate before we cleaning the website.

Q: What are your standard response time and turnaround time?

The standard response and turnaround time is 24 to 72 hours. However, we do our best to respond within 24 hours. This would be contingent on the amount and level of clarity of the information that is given to us.

Q: Are your services available 24/7?

We have hosting support that is available 24/7 for technical issues. With our WordPress Extreme Care Plans, we will not rest until your website is working properly!

We work hard to keep those going. If you have questions, you are free to email us at any time. Mountaintop has a global team working round-the-clock to make sure all of your concerns are addressed right away. However, as we are a smaller organization, we might not be able to get back to you for inquiries or concerns sent at 2:00am.

Conclusion

As a business owner, having a website is a step in the right direction. By going online, you can reach out to a wider market of potential end users of your products and services.

Your marketing and promotional strategies will have a larger ocean to cast its net; an ocean of more than 3.5 billion daily Internet users. A website will help you grow your business by capitalizing on opportunities available on the Internet.

But just like how a brick- and- mortar business goes through maintenance and repair issues, your WordPress website likewise needs regular care. Even if you had the time to monitor your website, time is a valuable asset that is best spent managing the core business of your enterprise.

Sign up for our Extreme WordPress Care Plans and leave your site’s management to us. We will monitor your website so you can successfully go about your obligations to work and family. If there is a problem, we will take care of it and send you a report detailing the issue and how we fixed it.

If you have any questions about our Extreme WordPress Care Plans, please do not hesitate to give us a call or an email. We will get back to you right away!

Contact us today by filling out our form to learn more about our Extreme WordPress Care Plans!

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Different Styles Of Web Page Designs

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There are almost two billion websites on the Internet. If you see similarities between certain websites, it is because some use prepared template designs. These are downloadable website templates where the layout and structure have already been established.

Although this is a fast, easy, and convenient way to put up a website, it misses a very important element of effective design: Uniqueness.

The challenge for professional web designers is to conceptualize a design that is unique to its owner. Everything must come-together or align in website design. A business is an organization of people who share core values and a common vision to what the future may hold.

Design should embody; not distinguish the business and its owner. Its elements should represent the owner and support the purpose, objectives, message, and overall vision of the business.

Our Design Process At Mountaintop Web Design

At Mountaintop Web Design, we like to think of ourselves as artists and scientists. We explore the boundaries of creativity through artistic expression. However, at the same time, we respect the rules and precision of web design science. There are theories, guidelines, and principles of web design that we use as the basis for implementing artistic concepts.

We conduct research before initiating the formal design process. Research is categorized into two areas: empirical and intuitive.

Empirical Research

Under empirical research, we gather facts, relevant information, updated data, and other forms of usable and measurable inputs on the type of business and industry. We also implement best practices of web design which likewise, includes its own research. These principles go into each and every website we build.

Once we have a deeper understanding of the nature of the enterprise, we do a comparative analysis of the industry. This includes looking at the websites of the client’s closest competitors. We take note of design elements and similarities in content.

We also look through the competitors’ social media accounts. We want to see if there is alignment or some congruence between its design elements and those of the website.

Intuitive Research

Intuitive research is focused on the person behind the client. This is similar to a bank’s KYC or Know Your Customer approach. We want to know who the client is. What is his/her purpose? How did he/she get into this type of business? What are the motivating factors?

Our objective is to capture the essence of the client. His/ her personality should manifest on every page of the website. Its elements should reflect the client. When a visitor views the design and reads the content, he/she should have an accurate idea on who the business owner is.

Elements such as the use of color, spaces, angles, lines, and content will give site visitors clues on the type of person the owner is. Based on the interaction or response to the elements of design and content, the website visitor will rely on his/her intuition to formulate a profile on the business owner.

5 Popular Styles Of Web Design

There are many styles of web design. We would have to write an e-book to give you a complete rundown of every style that can be used for designing websites. Fortunately, we are not writing a textbook.

The purpose of writing this article is to give you an idea of how the design process works. It will give you a better understanding of what a professional web designer does and how to work with him/her when coming up with your own site.

In this section, we will discuss five of the most popular styles of web design. Then we will proceed to our own approach in designing websites for clients.

1. Illustrative Style

The Illustrative style of web design is highly visual in presentation. It uses drawing as the primary tool for design. We have graphic designers and artists who can come up with drawings or renditions based on an exchange of ideas with the business owner.

Renditions are visual expressions or concepts which the team believes best captures the message of the website. Creating design renditions for the Illustrative design is a close collaborative process with the client. We encourage the client to throw ideas on the design table.

As professional web designers, we incorporate principles of design to finalize the concept. Oftentimes, the client may have a different idea. Part of our job is to take the client through the design process so that he/she will get a better understanding of the principles of web design. This is how creative differences are resolved.

The final design is the one which the client feels accurately represents the business and at the same time stays within the parameters of effective web design techniques.

2. Single Page Style

The Single Page approach to web design is often confused with the Illustrative because it uses a rendition or depiction of a concept as the main design element. It can be colorful or simple. It could be vibrant or subdued.

Its overall purpose is to simplify web design. The structure is very simple and easy to navigate. You won’t find much text content on the Homepage as the focus remains on the image.

The Single Page style carries the same risk as the Illustrative in that the message of the design may not resonate with the site visitor right away. An image can look visually appealing but if used for symbolic purposes, its meaning may get lost in translation.

These styles of web design may work from an aesthetic standpoint. However, from a functional or messaging standpoint, the use of symbolic images may not deliver the desired results. That is why we do not actively recommend these styles to our clients.

We caution clients who prefer this style of design to exercise caution when it comes to the use of images as metaphors or symbolism.  As much as possible, the design concept should provide visual signals that make it easier for site visitors to understand what the business is all about; who the owners are, what they do, their purpose and vision. The content should resonate immediately with the viewer.

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3. Minimalist

Have you ever come across a website where the Homepage looks like an abstract painting? How about a website where it seems like you just landed on a maze? Outside of getting a migraine or feeling like a laboratory mouse, these designs have so much going on that its purpose and functionality are lost.

The Minimalist style removes all the clutter so all that remains are the essential elements, features, concepts, and forms. This type of design is very easy on the eyes. Good examples of the Minimalist style are websites that greatly use space. You see only black and white colors. Orientation is very clean and organized.

The Minimalist design is popular because it acts as a counterbalance to the chaos on the Internet. There is information overload; run a search query and you scroll through hundreds and thousands of websites. The Minimalist works because it focuses only on your central message.

4. Flat Web Design

If you’ve come across the Microsoft website, you’ll have a good idea of what Flat Web Design is. This style of web design combines minimalism with usability. It attempts to clear out unnecessary elements and just focus on items that greatly support usability and functionality.

Advocates of Flat Web Design typically use a combination of space with bright or dominant colors as defining areas of references. Overall design remains clean; the addition of colors with sharper hues creates better distinction among the other elements.

When we implement the Flat Web Design approach, we want the design to be prominent but not to the point that it detracts from the purpose of the website. Navigability should never be compromised.

5. Typographical

There is a good reason why recruiters generally reject resumes that are prepared using the Comic Sans font. You just won’t be taken seriously. Recruiters will always recommend Calibri, Cambria, Helvetica, and the over-used but still popular Arial.

The type of font you use is a design element that can successfully make or break your message. It triggers an emotional cue and an ensuing response. Used properly with image and text- based content, the typographical style can help you deliver a powerful and compelling story.

The drawback with the Typographic style is that it may slow down loading time. This is especially true when using mobile devices.

Mountaintop Web Design’s Approach To Web Design

Our underlying principle in web design is that best practices must always be implemented. Best practices in web design are those tried and true elements that have been proven to work. In this sense, we approach all of our clients in a similar same way. We can apply any style of web design that the client wants and which we feel strongly supports the purpose and objectives of the website.

However, our approach never veers off from the standard guidelines for effective web design:

  • The website must be mobile-responsive. Design should be able to set up seamlessly and effortlessly on mobile devices regardless of screen size. It should be accessible by large groups of people.
  • The website should have fast download speed. Our years of experience working with different clients and studying various industries have shown us that consumers are impatient. Our target is to make sure the client’s website can be accessed within 3 seconds.
  • Design should be optimized. Even if you have the best images and text content, these would have little value to your website if they cannot be found. We implement the principles of SEO or Search Engine Optimization to make sure all images and text-based content can be easily searched, found, and indexed by web crawlers.
  • Reliable security measures should be in place. We understand the value of a website for your business. Thus, we make sure all of our websites are built with the latest versions of the best security software. We also conduct regular site audits to run updates on plug-ins and address other issues that may present vulnerabilities to its security.

Case Study: Severe Weather Shelter

Severe Weather Shelter Network New website

We designed this website for a non-profit ministry. The objective of our design approach was to strongly highlight the services of the ministry. This was effectively done through the use of relevant images, the organization of the site, and the layout which were proprietary to the ministry.

The overall effect of the design was to deliver a clear message that was powerful and urgent, yet sincere and simplistic in tone and content.

The design gives website visitors an accurate idea on who the ministry is, what they do, how they operate, and helps them gain a deeper understanding of their objective. As we mentioned earlier, website design must represent the purpose and vision of the business.  

In this case, the purpose of the ministry is covered by the question , “Why did the ministry set up this organization?” The images, use of color, space, and layout, emphasize the ministry’s intent to help people in need.

We integrated the use of these provocative images with real statistics in order to compel the visitor into action. It certainly helped increase the number of donations and contributions to the ministry.

With the ideal design elements in place, our biggest challenge became the donation platform. We wanted to make sure it was easy and secure for people to use. Fortunately, we were able to implement the right platform for them and to date, the ministry continues to receive donations through its website.

If you are planning to have a website for your business or if you are thinking of having your current website re-designed, please feel free to give us a call or an email.

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How to Increase Your Website Traffic in 2018

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If you want to capitalize on the opportunities presented by the Internet, setting up a website for your business is the best way to go. People use search to find what they need online. And if your website ranks high in the results page, more people will be encouraged to click on your link and learn more about your business. But in order to climb up the search rankings, you need to increase your website traffic.

A study done by online advertising company Chitika showed that the top position in Google’s search ranking gets 33% of the traffic. The percentage distribution of online traffic decreases as the websites go down the search ranking:

Image courtesy of Search Engine Watch

With more than 1.3 billion websites serving over 3.8 billion Internet users, competition could be very tough. Would it still be possible to move your website up the search results page?

The answer is “Yes”. If other websites can do it, there is no reason why you can’t. But the first step is to create more inbound traffic to your website.  The more traffic you get, the greater the probability of converting a visitor into a paying customer.

4 Cornerstones To An Effective Digital Marketing Strategy

Digital marketing remains an effective strategy for driving more traffic to your website. It organizes all the online tools and processes into a system that is focused on accomplishing your marketing objectives.

The big advantage of going digital is that you can customize your online marketing strategies to meet the needs and concerns of potential end-users of your products and services.

You are not blindly distributing marketing collateral to the billions of people on the Internet. Instead you are target marketing to a specific audience or segment that has the highest probability of being interested in what your business has to offer.

We advise that before you identify the processes you want to include in your digital marketing tool box, you should first build its foundation.

The cornerstones of your foundation will ensure that best practices will always be carried out when planning and implementing your digital marketing strategy,

Here are the 4 cornerstones to an effective digital marketing strategy:

1. Create A Buyer’s Profile

A buyer’s profile summarizes the qualities and characteristics of a potential customer for your business. It will help you determine the best topics to write about and the most effective channels to distribute your content.

2. Update Your Research

Research is a crucial part of business development whether you are a small or large enterprise. If you want to remain competitive, you have to be constantly updated on developments regarding your industry, your market and of course, your customers.

3. Stay Active

If you want your digital marketing efforts to reap dividends, you have to stay active. This means you have to commit to a schedule for creating and distributing content, building networks and engaging with followers. The more active you are, the greater the chances of your content being read by your audience.

4. Use On-Site Analytics

Perhaps the biggest benefit of digital marketing is the availability of on-site analytics. Analytics gives you valuable data on your website: the number of visitors per day, the most read content and where your traffic is coming from. These types of information can be used to fine-tune your digital marketing strategy.

These are the key principles to keep in mind when running your digital marketing strategy. They will help your campaign stay current and on track of the marketing objectives you want to accomplish.

Best Digital Marketing Strategies To Increase Website Traffic In 2018

In order to increase traffic you should build “roads” or “avenues” that make it easy for Internet users to search and find your website. The processes that we discuss in this section continue to be go-to strategies for digital marketers because they have consistently delivered results.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is the process of using a variety of online tools and techniques for the purpose of improving your website’s ranking in the Search Engine Results Page or SERP.

We’ve written extensively on SEO and discussed its many benefits in our articles, “5 Reasons Why Your Business Needs SEO Right Now” and “SEO vs PPC: Which One Is Better For Your Business?”.

SEO remains an integral component in digital marketing because the process will always be in a constant state of evolution as search engines frequently introduce changes in their algorithm.

Some of the more current SEO strategies digital marketers are focusing on in 2018 include the following:

  • Using Long Tail Keywords

Long tail keywords are phrases that are more descriptive in order to fine-tune the search query.

For example, instead of using the keywords, “bmw tires” a long tail keyword search would read, “how to maintain bmw tires cold weather”. This will produce links on the search results page which are closer to the information that the Internet user is looking for.

Thus, during the research process, SEO practitioners are starting to focus on long-tail keywords as the basis for evaluating competitiveness.

  • Updating Old Content

Search engines will reward you with a boost in the rankings simply by updating content.

Let’s say you wrote an article on intermittent fasting that was published three months ago.

If you updated the content by adding the information “Scientists have discovered that fasting for 24 hours increases the rate of autophagy by 300%”, the search engine would move you up slightly in the rankings.

It will then assess how your new ranking compares to the performance of the website you displaced. If your website does better, it will keep you at the new ranking or potentially move you up higher.

SEO is a strategy that will keep finding new ways to optimize and improve delivery of content so that more people will continue to visit your website.

2. Content Marketing

Content marketing continues to be an effective strategy for increasing website traffic because people will always look for content online. This is the importance of constantly creating fresh, new, relevant, usable and engaging content and distributing them through a variety of platforms.

The more content you create and publish, the higher the probability of your materials being found on the Internet. People will voluntarily follow websites that consistently produce great content.

Blogging has remained the cornerstone of content marketing. There are many studies that prove the effectiveness of blogging as a key strategy in increasing website traffic:

But you don’t have to limit yourself to blogging. Another emerging strategy in content marketing is video content marketing which we discussed in detail in our article, “How To Use Video Content In Your Marketing”.

Videos and the use of images have become popular because they can generate immediate results. For example, if you are in the business of selling organic fruit preserves, you can upload photos or “pin” them in Pinterest. Every image pinned in Pinterest will contain a link to your website.

All you have to do is produce high quality images of your fruit preserves and hope they can entice the Pinterest community to click on your pinned product shots. If they like what they see, they can easily go to your website to learn more about your business and its products.

3. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

SEM uses paid strategies such as PPC or Pay-Per-Click advertising to increase website traffic. With PPC your ads are placed in results pages that feature links relevant to the search query.

For example, if you are a restaurant that offers pizza delivery services, your paid ad will come out at the top of the results page that features inquiries on “pizza delivery services”.

An Internet user who finds your paid ad interesting and clicks on it, will find himself/herself on your website. There you can showcase an interactive menu and navigable delivery ordering system which can help you convert visitors into paying customers.

Search engines offer paid ads as a quick-fix solution for businesses to have their websites move up the top of the search rankings. Social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube also offer paid ad options.

Facebook Ads can run your paid ad through three other platforms: Messenger, Audience Network and Instagram, which the company bought in 2012.

With Facebook Ads, you can customize your ad according to your buyer’s profile. Audience Network will place your ad in apps and websites that fit your buyer’s profile.

Having a paid ad on YouTube is a sure way to rocket up the search rankings because it is owned by Google and is a component of its algorithm.

4. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing can help your business increase its website traffic because it provides you with several channels to distribute content, build communities of followers and opportunities to engage potential end users.

The Internet has exploded with social media networks. Among the most popular are:

  • Facebook – Largest online community with over 2 Billion members. Facebook has its own personal messaging system, Messenger.
  • Twitter – Short messaging system assures you of high level of activity and engagement.
  • Instagram – Image-based platform that is ideal for businesses with highly visual products and services. For example: fashion retailers, restaurants and real estate.
  • Pinterest – Another image-based platform that makes it easy for members to collaborate with others in the community by setting up pinboards.
  • LinkedIn – The preferred social media network of professionals. Ideal for networking activities and connecting with key influencers in your industry. LinkedIn also has its own publishing platform where you can post your blogs.
  • YouTube – The largest video streaming network and the second largest search engine. As mentioned, it is now owned by Google which is the largest search engine on the Internet.

How can you use social media to increase your website traffic?

  • Distribution Channel

Open a business page where you can publish your blogs. Include a link to your website so visitors will know where to find more information about your business. In addition to Pinterest, use Instagram and LinkedIn’s ShowCase page feature to highlight high resolution images of your products and services.

  • Engagement Medium

Customers appreciate businesses that take the time to address their needs and concerns. If a follower posts a comment or question, use the opportunity to share your knowledge and expertise. Engagement is the first step to a relationship. In time you will develop trust with your audience. Consumers prefer to deal with brands they can trust.

  • Product Promotions  

Do you have a new store opening? Are you launching a new product? Do you have a limited-time only discount offer? Send out 12 to 20 tweets about the event via Twitter and include a link to your website so interested parties can get more details.

5. Email Marketing

Email marketing is an effective strategy for increasing website traffic for your business because your content will be voluntarily accepted by the recipient. The key to the success of an email marketing strategy lies in your ability to create a mailing list.

You can create mailing lists in a number of ways:

  • Regular Engagement – As discussed in the previous section, if you engage with your audience frequently, you will develop trust and a solid relationship. You can ask them to join your mailing list.
  • Calls to Action – When you are consistently putting out great content, expect more people to visit your website. Incorporate enticing calls to action such as free newsletter sign ups or giveaway ebooks and manuals in exchange for email addresses.

Once you have built a mailing list, you can regularly send relevant and usable content to your recipients. These could be helpful “How To” tips or updates on your products and services. Always include a link to your website so they know where to go for more information.

Conclusion

Do not get complacent because the inbound avenues which you created have driven substantial traffic to your website. Stay active and constantly monitor the performance of the strategies in place.

For your business to remain competitive and relevant in 2018 and beyond, your website has to maintain a dynamic presence on the Internet so that your products and services will be found by your target audience.

If you want to learn more about increasing website traffic in 2018, please feel free to give us a call or an email. We will get in touch with you right away.

And feel free to comment on this article. We welcome your opinions and we would appreciate it if you could share some of your experiences with our audience.

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How People Get Ripped Off by Digital Marketing Agencies

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If a simple car battery replacement becomes a full-blown mechanical problem that requires an expensive air-conditioning fix, it would be safe to assume you are getting ripped off by your auto mechanic. The same can be said for your General Contractor if a seemingly harmless leak in the ceiling has sprung into a rooftop replacement scenario. But how would you know that you are getting ripped off by a Digital Marketing agency?

As the Internet continues to grow in influence and accessibility and as technology evolves to give us the latest in digital innovations, it becomes more important for businesses to incorporate Digital Marketing into their brand development strategy.

Put simply, if you’re not part of the digital landscape, you will be left behind by competitors who have invested time and resources to enhance their online presence.

With Digital Marketing, you leverage the power of the Internet by using its different tools and processes to connect with your target audience. We discussed the various strategies and techniques that comprise a Digital Marketing campaign in our article “How to Drive Traffic to Your Website”.

Ways to Get Digital Marketing Done for Your Business

Entrepreneurs are risk takers by nature. They like to be in the driver’s seat; take charge of the wheel and be in control of all aspects of the journey toward entrepreneurial success. It is not uncommon to find entrepreneurs manage their businesses’ own Digital Marketing campaign.

But even if you have an extensive background and experience in Digital Marketing, it is not advisable to do it on your own. Digital Marketing is a process that takes time to manifest results. As the business owner, your available hours in the day are best dedicated to activities that directly contribute dollars and cents to your bottomline.

That leaves you with two other options for Digital Marketing: Hire a freelancer or contract the services of a Digital Marketing agency.

A freelancer is an individual contractor who specializes in Digital Marketing. He/she will be the cheaper option but keep in mind two things:

  1. The freelance Digital Marketer will need to hire other contracted talent;
  2. The freelance Digital Marketer will also have other clients to manage.

With these 2 factors to consider, it will be difficult for the freelance Digital Marketer to devote 100% full attention on your campaign because he/she cannot guarantee the schedule of the other contracted talent and available time might be constrained by deadlines to other clients.

Contracting the services of a Digital Marketing agency would be your best option as it provides you with the following advantages:

  1. A ready team of experts in every area of Digital Marketing.
  2. Experience and track record for providing excellent service.
  3. Availability of backup services; if your content writer is indisposed, another one can be recommended and assigned to your campaign.
  4. More professional approach; built-in workflows and processes for reporting, record-keeping and client collaboration.
  5. Centralized system of management makes it easier to organize and oversee progress and track performance.
  6. While generally more expensive than freelancers, agencies are open to negotiate their payment structures.

More companies are outsourcing their Digital Marketing needs to third party service providers/ agencies because it is not their core competence. They prefer to leave Digital Marketing to the experts.

Plus, as a contracted service, the company does not incur additional expenses for payroll, benefits, rent and other operations-related items as they would have if they had chosen to do Digital Marketing in-house.

Over the years, more agencies have entered the Digital Marketing industry which has resulted in the dilution of the quality of work rendered.

How to Avoid Getting Ripped Off by Digital Marketing Agencies

No doubt, some of you may have heard horror stories from well-meaning entrepreneurs who fell victim to the “Digital Marketing Agency from Hell”. Perhaps some of you have been victims themselves.

As with competitors within an industry; no two service providers are ever the same. One will always provide better service and performance than the other. In some cases, the quantity of substandard service providers may outnumber the good ones and the Digital Marketing industry is no exception.

There will always be principled proprietors of Digital Marketing and there will always be scammers out to stiff you of your hard earned money.

Here are our tips on how to avoid being ripped off by Digital Marketing agencies:

1. Learn All You Can about Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing is a dynamic approach; it is always in a state of evolution because markets never remain passive.

Through the Internet, consumers have greater access to information. Tastes and preferences are much more sensitive to change than ever before. Digital Marketing has developed different terminologies and jargon that agencies may use to impress or throw you off.

Arm yourself with knowledge; learn what you can about Digital Marketing and its various processes. You don’t have to be an expert but get your proficiency up to a level that you can make heads or tails of the conversation thread.

Another option is to bring a friend or an associate with experience in Digital Marketing during your meeting with the agency.

2. Look at The Agency’s Previous Work

Before you schedule the meeting, ask all prospective Digital Marketing agencies to provide you with client references or a link to a website that shows their body of work.

Take a look at the websites they have built and designed for clients. Do they all look the same with similar content and images? Are the websites functioning well? Are they mobile responsive?

How about the social media pages they set up for clients? Is the level of engagement impressive?

If they gave you a list of clients as references, make it a point to establish contact with them and find out all you can about their experience working with the agency.

3. They Push One-Size-Fits-All Campaigns

Be wary of Digital Marketing agencies that offer you set packages. Digital Marketing campaigns do not follow a blueprint because the goals and objectives of clients will vary.

Marketing strategies must be customized to fit the needs of the client. A big part of the process is market research. A reputable agency will conduct extensive research even at the preliminary stage to learn as much as it can about your business, the industry and your target audience.

Research will be the basis of the Creative Brief or the campaign strategy for your business.

And don’t get fooled by basement bottom pricing tactics! These agencies know pricing is an important consideration for businesses trying out Digital Marketing for the first time because you want to manage risk exposure.

They will get you hook, line and sinker with an attractively priced package. Once your account is in their grasp, they’ll slowly add on to the original contract price with more charges and “unforeseen” fees.

The best Digital Marketing agencies are willing to negotiate their fees or work with you on your budget.

4. Ask as Many Questions as Possible

You don’t want to become the client that sees hard earned dollars flushed down the toilet simply because the agency could not deliver results.

Some agencies will insist on using online marketing tools or specific software programs where the subscriptions could cost you thousands of dollars every year.

What they won’t tell you is that they are earning a commission from the supplier for the continued use of the program even though you are not seeing results.

It all sounds good at the start. You can be dazzled by an amazing PowerPoint presentation. But don’t let the bright colors, fine graphics and enticing numbers on the screen fool you.

Push, prod and probe as hard as you can. Don’t hesitate to ask as many questions as possible. Again it comes down to learning what you can about Digital Marketing.

Lastly, don’t commit to anything until you have given the proposal enough thought.

5. The Agency Guarantees Immediate Results

If an Agency guarantees you top billing on the first page of the Search Engine Results Page after a few months, head for the door and run away as fast as you can without looking back.

The Agency is getting ready to scam you of your hard earned money. The same goes for agencies that assure you of more than 1,000 followers every week or 100% guaranteed sales conversions. There are no guarantees in Digital Marketing.

You cannot establish a time-table and identify when results will be realized. It is a process that requires consistency, constant review and frequent upgrades. As markets change, so will your campaign specifics.

To get to the top section of the first page of the SERP requires consistent production of high quality and keyword-rich content, a strategic distribution schedule, high level engagement and a consistently high performing website.

This will not be an easy task and you will be competing with other websites that may be using similar strategies.

6. They Are Not Involved in the Process

Does the agency email you with charts that you can’t make heads or tails with? Is the explanation on the report vague and inundated with terms that read Greek to you?

Agencies that flood you with reports that don’t make sense want you to think they are doing their job. Another serious red flag is if the agency does not set meetings with you to discuss web analytics or to give you a more comprehensive idea on how your campaign is doing.

It should never be enough just to send reports. A respectable agency should take the time to sit down with you and explain how the campaign is performing. They expose themselves to being questioned and are fine with it.

7. They Don’t Respond Within an Appreciable Time Frame

In business, correspondence should merit a response within 24 hours. That is enough time for the recipient to formulate a well-thought out reply.

Agencies should conduct themselves as professionals and respond to all communication from you within an appreciable time frame.

It does not matter if the agency’s days are busier than usual. It will not take more than a few minutes to craft an email or to schedule a phone call.

Conclusion

Digital Marketing is a proven way to effectively promote your business on the Internet. But its growth as a process has opened up the industry to opportunistic agencies that overpromise and underdeliver results.

Always take the time to prepare before committing yourself to a venture. Conduct research on the industry, uncover its best practices and perform due diligence on all Digital Marketing service providers who want you to sign up with them.

Time spent on preparation will save you thousands of dollars on unfulfilled objectives and expectations.

If you want to learn more about Digital Marketing, give us a call or drop us an email. We would love to help you take your business to the next level!

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SEO vs PPC: Which One is Better for Your Business?

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In the world of inbound marketing, two concepts stand out in terms of driving traffic to your website: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click or PPC advertising. One of the most frequently asked questions we get from clients is whether they should opt for SEO or PPC advertising.

At Mountaintop, we want to be firm with our answers. Many inbound marketing agencies play it safe by giving the default response: “It depends”. Our clients deserve a definitive course of action.

Before we give our position on the SEO versus PPC debate, let us do a quick overview on both concepts.

What is SEO?

We have written extensive articles on SEO. You can go back to our previous blogs, “5 Reasons Why Your Business Needs SEO Now”, “The Basics of SEO” and “How to Drive Traffic to Your Website” for comprehensive information on SEO.

But we’ll do a summary of the salient points of SEO so you will have a better understanding of how it stacks up versus PPC.

SEO works to have your website found on the Internet by using a variety of tools, techniques and processes that will move it up the first page of the SERP or Search Engine Results Page.

Organic or natural search remains the number one approach by Internet users for finding websites. Studies by research firm, Forrester has confirmed this statistic over the last six years.

Here are three other noteworthy statistics on the power of organic search:

  • Google generates 100 Billion searches every month.
  • 61% of marketers say improving SEO and organic search as the main drivers for their inbound marketing campaign.
  • 71% of B2B researchers start their study with an organic search.

SEO is a proven way of driving traffic to your website. It has evolved from a process into a system that brings together other online tools like social media marketing, link building and yes, even PPC advertising, to create a dynamic and holistic approach to inbound marketing.

Advantages of SEO

SEO is a process whereby the benefits are realized with consistency. Competing for the first page of the SERP is no easy task.

The market must regard your website as a valuable resource. Therefore, you should be able to identify your market’s needs and wants and consistently provide actionable solutions.

If you want overnight results, SEO will not get it done. The best analogy would be to compare SEO as a marathon not a sprint.

You start out from the back of the field then slowly work your way to the head of the pack with persistence, determination and steely, unwavering focus. As you pass one runner after another, people will start to take notice.

So let us expand our definition of SEO as a long-term investment that works to have your website found on the Internet by using a variety of tools, techniques and processes for the purpose of moving it up the first page of the SERP or Search Engine Results Page.

As an investment, SEO can immediately pay out high value dividends:

  • Enhance your reputation as a valuable resource in the field of expertise.
  • With organic search, your audience comes to you willingly. It is easier to build trust and therefore gain quality leads.
  • The ability to run “long tail” searches, opens up the parameters for being found by your target audience.

For example, instead of searching “Best running shoes”, a long tail search would appear as “Best running shoes for flat feet” can bring a more distinct audience to your website.

If you have a website, you must absolutely invest in SEO. With the amount of competition on the Internet, you have to optimize content for it to be found by your target audience.

Disadvantages of SEO

We have already described SEO as an investment. As such, it requires time, money and effort.

Don’t believe anyone who tells you the biggest advantage of SEO over PPC advertising is that it will not cost you a cent. We are often surprised when we hear clients tell us they heard SEO was for free.

SEO is not a skill that you can master to a level of proficiency by watching videos or reading books. Is it possible? Yes, but the question is, should you do SEO yourself?

And it takes time to gain expert-level proficiency. Time is an asset that is best dedicated to functions that contribute to your business’ bottom-line.

As a business owner, your time should be allocated to handling matters that demand your experience and expertise. That is why many companies hire agencies or third party service providers to manage their SEO campaign.

SEO is also sensitive to changes in algorithm and search engines like to make periodic changes in the way they rank websites.

This is another reason why you need a professional to oversee your website’s SEO strategy. An experienced and proven agency can keep track of all updates, trends and practices on search engine algorithms.

What is PPC Advertising?

Pay-Per-Click Advertising is exactly as advertised. It follows the same principle as traditional advertising where you pay to get your product or service in front of an audience.

Search engines like Google and Yahoo have PPC advertising programs that you can use to generate traffic for your website. Google has Google Adwords and Yahoo promotes Yahoo Search Marketing.

With PPC, the search engine allows you to display ads in the sponsored results section of their respective SERP. You pay a fee whenever a viewer clicks on your ad and lands on your website.

How much do you pay? Each keyword has been assigned a fee which is based on its level of competitiveness.

If SEO works to build your presence, with PPC you pay for your presence.

While traditional advertising takes the machine gun approach in giving a product or service visibility, with PPC advertising your ad will find its way to your target market. The person who clicked on your ad is someone who is looking for a similar product or service.

Here are three interesting statistics on PPC advertising:

  • 64.6% of consumers click through a Google ad if they are planning to purchase online.
  • Google Adwords has an average conversion rate of 2.7% on the search network and 0.89% via the display network.
  • Google Adwords has an average clickthrough rate of 1.91% in search and 0.35% for display.

Just to clarify the statistics, Google Adwords has two avenues for running your PPC ad: the Search Network and the Display Network.

The search network targets users who are searching the Internet. For example, if you are searching for “fitness trackers”, Google will serve you ads that are directly related to your search query.

The display network reaches out to users who are surfing the web; they do not have any specific query in mind. Ads are displayed based on the user’s online behavioral pattern and the advertiser’s targeting parameters.

An advertiser may require a specific demographic, contextual/ keyword search or interest category.

Advantages of PPC Advertising

One of the reasons Google became a multi-billion dollar company is because of revenues from paid search. Businesses want results in the shortest time possible. PPC advertising can fast track the process of building traction for your products and services.

Thus if SEO is a marathon, PPC advertising is a sprint. It has the potential to generate traffic to your website immediately. PPC advertising is an effective way to jumpstart the inbound marketing campaign of your website.

It also allows you to manage your advertising budget effectively by bidding for keywords that you can afford and paying only when someone clicks through your ad.

The benefit of having the search and display networks as options increases the chances of your ad being seen by Internet users.

You could place your ad in websites such as YouTube which consistently brings in a high volume of traffic. If you can position your website in a situation where there is a larger-than-expected flow of traffic, you will be able to run tests on different website variables.

With higher traffic, you will have more accurate data on your website’s level of mobile responsiveness, download speed and built-in functions and features. Higher traffic also increases the probability of sales conversions.

Finally, with PPC you do not have to worry about changes in the search engine’s algorithm.

Disadvantages of PPC Advertising

When preparing an advertising budget, you have to find out how much your competitors are spending for PPC. Keyword choices will have discrepancies in pricing and competitive ones could take you off your budget.

You can use Google External Keyword Research Tool to determine the level of competitiveness as well as the cost per click (CPC) of a particular keyword. The problem with competitive keywords is that these are usually the domain of authority sites which are very difficult to dislodge unless you have the resources.

PPC advertising will not enhance your site’s reputation as an expert. Therefore, it will do very little in driving high quality leads to your website unlike SEO.

You could be the highest bidder for a keyword but if the user sees no relevance or value to your ad, he or she will simply disregard the pole position of your ad and run another search.

With PPC, you could also fall victim to “Click Fraud”. This is an unscrupulous act done by some competitors where they will keep clicking on your ad for the sole purpose of draining your wallet.

Although the search engines have instituted safeguards to click fraud, it goes to show the very real threat your ads face being out in the open on the Internet.

Lastly, PPC advertising is similar to SEO in that it is not a skill where you can build expert-level proficiency overnight. It takes years of experience to become adept at PPC. This is a function that is best outsourced to a qualified third party service provider.

Our Recommendation

Before starting a business, you should be committed to investing in it. We don’t mean just the monetary kind but also time and effort.

It takes time to grow a business. A website, SEO, PPC, social media and other components of inbound marketing do not guarantee success. These are tools that will help your website become more competitive in your industry.

How they contribute to your success will depend on its planning, strategy design and overall implementation. There are absolutely no shortcuts when it comes to building and developing a business.

This is why you must prioritize SEO because of its long-term benefits of enhancing your reputation as a valuable resource and its ability of driving natural, qualified leads to your website.

Remember that when a user conducts a query, the search engine will always present the best results on the Internet, not the company which paid the most expensive ads.

As we stated earlier, SEO has evolved from a process into a system. You can harness the full power of SEO by incorporating its principles with social media marketing, content writing, link building and even PPC.

SEO is used to manage an online paid ad campaign. If you look at any PPC ad, you can see the search results displayed in the main area of the SERP.

There is also the matter of cost to consider.

A recent study published by iProspect showed that CPC is at its all-time highest levels. This was largely because CPC for mobile devices increased by 52% from the previous year.

60% of click throughs come from mobile devices compared to only 32% for desktop PC’s and 8% from tablets. The increase in cost further confirms the need for websites to be mobile responsive.

However, click through rates (CTR) declined by 17% over a one-year period. Coincidentally the fall in CTR was attributed to the underwhelming performance of PPC via mobile devices.

But this does not mean PPC has no place in your inbound marketing campaign. If your budget should allow, you can incorporate PPC at the start up or pre-launch stages. As mentioned, it will help create a higher volume of traffic for your website faster than SEO.

This will present opportunities not just for greater traction, but to test the functionality of your website.

Are you thinking of having SEO and PPC for your website? Done correctly, both approaches can do wonders for traffic generation. If you are interested to learn more about SEO and PPC, please do not hesitate to give us a call or an email.

We can do both for your website. If you wish, we can take you through the process of having SEO and PPC integrated into a digital marketing campaign.

We hope to hear from you soon!

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When Should You Redesign Your Website?

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Your website represents your business on the Internet. It only makes sense for your website to undergo a redesign that corresponds to changes in your market, business status, objectives and goals. Business should never remain passive. In order to be competitive, business should always remain dynamic; ever evolving to accommodate changes in demand, tastes and preferences. Therefore, your website should likewise remain dynamic and ever evolving.

So yes, your website should undergo a redesign. The question is when?

There is no clear cut rule on determining the need to change your website’s design and functionality. A web designer manipulates design elements to arrive at a look and feel that best captures your business purpose while presenting beautiful aesthetics and user-friendly functionality.

The initial design of your website was based on the information that was provided at the time. Over the course of your business, conditions may have changed.

Perhaps you adopted new strategies, presented additional products and services or experienced a shift in market demographics. Online analytics will help you determine how these changes have collectively asserted their influence on the flow of business.

Or you could subscribe to the Amazon.com and Apple.com school of thought which applies an iterative approach to website redesign. These highly successful technology companies continue to follow a process of consistently getting feedback from customers on their experience using their respective sites.

A combination of online analytics, customer feedback and a frequent review of company financials, should give you an accurate evaluation of the decisions that you need to make regarding your business.

And that should include redesigning your website.

3 Questions You Need to Answer Before You Redesign Your Website

A website redesign could be a minor undertaking. You may only want changes in the color combination, the type of content or add another web page for your portfolio.

But it could also mean a major overhaul. The extent of the redesign will impact your budget for the project.

When clients ask us to redesign their website, we ask them a few questions so we can have a better idea of where they are coming from and what they hope to accomplish with their decision.

1. Why Do You Want to Redesign Your Website?

This seems like an obvious question but we always prefer to hear from the client first.

We view the client as the expert; no one knows the business and the market better than you. No doubt there are very real factors or reasons on why you believe it is time to redesign your website.

  • Does your website look outdated or behind-the-times?
  • Are your competitors redesigning their websites as well?
  • Are you planning to improve your search rankings?

As the web design company, we are here to listen to you. Our job is to offer solutions to your problems or concerns. We will translate your needs into design elements that will help you achieve your goals and objectives.

2. What Problems Are You Currently Experiencing With Your Website?

In the same way that no one likes poor service in a brick-and-mortar establishment, poor user experience is unacceptable in website design.

  • Is your website taking too long to load?
  • Is your bounce rate high?
  • Are the social sharing buttons functioning well?

Part of our web management service package includes a website audit for our clients to identify potential pain points. The audit can be an eye-opener; it gives them a clearer perspective on how the website affects their bottom-line. It becomes a valuable reference tool in managing their business.

3. Have You Changed Your Brand Image?

It is normal for businesses to change its brand or company image. This is done to accommodate changes in the market demographic. You want a brand that your target market can relate to.

Changes in brand image should be incorporated in web design. Your brand represents how you want your business to be perceived in the market. It must be consistent throughout your marketing channels.

In an online marketing campaign, your website is the destination point where all inbound avenues converge and drive generated leads. Its redesign should be in line with any change in your brand or company image.

Checklist: 8 Signs Your Website Needs a Redesign

The best way to determine if your website needs a redesign is to get a professional opinion. An experienced web designer can review analytics and run tests to give you solid bases on the extent of work that needs to be done.

Of course, you can always get a second or third opinion before deciding on the course of action to take. It is very important to be comfortable with the redesign recommendations and at the same time be confident with the ability of the web designer to get the job done.

At Mountaintop, after we meet with the client, we go through a standard checklist covering eight signs your website might need a redesign.

The checklist is a great way to confirm all of the information and details given by the client during the meeting. We will use online analytics plus a thorough site audit to validate their concerns and spot potential problems that may have been overlooked.

It is not necessary to have all the items checked in the list. Our job is to identify the pain points and offer solutions for you to consider.

1. Poor Mobile Loading Capability

You may have commissioned your web designer to create a mobile responsive website for your business. But when you tried to view it from a smartphone, the site’s text did not appear legible and the images seemed distorted.

At a time when 65% of online traffic comes from mobile devices, you can’t risk visitors having poor user experience on your site. This is especially true if you are running an ECommerce website.

Your website must be accessible to various mobile devices. Laptops, notebooks, tablets and smartphones come in different screen sizes. How your website sets up in these mobile devices will determine whether the user will further explore or abandon the search.

2. Slow Loading Website

Research conducted by Akamai and Gomez.com showed that Internet users expect websites to load in 2 seconds or less.

One second more will make 79% of visitors abandon the site and never return. Another 44% will relay the poor experience with a friend. You would not want your website to be representative of these statistics.

If from your own experience, your website is not loading fast enough on desktop and mobile devices, you definitely should have this looked into by a web designer.

 3. Social Media Shares Don’t Look Enticing

Social media is a powerful driver of traffic. But if your links and thumbnail don’t look good when you share on social media, people who come across it may not be enticed to click on your content.

Not only should your link and thumbnail grab attention, its title and description should give readers an immediate idea of what to expect from your content.

If your link doesn’t look enticing in social media, give it an update. Keep in mind that social media accounts for 31% of all referral traffic.

4. Content Does Not Display Properly

Don’t you get frustrated when you click on a URL and the website comes out like an unfinished template?

Images are not displayed properly and content is nowhere to be found. You refresh the page and the results are the same. Your next course of action would be to click out and look for a similar website.

You would probably never click on that link every time you see it.

The same thing could happen to your website if its content does not display properly.

It’s possible your website is using obsolete software. If it’s been around for some time, it may no longer be compatible with newer devices and browsers. This is a problem that is best handled by a professional web designer.

5. Unsatisfactory Business Results

As we discussed in our article “10 Benefits of a Website for a Small Business”, it is absolutely important to have a website in this day and age of the Internet and social media.

It will be difficult to capitalize on opportunities if you have no destination point for all the inbound traffic that you plan to generate with an online marketing campaign.

But having a website is never a guarantee for business success. Like all ventures, there will be hits and misses. You should never look at a website as a “magic potion” that will cure all business ills or the veritable “lightning in a bottle”.

The advantage of having a website is that the availability of online and offline analytics allows you to identify strengths and weaknesses:

  • Are you having problems generating leads?
  • Is there an increase in the rate of shopping cart abandonment?
  • Is your conversion rate decreasing?
  • Is the level of engagement declining?

Once the problem areas have been threshed out, the web designer can come up with a redesign that might provide remedy to your current situation.

6. Visitors Leave Your Site Right Away

In retail, the longer you keep visitors inside your store the higher the probability of making a sale. The rule also applies to websites.

If you have a blog page, you would love for people to hang around, read content while nursing a cup of coffee. The more they read, the more likely they would share your content with social media.

If you are managing an ECommerce site, you would want your visitors to take their time, browse your site, zoom in your product offerings and place merchandise on the shopping cart. In time, they might follow through with the purchase.

Visitors leaving your site early is never a good sign.

A web designer will use the following metrics to check the online behavior of your site visitors:

  • Bounce Rate – Measures the rate by which visitors leave your page. It is not a good sign if your bounce rate is high.
  • Pages/ Session – Measures the average number of pages a user views per session. A high number means the average user views more pages whenever he or she is in your site.
  • Behavior Flow – This is a Google generated report which gives you details on the most popular path site users take to visit your website. Knowing where your visitors come from will improve productivity and help fine tune your online marketing campaign.

7. Visitors Can’t Find What They Need

Navigability should always be an important consideration in website design because it is a big part of User Experience. If a site user can’t find what he or she is looking for within a few seconds, frustration could mount.

When you receive emails or comments from users narrating their difficulty navigating through your website, take it seriously and act upon it right away.

A professional web designer could help come up with a cleaner and more efficient navigation plan that will keep users happy.

8. Initial Design Does Not Capture Current Changes

It could be that the previous year represented a time of sweeping change for your business.

If you have an online consultancy business, perhaps some services are no longer available. Did you replace some products with new offerings? Were there changes in management?

All of these changes should be reflected in your website. In business, communication is very important. If you distribute marketing collateral its content must correspond to what is presented in your website.

Conclusion

If you have a website, accept the fact that a redesign is inevitable. Digital technology will always be in a progressive state. Programs are expected to run faster and process more data. Users will crave a better experience and if you want to compete, you will have to keep your website updated, current and compatible.

The programs and plugins running your website now could be rendered obsolete within a few months. Without a redesign, it may not be responsive to the needs and demands of your market.

Keep in mind that your website is an investment that will yield potentially high returns for your business. With the help of an experienced web designer, you will get more out of every resource that you put back into your website.

Did we get you to re-think the design of your current website? Give us a call or drop us an email to clear your mind. We can simplify the process for you and help you get your business back on track.

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How to Drive Traffic to Your Website

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Putting up a website isn’t as simple as setting up a coffee shop, opening the doors and expecting customers to file right in. Almost everyone in the world drinks coffee but just because you’ve set up shop, doesn’t mean you will be guaranteed business. It definitely is a step in the right direction, but you have to put in time, work and resources to gain business. It’s the same with driving traffic to your website. The good news is generating traffic to your website is not as difficult or costly as you might think.

If your business was located inside a mall, you can scope out your competition and approximate foot traffic by assigning staff at the entrances to conduct a click count. From there, you can come up with marketing strategies, design collaterals and draw up promos to attract interest from the mall’s daily visitors.

But things are different in the World Wide Web. If a mall has 200 tenants, the Internet has over 1 Billion websites. If a mall attracts 10,000 visitors daily, the Internet draws over 3.6 Billion users every single day. Once your website is launched, your challenge is to get Internet users to click on your URL as often as possible.

When flyers are distributed randomly inside a mall, many end up in trash bins. You cannot apply the same tactics in a place as vast as the Internet. The marketing approach must be more strategic, well thought-out and focused.

It’s not a matter of casting a larger net into an ocean filled with fish. What ends up in your net might be inedible or unusable. Instead you should figure out the right kind of bait that draws fish to your line. But different bait attracts different fish. Before you know it, you have a multitude of lines with a variety of bait that consistently fills up your boat with tons of fish!

If you want to drive traffic to your website, you must utilize strategies that will attract or compel potential end users to view your products and services. This approach is popularly referred to as Inbound Marketing; the process of using online marketing techniques, tools and tactics for the purpose of generating inbound traffic to a website.

7 Effective Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website

1. Optimize Your Website

SEO or Search Engine Optimization helps to get your content found online. It gives your website a fighting chance to stand out and get noticed even if there are billions of websites proliferating on the Internet. Remember this key stat: 91% of all Internet users prefer to use organic search to find information.

Keyword research is a big component of an effective SEO strategy. All of your inbound marketing efforts should be focused on landing the top 3 positions of the search rankings for your keywords. The SEO expert should provide you a keywords report which categorizes keywords according to volume and level of competition.

The keywords report will be used to optimize your web pages, particularly the title, meta and descriptive tags. It will also be used to optimize text, image and video content.

2. Consistently Create Great Content

Content is the cornerstone of a successful inbound marketing campaign. People go online to find usable and relevant information. You should give your audience content that addresses their interests or concerns.

If you are able to produce consistently great content, you will enhance your reputation as a valuable resource and attract more followers to your website.

Here are a few tips on how to come up with great content:

  • Write in a conversational manner; don’t attempt to impress your readers by using technical terms.
  • Make sure your data is accurate and sourced from reputable sources.
  • Write with the audience in mind; they should find your content usable, relevant and informative.
  • Always come up with original content; do not plagiarize someone else’s work.
  • Do not abuse keywords; it is important to have the main keyword in the title, the opening paragraph, throughout the body and in the concluding section. But use keywords judiciously. It should never affect the quality of the content.

If you are not sure what to write about, review your website analytics. Find out which blogs or articles generated the highest levels of engagement and had the lowest bounce rates. You could also do surveys or engage your followers in social media to find out what topics interest them.

3. Utilize Social Media

Social media is great for sharing content which could help drive traffic to your website. But there are other ways you can use social media to create inbound avenues to your website.

  • Search.twitter.com – This is one of the lesser known features of Twitter but it is an effective tool for engaging your market. For example, we could type in “mobile responsive design” and see how people in the community are interacting with this topic. We could then engage them by providing a link to an article we published some time ago, “Why Your Business Needs Responsive Design”.
  • Set up Company Pages – Identify 3 social media networks that are appropriate for your business then set up company pages in each of them. Try to stay active by posting regularly and engaging with your followers whenever possible.
  • Remarketing – Facebook and Twitter can provide you with tracking pixels which you can use to continue marketing to Internet users who have visited your site. Facebook will grant you a tracking pixel once you have achieved 100 visitors. Twitter’s minimum requirement is much higher at 500 visitors.
  • Twitter Cards – This is another special feature of Twitter which allows you to send out tweets that are large enough to include an image and a functional button to support a call- to- action. Twitter Cards have been shown to generate 18% more clicks than plain text tweets.
  • Community and Focus Groups – You can also join community and focus groups that are involved in the same industry as you are. Members in these communities often engage one another in discussion threads. Join some of these threads and openly share your expertise and experience. Write blogs and distribute them to your various communities.

These are just the tip of the mountaintop when it comes to all the possibilities with social media. A digital marketing company can help you conceptualize a social media strategy that is customized for your business.

4. Build Links

Link building is such an effective technique for driving traffic to your website that it is often abused by unethical marketers. Google penalizes websites that implement overly aggressive link building strategies. These practices include using irrelevant links for the sake of increasing site exposure.

Done properly, link building is a great way of finding a new audience for your website. Get in touch with the webmaster of a reputable website in your industry and ask if they could include a link to your website. Offer reciprocity so that everyone benefits from the arrangement.

Another way of building links is to engage in industry and business forums. These sites give you the platform to showcase your expertise, knowledge and build up your reputation as a credible resource. Wait for the right moment to provide the link to your website. It should be relevant to the discussion and the content must have information that has value to the community.  

5. Contribute to Other Websites

A big part of driving traffic to your website involves enhancing your online presence as an expert in the industry. The more platforms you have to share your knowledge, the better your reach in finding a new audience for your content. One of the best ways to achieve this is to become a contributor to other websites such as content aggregators.

Content aggregators are websites that gather content from various online sources for reuse or resale. Anyone who visits your page from an aggregator and likes what they read will send a link to your site from their feed. Among the most popular content aggregators are the following:

Becoming a contributor isn’t as simple as sending content and having it published right away. These content aggregators have standards and guidelines for writing. If you are not confident about your writing skills, do not hesitate to hire a professional content writer.

6. Host a Podcast

A podcast is a great way to deliver content because it creates a more personalized, informal and intimate connection with your market. It is also a convenient medium for your audience to digest your content. All they have to do is subscribe and they can listen to your podcast anytime. A podcast puts you in a forum where you can actively engage with other experts in your field.

During the period of 2015 to 2016, the audience for podcasts in the United States grew by 23%. To put this in context, in the same period, Spotify and Twitter grew by 13% and 21% respectively. Hosting podcasts has also been shown to increase website traffic significantly.

7. Use Web Analytics

Web Analytics allows you to have data- driven basis to assess the performance of your website and your inbound marketing strategies. One of the most effective tools you can use is Google Analytics, but it is easy to get lost in the sheer volume of data available for your review.

We have simplified the 4 key reports you should look into when using Google Analytics:

  • Acquisition Keywords- Find out which keywords are driving more visitors to your website.
  • Acquisition Referring Sites – By discovering which websites are delivering more traffic to your website, you can focus more resources to them and less toward those that are underperforming.
  • Visitors Overview – Determine the proportion of new visitors to old visitors so you can customize your content to a specific audience.
  • Content Overview Top Pages – Find out which published content is responsible for driving the most traffic to your website and focus more time and resources on the topic.  

Conclusions

Inbound marketing will not generate significant traffic overnight. It is a process; and as such needs time to produce quantifiable results. Because the Internet and social media have made information accessible, market forces can shift or change without warning.

Thus if you want to drive more traffic to your website, the first step is to hire a professional digital marketing services company. You have to regularly track the progress of your campaign and implement the necessary revisions to strategy. As a business owner, your time is best dedicated to running your enterprise.

You should also apply these inbound marketing techniques with strategy, thought and purpose. A digital marketing company has the experience and knowledge to design a campaign strategy customized for your business and implement it according to schedule.

What you need to keep in mind is that an inbound marketing campaign is not an expense. It is an investment because you expect a return within a period of time. The great thing about investing in an inbound marketing campaign is that the strategies are more focused, sustainable and reusable.

You’re not distributing flyers to random people inside a mall. With inbound marketing, you identify your target market and focus your strategies to influence his or her preference toward your products and services instead of your competitor.

You are not pushing content to your audience. You are creating content that will pull your audience or compel them to follow you.  

The content you create will not end up in the trash bin. You can re-cycle it; edit its content and ideas to fit changes in your market’s behavioral profile. You can also reuse it by publishing it in other websites so you can attract a new audience.

When it comes to driving traffic to your website, the keyword is patience. It will take time to develop the avenues that will consistently bring users to your website.

Building a website is one thing. Committing to develop it is another. But as long as you put in the time, effort and resources, your investment should eventually yield dividends.

If you’re interested in learning more about inbound marketing and how to put together a campaign to drive more traffic to your website, drop us an e-mail or give us a call.

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