marketing qualified lead

Why ‘Star Wars’ Is Really About Sales & Marketing Qualified Leads

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After recently re-watching the original Star Wars trilogy, I made a startling discovery. The first movie (for clarification, I mean episode IV) is all about marketing qualified leads and sales qualified leads. I know that sounds crazy but it’s (kind of) true! Just stick with me and by the end you will be convinced that I’m right. So let’s get to it.

The (Sales) Force

Think of making a sale for your business in the same was as someone accepting the existence of The Force. In the movies, The Force is an all-powerful entity that binds the universe together. It works as a power that influences people’s actions and decisions. Just like with sales, some things are in your control, but ultimately it comes down to the buyer/believer. If they are not susceptible to what they are hearing, eventually they will turn away. It is a salesperson’s job to minimize the number of people who turn away. That’s why it’s important to treat every lead different depending on where they are in their buyer’s journey. In Star Wars, getting people to believe in The Force is no different. This brings me to my first example.

What Are Marketing Qualified Leads And Why Do They Matter?

Luke: The Sales Qualified Lead

In the movies, people talk about the Jedi like they would monks following a religion. How many people do you know adopted a religion within the same day they heard of it? I’m assuming not many. Enter Luke Skywalker! In the movie, he has never even heard of The Force but after only a brief conversation with Obi-Wan Kenobi (and getting the coolest weapon in the galaxy!) we know that Luke is pretty open to the whole idea. He even seems perplexed that Han isn’t open to the idea of The Force while on their ill-fated trip to Aldaran. For this reason, Luke Skywalker is the quintessential example of a sales qualified lead.

After only a short conversation, we know that he is willing to believe in The Force, even though he has seen no evidence of its existence. Later, Obi-Wan does show off the powers of The Force by using a Jedi mind-trick on a nosey Stormtrooper, but the use of it was both necessary and beneficial. Obi-Wan allows Luke to see the power of The Force but never refers back to that as a way to convince him that The Force is real. By allowing Luke to make up his own mind about whether to follow the ways of The Force was essential to his full adoption of the Jedi ways that would eventually lead him to destroying The Empire’s grip on the galaxy.

Han: The Marketing Qualified Lead

Han is a different story. He isn’t openly hostile to the idea of The Force, but he comes pretty close to it. He chides Luke, telling him that he’s seen no evidence of an all-powerful force that binds the universe together. Even more surprising is that this is after he watches Luke deflect multiple laser blasts from a practice droid while blinded! Anyways, fast forward to the scene where the Rebels are preparing their attack against the Death Star. Notice that Luke doesn’t give Han a speech about why he should fight for the Rebels or that he’s morally wrong for not helping them stop a tyrant who has a weapon of mass destruction.

This is the way your sales team should treat its marketing qualified leads. By not feeling pressure from Luke, Han feels unashamed about turning to his friend and saying, “may The Force be with you.” This is surprising because at this point in the film we are pretty sure Han still doesn’t believe in The Force. Though he may not believe in it, Han has progressed from questioning hostility to respectful recognition of The Force. And, as we all know, Han comes back and saves the day! Not because of incessant nagging, but because he was able to make the decision on his own. Without that level of freedom, Han may have taken his loot and ran away from the battle out of spite. Glad that didn’t happen!

Conclusion

When thinking about sales and marketing qualified leads, it’s important to remember the human aspect of these concepts. I think that by linking these ideas to well-known and popular characters we are better able to understand how and why leads need to be treated differently. Remember, Luke Skywalker may have been The Chosen One, but he couldn’t have saved the universe without Han’s help. A successful business needs to learn how to effectively cater to both sales and marketing qualified leads.

Inbound marketing will help you grow your business by attracting website visitors, converting them into leads and closing leads into customers
what's new with google

What’s New with Google: Search Results Based on Location

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So, what’s new with Google? At times, it can be tough to decipher the Google algorithm. The effort may often seem like a futile exercise. The search engine has undergone a number of changes in the recent past. This has kept a majority of digital and online marketers on their toes. These updates often hit small and local businesses very hard. Each modification or tweak to the algorithm can have an adverse impact on their search rankings. Here’s an overview of what’s new with Google:

Search Results Based on Location of Device

Google recently launched a new update. It will deliver Google search results on the basis of the location of your device. As nearly 20 percent of the total search queries on the search engine are location-specific, the company has made a number of tweaks to the relevant search algorithm in order to provide more relevant and useful results.

Users Can’t Change Location

Regardless of whether you visit a top-level or country-specific domain, Google will now reveal its search results depending on the current location of your device. For instance, in case you are in Singapore and you visit google.co.uk, bear in mind that you will only be able to see search results localized for Singapore and not for the UK.

You will find your current location listed near the bottom on the left corner of your window. If you travel to a different country, the search engine will dynamically alter the location. The location alters in order to show the search results specific to that region. According to many users, this is an incredible and welcome addition. However, it has the tendency of making the procedure for seeking localized search results from another country a bit longer.

In case you would like to look for localized results from a different country, you will first need to make appropriate changes in your settings menu. To change your location, follow these steps:

  • Press the Settings button; you will find it on the bottom of your search page
  • Then go to Search settings
  • Now choose the relevant country from the available Region for Search Results.

Applicability

This location update is currently available for Google apps for iOS, Google search results on mobile platforms, as well as Maps and Search for desktop platforms. It is important to keep in mind that while the update is going to change some aspects of how both Google Search and Google Maps services are displayed and labeled, it will not have any impact on the way the company products function. In addition, it will not change the way legal and regulatory obligations are handled under national law.

This update can improve location-based and niche marketing efforts that target customers belonging to particular geographic regions and increase organic traffic. A lot of location-based services tend to rank better when it comes to search engine findings on the net. Moreover, use of location-based marketing can make your business a success in the local areas and suburbs you operate in.

The purpose of the update is to help ensure the users can get the most appropriate or relevant search results depending on their location. It is also consistent with the way Google already deals with a number of services across various other platforms such as YouTube, Google Earth, Gmail, and Blogger, among others.

So, now that you are familiar with what’s new with Google, you can make the relevant changes to your website and come up effective marketing strategies.

A GUIDE TO EFFECTIVE MOBILE MARKETING TECHNIQUES

PPC landing pages

Advertising Trends To Watch in 2018

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We are well into the last quarter of 2017 and you should already have an idea of how well you have met your goals for this year. While you are wrapping things up these last few months of the year, it is a good time to start thinking about what is happening next year. Let’s take a look at some of the advertising trends for 2018.

7 Advertising Trends that Will Be Hot in 2018

Integrated Advertising

Stand back and take a look at your current advertising. Are you leveraging multiple media sources to provide your target audience with a memorable experience? If not, now is the time to rethink your advertising approach.

Integrated advertising takes all media forms and creates a singular approach. Think TV and radio spots, print media, search engine and social media ads, and any other type of advertising. Every piece of advertising is in sync with every other including In-Bound advertising.

Niche Marketing

Niches are created by finding the needs, wants and requirements of a well-defined segment of people, who others are not addressing, then fulfilling the demand with goods and services.

The demand for niche marketing is growing because the number of businesses entering the digital marketplace is accelerating while the number of consumers remains fairly steady. This trend is going to become increasingly important going forward. What’s your niche and how best can you accommodate your consumer or business?

Mobile Marketing Geofencing

Advertisers can use GPS and RFID technology to set a physical boundary. If a mobile device enters or exists this boundary, the advertiser can send out a notification, email or text message. This hyper-local marketing allows businesses of all sorts to send out advertisements to consumers walking down the sidewalk near their store or office. Imagine walking the streets of Vegas when you get an alert on your phone that says, “look up and save 30% off your meal at Diablo’s Cantina”. That is what I was served in 2015.

5 Mobile Marketing Techniques To Build Your Ecommerce Brand

Social Advertising

The first part of 2017 saw a rapid increase in social media advertising spend. Social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are providing new opportunities for user interaction, which is making advertising more attractive for companies of all sorts. Business is recognizing that social media offers ways to reach consumers that more conventional digital marketing cannot. Today, you can buy Facebook around zipcodes. What are you waiting for?

Ephemeral Content

Let’s turn the convention thoughts on digital marketing content on its head. Ephemeral content is doing just that. This type of content comes and goes very quickly, usually within 24 hours. It is perceived as more authentic, creates the FOMO (fear of missing out), and it grabs the consumer’s attention for a short time. Consumers believe that this content should be checked more often because it will be gone by the next day.

Chatbots

One of the advertising trends businesses are adopting quickly is the chatbot. A chatbot is program which engages a consumer in a text conversation, using natural language and business rules to provide requested information. It’s the reason TIVO can have one on one conversations about their products and help guide you through the purchasing cycle.

In-Store Retail Advertising

A consumer is walking through a retail store and gets an alert on his or her phone. It is a promotional offer or discount from the store. This type of in-store retail advertising is another form of hyper-local advertising. Walgreens has embraced this technology for the last two years. It drives store visits and can up-sale items for impulse buys. This form of advertising is a force that captures eyeballs and delivers content that could increase your sales if used properly.

2018 looks to be an exciting year in the world of marketing and advertising. Each year, technology pushes its way more and more into the world of marketing. If you haven’t embraced where marketing is heading, your company may not be around in the next three years. Think about how Amazon is delivering FOOD within ½ hour to your door, or Walmart not only delivering but putting away in your kitchen…did you think this would happen? Do you see the value of Tesla and having a driver-less car? Were taxis ready for UBER or LYFT? Was Blockbuster ready for NETFLIX or REDBOX? How about the postal service that didn’t work on Sundays, to be delivering Amazon products on a day where all the vehicles are available. The Echo could just change your life moving forward and why isn’t your product already being said by Alexia? Technology is a force.

The trends in 2018 are powerful. Isn’t it time to start using them?

Inbound marketing will help you grow your business by attracting website visitors, converting them into leads and closing leads into customers

increase SEO

Digital Marketing Trends To Watch For in 2018

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Leads, conversions, connections and engagement. Those are some of the things you want to accomplish with your 2018 digital marketing. The challenge is using the marketing techniques that have the most impact on your target audience. Here are five trends you can integrate into your 2018 marketing.

Think Micro Moments

How many times a day do you reach for your mobile phone to buy, do, research, watch or discover something? On average, consumers are making these momentary decisions well over 100 times a day. Those decisions are known as micro moments. They represent an opportunity to make your brand standout.

This means providing the right information to the right consumer at the right time. A brand does it by offering one-button access to needed information.

Visual Media

Video remains one of the strongest forms of content in digital marketing today. In fact, YouTube attracts more adult viewers during prime TV viewing hours than any cable channel. And in 2016, Facebook reported over 1.5 billion users view over 8 billion videos every day.

The visual elements of a video have more impact on viewers. The viewers attach deeper meaning to video messages and they are more likely to take action based on the video’s call to action.

Three Videos Every B2B Website Should Have

Native Advertising

Native advertising has been around for a long time. But, it has emerged as a growing trend in the digital marketplace. It offers a seamless way to market a product or service in an almost non-disruptive manner.

The goal of native ads is to present the right information in front of the viewer when its needed. And to do it seamlessly. Viewers often don’t spot the native ad, assuming its a part of the web page’s content. And that is powerful.

Personalized Client-Centric Content

The content you present to a returning visitor needs to be different from that presented to a brand new viewer. You can do that with personalized client-centric content, also known as smart content.

It all starts with tracking what interests a particular visitor. You track this information using a marketing automation system, which tracks the web pages that a visitor looks at. That information lets you present content and ads personalized to what the visitors has an interest in.

Create Your Own Band of Influencers

An influencer is simply someone who recommends your product or service to other people. The more influencers you have talking your brand, the more people will start to pay attention. Creating a band of influencers can take your brand, product and service to the next level.

It starts with understanding what your customers need and solving their problems. This builds brand loyalty. These customers will start telling their friends. Add in a few known influencer names and your brand is on its way.

These digital marketing trends can take your business in new directions next year. If you haven’t already started your plan, now is the time. You want it in place and ready to go with the New Year.

MAXIMIZING YOUR MARKETING BUDGET

media mix

How To Use Media Mix When Marketing To Your Audience’s Buyer’s Journeys

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Some marketers make the mistake of trying to reach as many people as possible with their content. The problem with this is that your pushing information to people who are either not ready to receive it or not interested all together. Without tailoring your content to your specific audience at their buying stage and delivering it to the platforms where they actually consume messages you’re missing out on a huge conversion opportunity.

Why Use Mix Media Marketing

Mix media marketing is the process of utilizing niche marketing to get granular with your messaging. Depending on your audience and their buying stage different platforms and messages will reach better than others. Email typically converts those at the middle or bottom of the funnel while social media is great to reach those at the top of the funnel. Let’s take a closer look at the different stages in the buyer’s journey and which mix media marketing strategies work best.

[Read About Using the Buyer’s Journey to Create Great Content]

Awareness Stage

The awareness stage is at the very top of the funnel and is a great time to just put your brand out there. At this point the buyer has a problem that needs to be solved but they might not even be fully aware of the problem or that there is a solution. During this stage educational content and strong SEO is key. You want to be found when users are searching and use keywords that resonate with their pain points.

Best types of mix media marketing at this stage:

  • Blogs- with keywords focused on relevant topics to your audience
  • PPC and SEO to drive traffic to your site
  • Mass Media- TV, Radio, to get your brand name out there

Consideration

During this stage the buyer is aware they have a problem and is actively looking for a solution. You need to show your target audience that you can deliver the solutions they need and are a trusted source. You’ll want to get more granular at this stage and really tailor your messages to their needs. You can use segmented email messages that push buyers through the funnel.

Best types of mix media marketing at this stage:

  • Targeted emails that trigger actions such as signing up for a webinar, downloading content, or reading a case study

Decision Making Stage

If your audience has made it this far in the buyers journey than you are one of the companies they are considering. Now is the time to really drive home why you’re better than the competition and develop an emotional connection.

Best types of mix media marketing at this stage:

  • Retargeting- reconnect with those who have visited your site to keep your brand fresh in their mind using retargeting ads or email
  • One to one connections- this is the why us part. Demos, personal emails, phone calls, and other follow-ups that show your audience you’re there for them will go far to push your buyers through the last step before converting

Download Our White Paper Guide To Learn How To Perfect Buyer Personas For Your Business

inbound marketing benefits

Top 3 Ways to Maximize Your Inbound Marketing Strategy

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Do you have a favorite sport? Maybe it’s something popular like football or hockey. Perhaps a more dignified pastime such as golf or horseracing better suits your style. Whatever your preference may be, do you ever wonder how your favorite athletes (hopefully!) win more than they lose? Most likely they are playing with a strategy. It may seem obvious, but strategy – even in a sport like racing – is essential to victory.

The same is true for your business website. Without a strategy, your website will fall behind the competition. Don’t let this happen! Many companies fall into the trap of creating a website for nothing more than an “online presence.” With inbound marketing, websites can do so much more than they could 20 years ago. With inbound marketing, businesses are seeing more online traffic that results in more customers and sales. But without a strategy, even inbound marketing has its limits.

Inbound marketing benefits from a well-developed strategy. There are three aspects to creating a well-developed inbound marketing strategy.

1. Create website goals

What do you want your website to do for your customer? That’s the main question that should be asked before a website is developed. Without a clear goal, a website could be published without having any significant benefit to the owner or the visitor. If a website generates most of its sales after visitors view a product information page, the goal of the website should be to create more product information pages, increase traffic to these pages, and streamline the ability to go from product information to product purchase. Inbound marketing benefits from having a website with clearly defined goals. If you are wondering about your website, try having a friend or colleague take a look at it. Ask them if they felt your website had clearly defined goals. Once you’ve determined you have the right goals in mind, it’s time you ask yourself if you have the right person in mind.

2. Create a Persona

Creating a persona is a powerful way for a business to better understand its customers. Without a persona, businesses have an incomplete idea of who to market to. So what is a persona? A Persona is the ‘ideal’ customer that a business wants to reach out to. Personas are defined by many things – ethnicity, location, motivation – but what they all have in common is that they help shape the strategy used by a company to achieve its goal.

Read more on Why Buyer Personas Are So Important

By creating a strategy with a specific end-user in mind, we are better able to understand what their problems are and how we can help make their lives easier. Don’t get too attached to your persona though! You will likely find that you may need to update them as you gain more insights on your customers. You may even considering adding an additional persona. Once you have your persona or personas created, you can move on to the next step.

 3. Get to know your persona

Now that you have a persona, ask yourself, how well do you know him or her? It may seem like knowing a pretend person’s upbringing and background is a little silly, but it can go a long way with customer satisfaction. By constructing your persona’s life story, you are better able to understand their motivation, needs, and desired outcome in life. If your persona is looking for a product that satisfies a long-term need but your business only sells products for immediate use, you’ve just gained valuable insight. You’ve recognized a need your typical customer has as well as an opportunity for your company to grow. By using information gathered from our personas, we can update and adapt our company strategy to best fit our customer needs.

Download A Free Template For Developing Personas

Just like in all sports, strategies continue to adapt as they encounter new problems and opportunities. You will likely find that a strategy created today might not work for you a year from now. That’s okay! Revisiting your goals, updating your persona’s attributes, changing their background and desired outcomes; these are all essential to a successful business. Just remember, inbound marketing benefits strongly from a well thought out strategy. How do you think your company’s online strategy is? If you’d like a free consultation, please check out the link below.

Want more resources on how to redesign your website? Click here!

Download Our White Paper Guide To Learn How To Perfect Buyer Personas For Your Business

creative marketing solutions

4 Questions to Ask Yourself When Looking for Creative Marketing Solutions

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Imagine yourself coming home after a long day of work only to find your kitchen completely flooded. You run to the sink and quickly realize that you have no idea what the problem is. Time to call the plumber! Now, imagine that plumber shows up and the only thing in his tool bag is a screwdriver. You’d probably be pretty upset, right? That’s because you know that a screwdriver isn’t the right tool for a leaky pipe. Digital marketing is no different; without the right tool for the job you will not be able to accomplish your goals.

Choosing the right tool is essential for a company’s approach to creative marketing solutions. Without the right tools, you may overlook valuable information, miss out on new customers, or fail to recognize a new opportunity in your industry or business. So how do we choose the right tool for the job? Here are four things to consider when you ask yourself that question. 

1. What are my goals?

Goal creation is often the first step in any business decision. Why should choosing your tools be any different? Lets take a look at the plumber again. If his goal was to fix a pipe then he should have known that a screwdriver is not the best tool to achieve this goal. We know that a wrench is much more useful for this kind of problem. Obviously, we are not saying that screwdrivers are a useless tool. Our point is that different tools should be used for different tasks. If instead the goal were to install a door into a doorframe then a screwdriver would be the perfect tool to use. By laying out your goals, you are better able to decide which tool fits best.

2. Will these tools accomplish those goals?

Lets say the problem with the plumber wasn’t that he had one tool, but far too many! You watch him fix the sink, but feel frustrated as he wastes time digging into his bag, leaves tools all over your floor, and goes back and forth from your kitchen to his truck outside as he tries to find what he’s looking for. You feel upset because, though job gets done, the amount of time it took was much longer than what you were anticipating. The problem of having too many tools for a task is problematic in two ways.

First, having too many tools can make even simple tasks complicated. By having multiple software applications that have overlapping features, your employees may become overwhelmed with how much they are expected to understand. Software should be easy for your employees to learn, whether they’ve been with you for 20 years or 20 days. This will minimize the number of hours it takes to learn how to use the tools and maximize the number of hours they spend actually using them.

Second, any money that is used to buy tools for your company is money that could be used in areas that have a proven ROI. If you buy tools that are unneeded or overprice, you are essentially wasting money for your business. By buying tools only when you need them, you are ensuring that your company uses its resources efficiently.

By making sure you have the right number of tools you minimize your company’s spending and maximize its growth!

[Read About 8 Great Case Study Questions To Ask Yourself When Attracting Prospects]

3. How much is too much?

Do you know someone who has to have everything brand new? They buy the newest smartphone and the fastest computer only to play Angry Birds and browse the internet. If you’re anything like me, you probably get frustrated with this person. You might think to yourself, “why are you spending so much money when you don’t need to?” Some businesses are the same way. They spend too much money on the best software when they really don’t need to. We see the same two problems here as we did in the example above – unneeded upfront costs and wasted hours of employee training. Make sure the tools you’re considering will accomplish your goals, but won’t do more than you need them to. 

4. Do my tools work together?

One of the most frustrating things in business can be working on a team project. Maybe there is someone who works remotely and everything has to be accomplished online. For others, it may be that their available hours don’t mesh well with your schedule. Every company has a vested interest in minimizing the number of obstacles their employees encounter on a daily basis. By using software that integrates between users, a company is better able to track of the progress of their employees and employees are better able to focus on their work. GoogleDocs is a great example of integrated technology.

For many years, even just changing a text document could be very frustrating. One of the main ways people would update documents was through email. A frustrating experience when working with multiple people who make multiple revisions. Who’s changes do you go with? Did they change the most recent version of the document or do you need to backtrack to an earlier copy? Who’s revisions does your team ultimately to go with?

This was one of the main problems Google aimed to address with their release of GoogleDocs. By using GoogleDocs, we are now able to collaborate and make changes to the document in real time. Coworkers can track who made revisions to the document, at what time, and leave comments to one another. And the best part? No endless chain of emails filling your inbox! Finding the best software for your company may take time, but truly integrated technologies can make a significant difference to your everyday workload.

Creative marketing solutions can be complex, but they don’t have to be difficult. By optimizing the tools you and your company uses, you will find that working together will become much easier. Remember, you can’t fix a sink with a screwdriver. Go out and find the tools you need! If you’d like some advice on where to start, please follow the link below for more information

Search Engine Optimization Techniques

Inbound Marketing Benefits

Inbound Marketing Works. Politics Proves It.

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We can all agree that politics in America right now is messy. To be honest it’s beyond messy. That’s no secret. So I won’t be writing about how divided we are today, rather, I’m going to be discussing how inbound marketing benefits organizations that operate in the political realm.

So what does inbound marketing have to do with politics?

Absolutely everything.

Think about where most people get their news from today. Is it the “failing” New York Times? What about CNN? Fox News? No, the answer is social media: Facebook, Twitter, etc. For traditional news organizations, this is devastating. But for inbound marketing news websites? It’s a cash cow.

What’s inbound marketing news? We’ll get to that. First I want to talk about how social media works. I’ll keep it brief because I’m sure you already know. Social media tracks your interests through likes, shares, and retweets. Based on your interests, the social media service you’re using is more likely to put content in front of you that you will react to. It’s human nature to want to see the things you like.

Considering The Source

Okay, back to news. News isn’t supposed to be all good or all bad. News is, or rather should be, a collection of facts that are communicated to its audience regardless of their feelings and personal opinions. Good things happen, and bad things happen. Your favorite politician may betray you with certain legislation, or maybe someone you detest says something you agree with. These are hard realities to grapple with for anyone. But social media doesn’t want to give you difficult feelings to grapple with; it wants to make you happy. Always happy.

[Read About Creating A Brand To Become President]

So is Facebook going to let you see a CNN article about how the president isn’t living up to his promises to you? Of course not. But what if a website were to take the same information and deliver it in a way that makes you happy? That’s what inbound marketing news is. These websites make their fortunes by taking anything that happens in the world and delivering it in a nice, easy to digest fluff piece that puts its audience’s mind at ease.

Now, I’m not making a political statement with this article. I’m pointing out how inbound marketing works and I want to use the best example. For that reason I am going to focus on conservative media. Head on over to the “Being Conservative” Facebook page.

The Echo Chamber

First of all, this is one of the most followed political pages on Facebook right now with almost 3 million followers at the time this article is being written. Take a look at all the posts on this page. They are ALL from The DailyWire.com. Almost 3 million followers seeing multiple posts every single day from a single news source translates into an astounding amount of views for that website. This fact isn’t lost on advertisers who pay to have their products and companies advertised on the website. This alone generates an impressive amount of income for the website. The fact that The DailyWire also charges to remove ads creates another revenue stream for the company.

Once visitors click on a headline and are brought to the website they are shown other articles that may interest them based on the tags and keywords in the original article. While exploring The DailyWire, visitors increase the website’s SEO ranking and credibility with Google, meaning DailyWire articles are more likely to appear in search results. Now that The DailyWire has millions of daily visitors they can generate money by publishing books, scheduling speaking events, and a number of other things, all of which helps their SEO and Facebook following grow.

This level of online engagement should be the envy of every business owner hoping to grow their company. Think about this; in a time where print media and local newspapers are struggling to survive, The DailyWire has been growing steadily since its founding in 2015. Without inbound marketing benefits continuing to improve the company’s marketing efforts the website would probably find itself struggling to stay online. But with new and relevant content, active engagement on social media, and the support of millions of viewers, The DailyWire will most likely continue to defy the odds and succeed in today’s digital economy.

Inbound marketing will help you grow your business by attracting website visitors, converting them into leads and closing leads into customers

website optimization techniques

Essential Website Optimization Techniques To Increase Visitors

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Does it seem like the number of page views on your company website just won’t increase? A simple and efficient solution to this problem is to optimize the blogs on your website. Essentially, optimization means making your resources as efficient and accessible as possible. Even the best quality content that is posted regularly will not be read by internet users if you don’t use website optimization techniques. Stop wasting time waiting for users to come to you and cater to their needs instead. Website optimization is a part of attraction marketing.

Keywords are key

The strategic sharing of the blogs on your website is just as important as the content they contain. Optimization requires that you include keywords and long-tail keywords, or phrases, in your blog. Keywords are topics and phrases of significance that users type into the search engine when seeking solutions to their problems. For example, I might type the key words “best Chicago summer wines” into Google to find answers on the Internet.

Popularity contest

Another aspect of keywords is that they are widely searched, yet specific at the same time. For instance, the words “wine” or “best wines” would not be optimal keywords since they are too general. By contrast, “best Chicago summer wines” are much better long-tail keyword because they specific, including details like region and season.

In order to determine the popularity of certain keywords, check your website’s keyword analytics. If the visits are too high, you should write about something more specific. If the visits are too low, you may not decide not use that keyword. However, if you’re feeling determined, you can write content containing that keyword with hopes of boosting the page views associated with it. Another technique you can use to find popular keywords if by typing certain words into search engines such as Google or Yahoo and seeing how many results come up. Be sure to base your keyword searches off of your buyer personas and they language they might use.

[Read here to learn about essential website optimization techniques to increase visitors]

The more the merrier

As much as the presence of the keywords is important, so is the strategic placement of keywords in your content. If you insert too many uses of the keywords, you are likely to be flagged as spam. On the other hand, if you don’t insert enough keywords, users may have a harder time discovering your content through given search engines.

The two most crucial places to insert your keywords are in the page and post title. An example of a title for the keywords “best Chicago summer wines” could be “Top 5 Summer Wines to Buy in Chicago This Summer.” Other important places to put your keywords are the blog’s URL, image alt-text, headers, and external links in the article. I also encourage you to include 1-2 uses of long-tail keywords in the body of the blog post, but making sure they don’t seem forced. The key to the insertion of key words is to make them seem natural, because bombarding a reader with them will seem like a marketing ploy.

17 SEO MYTHS YOU SHOULD LEAVE BEHIND

case study questions

8 Great Case Study Questions To Ask Yourself When Attracting Prospects

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Case studies and customer testimonials are incredibly effective ways to convert leads into customers. They give leads a taste of how your company successfully worked with other clients. There are several important case study questions to ask yourself as you prepare to publish a compelling case study for potential clients.

Below are 8 case study questions you can ask yourself as well as those who worked on the project.

1. What compelled the client to seek out your services?

This is a great way to find out how the services of your company are resonating with potential clients. It allows you to gauge the effectiveness of your marketing message and how attractive it is to customers.

2. What initial challenges did you experience while working with the client, and how did you solve them?

Working with each client is a unique process. Reflecting on the challenges your company has faced with this client can provide unique insights and areas to improve upon when working with future clients. If your company is able to portray a good working relationship with its clients, the potential customer will know they can trust you to accommodate their future needs.

3. What process did you follow to develop and implement these services?

It’s vital to consider how your company implemented and catered your services specifically to the client’s needs. This insight can help you provide valuable details to potential clients when presenting the case study.

4. How did the client respond to your suggestions during the process?

Potential clients seek information about how the process is conducted and how your company will help them achieve their goals. You can use this opportunity to reflect upon your client’s responses to your feedback during the process and to adjust your working relationship with your potential customers accordingly.

5. How did your ability to provide these solutions improve during the process?

How was your company was able to grow the client’s business and improve it as a result of a particular project? Answering this question is a great way for your case study to communicate a message of continuous growth in your ability to provide services.

6. What were the results of the process?

Find out if your customer was able to achieve his/her goals as a result of the process. You can then present these end results in your case study.

7. How has the relationship with the client been since completion of the project?

Maintaining a strong business relationship with the customer even after provision of the service shows that your company takes customer satisfaction seriously and cares for the needs of its clients.

8. Did anything that you did not expect happen during the process?

This question seeks to uncover any unique interactions that your company had with the client. There may be experiences your staff gained that can be crucial when presenting your case study in a compelling manner to potential clients. Reflecting on unforeseen events can also improve the level of services your company provides.

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