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Category: Marketing

Top 5 Reasons Blogs are Beneficial for Your Website

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Why Does My Website Need A Blog

You, as a business owner, have probably thought about doing a blog, and we are here to show you how blogging helps SEO! The idea may have crossed your mind, but then quickly left for the following reasons: First, a blog is work. Even if it’s just a couple of paragraphs a month, it takes effort and concentration. Secondly, a blog is time-consuming. You have to come up with an idea and somehow put that idea into words. Not to mention then you have to actually put it on your website. Who has time for all that? Lastly, what’s the point? It’s not like anyone is going to read it….right?

While a blog can take time and effort, the impact a blog can make is worth it. It sounds crazy, but blogs are what make a site known to the public. Blogs are beneficial. How? Blogs impact your SEO big time. Your site can fly up the ranks even if you post a blog every couple months or so. Here are some reasons why your blog can make a difference to your site traffic and ranking.

Fresh Content

One of the main things that search engines look for is fresh content. Your website’s pages probably don’t change that often. This is why a blog can make a world of difference. You will be steadily adding new, unique content at your own rate. When a search is performed by a user, search engines will pull the freshest and most relevant content to the top. Having regular updates and posts signals to search engines that a site is being active and updated regularly. This encourages them to crawl the site more often, which can lead to quicker indexing. By blogging, you put yourself out there as an expert in your specific field.

Popularity

Popularity

As your blog gets more traffic, it is constantly clicked on and shared. This will help it move up in search engine rankings. If you provide good, quality content, your readers will want to share it with others. How do you provide good, quality content? Be unique, provide answers, and share your blog as much as you can. Social media and backlinks will help spread the word and act as endorsements of your content if you’re offering quality information. With more popularity, you also get the attention of search engines, showing that your blog is offering trustworthy information, which people are gravitating towards. 

Backlinking

When other people link to your blog, that helps your ranking immensely. It creates an opportunity for getting pages indexed quicker. Search engines crawl backlinks for new content, which could improve your chances of getting indexed and more visible quickly. Make sure that you are linking with good quality sites; otherwise, Google will notice, and penalties will be applied. Use backlinks as a way to build relationships with similar companies; this will help you both provide different avenues for more people to discover the information. 

Backlinks

Social Media

If you connect your blog to social media like Facebook, Twitter, and other accounts, Google will notice and take that into account when ranking. It is a great way to drive traffic and feed the information to more people. Social media will also allow you to grow brand recognition and create a name for yourself.  Also, social media is a great way to get your company and business out there, especially for local SEO. Using social media and adding on local hashtags, locations, and other local businesses will open up more people to your posts. 

Indexed Pages

One of the most important reasons to have a blog is the fact that each post counts as a new page on your site. For Google to index a page, the page needs to be at least 300 words, preferably more. Reblogging, short posts, and duplicate content will not help when you want to boost your SEO.

Indexed Pages

For all these reasons and more, you can see how blogging helps SEO and is essential for ranking high in Google. According to Hubspot, having a blog will increase your website traffic by 55% to those sites that do not have a blog. This is why so many companies are starting blogs and posting their content.

Don’t have time? Have writer’s block?

Let us help you! Spectrum Net Designs can take care of your blog to help boost your SEO!

Give Us A Call Today!

Why Content Marketing is Important

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content marketing

Why Content Marketing Is Important!

You might be wondering, What is content marketing? Why have I never heard of this before?

Content Marketing isn’t a new idea, but it is an idea that has become popular throughout businesses and their marketing strategy. Content Marketing focuses on the content of posts rather than the number of times you post or how cool your post looks. What is written and being said in the post is clear and understandable, but also filled with necessary information.

So, technically, what is content marketing? The Content Marketing Institute defines it as follows,

“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

This definition is just a fancy way of saying that the content is more important. Instead of posting items to social media feeds haphazardly, you have a clear goal in mind that you want to achieve. Instead of writing a blog with no clear information, you write a blog with a purpose and goal in mind. Also, you have a specific audience. Who do you want to engage? Who do you want to entertain? This question can help your content be clear and meaningful.

Now you might be asking yourself, Okay, but why is content marketing important?

Content Marketing is important because it matters to consumers.

 Visitors and prospective buyers need good information before they make a purchase. It is easy in today’s day and age to compare prices and/or deals.

Content Marketing is important because it matters to search engines.

Google’s algorithm updates have rewarded good quality over quantity and bad quality. Up-to-date quality content is very important. Uploading fresh articles and updating existing content will help show search engines that you have a strong voice, and people will therefore continue to come to your page.

Also, Google tends to punish pages that look “spammy”. How does a page look spammy? Overloading content for optimization's sake. Always write for the reader and not the search engine.

Content Marketing is important because it matters to your business.

This strategy will help show your expertise, gain trust, help highlight important topics, and gain consumers and/or visitors. Now, it isn’t wise to just take this information and go at it. It is important to have a process. Here are 5 steps for a framework to get you started:

  1. Planning
  2. Audience
  3. Content Development
  4. Implement
  5. Monitor Results

Following this process and focusing on content can increase results in more than one way. Content Marketing is the way to give audiences what they want and look for on a site. Contact us today for help with all your marketing needs, whether it be social media, content, or search engine optimization!

The Local SEO Holiday Checklist

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Holiday Checklist for Local Listings

Tis’ the season! Are you ready? Now that the holiday season is rolling in, it is important to keep that seo holiday checklist in mind for local listings. Below, we have highlighted the main points to keep your SEO up-to-date, especially during the holiday season.

seo holiday

Search Engine’s and Accurate Company Information

Review Your Search Engine listings for your local clients. Here are a few you might be on. Don’t forget to add those special hours on top of your regular hours. Keep these updated because they are the main traffic for lead conversions. If these main search engines are not kept updated, your chance to capture your focus audience might be missed.

Google– Google+, MyBusiness account, YouTube and your Maps listing information
Bing – BingPlaces, Maps, and more
Do you have one of these accounts and don’t know how to recover them? Contact us, and we can help you!

Directory Sites Accurate Company Information

Review Your Listings on all your Local Sites.  Here are a few you might be on:

Yelp

Manta

Merchant Circle

FourSquare

CitySearch

Yellow Pages

Being up to date on these local sites will help local clients and future customers know your company’s information and how to get a hold of you. You can also share a little about your company. During the holidays, be sure to keep all these updated!

Let us help you create an account on these local sites!

 

Social Media Platforms Accurate Information

Review your social media accounts and make sure they are up to date. Being up to date with social media means posting regularly and knowing the ins and outs of social media use and marketing. Keep up with your followers and those following you. Even a “like” here and there can keep your account up to date. Here are a few social media sites you might be on:

Facebook

LinkedIn

Instagram

Pinterest

Need a social media account? Let us help you get started!

social media

Website is updated with holiday hours and contact information

It’s easy to forget about your website as the holiday season nears, but it is crucial to keep it updated. Many companies have fluctuating hours during the holiday season, the hours changing weekly. Even if the hours look crazy, keeping them updated will lessen frustration from customers and clients.

Make sure you are covered across the whole spectrum of the website. Don’t just focus on the “Contact Us” page, but check the footer, company information, internal landing pages, and more.

Contact us to update your account!

Holiday Posts ready for your audience

Don’t skip out on posts just because it’s the holidays! This is the perfect time to post, either on social media or a blog. Show clients and visitors new products you are selling, information about your company, or even wish them happy holidays. Every post is important, even if it is something small. Audiences are most active during the holiday season, so this is the time to advance your posts.

No Duplicate Directories or Accounts

Many people and companies forget either their passwords or what email they use. There can be a lot of confusion if one creates duplicate accounts. Questions like, What’s my password? and Which email did I use? can be frustrating. Do you know how to reset your password? We can help along the process of recovering your account! Contact us today!

Review Ready and Reputation Management Team in order

During the holiday season, many people take off work and have other people covering for them. This includes a reputation management team. People can be frustrated during the holidays and might leave some negative reviews. Examples include:

  • Return Policy for stores
  • Prices
  • Parking
  • Hours

Having a team ready to give thoughtful, respectful responses is quite important during the holiday season. Have the responses ready, even if no one has complained yet. Don’t leave reviews unattended. We strongly encourage someone to take care of that. Otherwise, frustration levels will rise.

Holiday Emails include holiday hours and correct social and directory links

Review your email signature and make sure it is up to date. Some companies have different holiday hours per person. Are the correct hours and links in the signature? Some people in the holidays have an automatic reply with information about the holiday hours. If this is something you’re interested in, make sure to include forward links to either a website or social media.

 This holiday checklist will ease the frustration of customers and help keep customer loyalty.

Make sure to cover all bases to have the best local SEO possible. If you need any help, contact us today and we will love to give you a hand!

Up Your Game for Everyday Social Media Design & Management

Posted on by spectrum-admin
social media design and management

Up Your Game for Everyday Social Media Design & Management

Do you need help managing, organizing, or need some creative inspiration for Social Media?

Social media is an important part of all businesses. It has become a way to engage customers and build a brand, among other things. Social media tools can help you out so much and make things easier. If you’re looking to increase engagement, keep updated on trends, and track performance? We can show you some tools to help you up your game for social media! These eight websites can be extremely helpful to make you a professional at social media.

Hootsuite

hootsuite

Hootsuite is a great scheduling and management tool. It is one of the most efficient tools to help pre-schedule your social media. You can also update and post to any social media page, whether that be Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, or Instagram, from the Hootsuite dashboard. It can be a full time job managing social media profiles, especially when there is more than one, and Hootsuite can be a huge help.

Bitly

bitly

Bitly can shorten the URL of any website. Why would you want this? If you have a social media account that counts characters per post, you want the shortest URL to fit in your post. Also, many people pre-judge a website based only on the URL. Can they understand what your site is about purely based on the URL? Is your URL confusing, filled with nonsense and unnecessary characters? Bitly is the place to go. Bitly makes the most out of online references. It is the best tool for optimization, helping your SEO as well as your clients.

ScreenShare

screenshare

Talking with clients can be a serious business, so instead of struggling to explain something on the computer, you can connect with customers on a personal level by sharing a screen. ScreenShare helps companies that must show processes on the computer screen or show how to do something. This helps gain a better understanding of the topic with a visual aid.

Buzzsumo

buzzsumo

Are you searching for popular content that you can post for a client or even yourself? Buzzsumo is the place to go to. This is not a management tool, but instead a tool to help find better writing/posting content. Key influencers have the most reliable content, and Buzzsumo gives you those key influencers. Buzzsumo analyzes what content performs best so that there is less testing for you.

Canva

canva

Canva is a graphic design tool for social media marketing campaigns. This is a great tool for those who are too busy or have little to no experience with graphic design. The tools from Canva are as follows: free-of-charge graphics, fonts, amazing software, etc. Canva also has designs for almost any type of document, including cards, logos, brochures, and even tickets.

Pexels/Pixabay

pexels

These websites, Pexels and Pixabay, have HD photos for free. They are creative commons, which means that you can do whatever you so desire with the pictures with no restrictions. Edit, manipulate, and use these HD pictures free of charge!

Edgerank Checker

edgerank

This website, Edgerank Checker, shows you how to know if your social media is working (getting traffic). It shows the algorithm for Facebook and therefore checks your page’s exposure within Facebook.

Rawshorts

rawshorts

This website, Rawshorts, is almost identical to the website Canva, but it is in video format. It is text and graphic based. Do you want a video to explain your company and its features? Rawshorts is the way to go. Easy to use and free of charge, even a beginner could use it!

All these websites can help you step up your game in social media, whether that be management of all your sites, organization, or creative inspiration and help. They all provide great tools for the busy, on-the-go worker. Step up your game and become an expert on social media management!

Providing All The Services You Will Ever Need

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Marketing Services

We Are Your All-In-One Service Provider in All Things Digital

Full-service, graphic identity and marketing collateral shop!

Spectrum Net Designs is your one-stop website development and creative firm that can start with your website design and development, then move
 on to provide all your printed graphics, from business cards, large yard signs, letterhead, brochures, and anything else you might need. Spectrum
can help you take the stress and time constraints out of website design with WordPress development and hundreds of plug-ins that can be customized for your business needs.

Contact us and chat with us today about your business needs.

23 Better Alternatives to the “Just Checking In” Email

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23 alternatives to just checking in

23 Better Alternatives to the “Just Checking In” Email

Email Marketing Strategy At It's Best

Written by Leslie Ye

“Just checking in” emails are the worst. If you’re sending an email, it’s obvious that you’re checking in — you don’t need to repeat it. In addition, “just checking in” emails don’t provide any value to the buyer. They don’t care that you want to get in touch with them, especially if you haven’t already provided them with a compelling reason to do so.

But salespeople often send “just checking in” emails because they’re so easy. It takes almost no thought or time to write some variation of, “Hi [Prospect], I haven’t heard back from you, so I wanted to check in. Cheers, [Salesperson].” (In fact, I timed that and it took 19 seconds for me to type.)

But the thing that makes “just checking in” emails so tempting to send — their ease — is the same reason they’re worthless: They’re easy to write because they don’t provide any value to your buyer. If they never responded to your first email, chances are they didn’t feel it was worth their time. Why would you reinforce that impression by wasting their time even more?

Of course, this doesn’t mean you should stop following up with prospects — just that you put slightly more effort into it. Below are 23 things to reference in a follow-up email besides the obvious fact that you’re checking in.

23 Email Subjects That Are Better Than "Just Checking In"

If they never responded:

  1. Send them a short piece of actionable advice
  2. Send over a longer how-to guide and offer to follow up in person if they want
  3. Point out a weakness in their business that should be fixed
  4. Share an article relevant to their industry or profession
  5. Respond to a social message, then follow up with more resources
  6. Answer one of their questions on an online forum, then follow up with more resources
  7. Reference a relevant blog post they just published
  8. Send them a blog post your company has just published
  9. Recommend an event in their area
  10. Invite them to an upcoming webinar or educational event your company is hosting
  11. Send them a link to relevant press coverage of one of your highest-profile customers
  12. Call attention to something their competitor is doing well and ask how they plan to address it
  13. Bring up a common challenge your buyers face and ask if they’re experiencing it
  14. Send a, “Did this email get buried?” email
  15. Ask if they’re still interested in achieving X goal, then provide a suggestion for how to get there
  16. Send a breakup email to close the loop

If any of these trigger events occur:

  1. Congratulate a potential decision maker on a promotion: A former champion could now influence a purchase decision.
  2. Reach out to a decision maker after a blocker leaves the company: The road may be clearer for you to make a sale.
  3. Reach out to a new C-level executive: High-level changes can indicate a change in strategy.
  4. Congratulate them on a funding round: More resources usually means growth, and growth means addressing priorities that weren’t previously top-of-mind.
  5. Ask whether newly created positions relevant to your product reflect new company initiatives: Strategic shifts indicate changing needs.

If you lost the deal:

  1. Check how things are going a month after implementing a competitor’s product.
  2. Check how things are going as their contract with a competitor is winding down

Bonus: 6 Times You Should Send a "Just Checking In" Email

Of course, every rule has an exception. If you’ve already started a sales process, many scenarios could warrant a “just checking in” email. Usually, however, these scenarios have two things in common:

  • Your prospect made a commitment to do something and hasn’t done it, or has gone dark.
  • An email or call following up on any of these situations should presumably be focused on that missed commitment — it’s not just a generic check-in.

Any or all of the following situations all but necessitate a “just checking in” call or email:

  1. If they told you to reach back out in X days/weeks/months
  2. If they went dark after a call
  3. If they didn’t show up to a scheduled call
  4. If they told you they needed a few days to make an internal evaluation, then went dark
  5. If they committed to signing a contract and didn’t
  6. If they started a product trial, but you haven’t heard back on their progress

Did you like this article? Check out the “Just Checking In” Blog on HubSpot

How to Write Blogs for Marketing (and Readers)

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“Blogging is good for your career.  Well-executed blogs set you apart as an expert in your field.” — Penelope Trunk

Martin Woods | March 02, 2017 | www.semrush.com

The challenge many blog writers face is that they want to write a blog that their clients will love and that also markets their company. The problem is that clients are worn out by constant advertising.  It’s everywhere; it’s on billboards, the radio, the TV, the internet.

If you advertise a product or service in your blog, particularly excessively, odds are that you’ll alienate your clients and, over time, your SEO or brand may suffer too.

Some blog authors, therefore, adopt a policy of not discussing their product or service on their blog. The problem with this approach is that the blog is unlikely to achieve the company’s overall goals, which presumably will include selling something! There’s also the risk that your blog can become irrelevant to your actual business, meaning that visitors are unlikely to associate your product with your blog.

There is a way to write a blog that both markets your product or service AND that readers will love. Simply follow the 5 rules below.

Rule #1 – Remember the objectives of your blog

“Blogging is good for your career. A well-executed blog sets you apart as an expert in your field.”

— Penelope Trunk

The first thing to remember is that even if a business blog fits firmly in the role of ‘content marketing,’ its primary purpose isn’t sales.  Instead, the best blogs will:

  • Provide useful information and a unique angle, helping you establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry.
  • Show that you care about your customers, making your brand more trustworthy and respected.
  • Help generate links to your site that will give an SEO benefit to not only the page linked to, but your site as a whole.

Rule #2 – Be abundant

The internet is full of people selling stuff. To really stand out, you have to offer information in an abundant, honest, and useful way. Be willing to really go the extra mile to help your readers, recommend non-competing resources that solve related problems, share your experience, and give, give, give.

This recommendation isn’t based on a personal development ethos, though it will certainly make you feel great while blogging. It’s based on solid research.  All bloggers have to decide whether to write short blogs often or longer blogs less frequently, whether they’re writing a personal blog or a blog for a company. Most people assume that publishing a new post every day, or perhaps every week, will get them better results than if they just post once a month. If your posts are of the same quality, either way, this will inevitably be true.

The reality is that if you’re writing 2,000-word blog posts that are thoroughly researched and engaging, it’s going to take a lot longer than writing 500-word blog posts, particularly if you’re putting more effort in and creating higher quality blogs.

Luckily, a whole bunch of research has been done on this subject! Backlinko analyzed a million search results on Google and found that those webpages on Google’s first page of search results have an average of 1,890 words. A study of over a thousand bloggers by Orbit Media found that bloggers who spend the longest on their blogs and write over 1,500 words per post are the most likely to experience a high level of success, yet only 1 in 20 bloggers write posts over 1,500 words as standard!

“Most bloggers publish WAY too often. The fact is, no one cares how often or how consistently you publish blog posts. The only consistency that matters is quality: if you bat 1.000 with quality, you don’t need to worry about frequency.”

— Brian Dean, Backlinko

In 2017, for readers to love your blog enough to share it spontaneously and for Google to see it as an authoritative source of information, fewer, more in-depth, higher quality pages work far better than many pages that are churned out to meet an arbitrary deadline that you’ve set for yourself.

Rule #3 – Offer something new

Over time, blogs that have a higher Click Through Rate and that visitors are more likely to share, like, and read to the end will gradually rise in Google’s search results and will start to receive more visitors because of this.  This takes time, particularly for new websites; however, for long-term success, you need to offer something that captivates readers’ attention and that doesn’t just replicate information that’s already out there.

Here are 15 ideas for ways to generate original blogs to get you started:

  1. Create an original infographic
  2. Share a success story of one of your clients and promote that client for free at the same time.
  3. Present an in-depth case study of one possible solution.
  4. Interview experts in the industry and make recommendations on the combined intelligence of a group of experts.
  5. Compare different products with a real test or with customer evaluations and objectively advise which is best.
  6. Create a video for your blog, or embed someone else’s video and talk about it.
  7. Find what questions customers ask and answer one of them in detail.
  8. Look at blogs in non-competing industries and draw inspiration for the overall approach from them.
  9. Analyze your competitor’s top landing pages, and if you find pages that receive lots of traffic that you feel you could write something even better for, write about it.
  10. Interview with your team.
  11. Write an opinion piece on what you predict for the future of your industry.
  12. Invite an expert to contribute a guest post to your blog.
  13. Add a humorous piece on how someone’s used your product or service in a strange way, how cats would use it, etc.
  14. Add a competition (these work best if you’ve already got a reasonable flow of traffic to your site).
  15. Do some keyword research and look for questions that appear in the keyword results. If a keyword like “how do I …” appears, it’s worth targeting.

Rule #4 – Know when to use your blog for marketing

So, we’ve established that the primary purpose of your blog is to build trust, strengthen your brand, and generate 100% organic links to your site that you don’t even need to ask for.  Are there any times when you can use blatant marketing?

The answer is ‘yes.’  In each blog post, it’s fine to include 1 or 2 links to product or service pages on your website with a short description of them. This often happens naturally as you’re writing; alternatively, you can mention it at the end of a blog post, and no one will hold it against you. Typically, for most of your posts, this is the only time you’ll need to mention your product.

There are three types of blog post that lend themselves more to marketing:

  1. Product releases – If you’ve launched a new product, then it’s fine to tell your readers about it!
  2. Events – If you’ve hosted an event or been to an event (or perhaps are going to the event), give readers a news update about it.
  3. Other updates – If you have a large, already established brand, or a reasonably sized fan base (I’ll let you decide how many people this needs to be, but certainly more than your mother and your best friend), then they’re likely to be more interested in what you’re doing, therefore it would be natural to include more details of what’s happening within your company, pending product launches, new hires, etc.

Rule #5 – Blog for your customers, not for you

“The currency of blogging is authenticity and trust.”

— Jason Calacanis

To determine the balance of blog posts focusing on your company and more educational blog posts, ask yourself what do your customers want?

In some industries (music and art, for example) it’s highly likely that your readers are extremely interested in what you’re doing, who you’ve met, the latest trends, etc. A blog that’s focused on you or your company is exactly what your readers are likely to be looking for.

In other industries (like manufacturing or an e-commerce store), visitors are often much more interested in how to solve a problem that your product just happens to fix.  In this case, focus on writing blogs that provide solutions to their problems.

Putting it into practice

Start by making a firm commitment to write in-depth blog posts filled with interesting and engaging content.  Ask what questions your customers have that you are ideally suited to answer, or what problems you can solve, and start blogging from there.

For more details on identifying your target audience and how to structure each blog post, read Indigoextra’s guide on writing a business blog.

Content marketing of any sort takes time; however, the long-term rewards of creating a high-quality, in-depth blog are substantial. In 2017 and beyond, as both your readers and Google get smarter, focusing on quality, abundance, and depth in your blog really is the only way forward.

What is your current blog strategy? How often do you publish?

How do Colors Affect E-Commerce Purchases with Online Shoppers

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Do you know how colors affect your purchases?

Colors are everywhere, and the colors you choose for your brand will either make or break your image. For retailers, selling is the art of persuasion.  Online shoppers are there to buy and be done, not run from store to store looking around.  They know what they want and are determined to buy now.   Many factors influence how and what consumers buy online.  A large part of every decision is based on visual cues, and the strongest and most persuasive is color.

Color and North American Consumers

Color is one of the most powerful methods of design.  However, it is not entirely universal.  The colors that entice in North America are different from those that entice in India.

Other Influences

Color is not the only item that influences consumer behavior.  For online shoppers, design, buzzwords, and convenience affect their need to shop.

Overall Design

For many online shoppers, poor website navigability and poor overall design are the reasons they choose not to purchase from a particular website.

Element of Time

Speed, efficiency, and convenience are some of the many reasons shoppers are turning to the internet retailers.  Having a website that runs even five seconds slower than your competitors could mean a huge economic loss.