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12 Biggest Content and Web Design Mistakes Marketers Make During a Website Redesign

MARCH 4, 2020

Bet y’all didn’t know the average lifespan of a website is 2 years and 7 months. The things ya learn. Orbit Media is bringing to light the most common content marketing mistakes seen in website projects.

We have 12 points to get through so we are jumping right in!

1. Don’t Design without regard to functionality and development. An effective website has the ability to

- Rank in search and nudge your visitors toward desired actions
- Seamless functionality and data processing across platforms
- Manage your website post-launch with the ease and flexibility
- Be mobile-friendly
- Bring in target audience traffic and convert potential customers

2. Do check and preserve existing page rankings. Take note of what your website currently ranks for and page performance. Use tools like Ubersuggest, Moz, or SEMRush. Then communicate that info with your content and dev teams to preserve rankings, especially if the URLs change.

3. Do trash underperforming content. Get rid of outdated, under-performing content to eliminate wasting time replicating lame content, and offer only the highest quality content for visitors in your new site.

4. Don’t work on design and copy separately. Design and content (copy) need to be a collaborative effort. For example, long-form blog content may perform better in search, however, core web pages favor punchy copy broken up with visuals. Keep that in mind when planning your content mix and appropriate layouts for pages your site.

5. Don’t underestimate stakeholder input, timelines, and revision rounds. A new website takes seriously serious collaboration. Establish clear goals and a project manager to coordinate the process and adhere to a timeline and budget.

6. Don’t ignore metadata. Every page should have a title, meta description for SEO. This way you’ll rank in search for your target terms and can help convert a searcher to a site visitor.

Okay, so we got through half of the tips from Orbit Media. You know what to do to get the rest!

10 Instagram Best Practices You Should Be Following in 2020

MARCH 2, 2020

Y’all made the decision and now we’re going to deliver the goods! Hootsuite rounded up 10 best practices for Instagram to take your efforts to the next level on the photo platform.

Establish your business profile. And double down on what works to drive engagement, traffic, and sales with benefits like:
- Call-to-action buttons
- Certify your authenticity with a verification badge
- Access real-time data showing organic content performance
- Launch and track ad campaigns
Give your Instagram bio the attention it deserves. Capture the essence of your brand: who you are, what you offer, and why you’re different in 150 characters or less. Keep it basic or promote contests, deals, product launches, and more.
Make it easy to do business with you. The unique option for Instagram is diving into Shoppable Content or add an action button to your business profile.
Don’t let your creative get stale. Experiment with post types, media profiles, and editing tools to freshen-up your content.
- Survey your followers.
- Go behind the scenes, demo products, or walk users through tutorials.
- Share your take on an important topic, or share your followers’ content.
- Tell stories that amaze or inspire.
- Experiment with video enhancement features – stickers, templates, gifs, etc – like the Create interface in your Stories camera
Put the powerful engagement tool, Stories, to use.
- Aim for the unconventional with filters and drawing tools as well as video editing tools such as Boomerang and Hyperlapse.
- Lean into that 24-hour limit by making an offer or invite so irresistible, people will be afraid to miss out on it.
- Don’t neglect sound and treat viewers to a multisensory experience

Get 5 more practices from Hootsuite by clicking through!

6 Critical Components of Captivating Content

MARCH 1, 2020

When you think of copywriting one of the more important questions to keep in mind is this: How can I get more traffic to my site?

The thing is there are hundreds of thousands of content roaming the world wide web begging for consumer attention just like you.

The good news? Copywriting is all about gaining the right attention from the right folks. CopyBlogger is sharing copywriting formulas to cut the clutter and create a thoughtful, well-designed path. Let’s break down those formulas!

Original Persuasion Formulas

“Attention — Interest — Desire — Action” or “Problem — Agitate — Solve”

AIDA is an old as time formula that focuses on a beneficial promise (attention), the ongoing momentum (interest), a stirring emotion (desire), and expressly asking the reader to do something (action).

PAS, on the other hand, starts with a compelling audience problem, slides deeper and deeper into the issue, and shows how the business solves said problem.

A Formula for the Middle

This is all about offering value generously to nurture your audience in the “middle” of your content strategy.

Peak interest by teaching readers how to do things
Show who you are and what you believe
Let your audience dip their toes in the water with small, low-risk commitments

CopyBlogger’s New Persuasion Formula, ECUBED

“Empathize — Connect — Useful — Beliefs — Engage — Deliver”

Empathize with your audience based on the things they care about.
Connect with your audience by getting to a level of shared values
Useful content is giving your audience value that will actually address their problems
Beliefs are key in aiding your audience to go further
Engagement as a form of measurement will give you insight on your content effectiveness
Deliver value over time with fresh content that encourage your audience to keep coming back

Integrate PPC and SEO Together to Achieve Higher Online Marketing ROI

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

Formula of the day: PPC + SEO = SEM

Two different strategies, together Pay-per-Click and Search Engine Optimization make up Search Engine Marketing. These two are the peanut butter and jelly of the marketing world. Quite the natural pairing. And the topic y’all voted to learn more about.

How PPC and SEO gets its muse is a little more advanced. Don’t worry, though, Visture is going to help us get to that advanced status.

First, Let’s Learn Why.

Leverage valuable data to the fullest
Close keyword gaps
Improve customer experience
Conquer the competition

Making PPC & SEO Work Together

Use PPC keyword data to capitalize on SEO efforts. If you’re actively advertising on Google, you have the ability to see which keywords convert searchers into customers. Grab best performing keywords from paid ads and optimize product, landing, or other vital pages.
Alternatively, SEO data can reduce PPC expenses. For those keywords that are too expensive, put extra effort into getting them ranking organically. You can also identify high-performing long-tail keywords as well as use search traffic location for targeting purposes.
Learn to craft ads that match content. Your goal with SEO is to create a landing page that converts visitors to buyers. PPC is all about creating an ad that closely matches the headlines and content of that landing page.
PPC can play a role in the long game of content marketing. Deploy ads to promote content and build brand awareness and you can learn which products are most popular or the demographics that are most interested.

There’s a lot left to learn from this article. If you’re looking to combine your PPC and SEO then we recommend diving deeper into this one.

12 SEO Best Practices That Everyone Should Follow

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

Yesterday, we asked about the marketing topic you wanted to learn about most. The majority of you voted for Search Engine Optimization. And our hunt began.

Ahref’s rounded up 12 best practices to get you on the right track with SEO. Put on your learning caps, folks!

1. Use HTTPS to make pages on your site more secure by encrypting information sent between the visitor and server. Not sure if your site is already using HTTPS? Check the loading bar in your browser, if there’s a lock icon before the URL, you’re good.

2. Don’t let page speed be the reason people bounce from your site. Learn how your pages are performing by using Google’s Pagespeed Insights tool. Plug in your URL, get a score, and read up on improvement advice.

3. Keyword research is a critical component of SEO. Yes, search volume is a reasonable indicator of traffic potential, but it’s a tad misleading. Make sure to check estimated traffic to the pages that rank to get a better idea of true search traffic potential.

6. Place your target keyword in three places: Title Tag – demonstrate to searchers that your page offers what they want; Heading (H1) – every page should have a visible H1 heading on the page; and URL – mostly cause Google recommends it and it makes sense.

9. Help Google understand your images. You can compress images to ensure fast-loading pages, add alt tags, and use descriptive filenames.

10. Write thorough blogging content to rank for more queries. Cover relevant subtopics that people are also searching for by looking for relevant keywords on the top-ranking pages, take a peek at the “People Also Ask” results, or use Ahrefs’ Content Gap tool.

We jumped around a bit, so click through to get the remaining SEO practices!

How Brands Are Using User Generated Content to Drive Sales — And How You Can Too

FEBRUARY 25, 2020

For brands that want to keep their marketing efforts lean without sacrificing content quality and customer engagement, there’s User-Generated Content (UGC).

UGC is an extremely powerful way to let your customers be your brand ambassadors. So powerful, in fact, that consumers are 2.4 times more likely to view UGC as authentic compared to content created by brands.

Acadium is giving us the down-low on how brands should use UGC. Let’s take a look.

How to use UGC

Encourage Authenticity – Rather than filling feeds with touched-up meticulously crafted photos, promote what others are posting to enable more people to see your products in the real world.
Build Trust – Display your products in a no-frills way. UGC allows people to get a taste of what your product is while limiting the potential for customers to feel misled by what you say you’re offering vs. what they’re actually getting.

How to foster UGC

Give Early Access – Partner with micro-influencers and offer an exclusive first look at a new product or feature you’re offering. This can build excitement amongst their followers and lead to more sales.
Create incentives – Contests are a great way to grow your followers and encourage people to share your brand within their own networks. Even offering a small freebie or a coupon code can go a long way.
Be authentic yourself – Reach out to active UGC creators and let them know that you appreciate what they’re doing. Keep an authentic positive image so that people feel good about your brand and the fact that they promote it.

Key Takeaway – 92% of consumers trust word of mouth more than any kind of advertising. It’s certainly worth making the extra effort to mobilize your audience and promote what they’re sharing in order to drive more sales.

Start Identifying Your Brand Values by Answering These 6 Questions

FEBRUARY 24, 2020

Believe us, your customers are watching, listening, and paying much more attention than given credit. Buyer behavior stems from emotion. It’s time to tap into that emotion and be clear on what you stand for.

So what do you stand for? Ya know, the values that make your business an identifiable brand. For example. Marketing software, Wistia believes in long-term company thinking, creativity, presentation, and simplicity.

Ready to align your business with meaningful values? Wistia came up with the questions you need to ask to get your brand values in order.

Two questions to ask your customers:

Why did you choose us? Take note of the main reason why your people resonate and choose your brand in the first place.
How would you describe our brand if it was a person? Getting customers to describe your brand as a person in their life will clarify your brand’s attributes that resonate with them the most.

Two questions to ask yourself, or the owner:

Why did you start this company? Unpassionate entrepreneurs aren’t a thing. Be honest with yourself, there was a problem that you set to solve.
What do you value the most, personally? Understand the personal values of your business as a whole. This includes yourself as an owner and the folks who work with you.

Two questions to ask your co-workers:

Why did you join our organization? Find out why your employees chose to work for you. Then compare their answers to your own plus the feedback you’ve received from customers.
Why have you stayed here? Harvard Business Review supported the notion that when values align, then satisfaction, comfort, and productivity in the workplace increases, which means employees stay longer.

Get the full story – you know what to do!

6 Effective Tips to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment

FEBRUARY 19, 2020

Have you experienced FOMOOD? Ya know, fear of missing out on data. Countless marketing professionals suffer from FOMOOD during campaigns or even the buying process.

Okay, okay. FOMOOD isn’t catchy enough to be a real thing. But it should be, and you heard it here first, remember that!

Would you agree that 90% of a marketer’s decision relies on data? And it makes sense for us to want to collect as much info as possible at any turn. That thought process isn’t always beneficial, especially if it clouds user experience.

Search Engine Journal’s latest article discusses the top ways to reduce shopping cart abandonment. And honestly, the overall message is to simmer down on the data and make the process so simple caveman could do it.

Use the Best Technology Possible. Understand how your site functions – do you need dev help, something custom, restrictions to note, etc – while looking at the strengths and weaknesses of e-commerce platforms.
Be Consistent with Pricing & Costs. SEJ said it best, “The earliest you can show the subtotal and total with all fees like tax and shipping included, the better.” Be open about promo codes or put price details in a sidebar. Just take the mystery out of buying.
Making Shipping Options & Costs Clear & Simple. Sure, shipping gets complex for any business. Keep clarity and accuracy in mind. Communicate your shipping policies and pricing earlier on if possible.
Streamline & Optimize Form Fields. It’s not relevant to learn that Rachel Karen Green was born on May 5th, 1969 for her to buy a pair of pants. Useful data during check out is learning what form field or page is causing abandonment.

Two more tips left, plus a bonus!😲

The 5 Essential Digital Marketing Skills You Need (& How to Get Them!)

FEBRUARY 18, 2020

How would you define marketing? Some call it a sales tactic. Others may see it as a pain in the you know what… kidding, kidding.

See our friends from WordStream believe marketing is all about making connections with individuals. And we whole-heartedly agree. But marketing doesn’t just work from belief. There are several skillsets to master to become an expert in the field. And well, y’all should know we’re all about learning.

A recent article from WordStream covers five digital marketing skills that are crucial for success in today’s landscape. Let’s get going:

Copywriting. It’s about creating materials that aren’t just promotion, but also to capture attention, communicate value, and inspire action with a limited number of words and space.
Search Engine Optimization. People use search engines to make confident purchasing decisions. And understanding SEO is crucial to get your business to appear for relevant searches.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising. It offers visibility at the top of search engines, on social media, on apps and so on. But it comes with a learning curve with budget management, keyword research, target marketing among others.
Email. A consistently effective and versatile strategy, email marketing can convert leads, engage dormant customers, build loyalty, and more. But we probs don’t have to remind you about the power of list building.

Get resources to different tools/courses and amp up each of these skills. Plus, learn about one more that can help you beef up your marketing chops. Click through, folks!