There is so much discussion about improving your website’s position on SERP (Search Engine Results Page), most of it is related to the social media that surrounds your website; what I call your “web-presence” vs your “web-identity” (website).

A very thorough Report from Raven Tools outlines very common mistakes made by businesses as it relates to their website’s on-page SEO.  They analyzed over 4 billion on-page SEO issues among 200 million page crawls form February 2013 to June 2015.

It is amazing that the most common issues of on-page SEO are considered “images issues” because there is so much emphasis on incorporating imagery into web content but marketers do seem to do it wrong.    Simple mistakes like not incorporating keywords in image “title attributes” (Top-5 list below).  There are over 1 BILLION page views per day on Google Image Search; so, web users are telling everyone how important images are.

The 5 Most Common On-Page SEO Issues

1.      Images with Missing “Title Attributes”

2.      Images with Missing “Alt Attributes”

3.      Links with No Anchor Text

4.      Meta Descriptions that are Missing or the Wrong Length

5.      Pages with Duplicate Content

It doesn’t take much to correct these most common on-page SEO issues.  Review your websites and make any necessary changes.  Be sure to measure your web analytics prior to making the changes because you will see an impactful change in web metrics after you make the change.

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The short answer, generally speaking, is every 2-3 years is a good time to consider a website redesign depending on the industry you are in; technology and market-forces change so, your business needs to adapt.

However, to me, the question isn’t so much “when is it a good time to redesign my company’s website?” but rather, “why do I want to redesign my company’s website?” The response to this question really determines whether a redesign is necessary. Perhaps your company is expanding? Offering a new product or service? Refining your brand?

Ultimately, the response I look for to this question is that your company wants to grow and it is looking to the web as a channel for growth – there are over 3 Billion searches online per day, why wouldn’t your business put more attention to your website strategy?

Before You Write a Website Redesign Proposal – Consider The Following

When creating a website redesign proposal, it is critical to consider the following 10 points before you even create a draft:

1. Document Current Website Stats
It is important to benchmark the current metrics of your website to be able to measure your new strategy against. This is assuming you already have an analytics tool; if you don’t, it is absolutely imperative that you install one! Be sure to capture metrics like page views, unique visitors, visits, sales leads generated.

2. Goals
Your website is a marketing channel. Like every other marketing channel in your strategy, you must define a goal so that you can create a plan to achieve those goals and support your company’s growth or marketing strategy. For example, perhaps you want a certain number of newsletter sign-ups; downloads for specific content. This forces you to keep your site dynamic rather than creating it and letting it settle with no purpose. You could even identify these goals in the website redesign proposal.

3. Traffic Sources
If you can identify which channels are driving traffic to your company’s website and which aren’t, you can re-allocate budget and resources to improving and/or leveraging those channels. Consider what social media is doing for you? Search Marketing: organic vs paid? Event marketing: are site visits increasing after you exhibit at tradeshows? These answers will identify where to put your marketing dollars.

4. Analyze the Competition
Never get distracted by your competitors but always know what they are “up-to”. Identify what you like or don’t like on their website; this will help you determine what you can do better. In your website redesign proposal, you could identify these competitors as a point of reference for any functionality and design inspiration.

5. Value proposition
The success of your marketing strategy hinges on how clear your value proposition is to your target market; including your website. Your value proposition is not a mission statement or an about-us statement or a list of features. It is a statement that describes the value your business is creating for your target market. This should be up front and centre in your website redesign proposal because it will give the web development company a clear direction of your business and allow them to translate it into a website design vision.

6. Website Design
The design of your website should always be catered towards your target market(s). The TM’s should already be defined in your overall marketing strategy; if not, this is critical. When they are defined, you will understand what imagery resonates with them; colours; content. Any reference in your website redesign proposal of creative concepts or ideas is always helpful as it provides some depiction of your own creative ideas.

7. Design for Mobile
With the popularity of mobile devices increasing (i.e. tablets, smartphones), your company’s website should be viewable on these devices, no matter what size. Otherwise, you risk losing a site visitor because you’ve frustrated them by not making it easy for them to read and view your content.

8. Optimize for Search
Organic search and paid search are becoming important tools in the marketing toolbox. Optimizing your website for search starts with a keyword strategy. A keyword strategy is driven by understanding your target market – how are they searching for your product or service? Long-tail search? Questions? Words? Get this right and you’ll see your site visitor metrics go through the roof!

9. Call to Action
No marketing vehicle is successful without an outstanding call-to-action, including web. What is it that you want the site visitor to do when they arrive at your website? Download something? Purchase something? Call someone? There are many generic CTA’s that you can include but there can also be specific CTA’s based on your business and industry. If you understand your target market, you will be able to create a CTA that attracts them.

10. Ongoing Content Strategy
The last thing you want to do is spend all this time and money to build a website, launch it with all this hype and then ignore it for another 3 years. An ongoing content strategy is imperative to keep your website fresh and to illustrate to site visitors this company is active and alive! It is important to identify in the website redesign proposal whether or not you require the web development company to carry-on work after the website is launched, it will give you a better understanding of ongoing costs.

A website redesign proposal does not have to be to lengthy, it just has to be descriptive and clear. The more time you dedicate towards planning a redesign, the less chance there is for cost-overruns, delays and misunderstandings.

The post Before You Write a Website Redesign Proposal appeared first on GIANT Marketing Solutions.

Writing content isn’t easy for many people. Content marketing ideas are a common question that I deal with as it pertains to building a web strategy for small business owners. So, I thought, I’d share some of my insight on how to plan and create content marketing ideas for your small business website strategy. Remember, write content for the audience first, SEO second. This is what Hummingbird is all about.

Content Marketing Ideas for Small Business

Current Events

Are there any related news items or current events that you could relate to or integrate into your products or services? For instance, the Federal Government is working on a trade agreement with the European Union, can you talk about this “news” in any way that relates to what your company does? Perhaps you can explain to your customers how this might impact them or the industry.

Ask
Talk to your customers. What better or relevant content ideas for your website than to find out what your customers want to know about. Of course, there is a risk: you might not want to hear what they are saying but it will certainly prove to be valuable. You can do it advertently (surveys) or inadvertently through casual conversation. Conversation, in fact, is much better because through dialogue you’ll reveal more than a closed ended survey.

Youtube
Youtube is a great source for content marketing ideas. Use search terms that relate to your business and see what sort of videos come up. Watch them and let the visual component of this medium stimulate ideas rather than just reading words and articles. Also, perhaps there are some fun videos that are not related at all to your business but if you can find a way to relate a funny (or even viral video) to your business and draw some metaphor to illustrate a point, that will be golden. Besides, now you can justify spending all that time on Youtube!

Collaborate
People certainly love to give opinions; I’m sure you do too! Content marketing ideas are everywhere on sites like Linked IN or Quora. Post a question in a Linked IN Group you are a part of and see what type of responses you get. This doesn’t require you to spend hours on social media but you will certainly get ideas on what others in the industry are thinking regarding your question or idea.

Content marketing ideas are hard to come by because business owners and marketers are often focused on other tasks. For your web strategy to be successful, it starts with content.

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Is there value in creating a mobile app for your business? Sure there is. (I’ve outlined two key benefits below for developing a mobile app.) The tougher question is, does your business need a mobile app?

Before I dive into this question, let me clarify a common misunderstanding that surrounds mobile apps, specifically, as it relates to mobile responsive website design. Put simply, these are two different strategies.

It goes without saying in today’s marketplace, a mobile responsive website design is a must for a good start to any mobile marketing strategy, but it’s not a replacement for a mobile app. Each serves a different purpose. A mobile app (or native app) is an application specifically designed for a particular device or platform (e.g. Apple iOS, Android, BlackBerry). Mobile apps offer users far more flexibility and features than a mobile responsive website, it serves a specific purpose.  For instance, GO Transit (a regional transportation system in Greater Toronto) has an app for their train schedule.

Does My Business Need a Mobile App?

Ask yourself (and leadership team), what can a mobile app do for my business? By simply asking this question you are on the right track; to ignore it, is bad-business acumen. So what’s the answer? Well, it depends on several factors.  In my experience, if you consider the following, you will begin to come up with the right answer for your business.

First, mobile apps (notwithstanding gaming apps) are about the flow or exchange of relevant, timely and useful information. Keeping this in mind, identify what information you have in your possession today that could benefit your existing customers; talk to them and find out what information they want in order to keep them engaged with your business. For example, Rogers Mobile has an app (myRogers) that identifies your account usage – data and voice; almost real time.

Second, if you consider potential customers, determine that piece of information that would lead them to a purchasing decision. For example, if you are a wine producer; you could have an app that provides dinner recipes to users. This app could also suggest wine pairings with different meals (like your brand of wines!)

Remember an app is an extension of your business; it should engage and solve a problem for your target market, easily and quickly. They may not even know the problem exists but if you identify it for them, you will win brand-loyalty.

As I’ve mentioned there are other factors but if you and your team address the above, you will at least answer begin to answer the question, does my business need a mobile app.

SPOILER ALERT: You need to be extremely aware that the information you want to provide has to be either readily available or can be obtained fairly easy (internal or external). Otherwise, costs for mobile app development will increase if the information/data needs to be generated from scratch.

Benefits of a Mobile App

Here are two benefits that stand out for me as to why you should ask yourself the question: what can a mobile app do for my business?

Brand Loyalty

Making it easier for your customer (or prospective customer) to engage with your business in a simpler, more efficient way is always a positive step towards creating brand loyalty. Think of Kraft’s iFood Assistant app, it provides easy recipes for the user. By doing this, Kraft provides great meals and a happy culinary experience for the user while marketing and promoting Kraft products; building trust and brand loyalty.

Marketing Touch-Point

It is a great touch-point for marketing other products or services. If the user has downloaded your app – one of two things just happened.  (1) They are telling you  they are an existing customer, so,  you can keep in-touch with them staying top-of-mind.  (2) They are not a customer but they are interested in what you are offering (information or product), so, you have a chance to engage and build trust with them.

Don’t just develop a mobile app for the sake of it with no marketing plan surrounding it.  However, don’t ignore the question because your business could be missing a great opportunity.

The post What Can a Mobile App Do For My Business? appeared first on GIANT Marketing Solutions.

What is Mobile Responsive Website Design?

A website that is designed to display the content and/or layout of the site automatically, adjusting to the screen size it is presented on (i.e. “responds” to the device). The mobile device market is ever changing; at this point (debatable), the four typical types of screens that responsive sites adjust to are: desktop, laptop, tablet, and smartphone.

Although it is becoming more mainstream now, I’ve been talking about mobile responsive website design for about 18 months. We live in an instantaneous society, so consumers want information to help them make purchasing decisions; and they want it now. According to Google, 84% of people search online before they make a buying decision.  With the increased use of mobile devices and a consumer dependency of searching online before purchasing… this is as simple as 1+1.

If you are still thinking about it, mobile responsive website design has to become a priority for your business’s web strategy if your business wants to capitalize early on a trend that IS NOT going anywhere.

Benefits of Mobile Responsive Website Design

There will be a growing list of benefits as the technology evolves and usage increases. At this point in time, there are three key benefits of mobile responsive website design that I believe are important to share:

Easy Management
All you need to do is manage one content management system and all of your changes will be reflected across all the types of screens. This is very efficient for businesses that have limited resources and budget.

Growth Opportunities
Take advantage of consumer behaviour trends. Consumers ARE searching for your service or product (3 billion online searches per day), get found when THEY want to find you.

User Experience
If you have a mobile device right now, go to www.thebay.com. (At the time of this post), try to navigate on this website and find “mens shoes”. First, how do your eyes feel (from all the squinting)? How difficult is it to find “mens shoes”? The nav menu is unreadable? When you do get to men’s shoes, how long is it taking to load the page? Let’s make this simpler, try and find a location nearest to you? Are you having fun yet? I’d be surprised if you lasted 15 seconds! Bad experience equals NO SALES, period. Give your prospect a pleasant experience on the “front-line” and you will see results.

Infographic on Mobile Responsive Design

For more explanation on mobile responsive website design, Take a look at this INFOGRAPHIC.

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Should I blog on my WordPress website or separate from my website?

It depends on what the objective of your blog is.

Consider this…
Your blog should be ON your website if:
1) Your main purpose of blogging is for SEO purposes.  Blogging helps drives traffic to your website because it is a place you can give personality and a different perspective of your brand.  Blogging frequently tells Google you have fresh and relevant content which is something Google really likes.
2) Your starting up and new to the blogosphere.  Starting a blog is like starting a new brand.  Making the blog an extension of your existing brand and website will make it easier for you to connect customers.  Your existing brand will give your blog some credibility.

For a small business website, the primary reason your blog should be OFF your website is if:
You plan to blog about topics that our outside the realm of your primary website; basically that doesn’t have anything to do with your business.

For a small business marketing plan and for a strong small business website strategy, the best approach is to have your blog ON your website because it is an inexpensive SEO (search engine optimization) strategy to drive traffic to your business’ website.

What’s great about WordPress CMS (what I recommend) is that the blogging platform already exists within WordPress; so, if you’re building a new small business website or redesigning an old small business website, use WordPress because it satisfies both your need for a strong blogging platform and an exceptional small business website content management system.

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What is Google AdWords?

Google AdWords is Google’s advertising system in which advertisers bid on certain keywords in order for their “clickable” ads to appear in Google’s search results.

Does AdWords Work?

It all depends on your keyword strategy.  Specifically, the competitiveness of these keywords you’re bidding for and the relevancy of the keyword for your company. Generally speaking, Google AdWords are extremely effective for any business, as long as they don’t waste their money on the wrong keywords, or write bad ads.

Thanks to WordStream.com, this Infographic will help you understand how AdWords works. It describes the “bidding-process” which is paramount in determining the cost-per-click.

The post What is Google AdWords – Small Business SEO Tool appeared first on GIANT Marketing Solutions.

A blog gives them reason to hang-around.  Assuming your content is worth reading!

There are three main reasons why I promote that blogging should be included in every small business marketing plan and website strategy:

Importance of Blogging

1) Demonstrate to your target market that you are subject-matter expert in your industry;

2) Give your brand a personality. Blogging can be a creative outlet.  For instance, if you have a sense-of-humour, a blog allows you to demonstrate this to prospect; it gives them a different dimension of who you are as a business-leader.

3) SEO. SEO. SEO. Google is in the business of providing fresh and relevant content. Blogging (frequently) tells Google that your website HAS fresh and relevant content. So, a small business blog contributes to improving your SEO ranking.

Blogging is the most inexpensive small business website strategy (money AND time) for a small business marketing plan. HubSpot suggests businesses that blog average 55% more website visitors than those that don’t.

If you’re not blogging, you’re missing out on an opportunity to help your ranking on search engine results pages.

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I have definitely seen many trends develop and start taking shape in the small-business sphere in 2012 that will have impact on how you market your business in 2013.   I anticipate that 2013 will bring mass adoption to some of these. For example, mobile usage is definitely going to continue to climb; and that’s not necessarily wholly to do with smartphones; it is the tablet that is contributing to this trend.  As a result, mobile-responsive websites are becoming the cornerstone to redesigning websites.  What good is your website if people can’t read it on their tablet or smartphone?

A mobile-responsive website is an effective and inexpensive approach for small-businesses.  If you are redesigning your website or creating a new one – it is imperative your web-marketer builds you a mobile-responsive website that is driven by solid marketing principles.

Inc. Magazine has a great article on the trends for 2013: “How & Where to Make Money in 2013 (and beyond)” 

The post How and Where to Make Money in 2013 appeared first on GIANT Marketing Solutions.

At the Markham Convergence Centre, there was a great Panel of Entrepreneurs focused on start-ups and micro-biz called: “Getting Out of the Basement”. The panel included Louie Belcastro, President of The Classic Cuisine; Mike Holmes, President of The Cleaning Guy; and Winston Stewart, Director of Operations for Wincon Security. They told some great genuine stories of how they built their business from scratch and how they made the leap from “dining-room table” to the boardroom table. The common theme here was drive and perseverance; the core of entrepreneurial spirit. In addition, there was some major life event that motivated them and helped them make the decision to be an entrepreneur. It was very inspiring and insightful.

What else I found interesting was the fact that they funded their respective businesses early on with only family seed money. None of them reached out to the banks until, at earliest, 7 years into operations!

At the Metro Convention Centre, the Enterprise Toronto Small Business Forum was buzzing! Always a great show for start-ups and micro-businesses looking to get some great and FREE information on growing your business. I especially appreciated the seminar on building an online strategy for your small business. Marie confirmed the importance of a web strategy in today’s world and continued to shape her presentation around creating a strong website identity and presence.

Speaking of website identity and presence… these two terms seem to be used interchangeably by many entrepreneurs when the topic of Internet marketing arises, which should not be the case; I’m often asked this question during my Internet marketing seminars. I believe this confusion is what regularly misleads a small business Internet marketing strategy and as a result, creates minimal return for your small business Internet marketing strategy.

In general, an identity is who you are.  More specifically, as it pertains to your small business, what does your business represents; arguably, your brand. Your presence is where your business exists outside of your identity, your image or how the rest of the world sees you.

Bringing it back to your Internet marketing strategy, your web identity IS your website. Your web presence is where you choose to exist in the ever growing world of social media and web marketing to tell consumers: “Hey! This is who I am, come and check me out!” You can have a web identity without a web presence (your success will be debatable) but you can’t have a web presence without a web identity. That is, creating a Facebook account is just not enough.

In the end, find out where your target market is and this will determine where you should establish a web presence; but it is your web identity, your website, that will help the consumer understand who you are, build the trust and ultimately, purchase your product or service.

Your website is your 7-24-365 sales “person” who never goes to sleep – it’s your online identity, so, be sure to treat it with care!
Real Growth for Real Business.

Reality Business Consulting (www.realityconsulting.ca) is a Toronto Internet Marketing Company who helps your business find customers  and keep customers. We use sound and proven marketing principles to create a profitable online brand for your business by developing a  high-quality and SEO-friendly WordPress website at the core of your online marketing strategy.

I am George Giantsopoulos, an accomplished entrepreneur and Principle of Reality Business Consulting. If you are searching for a team  of knowledgeable and proven marketing professionals to grow your business, contact me for a complimentary consultation.

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