Category Archives: Advice

How to Keep Content Fresh When You’re Writing on the Same Topic

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When you own a business and a business website, then you, of course, have to keep churning out content to keep your site fresh and interesting and to keep viewers and Google interested in your site. Of course, you’re limited in terms of what you write about; you have to write about things that specifically relate to your business. Obviously, for example, if you run an ice cream shop, you can’t just start writing about the best clothing stores in the area.

This means that you end up writing on the same topic a lot, and keeping content fresh while writing about the same old things can prove difficult. Fortunately, though there are ways to keep your content new and interesting, even if it’s all on basically the same topic, especially if you can follow our fool-proof tips.

Tip #1: Hire Professional Writers

First things first, even if you think that you are a pretty good writer, don’t make the mistake of thinking that you can regularly come up with fresh, new content on the same topics over and over again without repeating yourself or resorting to plagiarism. This is something that is hard for even long-time writers, let alone non-professionals.

Truly professional online writers, however, are skilled and extremely experienced in writing online content on the same topics without resorting to disastrous tactics. Thus, when you call on them to do your writing for you, you don’t have anything to worry about.

Tip #2: Pay Attention to What’s “Trending”

Another thing that can really help you when it comes to creating always-fresh content is to pay attention to the news, to the “big queries” on search engines, and to what happens to be trending on social media. If you know what’s “hot” at a given time, you can often find a way to talk about it and relate it back to your main topic in your content.

If, for example, you sell bathing suits, and there’s been a recent heat wave in your area, you could have your writers discuss the heat wave and then mention how it’s making it a great time to go to the beach in a new suit.

This attention to the latest news is sure to keep your content fresh and up to date while still accomplishing your main goals.

Tip #3: Come Up with “Tips” Articles

If you’re reading this blog right now and you’ve kept reading from beginning to end, that is a pretty good indicator that “tips posts” work, so give them a try with your own content. See, no matter what kind of business you’re in, it’s easy to come up with a bunch of unique “tips” articles.

Remember the ice cream business we mentioned earlier? That business could easily write about how to choose the best ice cream flavors, tips on planning an ice cream social, and so much more; the same goes for any other business.

Plus, not only is it easy to come up with “tips articles,” but they also tend to be highly scannable, which is exactly what you want with online content.

As you can see, keeping online content fresh, new, and exciting- even if you’re writing about the same old stuff a lot- isn’t hard if you follow these simple tips.

 

See Also:

Writing Ideas for SEO | Signs Your Content Isn’t Great

How Do I Pick an SEO Company? (from the Owner)

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Okay, there are lots of stories out there about SEO. I got the idea to write this long form (for me at least) exposé after reading Alistair Barr’s great article, “Mobile Devices Upend Google Search”. There were many references from professionals who are at bigger companies than my own – even WPP.

What I want to do is give the SEO prospect a better understanding of SEO as a topic, including why there are so many different directives, and how to move forward in enacting better SEO for their company.

SEO is a big topic. SEO is both simple and also highly technical. SEO can start with something as easy as writing on your site to something more complex, like schema data & CDN’s.

Web-wise, every business has its own complex individual position (not rank), which can be broken down into: Content, Design, Technical, Competition, Vertical, Unique Sales Proposition (USP), and Human Capital, Relationships. Though there may be others, these are the most influential I can name at this moment, in general terms.

Web-wise, most executives and managers don’t know (or can’t Identify) how all of this affects their current “SEO”/individual position. Some larger companies may have internal people who work on their website at varying roles and technical abilities.

The reason people and companies should use an SEO consultant or an SEO agency. is because these consultants and agencies have the ability to understand a large majority of your business’ complex individual position as well as an ability to work with your business to achieve more success. Usually, that means more sales; and what most executives are interested in is Market Growth/Profitable Growth.

What happens when “SEO” doesn’t work? Here are the raw reasons:

An Unqualified SEO’er, Lack of communication, Misunderstanding of SEO’ers abilities OR focus areas, Budget not sufficient enough to compete with competitors in vertical, No long-term outlook, Non-Transparent SEO’er.

What the Prospect should/could do to identify who to work with:

  • Phone conversation: This could be the first call, or a call scheduled for later. Get a general over-the-phone feel for the Consultant/Agency, knowledge level, skill level, SEO Areas of focus/skill. Most executives can hear weakness of hesitation in conversation. However, don’t hold it against them if they take a moment to mindfully respond to questions/examples.
  • In person meeting: Ths can take place at a place of your choise or at the agency. During the meeting, you’ll have an in-depth talk about the Consultant/Agency’s knowledge, skills, areas of focus as well as your specific goals, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), reporting you need to see, and on what schedule. Ask questions knowing that to answer, they may have to do specific research on the current position.
  • Hire them: Confirm you want to work with them, and commit.
  • Pay them: Pay on time, every time. A lot of Consultants/ Agencies go the extra mile for great clients. This usually means they put in more time than they get paid for. Don’t leave them hanging; they might have to stop their work until they get payment, which could delay goals and milestones.
  • Talk Often: This can occur once every two weeks or weekly, depending on the budget. The reasons to do this are too numerous to list.

SEO – An All Encompassing Phrase

Again, SEO is really an all-encompassing phrase with the level of complexity being very high and different for every company. Hopefully, this helps you understand the complexity and vastness of it. Don’t take all the short “quotes” you read in articles about SEO as truth. Instead, work with your internal team and your SEO Consultant/Agency to execute a winning plan.

5 Steps to a Faster Website

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Today, the average adult has an attention span comparable to a goldfish. So, when it comes to your website, you’d better be sure you have everything in order. The first key to making your website faster:  page load speed.

page loading

Faster Page Load = Better

The amount of time it takes a web user to load your website is critical. This is especially true if you operate a retail or e-commerce business. Each second lost in page load time may be dollars lost in revenue. Take the following for example:

For e-commerce sites, web loading times are even more crucial than other sites. It has been found that a delay of microseconds can potentially cause a significant loss of revenue. Tests at Amazon revealed similar results: every 100 ms increase in load time of Amazon.com decreased sales by 1% (Kohavi and Longbotham 2007). Google discovered that a change in a 10-result page loading in 0.4 seconds to a 30-result page loading in 0.9 seconds decreased traffic and ad revenues by 20% (Linden 2006). [source]

One percent may not sound like a lot; however, when you consider how much business Amazon does every hour, every day, a one percent revenue loss is significant. The same can be said for smaller businesses or ‘mom n’ pop’ shops.

Building Customer Loyalty & Trust

According to Kissmetrics, nearly 50% of consumers expect a webpage to load in two seconds or less. Putting this into perspective, if an e-commerce site is making $100,000 per day, a 1 second page delay could potentially cost you $2.5 million in lost sales every year. [source]

In the time it takes your website to load (slowly), your would-be customer has already clicked off and found another online retailer to do business with. The impact of slow page load times that fail to meet customer expectations is far reaching. Not only can it create a lack of trust and loyalty; it can actually sully your brand and brandish your business as being unreliable.

Anatomy of a Webpage

website loading spinnerFiguring out why your webpage/website isn’t loading as fast as you’d like is a matter of thinking through the different components that make up your website. Each webpage is made up of the following:

  • 63% images
  • 16% javascripts
  • 3% HTML
  • 3% CSS
  • 16% other

If your website is loading slowly, it’s likely due to the fact that there is a large amount of content on the site, and that content isn’t structured properly. This is an important point to note as there are countless websites made up of thousands of webpages that function smoothly and load without issues.

How do you make a website faster? 5 Steps

So, how do you go about making your website faster? Consider the following tips [source]:

Make Your Website Faster By:

#1 – Optimizing Images

At 63 percent, images take up a huge chunk of room on most websites. Make sure you reduce the image file size before saving it or uploading it to your website. Photoshop, for example, has a “save for web” option to help you automatically reduce the file size. Otherwise, if you upload an image at its regular full size, the browser has to work hard to resize that image (hence the delays in page load time). There are also other online programs out there to help you reduce image file sizes.

#2 – Minifying Your Assets

Minifying your assets refers to the act of condensing the CSS code, which makes it quicker for web browsers to read the data on your website. This is a great thing as browsers will read the code with less gaps, which will help speed up the page load time. There are also plugins available to help you do this.

#3 – Combining Assets

Combining assets refers to the act of combining multiple files with a single file for CSS & JavaScript. Doing this will reduce the amount of times your computer needs to request and send data to from your a server to other devices.

#4 – Updating Your Web Browser

Technology moves fast, and it is important to keep up! One of the simplest things you can do is make sure that your web browser is up to date. There are various plugin available to help you out with this, and it is recommended that you let an experienced web developer handle this sort of update. On the plus side, an updated web browser can significantly improve site performance, and more.

#5 – Caching Your Website

When an individual web user visits your website, “caching” is what allows the visitor’s web browser to remember what files were used, and it will pull these files locally onto the user’s screen (versus having to make individual trips to the web server).

Creating Content That ‘Clicks’

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Brands and businesses alike need to create messaging that resonates with their consumers. If you fail to tune into the needs of your target audience, then you run the risk of them ‘tuning out’ to whatever it is you are trying to say.

by Highways England on flickr cc

Knowing the Micro-Moments

The introduction of mobile technology over the years has resulted in an increasing number of micro-moments, or snippets of time in which mobile users engage in behaviors such as: checking the clock, texting a friend, posting an update to social media, researching products, and more. As Google describes it [source: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/how-micromoments-are-changing-rules.html]:

Micro-moments occur when people reflexively turn to a device — increasingly a smartphone — to act on a need to learn something, do something, discover something, watch something, or buy something. They are intent-rich moments when decisions are made and preferences shaped. In these moments, consumers’ expectations are higher than ever.

Marketers need to create relevant, useful content for target audiences.

Marketers should be tapping into these micro-moments to create relevant, rich content that caters to the specific needs of that particular person at that point in time. Weighing into this is the fact that we live in an age of distraction where attention spans are the shortest they’ve ever been. Therefore, there is an even greater need to deliver useful, easily digestible content.

51% of smartphone users have purchased from a company/brand other than the one they intended to because the information provided was useful.1

Offering content that is useful is a key factor in engaging potential consumers as well as ensuring that they continue down the purchase path. Below, we examine the four key types of micro moments as well as how these types of moments may be used to help marketers create content and mobile strategies that are more effective.

4 Types of Micro-Moments

In their recent article, “How to Beat Consumer Tune-Out with Useful Content,” Google outlines four key types of micro-moments along with ways to be useful to each so that you can create content (and mobile strategies) that work. Below, we’ve outlined these four micro-moments.

Micro-Moment #1 – I Want to Know.

Examples:

  • What’s the best laptop for college students?
  • How can I lose 10lbs in the healthiest way?
  • What’s the most fuel-efficient car?

Nowadays, the first step to a successful sales journey begins with mobile. People on mobile tend to gravitate towards smaller, snackable, educational content (versus more traditional, hard sales).

Offer helpful, short, how-to videos for your customers. Provide quick tips on social media for followers. Whatever you do, make it quick, relevant, and useful. By providing answers to your audience’s common questions, you earn trust, build credibility, and provide value.

Micro-Moment #2 – I Want to Go.

Examples:

  • Where is the best Honda dealership near me?
  • Where can I get custom window tinting done?

With more than half of Google searches now taking place on mobile2, being where your audience is proves vital – especially if you have a brick-and-mortar location. More consumers are apt to buy from companies whose mobile sites are tailored to their specific location – especially if it provides useful information about a product they are looking for.

In fact, nearly 70 percent of mobile users expect a business to be within 5 miles of their location. And 71 percent of consumers commonly look for a store’s location via a mobile device3.

How is your content tailoring to these consumers?

Micro-Moment #3 – I Want to Do.

Examples:

  • How do I fix a leaky kitchen sink?
  • How do I create a simple, elegant hairstyle?
  • How do I an oil change myself?

Think of step-by-step instructions. Think of YouTube How-To videos. According to Google [source: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/how-to-beat-consumer-tune-out-with-useful-content.html], nearly 50 percent of smartphone users are more likely to buy from companies whose mobile sites/apps provide instructional video content.

Micro-Moment #4 – I Want to Buy.

Google points out that this type of micro-moment can happen anytime, anywhere. Whether you’re standing in line at the grocery store, sitting in traffic on the way home from work, or taking a quick lunch break – consumers are more likely to buy from companies who make it easy and seamless to purchase items/services quickly.

Speed matters.

Empower consumers to buy from your brand. Do this by providing a mobile experience that is easy, accessible, and FAST, regardless of where that consumer is located.

How is your company taking advantage these key micro-moments that Google mentioned?

image by by AFS-USA Intercultural Programs on flickr cc

Sources:

1. [Consumers in the Micro-Moment, Wave 3, Google/Ipsos, U.S., August 2015, n=1291 online smartphone users 18+]↩
2. [Tan, Alicia Marie. More than half of Google searches now come from mobile. Mashable. October 2015]↩
3. [Google/Nielsen Mobile Path to Purchase, Nov 2013]↩

Data Security in the Digital Age: Risks vs Rewards

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How does your company define risk?

In 2014 alone, breaches at just five companies affected 229 million people.

In 2014, the fifth annual “Cost of Cyber Crime Study” found that, over the year, the average cost of U.S. corporate cyber crime climbed by more than 9 percent, to $12,700,000. In 2015, that number increased 19% to $15.5 million.

by NEC Corporation of America on flickr cc

Data Breaches on the Rise for Businesses

The increasing prevalence of widespread data breaches has many business owners re-thinking their data security and trying to figure out ways to make data breach response plans a priority, whereas they hadn’t in the past.

According to the 2015 Second Annual Data Breach Industry Forecast, published by Experian:

“The risk of experiencing a data breach is higher than ever with almost half of organizations suffering at least one security incident in the last 12 months. To address this, 48 percent of organizations increased investments in security technologies in the same timeframe, and 73 percent acknowledged the likelihood of a breach by developing a data breach response plan.”

The increased risk of data breaches affect businesses, both big and small, and the effects can be devastating – not only for the business involved, but for those whom the business serves.

11 Cyber Crime Facts & Figures Worth Noting

According to the Ponemon Institute’s 2015 Cost of Cyber Crime Study:

  1. Cyber crimes are still on the rise.
  2. by Nick Papakyriazis on flickr ccCyber crime cost varies by organizational size.
  3. All industries fall victim to cybercrime, but to different degrees.
  4. Most cyber crimes are caused by malicious insiders, denial of services, and web-based attacks.
  5. Cyber attacks can be costly if not resolved quickly. (avg. resolution period is 46 days at a rate of $21,155/day)
  6. Business disruption represents the highest external cost, followed by the costs associated with information loss.
  7. Detection is the most costly internal activity, followed by recovery. (accounts for 53 percent of total internal activity costs)
  8. Activities related to IT security receive the highest budget allocation.
  9. Deployment of security intelligence systems makes a difference. (Security intelligence systems are efficient in detecting and containing cyber attacks, saving companies $1.9 million)
  10. Companies deploying security intelligence systems experienced a substantially higher ROI (23%) than others.
  11. Deployment of enterprise security governance practices moderates the cost of cyber crime.

Safeguarding Your Business’ Personal Information

By safeguarding your business’ personal information, you protect your brand, affiliates, and customers. Failing to put some form of data breach prevention in place runs you the risk of losing customers, brand trust, reputation, and revenue. Take the following example of Sony:

Case Study: Sony

Sony is know for producing high quality electronic products. In April 2011, Sony experienced a massive breach of its PlayStation Network, followed by successive breaches to its online entertainment division.

The result? More than 100 million customer records were lost, and several Sony business operations were forced to shut down in a matter of weeks. Adding to the fallout, Sony’s image was sullied, and the company received tons of negative press.

While Sony apologized and accepted responsibility for the data breach, the public’s general perception of Sony was that data security was more of an afterthought; it was something that Sony hadn’t taken seriously.

Failure to ensure that their customers’ information was safe led both a loss of reputation as well as a loss of trust. 

[source]

Shifting Accountability to Reap Rewards

We live in a data-driven society where information is exchanged online in a matter of seconds. This is beneficial for businesses, but as we have seen, you often assume risk with reward.

By shifting accountability and increasing scrutiny, business leaders can work together to prevent data breaches from occurring – or, at a minimum, they can offer faster, more effective solutions/responses if a breach occurs.

Social Networking for Dentists – Choosing the Right Messaging

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When you hire an Internet marketing agency to do web marketing for your dental practice, they should be aware of what level of discretion to use and how to present your dental practice in the most favorable light to current customers and prospects.

Social networking advertising, when done correctly, can be an asset to most dental practices, especially when it is part of a more comprehensive online marketing plan. Below, we take a look at an example of what NOT to do when it comes to Facebook advertising for dental practices.

Dental Web Marketing - Advertisement

Social Networking for Dentists: Why It Works, Why It Doesn’t Work

It is estimated that 75 percent of US adults experience some degree of dental fear, ranging from mild to severe. This can be caused by a poor experience, hearing about someone else’s poor dental experience, mass media, or a general lack of control and/or helplessness when in the dentist chair. It is no wonder that many people have some apprehension about seeing a dentist!

The above ad only acts to reinforce this notion of odontophobia by using an image of a Dental Implant that is about to be drilled into the gum line. This image is barely acceptable for any type of targeting and/or advertising in which you are trying to present dentists in a favorable light. Instead, the image likely scares away prospective clients who don’t know what a dental implant is, and it may even induce a sense of trepidation among those who are aware about dental implants and who, normally, don’t have an issue with seeing a dentist. We would NOT recommend it.

At Look to the Right, we have helped dental practices create successful social networking advertising to reach their consumers. We take the time to get to know your dental practice. More importantly, we have experience working with clients in the dental industry and are sensitive to the messaging that needs to go into social networking advertising to produce the best results.

Dental Practices Can Increase Reach with Facebook Ads

Facebook Boosted Posts are a relatively inexpensive way to create an impact for dental web marketing. You can choose your budget, spending as little or as much as you want. You also have the flexibility to choose how long you want to boost your post. Facebook boosted posts are automatically boosted for one full day. However, you can select up to 7 days.

Facebook ads and boosted posts are relatively simple to set up, and the ads offer you the ability to target specific demographic groups based on criteria such as: interest, age, location, income, etc. Because of this, your dental practice is better able to reach those who have interests and behaviors that are consistent with your ideal type of patient.

As a busy owner of a dental practice, there is often little time in the day left to successfully manage the details of an online marketing campaign. At LTTR, we are experts in Social media management and all other aspects of online marketing. We’ll work with you to make sure that your overall marketing goals are aligned with your Facebook Advertising.

by Joe The Goat Farmer on flickr cc

What Makes a Social Networking Ad Campaign Successful?

There are different aspects of a social networking ad campaign. The following are four key areas to focus on when creating Facebook ads for your dental practice:

#1 – Planning

In the planning phase, you determine what the goal(s) of your Facebook Advertisement(s) will be. Example: You want to create Facebook ads that focus on sedation dentistry to help acquire new sedation dentistry clients.

#2 – Budget

Facebook is flexible when it comes to budgets. You determine how much to spend!

#3 – Testing

If it is your first time running a Facebook ad for your dental practice, we may recommend doing some A/B testing to see which ad does better under a certain set of criteria.

#4 – Optimization

Once you have an idea of your Facebook advertising goals, budget, and messaging, it is time to optimize your ads by creating a unique story that people will not only want to click on; they’ll want to share it.

For additional information about Facebook advertising for dental practices, contact Look to the Right today by calling (919) 926-8733, or fill out our simple form below.