5 Marketing Elements Every Business Needs
Every business, big or small, needs the same basic marketing elements to survive past year one. Beyond that, if these businesses are looking to grow, there are going to be even more steps in the marketing process. For now, we’re going to focus on the five basic marketing needs for any business. #1 A Marketing Plan Even small businesses can benefit from a solid marketing plan. From social media and content calendars to places they are going to be advertising offline, these actions and...
Building a Website Worth Visiting
While surfing the web you may have come across websites that were unattractive or uninformative and they left a bad taste in your mouth as you click the back button to find another site. As a brand, your website is not only often your first impression but it is also an important way to build a relationship with these potential or current customers. Your website needs to attract customers visually and the content on your site needs to speak to your customers and encourage them to choose your...
Finding New Customers With Local SEO
Local businesses, or businesses that have a physical storefront, require a special emphasis on local SEO in order to be found online. Unlike their ecommerce counterparts, these local businesses such as dentists, mechanics, flower shops, etc., can use their locations to their advantage in search engines like Google. By following our guide to local SEO your business can have its own Knowledge Panel, Google Map Pin, and get placed in the local pack results for search. Here’s an example...
3 Tips for Your Small Business to Rule Facebook
You may by worried that your small business cannot compete with the big brands on Facebook, but there are plenty of reasons you should still be part of the Facebook community. With over 1.3 billion active users, Facebook should not be ignored. Here are our three tips for making the most out of it for your small business: 1. Let Your Fans Inspire You Thinking of running a new special? Wondering if people wish you were open earlier or later? Wanting to see which event your fans are the most...
The Top Predicted Trends for Digital Marketing in 2015
2015 Online Marketing Trends 2014 has been a wild ride with Google updates, the realization you now have to pay to play for Facebook reach, and content creation becoming more important than ever. As we approach the end of 2014, let's take a look at what has gone on this year and what we can expect moving into 2015. Mobile-Optimization Importance Continues In 2014, responsive design became a priority for businesses as mobile traffic continued to steadily increase with the introduction of larger...
Facebook Like-Gating Ends: What That Means For You
The plug has been pulled on Facebook’s policy for
Like-gating campaigns. Started on November 5, 2014 Facebook no longer allows company or brand pages to offer rewards, gated apps, or app content based
on whether that person has Liked their page or not. The reasoning behind this
change was to encourage people to Like pages based on whether they were truly
interested in the company offering the rewards and not solely Liking the page
to gain access to the content or prices.
Some people...
3 Tips to Make Your Blog Posts More SEO-Friendly
Writing an SEO-friendly blog post starts with the ability to write for your audience. Creating an easy to read and digest blog post will improve important factors that help with your SEO efforts for your website, such as Session Duration and your site’s Bounce Rate. It is also much more likely that your content will be shared if people actually read it and enjoy it, which helps increase your website’s reach. Creating fresh, quality content for your website is becoming increasingly...
How to Use Your SEO Content to Create a Content Marketing Strategy
Does your company have a SEO strategy? Then you should already be creating excellent content that adds value for your customers. But did you know that you could take this existing content and gain even further reach and help with your sales conversion beyond your website by using a content marketing strategy? As we have expressed in our previous article on how SEO has changed, SEO now requires fresh, high quality content to be successful thanks to the Google algorithm Panda update. What this...
Choosing the Right Orlando SEO Company for You
Whether you’re the CEO of your company, or you’ve been tasked with finding the right Digital marketing company for the company you work for, it can be a daunting task to sift through the pages and pages of SEO firms in your area. As an Digital marketing company ourselves, we hear too many horror stories from people walking through our door about bad service and unfulfilled promises. That’s why we made this list of some good and bad things to watch for when searching for an...
How SEO has Changed… and Continues to Change
The Internet has evolved in many ways over the past few
years. As Google’s algorithm sophistication has increased, so have the tactics
used for SEO, probably for the best. Search engine optimization used to be
considered a unique knowledge of how to manipulate Google’s search rankings
with secret, sly tricks that only a select few possessed. Since then, the SEO industry has evolved. It is now a
multifaceted online marketing discipline that no longer relies on these sneaky
tricks...
Does Social Media Marketing Really Work?
Brands and marketers alike have constantly questioned the effectiveness of social media marketing in their overall marketing strategies. While a Gallup poll report states, A clear majority of Americans say social media have no effect at all on their purchasing decisions, there are a few factors that discredit this statement and prove that social media marketing can, in fact, have a positive outcome in your marketing strategy. Here are a few factors to remember: 1. Perspective The Gallup poll...
Say Goodbye to the Yahoo Directory
Its time has come. Once a staple of the Internet, the Google of its time, the
Yahoo Directory is coming to a close.
Yahoo announced the news today that they will be closing the Yahoo Directory
after a 20-year stint. The directory, which before the dawn of Google was a
hand-compiled list of websites organized into topics, is being sent off with a
meager goodbye.
Yahoo’s post
says this:
Yahoo was started nearly 20 years
ago as a directory of websites that helped users explore the...
Google Introduces Structured Snippets as Part of Search Results
Earlier this month it was discovered that Google had begun testing a form of knowledge graph data in the search result snippets. Google is now referring to this added information as Structured Snippets. These structured snippets have been released under many different types of searches. Everything from comic book heroes, popular events, company profiles, and product specifics can have snippet information added through the collaboration between Google Research and the Web Search team. Here are...
How to Boost Your SEO Tactics for Free
Search Engine Optimization SEO doesn’t require a huge budget for small businesses and startups but it does require a major time investment. With Google algorithm updates like Panda, Penguin and others, you need to constantly be on the look out for what will throw off your organic rankings next. If done well, DIY SEO tactics can still have great results. Here are some things that you can do to better your SEO for free: 1. Consistently Maintain a Blog Maintaining an active blog filled with...
Ponte Vedra Complete Dentistry Takes 2014 WebAward for Healthcare Provider Standard of Excellence
Sales & Marketing Technologies is proud to announce that the website of our client, Ponte Vedra Complete Dentistry, has been acknowledged as the winner of the 2014 WebAward for Outstanding Achievement in Web Development in the healthcare provider category by Web Marketing Association WMA. Web Marketing Association has been holding its annual WebAward competition since 1997. Independent expert judges from around the world review websites in 96 different industries to choose which sites set...
5 Tips for Choosing Your Domain Name
You’re ready to take your business online. You’ve got your business plan, mission statement, your logo, etc. when you run into your first roadblock, choosing your domain name. Your domain will be your website’s identity and should be associated with your actual business. This will determine how easily your website will be found on the internet. Here are some tips to keep in mind when selecting your domain name: 1. Keep it Simple Along with most things, the simpler something...
Designing Your Brand’s Logo
They’re the ultimate symbol for your brand and they’re anything but simple to design. Logos are often your first impression, and can ultimately lead to the decision to purchase from you. In a world full of logos, how do you make yours stand out? Know your brand When creating your logo, the most important aspect is ensuring it speaks to what your brand is about. Creating a list of words that embody your brand is a good place to start. Taking that a step further, you could also...
Mobile Websites are Becoming Crucial to Every Business
By the end of 2013, over a third of Internet usage came from smartphones and tablets, according to Walker Sands Communications’ Quarterly Mobile Traffic Report. This statistic alone is enough to make it crucial to have your website display correctly on a mobile phone. 4 out of 5 smartphone users say they do some online shopping on their phones. This means if your website is hard to read on a mobile phone, you are losing customers! One way to convert mobile users is to keep the most...
What is Facebook Paper?
In an age of technology and ever changing social media platforms, there’s one that seems to keep leading the pack. Facebook has been on the cutting edge of social media since it’s creation and it keeps pushing forward in hopes to make things easier for the users. The problem is that with all the updates, new users, ads and everything else that rolls into our daily interface, things can get a little cluttered. This is where Facebook Paper comes into play. Straying away from the...
Large Increases in Facebook Mobile Users
As of a couple of weeks ago, Facebook released their 2014 Financial Summary for the second quarter. Mark Zuckerberg starts out the release with, We had a good second quarter. Our community has continued to grow, and we see a lot of opportunity ahead as we connect the rest of the world. Statistics are showing plenty of great increases across the fo r Facebook. When comparing 2013 to 2014, there is a 19% increase in the daily active users, which brings the total count to a whopping 829 million...