Google announced in 2016 that they were changing the index algorithm to be more focused on mobile users. Well, the shift officially happened in March 2021. If your site is not mobile-first ready, it runs the risk of not being indexed or blocked. What does being mobile-first ready mean? The mobile version of your site needs to be as content rich [...]
Although the recent months have been both economically and emotionally challenging for small businesses and consultants, it has also given us time to re-evaluate and work on our own business and marketing plans. The world has changed and that means thinking about how our business needs to change as well. Most small businesses do not regularly review or update their websites [...]
Networking events and conferences are great for meeting potential new business contacts, but there is only so much time in a day and, for most small business owners, workloads demand that the majority of the day is spent in the office. We know. We are a small business ourselves. The key is taking steps to move some of your business networking [...]
If the goal of your website is to turn your visitors into new business leads, it has to be strategically designed for that purpose. It needs to do a great job of engaging the visitor, enticing them to give you their email and encouraging them to connect with you. 1. Give customers the information they seek. A clearly articulated value proposition [...]
You know you need to keep in touch with your contacts year round and may be wondering if an newsletter marketing is worth the time and effort or if people even read them anymore. The answer is YES!…but…they need to provide value. An e-newsletter can be a great tool for building trust and expertise with your current and prospective clients — [...]
In general, people don’t make snap decisions — they need to do research, gather information, compare options and get validation before they make a purchasing decision. Going through this process is often described in sales and marketing as going through “the funnel”. Most have three basic stages (some use four) referred to as Top of the Funnel, Middle of Funnel and [...]
I generally avoid writing about SEO since there are so many articles, ebooks, blogs, etc. already out there, but I am more frequently hearing from my small business clients that that they want to “rank #1 for this or that keyword” without really understanding how the new world of SEO works. Yes, keywords were important years ago for ranking—and they still [...]
Many small businesses start off the New Year evaluating their marketing – and their website in particular. But redesigning or doing a major refresh to your website can cause your rank and search value to decline if you don’t plan ahead. This happen more often than not, and we often get a call AFTER the new site is launched — usually [...]
I was asked to give a presentation to small business owners at a local conference but before I selected a topic I asked them what they want to learn more about. The majority wanted to do better with their website and understand some of the “gotta haves” so that their websites could do better. This presentation consists of 10 things (and [...]
Party! Well, maybe. High fives. Definitely. It may seem like the work is done, but there still is plenty to do after you launch your site. For any business (and especially a small business) having a good website is generally the number one priority for marketing. Creating a truly great site takes time, planning, and often a good chunk of the [...]