What is authority and how does it influence your brand’s success? In the Content First Marketing community, we consider authority a core pillar of our brand philosophy. Authority: Establishes trust Creates lifelong relationships Makes your brand the expert Brings referrals and repeat customers So, how do you establish authority? By sharing accurate, informative content, which…
Do you operate a small business that relies on local traffic? You should invest the necessary time and resources into optimizing your website for your respective geographic keywords. Known as local search optimization — or LSO for short — it’s an essential component in maintaining a strong online presence. To learn more about LSO and…
Displaying your business’s name, address and phone number (known collectively as NAP) is a critical step in attracting new leads and sales. When a prospect is interested in learning more about your products or services, they may seek to contact you. And failure to include your NAP in visible areas such as your website and…
When was the last time that you searched for a local business’s contact information in the phone book? If it’s been a while, you aren’t alone. More and more consumers today are choosing the Internet for this task instead of the phone books, and for a good reason. It’s easier, faster and more accurate to…
Last week, we talked about how digital marketing can transform your small business. This week, we would like to focus on the fact that your prospective customers are always online. And you can spend countless hours building backlinks and promoting your website, but unless it contains high-quality content that’s relevant to your target audience, it’s…
There are approximately 28 million small businesses with fewer than 500 employees operating in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Unfortunately, though, many of these businesses are forced to close their doors. Statistics show that 8 out of 10 small businesses fail within the first 18 months. But the good news is…
Many small businesses even now still do not have a website, according to a this study conducted by Redshift Research survey and commissioned by GoDaddy. A website is an invaluable marketing and promotional tool for small businesses, allowing them to reach a larger audience with minimal work. Rather than focusing your efforts strictly on traditional (and…
Do you own or operate a local business? If so, you are probably well aware of the importance of advertising. But when 99% of your revenue comes from local residents, advertising can be difficult. Buying banner ads on high-traffic websites won’t work, as the vast majority of users who see those ads are not within…
Are you planning a pay-per-click (PPC) marketing campaign, social media marketing, email or just an organic search marketing campaign? One of the first steps toward success is researching relevant keywords. You can’t expect to launch a successful digital marketing campaign without first identifying target keywords. These keywords are essentially what you will build your…
If you’re reading this, I’ve inevitably caught your attention and my headline “worked.” How did I do this? What caught your eye and made you click? For starters, words on a page are more than just descriptors. Copywriting is the cornerstone of effective marketing. The right choice of words have the power to compel a…
Sally heard about a money saving deal on beautiful custom-made baby blankets from a friend. So, she went to the URL given and noticed the colors and logos seemed off. She felt uneasy and decided to shop elsewhere online. She went to the big stores’ websites where at least she knows and trusts what they…
Recently, we have talked about improving your company’s website and using social media for successful digital marketing. But today we’d like to hone in on a very important feature of your website: the landing page. Are you using your newsletter to tell clients and prospects about your business, products and services? If not, you could…
Search engines look for hundreds of different signals to determine where and how to rank websites in their respective index. Google, for instance, uses its top three ranking signals: backlinks, content and RankBrain. But there’s another ranking signal that’s particularly important for search engine optimization: page titles. Using the right title tags on your webpages…
Who doesn’t want to get something for free? Just hearing the word “FREE” is enough to attract users’ attention, driving them to take action for a chance to win the honey pot. As a business owner, you can use this to your advantage by hosting contests and sweepstakes on social media networking sites like Facebook….