Digital Marketing Blog

Reviews are a secret weapon for local businesses.

Business greeting cards are a very cost-effective marketing tool that small businesses can use to strengthen customer relationships. Business greeting cards come in various formats, from e-cards to SMS cards, you can send them to customers and prospects on occasions like birthdays and anniversaries, congratulate them after a major achievement, or simply to thank them for their business. Here's a blog post from one of my partners about business greeting cards that I found to be a great read so I wanted to share it with you. Enjoy!

This is a popular question that we get a lot. What type of website should I use for my business? Should I build a website myself? Can’t I just let my sisters’ boyfriends nephew build it? He seems like he’s good at computers? My friend is telling me to make a WordPress / Wix / Squarespace website because it’s so easy to build yourself. These are just some things we hear regularly. Let’s dig into these. “My friend is telling me to make a WordPress / Wix / Squarespace website because it’s so easy to build yourself.” I had an initial consultation with a new client last week. She reached out to us about building an e-commerce website for her business. During our meeting, it came up that for the last year she had been trying to work on building the website herself via Shopify, but could never get it to look how she wanted it to look. She said that she had spent hours searching for instructional videos on YouTube on how to do this thing or that, only to find that more often than not, she found something else had broken because of following the steps she was told to take. She told me how frustrating the entire process has been and how she can’t even guess how many hours and hours that she’s wasted trying to figure it out. Shopify, WordPress, Wix, Squarespace and these other are easy once you’ve put in the time to become familiar with them and how they work. After only a short time of using them, you should have no problem figuring out how to add a photo, text box, links, etc to your budding new website. That being said, while these tools are easy to start, they can be much more difficult to master. Learning the more onerous tasks can be quite frustrating when attempting to learn via trial and error. Can you figure it out? Of course you can. Anything is possible if you devote the required time and attention to it. Also, how long is this whole learning and development process going to take? 40 hours? 80 hours? How many hours a week are you prepared to dedicate to researching and learning how to build your website? Ok, it’s done! All of your hard work paid off and your business’s new website is live for the public to access. Does it represent your business in the professional way that it needs to be presented? Does it work well on smart phones? Do visitors feel encouraged to take the next step in your buyer’s funnel, or are they backing out of your site and heading to your competitors? For most business owners, the tiny amount they save by building their new site themselves pales when compared to the time savings, ease of development, professional final product and increased customer conversions that they get when they choose to work with a professional website developer like us. So which website is best for a business? The one that pays for itself time and time again because it looks great, works great and helps guide your visitors into becoming paying customers. Schedule a call with us today to discuss how we can help your business with a new website, social media management, SEO and other marketing services.

The internet is a powerful marketing tool for small businesses. It can be used to get the word out about your plumbing business, bring in new customers, and increase profits. Here are some tips for marketing your plumbing business online.

Why your business needs a website from Viral Growth.

Remember just a few years ago when people openly said they were professional bloggers? In the last few years it may appear as though that this career path has come to an end. If you own a business and get ads or calls for social media services, they may be quick to tell you that emails and blogs are “dead”. The next thing they will say is that video is king and you need to get on board and start making video content if you want any chance of being competitive in the market today. So you might be asking, what happened to all those blogs? In this blog we are going to explore that question as well as how to make a blog that can compete in the market today and why having a blog is more important today than ever before. If making a blog about blogging seams kind of strange, you have to ask yourself, how did I find this blog in the first place? You may be researching how to make a blog, how to write your first blog, does blogging work for marketing, or how does blogging work? These are all great questions that are valid today and into the coming future. First we have to understand what made blogging popular to begin with. Blogs found their place on the internet as a way to share informative stories that are educational, instructional, or entertaining in almost every way you can think of. Through the years blogging has moved from a fun way to share information to a viable way to make a living and now the future of creating authority and trust. If the role of blogging has changed over time, then so too must be the way blogs are used, written, and created. The most common blogs are tutorial, lists (checklist, tips, tools), product reviews, guides & reviews, and visuals. Let’s say that you just finished your meeting with that social media consultant. They told you that video is king and you are all fired up to make your first video and you want to know how to get people to watch it. As you might have guessed at this point, you support that video with a blog. With technology today, your video can be translated to text and it can be your actual blog. Even better you can embed that video right into your blog. It could be said that this will bridge the gap between the reading generations and the watching generations. Why would you want to duplicate your work if video is indeed king? The answer is listening to you all the time. Everyone with a phone has a digital assistant and many people now have home assistants. You might know them better as Google, Alexa, Bixby, Cortana, Siri, as well as several others. These assistants work much like live people who are assistants. Their value is based on what they know, more specifically, who they know. You might even have someone like this in your personal life. That one person that always says, “I know a guy” . For digital assistants, that person is you, the blog writer. If you are the go to person for the digital assistant, how does it know to come to you for information? That is precisely what makes the difference between one blog and another, past and present. For 2021 and beyond this is even more important as these digital assistants are under greater pressure to answer your questions. When you ask Alexa, “who has the best after Christmas sales on 72” Samsung televisions?” It may answer your question something like this, Alexa~ “according to TechnoShopper, Dan’s Home Theater has 72” OLED Samsung televisions on sale for $1079 starting December 26, 2020” . How did your digital assistant come up with this answer for you? It starts off with the basics. It knows where you are, so it has a general idea of where you want to shop by location. You specifically asked for after Christmas, so it isolates the search for prices or sales within a week of your time frame. It knows what brand you have selected, although you may also get options for similar brands. Then of course it knows you are looking for a television. Finally, it takes in other factors like past searches, and places you frequent, places and products you may have reviewed. Before we go down the rabbit hole and talk about the obvious 1984 conspiracy theories, these assistants are really just trying to do their job better each time. The more you talk to them, the more you use them, the more accurate the results will be. How does your assistant know that when you order cereal that it is Special K Family Size? You order that everytime and so it will default to that selection unless you specifically ask for something different. Why did it pick Dan’s Home Theater as the store to shop from? Glad you asked, because TechnoShopper has been writing blogs on Christmas specials, Black Friday specials, and doing reviews on all the best places to shop for anything in home office, audio, or theater. Why did it use TechnoShopper as the blog with the most accurate information for you? All of the information it knows from your query combined with the crowd sourced information of the internet it considers TechnoShopper to be the best authority on the best deals on televisions for you. If TechnoShopper was the authority for you, how did they get to that level? The same way you will, by writing blogs. Digital assistants use multiple methods to determine who the authority is in any given situation. No matter what level of blogger you are from entry level to advanced, it all starts with some very important information. You must be specific in your blog . The more specific you are, the easier it will be for you to become an authority. If you are a real estate agent it is easy to think that all you have to do is write about a property for sale. However, you and the thousands of other agents are now fighting to be found by the assistants. Instead, start with topics about why a property is of value. Try topics like curb appeal, but as a series of specific blogs dealing with curb appeal. Write one on winter flowers to line a sidewalk for curb appeal, winter flowers in pots for either side of the front door, winter flowers that are red, winter flowering bushes, top 3 winter flowers, and the list goes on. You didn’t talk about a house, but you took a step in the direction of guiding your reader on the best flowers for a home in the winter. It just so happens that you are an agent and you manage to sneak in that these flowers are not only beautiful during the winter but they also make their house more valuable. So valuable in fact that it can increase their value by thousands of dollars. With tips and suggestions like that, who do you think will become the person they trust to sell their home when that time comes? As you can see, finding stuff to write about is easier than you thought . I know, I know… you are thinking that is great, but I’ve written great blogs like that and I have 5 views and 4 of them are my family. Now we get into the stuff that nearly was the death of blogs. Blogs are essentially websites, very sophisticated websites dedicated to a very specific purpose. Think of them as the crossover of a website and social media. As a website they need some behind the scenes information to tell the search engines what they are all about. That information comes in the form of titles and keywords. To write a good title you can go with whatever crosses your mind and keep getting 5 views. If you want a great title you will have to work to create it. Start by finding the keywords that will highlight your blog. Do your research. Start by understanding what people are looking for. You can do some simple research by just going to Google to search your topic. Scroll down to “People also ask”. This is the most basic easy search you can do to know what is searched for in your field. Also look at what videos it suggests, as well as “searches related to…” at the very bottom of the page. Then you can step up from novice to amateur by using keyword search tools such as these listed below: - Google Keyword Planner: https://ads.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/ - Keywords Everywhere: https://keywordseverywhere.com/ - Soovle: https://soovle.com/ Once you know what people are looking for, you can refine that list by using a tool to figure out what “keywords” rank high. - BuzzSumo: https://buzzsumo.com/ The more you use these tools the easier it will be for you to use them. The first time, just push through and remember you can always use the simple way until you become more familiar with these tools. Writing isn’t for everyone. With more and more people preaching video, which is much faster to create, it may seem like this will take way more time than you are willing to invest. If you are a slow typist or you just don’t like writing there is an easier way. You know your topic, and likely you can spend hours talking about it. Why not use a digital assistant? You can use programs like Google Docs. Once there you can Ctrl+Shift+S to get voice typing (or just find voice typing under tools). It takes a little bit to get comfortable with the program, but it won’t take long before you are wondering why it took you so long to find this tool. Think back to school and the fundamentals of writing. Have a good introduction, one that identifies a problem or challenge. Let’s use the example of winter flowers. Your goal is to sell homes in the winter months. You might start off with a question like this, “have you ever driven up to your house and wished it didn’t look so ugly in the winter?” This immediately connects with an emotion they are feeling. You continue to say, “I’m going to show how to transform your home from humdrum to talk of the block with three options of flashy splashes of life and color to transform your curb appeal.” The reader knows that your solution will improve curb appeal using something alive and it will include a lot of color. When you talk about curb appeal, you are using a hidden signal that many homeowners associate with real estate, more importantly, real estate for sale. You haven’t said anything about this, but you have planted a seed. One that you can now water and grow with your content. Obviously, from here you have to build your content. With a great blog mostly complete remember to wrap up your content with a great conclusion. Ask your reader to comment if they like your content or what they got out of it, perhaps which option they would pick. Build value in your content, in this case by showing them that with the right curb appeal the value of the home is increased. Wait, did I mention that you need to add pictures? Yep, adding graphics, pictures, or video will greatly increase the value of your content. Taking pictures for your content is a topic we will dive deeper into for the next blog. For now, just have fun and add some pictures where you see fit. You will also want to add CTA (call to action) buttons. These can be actual buttons or even hyperlinks, that is the blue underlined text that can be clicked on to go to a web page. Why would you want to add a CTA? Remember when I said that people could become a blogger as a professional career? The way that can happen is when you monetize your work. In the winter flower example we can assume they will need to buy the flowers, pots, soil, and tools to make the curb appeal of their dreams come to life. You can refer the readers to sites that sell the specific items you mention. Keep in mind, you can often create affiliate accounts to receive referral checks for sending them to shop at specific sites. If you sell these items yourself, set the CTA to go directly to your E-Commerce site, your Facebook marketplace, or whatever app you are using to sell the goods. Some final thoughts on content and editing. Read through it once yourself. Make sure it has a good flow to it. Keep in mind that stuff you learned in school like introduction and conclusion. Make sure you took advantage of all your opportunities with CTA. Then send it to one friend that you know is blunt and honest. Try someone that really has no idea what you are talking about. If they like it and see value in what you wrote, you have succeeded. Even if they still won’t buy your stuff. About now, you are wondering if there is some sort of hack or cheat code? Of course there is! You can hit the easy button and hire us! Viral Growth Marketing + Design . Back to your blog. Now that you have come up with a great title, had your assistant write down every valuable word, dressed it up with pictures and CTA, it is time to make it go live for all the other assistants to find. Most modern websites have a Blog integration tool designed in. If you are unsure about this, ask your web developer. If you don’t have that available, there are many Blogging platforms out there to choose from. Although, I would suggest maybe your website needs a little modernization, perhaps to a platform that does support a Blog. We can help you with that! If you are looking for something free that you can use that will get your started. Try a free service that comes with your Google account called Blogger, https://www.blogger.com/ It’s a very simple program that doesn’t allow for much creativity, however it is perfect for newbies that want to see if this is something they can really get comfortable with. The world of blogging is ever changing and the best way to be an authority is to keep posting new content that follows the rules of great keywords for search engines. On that note, it is time to address that your content becomes its own keyword that the search engines use to help people find what they are looking for. Take some time to reference your past blogs in new blogs, go back and freshen up content based on keywords and you might even update your title. Use pictures and graphics to keep the reader's attention. Take advantage of CTA’s to monetize your content. Keep it simple and focus on completion instead of perfection. With experience you will strive to try more tools, use cool tips and tricks, and along the way you might even make a few of your own that you can share. Video may be considered king, but when you need help from your assistant, they “know a blog”, not a king.

Operating a nonprofit is hard work. It doesn’t matter if you're a small, local organization or an international one, you’re always having to think about how to continue and grow your fundraising efforts. In today's world, many nonprofit organizations have turned to the internet for the lion's share of their fundraising efforts. This is why it’s so important for nonprofit organizations to have a professional website that’s designed to make donating easy and pain-free for the visitor. It’s important to clearly show your website visitors what your organization represents, the troubles that you help resolve and why it’s important to continue your efforts.

We all know that there are TONS of websites that sell stock photographs of almost anything you can dream up. Need an awesome picture of a sunflower field? Done. Need a photo of a professional woman answering a phone? Done. Need a photo of a clown balancing on a tightrope over NYC? Done. While it's possible to find all of these images quickly and easily sometimes stock photos just aren't the right option...and sometimes they are (I'm looking at you clown).