8 Ways to Optimize Your Local Landing Pages for SEO

Is your local business visible when people search online for goods or services “near me?” It should be.

Today’s audiences value shopping in their local neighborhoods and visiting “local” businesses when traveling. If they can’t find you with a quick Google search “near me”, they aren’t going to seek you out.

Creating local SEO-optimized landing pages (A) helps your neighbors and guests find your business, and (B) convinces them to go there.

What are Local Landing Pages?

Local landing pages are based on a business’s physical location. This is usually the city and state, but multi-branch organizations may have a separate page for each street address. A retail chain is one example. Search “Anthropologie Washington DC” and you’ll get a list of its locations within the city. Click on the location of your choice and you’ll be taken to the landing page for that branch.

Local landing pages are a good strategy to start driving organic traffic to your site. Local landing pages rank quickly, depending on how many competing businesses are in your region and how large your geolocation is.

Additionally, a local landing page can receive click-through s from your online ads, marketing emails, social media pages, and any other inbound links on websites, blogs, QR codes, or social media.

Local SEO Optimization of Your Landing Pages

Your landing pages must have the specific elements that Google and other search engines look for. Paying attention to the details will help you avoid being invisible to the web crawlers.

  1. Include your location in SEO-critical places. This includes the landing page title, URL, meta tags, and descriptions. It is especially critical that local landing pages have their own discoverable URL. It the URL is only available through a search or branch find within your site, Google can’t see it and won’t display it.
  2. In the main keyword(s) in the page title and/or meta data. What words will searchers use to find your products or services? Place those words strategically alongside your business name and location.
  3. Check for consistency. Is your address listed EXACTLY the same way everywhere, down to the last dot and space? For example, if you use S. E. 10th St. on your Google Business Profile page but you use South East 10 Street on your Facebook page, and Southeast 10th Street in your HTML coding, you won’t get ranked. Check other elements like phone number, keywords and the Google Business Profiles page categories.
  4. Test all of your inbound links. From Twitter to industry forum citations, a link that claims to take users to your local landing page had better really do that. If, instead, you take them to the main website homepage, Google will take note. And your rankings will take a plunge.
  5. Populate the entire site with location information. Every page on your website should have a link to the location pages. This makes finding you easier for both the search engine and the people who want to do business with you.
  6. Review your entire site for SEO quality. Does the site load quickly? Does it have responsive display for mobile devices? Is it easy to navigate? Is the content relevant and unique? Are the keywords consistent throughout? Do you know of any Google penalties in effect? For example, using black hat links.
  7. Avoid the temptation to over-optimize. You might consider creating a separate landing page for every neighborhood you serve thereby gaining the entire search results page. Google’s Doorway Page algorithm will prevent this by looking for certain behaviors. A large number of domain names, funneling users to only one page, or pages that are “substantially similar” and outside of the “browsable hierarchy” are all red flags.
  8. Provide good landing page content. As with every other page that Google crawls, relevancy and uniqueness are the major determining factors in local SEO ranking. This is where good marketing technique is critical.

What Should Be on Local Landing Pages?

Your landing page tells customers everything they need to know to find and visit your local business. A quality-crafted landing page will be rewarded by the search engines with higher placement in their results Your local landing page should include these five elements:

  1. Provide local information. Your street address, phone number, and hours of operation are the obvious elements that must be there. A street map and “get directions” function are pretty standard now, too. Depending on the nature of your local business, you might include the email address of your sales or customer service team, too.
  2. Highlight the features and benefits of your business. Who are you? What did you do? Why are you better than the competition? Share your brand’s Unique Selling Proposition. Start with a strong, benefit-oriented headline and you’ll be ahead of 90% of the landing pages today.
  3. Feature special offers. Local SEO landing pages are the ideal place to advertise an offer that’s only available at a specific location. For example, a restaurant chain might feature different pricing at each branch. Of course, this is also incentive for people to take the next step.
  4. Display your credentials. Show that you are trustworthy and competent by displaying your official accreditations (i.e. Better Business Bureau), licenses, awards, customer testimonials, and links to online reviews (i.e. Yelp).
  5. Give them a call to action. Help them take the next step. Ask them to click to your website homepage or contact page; call you; email you; or visit you in person. If your landing page is long enough to require scrolling, then make sure there’s at least one call to action visible at all times. Put the biggest one at the very bottom so it’s the last thing they see.

A successful local SEO optimized landing page brings together SEO and marketing strategy so that each supports the other for maximum results. Our digital marketing and SEO professionals can help you reap the benefits of a local landing page.

Effective Brand Identity & Design Begins With Research

A Great Brand Identity is Built on a Solid Foundation

The brand identity of a business can’t just be what someone thinks looks good. An effective brand must: accurately represent the business; engage positive customer response; and differentiate the business from its competitors.

Decades of market research have quantified every detail from colors, fonts, and shapes to the number of words in a slogan (7 max). This research informs how we do our work in developing a brand identity that does its job now and for years to come.

In addition to broad marketing research, we need to conduct specific research with each client. We need to know about your mission, your audiences, your competition, and your goals, among other key insights. Here’s a list of the questions we’ll ask when developing your brand identity:

  1. What is your industry:
    Your industry makes a difference in the choice of a color palette, among other things. Blue is the most popular color for businesses that want to convey stability and integrity. It’s the most common corporate color overall. Here’s a quick rundown of branding color psychology: the brand values and industry sectors associated with each.Blue: (secure, trustworthy): Finance, technology, energy, health care
    Green: (wealth, health): Health care, energy, agriculture
    Yellow: (light happiness): Energy, hospitality, household
    Orange: (fun, vitality): Health care, household, technology
    Red: (dynamic, passionate): Hospitality, automotive, retail
    Purple: (royal, creative): Tehcnology, arts/crafts, finance
    Black: (sophisticated, upscale): Retail, automotive, technology
    White: (clean, pure); Health care, retail
  2. What is your business?
    Within an industry, there’s a wide range of products, services, and customers. A surgical equipment manufacturer and a wellness spa are both in the health care sector, but their businesses are very different. Target and Neiman Marcus are in the same business, but their customers are different; that’s why Target’s logo is red and Neiman Marcus’s is black.You may have noticed that in the color list, some sectors appear more than once. Colors can be further refined to represent your specific business. A regal deep purple gives an impression of authority, whereas a light lavender purple creates a sense of spirituality. You can even combine colors to produce a desired effect. McDonald’s combination of red and yellow is one brilliant example.
  3. What is your mission?
    What do you do? Why do you do it? How do you do it? You know your mission and your vision. Help us understand it so we can develop a brand identity strategy that effectively communicates it to your various audiences.Brand identities shouldn’t be something that needs frequent retooling. They should have a certain amount of staying power, if you’re in a trendy or rapidly-evolving field. You’ll want your identity to reflect your modern approach but isn’t dated two years from now. Understanding your mission and vision are important to us so we can develop an effective brand identity with a certain timeless quality.

    The examples from Target and Neiman Marcus illustrate the staying power of a well-researched brand identity. Target is bold, clean, and modern. Neiman Marcus is slim, elegant script. Each appeals to the tastes, lifestyles, and motivations of their customers and are classic designs that won’t soon look dated.

  4. Who are your customers?
    A brand identity program needs to meet the expectations of your target audience. A whimsical cartoon drawing makes a good logo if your audience is parents of young children; not such a good choice if your prospects are corporate decision makers.The psychological principle of cognitive dissonance is at play when we see a discrepancy between our perceptions and reality. To resolve that dissonance, we will usually leave the situation – meaning we leave your business behind. When we see a high-end watch being offered for sale by a street vendor, we are suspicious. Our perception is that high-end watches belong in high-end stores. When we are presented with a different reality, we tend to walk away because we don’t like the dissonance.
  5. Who are your competitors?
    Your brand identity should clearly differentiate you from your competition. We need to get to know them, too, to make sure we aren’t following them. Ethically, we would never copy anyone else’s look. Practically, we don’t want to look like others in the industry because it will confuse the customer. Our goal is to convert them with what our brand represents.
  6. What are your marketing arenas?
    Your brand identity should look good on everything from business card to a website to a trade show display. It should be easily-recognized on tiny smartphone screens and grainy newspaper ads. It should be visible on different-colored backgrounds you might use in a magazine or TV ad.“Less is more” is our design mantra for brands. Minimal imagery outperforms cluttered imagery for legibility, scalability, and recognizability. We consider every element of your overall brand identity: artwork, color palette, lines of text and words per line.

    We know you’ll find lots of application for your newly-designed logo. Well provide you with all the resources you’ll need: color and grey scale, low-resolution for email ads and high resolution for printed brochures. We’ll give you logo files with and without your slogan. We can provide logos for specialty applications like presentation templates, logowear, novelty giveaway items, and animation.

The more we know, the smarter we design

We want to deeply understand your brand’s platform and its customers. We apply proven marketing strategies to designing a brand that empowers your marketing campaigns, customer responses, and ultimate business success.

Don’t worry if you don’t have all the answers. We have decades of experience in marketing and brand design and we’re happy to help you define your brand. Contact us today for a complimentary consultation.

Local PPC Advertising Increases Website Traffic and Sales

The COVID pandemic has kept all of us closer to home. Will your audience easily find you there? If you don’t have a strategic marketing plan that includes local PPC advertising, you’re missing a lot of opportunity.

Working from home? A local PPC ad shows you where to find a nearby coffeehouse with free Wi-Fi. Want to go out to eat? A local PPC ad shows you what’s available in your neighborhood, their amenities, menus, and hours of operation. Find a dentist, a plumber, or an account quickly and easily by simply typing “dentist,” “accountant,” or “plumber” with the key words near me and the first thing you’ll be served are local PPC ads. No need to scroll any further.

See what you’re missing out on? That was almost too easy to be true. But it’s completely true.

Local keywords and geotargeting are the key to successful local PPC advertising strategies on search engines or social media. They serve your ads to consumers in a targeted, local geographic area. You’ll only pay for the ads that get clicked.

Local PPC advertising is not just for local businesses. Maybe you’ve got a national business, but want to run promotions in conjunction with a local event. Local PPC allows you to use your ad spend smartly by only targeting customers who are likely to respond to the promotion.

Want to know how it works? It’s as easy at 1 – 2 – 3.

1) Know your geography. A good place to start is where you currently draw most of your customers from. Depending on your business, that’s usually relatively close to your base of operations. However, you don’t need to cast a very wide net. It’s important to exclude those zip codes that aren’t good potential targets for you, even if they’re right next door. Specific geographic targeting ensures your ads get seen by more people who are likely to convert, than just simply blanketing the area with ads.

2) Keywords. Keywords. Keywords. Even if you have only a rudimentary understanding of SEO, you know the importance of keywords. Sometimes finding the right keywords can be a bit daunting. Good AdWords offers a service called Broad Match Modifiers (BMM) that can help ease your keyword anxiety. Essentially BMM ensures a broad audience can find you, but only if they are using a pre-set keyword. It minimizes the amount of irrelevant clicks that you’d still have to pay for.

3) Enable ad extensions. Get your Google My Business page in good order. Keep it current and add call or location extensions. Call extensions often have a clickable button that allows customers to call you directly. The extra details offered through both the call and location extensions target your ads to more qualified customers, thereby gaining you more bang for your advertising buck.

One last word (OK, it’s actually two) on local PPC advertising: Landing Page. You don’t want to develop an amazing local PPC advertising strategy only to lose business because you’re landing page failed you. Offer clear contact information and an easily-actionable call to action. Make it easy for people to do business with you. And don’t forget, local PPC advertising takes place in your community. Your messaging needs to embrace your local community. Help your customers feel good about supporting a local business that supports their community.

Can you think of a better way to manage your marketing budget, grow your business, and support your community? Neither can we. One easy call and our SEO professionals can have a sound, profitable local PPC advertising strategy developed and launched in no time.

Is It Time For a Brand Refresh?

What do your brand and iconic brands like Ivory Soap, Campbell’s Soup, and Coca-Cola have in common?

From time to time, they each need to re-evaluate and refresh to stay current with audience expectations.

How do I know when it’s time to refresh my brand? Is a brand refresh simply a new logo? Will I have to build a new website?

These are all good questions. Let’s address them one at a time.

When is it necessary to refresh your brand

There are really two areas to assess when considering a brand refresh: internal factors and external factors.

Internal factors include mission, vision, values, and core product/service offerings. Your mission defines what you do and why you do it. Has that changed significantly over time? It likely has adapted to the demands of a changing marketplace. As your mission has evolved, so has your vision: this is your aspirational goal that drives you away from complacency and toward growth. These are two fundamental components of your brand and your culture. Your brand should reflect them. If they’re out of sync, it’s probably time to refresh your brand.

Each organization has its own culture built around its values. As your mission and vision have shifted, you may have had leadership changes, significant growth, different hiring practices, or outside forces (like a global pandemic) that have impacted your culture. If your brand and your values don’t align anymore, you should consider a brand refresh.

You have evolved your product and service offerings as the marketplace demands. Recently, the global pandemic brought unforeseen changes to organizations literally overnight. Many organizations switched from on-site to online delivery of services (think restaurants, telehealth, and education just to name a few). Brick-and-mortar businesses became e-commerce businesses. Audiences that had been reluctant to embrace online offerings like banking, shopping, and investing have embraced apps and QR codes in untold numbers. How has your business changed as does your brand still represent your business model? If your brand has not moved forward with you, a refresh is in order.

External factors are those areas that are largely out of your control but have a definite impact on your business. Expanding global markets, audience shifts, competition, and the ever-shifting industry landscape are all factors to consider when you evaluate your brand.

Does your current brand reflect cultural attributes that don’t translate well into regions where you anticipate growth? Assessing your growth patterns and understanding how your brand will be perceived and accepted in those cultures is a critical factor in deciding to do a brand refresh.

When was the last time you put your fingers on the pulse of public opinion? Do you know your audiences’ perceptions of your brand? As technology has evolved, and people have more information than ever, audiences are making decisions differently. In many cases, audiences are influenced more by what other consumers have to say about your brand than what you have to say. Is your brand still connecting with your audience? Research can be enlightening when considering a brand refresh.

Can you succinctly say how your brand stands out from the competition? Can your employees? Can your audience? If you’re not standing out, you’re not moving forward. A brand refresh can help you stake your claim in your industry and differentiate yourself from the competition.

Every industry experiences a shifting landscape. During the recent pandemic, no industry was left untouched. Organizations everywhere were upended. New technologies have significantly impacted how people research, purchase, and share their opinions. These disruptions lead to change throughout your organization – your brand needs to keep pace.

Is my logo my brand?

Your logo is a visual representation of your brand. It’s the most recognizable and public-facing component of your brand, so it is integral to communicating your brand to your audiences. As you refresh your brand, you will need to consider whether this important piece still reflects your brand goals. In many cases, your logo will need an upgrade. Sometimes, especially in the case of mergers, you may need an entirely new logo.

Keep in mind that a new logo is not the same as a new brand. To be truly effective, work with a firm that can help you with your overall brand strategy – including your logo.

Will I need a whole new website?

Your website is the hardest-working tool in your marketing toolbox. It’s something that should be refreshed regularly, and rebuilt from time-to-time. One of those times might be when you refresh your brand.

Your website is the most visible element of your brand. If your website is slow to load, doesn’t make e-commerce easy, or function well in a mobile environment, in the minds of your audience, those flaws are attributed to your brand. Sometimes a brand refresh only requires a few tweaks to your website. But keep in mind the critical importance of your website to your brand’s reputation and don’t be afraid to start fresh with a new website.

How Is My Competition Spending Their Marketing Budgets

Can you afford not to be monitoring your competition’s marketing efforts? For most of us, studying the competition is not really our favorite way to spend our marketing dollars. So, how do you stay ahead of the competition without breaking the bank? We’ve got 5 easy, cost-effective techniques that may be the solution you’ve been looking for.

1. Check out their website

Watch for updates like product launches, added site capabilities, and customer responses — anything that might indicate they’re getting a jump on you in terms of products or services. You might also find areas where you excel at something they don’t and can highlight that advantage.

2. Follow their social media

As a follower of their brand pages on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. you’ll get automatic updates about your competition’s activity, including their marketing efforts.

3. Monitor their activity across the internet

Set up a free Google Alerts account and be notified of any online media activity that features your competition. You can see news about them, blog posts, and videos. You can specify whether you want real-time alerts, or daily or weekly batches of alerts.

4. Shop their products and services

First-hand experience with their brand shines a bright light on what they’re doing better or worse than you. While you’re “shopping,” examine everything from product assortments and prices, to package design and customer experience.

5. Receive their e-mail and direct mail promotions

It’s easy to get on their mailing lists. Then, everything they’re doing in these marketing channels is delivered to your inbox for free. Through their website, you can usually request brochures and other sales literature; or you can pick them up at a trade show booth.

Consistency breeds success

The key to success is regular monitoring. It won’t cost you much in money, but it will take a little of your time. Being tuned in to what your competition is doing with their mar-com efforts, can help you differentiate your brand.

How Do I Market My Blog?

There are literally millions of blog posts added to the blogosphere every day. It can be a powerful tool and contribute significantly to your SEO efforts, but…. Every Day??!!??

Let’s examine some Fact and Fiction when it comes to blogging – including whether you actually need to blog every day (spoiler alert: you don’t).

Blogging Fiction #1

If you write it, they will come.

False.

Pithy prose. Relevant information. Well-researched facts. These are all important elements to an effective blog post, but they are not enough to bring your blog to the people.

Blogging Fact #1

People will only read your blog if they can find it. Think of your blog as a service. You need to market it.

You’ll need to invest nearly as much time sharing your blog as you do writing it. Share your posts on multiple social media channels and track your analytics to see what days and times are leading to the most views.

Blogging Fiction #2

Social media is better than email for promoting your blog.

If your goal is to connect with new people then social media is a good place to be. However…

Blogging Fact #2

…if your goal is to grow your audience through genuine connection, then email is a powerful tool for promoting your blog.

You have a carefully-curated list of people who have opted-in to your content. They have asked you to share your knowledge with them by sharing their email address with you.

To build loyalty among your email list build in some exclusives for those who have chosen to opt-in.
• Personalize your emails to them by using their name and sending “bonus” posts that speak directly to their industry (if you’ve collected that information from them).
• Email your blog posts to your list a day before posting it to your site. Embed social links in the email copy so users can share your post easily on their social accounts. This allows them to stand out as thought leaders by sharing the content to their networks a day before you make it widely available.
• Make special, unadvertised, offers to your email list to reward their loyalty.

But how do I go about building a solid list when I’m just getting started? This requires a little heavy lifting on your part, but nothing you can’t handle. Try adding pop ups or slide-ins to your posts that invite people to join your email list. Include a persuasive call to action that really speaks to your audience’s needs, and encourage them to sign up for more great posts like the one they’re reading.

Blogging Fiction #3

SEO for blogs is super-easy; load each post with keywords and links to make it easy for web crawlers to find you.

Today’s search engine algorithms are sophisticated. They’re not going to fall for the old keyword-stuffing trick. Plus, a blog post loaded with keywords is really awkward to read.

Blogging Fact #3

The customer – not the content – is king. Write for the actual humans who will read, comment on, and share your blog, not for the fickle computer algorithms that change their mind every day about which posts make it to Page 1.

Believe it or not, over-optimizing your page can actually lead to penalties from the major search engines, including Google. Tools like Yoast can help by “reading” your post and giving you insight into keyword (over)usage, meta descriptions, and title lengths for SEO.

In addition to thoughtful SEO efforts, optimize your site for sharing. Make it easy for your audience to share your content with easy-to-find sharing buttons and a call to action for sharing on their social networks. Tools like Open Graph and Knowledge Graph can help optimize your shared content so it appears as you would like it to in social sites.

Blogging Fiction #4

(we’ve saved the most egregious for last)
Blog every day to ensure you stay at the top of the search results and top-of-mind with your audience.

Blogging Fact #4

You will get BURNT OUT! Trying to blog every day is an impossible task. It’s not just the research, writing, editing, and optimizing that take time and brain power. It’s also the marketing that goes into making your blog work for you that requires your attention.

There are literally not enough hours in the day to do this well.

The goal is to blog consistently. For some people, that might be as often as 3 times each week. For others, it may be twice each month. Regardless of your schedule, define it, then stick to it. The truth is, sometimes less is more. It builds anticipation in your audience and they’re excited to see your posts. You double that excitement when you provide well-researched and well-written posts that actually speak to them.

Bonus Fact: Hiring a content writer for your blog is usually a good investment. It takes a little time up front for you both to get in sync and for them to learn your voice, but you’ll quickly discover how much more you can get done when you don’t have the full responsibility of your blog on your shoulders.

Using Research to Create Impactful Websites

Jeffrey Zeldman was a featured speaker at An Event Apart in Washing, D.C. and gave a presentation called “From Research to Redesign.” It got us think about the ways we counsel our clients when redesigning their websites.

Zeldman, who you may recognize as the founder of e-magazine “A List Apart” is an acknowledged leader in all things websites: coding, design, US, accessibility, copy, SEO, etc. so when he said “research” BEFORE redesign, we sat up and listened.

Whether we’re creating a brilliant new website or designing holiday postcards for a client, research is the key to success. Learning, planning, and preparation determine the success of any project or campaign.

Understanding your market better than your competitors is key to becoming the solution to your audience’s pain points. Here’s a simple overview of what you need to ask before beginning your next website update:

Know Your Audience

Where are they at today and where do they want to be tomorrow? What is preventing them from moving? What do they value? Based on your quantitative analytics from applications like Hotjar and Google Analytics develop qualitative questions to understand their website user behavior.

Listen and Ask Questions

Effective communication is more about listening than speaking. Hold a focus group and have ask open-ended questions that allow for a free flow of discussion among your stakeholders. You’ll gain valuable insights from their organic responses. As Zeldman says, “You don’t have to be an expert to have a conversation.”

Define Goals

What is it you really want for your business? You can’t develop an effective website if you’re focused solely on its features. A website is a business tool to help you achieve your larger business goals. If you don’t know where you want your business to go, your website won’t take you anywhere.

Clear Direction

Now it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work on that beautiful new website. You’ve gathered insightful information and established clear goals. Let’s figure out exactly how to put that information to work for you.

Measurement

Before you ever launch your website, you need to establish metrics. How will you know if your website is delivering for you? When, and how often, will you measure? How will you measure specific campaigns? These are all important measurements to take on a regular basis to ensure your website remains a vital business investment.

Zeldman’ s three-day conferences are an annual event and bring to life what you read about in “A List Apart” through engaging speakers and presentations. We originally attended an event in July 2018, and have since updated this post reflect current trends.

Are Dropdown Menus Bad?

Trends in website design have evolved tremendously. Back in the beginning, it was like the wild west—no rules, just a mad dash to internet gold. So few sites actually existed that the general public couldn’t be all that critical of layout and user interface. Times have changed. If a user is unhappy with a website’s navigation, it’s onto the next competitor in two clicks. The rising demand for ease of use, captivating design, and intuitive usability has shaped how we construct websites today. Let’s look at the dropdown menu, for instance…

You’ve seen them everywhere—a simple menu bar at the top of a website that reveals more links beneath when hovered upon. This tool has been a staple in presenting the hierarchy of a site’s pages to the user. Some are more elaborate than others, but the primary objective remains the same: to present visitors with a complete and organized visual of the site’s content. Calling the trusty dropdown menu into question has been a recurring conversation among the web design community these past few years. There are quite a few holdouts (us included), but the writing’s on the wall—dropdown menus are dying.

Are Dropdown Menus Bad?

First and foremost, dropdown menus are not mobile-friendly. Sure, they might look pretty and function decently on tablets and phones, but they do not provide an ideal navigational experience. With half of your traffic coming from mobile devices, it’s foolish to ignore this reality. On a more macro scale, dropdowns tend to facilitate the creation of several thin pages, over hearty cornerstone content. It’s all too easy to believe you are doing your visitors a favor by neatly organizing your site’s dozens of pages into a handful of top-level categories. In reality, you are creating a confusing virtual mess and surrendering control of the user journey. The final argument against dropdowns is a bit subjective, but becoming more of a universal truth by the day—dropdown menus are ugly!

Do Dropdown Menus have any Impact on SEO?

For the most part, no dropdown menus do not have any effect on SEO. The user experience could potentially slow the site speed or discourage mobile navigation on your site but in terms of meta data, content and rankings, dropdown menus are simply a navigation item. The sitemap and navigation hierarchy will remain the same whether the menus are visible or not. So optimize your site normally!

Dropdown Menu Mobile Performance

With Google and all the search engines really focusing on mobile indexation as their top ranking factors, this needs to be considered. Dropdowns are terrible for mobile. The navigation needs to be completely visible and ready to be clicked by your fingers. If a user can’t see your hierarchy, there’s a great chance they won’t use it.

Dropdown Menu Alternatives

You didn’t think we were going to trash a beloved navigational tactic and leave you with no alternatives, did you? There is no need to alter the hierarchy of your sitemap. Parent and Child pages can continue to exist as you wish. However, now is a good time to reimagine how they are presented to the visitor.

Minimize and simplify your primary header navigation to just a few top-level links. This is the equivalent of someone typing in a zip code to focus a world map on one specific region. On these landing pages, you provide links, buttons, and shortcuts to the sub-pages beneath where it makes sense to do so. It’s all about context! Crafting your user experience in this way allows site owners to take back control of how people browse, learn, and buy online.

As of the date of this posting, we are working to eradicate dropdown menus here at ACS on our own site, as well as future client launches. Much like the old wild west, there are still no hard rules at play. Sometimes, a dropdown menu just makes sense. Take some time to evaluate your own website and look for ways to make your customer journey more fluid and intuitive.

Reach out to ACS Creative about web design services and get a quote today for your project!

5 Tips to Maximize Return on Ad Spend

Making every penny count has never been more important for businesses of all sizes. Many companies are finding themselves having to decide if advertising is worth the expense right now. Regardless of what may be going in the news or across the world, we believe paid marketing can always be effective. The key mindset in PPC advertising is to remain actively in tune with the ebbs and flows of not only your campaign, but the bigger picture as well. Here are our top five tips for getting more return on ad spend during an uncertain market:

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1. Be Vigilant

Avoid irrelevant (or tone deaf) messaging in your ads by staying on top of global events, seasons, holidays, economic cycles, and other factors that affect the marketplace. To optimize your return on ad spend, you must always be in-line with and sensitive to what’s on your customers’ minds in that moment.

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2. Change with the Times

Your campaigns should be treated as a living, breathing entity—not a set it and forget it effort. When there are changes and swings in the environments mentioned above, be prepared to change along with it. We can’t control the weather, but we can react to it. Major events aren’t distractions; they’re opportunities!

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3. Monitor and Pivot

While you should be ready and willing to modify your ad copy, offers, visuals, and strategy to stay relevant with the times, there is such as thing as too much tinkering. It’s a delicate balance between gathering data and wasting money. Give your marketing adequate time to reach a large enough audience before making any drastic changes. Use the wealth of analytics provided in almost all ad platforms to execute smart, informed tweaks when necessary. Being certain of what isn’t working will help guide you to what will.

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4. Optimize for Success

Whether you’re employing banner display ads, video ads, or search result ads, content is critical. First and foremost, the sentiment of the link a user clicks needs to be prominently reiterated in the page they land on. It seems like common sense that the messaging someone engages with matches what their interest is in that moment. However, you’d be surprised how often this detail is overlooked by advertisers. Therefore, if you are running several different ads, you may want to consider several different landing pages. Meet your visitors’ expectations and increase your conversions!

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5. Understand Your Audience

Well, we’ve covered optimizing your messaging and user experience. Of course it’s time to discuss optimizing who sees your ads to begin with. Targeting too broad of an audience is one of the quickest way to burn through your budget without yielding results. No matter if you’re utilizing Google, Bing, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Reddit for PPC advertising, selecting the location, interests, and traits of your ideal customer is a critical step in setting up your campaign. Who are you really trying to reach? What do they do for a living? How do they spend their time? What are they looking for? Defining and understanding your customer avatar will help you answer these questions—thus minimizing irrelevant (and expensive) impressions and clicks.

Especially in an uncertain market, you’ll need to maintain control of how specific ads are and that people get what they expect. Remember that just because it’s working now doesn’t mean it will always work.

Graphic Designers vs Web Designers: What’s the Difference?

When it comes to graphic designers and web designers, there’s more to the names than just a job title. Once graphic artists who handled it all, designers nowadays are segmented into more focused specialties as digital and web work continues to evolve.

Graphic designers and web designers specialize in different aspects of the creative world. Can their skill sets overlap? Of course. But, when you’re working with a creative agency, it’s good to know who the experts are for your project. Let’s explore…

The Similarities

Graphic designers and web designers are creative and artistic professionals who, at their core, share many skills and interests. Both types of designers have an eye for design and visual communications. Each understands how to present information in an attractive and efficient way. They use layouts, graphics, typography, charts and images to convey ideas. They are well-versed in the importance of branding and brand consistency and the visual aspects of marketing. The most effective creative professionals, whether they specialize in web or graphic design, are passionate about learning, evolving, and keeping up with modern trends.

The Differences

Graphic designers offer a diverse scope of skills. They are adept at producing a number of different projects for both print and digital applications. They can design an advertisement for one client, then switch gears to create a logo for another. Many of their graphics can be for print work or used on a website. Their wheelhouse can encompass different types of finished deliverables with concrete specifications. Basically, once a design is approved, it’s finalized, sent to print, and put to bed. That definitive endpoint makes graphic design a bit different from web design.

Web designers are more specialized. They design website-related work ranging from landing pages to complete sites. They focus on both the design of the website and the functional, intuitive user experience. Not only is their objective to create a visually attractive site, but also ensure that it performs well and adheres to proven information architecture and U/X principles. This often includes optimizing page load times and file sizes. A web designer may dabble in SEO and content, but they are not web “developers” who specialize in coding and programming. Websites go through changes as company brands change. New content needs to be added for SEO or navigation needs to be tweaked to increase conversions. So, technically, a web designer’s job is never done.

The Blend

Nowadays, it’s not uncommon for the lines to be blurred between the two areas of design work. Most designers can do both graphic and web design. Their skillsets can bleed into each other and be blended depending on the client or project. They are both creative and understand their medium — they know their stuff. Just make sure that you know who you’re working with when engaging with an agency on your next project.

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