Recycle Old Posts for Maximum Traffic Exposure with Minimum Effort
You’ve probably heard (in this blog and elsewhere) that one of Google’s criteria for giving a website high search engine results page placement is the regular addition of fresh content. What’s more, as everyone follows Google’s dictates and floods the internet with staggering volumes of new content, in-bound links from social media pages become an easier way to drive traffic to a website. So, for both search engines and social media, frequent updates are key.
This is a problem for many businesses who either don’t have the resources for such an endeavor, or just don’t have news to share that often. How can they keep the content wheels turning in the slow periods between new posts? One way is to rework or repurpose content.
Decide What Content to Recycle
Audit.
Look at every page on your website from the perspective of possible spin-offs or updates.
Analyze.
Time-sensitive content (news items, blog posts): Which pages have been performing well, and which less so? Anything that’s no longer pulling its weight should be a candidate for reworking.
Evergreen content (product/service pages, corporate info): How can it be leveraged in multiple formats and channels? The same info bite can keep people coming to your website from many different directions.
If a page is no longer useful at all, like a discontinued product or job listing, take this opportunity to remove it from your site. Remember to set up a 301 redirect so that people landing on the old URL are taken to a new, relevant page.
Transport It: Intra-Site Recycling
Instead of thinking up new topics or writing an article from scratch, do a quick rewrite of assets already in your content bank.
Update it.
Some of your older blog articles may refer to trends, statistics, regulations, etc. that aren’t current anymore. Repurpose content with the same talking points but more recent information. Also, update your evergreen content where necessary. This could be anything from a new manager bio on the “About Us” page to revised product specs.
Atomize it.
Divide up a “Ten Tips” type of article and expand each one of the tips into its own article. For example, the section you’re reading now could become a stand-alone article on content recycling techniques.
Invert it.
Rewrite a “How to” article as a “How Not to” discussion; or vice versa. Example: “Best Practices” inverts into “Worst Mistakes.”
Visualize it.
Turn a text-only article into one that replaces some of the verbiage with infographics or videos. If that’s not feasible, add subheads, bullet lists and similar devices to break up the text and make it more visually appealing.
Upgrade it.
Add quality and authority to an article with new statistics, quotes from experts and links to their websites.
Expand it.
Spin the information from a product page or user manual into a blog article. You’re probably already doing this with new product introductions, but don’t miss the opportunity to explain every one of your products and services. Google loves useful content like this.
Import/Export It: Extra-Site Recycling
Get more return on your content writing services investment by populating multiple platforms with it. The backlinks will provide a nice boost to your SEO ranking.
Social media.
Posts to your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media pages should appear on your website, and vice versa. In this case, and up to a point, you can simply duplicate the content.
Publishing sites.
Newsworthy content, such as product launches or management appointments, should be submitted to news services such as PR Newswire. Any and everything else can go on sites like HubPages.
Guest posts.
Add contributions that you’ve made to discussion groups, forums, other people’s blogs or social media to your own website. Expand, condense or explain as necessary.
Collateral.
Digitize and upload any white papers, catalogs, brochures and other company literature that isn’t already on your site. Extracts from long white papers make excellent blog posts.
Atomize it, part 2.
In the section above, we suggested taking one talking point from an article and expanding it into its own article. You can also keep the talking point as is and put this quick bite on social media sites like Twitter with a link back to the original article.
Audio/video versions.
Take your repurpose content to new audiences, especially those who don’t have time to read long articles. Make an audio recording of yourself reading an article and turn it into a podcast. Add some slides and make a PowerPoint presentation. Produce a video webinar.
Recycle Old Posts SEO Tips for Success
Since the whole purpose of recycling content is for search engine optimization, make sure you have it configured to Google’s liking.
Keywords.
You’ve probably done additional keyword research since that old content was published. Apply the new findings to your recycled article.
Internal links.
The longer visitors stay on your site, the better Google loves you. Keep them clicking around with links on every page to every other relevant page. In addition to including links in your recycled content, you can also link from the original article to the recycled one, i.e. “See more (or newer) information here.”
Meta data.
Google dislikes duplicate meta data as much as duplicate content. Don’t forget to change up the tags and descriptions on your recycled page.
Retain page seniority.
With this trick, you don’t actually change the content, just its publishing date. Reposting an old, formerly successful article on the same URL will improve traffic to it because it’s re-archived closer to your home page, yet Google won’t perceive it as a duplicate. It won’t equal truly fresh content, but might give your SEO performance a little help.
Conclusion
Sure, repurpose content is an easy way to fill the gaps between posts of fresh content: to “fake it ’til you make it.” But it’s more than that. Your content is a valuable asset that can and should be exploited in every way possible to maximize your return on investment.
Get Your Web Design On: Best Practices for 2017 Part One
December is our time for peace, presents and annual lists reflecting on everything under the sun. As a full-service DC web design company, we would be remiss if we didn’t do a little reflecting on our own industry, specifically how web design has evolved in the last 12 months and where we believe the trends are headed. (Here’s a hint: Google’s Material Design Guidelines will play a big role).
It’s how we stay ahead of the industry curve and, more critically, how we help our clients outpace their competitors online. With offices in Maryland and Virginia, we have a slew of web designers in our immediate community. We polled DC web design, Baltimore web design and Charleston web design gurus to get a feel for the past year and what the future of web design holds. Here’s our list of best practices for 2017, broken into two parts.
Part 1: Trends for Look and Feel
1. Go bold.
As mentioned above, Google’s Material Design Guidelines are leading the way in terms of future trends. Not a surprise. Google has been stomping out its search engine competitors with innovative platforms for the last few years. In 2014, the company began developing guidelines for web design best practices. If you want your company to rank high on Google searches, understanding and complying with their suggestions is a no brainer.
For 2017, Google is pushing bold, both in terms of color palette and font. Gone are the ubiquitous white backgrounds of the past. Bright, flat colors wisely implemented can help guide the user experience and set your brand’s tone. Think blues and yellows and purples. Don’t be shy. Color is in. You can also use variations in hues to create elevations and shadows similar to how you might design a print piece. Check out the use of color on this website by So So Tasty. The yellows and oranges pull browsers in, as does the large type and interesting font.
Speaking of type, bold type will get you everywhere. And with Google web fonts, (our DC web design folk are huge fans) web designers are no longer relegated to Arial and Helvetica. They can choose from 810 web-friendly font families. Using type to differentiate your brand has never been easier. The upshot: if you want your website to get noticed on the web, be bold.
2. Duotones will be all the rage.
A subset of using bold, bright colors is the latest design trend: duotones. Duotones is the practice of using a halftone reproduction of an image that superimposes one contrasting color halftone (traditionally black) over another color halftone. This highlights the middle tones of an image. Typically, you choose a color like blue, red or yellow to superimpose over the black.
Our Charleston web design team likes the bold minimalism that duotones allow them to create. For example, see this website for UK headhunting agency, Holm, Marcher & Co. The use of duotone transforms this rather ho hum image into a much more interesting visual. It also allows the company’s key messages to stand out on the page—which is critical to any company on the web. Duotones is a great tool to “wow” users for a specific reason, and Google really likes when your design serves an intentional purpose.
3. Less is always more.
If you want your website to have impact, minimize your use of images and keep your content concise. That doesn’t mean you can’t share a boatload of information. You can, as long as that information is designed in a manner that the visitor can take in without getting overwhelmed. Keep in mind that you no longer need to fit all your key messages above the fold—a practice borrowed from newspapers. Websites are not newspapers. They scroll. The rise of responsive sites that work across all mobile devices has made user-friendly scrolling sites all the more popular.
Our Baltimore web design uses a mobile first approach when it comes to web design. Since an increasing majority of people browse the web on their mobile devices, considering what works best on mobile before desktop is sure to gain you some favor from Google’s new mobile-encouraging policies. Basically, choose your images and your key messages wisely. Then design them in a manner that is both appealing to the eye and communicates information quickly and efficiently across all platforms.
4. Say no to stock.
Royalty-free, generic stock images don’t appeal to anyone. Nor do they differentiate your brand from competitors—especially since those competitors are free to use the same images. Your best bet is to invest in a few really good images that you own to convey the essence of your brand. Otherwise you will look like everyone else on the web. Alternatively, you can use vector stock images that can be customized to your needs. Whatever you can do to avoid bad photography, do it. If the image doesn’t attract you, it’s not going to attract visitors either.
5. Think outside the grid.
Responsive websites have led to the grid revolution. Because of the way they reconfigure across different browser widths, responsive sites are built in sections of rectangles and squares that can move under and above each other. Responsive technology was a great advancement in mobile friendly web design. However, it has its drawbacks. Namely, really creative layouts have disappeared as designers parcel content into similarly shaped, geometric boxes. But it doesn’t have to be this way. There are new CSS frameworks on the horizon that allow for more flexibility, including the ability to create non-rectangular layouts. So web designers should feel free to stretch their layout imaginations. The technology is catching up.
Cultivate Your Garden of Good Online Reviews
Earning five star reviews and positive online feedback is the kind of effective marketing that can really nurture your business. Why? Because almost everybody reads them. BrightLocal’s 2015 Local Consumer Study showed that 92% of consumers tend to consult online reviews when researching a local business. So what others say about your small business can critically affect your ability to attract new customers.
Those reviews also influence your Google search engine rankings. A similar study by Moz.com reported that the quality and frequency of online reviews account for over 8% of your company’s local search engine ranking—more than Facebook likes and Twitter followers. Taken together, these stats suggest that positive online reviews, and developing marketing strategies to leverage them, are key to your profitability. Unfortunately, good reviews don’t grow on trees. You need to plant a few virtual seeds in order for them to grow.
Five ways to grow online reviews.
The first step to setting up your good review garden is developing marketing strategies that include actionable items. Meaning you need to ask for reviews and respond to online feedback. But, and this is a big but, a lot of sites have rules regarding how you can solicit reviews. Here’s how you can successfully encourage consumers to give you five stars without incurring the wrath of the review gods.
1. Check-in, please.
A surprisingly high number of folks like to “check-in” when they arrive at a restaurant, shop or event. This is an especially effective marketing tool for avoiding Yelp’s spam filters that weed out review requests and seemingly fake reviews. So in addition to asking consumers who frequent your place to write a review, encourage them to check-in on their Yelp app. Yelp will then take on the task of asking those that checked-in to write a review for you.
If you’re one of those business owners who feels uncomfortable requesting reviews, then this strategy is particularly good for you. Yelp does all the work and you get the stars—and those stars have been proven to raise revenue. A study by UC Berkeley looking at reservation rates among independent restaurants in San Francisco showed that reservations grew by 19% with just an extra half star increase on Yelp. If you want a simple “how to expand your business strategy”, getting active on Yelp by responding to feedback (both the good and the bad) can do wonders.
2. Claim your Google My Business listing.
First it was Google+ Local. Then it was Google Places. Now the 100lb gorilla of the internet has evolved its tools for small businesses into Google My Business. This change is an effort to streamline the management of your company’s Google presence and make it easier for you to improve your business. There’s no charge to claim your Google My Business page, but if you don’t use it, leaving it out there could cost you profits. According to Google, the benefits you’ll reap include:
No effective marketing strategy should be without a Google My Business plan. Not only will this drive more traffic to your website, but you’ll be able to instantly gauge how consumers feel about your company.
3. Don’t be shy about asking.
Those loyal customers you’ve spent years doing business with are happy to tout your services. They are probably doing so already. So why not formalize the review process by including a post-purchase eblast campaign when developing your marketing strategies? These eblasts can include a personalized thank you for your customer’s business as well as a link to leave a Google review.
Similarly, many review sites offer widgets you can place on your own site to facilitate reviews. The trick to those beaucoup 5 stars is to make writing a review on a business as easy as possible. You also want to let your customers know that their feedback is much appreciated. Take a second to respond to the review online. That kind of engagement with your customers can really improve your SEO reputation management.
4. Incentivize. Incentive. Incentive.
When it comes to effective marketing, a review rewards program should also be on the top of your strategy list. Many companies offer extra loyalty points or small discounts in exchange for a customer business review. There is nothing wrong with thanking customers for taking the time to write about your company online.
5. Don’t forget the little guys.
While Google and Yelp are the biggest go-tos for searches and ratings, other search engines and review sites are worth pursuing. Yahoo! still gets 10% of searches, and it costs nothing to set your business up on Yahoo! Local Listings. It’s similar to Google My Business and helps your website rankings. Foursquare, Trustpilot and MerchantCircle are all worthy of consideration as well. After all, a good review anywhere is likely to help grow your business. Some of these review sites also make it very easy to share your reviews on social media—which you should do. If a customer says something nice, spread the word.
SEO reputation management can get a little overwhelming for busy small businesses. That’s where ACS Creative comes in. We’ve got these strategies and many more ready to serve your company. Contact us to learn more about boosting your online reviews.
Boosting Your Word-of-Internet
Once upon a time in the not so distant past, people asked their friends and colleagues for recommendations regarding everything from plumbers to restaurants. “Hey, anyone got a handyman?” you’d say, and someone would scribble down a phone number and slide it over. This still happens, of course, but in today’s “Just-Google-It” world, our circle of trusted referring folk includes the entire planet.
We want a restaurant, we go to Yelp. Backyard need sprucing up? Try Angie’s List. The number and popularity of websites dedicated to crowd-sourcing reviews is growing. Google is also in on the act. Its star ratings appear right in the search results and influence which links consumers click. The upshot: If your company reputation is not promoted online, then you are losing out on potential business. Word-of-internet is the new word-of-mouth. What people say about your company online can and will affect your profits. We outline below how to improve business, utilizing online reputation management.
How’s your online company reputation?
According to a 2014 online survey by BrightLocal, 88% of consumers trust online reviews—that’s almost everyone. Plus 40% of those consulting online reviews form their opinions of a company after reading only three entries. That means you have little time to forge a positive first virtual impression. When there’s fierce competition for your product or service, consumers’ initial reactions to your company can be critical to your revenue. That’s why a savvy marketing strategy for managing online reviews should be at the top of every company’s “To Do” list. ACS can help with the ins and outs of creating a lead-generating company reputation online. After all, developing marketing strategies for small businesses is what we do.
How to improve business with stars.
Or thumbs up or little smiley faces or whatever other icons review sites are using these days to let the world know your company is worth a try. Studies show that 31% of customers are likely to spend more on businesses with positive reviews, so you want to hoard these icons and communicate a positive online reputation to everyone searching for your company, products or services.
With millions seeking reviews on Google, setting up your business for success with Google is particularly important. Their 5-star rating appears right on the search page. Consumers don’t have to visit Yelp or another review site. Your company reputation is thrust front and center, and your bottom line will be affected by the number of Google stars you have under your name. The website Marketcharts states that overall star rating remains the most important factor for consumers when judging a local business on its reviews. Google shows the consumer stars before they even click through to your website. Google also pays attention to your star rating. The more stars you have, the higher you will rank when consumers search for your products and services.
Good reviews are not luck.
All those companies with high ratings and hundreds of positive reviews didn’t get them by chance. A positive and prolific company reputation is the result of a smart marketing strategy. You can offer the best products and services in the world, but this will not help you generate business online if you are not spreading the virtual word and developing a stellar online presence. ACS recommends a two-fold approach to generating more online reviews.
Step one: The first part of your online marketing plan is building a website that is modern, responsive (meaning it automatically adjusts to mobile and desktop viewing) and makes consumers feel good about your company. A dated-looking website that does not work well or makes information hard to find will be a ding on your online reputation. This is no different than having a messy store or slow service at your restaurant. The appearance and functionality of your company’s website will influence both your sales and your future reviews.
Cultivate a feel-good customer relationship.
Step two: In addition to a friendly and helpful website, you want to engage in regular email marketing—this really is the key to increasing business through good reviews. Now we’re not talking spam here or begging customers to give you 5 out of 5. The purpose of email marketing is to provide relevant and useful content that cultivates loyalty. If you nurture your customer relationships, those customers will write glowing reviews. They’ll be happy to do it when prompted. Then those reviews will attract new customers who will write more positive reviews and so on and so on. The equation is really simple:
Great product/service + well-designed site + skilled email marketing = positive reviews.
Oops, got a bad one.
Unfortunately, negative reviews happen even to the best of companies. Fortunately, here’s the real advantage of online reviews: you can respond to negative ones. Unlike before when you had no idea if someone was verbally trashing your company’s reputation, these days you can reply to the upset customer—and it is important to reply.
Keep in mind that your response is not just for them. It’s for everyone reading the review. If you let the negative review go unanswered, potential customers won’t know if your company stands by its products and services. You may never be able to satisfy the writer of the negative review, but you can sure let the world know that you tried—and this is critical to managing your company reputation online. Plus sites like Yelp and others do monitor reviews. You can request that a particularly vicious and unfounded review be removed. It is important to have a marketing strategy for dealing with negative reviews promptly.
To Wix or Not To Wix
That is the question a lot of website-seeking small businesses ask themselves. At first blush, Wix appears to be a great solution. It offers drag and drop features that allow you to create a website in an afternoon despite zero knowledge of CSS or SEO or any code at all. It sounds like a non-developer’s dream come true.
For many individuals then, the Wix vs WordPress dilemma is an easy one to answer: go with Wix. It is simpler than WordPress and currently boasts over 1 million websites.
But here’s the catch: if you are not an individual looking to give travel advice or chronicle the life of your cat, the website-in-an-afternoon route is not going to cut it. If instead, you are an entrepreneur or a small business owner who wants to harness the power of the web to build your company, you want a web development company that creates responsive, high Google ranking websites designed to perform. Here are the whys:
Why #1: Wix vs WordPress is like Apples vs Oranges.
The first big difference between WordPress and Wix is that WordPress is a free, open source platform for creating websites. Wix technology is not open source. Wix allows you to create free websites using a basic level of the company’s technology. The company earns money by charging for premium upgrades. So, if you want fancy things like Google Analytics (you do want this if you are a small business), e-commerce or extra storage, there is a Wix cost. You pay a small monthly fee that ranges from $14-$25 a month. This includes hosting by Wix. Important to note: you can only host your Wix website on Wix.
In contrast, WordPress technology is free for everyone and anyone. You can host your freebie site with WordPress.org for a nominal amount, or you can host your site elsewhere. That is why over 26 percent of the world’s top 10 million websites are built in WordPress. The thousands and thousands of available plugins also add to WordPress’s robust capabilities. WordPress web developers far outnumber Wix web designers for this reason.
Think of a Wix website like a coloring book. You buy the book and add the colors you like between the fixed lines. You need nothing more than the ability to pick out colors to create a cute website. WordPress is like a blank page. It requires some skill and knowledge to create a WordPress website, but you can hire a web development company to create exactly what you need for your particular business. You don’t have to stay between the lines, and that’s really important because in the future, you might need to change your picture. With Wix, you can’t change, which brings us to….
Why #2: Wix themes cannot be updated.
Wix does offer several hundred themes to choose from on their site. This might seem like plenty to you now, and you might think you’ve found the perfect one for your small business, but your business is going to grow. That theme which first caught your eye might not accommodate your business’s future sales channels. Unfortunately, you are stuck with it like a virtual tattoo. Wix does not allow you to switch your theme. You have to build a new website from scratch. This is a big disadvantage.
Looking again at WordPress vs. Wix, WordPress is the far better choice here. Because of that open source thing, there are thousands upon thousands of WordPress themes available to your developer. Your web design company may have even developed its own proprietary theme for its customers use. Plus, WordPress themes tend to be highly customizable.
Wix themes are more rigid. Layouts are typically pre-determined, and you can only drop in pictures and words. Lastly, and most critically, you can interchange WordPress themes. You can switch your theme by simply uploading and activating a new one. Sure, you may have to go back and reconfigure your content to your new theme, but that’s a whole lot easier than starting from scratch. This is why good web designers prefer WordPress over Wix. Wix puts your web content into an existing box. WordPress lets you design the box and change it at will.
Why #3: Wix e-commerce is relatively basic.
If you really want to set up shop online, the free Wix platform and even some of its premium upgrades do not have the capability for sophisticated shopping transactions. They lack the ability to automate confirmation emails. This is a problem even for micro businesses. Eventually, you might get bigger and need a more robust platform that automates some business and marketing functions. Imagine having to manually send out purchase confirmations 100 times a day!
Wix did recently introduce a new market app that allows you to configure sales tax, integrate with Shopify and build a bigger online store with some new automated features. However, it’s one app. With WordPress, you can choose from many e-commerce themes and plugins. Your savvy WordPress designer can also configure your web store to your shop’s needs. Again, the WordPress vs. Wix question leans towards WordPress.
In the end, we’re talking flexibility.
Ultimately, when deciding between Wix and WordPress, you have to consider the future vs. the now. The website you need today may not be the same site you need tomorrow. This is an important factor for small businesses. You may not be able to pre-determine the features you’ll require as your business grows, but your business is going to grow.
The high customization and numerous integrations available with WordPress make it the smarter choice. And, yes, building a WordPress site on your own is not as easy as creating one on Wix or the dozens of other website builder platforms available. To that we say: hire a web designer. Make the investment in your company’s online presence. It’s sure to pay back dividends.
The Epic Battle Between WordPress vs Squarespace
In the battle of Designer Using WordPress vs Squarespace, which one reigns supreme? That is what we are about to find out. Both have diehard fans who insist the benefits of their favorite platform far outweigh the advantages of the other. Many think it’s wholly unnecessary to hire a web designer when you can drag and drop your way to a new online presence. So we’re going head to head: comparing features, discussing value, and giving you an honest look at which avenue is the best to take: Squarespace or WordPress. Here we go.
Round 1: Squarespace SEO vs Designer using WordPress SEO.
Squarespace states that their sites are optimized for search engines from the get-go. They already include clean article links, proper tagging, XML sitemaps and valid XHTML code. This is all true and makes it very easy for the lay person to plug and play without knowing a single thing about SEO. However, ease has it drawbacks. For example, your ability to fully customize your SEO is hampered by the turnkey aspect of Squarespace’s SEO. While you can edit the meta description (that gray text you see under website names in search results) some of Squarespace’s templates also put that description in your website’s header. This is not great for SEO. The meta description should include keywords and a call to action, namely, clicking on the site. Your header and other on-page text is meant to introduce your website/company to consumers. When Squarespace conflates these two things, you lose the ability to truly tailor your content for maximum SEO.
In contrast, WordPress handles SEO through plugins. One of the most popular SEO plugins is Yoast. Yoast allows you to see how your page will look in search engine results. You can easily customize keywords and meta descriptions, create your sitemaps and perform on-page analyses to improve SEO. Other plugins are offering similar functionality. Your knowledgeable WordPress designer can manipulate a variety of plugins to maximize SEO for your WordPress site and tailor it to your company’s needs—and that is the key. Squarespace SEO is one size fits all, and that may be a little too small or a little too big for you. The extra cost of a web designer using WordPress is paid back in better search engine optimization.
Because of the added customization and ability to differentiate meta text from on-page text, ACS Creative declares the:
Round 1: Squarespace SEO vs Design using WordPress SEO Winner to be: Designer.
Round 2: Squarespace uptime vs Design Using WordPress uptime.
This compare and contrast can get a little tricky because many WordPress sites are not hosted for free on WordPress.org. That’s for personal blogs and freelancers. If you’re a small business seeking a brand new responsive website, you should be looking at a managed hosting package, like the one ACS Creative offers web clients. Our packages not only host your site but include top security features, daily back-ups, and ongoing maintenance. You can also purchase one from hosting companies such as GoDaddy or Network Solutions, but you’ll have to maintain updates and security yourself. That’s why this particular comparison between WordPress vs Squarespace is a little apples to oranges. But our inability to compare and contrast is exactly why WordPress has the edge here. Squarespace hosts Squarespace websites. That’s how it works. You are at the mercy of Squarespace when it comes to your uptime and your security. If you want to change hosts, you usually need to rebuild your site. This may not be a deal breaker for you. You may be totally fine staying on Squarespace forever and not worrying about maintenance, backups, and security. Except Squarespace suffered an outage last April. All of their sites (over 1 million) went down. Not good if you’re banking on online sales. This should be a deal breaker.
Round 2 Winner: Designer using WordPress who offers a managed hosting package.
Round 3: Squarespace Cost vs Designer using WordPress Cost.
Here’s where there is a substantial difference. Squarespace costs less regarding upfront outlay. The company offers low-cost monthly plans that include basic themes and hosting. If you’re a micro business with no intention of growing bigger, this is probably fine. If you have your small business sights set on doubling customers and boosting revenue, the true Squarespace cost is a lack of lead generation. Again, Squarespace is, for the most part, a turnkey program designed for personal use and general business. It’s not specific to your business. WordPress website designers may cost more, they may have heftier monthly plans, but they will tailor your website to your specific business goals. They will ensure that SEO functionality is generating the results you want, and they will offer personalized customer service. At least, that’s what we do at ACS Creative. So the real question here is not how much does a designer using WordPress vs Squarespace cost? The true question is: which one will get you more value.
Round 3 Winner: Designer using WordPress who offers much more value per dollar.
Round 4: Squarespace design vs Designer using WordPress.
This one is a real easy comparison. Squarespace offers roughly 50 different templates that you can customize with your choice of colors, content, and typography. That sounds like a lot, except when you realize that there are over a million Squarespace websites out there. In contrast, the design possibilities with a designer using WordPress are virtually endless. Regarding customization potential, Squarespace can’t compete.
Round 4 winner: Designers using WordPress and their imaginations.
A designer using WordPress is the clear heavyweight champ.
If you’re a growing small business, a web design company can be your best friend. Websites like Squarespace certainly offer many benefits, but those may not be the right advantages for your company. A savvy web design company can do wonders for your business. Before you Squarespace, it’s worth checking some out.
What those “User-Friendly” Website Builders aren’t Telling You
Back in the day, a business card was the first tool in any new company’s arsenal. Now what every start up needs most is a branded online presence that generates business. Cue the onslaught of DIY website platforms like Wix, Weebly and Squarespace that promise to be the best website builder for small businesses. At ACS Creative web design company, we beg to differ. While these platforms offer drag and drop features that appeal to non techies wanting to go live in a jiffy, they have several major issues in common. So before you sign up for what seems like a too good to be true “best” website creator, check out the caveats below.
You’ll be stuck with isolationist technology.
Companies like Wix, Weebly and Squarespace rely on their own, uniquely created technologies that appear similar to WordPress, but are not WordPress. That means you have to depend entirely on that company for all your website design ideas. The problem is that more often than not, your DIY website builder will have limited functionality. For example, it may not integrate with e-commerce. It may not allow for best practice SEO strategies. Google analytics? You might have to forget that, too. And tracking of conversions? Well, that’s probably too much to ask. Essentially, when you choose these “top” website builders, the ease you think you are gaining is countered by a significant decrease in your ability to leverage your online presence to build a more successful business—which is the whole reason you need a website in the first place.
Your best website builder for small business is a web design company.
That’s because web design companies and freelance web designers almost exclusively build sites in WordPress. The latest stats show that WordPress accounts for nearly 57% of content management systems. Over 500 WordPress sites are created each day. The reason for this platform’s popularity among personal web design and those searching for the best website builder for a small business, is that it is an open source website creation tool. Translation: WordPress technology is free. It’s not owned by a private company and it’s not exclusive to users paying a monthly fee. Anyone can design in WordPress and anyone can create plugins for WordPress. (There are currently over 44,000 plugins available.) All this creates numerous benefits for small businesses.
Realize ALL your website design ideas.
Unlike those other platforms, WordPress gives web development and design companies the ultimate freedom to create a tailored site that provides just about any functionality you can dream up. These functions can really boost your business. If you think websites are just images and words, you are missing the rest of the iceberg. Modern websites are content management systems that integrate marketing functions. They can generate leads and capture consumer data. But to really harness the power of the Internet, you need a website built by experts. So unless you are a website design/developer, you should leave the website building to those experts.
Once you go with a DIY website builder, you can never leave.
There’s another drawback to using an “easy” website builder that relies on proprietary technology. If you decide that Wix, Weebly or Squarespace no longer works for you, then you have to scrap your website and start over. From scratch. You can’t transfer your site elsewhere. Other hosting companies like GoDaddy, HostGator and Network Solutions won’t be able to host it. So all that money you spent, in the end, gets you nothing. Alternately, websites built by web design companies, especially those using WordPress, can be hosted on all the major hosting companies. If your hosting plan gets too expensive or you decide the security on that server isn’t up to snuff, you can just take your website elsewhere. Simply download the files and upload them again.
Your website design has two audiences.
Most lay people assume they are building their websites for their customers. That’s only the half of it. You are also building it for Google, Bing and other search engines. Those “best web builders” allow you to easily add content and images and get your site live. You look at your spanking new site and think: “What an awesome online brochure.” The problem is, if you think of websites as virtual brochures, you are neglecting all the backend work that goes into getting a good search engine ranking. Google is your most critical audience. Web development companies understand how to harness meta descriptions, key words and other tools so that Google likes you. When Google likes you, your site ranks high and customers find you. When Google doesn’t like you, you might as well not have a website at all. Think about how many times you go past the third page of search results. You want to avoid that abyss at all costs.
Those web design quotes are a bargain. Really.
The reason most people go with an easy website builder is cost. These companies make their profits over time. There is a small upfront charge (if any) and then you pay them monthly. If you want to end the contract, then you lose your website as noted above. In contrast, a web design company will bill you up front. Many small companies balk at the initial expense. The difference can be in the thousands. However, when you consider that 1. your website will function properly as well as look good, 2. that Google will be able to find you, and 3. that you get to keep your website forever (or until technology evolves again) the upfront cost is a great value. (And you can amortize that cost. Just ask your tax accountant.) The bottom line: being stuck with a monthly fee for a site you can never own, doesn’t integrate with the majority of other technologies and isn’t as effective as it can be at generating leads, is truly the more costly option.
Times are Changing. 9 Search Engine Tips to Rethink
Search Engine Tips & Tactics That Have Gone from Wins to Fails
Back when there were few players in the game, most SEO optimization tips worked and were somewhat simple. But with the exponential growth of users and abusers, some of the old techniques don’t work so well anymore. Even worse, a few are now actually penalized by Google. Here are the biggest offenders:
Write keyword heavy content.
You’re probably aware by now that Google penalizes the practice of cramming as many keywords into a website’s text and meta descriptions as possible (“keyword stuffing”), and has done so for the past five-plus years. What you may not know is that it’s not necessary to force exact match keyword phrases into your text at all.
Google’s latent semantic indexing will identify the most common words and phrases of the entire page, no matter what order they appear in, as well as synonyms and related terms. This leaves you free to write quality content that not only brings in the traffic, it converts them to customers.
Some people have taken the above statement to mean that you don’t have to optimize your content, period. You still need the search engines to find it, though. Make it easy for them to do that with effective page URLs, meta data and site architecture as well as well researched, judiciously deployed keywords.
This idea came into being because search engines can’t actually see images. But they can see the image’s file name, title, caption, alt text and description. If these are well done with relevant keywords, they can have a significant impact on your website’s optimization.
We’re not saying you should just throw any old stock photo or video onto your website. The importance of visual content to your overall branding and marketing strategy can’t be overestimated. Choose unique, powerful images that help sell your business and have a better chance of being seen.
Unless those additional pages have great content, they won’t help you at all. Again, Google rankings now depend on the quality, not quantity, of the user experience. The Panda algorithm update of 2011 was the death knell of the junk site whose only reason for existence was to display PPC ads. In fact, multiple pages with duplicate, little or no content may even bring a Google penalty down on your head.
It’s true that a substantial amount of inbound and outbound links will help your SEO ranking; it’s still one of the top five most important ranking factors. But this has led to numerous abuses, such as buying/selling links, links hidden in widgets, bait and switch links, and more.
In 2013 with the Penguin 2.0 algorithm, Google began clamping down on those SEO optimization tips by examining the quality of the link and the domain it was obtained from. So now your best strategy is to earn links the old-fashioned way, by offering webmasters, bloggers, editors and publishers a genuine reason to add a link back to your website. That means making substantive comments, guest blogs and similar means of developing a real relationship.
There’s a lot of argument about whether social media popularity affects search engine rankings. But we don’t think it’s a coincidence that the websites with the best rankings are also the ones that have a big social media following. These days, not even B2B companies can succeed by focusing solely on their own website’s SEO content, architecture and coding.
And remember, the goal of any SEO optimization tips are to drive traffic to your website. Social media can achieve that same goal by putting your business in front of more eyeballs and producing more backlinks. Why waste this opportunity?
If your website can’t be easily loaded and viewed on mobile device screens, you’re losing out on the majority of your potential customers. The statistics tell the tale:
• More Google searches are performed on mobile phones than desktop computers.
• Mobile represents 65% of digital media time.
• Mobile users are nearly twice as likely as desktop users to share content
Indeed, some marketing experts are saying that desktop computers should now be considered the secondary device. We think the handwriting went on the wall with Google’s introduction of Accelerated Mobile Pages. Although Google still calculates rankings according to desktop searches, we believe the inclusion of mobile page versions in organic search results is not too far in the future.
Ignore local SEO.
You may think that because you don’t have a brick-and-mortar location, you won’t benefit from local SEO strategy. But if you have customers or prospects in that city, you should make yourself visible to local searches.
Some steps that you can take to improve local SEO are:
• Create a landing page for local searches
• Add location keywords within your website
• Get a local listing on Google Business
• Publish locally oriented blog posts
• Ask for inbound links from local businesses
Higher rank equals higher traffic.
It’s all too easy to focus on where your website is placed in search results pages. After all, the reason you’re doing SEO in the first place is to increase your visibility to potential customers. But just because more people see your listing, doesn’t mean you will get more click-throughs. And of the people who do click through, how many of them are truly qualified sales leads?
Google constantly harps on the theme of quality over quantity, and it applies here, too. Make sure you don’t get people clicking through in response to irrelevant keywords. Also check your meta descriptions: are they interesting and enticing, or just boring lists of keywords? The first check keeps timewasters out, the second encourages legitimate prospects to come in. All in all, focusing on your visitor experience, rather than search engine ranking, will deliver a better return on your investment.
Why You Should Recycle Old Posts For More Traffic and Leads
Recycle Old Posts for Maximum Traffic Exposure with Minimum Effort
You’ve probably heard (in this blog and elsewhere) that one of Google’s criteria for giving a website high search engine results page placement is the regular addition of fresh content. What’s more, as everyone follows Google’s dictates and floods the internet with staggering volumes of new content, in-bound links from social media pages become an easier way to drive traffic to a website. So, for both search engines and social media, frequent updates are key.
This is a problem for many businesses who either don’t have the resources for such an endeavor, or just don’t have news to share that often. How can they keep the content wheels turning in the slow periods between new posts? One way is to rework or repurpose content.
Decide What Content to Recycle
Look at every page on your website from the perspective of possible spin-offs or updates.
Analyze.
Time-sensitive content (news items, blog posts): Which pages have been performing well, and which less so? Anything that’s no longer pulling its weight should be a candidate for reworking.
Evergreen content (product/service pages, corporate info): How can it be leveraged in multiple formats and channels? The same info bite can keep people coming to your website from many different directions.
If a page is no longer useful at all, like a discontinued product or job listing, take this opportunity to remove it from your site. Remember to set up a 301 redirect so that people landing on the old URL are taken to a new, relevant page.
Transport It: Intra-Site Recycling
Instead of thinking up new topics or writing an article from scratch, do a quick rewrite of assets already in your content bank.
Update it.
Some of your older blog articles may refer to trends, statistics, regulations, etc. that aren’t current anymore. Repurpose content with the same talking points but more recent information. Also, update your evergreen content where necessary. This could be anything from a new manager bio on the “About Us” page to revised product specs.
Atomize it.
Divide up a “Ten Tips” type of article and expand each one of the tips into its own article. For example, the section you’re reading now could become a stand-alone article on content recycling techniques.
Invert it.
Rewrite a “How to” article as a “How Not to” discussion; or vice versa. Example: “Best Practices” inverts into “Worst Mistakes.”
Visualize it.
Turn a text-only article into one that replaces some of the verbiage with infographics or videos. If that’s not feasible, add subheads, bullet lists and similar devices to break up the text and make it more visually appealing.
Upgrade it.
Add quality and authority to an article with new statistics, quotes from experts and links to their websites.
Expand it.
Spin the information from a product page or user manual into a blog article. You’re probably already doing this with new product introductions, but don’t miss the opportunity to explain every one of your products and services. Google loves useful content like this.
Import/Export It: Extra-Site Recycling
Get more return on your content writing services investment by populating multiple platforms with it. The backlinks will provide a nice boost to your SEO ranking.
Social media.
Posts to your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media pages should appear on your website, and vice versa. In this case, and up to a point, you can simply duplicate the content.
Publishing sites.
Newsworthy content, such as product launches or management appointments, should be submitted to news services such as PR Newswire. Any and everything else can go on sites like HubPages.
Guest posts.
Add contributions that you’ve made to discussion groups, forums, other people’s blogs or social media to your own website. Expand, condense or explain as necessary.
Collateral.
Digitize and upload any white papers, catalogs, brochures and other company literature that isn’t already on your site. Extracts from long white papers make excellent blog posts.
Atomize it, part 2.
In the section above, we suggested taking one talking point from an article and expanding it into its own article. You can also keep the talking point as is and put this quick bite on social media sites like Twitter with a link back to the original article.
Audio/video versions.
Take your repurpose content to new audiences, especially those who don’t have time to read long articles. Make an audio recording of yourself reading an article and turn it into a podcast. Add some slides and make a PowerPoint presentation. Produce a video webinar.
Recycle Old Posts SEO Tips for Success
Since the whole purpose of recycling content is for search engine optimization, make sure you have it configured to Google’s liking.
Keywords.
You’ve probably done additional keyword research since that old content was published. Apply the new findings to your recycled article.
Internal links.
The longer visitors stay on your site, the better Google loves you. Keep them clicking around with links on every page to every other relevant page. In addition to including links in your recycled content, you can also link from the original article to the recycled one, i.e. “See more (or newer) information here.”
Meta data.
Google dislikes duplicate meta data as much as duplicate content. Don’t forget to change up the tags and descriptions on your recycled page.
Retain page seniority.
With this trick, you don’t actually change the content, just its publishing date. Reposting an old, formerly successful article on the same URL will improve traffic to it because it’s re-archived closer to your home page, yet Google won’t perceive it as a duplicate. It won’t equal truly fresh content, but might give your SEO performance a little help.
Conclusion
Sure, repurpose content is an easy way to fill the gaps between posts of fresh content: to “fake it ’til you make it.” But it’s more than that. Your content is a valuable asset that can and should be exploited in every way possible to maximize your return on investment.
Pool Company Website Makes a Splash
The Las Vegas-based United Aqua Group, a company comprised of over 230 residential pool builders, commercial pool builders, pool retailers and service professionals, asked us to rebuild their malfunctioning Aquatech website. This site is intended to exclusively promote their residential builders under the brand name Aquatech. United Aqua Group is primarily a B-to-B buying group that allows individual companies to buy, network and market themselves collectively. With this website, United Aqua Group is hoping to educate the public about pool building and capture consumer leads for their member builders. Since we know a little something about designing lead-generation websites, we were eager to dive right in.
Showcase the expertise
United Aqua Group consists of some of the pool industry’s most prestigious builders. One goal of our web design was to ensure that their expertise came across loud and clear. The old site included a section titled “Dirt to Dream” that illustrates the general steps involved in building a Gunite in-ground pool. It’s a feature that the client wanted to keep, but the images needed sprucing up. We freshened the images in each step, added steps that were missing and employed the same parallax technology so that visitors could watch a pool literally go from dirt lot to dream backyard as they scroll down. If this website tool doesn’t get you excited about building a pool, nothing will—except for maybe the gallery of beautiful backyards.
Website galleries that deliver wow
The original Aquatech website featured a large gallery of pool images (nearly 3000) that pulled pictures from the company’s internal database. Unfortunately, that database held tens of thousands of images. Having the website connect to it was creating very slow load times. Often, the gallery wouldn’t load at all—which was negatively affecting the user experience. It’s hard to claim that you build beautiful pools if you can’t even show them on your site. ACS Creative Services was tasked with designing a new website gallery that was faster and easier to use. We suggested a few solutions to immediately address the issues. First, to speed load times, we moved the images to the website’s own database—and we made it easy as pie to add new images. Though United Aqua Group gave up some automation (images have to be manually added now to the Aquatech website) the company made tremendous gains in user experience. Now potential pool owners can ogle dream backyards at lightning speed. We believe this is a profitable tradeoff.
Interactive Websites Reduce Bounce
Another key feature of the original website was a section that allowed visitors to “design” their own pool by filtering images according desired features and choosing their favorite yards from among the results. The selections were then automatically emailed to the visitor’s local Aquatech builder. This was a great idea for generating leads—unfortunately it didn’t work. Again, images were pulling from an external database making the whole process extremely slow, when it worked at all. Also, many of the leads would never get to the builders so they couldn’t respond. Visitors were left hanging, and that’s a customer service breakdown no company wants. ACS website design to the rescue. We created a small gallery of pools for each feature option and imported all the images into the website. By minimizing the number of pools being pulled by the filter, we allowed consumers to quickly design their dream pools. More importantly, the speed and ease of the tool is encouraging more leads, making the website design a huge success. The first lead came through within 24 hours of going live.
The final component of the original site we needed to debug was the builder locator. Initially, the locator worked through the use of an API that connected to the company’s CRM system and pulled the nearest builder when someone entered a zip code. Like with the images, this connected back to the company’s database and was not working. So we went old school. We created a database of companies right on the website and showed United Aqua Group how to manually enter each location. With over 100 locations, this took some time—but it was time well spent. The builder locator now works like a dream—a dream of lounging poolside in your beautiful new backyard. Check out this new site at myaquatechpool.com.
Catching the Elusive Typo Red-Handed
When we blasted a message to our list of subscribers last week in an effort to distribute information on the benefits of social media, we learned a little about ourselves, too. Namely, that typos happen to everyone. Our subject line: “Don’t Loose Money by Not Using Social Media” popped up in inboxes with a big fat extra “o”. Not because our English teachers never regaled us on the difference between “lose” and “loose”. Not because we didn’t proofread several times before clicking send. The typo happened because our brains are designed to take shortcuts, and one of those shortcuts is filling in letters and changing spelling automatically in our heads. That is why writers have editors. When you type something and proofread it afterwards, your brain often sees what you think you wrote, rather than what you actually typed. To err is human, and to autocorrect those errors is human, too.
The key is eyes, eyes, eyes
Read backwards
Sometimes it’s you and only you writing and proofing and distributing. If that is the case, start proofing at the end of the piece. Take each word individually from bottom to top. This will help you catch more spelling errors. Also read each sentence individually from bottom to top to review for grammatical errors. This will feel strange, but it’s that strangeness that will keep your eyes on alert for errors. The same thing goes for reading out loud. You would be amazed at what you find when you vocalize your material.
Time is your best friend
If you proof a piece the minute you finish writing it, you are more likely to see what’s in your head rather than what you put on the page. If deadlines allow, let the material rest for a day or two. Give your brain some time to forget what you wrote. The mistakes will pop when you return to it. If deadlines don’t allow, then take a few minutes to read something else in between writing and proofing—much like you might cleanse your palate with a sip of water when wine or food tasting. You want your brain to forget what’s there so your eyes can spot the errors.
Punctuation matters
Often we get so caught up in searching for spelling errors that we forget to check periods, commas and colons. Proper punctuation is critical to effective communication. Imagine writing “This is wonderful honey.” versus “This is wonderful, honey.” Not quite the same meaning, and all it took was a missing comma to send that sentence off track.
Common Culprits
When typos happen to you
Unfortunately, you, too, will at some point fall victim to typos despite your best intentions and the following all these tips. If that happens, own up to the error. Let your customers know you saw it, too. Maybe even be the first to point the mistake out. Because most consumers will accept a little imperfection. It may even make them more loyal to your brand if you handle the error well. And really, building strong brand loyalty is the true end goal. Not perfection.