Conquering an Email Marketing Campaign

Email Marketing

It is estimated that by 2022, the number of email users will grow to 4.3 billion people – that’s half of the world population. *Cough, cough* that’s a lot of potential customers. If you aren’t using email marketing to reach your customers, then you are missing out on a multitude of benefits for your business.

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Typography Series 1: How Punctuation Can Make You Sound Smarter

Typography is more than the font you picked for the last blog you wrote. When done right, typography will set a tone for your brand. It can be light and fun or serious and formal. Simply stated, typography is defined as the style or appearance of your writing.

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Optimizing your Website for Voice Search

As artificial intelligence continues to advance, we’ve found ourselves new best friends with intelligent personal assistants such as Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and Google. The way people search the web for information is changing from the traditional search engines. Nearly 60 percent of searches today are performed through mobile devices. Mobile devices are becoming our key source of knowledge and consumers are increasingly using their voice over their fingers to search the web. Asking questions and receiving answers has never been quicker or easier. As voice search continues to gain market share, it is imperative that we as marketers understand how to optimize our websites in order to stay ahead on SEO best practices.

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Basics of Inbound Marketing

Optimizing your website’s keywords, call-to-actions, and landing pages are fundamental in search engine optimization and getting started with inbound marketing. It takes time to rank higher through organic SEO methods, but inbound marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways of capturing the attention of high-quality prospects. The second most important contributor to organic search engine optimization is producing blog content that is knowledgeable on topics within your industry and valuable to your ideal customer. Optimizing your website for conversion and creating content that that resonates with your readers will set you up for continuously bringing in high-quality leads.

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Is Your Website’s Content Readable?

As experienced web developers, we know that the heart of a great website is found in the user experience– the satisfaction that your visitors receive when navigating through the pages on your website. One of the major parts of fulfilling a holistic user experience is the readability of the content on each webpage. It is crucial that the language and visual appearance of the content is easily digestible. If a user cannot comprehend what your organization is trying to communicate, it is not as effective, which can decrease traffic and in the end, lead to a loss in revenue. If you are unsure if your website’s content is readable or not, here are three easy tips to use:

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SEO – The Myths, the Facts, and the Secrets

If you have a website or use a search engine on a regular basis, it’s likely that you’ve heard of SEO Sydney or PPC. These two common acronyms are mentioned and preached every day. However, does everyone really know what they mean, or how they work? If you don’t, you’re not alone.

Let’s answer any lingering questions, settle myths, and clear the air of this Edmonton SEO madness! I’ve compiled the most common myths, most important facts, and the most exciting secrets in this post! I know what you’re thinking, “Whew! it’s about time!”

So let’s start from the top…

Define:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – An algorithm designed to impact visibility of web content (pages) through organic search results. Commonly used as a free alternative to PPC (pay per click) advertising.

Purpose:
Direct targeted traffic to your website without buying ads and clicks.

Myths:

…Your site will or can be optimized overnight
…Repetitive words and content will increase ranking
…Always use the most competitive words and phrases
…High page rankings are set in stone
…Organic “tastes” different

Facts:

  • Organic search results is a natural method for locating a webpage. This process will match search terms with relevant content on competing webpages. The stepbrother of organic search results is “non-organic”, or paying per click. “Paying per click” are ads that allow a company to blindly bid on highly competitive key search terms.
  • Relevant content is the fuel for your page ranking.  The more industry specific content your website holds, the more your website will be found, organically.
  • New content is the maintenance that will keep your page ranked. The most effective way is blogging and tagging with search terms. Google, and other leading search engines will reward your website for publishing relevant information. Since you know your business, show off and show off often!
  • Unique content is the muscle that carries web searchers directly to your website. Unique content can distinguish your brand and website from companies with the same industry focus and target.

Secrets:

  • Content is king. Keep relevant and new content flowing like a river! Adding content is important for your ongoing ranking; the most effective way is with a blog attached to your website. All blog content should follow the relevancy rules while it gives you space to display content that your website does not have room for.
  • Play to win. Similar to Monopoly night with your Grandmother, according to the company from Search-consulting.com. Compete, and compete often to maintain and most importantly to increase your ranking.
  • Leverage Google AdWords/Analytics.  Stay updated on monthly searches for keywords and phrases by using Google Analytics to view what keywords visitors used to find your site. Competition will change just as fast as your ranking does, so stay on top of your words!
  • Duplicate and be dumped. Search engines (especially Google) are smart enough to detect fluff and manipulation; so think of these algorithms as more of an art than a science.
  • By the numbers. If you’re more of a numbers person; you can make SEO a science project by using the KEI (keyword effectiveness index) equation. This will give specific words a rating based on the number of times a word is searched over the number of webpages displaying the word or phrase, for those in the SEO game is never ending. Using this approach will show you what words and phrases can give you the best chance of winning the keyword game.

The internet can be the most rewarding source of marketing if used properly. Website optimization best practices are ever evolving and will only become more competitive as time passes. Adopting this process now can completely change the way your business operates in a positive way for years to come. Check out the following and read more if you wish to find ways on how you can save money while using internet marketing for your business.

 

Be Our Guest- Blogger!

HMG Creative knows there are a lot of amazing writers and bloggers out there, and we want to find you. We are always looking for new ways to inform, educate and expand our clients and readers’ industry knowledge.  So with that said, we are looking for some writers who can inject their knowledge, expertise and passion into our blog.

Topics HMG Covers:

  • Social Media Marketing
  • Social Networking
  • SEO
  • Mobile Technology
  • Email Marketing
  • Web Dev/Design
  • Something Awesome

Why Write for HMG:

  • Exposure to a new audience
  • Increase your presence and credibility online
  • Get syndicated on other media outlets
  • Get new followers on Twitter, of course
  • Blog a little or blog a lot
  • Because who doesn’t like having their writing featured

Sounds good to you? Great, email us!  Introduce yourself and give us a quick rundown of who you are. Send us an article for review and we’ll place it in queue if we like your stuff. Don’t forget to mention the frequency of your posts (weekly, monthly, etc), or if you just want to be a one-time contributor (we’re cool with that too)! Don’t have an article to post yet? No worries, we’ll help you mull over some cool topics we think would be relative to our blog.

Submit or contact us here.

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Five Copywriting Party-Crashers

When was the last time you went to a website and thought to yourself, “Wow, this copywriting is really fantastic! Look at all the bullet points!” Yeah, me neither. That’s because good copywriting is like the lighting guy at a concert: invisible, but essential for showcasing the main attraction (your information). Bad copywriting crashes the party by jumping in front of the information and hollering “Look at me! I’m making it harder for you to find what you want!” Writing effective online copy is all about identifying the party-crashers and escorting them from the premises so you can showcase the main attraction.

Party Crasher #1: Complicating the Message

In any given industry, you have jargon, technical terms, and insider idioms that you use when communicating with others in the business. If you bombard you website audience with these things, however, you’re making it harder for them to understand what you mean. So don’t make them get a realtor’s license in order to understand your real estate website. Simplify, simplify, simplify.

Party Crasher #2:  Grammar By the Book

I’m a firm believer in good grammar and spelling. However, with online writing you get to break a few rules—discreetly. It’s okay, and even desirable, to use sentence fragments, begin sentences with “And” or “But,” use slang, and write in first person. The goal is to be conversational, talking with your readers rather than at them.

Party Crasher #3: Disguising Your Main Points

You’ve got fabulous information that your target audience needs to know. But if you disguise it as a long, boring paragraph, they’ll never get around to reading it. Show off your main points with bullets, numbered lists, and bolding.

Party Crasher #4: Becoming a Slave to Keywords

Keywords are an essential SEO tool, and every website needs them. But when your copywriting becomes a slave to your keywords, it can sound stilted and disjointed. Effective keyword density generally hovers between 1% and 5%. Keywords should appear in titles and headings and should sound natural when used in your copy.

Party Crasher #5: Robotic Style

Remember the computer from the original Star Trek series? For any non-trekkie people out there, it spoke in monotone, sounded robotic, and communicated only the essentials. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, however, the computer had acquired a personality. Now she was feminine, warm, and personable. That’s the difference you want to achieve in your writing style: the difference between “it” and “she.” Let your personality shine through in your writing.

When you simplify your message, write conversationally, highlight your main points, use keywords effectively, and develop personality in your writing, you effectively escort the party-crashers off-stage and allow your fabulous information to enjoy the limelight. It is, after all, what the audience came to see.