We’ve all probably done it: sent an email that we’ve like to have back. Whether it’s because we hit “reply all” on accident or wrote some things in the heat of the moment that we regret soon after, many emails have reached the wrong eyeballs since the advent of the online service.
Google has been working to give people a way out of a regrettable email send, and this week it became a reality for all Gmail users. Several news outlets reported that Gmail’s “Undo Send” has become an official feature of the web mailing service. NDTV Gadgets pointed out that the feature actually was announced six years ago, but that it was parked under the Labs section of Gmail, meaning Google employees had been testing it out but weren’t ready to promote it to the “General” section under Settings.
Where to Find Gmail’s ‘Undo Send’
You can find the “Undo Send” feature in the browser version of Gmail by pressing on the sprocket in the upper right-hand corner and clicking on Settings. “Undo Send” is the 10th item down on the list, and you’re going to have to click a box to enable it. From there, you can choose a buffer window of anywhere between 5 and 30 seconds before each email is officially shipped off. After you’ve sent an email and if you want to cancel it, you’ll see an option popping up on the screen asking you if you’d like to undo your latest outgoing message.
Now, you not able to pull an email out of a recipient’s inbox once it’s been delivered, but with the “Undo Send” feature enabled, you are able to give yourself a second chance to really think about whether the email should be sent in the first place and if you sent it to the right people. If only this feature were more pervasive years ago, then we wouldn’t have such reason to laugh about the erroneous “reply all” send, as was the subject of this memorable commercial that ran during the Super Bowl in 2011.
Why the ‘Undo Send’ Feature is Significant
Gmail is undoubtedly a leader in the world of free email services. Gmail leapfrogged Hotmail in 2012 for the most active monthly users among email providers, and the Google creation hasn’t looked back since. Hotmail, however, still has a slight lead for the most people worldwide searching for it, as Tech Times reported last September. Nonetheless, the industry looks to Gmail when it comes to email features, and with the “Undo Send” option’s rise to prominence, you can bet other email services are going to follow suit.
It’s worth noting that the office worker seen in the Bridgestone Tires commercial above was likely using an email service like Microsoft Outlook to send out the email in question. If only there were a way to recall it, huh? But, wait, Microsoft Outlook does have a similar, yet more roundabout way to rescind emails: You have to basically set up a delay period on all of your outgoing messages, and then you can go into your outbox and trash any email that you don’t want to be delivered. HowToGeek.com pointed out a long-winded way to set up the defer option in Outlook 2010, which will work similarly in the 2013 version. Even so, Outlook’s defer option is a far cry from the ease of Gmail’s “Undo Send” feature.
Final Thoughts
Even though “Undo Send” feels like it should have been around at least a decade ago – on any halfway decent email provider – there’s still a ways to go before the function is mainstream. Hopefully, other services will follow Gmail’s lead and implement their own easy-to-use versions of the feature, and then we’ll all have a second chance to undo any damage done by pressing “reply all” accidentally.
Do you have any funny stories about instantly regretting sending an email? Let us know in the comments below.
Eminent SEO provides strategic SEO campaigns with measurable results along with expert website design, development, pay per click, content and social media and organic website marketing. 800.871.4130.
This conversation never seems to get old in the SEO industry. Everyone seems to have a separate opinion about what is best for SEO purposes and how Google can associate multiple sites on a single server.
Is it OK to have multiple sites on the same server with the same IP address? Well, let’s find out.
Dedicated IP Addresses vs. One IP Address for Multiple Sites
In a perfect world, it would be best to have dedicated name servers for every domain that you’re hosting. However, it’s not the easiest or the most cost-effective solution. Instead, most web developers will have a shared server for a number of websites that they’re hosting, and with that comes shared IP addresses for each site. The benefit of having a dedicated IP in terms of SEO is that other sites won’t be able to negatively affect the SEO with bad practices, meaning if a website on a shared IP is marked as having malicious content or negative SEO, it can affect the other sites shared on that IP. This is pretty rare, so if you’re not doing anything malicious, then it shouldn’t affect your SEO for each site. However, it can definitely hurt the SEO if all of the websites are interlinked with the same exact IP address.
Does Similar Content with Shared IP Addresses Affect the SEO for Multiple Sites?
If you’re developing websites using the same template or set of templates, have similar industry-related content and are interlinking between sites all on the same IP address, Google will most likely flag this negatively. The websites won’t necessarily be penalized if they are using best SEO practices, but the sites won’t do as well as they could in terms of Google organic rankings and traffic. The reason behind this is all of the interlinking and similar website templates and content for all of the sites. Google could easily distinguish this as a network of sites, which isn’t a good thing. In fact, Google is against any sort of site or blog network, so your websites will be devalued because of this.
Which One is Better for SEO?
It’s not necessarily bad to have shared IP addresses for SEO, as long as all the sites have unique content and don’t interlink at all. What is best is to have a cloud-based server, because those servers will automatically update the website IP addresses every so often. You also want to have an IP address that is associated with the location of the actual business, because it wouldn’t look natural to host a website meant for United States but based in India.
You also want to have a dedicated name server for your business to host your websites on. You don’t want to purchase a shared server that could have other potentially harmful sites on it, since you don’t know what sites are being hosted there.
Don’t purchase a cheap server that’s going to cause load time issues. This can be harmful to SEO, as well as conversion, because the sites aren’t loading quickly enough. Google will devalue a website that has slow load times, since the search engine wants to provide a better user experience for its consumers.
Eminent SEO provides strategic SEO campaigns with measurable results along with expert website design, development, pay per click, content and social media and organic website marketing. 800.871.4130.
Every year Google updates their algorithm 100’s of times. Last year there were over 500 updates. Yes, many of them are simple data refreshes, but there were also quite a few significant algorithm updates. You might be familiar with some of the bigger ones over the last few years, such as Panda, Penguin and Pigeon. So, what’s next?
Enter the Mobile-Friendly Algorithm Update
There is no official name for this algorithm update yet, so marketers are calling it the “mobile-friendly” update. Hopefully they won’t taint the name of another cute, small animal that starts with a “P” (what could it be the Piggy update? Pheasant? Pale Fox? I digress…). Google did announce the specific date, however, so we can confirm that it will begin rolling out on April 21st, 2015.
So, what is going to happen come April 21st?
I am not a psychic, so please know that some of this is speculation since the update is yet to roll out. However, I have done quite a bit of research on the subject, so this post is an attempt to bring you real information collected from the online marketing community.
It appears this update is going to impact:
Mobile App Indexablility and Rankability in Mobile Search
The Rankability of Websites with a Mobile App Available
Website Rankings on Mobile Search
Since most of the questions I get from our clients are related to their website’s ability to rank and how they will be impacted by this algorithm update, that is where I am going to focus. If you are more technical and want to read more about the subject, I highly suggest this post on the Moz Community blog from Cindy Krum: 9 Things You Need to Know About Google’s Mobile-Friendly Update.
Your Mobile Website Questions Answered
Is mobile search really that big?
Many online marketers were predicting mobile search would overtake desktop search by the year 2014 and they were right. A recent report from comScore shows mobile search actually overtook desktop within the last year:
This means that there is a good chance that a lot of your website traffic is coming from mobile search. In our client pool we see anywhere from 30%-60% of total web traffic is coming from mobile queries on average, sometimes more.
Other Mobile Stats:
80% of internet users own a smartphone
Popular devices used to search the internet:
Desktop/Laptop: 91%
Smartphone: 80%
Tablet: 47%
Game Consoles: 37%
Smart TV’s: 34%
40% of mobile searches are local
81% of mobile conversions happen within 5 hours of the search
85% of mobile users prefer to use an app over a website
Do I need a mobile or responsive website?
YES! Did you read the statistics above? Mobile search has already taken over desktop search and the numbers will only continue to increase this year. More and more people are using their mobile devices to search and buy, so if your website isn’t mobile-friendly you are overlooking an important part of your user experience.
Also, come April 21st there is a good chance your website will lose its ability to rank well in the mobile search results. Why? Because Google wants to serve their mobile users the sites that are formatted well for mobile devices. Google is always aiming to provide it’s users with the best websites and information available. They understand that users are going to be frustrated with the results of their query if they land on pages that aren’t mobile-friendly. How frustrated are you when you search for something from your phone and the result you click on produces itty-bitty content that is impossible to read? Or navigation you can’t even click on? No thank you.
What is the difference between a mobile website and a responsive website?
When mobile search first started to become popular, many website owners and website designers/developers believed you needed a separate mobile site or landing page. This resulted in thousands of sub-domain sites (think m.yourdomain.com) and standalone mobile pages, designed specifically for use on smartphones.
Typically a mobile site is a scaled back version of the desktop website, which can include limited content, images and pages. It also is coded so that anytime a smartphone user visits your website the code will recognize the device and provide them with the mobile version automatically.
A responsive design is a website developed to scale to any size and type of device – desktop, tablet or mobile phone. Unlike mobile sites, it’s NOT a separate site, but rather a code that adjusts the design to fit the screen dimensions of the browsing device:
All things considered, a responsive site is a better solution long term than a mobile site. Why? For starters, a responsive design is better for SEO. Mobile sites are developed on sub-domains and responsive sites host mobile code on a single domain.
Another huge added value is the consistency it provides to your user experience. If I visit your website from my desktop and later I decide to visit your website from my smartphone, I want to see the same information. If you hide information from me because I am on my phone, I am going to become frustrated. A responsive design ensures that repeat visitors can access all of the content and information your site has to offer, regardless of which device they are searching from.
How do I know if my site is mobile-friendly?
There are actually quite a few free tools on the market that will check for mobile or responsive design and even show you a preview of your site, per device. I’ve used http://www.responsinator.com/ but it isn’t perfect and only gives you a preview – it doesn’t give you any real data:
Instead, Google rolled out a new Mobile-Friendly testing tool, which will analyze a URL and give you a report back on if that page has a mobile-friendly design:
Keep in mind, however, this is just a tool and therefore doesn’t replace the need to manually review your site to ensure the user experience is the very best it can be. I always advise clients to also Google their site from their smartphones if they want to see what a user sees. Naturally each type of phone is slightly different, so if you want to really evaluate your site design manually, ask a friend with a different device to look it up for you – be sure to check your site on an iPhone AND an Android device.
It’s also important to note that there are other tools you should also use to determine how mobile-friendly your website is. The Google mobile-friendly tool above gives you a “yes” or “no” and a quick screenshot of your site as Google sees it on a mobile phone:
They also give you specific recommendations for areas you should fix to make your site mobile-friendly.
But, you should also use these two other tools if you really want to know how mobile ready your site is:
Google’s PageSpeed Insights Test Tool – This tool gives you insights into your website loading times, including your mobile page speed. It also gives you other recommendations on things you should fix. You should note that unlike the mobile-friendly tool which looks at the page like a Googlebot would, the PageSpeed tool fetches the page as a user would. Very different, which is why you should use both tools.
Lastly, you should also use the Mobile Usability Report option in your Google Webmaster Tools account. Simply log in and navigate to the Mobile Usability Report. Once you run the report you will be provided with specific details on which pages are pulling a usability error. Example:
Google has also been sending out notifications through Google Webmaster Tools to sites that don’t meet the new mobile-friendly requirements. If you haven’t received an email you likely have a mobile-friendly site. However, you can confirm by checking your messages in Webmaster Tools.
Do tablets count as mobile devices?
No. Surprised? I was at first too. However, according to this post on Search Engine Round Table by Barry Schwartz: Google Mobile-Friendly Algorithm Will Not Impact Tablet Searches “the algorithm will only impact searches done on smartphones – only. This does not impact desktop searches and it does not impact tablet searches.”
This is good to know, but doesn’t change the fact that a significant amount of search traffic is coming from smartphones specifically. So, the potential loss in traffic is still significant.
Will I lose traffic on April 21st if my site isn’t mobile-friendly?
Yes. Unlike other major algorithm updates, Google has actually provided the public with an advanced warning on this one, giving you plenty of time to fix your site:
“Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.”
To be clear – this is specific to mobile search. So, if you have great keyword rankings and traffic from desktop searches, those should NOT be impacted at this time. However, as mentioned above, if you are getting 30% or more of your traffic from mobile search queries (which is typical) than if your site is not mobile-friendly, you WILL DEFINITELY LOSE TRAFFIC.
The Nutshell
If your website isn’t mobile-friendly you will likely lose a significant amount of traffic come April 21st. Even if that number is low right now, keep in mind that mobile search is still on the rise and will only continue to grow over the next few years. If you own a website and you are planning for the future, now is the time to integrate a solid strategy for creating a great mobile experience for your site users.
If you need help developing a mobile website and marketing strategy, give us a call: 800.871.4130.
CEO, Business Consultant, Researcher and Marketing Strategist
Jenny Weatherall is the co-owner and CEO of Eminent SEO, a design and marketing agency founded in 2009. She has worked in the industry since 2005, when she fell in love with digital marketing… and her now husband and partner, Chris. Together they have 6 children and 3 granddaughters.
Jenny has a passion for learning and sharing what she learns. She has researched, written and published hundreds of articles on a wide variety of topics, including: SEO, design, marketing, ethics, business management, sustainability, inclusion, behavioral health, wellness and work-life balance.
As you know, internet marketing is dynamic and is literally changing every day. If you want to know what is going on in SEO now, you need to read… a LOT!
Here are a few great posts from across the web we think you should read this month:
Should Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Be Taught At College?
Often people have asked us if there is a course or degree for SEO… The answer is no. Why don’t colleges offer a legitimate degree in this sphere? As it turns out, there are very good reasons for it.
BONUS:
Okay, this one isn’t necessarily going to help you with your marketing strategies, but it might help you have a good time with your friends this weekend. You’re welcome!
Social media platforms all offer different features. Most let you customize your profile image, banner and add some information about your business. If you want to take full advantage of the platform, you should customize and optimize every area available to you, including designs.
Some people think it’s enough to load their logo or a photo – but all too often we see logos that are cut off, blurry images and other obvious issues due to the designs not being properly scaled for the individual platform. Even if you create beautiful, custom designs you still have to size them for the specific recommended dimensions, per platform. For example, the recommended Facebook profile image sizing is 900 x 900, however, for Pinterest it’s 735 x 1102.
To help you design optimal images for your business profiles we created a quick guide. These are the only dimensions you will ever need to create and optimize your important social platforms (until they decide to change them on us again!).
February Eminent SEO Social Media Roundup
February was a fun month for social media… We buzzed about the Super Bowl, sent out love for Valentine’s Day and shared some motivational quotes. What do you like to see in your social media feeds? Funny videos, inspirational quotes, articles about SEO, marketing facts and stats? Let us know so we can share more of what you love!
February Marketing Blog Roundup
Lots of good reading in this month’s Eminent SEO, Social Media and Branding blog roundup!
5 Ways To Build Online Brand Awareness In 2015
Looking for ways to build your company’s brand awareness this year? Are you looking for ways to stand out from the competition?
The Importance of a Website Content Audit During a Re-Design and How to Do It
Are you looking to re-design and develop your website? Have you thought about performing a content audit on your existing site before the re-design? If you haven’t, you need to. Here are some tips on how to perform a website content audit and reasons why it’s necessary.
Getting To Know Team Eminent SEO: Kirstin Douglas
Meet Kirstin Douglas. She is our Office Guru who is witty and logical at the same time. Mother of two, loves anime and keeps us in line! Find out how Eminent SEO keeps functioning at our best with Kirstin on the team.
How Content and Links Work Together for Better Organic Marketing
Content and link building techniques need to align in order to build a strong organic marketing strategy. With a strong organic presence, your website will rank higher in the SERPs attracting qualified users, while content marketing will walk those users through the sales funnel and help convert them into qualified leads. Here are some ways these two techniques work together.
Is Pinterest Adding A “Buy Now” Button?
Your favorite cork board may be making the switch to digital mall. What if instead of just pinning those shoes you would die for, you could buy them with a click of a button? This feature will make buying (and selling) a breeze.
Facebook Limits Organic Reach: What Does That Mean for Marketers?
Now that Facebook is limiting the amount of promotional content in newsfeeds, how are marketers supposed to utilize Facebook to help promote brands? There are still ways, but they are limited. Here are few we came up with. Feel free to share some of your ideas in the comments.
See Ya Online!
Welcome to our new subscribers! We hope you found something useful in this month’s newsletter. Are you interested in a specific topic you’d like us to feature in the next blog post or newsletter? Send us a note – we’d love to dive deeper into the subjects that matter to you the most.
Thanks for reading! Until next time, see ya online!
CEO, Business Consultant, Researcher and Marketing Strategist
Jenny Weatherall is the co-owner and CEO of Eminent SEO, a design and marketing agency founded in 2009. She has worked in the industry since 2005, when she fell in love with digital marketing… and her now husband and partner, Chris. Together they have 6 children and 3 granddaughters.
Jenny has a passion for learning and sharing what she learns. She has researched, written and published hundreds of articles on a wide variety of topics, including: SEO, design, marketing, ethics, business management, sustainability, inclusion, behavioral health, wellness and work-life balance.
Updating your website is a trend that’s catching on and for good reasons. Technology, design, SEO and user-experience trends are constantly evolving. If your website is outdated, offers a poor user-experience, or search engines don’t even know your website exists, it might be time to invest in an updated design.
An updated design is a large investment, and it’s not just simply transferring a theme on WordPress. It’s changing the way users navigate your website and determining the funnel you want your users to flow through. What is your website used for? What is the end goal of the user? Does your website represent your company clearly? Not sure? These are some important questions to ask that may help you determine if it’s time for a website redesign.
Here are some of the top reasons why you need a website redesign:
1. Your Website Isn’t Responsive
Does your website currently scale to fit all mobile devices? Mobile search is predicted to overtake desktop search by next year. In order for users to properly navigate your website on a mobile device, it needs to be responsive. Another positive to having a responsive design is search engines favor mobile-friendly websites in the search results over website that aren’t mobile friendly. Why? Because it serves their primary goal of giving a better user-experience to their clients.
2. Search Engines Have No Clue Your Website Exists
Outdated websites are sometimes built on platforms that search engines can’t even crawl such as: Flash, Tables, Java, etc. Search engines will devalue the content when it’s not built in an HTML format. Search engine crawlers can’t read image, video, or flash files. So, if your website is outdated and content is placed on images or flash files, search engines aren’t reading it. The best way to tell how search engines are reading your site is to look at how Google is caching the page.
3. Users Aren’t Navigating Through Your Website
In Google Analytics, you’ll be able to tell the average pages viewed per session. If it’s not higher than 1.0, it’s probably time to rethink the design. This can mean that users are getting lost, or the content is completely irrelevant to what they were searching for. You want users to navigate past the homepage of your website because it means the website content and performance is user-friendly. If you have a one page website, this metric won’t work for you. If this is the case, look at the average session duration of each visitor. If it’s less than 20 seconds on average, users aren’t finding what they’re looking for.
4. Calls to Action Don’t Exist
Does your website have a primary goal for each landing page? Is it clearly defined on what the users’ next step is? These are known as calls to action. Each landing page needs to have a goal and a next step for the user. This will help the user easily navigate through each page of the website and, without question, increase the chances of them converting.
5. Your Website Doesn’t Define Your Company Brand
In this digital age, you only have a few seconds to capture your audience. Is your brand message clearly defined on your website? By clearly defined we mean: exactly what you do, your offer, and what makes you stand out from your competition. Think about it, if you’re searching for a pool installation company, and you come across a website that has nothing pool related on it, or minimal pictures of projects they’ve worked on, you’ll probably click off the website.
When searching for a pool company to install your pool, the first thing you may want to see is a beautiful, well-landscaped pool design that the company has completed. Maybe even linking to a gallery of other pools they’ve built. Next, you would want to see how they’re different. For example, they’ve been in business for over 40 years – that must mean they have lots of experience, great! Lastly, you want to know their offer. An offer might be “A free pool design consultation if you call today!”. Also, a primary call to action should always be present – do I fill out a form, call, visit their showroom, or?. See how everything ties together? A successful website ensures the brand message is clearly defined.
6. Your Website Doesn’t Load Fast Enough
This relates to your desktop loading times as well as your mobile loading times. If your website is taking too long to load on a computer or on mobile devices, you’re going to lose a lot of visitors. People are extremely impatient. If your site is taking longer than 5 seconds to load, you’re in trouble. People aren’t going to stick around and wait for it to load.
This could also be a factor when a website’s imagery isn’t properly optimized. It’s highly recommended to have a developer look into why your website isn’t loading fast enough, and a re-design might be the only fix.
7. You’ve Been Thinking You Need a New Website Design
Does your website look outdated compared to the competition? Are primary features constantly breaking and not functioning the way they once did? These are all signs that your website is outdated. Technology is changing day by day. The functionality and design of websites are too. Be ahead of your competition, not behind. If your gut is telling you your website sucks, it probably does.
Closing Thoughts
These are only a few of the many reasons why a website may need to be redesigned. It’s important to keep your brand in mind and how you want to represent your company online. Think first impressions. Your website is a lead generator giving potential customers their first impression of your company. If your website isn’t generating new leads, doesn’t represent your brand, or it’s simply outdated; REDESIGN IT.
If you need help getting started with a website redesign, learn more about our website design services here or give us a call: 800-871-4130.
Eminent SEO provides strategic SEO campaigns with measurable results along with expert website design, development, pay per click, content and social media and organic website marketing. 800.871.4130.
With the year more than half done many people are turning their eyes towards 2015. We are no different, which is why we are already forecasting the web design trends for 2015. While this year has already produced countless web and graphic designs that make heads turn and increase quality page clicks, looking ahead is never a bad idea, especially for those businesses considering a web re-design to help launch the new year in style.
Even though 2014 had a lot to show us, we wanted to speculate on the trending web techniques for 2015. And, since we are already 8 months into 2014, there’s no better time to do it! With so many businesses looking to re-design their website by the start of the new year we though it was time to reveal our findings… here they are.
2015 has a lot in store for us, and here are just a few design trends we feel are going to be high-trending:
1: Compelling Type-treatments
With advancing development frameworks and a little help from Google Fonts, it’s becoming easier to use specialized fonts inside your website design. Font kits were used in the past to enhance a small amount of typography on the site, but they were clunky and didn’t work well in all browsers. Now it has become easier to express a style and match your brand messaging with the type of fonts that are used without the concern of a misrepresentation on certain browsers and devices.
Typography is now an art form that can can transform the look and feel of your website, adding to additional user experience and enhances your overall brand message. Quality fonts are now more available, and if you’re looking for something a bit more than what Google has to offer but don’t want to break the bank – don’t worry, they are cheaper than ever before as well.
2: Responsive Design and Development
Responsive design has become an imperative standard with website’s in today’s age of the internet. Statistics show that mobile device users are becoming more commonplace and are soon to be a majority of website viewers. It’s difficult enough to keep the attention of a normal website-user, but if your site isn’t user-friendly for a mobile device, you’ll find yourself losing a lot of potential customers. Responsive design and development will give your website scalability so that it has the ability to showcase well on desktop computers and most mobile devices, without sacrificing your website functions and goals.
3: More Use Of Flat Design
In 2013 flat design WAS BORN! Well, not exactly born, but sensationalized. Prior to flat design, web designers used a graphic technique called “realism” which applied different styles to web elements such as gradients, shadows, bevels, etc. Most of the time this worked well, however, designers felt like they needed a shift in the way graphics were presented inside of a website, hence, flat design was born. Flat design removes almost all of the extra stylization to the graphics and modernizes the way web elements are viewed. Solid and vibrant colors against the bold, blended pallets are the new norm. It also helps developers use CSS to create web elements without having to always rely on images, which decreases page load times.
4: Large HD Imagery
Having images on your website has always been necessary, but now full screen, high-definition images are a must-have. Having compelling headlines and your important calls-to-action overlayed on top of a compelling and relevant image is a great way to catch the attention of your customers and express a specific message. This is especially important to mobile users that are used to seeing images on their phone over small, hard-to-read text.
5: Page Fold… A Thing Of The Past!
Having a multi-page website is fantastic for SEO control, but more and more websites are being viewed on mobile devices and clicking on a navigation link can be a hindrance to the user experience. Mobile users seem to prefer scrolling to sections on the page over having to click to navigate. Using this new trend, many websites are being designed as a single page website, or panels are created, to enable a better user experience for individuals using mobile devices.
In Conclusion:
All-in-all, websites seem to be using some intuitive techniques and more modern designs to capture the attention of their website users. We think 2015 will bring even more tools to express your site’s message in a very compelling way for even better user experiences.
What do you think 2015 will bring?
Are you ready to get a jump start on designing your new website? Contact us today to get started! We create beautiful, user friendly and mobile ready website that are innovative and ready for the trends of 2015!
Even though blogging is the standard expectation of the typical consumer for every website these days, there are a ton of other good reasons your website needs a blog.
A blog actually provides many benefits for your website beyond sharing helpful information.
When you’re blogging regularly, how do you help your business and customer? Keep reading to learn about the benefits of blogging:
1. You Establish Yourself as a Thought Leader/Authority
Who do consumers and businesses ultimately purchase from? Many times it’s the person or business they perceive as the leader in their niche. You don’t have to be a gigantic company to become a thought leader. You can make yourself a thought leader simply by blogging regularly and offering intricate detail that no other blog provides. This is one of the ways a blog levels the competitive playing field in any niche.
2. You Get Excellent SEO Benefits
You can optimize your posts to help them rank organically for target keywords. Although simply writing is not enough, ensuring your posts are SEO friendly is the foundation for a well ranking blog. When you sprinkle your keywords throughout your posts that builds your site’s overall authority for key terms which in turn gives you a better chance of ranking – not only your blog but the rest of the website as well. In addition, Google released the Fresh update back in November of 2011, which gives preference in the search rankings to websites that offer regularly updated content.
Subsequent updates like Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird also give preference in the SERPs to websites with high quality content. The more in-depth blog posts you create, the better the SEO benefits you receive.
3. You Connect with Your Target Market, which Increases Sales
The more you connect with your customer, the more you sell. Case in point – Hubspot notes these statistics on their website:
92% of companies who blog more than once per day acquired a customer through their blog
40% of all companies in the United States use blogs to market their products and services
In separate research, Hubspot also found the more frequently a company blogs, the more likely they are to get a customer through their blog. 58% of companies who blog at least once per week are able to land a customer via their blog.
You don’t have to blog daily or multiple times per day, but if you can do so once per week, that’s a great start.
4. Content Powers Social Media Success
Of all the different ways you can market online, the blog remains at the center. Think of it as your home base from which all other digital marketing efforts flow.
Once you blog, you have something of value to share over social media. You definitely should share other people’s content via social media, but you will only see valuable business results if you share some of your own high-quality, original content through your social channels as well.
Remember these mind-blowing stats about social (according to the Hubspot report mentioned earlier): 77% of B2C companies and 43% of B2B companies surveyed acquired customers through Facebook alone. And, social media has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than any form of outbound marketing.
In a Nutshell:
Blogging ensures better search engine authority and organic placement – leading to more organic traffic to your site.
Blogging regularly gives your clients more confidence in you and your business.
Blogging and sharing your own content socially drives more referral traffic to your site.
CEO, Business Consultant, Researcher and Marketing Strategist
Jenny Weatherall is the co-owner and CEO of Eminent SEO, a design and marketing agency founded in 2009. She has worked in the industry since 2005, when she fell in love with digital marketing… and her now husband and partner, Chris. Together they have 6 children and 3 granddaughters.
Jenny has a passion for learning and sharing what she learns. She has researched, written and published hundreds of articles on a wide variety of topics, including: SEO, design, marketing, ethics, business management, sustainability, inclusion, behavioral health, wellness and work-life balance.
You are familiar with the “standard” website. It usually contains a home page, about us, services/products, a contact page and sometimes a blog as well…
*YAWN*
A few years ago, this was enough to keep people’s attention. But fast forward to 2014 and you’ll see that this “standard” website format isn’t really enough to stand out in people’s minds anymore – and it’s certainly not enough to keep them coming back for more.
So, you have to find a way to offer your services/products while still being useful AND interesting enough to make people want to visit your website time and again.
Repeat visitors is what’s up. Trust me.
So, how do you do that? Here are a few ideas:
1. Develop a Useful Tool
You have to be somewhat careful with tools. So many websites have them that even they are losing their novelty to some degree. However, if you can come up with something your users actually need this is a great way to create repeat visitors.
If you decide to make a tool, make sure that at minimum it does something different enough from other tools in its niche that it stands out. And, if it’s possible, create an entirely unique tool no one else has…
For example, there are tons of mortgage calculators online, but the one at Bankrate is more comprehensive than others we looked at because it allows you to calculate how much faster you can pay off your mortgage by paying additional amounts each month. And, it also gives you a precise amortization table that shows how much in interest and principal you pay each month for the entire life of the mortgage.
Cool.
2. Make Your Blog (More) Interesting
Think about the standard blog article – it goes 500 words, maybe less, and you might come away with a tip or idea…
However, if you really want to take your blog to the next level, considering diving deep into a client case study, giving a step by step tutorial on how to use one of your products, provide research, statistics and references.
Check out some of the KILLER blog posts on moz.com like:
Some people are intimated by reading (or writing) lengthy article like blog posts – but many bloggers are finding success with video blogs in place of the traditional articles. Your audience can really relate to you in a live video post and you don’t have to be a professional to make a video for your own blog. If you can operate a smartphone or a computer, you can make a video. Plus, it’s fun.
3. Gamify Your Site and Encourage Competition
Over 70% of the Forbes Global 2000 will use gamification sometime in 2014 to increase sales and increase customer retention. What’s interesting is that Gabe Zichermann, CEO of Gamification, said the reward most customers desire the most is simply status above their peers….
Hrm. That seems easy (cheap).
But how can you apply gamification to a fairly run-of-the-mill business website? Take a look at how florist Teleflora has gamified its entire online store. Customers earn points by reviewing products and answering questions in the Q&A section, among many other actions. As they do so, they get more impressive badges and are acknowledged publicly on a leaderboard:
LinkedIn also uses gamification, but in a more subtle way. It tells you your profile strength as you fill it out more. You get different ratings as you fill it out, ending up with an “All-Star” rating once it’s complete.
The fun functions of your website don’t have to make sales directly. By simply having them available you increase your niche authority, keep visitors coming back and Google, in turn, will reward you with better search rankings.
CEO, Business Consultant, Researcher and Marketing Strategist
Jenny Weatherall is the co-owner and CEO of Eminent SEO, a design and marketing agency founded in 2009. She has worked in the industry since 2005, when she fell in love with digital marketing… and her now husband and partner, Chris. Together they have 6 children and 3 granddaughters.
Jenny has a passion for learning and sharing what she learns. She has researched, written and published hundreds of articles on a wide variety of topics, including: SEO, design, marketing, ethics, business management, sustainability, inclusion, behavioral health, wellness and work-life balance.
“Response design” – it’s a fancy term for a simple concept: making sure your website functions well across all major devices people use to browse the internet these days (smartphones, laptops, tablets, iPads and PCs).
In 2011, approximately 1.15 billion of all internet users browsed the web with a mobile device, which compares to the 1.3 billion that viewed the internet with a desktop computer. Fast forward that to 2014 projections, which have about 1.9 billion mobile internet users, compared to about 1.7 billion desktop internet users.
So, now you see from a high level why responsive design is no longer an option… it’s a MUST!
5 More Specific Reasons You Need a Responsive Website
Even though the market demands responsive design, there are many more reasons to develop one, including:
Google demands it for good rankings – Hey, Google’s all about serving up the highest quality results for searchers. Part of quality means Google evaluates your mobile website design. Search Engine Journal, a leading online magazine on the latest search engine news, notes Google refers to responsive web design as its recommended mobile configuration and even industry best practice.
Easier to manage SEO – The alternative to a responsive design is to create separate websites for separate device types. If you’re an adept business person, be aware that this requires 2 separate SEO campaigns. Why not condense both into 1 and cut your internet marketing efforts in half?
It’s cost effective – Not only is responsive website development a good business practice from an SEO perspective, but it’s good from a design perspective too. Could you imagine how much it would cost to design a separate website for laptops, smartphones, and PCs, and then optimize and manage each for years to come?
Makes life easy for searchers – Today’s instant gratification consumer won’t try to figure out how to best view your website. If you serve it up for any device they might view it on right away, they’re much more likely to stay around and subscribe to your website.
It’s easy to find critical information – A desktop/laptop design, which has plenty of viewable space, makes it easy to find your contact information and to navigate around your website. But, if you only designed for a PC, then the design may not display as well for mobile users. If they have to exert additional effort figuring out how to contact you or use your website, how likely are they to eventually become paying customers?
Responsive is Quickly Becoming the Standard, so Why Not Act Now?
If you don’t already have a responsive design, it’s clear you’ll need one in the very near future. By acting now, you’ll save yourself a ton of headaches down the road.
Doesn’t that make good business sense?
Eminent SEO offers full Mobile and Responsive Website Design and Development services. Give us a call if you need help moving your site into 2013! (800) 871.4130
CEO, Business Consultant, Researcher and Marketing Strategist
Jenny Weatherall is the co-owner and CEO of Eminent SEO, a design and marketing agency founded in 2009. She has worked in the industry since 2005, when she fell in love with digital marketing… and her now husband and partner, Chris. Together they have 6 children and 3 granddaughters.
Jenny has a passion for learning and sharing what she learns. She has researched, written and published hundreds of articles on a wide variety of topics, including: SEO, design, marketing, ethics, business management, sustainability, inclusion, behavioral health, wellness and work-life balance.
When you think of a website design, what do you think of? If you’re like most people, you think of the colors, the buttons, the pictures, and the animations. Basically, you think about how “cool” the website is.
Even though the coolness of a website is very important (do people really want to engage with uncool websites?), there’s much more to website design than creating a pretty layout. In fact, there’s much more to it than I can even cover in this blog post.
If you’re a business owner, why do you purchase someone else’s services? You do that because that service either 1) makes you more money or 2) saves you money now. Your website has much to do with how much money your company makes, especially in the digital age where consumers use tablet PCs, smartphones, laptop PCs, and desktop PCs to conduct 90% of the purchases they need to make. Here are some more ways in which your web design helps you increase your sales:
Responsive Website Design – The mobile device market is exploding in usage. Just look at how many people had smartphones just a few years ago – virtually no one. Now, who doesn’t? “Responsive design” is a term referring to websites designed to look visually appealing and to be fully functional on all device types – tablets, iPads, smartphones, PCs, laptops, and desktops. If your design isn’t optimized for all of these devices, you’re missing out on sales.
SEO Friendly Website Design – Websites can be designed more (and less) effectively for search engine optimization. For example, text on flash pages can’t be understood by Google. Flash also causes slower load times, which Google takes into account when ranking websites. For the keywords you’re targeting, you should have at least 1 page dedicated to each primary keyword. The list of SEO-friendly ways to design your website goes on and on, but these examples demonstrate why it’s important to design also with SEO in mind.
Calls-to-Action – Many websites come up short in showing their visitors what action they need to take. Even though it seems obvious, people are more likely to take your desired action if you tell them what to do. If your site lacks a clear call-to-action, then people are much less likely to become paying customers. Pretty websites are engaging, but if they don’t compel visitors to take an action, then they’re just as effective as ugly websites.
Trust Signals – By using the icons of respected authorities like the BBB, icons of well-known clients you’ve served, icons of awards your company has won, icons of certifications or accreditation’s you have, etc. you build a large amount of trust with visitors. Because trust makes buyers more apt to submit their credit card or pick up the phone and call, trust icons are extremely important for anyone looking to increase their website conversions.
There’s Much More to Effective Website Design, But That’s a Start…
Design is much more complex than this, but hopefully these tips give you the basic idea that a pretty web design is only pretty. A well-thought-out design, however, increases your sales in an era where everyone shops online for what they need.
Technical Project Manager. My day-to-day includes performing technical SEO tasks, managing multiple projects and supporting the website optimization process. I also communicate directly with customers to help them understand their options and implement their customized solutions.
We’ve all probably done it: sent an email that we’ve like to have back. Whether it’s because we hit “reply all” on accident or wrote some things in the heat of the moment that we regret soon after, many emails have reached the wrong eyeballs since the advent of the online service.
If you’re a business owner, why do you purchase someone else’s services? You do that because that service either 1) makes you more money or 2) saves you money now. Your website has much to do with how much money your company makes, especially in the digital age where consumers use tablet PCs, smartphones, laptop PCs, and desktop PCs to conduct 90% of the purchases they need to make. Here are some more ways in which your web design helps you increase your sales:
