By Emily Shaughnessy | Dec 1, 2021
Blog content remains one of the most effective and affordable types of marketing content that a business can produce. According to Semrush, companies with blogs bring in 67% more leads every month, and bloggers who use blogs for marketing purposes see 13 times more ROI.
If your company is considering adding a blog to your website, or would like to improve your current blog strategy to bring in more leads and sales, here are five ways to boost your content:
- Write more. Several studies have observed that the more frequently you update your blog, the more people will be likely to visit. Google appears to offer higher priority and better service to websites that host fresh content. Updating your blog at least twice a week will give you more attention from the search engines — and the more search engines like your blog, the more likely they will be to provide it in a search result.
- Use Better Titles. What’s more important than the content of a blog post? The title of that blog post. This is because titles are all a reader has to go on when they’re deciding if they want to click and read more. Offer your readers solutions and promises, and be sure to deliver on them with your content.
- Write Guest Posts. When you write an entry for someone else’s blog, that’s a guest post. When you do this, it’s typical for the site owner or editor to allow you to link back to your own site. Doing this can result in more referral traffic, more backlinks (which show a correlation with higher rankings), and greater brand awareness. You can search for “write for us” pages, but don’t limit yourself to the sites that offer these types of pages, as most blog owners are happy to accept blog posts, even if they don’t advertise for it.
- Promote your content in relevant online communities. As long as you have a good sense of who your target audience is, you should be able to find them congregating online. Facebook and Reddit are two good places to look for relevant online communities; they can also be found on Slack and in independently-hosted forum sites. Just don’t go find a few groups and start spamming them — that’s a good way to get quickly booted and banned. What you have to do is choose a few groups, be active in those groups, build some trust in that group, and cultivate your relationship with the group’s admins. If they see you as a real person, and not only someone who has something to promote, they’ll be likely to say yes when you ask permission to promote.
- Use Keywords. Keywords are words that someone might use to find your post. Once you’ve found those keywords, use them in the title of the post, the headers of the post, and in the content of the post — whenever and wherever it makes sense to do so. It’s also a good idea to use the keywords in at least one or two of the images on your page. Concentrating your use of keywords in this way helps Google to understand what your page is about—and that can ultimately lead to more traffic to your page, guided and generated by your use of keywords.
Questions about how content marketing and web design strategies could elevate your brand and improve your bottom line? Schedule a consultation with one of our digital strategists by clicking here.
By Emily Shaughnessy | Nov 22, 2021
In our last blog post, we discussed the five essential steps companies should take when considering a rebranding. As promised, here are the five top mistakes to avoid when overhauling your brand.
Whether your rebranding is a result of a new acquisition or product to highlight, a misstep to correct, or is simply an image makeover to appeal to a new or changing customer base, there are many factors to consider. Your company size, resources, marketing assets, brand history, and audience will all impact how easy or challenging the process becomes.
Be on the lookout for these common errors and pitfalls so that you give your company and your new brand the best chance of success.
- Don’t Think a Simple Logo Facelift Will Do The Trick
It’s common for companies to think that rebranding simply involves rewriting the mission statement, changing the logo and fonts, and calling it a day. While a design facelift is likely an important part of your rebranding strategy, successful rebranding involves pursuing a new strategy or goal, and it will extend to every corner of the business. It’s the difference between repainting the trim on the ship and actually turning the vessel around. Use your rebranding process as an opportunity to re-evaluate your company processes, goals and long-term direction.
- Don’t Let Rebranding Become “Just Marketing’s Thing”
While the marketing team will be doing much of the forward work on rebranding, and will likely be partnering with and executing the visions of upper management, it does nobody any favors to silo the rebranding effort to one particular department. Executive leadership should be making sure that departments aren’t working at cross purposes by involving the entire company in the rebranding process.
- Don’t Forget To Talk To Employees
Your employees may have some valuable insight into your company’s brand image and internal processes, so make sure you are bringing them into the decision making process and gathering their opinions and feedback. Understanding the culture and goals in your workplace is important to any rebranding, because problems in the office tend to bubble outward over time. The behavior and opinions of employees can be hard to change: a successful rebranding starts internally, using feedback from employees and executives to guide the most compelling narrative and strategies. If you can sell people inside, it’s easier to sell people on the outside.
- Don’t Under-Communicate
Presenting a brand strategy once or twice is not enough for the strategy to stick. This applies to both internal and external communications. To successfully launch a new brand image, you will need tested methods for gaining the buy-in of your employees, your customer base, and your target audience. This will involve consistent, concerted marketing efforts and a strong belief in your new brand.
- Don’t Hire A Design Agency And Call It A Day
There are plenty of designers who can craft a nice logo or a catchy tagline, but that’s not the same as having experience in brand strategy or business. Make sure your rebranding isn’t rushed and only skin deep. For a successful and sustainable rebranding, you should be partnering with a digital marketing agency that understands your company holistically and can make recommendations that incorporate your long-term business goals into your rebranding process.
Questions about how content marketing and web design strategies could elevate your brand and improve your bottom line? Schedule a consultation with one of our digital strategists by clicking here.
By Emily Shaughnessy | Nov 3, 2021
Rebranding your company may sound intimidating, but it is nothing to be afraid of. Most of the major brands and industry leaders have overhauled their image at one point or another—from McDonald’s to Instagram to the Huffington Post.
Rebranding can happen for a number of reasons. Maybe the company needs to re-establish its place in the market, or reflect a major new acquisition. Maybe there’s new technology to show off, or new industry trends to follow. Maybe the old brand has received criticism for previous mistakes, and needs to cool off for a while.
The fact is that times change, style changes, and consumer expectations change. If your company has been around long enough, chances are it will need to evolve and adapt to the latest trends if it is going to be successful.
Undergoing a rebranding can be a time-intensive process depending on your company size, marketing assets and the resources available for the process. If it’s time for your brand get a makeover, here are five important steps you don’t want to miss.
1. Think Carefully About Why You’re Rebranding
What do you hope to gain? What are the risks of walking away from an established brand? Do you have other options that might be easier? Rebranding takes time and money to do well—and should not be entered into lightly. Make sure you do thorough research before initiating a rebranding, including internal research.
2. Get Buy-In From The Top
The CEO and executive leadership of your company should be directly involved from the beginning, and should ideally be leading the initiative and providing a strong vision for the project. They’re going to be involved at some point: it’s better for that to be sooner rather than later.
3. Talk With Customers and Stakeholders
Talk to customers—yours, and other people’s—as well as industry partners to work out your brand strategy. Ask about how people perceive your organization’s strengths and weaknesses. Find out what frustrates them, what they need, and what obstacles stop them from working with you. Such information will help you position strategy and messaging that will help you thrive in your market.
4. Overcommunicate
Hammer home the new brand strategy. Share it in ways that prompt people to directly experience it. Continually lay it out through regular workplace communication and training. Make it part of engagement activities. Make sure the message gets through.
5. Find The Right Partner
If you’re thinking about rebranding, you’ll need a partner who understands that brand strategy is a business strategy, and can show deep experience melding the two goals. Remember: you’ll need to make sure your business pursuits are aligned with your brand. Rebranding only to fall short of your new promises is worse than not rebranding at all. If you want to make sure you are hitting all your goals, you should look for a digital marketing agency that can not only help you change your brand image but your online presence and processes as well. Approaching the project from this holistic perspective will help ensure your rebranding is a triumphant success.
Stay tuned for Part Two: 5 Mistakes to Avoid When Rebranding Your Company
Questions about how content marketing and web design strategies could elevate your brand and improve your bottom line? Schedule a consultation with one of our digital strategists by clicking here.
By Emily Shaughnessy | Oct 7, 2021
The digital revolution has allowed many companies and individuals to move past the format of trading their time and effort for money and into more passive and scalable income stream structures.
The sports coaching industry is no different. This lucrative industry is expected to grow by $9 billion over the next four years, yet many trainers feel they have hit a financial plateau—whether they are self-employed or work for a sports training company.
Last week, ATX Web Designs founder Daniel Griggs was featured in a Forbes article titled Sports Trainers: Monetize Your Knowledge and shared advice for coaches and trainers who are looking to scale their business and grow exponentially. The article explains some of the steps needed to create a digital platform that will turn knowledge and experience into profit.
These steps include:
1. Create content tiers. It is important to match your digital content to your audience. If you’re looking to monetize your knowledge for an online audience, you will need to identify audience segments and create tiers of content that apply to each one. For example, a college athlete needs a different approach than a mother of four young children.
- Progress your audience over time. In the sports training world, people like to see results. One of the advantages of a digital platform is the ability to showcase and adapt to your audiences’ growth. Incorporating various levels of training and utilizing online self-assessments or even live video assessments are ways to create measurable results.
- Use existing platforms. There is no need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to creating and sharing online content. Platforms like Teachable, Podia and Thinkific are valuable tools for content creators and educators. You can even leverage social media platforms such as Instagram or TikTok to provide value for your audience and engage them in your marketing funnel.
To read the full article,click here.
By Emily Shaughnessy | Oct 6, 2021
Instagram is not only a free tool for small businesses, it is an extremely powerful one. There are 1.4 billion users on the photo-based social media platform who spend about 30 minutes every day scrolling through content. About 200 million Instagram users visit a business profile at least once a day, while 130 million click to learn more about businesses’ products and services.
Running a small business requires the ability to multitask and wear many hats. While large corporations have teams of people researching, posting and responding on social media platforms, small companies don’t always have the time to prioritize engaging on apps like Instagram. Unfortunately, this means that many small businesses miss out on the significant opportunities Instagram offers for building brand awareness, generating new leads, and even making sales.
If you are a small- or medium-sized-business owner and aren’t able to dedicate a lot of time to social media management, here are a few tips to help you keep up with the trends and get the most bang for your buck when you are able to post.
- Optimize the link in bio. Make sure you include a link in your Instagram bio that takes users to an important page of your website. This should either be your homepage, a marketing landing page or your shop/services page.
- Schedule your posts. Save yourself time and energy by scheduling your posts in advance. This will also ensure you are able to post consistently and produce fresh content for your followers. You can schedule posts through free features like Business Suite or upgrade to a paid post scheduler like Buffer or Hootsuite for a more streamlined experience.
- Interact with your followers. Consumers are more likely to purchase and promote brands that interact with them on social media. Set aside a day or two each week to respond to comments and questions so you can show your followers that you are active and engaged.
- Utilize videos and reels. Video “reels” and video posts are some of the most popular content on Instagram. Posting a video about your company, product, or services will give potential customers an experience of your brand that they can’t get through photos or text alone. Consumers are more likely to visualize themselves using a product or service when they see it in action via a video.
- Track your analytics. Instagram and other social media sites offer users data about posts, followers and engagement. By viewing your insights and analytics you will be able to gather useful information, such as which types of posts get the most engagement and when your followers are most active. This information will help you maximize your social media efforts.
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