Inbound Marketing Blog

Justify Your Thug

A friend who works at a record store told me this story.

A customer came in one Sunday afternoon. This was one of those "special" customers (i.e. the kind that make clerks hide in the back office until he leaves). He strutted in decked out in full hip-hop gangsta attire--baggy jeans, baggy shirt, white basketball sneakers, chains around his neck. He headed straight to the Hip-Hop section and started barking out questions to my friend--"HEY YO, YOU GOT ANY [insert random underground rapper name]?"

Continuing on to the fourth point from "10 Ways to Increase your Website's Performace," we look at why using the right mix of compelling graphics will keep your visitors hooked, wanting more and even sharing more. Now when I say "graphics," I'm talking about infographics, stock photos and your images. So let's get started.

Get Noticed

Your website has great content. Perfect. But what if your stellar content is surrounded but dull, boring images... or even worse, no images at all.  Your website will be passed over time and time again. People are visual. They need visual queues to help them know what to expect your content to tell them. Keep in mind, you can over do it with images.

Blogging has a critical role in digital marketing. First and foremost being; attract new users and increase traffic to your website engaging and interesting content. This means creating new and consistent content around trending topics and relevant information. 

Even though there have been countless studies and online statistics praising this technique; why are so many large companies hesitant to insert this into the digital marketing strategy? Could it be because they don’t believe blogging is important or maybe they are too lazy to keep their blog updated?

The internet continues to shake up the world of copyright law. Most people don't know exactly what copyright infringement entails, and it's constantly getting them into BIG trouble. 

One of the more popular cases over the years that ended up favorably was Lenz versus Universal Music Corp. In 2007, a very proud mother posted a video of her daughter lip syncing to a Prince song, then posted it on Youtube for all the world to enjoy. Universal Music Corp was not amused and forced Youtube to take the video down because they felt the mother's video violated their copyright of the song.

Imagine this. You're sitting at your desk, near the end of the day, going over reports that are due for a meeting tomorrow when you start to lose track of your place because the stale white pages are slowly driving you insane. You keep drumming through the pedantic report until you happen upon a beautiful, colorful infographic displayed with eye-catching symmetry and an effortless flow to the data presented. Suddenly you are smiling, awake, and you realize that your next door neighbor isn't such a bad guy despite waking you up at 3am. You can see hope, a light at the end of the tunnel that is your work day finally coming to an end.

Ok, so maybe your happiness about an infographic won't be that profound. But one thing an infographic will do for sure is represent your important data in the right light.

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." This common phrase is meant to give an optimistic spin to everything. Lemons are quite sour, but can be made sweet and enjoyable with a dash of sugar and some water. But "lemons" aren't always just sour. Sometimes they're boring all by themselves. How does this apply to your business and its website content? Let's see here...

"Search engines love content." We have made that comment over and over throughout the years. Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing use your content to connect it to people who are searching for you or your service. The more quality content you have on your website, the greater the chance your site will be indexed by the three major search engines. 

Having quality content on your site is only the first step. Your content must always be evolving. 

Why?

People evolve. Their habits evolve. Their needs evolve. 

I consult with clients all day long in matters of website and digital marketing tactics. Often the topic of how, when and even if blogging is really that important comes up. The reactions I get from people range from blank stares, glasses down on nose look, and my favorite, eye rolling.

It's quite easy folks, content is search driven. Ever try to search google without words? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Back in February we shared with you the 10 ways to increase your website's performance and gave you a little snippet of information for each tip. Today starts a series where I will dive deeper into each subject so you know WHY each of the 10 points are so important. 

Search engines love content; we've already established this in the blog from February. Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing index your site by keywords throughout your site content.  But what exactly does that mean?

Creating the right messaging can be very difficult, especially in regards to messaging online. While the web is great at getting information to a large number of people, it isn’t always the best at maintaining the intended tone of voice. Oftentimes, brands put something out there, only to find that it has been wildly misinterpreted or fallen on deaf ears. This is how disasters begin. Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook bring interaction between brands and their customers to a new level, requiring an entirely different approach than traditional advertising and marketing tactics.