CASE STUDY: How We Helped One Lawyer Rank #1 On Google, Sell His Practice, And Retire in Hawaii

Follow Us

Homepage

Andrew Stickel

What About Outbound Links?

by

SEO alone just isn’t enough any longer, and if you want to remain on the successful edge of online marketing, you might seek some help and advice from a good internet marketing agency. Along with SEO, Google imposes a number of other requirements on those who want to be high in the search engine rankings, and the other search engines follow Google’s precedents. For example, if your website isn’t mobile-friendly now, you’ll start to sink in the rankings. If you aren’t regularly updating your content, you’ll also start to sink in the rankings. And if your website doesn’t provide a few outbound links to other sites, you’ll start sinking for that reason too.

A few years ago, you may have been told that outbound links should never be a part of your website. If you’ve worked hard and spent a few dollars to bring potential clients and customers to your site, you didn’t want to give them an excuse to leave and surf elsewhere. That’s still somewhat true. You certainly don’t want a site filled with outbound links, and you absolutely should never link to a competitor. But for several reasons, you’ll sometimes need to provide a link to another website. The key is choosing those sites carefully and placing the links strategically.

Google penalizes what it considers dead end sites that provide users with no outbound options. Rather, Google and others are committed to the idea that the worldwide web is genuinely a “web” of sites linking endlessly to one another. By providing an occasional outbound link that gives your visitors engaging, authoritative information, you can make Google happy while offering practical and useful content to your potential clients and customers.

Attorneys may choose to link to the texts of statutes, to state agencies, or to specific articles or commentaries. Real estate agents might opt for links to the local Chamber of Commerce, city government, or local attractions. It’s up to you, but be certain that you are linking to quality resources that can help your visitors. For more ideas about staying on the leading edge of successful online marketing, speak with some experts at a professional internet marketing agency. The internet never closes, so make the call promptly.

When They Come, Do They Stay?

by

If you’re a professional, the first question you might ask an internet marketing company is “How can I increase traffic to my website?” Of course that’s important. But equally important is keeping visitors at your site after they’ve arrived there. Are people leaving your site and going to a competitor? To keep potential clients, you need a site that looks good and navigates easily, and you need content that provides the information and the answers that visitors seek. A professional internet marketing company can help you deal with the reasons people may be leaving your website, which might include:

Unattractive website design: Your website design is a direct reflection of your business. If your design is cheap, ugly, or just outdated, it makes you look second-rate, and most new visitors will keep moving.

Poor content: Text that’s thoughtlessly stuffed full of keywords is aggravating to read. A good internet marketing company can provide writers who smoothly work your keywords into an engaging, informative text.

Pop-ups: Don’t use pop-ups except to offer your visitors a chatbox, and even then, make sure visitors can easily close it. Pop-ups are a genuine nuisance, especially when a visitor is in a hurry to find specific information.

Poor video: If it’s blurry, dark, poorly edited, or if the audio and video aren’t in sync, poor video gives a cheap, unprofessional impression. A good internet marketing firm can produce the high-quality video you really need.

Long download times: If your website takes too long to load, people will leave. It’s that simple.

Finally, in 2015, your website really must be mobile-friendly, and you’ll sink in the search engine rankings if it isn’t. Every factor listed here can cause you to lose potential business, but a professional internet marketing company can tweak your website – or create a fresh one from scratch – and help you keep your visitors where you want them – on your own site. For more about internet marketing and keeping your visitors, consult with some internet marketing professionals – as soon as possible.

Internet Marketing Truths And Fallacies

by

Internet marketing presents both unique challenges and unique opportunities. Because internet marketing is still relatively new, plenty of fallacies regarding it are still floating around. Let’s look at several of them:

Fallacy #1: If you have great services or products, you’ll succeed. Not necessarily. Great services or products are imperative, but if you aren’t building relationships and trust, who will know or trust you? Internet marketing lets consumers “get to know you,” trust you, and become comfortable with you. That almost guarantees success.

Fallacy #2: The bottom line is the only important statistic. Of course the bottom line is critical. But the other metrics – your click-through, conversion, and bounce rates – can give you a fuller picture of where you are now and where you’re going. Don’t miss the red flags indicating that your website needs some tweaking.

Fallacy #3: If you build it, they will come. That’s true only in the movies. No one is going to find your website without some effort on your part, and SEO (search engine optimization) is key. Compile a set of keywords that reflect what your services or products are about, and create a site that includes these terms. With proper SEO and engaging, practical content, then they will come. A good internet marketing agency can create your website and its content, ensure proper and sufficient SEO, and help you promote your website through social media and backlinking, pay-per-click advertising, and email marketing.

The most important thing to remember is that online shopping is an experience, whether the consumer is shopping for a home, a microwave oven, or a doctor or lawyer. Establishing a web presence that’s comfortable, trustworthy, informative, and personalized is imperative to internet marketing success. Learn more. Discuss your internet marketing with the experts at a good internet marketing agency, and don’t wait. Someone may be looking for you online right now.

Images Are For Blogs

by

No one enjoys reading solid blocks of text. Break up your blog posts with attractive, relevant images that reinforce the subject or theme of the post. The right images make your blog posts easier on the eye and more likely to be read. Here are some tips for using images:

You must have permission to use an image. If you can shoot photographs or design graphics yourself, do it. Wikimedia Commons is probably the best internet site for finding free pictures and graphics that are in the public domain. If you don’t mind paying a small fee, iStockphoto is a superior source of photos and graphics. Exception to the rule: you can use a corporation’s logo as a graphic if the corporation is a subject of your post. Don’t even be tempted, however, to use Google Image Search; almost everything there is copyrighted.

  • You’ll want and need to tweak the images you use. Crop the borders and adjust the alignment and dimensions as needed to make the graphic look proper on the webpage. Otherwise, it can look like you “just tossed something up there.” You’ll probably need to resize (smaller) anything larger than 600 x 400 pixels.
  • Dozens of software programs are available for graphics, and many are good, but all you really need are Microsoft Office Picture Manager and Microsoft Paint; both are included with Windows 8. You may also want to look at Picnik, a site that allows you to perform basic photo edits for free and advanced editing for a small charge.
  • Be sure to put an attractive graphic at the top of your page to draw in your reader; it’s equivalent to a newspaper putting a dynamic photo “above the fold” on their front page. A photo at the bottom of a long scroll is useless in helping you attract readers.
  • If you don’t feel confident about doing all of this on your own, don’t hesitate to hire a social media marketing company to help with any aspect or all aspects of your internet marketing. A social media marketing company can provide the blog content you need and relieve your blogging anxieties.

Graphic Design Terms For Internet Marketing

by

You want your website to look professional, but you may not be trained in graphic design. It’s not that hard to have a great-looking site; don’t hesitate to hire a webmaster or a social media marketing company to help you. But even if you hire a pro, you’ll still want input into what your site looks like. Learning some basics about graphic design will help. Here are some basic terms and definitions:

Tear sheet or swipe file: A swipe file, also called a tear sheet, is a collection of clippings and images that you like. A website designer can pull examples to create a mood board, a collage of visuals that conveys the look you want for your site. Creating a mood board for yourself can give you a sense of the look and style you want.

Proof: A proof, proof sheet, or paste-up is a copy of what your pages will look like. Website designers might call this a “wireframe” or a “mockup” instead. With a digital wireframe, you might see only a line drawing that outlines where key elements will go but does not show the final actual elements. Don’t fret if the colors, graphics, and words aren’t all in place. Your webmaster or page designer is saving you money by not completing the page until you’ve both approved where everything goes.

Alignment: Centered text is hard to read but is typically used for headlines. You can left- or right-align your text. You can also have justified text, spread evenly to both margins, but a ragged right edge is usually easier to read.

Negative space: Negative space is the blank space around the words and text. Sometimes you’ll also see a “knockout” or “runaround” that doesn’t have an image yet and uses white space as a placeholder.

Copyfitting: Copyfitting is determining how much space an amount of text will take on a page. “Kerning” brings letters closer together. “Leading” is the amount of space between lines of text. Website designers use “lorem ipsum” or other sample text to show you how the final product will appear.

Serif: Serif and “sans” (without) serif fonts convey different feelings. Serif fonts have a line crossing the ending of a stroke. Serif fonts like Times New Roman are time-honored standard fonts that convey seriousness and formality. Sans serif fonts like Calibri and Helvetica do not have the extra line and convey a more dynamic, contemporary feel to your text.

Have A Content Strategy

by

You have products and services. You have a website, a blog, and you’re on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+. Yet business is flat. Nothing’s happening. You have to ask yourself this question. “What makes my brand so compelling that people will talk about it and share it with friends?” In other words, you can’t flourish in the social media environment unless you genuinely have something to say. That’s how Stephen King sells more novels than the average writer; he tells better stories. You have to have a compelling narrative. With so much on the internet, readers simply will not share content unless it’s compelling. You need a content strategy.

Online, Coke’s competition isn’t Pepsi and Wal-Mart’s competitor isn’t Target. Your competition is everyone competing for consumer attention, everyone who’s saying something interesting. Your story must be more interesting. As you determine your content strategy, ask yourself:

1. What specialty do I want to be known for? (Personal injury law, for example)

2. What are my readers’ concerns? (Let’s say injuries from automobile accidents)

3. How do I develop compelling content? (Create, for example, blogs and videos that offer safety tips and show how easily accidents can happen. Follow a likable plaintiff through the entire claim process from accident to settlement. Notify readers about pertinent new legislation or new safety technology that may impact them.)

You’ll know your content strategy is working when you’re attracting new customers and your sales go up. If that isn’t happening, tweak your strategy. Go back to your social media sites and determine what your audience has found compelling in the past. Conduct a “listening” campaign, identify the “influencers” in your audience, and find out what they’re saying. Create content that responds to their needs and interests. If you don’t feel particularly creative, contact a social media marketing firm that can manage your social media marketing and create the compelling content that works best for you and your audience.