Imagine you have a fancy new website with striking design, spot-on SEO and all the bells and whistles. Now what? Your gut is telling you to leave the site alone … it’s working perfectly, right? Wrong! Not doing anything to your site after it launches is one of the biggest mistakes a website owner can […]
When analyzing your website's goals, it is tempting to use traffic as an indicator of success. If your site has thousands or even hundreds of thousands of visitors each month, it must be successful, right? Wrong. Traffic includes all the visits to your site, many of which will never turn into business. So which metric […]
It’s a new year and many of you may be setting personal goals. Don’t forget about your website! Goals are also critical to the success of your site. Maybe your website isn’t looking to lose weight or carve out more time for a hobby but you may be surprised how it can benefit from some […]
When a business or person begins creating or updating their website, they often focus on its content, design and features. What should the logo look like? Color scheme? How will the site interact with social media? Will it have a blog? What about SEO? All of these things are important but there is one critical […]
When we talk to clients about SEO, they quickly ask, "Where will we rank?" and "How soon will we rank there?" and "What guarantee can you give me?" I've found that analogies work well in explaining technical topics to non-technical clients, so I decided to start comparing SEO to the stock market, and the SEO specialist to an investment advisor. SEO […]
Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide by John Jantsch My rating: 5 of 5 stars This guide is bursting with small business marketing strategy and tactics. It’s well-written and practical, based on extensive firsthand experience. The system advocates an expanded version of the marketing funnel, content marketing, digital marketing, and […]
Businesses often make incorrect assumptions about their websites that hurt their online success, and in turn, hurt their business. I'm reading the book Duct Tape Marketing (an excellent marketing guide for small businesses), and it has a list of common assumptions that I recognize from my conversations with businesses. Let's look at these assumptions and why they're […]
I love podcasts about the business of web design. They're a great way to keep up on the aspects of running a web design agency: marketing, sales, pricing, proposals, contracts, project management, productivity, client relations, and more. Here's the latest round of my favorite web design business podcasts, listed in order of preference. If you like these, […]
Is WordPress the right choice for your business website? In most cases, yes! (Without knowing your business, I can't say for sure). Let's look at the reasons why. WordPress is the world's most popular content management system. WordPress sites currently make up over 23% of the web, and over 60% of CMS sites! Its popularity brings many of its […]
Book review and summary of "Win Without Pitching" by Blair Enns.
You know your small business needs a website, but simply having a website isn't enough. Do you know what it needs to succeed? Let's look at the content and design your website needs to meet your business goals. I gave this presentation, What Your Small Business Website Needs to Succeed, at the Small Business Symposium hosted by […]
Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson My rating: 4 of 5 stars This content strategy primer has both theory and application. It explains the problem, how to perform discovery, how to form strategy, and how to implement the strategy. It's well-organized and well-written, with just enough humor for this type of book. The […]
