Creating Conversions with Your Content We often don’t think about conversions when creating our content. We’re all about creating the latest, greatest piece of verbiage seen by man, and that’s great, but at the end of the day, you must consider how you can make your content work together with a conversion strategy if you wish to flourish. There are ways to help your visitor get to that happy place where they’re grabbing their wallet, and completing the sale. Let’s look at 5 ways we can use our content for more conversions Use easy to follow navigation – Enabling your page visitors to go where they (and you!) want to is a cornerstone. Utilize one clearly defined navigation bar, and augment this with text links inside your content pointing to other pages or resources you’d like to show. Use visuals! – The more images and videos you use in your content, the more often it will be read, shared and acted upon. That’s not opinion, but a fact. We love to look and watch, read…not so much. Optimize for mobile – With more than half of all web access and search now coming through a mobile device of some sort, if you’re not optimized for mobile you are definitely losing out. Create unique, valuable content – The best way to help your conversions is by creating content that is valuable, sharable and leads logically (and one would hope with some urgency!) to the next step, conversion. Create killer calls to action – Optimize your calls to action with some thought. Test the various elements just like you would a piece of content, and make every effort to make your CTA stand out. Using colors that stand out yet are complimentary is important here, while remaining within the design elements of your page. The best way to proceed is to ensure that when your content is being developed, that conversion is a part of the thought process. Thinking about it then will lead to more conversions later!

Here’s Some Real World Ways to Market with Instagram Okay, we all know what Instagram is, but I would bet your next month’s paycheck that we aren’t crystal clear on precisely how we can use it in our marketing. We may have the (mistaken) notion that all Instagram is suitable for is the posting of endless selfies and memes, even though the truth is that Instagram is a good deal more useful than this. Let’s consider 7 ways you can market with Instagram Build a following – One of the easiest ways to do this rapidly is if you already possess a Facebook following. Simply connect the two, and you’ll have a great head start. You should also begin to follow people and brands you admire on Instagram, and engage using hashtags. Use Instagram video – Becoming more and more popular, Instagram followed Vine to the show, but more than doubled the length of the videos, 15 seconds to Vine’s 6. There’s a lot you can share, and while the time constraint might seem limiting, it can actually help you be more creative and unique. Create a killer profile – Your Instagram profile is a great opportunity to introduce more and more people to your brand. Be sure to have current and interesting information readily available for people to follow. Networking on Instagram – Start immediately following brands and people, using hashtags that make sense for your brand, and be certain to engage with people. Get your creative on – Use this opportunity to inject a major dose of creativity, and dare I say, fun into your brand. Although you have to take care to not go overboard with this, it never hurts to portray your company with a more human face. Use Instagram to tell your brand story – By regularly posting images and videos, you can tell the story of what your brand is about, and giving a human face to the company logo and name. Instagram is an excellent tool for announcements and news – Use Instagram to introduce new products, profile key personnel, and deliver your customers a shout-out about what’s on its way that they need to be aware of. Instagram is growing dramatically right now, and with their acquisition by Facebook, they will be popular for quite a while to come. Just remember to limit the number of selfies, okay?

Understanding the Psychology of Color as It Applies to Your Marketing Color has a tremendous effect on the behaviors of your webpage visitors, and we need to take a look at how we can better use this in our marketing. Rather than just think of it as some sort of NLP, or mumbo-jumbo, we need to take a look at the data available and then start to test what this means for our particular audience. The psychology of color provides us a wealth of data to digest. This data shows us specific choices we can make regarding colors for our web pages, marketing pieces, buy buttons and more. While this information is valuable, it is still incumbent upon us to test what works the best for our particular audience. So what is the psychology of color? Basically, the psychology of color is the study of what colors evoke response in people, and what those responses are typically. There are differences in every single sex, age group and other demographic you can identify. For example, women love purple, while men can’t stand it. Brown can mean a rugged, outdoorsy feeling, while for others it symbolizes warmth. Red can be found on stop signs, but also suggests a level of excitement. Green means money to many, and calm to other people. One interesting fact: the favorite color of both men and women is blue. So how do you use this information in your marketing? So how best to take this data and apply it to our businesses? The first step is to realize that testing is mandatory, and that the colors you see working well on one site may not apply to yours. The first step is knowing who your audience is. Is your audience mostly male, female, young or old? The colors are different, and speak different things to each set of people. Know which parts of your pages are the most important. For example, any calls to action on your pages should be made to stand out with a bolder, while at the same time complimentary, color. Think of the overall feeling you are attempting to convey, and test accordingly. Color evokes mood, and you’ll want to think about this when determining exactly what you’re trying to say with color. Make your colors consistent, in order to keep your message consistant as well. Also, try to keep any hyperlinks blue if at all possible, as this has been the link color since the Web was born, and there’s a case for familiarity. The most effective way to use the psychology of color in your marketing is to use the data to test for your own best results, and then proceeding from there.

  It’s not working anymore: SEO tactics that have outlived their time Sometimes things stop working. It happened with my phone a couple weeks ago… but I digress. SEO is a moving target, just as much an art as it is a science. Many of the tactics we’ve used over the years have gone by the wayside, as Google refines their algorithms. Let’s take a look at what’s not working now, and what you can quit dedicating time, energy and resources to. SEO tactics to toss in the trash for 2014 Overuse of keywords – Back in the day you could pound your pages with lots of instances of your primary keywords, and they’d rank well for those. Not anymore. The best practice these days is to include your primary keyword in the title, and perhaps a few other places on the page, but let’s be clear that Google is asking you to write for your readers first. The relevance of your content in much more important than the number of times your main keyword appears on the page. Micro content – Currently the pages that rank on the first pages of Google are alike in that they sport longer, more in-depth content. The times when we could get by with slapping up 250-300 words of dubious quality are long gone, so far as your main blog and site pages are concerned. There’s a place for micro-content; such as on sites like Tumblr, Facebook and other primarily social sites. Article marketing – This one expired a while ago. Since Panda came down the pike, article directories have struggled. To publish your content there these days and expect much in the way of traffic or links is an exercise in futility. Keyword anchor text – Google’s algorithm is now smarter, and now understands that if every link to your site has “Your main keyword” as the clickable anchor text, something is not right. Aim for a more natural link footprint, using keywords, your site URL, and some random phrases that make sense, including “click here” and longer, post specific terms. No social elements – The day when you could ignore social media entirely and get by is a thing of the past as well. Do yourself a favor and include social sharing buttons and links to your own social properties. Inbound run of site links – Getting, or God forbid buying, run of site inbound links, is a sure-fire way to find yourself punished. Want to make it worse? Have them all use the same keyword!