Is Your Digital Marketing Outdated?

Businesses worry about keeping their computers up-to-the-minute. But what about your digital marketing strategies? Are they way older than Windows 07? Meet Michael Lovas, multi-book author and man behind the psycho-social marketing strategies of the Spokane firm About People (along with wife Pam Holloway.) “A lot of bad advice was good advice ten or 20 years ago,” Lovas says, “But with digital media, people began reading differently. The old approach to layouts and writing ceased to [be effective.]” Lovas says first impressions mean design and content. “If those aren’t presented right, your message will likely go unread.” Statistics have shown that most people leave a webpage after ten seconds, reading no more than 120 words. (By the end of this sentence you’ll be on word 126.)

Five Quick Don'ts:
1. Don’t assume email is the same as direct mail or that people are itching to read it.
2. Don’t treat your website like a brochure, with long sentences, long paragraphs, and no subheads. 
3. Don’t fill your company blog with irrelevant personal anecdotes and lofty pontifications. 
4. Don’t build the top of your marketing page around a pretty, generic image that has little to do with your business or your customers. 
5. Don’t clutter the top of your website by cramming too many elements into it.

Five Quick Dos:
1. Do your homework. Know that people only skim digital marketing, moving their eyes in an “E” or “F” pattern—not the older “Z” reading formation. 
2. Do give the reader visual stepping stones: subheads guiding the eyes to points of relevance in descending order. 
3. Do use sidebars, quotes, or graphics to break up large chunks of text. 
4. Do keep in mind that your website needs to reflect what your customers want to learn—not what you want to say. 
5. Do link to something your visitors will find valuable.

How The BBB Helps With Your Internet Marketing & SEO

This blog post was written by Phil Singleton, Founder & CEO of Kansas City Web Design, a Kansas City BBB A+ rated accredited business.

There are so many reasons why businesses should join the BBB.  Most of these are well-known and self-explanatory.  Yet,  BBB Accreditation provides your business with many online benefits that are often overlooked.

The BBB is a highly trusted website.  The search engines know that BBB members go through an extensive vetting process to become accredited.   The information on your BBB Business Review, including the link back to your company’s website, provides search engines with important information about your business.  While a BBB listing is by no means a ‘magic bullet’ that ensures high search engine rankings, it can help to boost your overall Internet marketing efforts and provide other benefits as well.

Here’s why:

1. BBB is a PR8 Website: The major search engines consider BBB.org to be a ‘high authority’ website.   Google, for example, has a score for websites called PageRank, rated from 0-10 (Google.com is a PR9 website).  Have you ever wondered why some websites appear ahead of yours in search results?  One possibility is that your competitors have more high authority websites linking back to their site.  This is over-simplifying search engine optimization (SEO) because many factors influence your website’s rank – but high quality backlinks are still a very important part. In other words, a link from BBB to your website is a valuable link.

2. BBB Kansas City is a PR5 website:  Local chapters pages of the BBB tend to have a PageRank as well.  The Kansas City BBB has a high page rank in its own right.  Further, the combination of high domain authority with local, highly relevant content makes your link(s) from the BBB valuable.

3.  Your BBB Page Is a Powerful ‘Mini Site’:  The Kansas BBB has strong organic rankings for many types of searches.  If your company takes advantage of all the great features on your BBB profile page, your BBB page can achieve its own organic rankings.  In other words, a prospective Kansas City customer could search for a service and it’s possible that your BBB company page could rank for that search term.

Further, if you have an SEO program in place, your Internet marketing consultant can drive SEO efforts at your BBB page – extend your keyword reach an overall Internet visibility.

4.  BBB Interactive Seals Increase Conversion Rates: A highly visible, accredited BBB seal is extremely helpful for ‘website conversions’.  A website conversion is the action you would like your prospective customers to take at the end of their website visit.  This could be an online sale, a phone call, filling out a contact for or application, etc.  Your website visitors develop a first impression in a fraction of a second.  After that initial impression, your website has another three seconds to convince visitors to stay and read more.  A highly visible BBB seal helps establish credibility and trust immediately, which in turn will help in increase your website’s conversion rate.

5.  High Quality Outbound Links:  Backlinks pointing to your website are just one SEO ranking factor.  Strategically placed outbound links can contribute to your website’s organic search engine rankings.  This is especially helpful when creating blog posts to your website.  When you are writing on a topic and the text or page contains an outbound link to a relevant, quality website, this link is often perceived by search engines to add value to the page or post.  Thus, linking your seal to your BBB profile page, or linking to a BBB page or blog post may contribute to your organic rankings.

In summary, if you are a BBB Accredited Business, be sure to take advantage of the SEO benefits that your membership can bring.  Make sure your profile is up to date and contains your website information.  Add relevant and optimized content to your member page (logo, images, videos, etc.).  Display the BBB seal prominently on your website.  Hyperlink your seal to your BBB company profile page.