Website Tips and Tricks: Part I

Monday Marketing Minute

Every Monday, the Stingray Branding Team does a weekly Monday Marketing Minute on our Facebook Page. Tune in every Monday at 3:00 pm EST for a quick Facebook Live marketing tip of the week from your team of Stingrays. We would love to hear any questions you have and help you learn how to improve your marketing strategy. In case you’re busy on Mondays though, we will also put together a blog discussing what we talked about on the Facebook Live and post the marketing tips on our YouTube Channel for you to check out at your leisure.

For the month of July, our team focused on simple, practical, and actionable tips and tricks for your website. We firmly believe that your website should be more than just a digital business card. It should create lasting value and engagement for all of your customers, new and returning. With that in mind, let’s begin with our first two topics, SEO and how to create great web copy.

Remember If you have any questions, or want to talk to one of our team members, feel free to contact us. We’d love to hear from you!

SEO

What is SEO?

• • SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s also very simple the practice of increasing the quality and quantity of your website’s traffic through organic search engine results.

• • • Organic results are results you don’t have to pay for, as opposed to paying for ads.
  • SEO can apply to any search engine or any platform with a search engine.
  • SEO is dynamic. As the parameters of search engines change, you will have to adapt to this constantly shifting environment to optimize your website.
  • At its core, SEO is about making sure your website, its content, its user experience, and many other factors demonstrate to the search engine both relevancy and authority in the areas where you work/market.

Why is it important?

• • If I asked you where the best Korean food was in your town, what would you do? How about if you suddenly needed a piano tuner? Simple. You’d go to your phone or computer and search for it online.
  • SEO will help the search engine identify your business as the one with the greatest relevancy and authority for a given search.
  • 95% of web traffic will go to the first five Google search results, leaving only 5% for everyone else. Being identified as the authority, as well as relevant, is what will get you into those positions.

How do I improve it?

• • Onsite SEO – Optimizing a website and its content to increase traffic.
    • Keyword research
    • Technical Audits
    • Onsite Optimization
    • User experience
  • Offsite SEO – Activities outside of your website to improve your visibility.
    • Content Marketing
    • Digital PR
    • Outreach & Promotion

SEO can be intimidating, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s not incredibly difficult on the surface, but it is time-consuming and there is an art and a science to it. If you don’t feel like you grasp it, get some help.

Writing Great Web Copy

Experts tell us that we only have 7 seconds to make our first impression. While it’s easy to see how this applies to personal interactions, it can be easy to forget this deals with our websites as well.  And what’s one of the first things people notice about your website? The writing.

Seven Great Tips for Web Copy

• Identify Your Target Audience – there is someone specific you are trying to reach out to there.  Figure out who that is before you get started.
• Remember They’re A Person – We often forget to write for people and end up writing for an outline of a persona type instead.  This makes the writing cold and mechanical. Write for a person.
• Give the People What They Want – Coming up with copy and content can be a struggle.  Often we try too hard to be original instead of being authentic and giving our customers/prospects what they want.  Figure out what creates value for your target audience and give it to them.
• Identify your Keywords – Keywords are an important part of SEO, so you should know what your business is, who your target is, and what the most important keywords you want to hit are.
• Format, Format, Format
  • Keep it “Scan-able” – People don’t read websites like they read books.  Instead, they scan them for their desired material. Make sure your writing is set for this by keeping it simple and concise.
  • “I Do Not Think That Word Means What You Think It Means.” – Get rid of all of your jargon and specialty language.  Now is not the time for fifty-cent words. In fact, it almost never is. Keep it easy to understand and accessible.
  • Break It Up – Create variety with shorter paragraphs and insert visuals to make it more engaging and pleasing to the eye.
• Find an Editor – No, not your friends, family, or significant others.  Find someone to review your copy and see what he or she thinks. Do they understand it?  Is it creating the impression you want? Remember, communication must be received to be effective.
• Don’t Try to Be Original, Try to Be Authentic – Remember, you are the only one of you.  By just being authentic you’ll automatically be original. Plus it’s a lot less to worry about.

Your Marketing Team

If you have any questions about how to get involved with your local business community or how to grow your business by supporting the local community, reach out to our team at Stingray Branding. We are networking gurus and love to support our community! We can get you set up with some awesome branding and then teach you how to go out and run with it!