WSI Blog

Quantum Computers are already here....

Wed, 13 Dec 2023 16:30:42 GMT

Here is a summary of the key points from the 60 Minutes video on the quantum computer race:

Quantum computers have the potential to be exponentially more powerful than today's classical computers by harnessing the peculiar laws of quantum mechanics. They could solve problems that are currently unsolvable.
Several companies and governments are racing to build a useful quantum computer, including IBM, Google, Microsoft, and China. Billions of dollars are being invested in quantum computing research and development.
Quantum computers work by using quantum bits or "qubits" that can represent a 1, a 0, or both at the same time. This phenomenon of superposition gives quantum computers their potential computing advantage over classical computers.
Building stable, error-corrected quantum computers is extremely challenging. Qubits are very fragile and susceptible to errors from outside interference. The largest quantum computers today have around 50-70 qubits. Experts estimate around 1000 high-quality qubits will be needed for a useful quantum computer.
Potential applications of quantum computing include developing new batteries and drugs, optimizing global logistics, and breaking through encryption standards. However, quantum computers will not surpass classical computers for every task - for most applications today a classical computer is still better.
It's a race to both build a useful quantum computer and find practical applications. If successful, quantum computing could drive major innovations and economic benefits. However, the challenges are also immense and it may still be decades before quantum computers revolutionize computing in the way that many expect.

Ecommerce Trends You Need to Know

Thu, 15 Sep 2022 13:00:00 GMT

Today, there are multiple channels where you can engage with customers and convert the relationship to sales. And ecommerce marketing can offer great opportunities to businesses worldwide. When you combine that with the knowledge of current ecommerce trends, you will be ready for the next ecommerce chapter, which includes:

We Just Won 13 More WMA WebAwards in 2022!

Wed, 14 Sep 2022 21:00:00 GMT

WSI continues its reign as a leader in web design!

We are excited to announce that WSI, across its entire network, has won 13 more prestigious WebAwards in the latest Web Marketing Association competition. And WSI has also been named an Outstanding Website Developer by the Web Marketing Association!

This all goes to show that our digital consultants, agencies, and partners are all top-notch—which makes us feel pretty good about ourselves, too ��

Why You Should Include GIFs in your Digital Marketing Strategy

Tue, 06 Sep 2022 13:00:00 GMT

You might not consider using Baby Yoda or sad Pokémon in a digital marketing strategy. Still, a graphics interchange format (GIF) image is one of the fastest ways to share information visually or find out what the latest thoughts (or laughs!) are in pop culture. According to Giphy, a company providing users with animated GIFs to embed in social media posts and messages, the most viewed GIF in 2021 was the stoic expression of Stanley from the US version of "The Office." Together, the top ten 2021 GIFs were viewed more than 4.5 billion times.

Why Content is Still the King of the Castle

Mon, 29 Aug 2022 20:04:00 GMT

The year is 2050, and content is still king….

Just kidding! The year is, of course, 2022 - the year in which we predicted that content would remain king . And jokes aside, we’re fine letting the opening line of this post serve as an even loftier prediction: that when it’s actually really 2050, we’re still going to be talking about content.

Do we know what forms of content will be most popular in 28 years? We don’t. But we truly believe that the importance of content will remain as strong as ever in 2022, 2050, and even beyond.

The Staying Power of Content

It always appears as though the importance of content is going to fade; as if something else is going to emerge and offer brands and companies some new lifeblood for their marketing efforts. But the truth remains that everything marketers do to attract and retain customers is built around content. Each new and shiny tactic that garners traction ends up being another form of content (ex. short video content platforms).

Should You Bother with Video Prospecting?

Mon, 15 Aug 2022 15:55:00 GMT

Reaching out to prospective clients can be really hard. Video prospecting is a great way to get your message in front of your potential customers without too much fuss. A prospecting video can help you break through all the marketing noise, get your product or service in front of the prospect and get that meeting booked.

How to Get Started with TikTok Ads in 2022

Thu, 04 Aug 2022 12:00:00 GMT

Is your brand using TikTok as part of your social media marketing strategy? TikTok is quickly becoming a high-priority item in most businesses’ digital marketing toolbox. It may have started as an app for Gen Z users who wanted a place to post fun and frivolous content, but it is now a platform with an increasing number of subscribers across all demographics.

The Return of Experiential Marketing

Thu, 28 Jul 2022 16:30:00 GMT

With the pandemic still fresh in the minds of many, it can be hard to believe that live events are starting to come back. And while the last two years have helped digital marketers take the next step with online marketing, there's still something to be said for that first-hand, in-person product experience.

But , you might be asking yourself, is that something people will be interested in after two years of online-only events ?

How to Boost your SEO Strategy with Low Competition Keywords

Tue, 19 Jul 2022 12:00:00 GMT

When a website is new or relatively unknown, it can be difficult to rank well for competitive keywords. And writing content and developing a strong online reputation can take time that you don't have. So why not consider including low competition keywords in your SEO strategy? In this article, we get into what you need to consider when building a low competition keyword list, and how to search for potential high-volume, low competition keywords.

Amazon Advertising Guide for Sellers

Fri, 15 Jul 2022 11:00:00 GMT

Whether you are a big brand or small business, Amazon advertising should be part of your product business strategy if you want to increase sales and build brand awareness . We all know Amazon is a well-known ecommerce retailer, but what does Amazon say about its shoppers ?

Everything Businesses Need to Know About SEO

Wed, 13 Jul 2022 11:30:00 GMT

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in September 2020 and has been updated with additional information on July 2022.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is as vast as it is misunderstood. It’s one of the most essential concepts driving digital marketing today and a must-know for marketers who want to see their business succeed online.

70+ New terms in the Web 3.0 metaverse you should know

Mon, 11 Jul 2022 16:14:20 GMT

Author Credit: Marc Maxhimer

Marc Maxhimer is the Director of Education and Training at The Tilt. Marc is excited to be teaching content creators how to become successful content entrepreneurs. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in English and Mathematics Education and a Master’s degree in Educational Administration. He previously taught middle school for 16 years. Marc lives in (and loves all things) Cleveland with his wife, two daughters, and dog.

Originally Posted: https://www.thetilt.com/tilt-author/marc-maxhimer

A – Web3 terms

Address – also referred to as wallet address or blockchain address – just like someone has a home and business address, a blockchain has an address to identify its location. A blockchain address is a long alphanumeric reference to access the precise location of the transaction’s home. It also can be where someone receives, sends, or holds their blockchain transactions. An example of a blockchain address is: 5TdA55HeLopzzwe3Lg7W335tGdCc623PoQ.

Airdrop – a specified amount of cryptocurrency, social tokens, or a new NFT dropped into a holder’s wallet without an additional fee. It is a popular way for NFT projects and social token creators to reward their community.

Alpha – a slang term for “intel.” Those who possess alpha have information that the rest of the market hasn’t found out about yet. These people spend hours and hours finding undiscovered projects, and sometimes, they share this on Twitter or other social media. Usually in reference to NFT projects, but can apply to cryptocurrency as well.

Altcoin – a reference to cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin (and sometimes Ethereum). Such coins distinguish themselves from Bitcoin by extending their capabilities and plugging their shortcomings.

Ape in – apeing in – buying into an NFT project or social token project often with little or no research. The goal is to buy in shortly after launch to reap possible substantial gains with no due diligence on the buyer’s part. This “low-IQ” approach is what gives apeing in its name. However, it should be noted that often apeing in is a self-assigned term and does not carry a negative connotation.

B – Web3 terms

Bitcoin – a decentralized digital currency created in 2009. Bitcoin uses cryptography to keep it secure. There are no physical bitcoins. Ownership is recorded on a public ledger (blockchain) that everyone can access, though each record is encrypted. All Bitcoin transactions are verified by a massive amount of computing power via a process known as “mining.”

Blockchain – a distributed database shared among the nodes of a computer network. As a database, a blockchain stores information electronically in digital format. Blockchains are best known for their role in cryptocurrency for maintaining a secure and decentralized record of transactions. A blockchain collects information in groups, known as blocks. When the block’s storage capacity is filled, it is closed and linked to the previously filled block, forming a chain of data known as the blockchain. Then, new information is compiled into a new block that will be added to the chain once it reaches capacity.

Bridge in/bridge out – a blockchain bridge is a connection that allows the transfer of social tokens from one chain to another. Both chains can have distinct protocols, rules, and governance models, but the bridge provides a compatible way to conduct the transaction securely on both sides. For example, holders of Rally.io tokens can bridge out some (or all) of their holdings in the Rally sidechain to the Ethereum chain. From there, they can sell (or bridge) their Ethereum for currency.

Burn – the process where miners and developers permanently remove cryptocurrency coins from circulation. They send the coins to specialized addresses whose private keys are not accessible, thus making the coins inaccessible for further trading. The developers then provide the proof-of-burn algorithm to the market to facilitate cross-verification. Coin burning is a market tool to increase the value of cryptocurrency.

C – Web3 terms

Circulating supply – the number of cryptocurrency coins or tokens publicly available in the market. The circulating supply of a cryptocurrency can increase or decrease over time. The number of coins increases as new coins are mined and decreases when a coin burn event occurs.

Community coin or community token – see social token

Composability – the general ability of components of a system to be recombined into larger structures and the output of one to be the input of another. In simple terms, the best example is Lego bricks, where every piece can connect to every other piece. Within crypto, composability is the ability of decentralized applications (dApps) and DAOs to effectively clone and integrate one another (syntactic composability). For example, a smart contract on the Ethereum network can be written once and recombined into subsequent contracts using and building on the original software logic. Morphological composability allows software components such as tokens and messages to operate between each other or among dApps or smart contracts.

Creator coin – see social token

D – Web3 terms

DAO – Decentralized Autonomous Organization – a community-led entity with no central authority. Ultimately, a DAO is governed entirely by its individual members who collectively make critical decisions about the future of the project, such as technical upgrades and treasury allocations. It is fully autonomous and transparent: smart contracts lay the foundational rules, execute the community’s agreed-upon decisions, and at any point can be publicly audited.

DApps – Decentralized Applications – digital applications that run on a blockchain network of computers instead of relying on a single computer. Since DApps are decentralized, they are free from the control and interference of a single authority. Benefits of dApps include the safeguarding of user privacy, the lack of censorship, and the flexibility of development.

Decentralized network – in computing terms, a decentralized network architecture distributes workloads among several machines instead of relying on a single central server. No one company or company’s servers control the network. Decentralized networks offer a wide range of benefits over centralized networks, including increased system reliability, scale, and privacy.

Degen – short for “degenerate,” usually refers to people who make risky and bad bets. In the crypto space, it can refer to people who invest in digital assets like NFTs without doing due diligence.

Diamond hands – someone who holds their position (investment, NFT, cryptocurrency) no matter what, even during big market swings. Someone with diamond hands wouldn’t mind the assets’ price actions. Their intent is to hold the investment until they achieve their investment goal.

DYOR – Do Your Own Research – one of the more important aspects of Web3, cryptocurrency, and NFTs is to do your own research. Though one can take the advice of others, ultimately, they are responsible for their decisions and should make their own informed decisions.

E – Web3 terms

ETH – abbreviation for Ethereum cryptocurrency. Ethereum is a blockchain network with a decentralized public ledger for verifying and recording transactions. Its currency is Ether (ETH).

Exchange – a platform on which to buy and sell cryptocurrency. Users can trade one crypto for another or buy crypto using traditional currency. Exchanges also can convert cryptocurrencies into US dollars or other government-backed currencies to be deposited into a traditional bank account.

F – Web3 terms

Fiat currency – the paper/coin currency of the government or region, typically declared as legal tender.

Floor – the floor or floor price is the lowest price to buy an NFT on the secondary market. It’s the most popular metric for tracking an NFT collection’s performance over time and comparing it to others.

Floor sweep – buying a large number of the cheapest NFTs in a collection on the secondary market. NFT collection creators sometimes do this or are asked by the community to do this for the project to raise the floor price.

Forks – an update in the network protocol (the open-source software that runs blockchains). A soft fork is a minor upgrade to the software and typically means nothing for users. A hard fork is a major change to the network and requires users/miners to update to the latest software to continue mining. If developers decide they do not like a blockchain’s direction, they can do a hard fork and create a new coin.

Fractionalized NFTs – a division of ownership of an NFT. This makes it possible for several people to own a single NFT. Smart contracts can differentiate between a fractional NFT and an individually owned NFT.

Fren – short for friend; often refers to someone active in an NFT community.

FUD – Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt – term used in crypto and NFTs to describe inaccurate or false news stories, tweets, Discord messages, etc. Often used when someone questions the legitimacy of an NFT project.

G – Web3 terms

Gas and gas fees – transaction fees that users pay to miners on a blockchain protocol to have their transactions included in the block. The system works on a standard supply-and-demand mechanism. If there is more demand for transactions, miners can choose to include different levels of transactions, compelling users to pay more to have their transactions processed quickly and efficiently, as seen in the diagram below. Several websites track gas prices, like ethgastation.info or ethereumprice.org .

Gas wars – a surge in minting costs caused when there are significantly more buyers than available NFTs in a collection; users need to increase their gas fee and outbid others’ for the transaction to happen.

GM – good morning – common greeting used in Web3 and crypto communities.

Gwei – a term for a very small amount of Ethereum cryptocurrency and commonly used when discussing and paying transactions fees on the Ethereum network. One Gwei is equal to 0.000000001 ETH.

H – Web3 terms

Hardware wallet – cold wallet – a hardware device that can securely store cryptocurrency. Secured because the user’s private keys are stored in a protected area of the microcontroller and cannot be extracted as plain text. Additionally, a hardware wallet functions offline, meaning the private keys are never exposed to potential hackers. There are several models of hardware wallets, with the Ledger Nano S being the most popular.

Hodl (or hodling) – a hold in the context of buying and holding Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Hodl is derived from a misspelling of “hold” from a Bitcoin forum post from 2013. It has also come to stand for “hold on for dear life” among crypto investors. I Immutable – information that cannot be changed once recorded; used in reference to the blockchain and smart contracts for NFTs and cryptocurrency.

K – Web3 terms

KYC – know your customer – the process of verifying a customer’s identity. Most commonly used by financial institutions and financial service businesses, including banks, stockbrokers, and cryptocurrency exchanges.

M – Web3 terms

Mainnet – a blockchain that transfers a digital currency from a sender to a recipient. Mainnet is the main network; actual transactions take place on a distributed ledger.

Metaverse – the metaverse is an expansive network of persistent, real-time rendered 3D worlds and simulations that support continuity of identity, objects, history, payments, and entitlements; can be experienced synchronously by an unlimited number of users, each with an individual sense of presence. More simply, a set of virtual spaces where people can create and explore with other people who aren’t in the same physical space. Decentraland and The Sandbox are two of the most popular metaverse platforms.

Mining/miners – the process of adding transactions to a large distributed public ledger of existing transactions known as a blockchain. Mining involves creating a hash of a block (a digital fingerprint) of transactions that cannot be easily forged, protecting the integrity of the entire blockchain without the need for a central system. The main incentive for mining is that individuals who choose to use a computer for mining are rewarded for doing so via cryptocurrency compensation. For example, bitcoin miners earn 25 bitcoin per hash.

Minting – the process of turning a digital file into a crypto collectible or digital asset on a blockchain. The digital item or file is stored forever in this decentralized database or distributed ledger, and it is impossible to edit, modify, or delete. During the minting process, the creator of the NFT can schedule royalties from every subsequent sale.

Moon – a term often employed as a verb (mooning) to describe a cryptocurrency on a strong upward market trend. Expression of “to the moon” refers to a strong belief that a certain cryptocurrency is soon going to rise significantly in price.

N – Web3 terms

NFA – Not Financial Advice – a warning of the inherent risks to potential investors of cryptocurrency and NFT projects.

NFT – Non-Fungible Tokens – cryptographic assets on a blockchain with unique identification codes and metadata that distinguish them from each other. NFTs can be used to represent real-world items like artwork and real estate. “Tokenizing” these real-world tangible assets allows them to be bought, sold, and traded more efficiently while reducing the probability of fraud. NFTs can also be used to represent individuals’ identities, property rights, and more.

NGMI – Not Going to Make It – a person will be unsuccessful due to a bad decision, poor judgment, or holding an opinion not in accordance with the community’s opinions; negative connotation, essentially equivalent to calling someone a loser.

Node – a computer connected to a cryptocurrency network; can execute functions like creating, receiving, or sending information.

P – Web3 terms

Paper hands – someone nervous about an investment, cryptocurrency, or NFT who sells quickly, is easily shaken by market volatility, and often exits their positions after any sign of risk. People with paper hands will sell under pressure to avoid losing money.

P2P – peer-to-peer, a decentralized platform where two individuals interact without intermediation by a third party. The buyer and the seller transact directly with each other via the P2P service. The P2P platform may provide services such as search, screening, rating, payment processing, or escrow.

PFP – profile picture – usually refers to a profile picture as an NFT.

Play to earn – a business model for the video game industry that allows players to earn digital assets they can sell for money in a marketplace. Many of the assets are NFTs, such as a game skin, cool weapon, or an animal to breed. Examples include Axie Infinity, ZED RUN, Splinterlands, and Cryptofighters.

POAP – proof-of-attendance protocol – a system used to distribute crypto-badges (ERC721 tokens or on the xDAI chain with no gas fees) to event attendees, course graduates, or something similar. A person’s POAP collection acts as a digital proof of representation without providing explicit personal data.

Project – A collection of NFTs made by a creator, such as Bored Ape Yacht Club, VeeFriends, and CryptoDads.

Public/private key – allows users to send and receive cryptocurrency without requiring third-party verification. The public and private keys fit together as a key pair. Users share their public keys to receive transactions but keep their private keys secret. Access to the private keys gives that person(s) access to any cryptocurrency associated with those keys. Private keys are kept in a digital wallet and are not on the cryptocurrency blockchain network. Users who keep cryptocurrency on an exchange make the exchange the custodian of their private keys; it’s the same as trusting a bank vault to hold one’s gold in the vault. Users likely never directly handle their private keys as wallets generally manage them automatically. Typically, users are given a seed phrase that encodes their private keys as a backup.

R – Web3 terms

Reveal – buyers of an NFT sometimes have a general idea of what it looks like, but they only see it when all NFTs in the project are revealed at the same time. This makes it a surprise what traits or rarity the NFT possesses.

Right clicker – a term to describe NFT naysayers who right-click to save the image without paying for the NFT and troll the person who paid a hefty price to own.

Rug or rugpull – a scam where the people behind a seemingly legit project disappear with all the money immediately after launch. Buyers might get an actual NFT, but it’s most likely worthless and not tradeable on a secondary marketplace. https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/public-private-keys-cryptography

S – Web3 terms

S atoshi – the smallest fraction of coins in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency system. Named after Satoshi Nakamoto, the alias of the inventor of Bitcoin. One Satoshi is one-hundred-millionth (0.00000001) Bitcoin. Scarcity – a limited supply of goods or tokens. Scarcity builds value. For example, Bitcoin is scarce as only 21 million will be mined. Secondary market – place where a minted NFT is bought or sold like Opensea.

Seed phrase – a series of words generated by the cryptocurrency wallet provider that gives the holder a ccess to the crypto in their wallet. The list of 12 to 24 simple words is not a sentence (e.g., fiction, tree, cat, radio, stream, cloud, paper, cushion, abstract, bronze, pilot, orange). Having the seed phrase gives one access to all crypto associated with the wallet that generated the phrase, even if the wallet is deleted or lost. NEVER give your seed phrase to anyone. Keep it in a secure place separate from where you access your wallet.

Shill/shilling – a person is engaged in advertising a cryptocurrency or NFT project by endorsing the project or product in public forums or communities.

Sidechain – a separate blockchain that runs parallel to Ethereum Mainnet and operates independently. It has its own consensus algorithm and is connected to Mainnet by a two-way bridge.

Skeuomorphic design – a derivative or imitation of something else. Allows the user to feel more comfortable using applications, products, and services that imitate objects with which they are already familiar. For example, the icon for the calculator or calendar app on a phone or the trash can image where a laptop user drops deleted files.

Smart contracts – a tamper-proof program that runs on a blockchain network when certain predefined conditions are satisfied. By running on a decentralized blockchain instead of a centralized server, smart contracts allow multiple parties to come to a shared result in an accurate, timely, and tamper-proof manner. Smart contracts improve trust relationships over current centralized transactions by ensuring that two parties that do not know each other can trust the transaction without a third party due to their tamper-proof and public nature. A smart contract is the code that deploys an NFT.

Snapshot – usually in relation to an airdrop or free minting opportunity; a project or team takes a snapshot at a point in time to determine who’s eligible for a free NFT or token. For example, CryptoDad took a snapshot and made all of its NFT holders at that time eligible to mint a CryptoMom NFT for free.

Social token – community coins/token, creator coins – tokens issued by a community, creator, brand, or influencer; decentralized and secured by the blockchain. Social tokens are built on the same model as cryptocurrency and work because they are scarce, portable, owned, and tracked via the blockchain). Coinvise, Roll, and Rally are popular social token networks where creators can launch their own social tokens.

Staking – a way of earning rewards for holding certain cryptocurrencies. Currently, Tezos, Cosmos, and Ethereum allow staking to earn a percentage rate reward over time. The blockchain makes staking rewards possible. Cryptocurrencies allow staking using a “consensus mechanism” called proof of stake to ensure that all transactions are verified and secured without a bank or payment processor in the middle. Crypto, if the crypto holders choose to stake it, becomes part of that process.

T – Web3 terms

Token – anything that has value or anything that can be exchanged for goods or services. Examples include fiat currency, cryptocurrency, NFTs, and gifts.

W – Web3 terms

WAGMI – We’re All Going to Make It – WAGMI means that the group (i.e., the NFT community) will be successful, often expressed in reaction to good news or after actions generally believed to lead to successful outcomes. It is an expression of camaraderie within the community and a prediction of future success.

Wallet (hot wallet) – a digital wallet that facilitates transactions and holds cryptocurrency and NFTs. Wallets are necessary to purchase and trade NFTs and cryptocurrencies. Hot wallets are online and accessible via a seed phrase or username and ID. Popular wallets include Metamask, Coinbase Wallet, Rainbow Wallet, Enjin Wallet, and Trust Wallet.

WETH – Wrapped ETH – a cryptocurrency that allows users to make pre-authorized bids that can be fulfilled at a later date without any further action. WETH is used to buy and sell at auctions on OpenSea. ETH and WETH are worth exactly the same amount and can be exchanged directly on an OpenSea profile. However, users need to pay gas fees to exchange ETH for WETH if they win the bid.

Whale – an individual who holds a large amount of a particular cryptocurrency, social token, or NFT. A whale has enough coins or tokens to cause a significant impact on the market prices by selling or buying large amounts.

Gather with your fellow content entrepreneur community this May at the first-ever CEX: Creator Economy Expo . Check out the speakers, topics, one-time registration, and Never-Ending Ticket opportunities

Disastrous SEO effects of a poorly executed site migration

Fri, 02 Jul 2021 22:23:00 GMT

This Blog was written by Heidi Schwende - Chief Digital Officer - Marketing Automation & Digital Marketing Consult annd teh original blog can be found at : https://www.wsidminc.com/disastrous-seo-effects-of-a-poorly-executed-site-migration

Considering a site migration? You’ll need to read this!

There was a time when Google only made a few updates to its algorithms. Today, Google makes thousands of changes every year. And with eCommerce on the rise, you could lose a significant amount of revenue if it’s not handled by experts in building sites with revenue and growth in mind. It’s about so much more than what you see on the front-end.

In recent months, we have consulted with several new clients who got themselves in a serious revenue pickle after thinking site migrations would help their businesses only to find that they in fact didn’t. One even went so far as reverting back to their old site.

Failing to consider how search engines will react to your migration will seriously impact your core activities such as SEO and PPC. Today, with dynamic search ads, you better be on your SEO game because newer dynamic ads work by matching user search queries in Google to the on-page content of your site. Similarly, your shopping ads run off your Google Merchant Center that is integrated into your online store. Poorly optimized product descriptions will kill your Shopping Ads performance.

Sould you really be creating a new site

This is one of the most important questions to examine. The reality is that site migrations don’t bear any SEO benefit. The only time they should be considered is if your technology is so outdated that you just can’t run your site properly anymore. SEO penalties are real and can be anticipated.

Test, test, and test some more

Make sure your developer will be building your site on a test server. If you plan and execute the migration well, you will minimize your penalties to hopefully nothing more than a temporary drop in your metrics.

Conduct site crawls

First, crawl your existing site to ensure you have a comprehensive list of all the URLs on your site. If you have any crawl errors like 404 pages, remove or fix them. Fix any links that point to redirected pages and point them to the final page. Redirect chains are not good. Also, check for orphan pages and link to them during the migration.

URL mapping

Yes, spreadsheets still have their place. We recommend having a spreadsheet of every old URL and every new URL side by side. Ideally, all the pages on the old site will exist on the new one. If you drop too many pages from the old site, the algorithms will consider that the sites are not the same. Try to avoid changing the architecture of your site. You can enhance it later. Don’t do it at the same time.

The bonus of doing it this way will make it a lot easier to do the redirects.

Internal links

Do not be tempted to leave your internal links unchanged thinking the redirects will take care of that. Remember load times are now critical to the core web vitals algorithm. Unnecessary redirects will dampen your load time and your page rank.

Canonicalization

This is important because in concert with the redirect approach discussed above, canonicals will send dual signals to the algorithms. Moreover, sitewide canonicals are strongly recommended because URL parameters create duplicate content that should always canonicalize to a parameter-free URL.

Do not relinquish control of the old domain

The old domain should redirect to the new one on a page-to-page basis and should do so indefinitely. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you you can stop doing this.

Keep your old search console and create a fresh one

Once you’ve implemented the redirects and canonicals listed above, you can signal to Google that you want the algorithm to fetch and submit your new site for indexing.

Now your PPC

You’ll need to update all your campaigns afresh so you don’t lose any of your attributions.

Site links

If you’ve been running modern dynamic and adaptive SEO, you’ve been creating site links. You’re going to want to let linking sites know that you have made changes. Don’t just rely on your redirects to do the work for you. Honestly, putting in the hard work will help accelerate the algorithm process.

Indexed pages

Your new pages won’t index right away. It’ll take about 30 to 45 days for the indexed page count to get back up to previous levels. If it doesn’t, then there’s an issue that will need to be investigated further.

In conclusion

If you elect to migrate a site without considering all the SEO implications of what you are undertaking, it’s safe to assume that you are going to run into all kinds of serious ranking issues. I would recommend talking to a top-tier SEO professional before going down this path.

The post Disastrous SEO effects of a poorly executed site migration first appeared on WSI Digital Marketing .

eCommerce on-demand session

Thu, 13 May 2021 14:25:00 GMT

Top considerations for eCommerce success

Today, consumers expect a quick, seamless, and user-friendly online buying experience. If you’re new to eCommerce or aren’t reaping the rewards of your current eCommerce efforts, then this on-demand session is for you.

We discuss some of the top considerations for achieving eCommerce success and answer the key questions every business should be asking themselves to ensure they are delivering an exceptional eCommerce experience.

This pre-recorded session brought together a few of WSI’s eCommerce experts who have a wide range of experience working and helping businesses succeed online. Here are some of the questions we discussed in our conversation:

Watch now!

eCommerce complimentary audit

We would be happy to offer you a FREE AUDIT of your existing eCommerce platform to help identify ways you can optimize your conversions. This will immediately help you increase the profitability of your eCommerce store and gain more sales. Helping businesses with their digital transformation is what we do. Reach me directly at heidi@wsipaidsearch.com or 1-888-455-3230.

The post eCommerce on-demand session first appeared on WSI Digital Marketing .

How to Generate More Quality Leads Online

Mon, 19 Apr 2021 17:38:13 GMT

7 Step Lead Generation Framework

Companies and marketers are constantly being challenged to generate more quality leads and convert them into customers. However, the process can be daunting especially considering how much the world of marketing has changed in recent years. Today, cold calling and direct mail are no longer considered “real” options whilst traditional email blasts are also not providing the same results. Many of these simply get ignored and end up as SPAM or in the trash folder.

So, how do you generate more quality leads? What digital path will leads follow to become customers? In this article and webinar recording , you’ll discover a handy 7-step framework to help generate more quality leads. This includes goal setting, buyer personas, content marketing and reporting. But first, let’s recap on what a lead is.

What Is An Online Lead?

The definition of an online lead may vary but in simple terms, a lead is an individual or organisation that shows an interest in what you are selling. This interest can be expressed through the sharing of contact information such as an email address, a phone number or even a social media handle.

A lead is someone you know and not an anonymous website visitor which can only happen through collecting personal information. Not all leads are created equally as it depends on how engaged they are with your organisation and where they are in the buying process. Leads are often put into different categories, including the following:

Cold leads
Warm leads
Hot leads
Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) – someone engaging with marketing activities (webinar or any type of content a brand puts out there)
Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) – someone showing clear intent of purchasing a product or service

Which Is Best, Quantity Or Quality?

Let’s put it this way, all leads are important but striking a balance and finding a good mix is the best solution. Whilst your focus should be to generate more quality leads, you also need to scale it up to achieve your company’s marketing goals. There is growing evidence that an integrated marketing approach is a way forward as highlighted in this graphic representation:

In the webinar recording and slides, there is some additional information on B2B buyers and how the process has changed. This brings us to the 7-step framework which is super easy to follow and something you could greatly benefit from.

7 Steps To Generate More Quality Leads Online

As you can imagine, a successful marketing strategy in any shape or form involves several steps or processes. This particular framework has 7 steps where each one answers some very specific questions, including the following:

How many leads do you need to meet your revenue goals?
Who is your ideal customer? What matters to them and how can you attract them?
What are the steps your ideal customer takes to purchase from you?
In terms of content, what will motivate your potential buyers in exchange for their email address or other contact information?
What is the digital path a lead will follow to become a customer?
What marketing tactics do you need to achieve your revenue objectives?
Which type of data and insights do you need to gather to close the loop between your marketing activities and sales results?

Step 1: Goals And Objectives

The first part of the process is identifying how many leads you will need to achieve your goals. Not every business will have the same objectives as it depends on the product, service and the sales process or buying cycle. Here’s a simple example:

If your goal is to generate £100,000 more in revenue and the average selling price of your product is £1,000, you need 100 new sales. Assuming the average close rate of your leads is 10%, you’ll need to generate 1,000 additional leads. If your average cost per lead is £20, the total budget would be £20,000.

These ‘average amounts’ can refer to data from your previous campaigns, from a digital marketing agency you are using or industry standards. Remember, if you know what your marketing plan can generate in terms of new leads, and the average lead-to-customer conversion rate, your business can predict future sales!

Step 2: Buyer Personas

Knowing who your target audience is and what they need or want is vital when it comes to online lead generation. Buyer personas can help as these are semi-fictional representations of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.

The only way to find out what you need to know is by interacting with them. Here are a few ideas for gathering the necessary information to build your very own buyer personas:

customer interviews
contact database
website forms
sales feedback

A great idea is to run a workshop with your team to brainstorm and create buyer personas after collecting information on your current customers. To help you generate more quality leads online, download our eBook on How To Create Buyer Personas (includes a user-friendly template).

Recommended: ‘ How To Create Buyer Personas From Real Data ’

Step 3: The Buyer’s Journey

A buyer’s journey is the process buyers go through to become aware of, consider, evaluate, and decide to purchase a new product or service. Typically, this involves three stages namely Awareness, Consideration and Decision.

To generate more quality leads online, you must match the buyer’s journey to your type of business. In other words, it’s about offering a product or service to solve a problem or meet someone’s specific needs. That means creating the right type of content around your business offering and the leads you want to attract.

Remember, there’s no right or wrong lead nurturing process as it all depends on your business type. For example, B2B businesses won’t use the same tactics or processes as a restaurant or retail outlet.

Step 4: Generate More Quality Leads With Content Mapping

When it comes to marketing, one size rarely fits all as every business has its own unique set of challenges, objectives and goals. To ensure that your company’s marketing strategy can help generate more quality leads, nurture and convert them, you need to deliver the right message. This means creating the right type of content for the right people at the right time.

Remember the lead gen process for a restaurant? Well, this is where content mapping comes in as you’ll create and promote breakfast offers at different times than lunch or weekends, for example. The only way to do this properly is by performing a content audit and these are the steps involved. Watch the webinar recording for a higher-level explanation of how this works.

Online Tools And Lead Magnets To Generate More Quality Leads

If you don’t know where to start, several tools can help you find the type of content that best resonates with your target audience. One of our favourite free tools is AnswerThePublic.com .

Simply enter the phrase and the tool will search online all the different ways people are searching for similar content. From the results, you will be able to see what type of content could work based on how people are searching for it.

Now you have to create some valuable offers and that requires lead magnets. These are free items or services that are given away to prospects to gather their contact information. When creating yours, make sure your audience cares about it, sees value in it and solves a problem they have. Here are some examples of lead magnets you can use at different stages of the buyer’s journey:

Step 5: Creating The Conversion Path (Putting The Funnel Together)

As briefly mentioned in the introduction, a quality lead is a known person and not an anonymous website visitor as these are often referred to as prospects. Whilst it may differ somewhat, every business has a conversion path which is the process of turning anonymous website visitors into known leads.

A great way to dive right in is checking Google Analytics and using the Funnel Visualisation report. This will help you investigate how your current clients are behaving on your website which can set the tone for how you approach future customers or prospects.

Conversion paths will vary between companies but here is an example of a typical process involving a blog post, call-to-action and conversion form.

Step 6: Choosing The Right Channels To Generate More Quality

Leads Online

Now that you’ve established the ideal buyer’s journey, type of content and conversion process, it’s time to put a plan in place. This involves identifying the right digital marketing channels to get your message across and to generate more quality leads. As you’ll see in the section below, the choice of marketing channel is a consequence of what your goals are.

Paid Search

Paid search can reach customers at the “moment of intent”
Text-only ads
Very flexible for testing
Massive volume available for some terms
Can be ramped up and down very quickly

Organic Search

Reach customers at “moment of intent”
Very high volume available
After initial SEO investment is set pays dividends in terms of free traffic for a long time

Social Media

Social media is very flexible for testing
Massive volume available
Can be ramped up and down very quickly
Visual medium is good for demand creation
Audience targeting tools are very powerful

Display Advertising

Very flexible for testing
Massive volume available
Can be ramped up and down very quickly
Visual medium is good for demand creation

Email Marketing

Highly measurable for conversions
Reach your core audience (know best, verified ID)
Email addresses also allow for targeting of other digital advertising

Recommended: ‘ How To Get Higher Email Open Rates ’

How To Map Marketing Channels To Your Buyer’s Journey

Step 7: Data Metrics And Reporting

Once your lead generation strategy is in place and you’ve gathered sufficient data, you can now create accurate reports. It involves closing the loop between your marketing activities and any achieved sales results. This will not only show how you’ve performed but it’s also important for creating future marketing campaigns. Here’s a brief overview of how “Closed-loop Reporting” works:

A potential buyer visits your website for the first time
The prospect’s browser uses cookies to track their unique activities
The prospect’s click actions and page visits are recorded on a one-to-one level
Using lead magnets and forms, the user has an opportunity to convert and provide their contact info
Using email as a unique identifier, the visitors previously tracked behaviours are associated with their lead profile
When that once anonymous visitor becomes a customer, the tracked touchpoints are credited with the conversion

Benefits of Closed-Loop Reporting To Generate More Quality Leads

It’s important to keep in mind that good data drives better results so the more effort you put into market research, content creation, marketing and reporting, the more successful your lead generation efforts will be. Here are some of the benefits of closed-loop reporting:

Focus on the right channels and offers
Gain insights about your target audience
Set the right goals and expectations
A better understanding of your results
Shorten your sales cycle
Keep your cost per lead low

Once again, many tools can help but our top choices for out of the box software that integrates marketing tools with CRM include SharpSpring , HubSpot and Vbout .

Conclusion: How Do I Generate More Quality Leads?

Marketing is not an exact science and requires significant investment in time and effort to succeed in the ever-growing industry. To stand out amidst all the competition, you need the right marketing strategy to develop a deeper understanding of your target audience using buyer personas. From there, it’s all about creating the right content, promoting it using the most relevant channels and building detailed reports to further improve your efforts.

If you are looking for better leads, you can partner with WS I Digital in Winnipeg; if you need expert advice on how to generate more qualified leads. To help take your business to the next level, call us on 204.294.9974 or visit our website and request a free consultation .

5 Warning Signs Your Website Is Wasting Money

Mon, 19 Apr 2021 17:12:21 GMT

Ever feel like you are not getting enough value out of your website? There is probably a good reason for that.

1. No Traffic

2. No Conversion

Conversion is when a visitor to your website completes the task that you wanted them to perform. This can take many forms but it is important to establish your goals before anything else so you can measure your results more easily. Whatever your conversion goal ends up being, it is critical to keep this in mind for every aspect of your website. It is better to have 100 people visit your website and five of them book an appointment than 1000 visits with only 3 bookings.

Keeping your conversion goal should be evident when thinking about website design as well. All of your company's webpages should always lead visitors to that main goal of conversion. One common error that a lot of websites make is to have too many distracting elements on the page that moves leads away from a conversion goal. The job of your website is to convert visitors into business and the formatting of your website should lend itself to that. Once again, it is important to have your conversion goal clearly visible and easily accessible for visitors to your site.

3. Low visit time

Another warning sign that your website is costing you money is the amount of time visitors will spend on your site before leaving. First impressions matter when it comes to websites and if you are not making a good one, it is all too simple for people to find another option. Your website needs to give off a professional, yet welcoming feel. Try to avoid using low quality images and personalize your website where possible.

It is also important to consider the visitor’s point of view when first looking at your website. They will ask themselves three questions. The first is “Am I at the right place?”. New clients will wonder if they are at the right type of business's website and returning users will need to know that they are at the correct site. To do this, make sure your logo is clear and easily visible. The second question they will ask is “How do I feel about this site?”. This question can be addressed through website design and displaying positive reviews of your company. By having these elements clearly visible, visitors will feel comfortable about using your services. The final question they ask themselves is “What do I do next?”. This is where your conversion goal comes into play. The users will want you to tell them what to do when they know that they are in the right place, all you must do is make sure that your conversion goal is easily visible. Through quickly answering these questions you should be able to retain people that visit your website for a longer amount of time.

4. Not Committed

One of the frustrating things about digital marketing is that there is not always a quick fix and that you get back what you put in. A common pitfall is when people get impatient that the number of visitors from search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t increasing quickly enough or that the number of conversions aren’t where they thought they should be.

To get the most out of the money you spend on not only your website, but your digital marketing budget, it is important to have a strong plan in place. By following this plan, you can gauge whether your expectations are being met. For example, if you are not seeing the results you want in terms of conversions, you can focus your spending towards website design.

5. Not Running Properly

Of course, the ultimate sign that your website is wasting money is through a test result. Conducting a website analysis test is a fantastic way for you to get a good understanding of any areas of your site that may not be performing at their peak or any links that may no longer be working. These tests can be done online for free and will yield a large amount of data that can be useful in identifying sore spots with your digital marketing.

Getting that first test done should give you a solid baseline of where your company’s site is at, but as technology evolves, so should your website’s functionality. It doesn’t hurt to get this test done periodically in order to stay on top of its performance.

The Basics of Marketing Automation

Mon, 19 Apr 2021 17:12:05 GMT

Marketing automation should start with a plan, not a platform.

If you’ve managed to find your way to this article then that means you have some interest in knowing what marketing automation is all about and how it can help your business. This article will try to break down the basics of marketing automation and get you started on the right track. There are so many things to discuss when talking about marketing automation that there is no way it could all fit in this article, but I’ll try and help you know a little more and get you to ask the right questions if you want to do more research on this topic.

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation is an online program that allows you to easily manage and market through many different channels as well as automate certain steps of the marketing process. Some of the different functions that can be performed with a marketing automation platform include creating lists that can be easily organized, designing online forms that people can fill out, and producing detailed reports that easily breakdown the most important information. There are other features that these platforms provide but as will be discussed later, the functionality of your marketing automation system will be dependent of which platform you use.

What Marketing Automation Platform is Best for My Company?

Unfortunately, there is no one size fits all answer here. There are many different marketing automation software companies out there which have a wide variety of specialties. However, there are some questions that you can ask yourself to help figure out which platforms may be right for you. Start by clearly defining what your marketing goals are then asking what will be necessary to help you complete those goals both as efficiently and as effectively as possible. Once you know what those things that you need are, you can start to narrow your search down to the automation systems that offer or even specialize in the things that you are looking for.

One extra bit of advice is to look at what you get access to depending on the type of subscription you have to the service. There are often different tiers that are offered by these companies and some of the features you may want could be locked behind a price that you are not ready to pay yet. If you are not sure, you can always contact someone who works at the company you are interested in and they will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

When Should I Get Started on Using Marketing Automation?

I may be a little bit biased when it comes to this question, but I think that I have the evidence to back me up for my reasoning. You should start using marketing automation as soon as possible. Marketing automation may sound like a super technical process that is only needed by the big companies but that is not true. Anybody can take advantage of this technology. As long as you spend even a small amount of time on marketing, there is something that marketing automation can offer you to make your life easier.

Why Should I Use Marketing Automation?

There are many benefits that can be attributed to the use of an automation system. One of the major benefits that you will see after implementing one of these systems is an increase in marketing efficiency and productivity. By keeping all of your contacts organized, easy to segment and trackable, you can save time and ensure that you are sending the right messages to the right people at the right time. By doing this, you will also see in increase in lead generation for your business. Other benefits that can be seen after implementing a marketing automation system include a higher level of user engagement, better harmonization between sales and marketing, stronger lead nurturing, among many others.

How Do I Get Started With Marketing Automation?

At this point, you have a couple of different options. The first is to get started on outlining what your marketing goals are going to be going forward. Without a clear objective of what you want to do, you will have trouble finding a platform that is the best fit for your company. Once you have a platform selected, you wither be able to jump right in and start importing some of your existing databases into your new automation system and grouping your contacts into groups that make sense for your business. After that, your next steps will be dependent on your marketing objectives.

If you are still unsure of where to start, you can always contact a marketing professional like WSI and we can give you a more personalized set of plans and even help you better understand the ins and outs of marketing automation better than this, or any article.

You could get started by booking a free consultation at a time of your choice right now.

Top Considerations for Achieving Ecommerce Success

Thu, 15 Apr 2021 19:09:00 GMT

Get Insights from our Special On-Demand Session

Valuable eCommerce Advice & Best Practices

Contact Heidi here for a complimentary consultation on eCommerce success or for a free light audit of your existing online store.

The post Top Considerations for Achieving Ecommerce Success first appeared on WSI Digital Marketing .

In-House Marketing vs Agency Marketing

Fri, 09 Apr 2021 16:42:18 GMT

Summary: Learn about the key business factors to consider when comparing in-house marketing teams against outsourced marketing agencies.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in September 2018 and has been updated with new content on November 2020.

https://www.wsiworld.com/blog/in-house-marketing-vs-outsourced-agency-marketing

In the 15+ years I’ve worked in this industry, I’ve met thousands of business owners who admit to feeling perplexed by a key business decision: “Should I hire in-house marketers or work with a marketing agency?!”

And I get it. Whether you’re a part of a 2-person start-up or manage a growing organization with 50+ staff members, it’s not the simplest of questions to address. Just as there are benefits to working with a digital marketing agency, there are no doubt disadvantages as well.

So, at the risk of sounding cliché, I’ve always told business owners struggling with this in-house vs agency debate the same thing: one size does not fit all!

The key is defining your organization’s marketing goals and weighing them against your own team’s strengths and weaknesses. Now, I realize that truthfully assessing your own limitations isn’t anyone’s idea of a good time, but it’s a vital exercise to determining whether your marketing initiatives should stay in-house, or require assistance from outside experts.

Because if I’m being completely honest, I have to admit that even we – at WSI headquarters – have done both. We have a talented team of in-house marketers (my department!) as well as a network of external subject matter experts and agency teams to whom we outsource any time we need supplementary marketing execution.

So if you read the title of this blog and thought I was just going to sell you on all-the-reasons-you-need-to-oursource-your-marketing-to-a-local-WSI-agency, you thought wrong my friend!

What I am going do is lay it all out there so you can make the right decision for your business.

8 key business factors when comparing in-house against outsourced marketing agencies

Factor #1: Your Company Culture, Vision and Values

I’m going out on a limb here by assuming you’d prefer to work with marketers who align with your company’s culture, vision and values; most businesses do. And generally speaking, it’s easier to accomplish this by hiring from within. Naturally, a full-time internal employee is much more closely invested in a company’s success and growth than any external agency team would be. Given a marketing agency’s responsibilities to a number of different clients, it’s more difficult for external marketers to fully get a sense of a company’s day-to-day culture and values.

Factor #2: The Need for Wide-Ranging Skill Sets

Depending on your company’s marketing strategies, your team might need access to several different skill sets, like web development, social selling expertise, email marketing, pay-per-click advertising – you get the point. And believe me when I say, building an in-house team packed with all this talent is no walk in the park. Naturally, agencies are already equipped with knowledgeable professionals who specialize in all areas of digital marketing. In other words, agency teams can be your one-stop-shop for all things marketing. Expect to dedicate time and patience if you plan to recruit, screen and hire a full-service in-house marketing team.

Factor #3: The Dreaded Workplace Politics

Rarely will you hear a professional admit to enjoying office politics. But it’s hard to avoid; conflicts arise, distractions happen, and – as humans – quality of work can suffer when office drama gets in the way. It’s just natural, especially when a talented group of people work in such close confines to each other day after day. But this is a non-factor when your marketing is managed by an outside agency. As third-party marketers, an agency team can focus on one thing and one thing only: your company’s marketing strategy.

Factor #4: Keeping a Competitive Edge with Industry Best Practices

You’ve heard us talk endlessly about the evolving landscape of digital marketing. Tactics and tools that once worked yesterday, won’t necessarily be effective tomorrow. Competition is tough, technologies change at lightening pace and if you’re caught singing the same old tune, your business will eventually get left behind. Luckily, staying on top of the latest and greatest digital marketing best practices is an agency’s bread and butter. Marketing agency teams often get first crack at the latest, ground-breaking technologies and educational marketing conferences – most of which simply aren’t within reach for in-house marketing teams.

Factor #5: How Quickly Do You Need to Ramp Up Marketing?

Depending on your situation, you might need to jump on your marketing right now. Let’s say, for example, you discover you’re losing sales because your closest competitor just launched an uber user-friendly eCommerce website and yours isn’t equipped to facilitate online purchases. Obviously, your website needs a speedy overhaul to improve your customers’ online experience. And the speediest way to do this is NOT by posting a job, reviewing resumes, conducting three rounds of interviews, calling references…you get the picture. Marketing agencies are designed to jump in quickly and efficiently so your team can adapt your marketing strategies sooner rather than later. Ultimately, emergencies that affect your bottom line are better handled by agency teams.

Factor #6: A (Much) Larger Network of Brainpower

This is similar to #2 above, but reachesfar beyond specialized skill sets of your marketing team: you’ll find that in-house marketers generally don’t have quite as robust a rolodex (yes, I realize I just aged myself) as a full-service agency will. So if you were ever in need of supplementary marketing services – think along the lines of customer service script writing, video production, traditional PR services – your best bet would be leveraging an agency. Due simply to an agency’s structure, they are more likely to have these supplementary sources and resources than in-house marketers.

Factor #7: Easy Communication

Open and efficient communication is vital to keeping any business’ marketing plan running smoothly. And with any in-house team, this is going to be relatively easy. Brainstorming sessions, content approvals and meetings can be executed or scheduled whenever the need arises. Agencies, on the other hand, aren’t able to be as immediately accessible; day-to-day communication will naturally be more sparse because of the number of clients and client needs. Typically, marketing agencies will stick to email or phone communication as needed while also facilitating weekly or monthly meetings to discuss results, projections, quarterly plans, etc. Both methods work – but success depends entirely on what you prefer.

Factor #8: Access to Tools and Platforms

A decent marketing agency already comes with all the bells and whistles when it comes to the industry’s must-have technologies. Many will also test and invest thousands of dollars in annual subscription fees in order to equip clients with the best tools. This is a time-consuming and expensive process that you don’t even have to think about if you work with an agency. Sure, the price is baked in, but the headache and the agony about which tools to use, are not.

Conclusion

In the end, the answer to the question of whether you should outsource your marketing or keep it in-house is entirely dependant on your situation. When you go over our 8 key business factors of the in-house marketing vs. marketing agency debate, do you find yourself, or your team, leaning one way or the other? That could be your answer.

If the list of pros and cons is equal on both sides, then you could be like the many businesses that do both. It never hurts to ask for help, especially in areas where you don't have an expert on the team, or with new and trending tactics you're trying to gain a competitive edge with.

Outsourcing and going it alone can both be the correct, cost-effective decision that generates the best results for your business. If you're having trouble deciding which we to go, we'd love to discuss your marketing situation with you !

The Ultimate Guide for Social Media Marketing

Mon, 16 Nov 2020 15:14:49 GMT

Social media has so many options, it may all seem a little overwhelming at first. That's why we've created this ultimate guide for social media marketing.

Originally published Oct. 27, 2020 by Cheryl Baldwin - WSI, Director of Marketing & Communications

Link to the original article: https://www.wsiworld.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-for-social-media-marketing

Now that we live in the digital age, we are exposed to social media every single day. Why? Because social media allows us to communicate and share content quickly, efficiently, and in real-time. When you take a look from a marketing perspective within a business, no matter how big or how small, social media has become a necessary marketing channel that all companies need to tap into at some capacity to be successful. Moreover, if you have a stellar social media strategy, great things will come from it, and you will see the results firsthand.

That sounds easy and doable, right? Not exactly. Your business or brand needs to have a successful social media strategy to see tangible results. Additionally, you also have to put in the work and invest in the resources to achieve success. If you want to grow your business online, you need to start attempting to understand social media . It is imperative to keep up-to-date with the latest social media trends and understand various platforms' changing algorithms.

Since the social media landscape is evolving quickly, you must ask yourself, “How can I continue to use social media to yield the best results?” With over 3 billion active social media users worldwide, you must have a clear understanding on how to engage with the different audiences you are trying to target for your social media strategy to be effective.

With so many possibilities, it may all seem a little overwhelming at first. That’s why we’ve created this ultimate guide for social media marketing. Follow along in the following sections where we will touch on various topics surrounding social media.

Types of Social Media Networks

Businesses can choose from many social media networks to help build their online presence. These networks connect people from around the world, and with so many to choose from, here are the most-used social media networks for businesses:

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Instagram
YouTube

Although there is a wide variety of networks available for businesses to choose from, it may not be wise to try and build on all of these platforms at once. Instead, companies need to be strategic in selecting the critical networks that will be the most beneficial for building their online presence and achieving optimal results. This is all dependent on the type of digital content your company generates. For example, if your brand or business does not have a lot of visual content to share, then platforms such as Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube may not be ideal to consider for your social strategy.

However, research shows that the two necessary components all businesses should “be on” are LinkedIn and Facebook. Below, you will find a brief breakdown of the different types of social media platforms your business can consider using to build and improve your online presence.

Facebook

With over 2 billion active monthly users, Facebook has more users than any other social network . As one of the pioneers of social media platforms, Facebook’s users comprise of a wide range of different demographics, which provides an extraordinary medium for your business to connect with your prospective customers all around the world . Facebook for businesses also provides a variety of tools for users, including options for targeting different audiences.

Take Starbucks , for example. Their Facebook page has over 37 million likes and 35 million followers. As one of the top Facebook business pages, Starbucks integrates additional features such as their interactive store locator map and Pinterest to keep users engaged.

Twitter

Indeed, we are all familiar with the classic 140 (now 280) character social media platform, intended for users to share small bursts of information known as “tweets.” With over 330 million monthly active users, Twitter is one of the largest platforms for social listening . Twitter allows businesses to learn more about their customers, and it is also a powerful platform to stay up-to-date with hot and current trends. Twitter is a platform for businesses to get the word out about products and services, provide updates, and engage in customer service.

Here are three things to keep in mind when using Twitter to build your business’ online business:

Find out what who your audience is and what they’re talking about
Focus on conversing rather than selling
Share relevant and engaging content that others will retweet/reshare

Some of Twitter’s best brands have become masters at producing quality content for this 280-character platform to increase their brand exposure.

LinkedIn has become an effective tool for businesses that engage in B2B marketing. As a top lead generating platform, LinkedIn makes connecting with potential clients and consumers at the B2B level easy. You can filter your target audience by job title, company name, location, etc. 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn, and 79% of B2B marketers say that LinkedIn is a significant source for generating leads. As one of the top lead generators for businesses to build relationships and connect with potential customers at the B2B level, LinkedIn is a social media platform that provides opportunities for targeting potential leads by making it easy to build connections in different industries.

Here are eight reasons why LinkedIn is the new B2B social media superhero :

LinkedIn provides access to multiple industry influencers and decision-makers
LinkedIn is a brand-building tool
LinkedIn lets you align with the right social prospects
LinkedIn has done away with antique sales techniques
LinkedIn showcases your skill sets
LinkedIn provides B2B marketers with vital knowledge about prospects
LinkedIn is an avenue for social selling
LinkedIn is a platform for building digital relationships.

Instagram

Does your brand or business have a strong visual brand identity? Are you looking to build one and don’t know where to begin? If you answered ‘yes’ to either question, Instagram is the perfect platform for you to do so!

Instagram has continued to expand rapidly since the introduction of Instagram stories, IGTV, and recent advertising opportunities. Instagram continues to bring new and exciting updates, and new apps for Instagram are continuing to dominate the market. As a result, businesses and brands must remain agile to maintain a competitive advantage on this platform.

YouTube

According to HubSpot , 81% of businesses use video as a marketing tool in 2020. With video marketing on the rise for businesses, YouTube is one of the top social media platforms that will help build your online presence and brand.

Types of Content You Should Consider

Once you narrow down the social media platforms you want to use to build your business’ social media marketing strategy, you will need to determine the type of content you want to share on those platforms. Different types of content appeal to and engage differently with different people, so it is essential to experiment and see what works and what doesn’t. Eventually, you will figure out what types of content performs best and engages with the most people. You will also figure out what types of content align with your business’ marketing goals and objectives.

The Value of Visual Content in Social Media Marketing

According to Hubspot, in 2020, 74% of social media marketers use visual assets in their social media marketing. The growth we see in the use of visual content is mainly due to the evolution across all major social media platforms.

According to Buffer, the recent types of content that have become popular for social media include GIFs, Snapchat and Instagram stories, user-generated content, and infographics. Humans crave variety, and these examples of content many brands have been using keep their audiences on their toes.

How To Engage Your Audience Effectively in Social Media Marketing

After determin ing the type of content you plan to implement into your social media strategy, you will need to know how to engage with your audience effectively. Is your audience responding to your content? Are users sharing or retweeting your posts? Is your content sparking conversation among users on social media? If you are not continually creating opportunities for engagement, your competitors will get ahead of you.

What are some ways you can engage with your audience effectively on social media?

If you are continually creating a nd sharing relevant and engaging content for your audience, it will open doors of endless opportunities and potential for new customers. This requires you to be proactive in social listening and identifying what content resonates with your intended audiences the most.

Create and share content to build relationships with current and future customers, and you will see significant growth in terms of your online presence and brand awareness.

Here are five social media content ideas for excellent customer engagement :

Educate Your Readers
Ask Questions
Repackage Content
Incorporate Visuals
Make it Shareable

The secret to engaging with your audience is to stay current with the latest social media trends, identify the hot topics your audience is talking about, utilize hashtags, and consistently share exciting and relevant content. Ideally, your overall objective is to tell your business’ or brand’s story.

Growing Your Audience

When considering your social media strategy, one of your business's primary objectives is to continually grow your audience. The whole point of building a social presence is to not only share content, but also to gain more followers, increase brand loyalty, and reach a wider audience who can potentially convert into customers.

By establishing reliable tactics to grow your audience and following on social media, you will see significant growth in your following.

Organizing Your Content

No matter how big or small your business or brand is, managing social media is not easy. One of the biggest challenges that come with managing your business’ social media strategy is staying organized.

Use a content calendar to keep track of your posts.

One of the best ways to maintain an organized social media strategy is to use a content calendar. A content calendar provides an overview of what you’re posting, when you’re posting, and where you’re posting.

A content calendar can also help you plan short-term and long-term objectives for your social media marketing strategy. For example, you can organize and keep track of various campaigns, holidays, and other significant events.

Using your content calendar effectively will help you stay on top of all the other tasks you need to do. A great starting point is to create one for each of your business’ social media platforms. This will make it easier to plan your content as your business continues to grow.

Schedule content ahead of time using a scheduling tool.

Scheduling content ahead of time and in bulk is another way to stay organized when managing your social media strategy. Constantly posting on social media is a time-consuming task. Sometimes, you may find yourself caught up in doing other work that you forget to post that tweet or LinkedIn update on social media. It’s also extremely time-consuming when you are posting one post at a time, right when these posts need to go out.

Scheduling content in bulk in advance allows you to allocate time towards other tasks. Luckily, there are many free and paid resources to help you achieve this. Some of the top tools to look into for scheduling content for social media include Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and Buffer.

Know where to look for content.

Knowing where to look for content is another way to maintain an organized social media strategy. There may be different publications that provide content that is relevant for your social media channels. There may also be other online resources that are up-to-date with the latest news, trends, and topics - creating separate folders and bookmarks to separate your business/brand’s original content from other content you share.

Make use of paid tools and resources.

Whether you are looking to create powerful visuals or manage all the content you have scheduled for an upcoming campaign, don’t forget to make use of free and paid tools and resources.

Don’t own design software? Check out Canva to create visually appealing graphics for your content. Do you lack photography skills and don’t have the budget to hire a photographer? Find stunning royalty-free stock photos for your content. Looking for a project management tool to organize deliverables for a social media campaign? Give Trello a try!

Depending on the size of your social media or marketing budget, there are various tools available to help maintain an organized social media strategy.

Create separate spreadsheets to manage social media promotions, and other paid advertising channels.

When the time comes to review your social media marketing budget, creating a spreadsheet will help you keep track of all the expenses that go towards paid tools and software, as well as your paid social media efforts.

Paid Advertising

With the changing algorithms of the many social media platforms we use today, the days of relying solely on organic reach are over. You may have realized that some social media platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook, don’t show content in chronological order anymore. Why? Because its algorithms dictate that showing relevant content or “what they think you want to see” type of content first is more important. So if you expect your followers to see everything you post on social media, those days are over.

Suppose you’re ready to take that next step in your social media strategy and go beyond organic reach to ensure your content is seen. In that case, it may be an excellent time to consider paid advertising on social media. You can use paid advertising to target specific audiences. You can target specific age groups, people with specific interests, and people from an exact geographic location.

Firstly, come up with a reasonable budget to allocate towards social media advertising. Spending more money doesn’t necessarily mean you will have the highest return on investment (ROI). Start small and test your strategy. Once you become more confident and see the results from your social media advertising, you may consider spending a little more to boost specific posts or specific types of content.

Secondly, set goals and objectives for your paid advertising. What demographic do you want to target?

Paid advertising is the next step in your social media strategy. You’re now looking at new and innovative ways to reach a broader audience. Maybe your brand has grown, and you have the budget to dive and invest in paid social.

Tracking Your Process with Social Media Analytics Tools

Which of your tweets perform best? When are the best times to post on Instagram? The only way to answer these questions is to track your social media performance regularly.

Tracking your social media performance is key to achieving a successful social media strategy. Analytics help measure your social media efforts over time. This becomes important when you’re evaluating how well your content is performing. It is also a strong indication for when you are looking for ways to improve and refine your social media strategy. At the end of the day, it is crucial to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Start by identifying the key metrics you would like to analyze. Social media metrics are the data and statistics that give you insights into your social media marketing performance.

Some key metrics that all businesses should measure include:

Engagement: the number of unique people who have liked, clicked, commented, or shared your post or page
Impressions: the number of times your content is displayed and whether it is clicked or not
Reach: the number of unique people who have seen your posts

Many tools can help you gather insight when it comes to reporting your analytics over a period of time. Most social media networks have their own analytics tools integrated into their individual platforms, including:

Facebook Insights
Twitter Analytics
LinkedIn

Analyzing social media performance is essential for every business. Assessing the key statistics and metrics will help you determine which social media networks are performing best, ultimately helping your business's bottom line.

Conclusion

Social media has become one of the most critical aspects of digital marketing. In the digital world we live in today, we live and breathe social media. People spend countless hours keeping up with the latest news, making sure they are up-to-date with the latest trends.

No matter how big or small your business or brand is, building a strong social media strategy will help grow your business. Take advantage of all the tools and resources available to you and create and share content that tells your brand’s story. Set goals and objectives, go back and refine your strategy, and always seek new ways to engage with your audiences. It will take time, but investing in your social media strategy will help your business succeed.

WSI Named Top Agency by Web Marketing Association for Second Year in a Row

Wed, 09 Sep 2020 17:40:00 GMT

by Valerie Brown-Dufour WSI, President

Originally published here: https://www.wsiworld.com/blog/wsi-named-top-agency-by-wma-2020

WSI is proud to announce that for the second year in a row, we have been crowned the Top Agency by the Web Marketing Association. The Top Agency Award recognizes the consistently outstanding development going on at interactive digital marketing firms. WSI outranked its global competition and won the most WebAwards in this year's WMA WebAward competition.

Award-Winning Web Designs

Overall WSI won 13 awards in the 2020 WebAwards competition including Best Home Building Website, Best Political Website, seven Outstanding Website WebAwards, and four Standard of Excellence WebAwards. The addition of these awards brings WSI's total WMA Award tally to over 115 and reaffirms its place among the leading web development agencies of the world.

WSI’s global WSI network of Digital Marketing Agencies helps thousands of businesses and organizations in various industries, maximize the potential of the internet for business growth and profitability. Receiving this award for Top Agency for the second year in a row in WMA's prestigious annual Web Development Competition makes all of us incredibly happy and proud. This confirms to us the ongoing and exciting responsibility to continuously raise the bar and set new standards for our clients. We would never have been able to achieve this recognition without the tremendous support and close teamwork of our Consultants, agencies, suppliers, partners, employees, and customers. It's time to say a big "Thank You and cheers" to the incredible WSI team.

The WebAward Competition is the premier showcase for website development in more than 96 industry categories. WSI has been entering into the awards competition since 2007. Their trophy mantel now includes two Top Agency awards, 6 Outstanding Development awards, and over 115 individual WMA Awards.

WSI Wins 13 More WMA WebAwards in 2020

Wed, 09 Sep 2020 17:38:00 GMT

We’re proud to announce that WSI has continued its winning streak at the Web Marketing Association’s (WMA) prestigious WebAwards , taking home 13 awards in 2020. Since entering the international web design competition for the first time in 2007, we have racked up over 115 WMA Awards in total. This year’s winnings for WSI include awards for Best Political Website, Best Home Building Website, seven Outstanding Website WebAwards and four Standard of Excellence WebAwards.

Understanding Your Target Audience Now

Wed, 26 Aug 2020 19:35:00 GMT

Throughout April and May this year, WSI conducted a free webinar series to share digital marketing tips, tricks, and best practices that you can use to overcome the marketing obstacles you are facing in today's business world. Here is a quick recap, plus the recording from our “ Ahead of the Curve ” webinar on understanding your target audience in challenging times by Cormac Farrelly from Dublin, Ireland.

The Ultimate Guide on Measuring a Funeral Home's Website Conversion Rate

Wed, 26 Aug 2020 15:57:00 GMT

A strong website design not only helps your clients navigate and engage with you through your website, but it should also assist in driving traffic.

In the simplest of terms, a conversion rate for a website is the ratio of visitors who visit your website that complete a desired process compared to those that did not. Sounds simple enough right? The fact is it can often be quite difficult to get visitors to do what you want. Having a strong conversion rate can be the piece of the puzzle that gives you an edge over your competitors, even if their company website has more visits than yours.

Imagine your website has 100 visitors a week and a conversion rate of 3%. This means you will have 3 new potential customers contacting you or making appointments. Let’s assume your competitor spends a lot of money and has 200 visitors but only 1% conversion (2 leads). Their site does not offer a well-designed traffic conversion architecture like yours and a lot money is wasted. The focus before you consider spending money on driving traffic should first be to ensure your site is conversion optimized.

This article will help you learn how to identify key figures when it comes to measuring your conversion rate.

1. What is Your Conversion

The first thing you need to do is to decide what constitutes a conversion for you. For a funeral home it could be something such as having people book a consultation with you through your website or making contact after finding information on your site. Whatever you decide on, make sure that it is both a clear and measurable goal.

2. Who is New

One statistic that is important to take into consideration when looking at conversion rate is what percentage of people who are visiting your funeral home’s website are new visitors compared those that are already using your services. If your conversion goal is to have people book consultations through your website, the conversion rate between these two groups of people would most likely be drastically different. This difference is important to note as your will want to have a good understanding how often each of these client bases interact with your website because you may have different conversion metrics for these two distinct types of visitors.

3. Desktop vs. Mobile

As with new and current clients, another two types of groups that would be useful to distinguish between are the people who visit your site through a desktop computer versus those that visit by a mobile device. Once again, these groups may have their own unique standards for what you consider to be a successful conversion placing a greater emphasis on the distinction between the groups.

4. Time on Page

One final statistic that is of considerable importance is figuring out how long the average visitor to your funeral home’s website spends on the page. It is going to be hard to increase your conversion rate if people are not even going to take the time to figure out what you are all about as a funeral home. Being able to retain the attention of visitors to your site will help to increase your conversion rate.

The best way to get started on figuring out and measuring your website’s conversion rate is to take a free website analysis test. By taking this test you will be able to get all of the information that is necessary in order to make an informed decision about where you currently are with your conversion rate as well as what steps should be taken to help raise that number.

Would you like to learn more on how to get the most out of your business website. Consider this research paper below. Remember, at WSI we are experts in optimizing all aspects of your website. You can request a FREE Site Analysis for insight in the issues of YOUR specific website. Request your FREE Analysis HERE. Stop wondering - Start Knowing.

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5 Techniques That Turn Visitors to Your Funeral Home’s Site Into New Clients

Wed, 26 Aug 2020 15:56:53 GMT

So, you’ve managed to get people to visit your veterinary website, what happens next is an incredibly important stage in the customer visiting experience.

So, you’ve managed to get people to visit your funeral home’s website, what happens next is an incredibly important stage in the customer visiting experience. The person visiting the site needs to know what to do next or else they may leave without giving your company’s website a second thought. In this article we will discuss some different proven techniques that can be utilized to help customers immediately understand how to effectively use your website. Keep in mind that every website needs to offer a predetermined and logical flow towards ultimate conversion. Ultimate conversion for a funeral home’s website is usually either one of these: Make contact and provide contact information either by calling or by filling out a webform or booking a consultation online. Everything you do on your site needs to keep your ultimate conversion goal in mind.

1. Don’t over complicate things, this includes everything from the layout of your webpage to the formatting of your text. An overly complex layout or highly cluttered text and images will cause the people who visit your funeral home’s website to skim over valuable information or just leave altogether. Giving clear indication on what the people who are visiting your website are seeing and clear messaging on where to go will keep them informed and engaged.

2. An important question to ask yourself is “why are people coming to visit my funeral home’s website?”. By answering this question, you will allow yourself to better understand what clients are expecting to see when they visit your website. For example, if someone is starting to prepare after the loss of a loved one, they will be looking for a website that tells them the range of services that are provided as well as businesses with strong public reviews. By knowing this you should have this information as easily accessible as possible.

3. A third thing to remember is to keep your website mobile friendly. A little over 50% of visits to websites these days are done through mobile devices. This emphasizes the importance of having a website that is not only easy to navigate through a desktop, but one that is formatted for mobile use as well. It is a good idea to ask what people are searching your funeral home’s website for when they are on a mobile device and how that could differ when compared to a search on a desktop. A person who is looking at a funeral home’s website on mobile may be more likely to be searching for contact information to confirm certain details. If this is the case, you need to make sure that the desired information is easy to find.

4. Another step you can take to help better use your website is to have people test it. From something as simple as seeing how long it takes a friend to find information on your website to performing a more extensive website evaluation online, it all helps. If you would want to get a free test of your website there will be a link at the end of this article where you can get a free analysis of your funeral home’s website and see what you are doing well and what may need a little bit of improvement.

5. Lastly, never forget your ultimate conversion goal. It doesn’t matter where you are on the site as a visitor, the offer to boo a consultation, to call or to fill out a contact form must always be in view to remind visitors what their next step should be.

What happens immediately after someone visits your company’s website can make or break the success of the visit. First impressions matter in the unforgiving world of digital marketing and making sure you make that positive first impression can be a complicated task. However, with these tricks, as well as getting a test run for your website, new visitors should find your funeral home’s website as reassuring as your service.

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The Best Website Design Tricks Funeral Home's Need to Implement

Mon, 24 Aug 2020 15:56:58 GMT

A strong website design not only helps your clients navigate and engage with you through your website, but it should also assist in driving traffic.

It can be difficult to know where to start when it comes to your funeral home’s website design. A strong website design not only helps your clients navigate and engage with you through your website, but it should also assist in driving traffic to your website. If your website isn't properly designed, it could not only be causing you to have less traffic, but it could also be driving new clients away. By having an optimized website design, you can get a leg up on your competitors in the online marketplace. In this article, we will cover five of the most important factors you should consider when trying to professionally design your website.

1. Easy Access to Important Information

One of the first things to ask yourself is “What will be the most important information that anyone who visits my funeral home’s website be looking for?”. People who are looking at a new website will not spend a lot of time there if you don't tell them what they want to know right away. Information such as your company’s name and contact information should be easily visible right away without having to go through any menus.

2. Layout Matters

The layout of your website is extremely important to consider when designing your website. Research has shown websites that consist of one long continuous page which clients can scroll through and see all of the information they need are more effective than websites where people have to go through menus.

3. Consider Load Times

Around 40% of people have said that they will click away from a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. That is why, when in the design process, it is critical to consider website performance and the many ways that you could unintentionally be slowing it down. Things such as automatically playing videos or even an album of pictures could be influencing a visitor’s experience of your funeral homes website. Studies have shown that even if you have an album of pictures, visitors of your website will only click the first picture the vast majority of the time.

4. The Growing Presence of Mobile

Research has shown that over 50% of all website traffic these days comes from mobile devices, this includes funeral home websites as well. Therefore, having a website that is designed to perform optimally on mobile devices is becoming an increasingly critical part of a properly designed website.

5. Keywords are Key

So now that you have a website that functions well when the clients are on it, the question remains “How do I generate more traffic to my website?”. Good news! Website design plays a role in how well it performs within search engine results. Filling a properly designed websites with keywords is just one way to improve its search engine optimization.

If this all seems a bit daunting, have no fear, there are resources out there that are willing to help you out with your funeral home’s website design. One way to get started is to run a free website performance test to get a better understanding of how your website currently operates. You can find a resource at the end of this article that will complete one of these free tests for you. Another option is to go to an expert and see if they would be willing to perform a website optimization analysis for you in order to help you make the best choices that will optimize both new and prospective client experiences, as well as assisting with your performance in the competitive world of search engine optimization.

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Customer Conversations Using the Latest Technology

Mon, 17 Aug 2020 19:34:00 GMT

As the world’s largest network of digital marketing agencies, we have seen first-hand how COVID-19 has affected the businesses we work with. To help overcome these challenges, and as a way of giving back to our valued clients, a few months ago we created this webinar series called “ Ahead of the Curve ”. Here is a recap of our webinar on how to reimagine your customer conversations using the latest technology by Eric Cook from Michigan, USA.

How To Effectively Turn Visitors To Your Veterinary Site Into New Patients

Tue, 11 Aug 2020 15:24:14 GMT

So, you’ve managed to get people to visit your veterinary website, what happens next is an incredibly important stage in the customer visiting experience.

The person visiting the site needs to know what to do next or else they may leave without giving your clinic’s website a second thought. In this article we will discuss some different proven techniques that can be utilized in order to help customers immediately understand how to effectively use your website. Keep in mind that every website needs to offer a predetermined and logical flow towards ultimate conversion. Ultimate conversion for a veterinary website is usually either one of these: Make contact and provide contact information either by calling or by filling out a webform or making an appointment online. Everything you do on your site needs to keep that ultimate conversion goal in mind.

Don’t over complicate things, this includes everything from the layout of your webpage to the formatting of your text. An overly complex layout or highly cluttered text and images will cause the people who visit your veterinary clinic’s website start to skim over valuable information or just leave altogether. Giving clear indication on what the people who are looking at your website are seeing and clear messaging on where to go will keep them informed and engaged.

An important question to ask yourself is “why are people coming to visit my animal hospital’s website?”. By answering this question, you will allow yourself to better understand what the customers are expecting to see when they visit your website. For example, if someone just adopted a new pet and are in search of a new clinic to go to they will be looking for a website that will tell them what range of services are provided and look up reviews to see if your business is in good standing within the public’s perspective. By knowing this you should have this information as easily accessible as possible.

A third thing to remember is to keep your website mobile friendly. A little over 50% of visits to websites these days are done through mobile devices. This emphasizes the importance of having a website that is not only easy to navigate through a desktop, but one that is formatted for mobile use as well. It is a good idea to once again ask what people who are searching your veterinary website for when they are on a mobile device and how that could differ when compared to a search through a desktop. A person who is looking at a veterinary website on mobile may be more likely to be searching for contact information in order to book an appointment. If this is the case, you need to make sure that the desired information is easy to find.

A final step you can take to help better use your website is to have people test it. From something as simple as asking a friend to find certain information on your website to performing a more extensive website evaluation online, it all helps. If you would want to get a free test of your website there will be a link at the end of this article where you can get a free analysis of your veterinary clinic’s website and see what you are doing well and what may need a little bit of improvement.

Lastly, never forget your ultimate conversion goal. It doesn’t matter where you are on the site as a visitor, the offer to make an appointment, to call or to fill out a contact form must always be in view to remind visitors what their next step should be.

What happens immediately after someone visits your clinic’s website can make or break the success of the visit. First impressions matter in the unforgiving world of digital marketing and making sure you make that positive first impression can be a complicated task. However, with these tricks, as well as getting a test run for your website, new visitors should find your hospital’s website a warm and welcoming place that shows off the care that you put into your work.

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How To Properly Measure Your Veterinary Clinic's Website Conversion Rate

Tue, 11 Aug 2020 15:21:50 GMT

A conversion rate for a website is the ratio of visitors who visit your website that complete a desired process compared to those that did not.

Imagine your website has 100 visitors a week and a conversion rate of 3%. This means you will have 3 new potential customers contacting you or making appointments. Let’s assume your competitor spends a lot of money and has 200 visitors but only 1% conversion (2 leads). His/her site does not offer a well-designed traffic conversion architecture like yours and a lot money is wasted. The focus before you consider spending money on driving traffic should first be to ensure your site is conversion optimized.

This article will help you learn how to identify key figures when it comes to measuring your conversion rate.

1. The first thing you need to do is to decide what constitutes a conversion for you. For a veterinary clinic it could be something such as having people book an appointment with you through your website or making a phone call. Whatever you decide on, make sure that it is both a clear and measurable goal.

2. One statistic that is important to take into consideration when looking at conversion rate is what percentage of people who are visiting your veterinary clinic’s website new visitors compares to returning ones. If your conversion goal is to have people book appointments through your website, the conversion rate between these two groups of people would most likely be drastically different. This difference is important to note as your will want to have a good understanding how often each of these client bases interact with your website because you may have different conversion metrics for these two distinct types of visitors.

3. As with new and returning customers, another two types of groups that would be useful to distinguish between are the people who visit your site through a desktop computer versus those that visit by a mobile device. Once again, these groups may have their own unique standards for what you consider to be a successful conversion placing a greater emphasis on the distinction between the groups.

4. One final statistic that is of considerable importance is figuring out how long the average visitor to your veterinary website spends on the page. It is going to be hard to increase your conversion rate if people are not even going to take the time to figure out what you are all about as an animal hospital. Being able to retain the attention of visitors to your site will help to increase your conversion rate.

The best way to get started on figuring out and measuring your website’s conversion rate is to take a free website analysis test . By taking this test you will be able to get all of the information that is necessary in order to make an informed decision about where you currently are with your conversion rate as well as what steps should be taken to help raise that number.

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4 Reasons Why Your Current Method Of Digital Marketing May Not Be Working For Your Veterinary Clinic

Mon, 10 Aug 2020 17:22:25 GMT

Digital marketing can be a tricky part of business, and it isn’t always easy to understand why your efforts aren’t producing the results you want for your veterinary website.

Marketing online has become the most important lead source for new business. While many animal clinics have realized that and hired professional help, most veterinarians still treat their website as a sideline. There is science to success and a professional can show you how you can get back an exponential return of new earnings for every marketing dollar spent online. Some people like to do it themselves, so in order to get your desired results, this article will detail some of the things that most veterinary owners are failing to remember when it comes to digitally marketing their website. By implementing some of these ideas, your website should see not just a larger audience, but also a better quality of visitor as well.

1. Measuring The Right Data

The first thing to take note of for your veterinary website is which metrics you are using to track success rates. Sometimes, the number of visits to your site is not always the best indicator of your website’s performance. If a website gets 10,000 visits per week but only 10 of them are interested in what the website has to offer it is not highly effective. Meanwhile, if that website were instead generating 1,000 visits per week but 20 of them were interested, it would be a stronger website than the previous example. For a veterinary website owner, you must ask the question “what is considered a successful visit to your site?”. The answer may be how many appointments were booked online or how many new clients contacted you through your website.

2. Targeting The Right People

A second issue that may be causing you veterinary website to not be performing as well as desired is that you are not targeting the right audience. One particularly important thing to do is to create what is called a customer or client persona. Ask yourself questions like: “What are the characteristics of my average client base?” and “What would be some of the concerns that potential clients may have when considering which veterinarian to go to?”. By answering these questions, you should be able to get a better understanding of the people that want to do business with you. With this information you should then be able to better find new customers that would be directly interested in your veterinary clinic.

3. Patience

Another concept that is hard to practice, especially in digital marketing, is patience. However, this could be a critical part of why it may seem that your veterinary website isn’t performing up to your standards. It can take many months in order to see progress for your website, but with a little bit of patience, a good strategy in place and proper metrics results will eventually show themselves.

4. Testing 1-2-3

One last thing to consider when understanding how to better utilize digital marketing for your website is that you need to regularly perform tests on your website in order to make sure that everything is running smoothly. Testing your website will tell you a lot of information such as simple stuff like “are there any broken links on my website” to more complex problems such as the performance of tags on your website.

These tests can be found for free and one is linked at the end of this article if you would like to get your website tested.

Keeping all of these different things in mind can be a lot to handle on top of the already busy life of a veterinarian, but they are important to remember because they may help you to better understand why your digital marketing efforts aren’t seeing the results you desire.

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A Digital Agency's Role In Boosting Your Marketing Efforts

Wed, 05 Aug 2020 12:06:00 GMT

Editor's Note : This post was originally published on January 19, 2015, and was updated on August 5, 2020.

A while back, we created an infographic outlining how the WSI Lifecycle™ helps your business . The 'WSI Lifecycle™' is the process we use to deliver the best possible results to our clients. The benefits of a system-driven process are that it's proven and repeatable, which means we'll deliver digital marketing solutions that work (because we've done it before and we'll do it again!). The WSI Lifecycle™ also allows us to educate the companies and brands that we work with so everybody involved knows what's expected and required throughout the duration of a project.

5 Things You Need To Know About Veterinary Website Design

Mon, 27 Jul 2020 21:20:41 GMT

It can be difficult to know where to start when it comes to your veterinary clinic's website design. A strong website design not only helps your clients navigate and engage with you through your website, but it should also assist in driving traffic to your website.

Let's face it, your business does need a website and you probably got one a long time ago. Now it just sits there. You probably don't even know if it is working. Essentially you have this employee called website and you expect him to work hard bringing you new business, but you never gave him goals to work on or even checked on him. Did you know that well designed veterinary websites bring in over half of all the new patients of the clinic? Hard to believe? Well not really.

If your website isn't properly designed, it could not only be causing you to have less traffic, but it could also be driving both new and existing clients away. By having an optimized website design you can get a leg up on your competitors in the online marketplace. In this article, we will cover five of the most important factors you should consider when trying to properly design your website.
Look at you own website and check each of the points. Does your website perform?

1. Easy Access to Important Information

One of the first things to ask yourself is “What will be the most important information that anyone who visits my veterinary website be looking for?”. People who are looking at a new website will not spend a lot of time there if you don't tell them what they want to know right away. Information such as your clinic's name, your services that you offer, and a phone number for emergencies should be easily visible right away without having to go through any menus.

2. Layout Matters

The layout of your website is extremely important to consider when designing your website. Research has shown that animal hospital websites that consist of one long continuous page that clients can scroll through and see all of the information they need are more effective in attracting new patients (pet owners) than websites where people have to go through large menus.

3. Consider Load Times

Around 40% of people have said that they will click away from a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. We still see a lot of veterinary sites that take far too long to load. That is why, when in the design process, it is critical to consider website performance and the many ways that you could unintentionally be slowing it down. Things such as automatically playing videos or even an album of pictures could be having an effect on your client’s experience of your veterinary clinic's website. Studies have shown that even if you have an album of pictures, visitors of your website will click only the first picture the vast majority of the time. Check your site's load times with this free tool.

4. The Growing Presence of Mobile

Research has shown that over 50% of all website traffic these days comes from mobile devices, this includes veterinary websites as well. Therefore, having a website that is designed to perform optimally on mobile devices is becoming an increasingly critical part of a properly designed website, especially for veterinary clinics. If people want to book an appointment on the go, having a mobile site that can allow clients to quickly do so can be one of the things that separates you from your competitors. Check if your site is mobile friendly.

5. Keywords are Key

So now that you have a website that functions well when the clients are on it, the question remains “How do I generate more traffic to my website?”. Good news! Website design plays a role in how well it performs within search engine results. Loading a properly designed websites with keywords is just one way to improve its search engine optimization.

If this all seems a bit daunting, have no fear, there are resources out there that are willing to help you out with your veterinary clinic's website design. If you are a DIY'er , here is a link where you can get a FREE full scan on your website . It will tell you all the things you can improve to have more of your visitors turn into your new patients.

Now if you can't wait, or would rather spend time with your 4-legged patients, let us do the digital marketing test for you. Simply fill out the request form below and we will contact you. If you are in a competitive market and like to get more business, start by letting us show you how we do it.

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What is a Landing Page & Why is it Important?

Thu, 16 Jul 2020 05:21:00 GMT

Content Marketing: The Lifeblood of Digital Marketing

Fri, 03 Jul 2020 16:52:00 GMT

A long time ago, marketing involved a lot of interruption. To get the word out about a product, service, or brand, marketers, and advertisers would place ads in newspapers, between TV shows and songs on the radio, on building and billboards – hoping to catch a consumer’s attention during some other activity.

Your Computer was Hacked ! - Don't Fall for it.

Mon, 03 Dec 2018 06:00:00 GMT

In recent weeks I have seen more and more clients contact me about this type of eMail

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From: DarkWeb TM <info@101kod.ru>

Subject: [SPAM] ###@yourdomain.ca has been hacked! Change your password immediately!

Date: November 28, 2018 at 2:16:36 PM PST

To: " ###@yourdomain.ca" < ###@yourdomain.ca>

Reply-To: DarkWeb TM <alexgen@tuta.io>

Hеllo!

I hаvе vеry bаd nеws for you.

03/08/2018 - on this dаy I hасkеd your OS аnd got full ассеss to your ассount ###@yourdomain.ca

So, you саn сhаngе thе pаssword, yеs.. But my mаlwаrе intеrсеpts it еvеry timе.

How I mаdе it:

In thе softwаrе of thе routеr, through whiсh you wеnt onlinе, wаs а vulnеrаbility.

I just hасkеd this routеr аnd plасеd my mаliсious сodе on it.

Whеn you wеnt onlinе, my trojаn wаs instаllеd on thе OS of your dеviсе.

Аftеr thаt, I mаdе а full dump of your disk (I hаvе аll your аddrеss book, history of viеwing sitеs, аll filеs, phonе numbеrs аnd аddrеssеs of аll your сontасts).

А month аgo, I wаntеd to loсk your dеviсе аnd аsk for а not big аmount of btс to unloсk.

But I lookеd аt thе sitеs thаt you rеgulаrly visit, аnd I wаs shoсkеd by whаt I sаw!!!

I'm tаlk you аbout sitеs for аdults.

I wаnt to sаy - you аrе а BIG pеrvеrt. Your fаntаsy is shiftеd fаr аwаy from thе normаl сoursе!

Аnd I got аn idеа....

I mаdе а sсrееnshot of thе аdult sitеs whеrе you hаvе fun (do you undеrstаnd whаt it is аbout, huh?).

Аftеr thаt, I mаdе а sсrееnshot of your joys (using thе саmеrа of your dеviсе) аnd gluеd thеm togеthеr.

Turnеd out аmаzing! You аrе so spесtасulаr!

I'm know thаt you would not likе to show thеsе sсrееnshots to your friеnds, rеlаtivеs or сollеаguеs.

I think $742 is а vеry, vеry smаll аmount for my silеnсе.

Bеsidеs, I hаvе bееn spying on you for so long, hаving spеnt а lot of timе!

Раy ONLY in Bitсoins!

My BTС wаllеt: 1N2ZUgYg8GtcJfcYnCgYZnixnBaoLLw71J

You do not know how to usе bitсoins?

Entеr а quеry in аny sеаrсh еnginе: "how to rеplеnish btс wаllеt".

It's еxtrеmеly еаsy

For this pаymеnt I givе you two dаys (48 hours).

Аs soon аs this lеttеr is opеnеd, thе timеr will work.

Аftеr pаymеnt, my virus аnd dirty sсrееnshots with your еnjoys will bе sеlf-dеstruсt аutomаtiсаlly.

If I do not rесеivе from you thе spесifiеd аmount, thеn your dеviсе will bе loсkеd, аnd аll your сontасts will rесеivе а sсrееnshots with your "еnjoys".

I hopе you undеrstаnd your situаtion.

- Do not try to find аnd dеstroy my virus! (Аll your dаtа, filеs аnd sсrееnshots is аlrеаdy uploаdеd to а rеmotе sеrvеr)

- Do not try to сontасt mе (you yoursеlf will sее thаt this is impossiblе, thе sеndеr аddrеss is аutomаtiсаlly gеnеrаtеd)

- Vаrious sесurity sеrviсеs will not hеlp you; formаtting а disk or dеstroying а dеviсе will not hеlp, sinсе your dаtа is аlrеаdy on а rеmotе sеrvеr.

Р.S. You аrе not my singlе viсtim. so, I guаrаntее you thаt I will not disturb you аgаin аftеr pаymеnt!

This is thе word of honor hасkеr

I аlso аsk you to rеgulаrly updаtе your аntivirusеs in thе futurе. This wаy you will no longеr fаll into а similаr situаtion.

Do not hold еvil! I just do my job.

Good luсk.

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While there are actually ways to hijack your computer and possibly do all the things they said they are doing , THIS IS NOT ONE OF THEM !

This is simply a scam to make you send them money for nothing. Yes some people fall for it because they do not understand enough about the technology involved.

HOW TO SPOT A FAKE/ SPAM ATTEMPT.

1. Request is received by eMail and not on the infected computer directly.

2. it refers to an old date - nobody waits that long

3. NO secrets are revealed . There are simply suggestions that you did something morally reprehensible that you may not want to be made public.

4. Subject line of eMail says : your eMail was hacked while the content talks about your OS ( Operating system of your computer ( Ie.: Windows. Apple OS)

5. No actual passwords are being revealed to proof that they really "got the dirt on you".

6. You have a good and current Virus and Spam Ware program on your computer ( i.e. Bitdefender, Avast, AVG, McAffee, Norton etc.) and that one did not say anything about illegal access.

WHEN DO I NEED TO BE CONCERNED?

1. You find a message on your screen that your hard drive has been encrypted and you need to pay to get it back AND your hard drive is really encrypted

This means you either have no professional Virus/Malware Software installed and they planted an encryption program, likely by clicking on a link of an infested eMail or by downloading a FREE program from the internet that you should not have.

2. Your eMail was really hacked and they provide your eMail address and the password you actually use.

This does not happen a lot because if they really did they would use your eMail address to send out infected mails to all your contacts that hopefully click on the attachment and catch a nasty Malware that then plants a TROJAN, a Keystroke recorder or a software that encrypts their hard drive. It would make no sense to tell you that they are using your eMail account to send mails as you would stop that immediately.

Do the following from now on:

1. Be aware that these types of extortion attempts or PHISHING attempts are out there. Millions are being sent every hour. Some will find their way in your inbox. Always question the validity.

2. Never click on ANY attachments you are not sure if the sender intended to send them ( see above about hacked eMail accounts) Send a request back and ask if they really sent you something.

3. Install a good Anti-Malware/ Virus Program on your computer. Even the free version of a good program is better than what Microsoft provides with Windows.

3. Update all your passwords to be "complex" with at least 8 characters including Capitals, Numbers and Symbols. See this earlier blog for a system of complex passwords you'll never forget.

4. Use 2-Factor Authentication on ALL Mission Critical Accounts ( eMail, Banks , Social Media etc.)

These precautions together with a healthy dose of suspicion and a less itchy trigger finger for clicking will keep you reasonably safe.

Hacked Passwords Cause 85% of all Data Breaches !!!!!

Fri, 29 Jun 2018 05:00:00 GMT

100.000.000 Phishing Attacks every day !!!!!
How you will become their next victim and how to prevent it in 6 easy steps.

A while ago I downloaded a new App for renting Bixi Community Bikes in Montreal. As part of this I was asked to sign up for a new account. So I used my eMail address and my "medium security password" , you know the one I always use cause it is a bit more complex. Sounds familiar? Well then keep reading and see what happened next. The app displayed the following message:

"This password cannot be used as it is associated with your email address and was previously used on another compromised website( not ours). Please use a new password. "

WOW that was a wake up call. I though I was doing well with my passwords. How wrong I was.

85% of all data breaches in the world are because somebody somewhere got access to a password and it spiraled out of control from there. How did that happen and why it will happen to you keep reading.

Here is how it starts: You receive a mail from your bank that states:

Now when you follow this link you will get to a page that will be identical to your regular bank login page. The detail is in the URL in your browser. Instead of saying

https://www.onebigbank.com/login it may look like this

https://onebigbank.businessdiv.com/login THIS IS NOT A DOMAIN BY THE BANK BUT A FAKE DOMAIN MASQUERADING AS YOUR BANK.

On the login page you are likely to enter all your banking login information and hit ENTER . BANG your login info has been compromised.

But it does not end here. The site will now say: Sorry we could not authenticate you please use one of our partner logins to sign in. Then they give you the choice of GMAIL, FACEBOOK and TWITTER.

So you fill out the GMAIL sign in with the message: Sorry we could not authenticate, please use Facebook Login Authentication. And so on. At the end you will get a message that states “Sorry you are having trouble. Please try again later.”

At this point you have compromised all your access info to your most vital and mission critical accounts.

Now the TROUBLE REALLY STARTS:

First they will get access to your eMail which allows them to see who you are doing business with. They will send emails about “fraudulent bank transactions" to all your contacts thus gaining more access.

Then they will send malicious files from your eMail address to all your friends containing fake documents, enticing them to click on them. These files of course contain either programs to allow remote access or keystroke recorders that send all your keystrokes (passwords, user IDs and related websites) to them. If your friends respond and ask if this is for real they will respond from your eMail address ( using a set up autoresponder that is reacting to the original subject line) to say “ yes this is real please to check the attached document as soon as possible” Remember they control your email account.

Access to your eMail will allow them to further increase the number of data breaches they can cause.

With your banking information they can access your bank and eMail money out until it is gone.

With access to Paypal they start buying things until your account and credit card attached to PayPal is maxed out.

They will get all the detail info on your credit cards which can then be used to sell the data on the dark web.

They will apply for more Credit Cards in your name and eventually completely compromising and stealing your ID.

NOT A GOOD DAY FOR YOU. ALL FROM ONE EMAIL THAT GOT ACCESS TO YOUR PASSWORDS !!!!!

Remember the same can happen to your employees at work using business accounts and business eMaIl. The financial damage to business is even bigger.

HOW DO YOU PREVENT THIS FROM HAPPENING TO YOU ?

Follow these simple steps starting today! DO NOT POSTPONE A SINGLE DAY !!!!!

1. USE A COMMERCIAL VIRUS/MALWARE PROGRAM

Install a commercial Virus/Malware Program on ALL your devices. I tried out many and I ended up with Bitdefender (Bitdefender.com) interestingly even the worst ones you buy are better than the FREE ones like Mircrosoft Defender. Don’t rely on those! This will catch most of the malicious mails and warn you about already installed Malware , Trojans and Keystroke Recorders.

2. USE A PASSWORD KEEPER PROGRAM OR APP

Get a commercial “Password Keeper Program”. I use and recommend Keeper (keepersecurity.com) but Others like “LastPass” are great as well. DO NOT get a FREE Password Vault especially from the Google Play Store for Android. These ones are likely made by Eastern European or Chinese Hackers and instead of securing your passwords they go straight to them. Definitely worth spending some money here. All you need to remember now is ONE GOOD PASSWORD to get into the Encrypted vault.

3. MAKE ALIST OF ALL MISSION CRITICAL ACCOUNTS.

Make a list of all you mission critical accounts (email, banking, government, social, etc.) and make sure NONE has the same password !!!!!

4. DON”T USE THE SAME PASSWORD EVERYWHERE!

OMG I can’t remember all my passwords as it is. You are right but that is because no one has ever told you how to do it. Here is my recommendation for ALL YOUR PASSWORDS FROM NOW ON. You create a password system that you need to remember.

First of all passwords need to be at least 8 characters including Numbers, Capitals and Special Characters.

Here is an easy sample system you can use:

a. Start with a Special Character like # (always the same)

b. Add a Number like 3 (always the same)

c. Add a Capital like H (always the same)

d. Add the name of the website omitting first and last character i.e aceboo (add* if less than 4 characters)

e. End with a Special Symbol like “!”

Your passwords could look like this: Facebook: #3Haceboo! Twitter: #3Hitte! Gmail: #3Hmai*!

With this system you have complex passwords that are different for every site and you can remembers them if you can remember your system.

5. USE 2-FACTOR-AUTHENTICATION !

Most reputable websites now offer 2 Factor Authentication. This may have to be turned on in the security settings. 2-Factor –Authentication requires you to supply a special login code in addition to your User ID and Password. Once you enter the ID and password the website will send a text to your phone (or an APP like Google Authenticator) that you will need to enter in addition to your User ID and password. Many sites will authenticate a device the first time so you don’t have to do it every time. The important part of this is that IF SOMEBODY HAS BOTH YOUR USER ID AND PASSWORD and tries to log into one of your accounts you will suddenly get an authorization request. You know it wasn’t you and it tells you that somebody has both your ID and Password to trigger the authorization. It tells you that your password has been compromised somewhere. Here is a link where you can find ALL sites that offer 2-Factor-Authentication: https://twofactorauth.org/ If you can, avoid using any sites that don’t offer this.

6. THINK BEFORE YOU CLICK

Assume that many mails you receive are phishing attempts even from people you know. See above example), Think before you click if that person would really send you a certain document. Their account may be compromised. Remember they may respond to a previous mail with a previously legitimate subject line. If you are not sure don’t just reply to the mail without changing the subject line as they could respond from their eMail address. Better call or TXT that person to confirm.

If you follow these steps you will not be one of the 85% of people who have been hacked already and are in danger of having their Identity and money stolen.

Share this with your friends.