September 15th, 2018
Posted by Eagan HeathGoogle Analytics
0 comments on “How to track your campaigns correctly using UTM parameters and Google Analytics channel groupings”
That’s nice that Google Analytics has all this info about our website traffic, but how do we see whether our campaigns are truly effective?
Well, good news, assuming you’ve set up Google Analytics goals to track, you can see if visitors are taking those actions after clicking particular links, whether from emails, Facebook ads, Google Display Ads, or even referral links from other websites.
Check it out in the video below. We also discuss our recommendation around how to handle Paid Social Ads, given the fact that Google Analytics came out before there were social media ads.
September 5th, 2018
Posted by Eagan HeathNational SEO
0 comments on “SEO Case Study: #1 National Ranking in less than a year”
Check out this SEO Case Study in which we discuss how we ranked Splendid Beast #1 for dog paintings in under a year and with fewer backlinks than the competitors.
One thing we didn’t dwell on in the video was “dwell time,” which is the amount of time users spend on the page or site after they click your link. From looking at the analytics, the dwell time for this page and for the site from this organic landing page has been really good. Google is likely interpreting that as a sign that we’re showing the searcher what they want to see: dog paintings.
Ready to learn more digital marketing tips for free?
August 11th, 2018
Posted by Eagan HeathDigital Marketing
1 comment on “What’s Possible Now in Digital Marketing? Digital Marketing Mastery Class Kickoff”
Digital marketing is changing so fast that it’s next to impossible for any marketer or business owner to keep up.
Luckily it all boils down to some basics.
You want:
the right people to see your brand and offerings at the right time
more people contacting you or buying from your website
more people coming to your website
more people coming back to your website
to measure what’s working and what isn’t so you can improve
Our Digital Marketing Mastery Course
To go more in-depth on how to do each of these things, we’re launching a course called Digital Marketing Mastery to show you the latest techniques and tricks to earn more leads and sales online.
We love keeping up with this stuff and teaching others what we learn and what we see working for our business and our clients.
We made the first class in our 6-month course free, and you can catch the re-recording of it below. It’s called, “What’s Possible Now With Digital Marketing.”
Check it out!
Note we’ll have an in-person class (at 555 D’Onofrio, Madison WI) as well as an online-only option if you’re outside town or can’t make our class dates.
What will the course cover and when are the classes?
As you can see from the syllabus and schedule, we’ll be covering the best strategies and tactics to increase business using
Google Analytics
SEO
Google Ads
Website Conversion Optimization
Social Media Marketing (organic and paid).
Most of the in-person classes will be on Wednesdays at 3:30 pm, but we have a few Mondays in there, too.
Who will this class be perfect for?
Marketing Directors
Marketing Team Members
Business owners who handle their own marketing
What problems will this address?
I don’t know where to start
I don’t where to focus
I don’t have a strategy, plan or budget
I can’t keep up with all the changes in online marketing
I get stuck when trying to implement digital strategies and could use step-by-step instruction I can refer back to
What outcomes can I expect?
At least twice as many website leads in the next 12 months.
This assumes you’re ready to invest in the paid online advertising channels we’ll teach you to use. Appropriate budgets will vary based on business and industry, but you should be ready to spend $500-1,000 per month in ads at the very minimum to test the strategies we’ll teach.
What requisites are there?
You should be eager to learn and implement the best strategies and tactics in online marketing.
To get the most benefit, you need to be able to make changes to your website or have someone who can.
We strongly favor WordPress as a website platform and Content Management System, but most of what we discuss can be done on other platforms like Wix, Squarespace, HubSpot, etc.
How much does it cost and when do I need to sign up by?
We have three options:
(EXPIRED) $900 if you pay $150/mo. for 6 months. This covers the 12 in-person classes, Q&A after each, and lifetime online access to the re-recordings in case you miss a class or need to review. Sign-up ends Aug 22 for this option.
(EXPIRED) $750 one-time payment if paid by Aug 15 (saves $150, or one month). Includes everything in Option 1.
$500 for lifetime access to the online videos only, no in-person or Q&A
Ready to learn digital marketing step-by-step?
Great!
Select your option below and we’ll send you an invoice. Once that’s paid, you’ll receive login access to the Digital Marketing Mastery website.
We get pitched on guest posts all the time on our site. The pitches are often terrible and so are the submissions. As a result, we’ve drastically reduced the number of guest posts we accept. They often create extra work for us, instead of providing us free value in exchange for great SEO links.
But that’s not how guest posts have to be. They can be a great opportunity that’s mutually beneficial to both the writer and the site owner. If you’re interested in writing a guest post for someone and you want it be awesome, here’s how to do it.
June 20th, 2018
Posted by Eagan HeathFacebook Ads
0 comments on “Facebook Ad Targeting & Measurement: Audiences & the Facebook Pixel”
We recently spoke about digital marketing for an Ask the Expert put on the by Middleton Chamber of Commerce, specifically on how to target audiences using Facebook ads and how to measure the results using the Facebook pixel.
Here’s the re-recording we made for YouTube in case you missed it or need a review.
This is the perfect starting point for businesses who are struggling to get traction from their organic and boosted Facebook posts, which either don’t reach people anymore or don’t reach the right people.
June 9th, 2018
Posted by Ben RatkeyLocal SEO, SEO
0 comments on “Website Migration SEO: How To Redesign Your Website Without Losing SEO Traffic”
Don’t neglect search engine optimization in the flurry of excitement around the launch of a redesigned website. Everything on the new site is fresh and up-to-date, and it looks slick as hell – but is that good or bad for your SEO?
It doesn’t have to be bad at all! We’ll explain how to maintain strong SEO and stay in Google’s good favor when you migrate to a newly updated website. It starts with knowing your old site and making sure nothing is lost or forgotten. Then we’ll tell you how to create redirects to avoid errors and confusion. Lastly, we’ll explain how you can make sure Google knows what you’re doing, so that the search engine will be friendly to your new site.
Updated May 2018 to include the most relevant info and provide everything you need for Google reviews outreach.
Reviews on your Google My Business page are a likely ranking factor for Local SEO. And as you may know, once your business gets five reviews (update: nowadays you don’t even need this many), your stars start appearing.
Those stars next to your business name help you stand out and make searchers want to click on your listing. Just look at the example above for “plumber verona.” Which of the three would you click if your shower drain was backed up?
May 10th, 2018
Posted by Eagan HeathSpeaking
0 comments on “Free Talk and Webcast: 6 Steps To Earning More Leads Using Local SEO”
Looking to learn how to make your business website appear at the top in local online searches? Join us on May 15 in-person at the DreamBank in downtown Madison, WI at noon or tune in remotely via the webcast. See you there!
April 27th, 2018
Posted by Eagan HeathB2B Marketing
0 comments on “Business to Business (B2B) Marketing: Bring Prospects to Your Site”
B2B marketing presents challenges for even the savviest online marketers. “My prospective clients aren’t on Facebook, what do I do?” Luckily, there are still options when you’re selling to other businesses.
We describe a few of the most promising paid channels in this video.
March 19th, 2018
Posted by Eagan HeathAssisted Living Marketing
0 comments on “Senior Living Marketing: Make Your Website a Lead Generation Machine for New Residents”
Huge thanks to the Wisconsin Assisted Living Association (WALA) for inviting us to speak about senior living marketing at their annual spring conference last week.
Here are the slides we used to discuss conversion optimization, website analytics, Google AdWords, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Google Display Ads and social media marketing.
March 14th, 2018
Posted by Eagan HeathBlogging
0 comments on “How To Improve Your Old Blog Posts (2018)”
You don’t always need to write brand new blog posts to increase your organic SEO traffic. In fact, you can and should go through your old posts and see how they can be optimized for keyword phrases you might not have considered. In this video, we discuss how to find SEO opportunities based on your previous blog posts.
February 26th, 2018
Posted by [email protected]Local SEO, SEO
4 comments on “Keyword Research: The first step for every page on your website”
Most business owners would avoid setting up shop to sell things people don’t want, yet they regularly plop content and pages on their website with hardly a thought for what their customers want. Keyword research should be your roadmap; let the search data guide how you create your website, from your regular pages to your blog posts. It’s now possible to know the demand for what you offer before you even create it! (more…)
February 3rd, 2018
Posted by Victoria GreeneDigital Marketing
0 comments on “Your Ultimate ‘How To’ On Writing Social Media Captions”
Visual content is all the rage, and nailing this aspect of your marketing is sure to give your brand a boost. Yet while a picture speaks a thousand words, sometime you need to add a few of your own in order to engage with your audience, and get them involved with your content.
These captions serve a range of purposes, from explaining the image itself, to offering up an insight or opinion on the image’s content, or giving details of a related product or promotion. They serve as the voice of your brand, speaking directly to your customers as they take an interest in your content.
However, it’s not always easy to stand out from the crowd, so it’s important to ensure your caption game is on point. Here are some tips on creating killer captions for your visual content, and how this can help your business go from strength to strength in 2018.
January 22nd, 2018
Posted by Ben RatkeyWeb Design
1 comment on “Make Your WordPress Site Load Fast as Hell”
You click the first search result. The loading bar hangs at one third. You can’t see a thing on the webpage yet. How long do you wait around for that site to get its act together?
No more than a few seconds, if you’re like most people. Maybe less on mobile. This is intuitive evidence that page load speed is actually pretty important. If prospective visitors are turning away from your site and bouncing because it’s sloooow, then you’ve got a problem. We want to help you solve that problem.
Let’s start with two reasons why your site speed matters.
November 20th, 2017
Posted by Ben RatkeyLocal SEO, SEO
1 comment on “How to do SEO for your local business: The Local SEO Checklist”
Note: Looking for an actionable Local SEO Checklist for 2018? At the end of this post, you can download a PDF that distills all the important points into checklist items. You can also watch our in-depth video below.
“I know I need to work on SEO for my business’s website, but there’s so much to do and learn and I don’t know where to start.”
If that’s something you’ve said (or found yourself thinking), then this blog post is for you!
We want to de-mystify this arcane art of search engine optimization. We’re doing that by giving you a checklist-style guide to the main things you should be concerned about when it comes to SEO for your local business.
First off, here’s the big picture as a series of straightforward bullet points:
At first glance, email marketing might sound a bit old-fashioned and out-of-date. Social media have opened a world of new opportunities for advertising and have been a hot topic for marketing experts over the last few years. So why would one still prefer email over other forms of online marketing?
The first and most important factor is mere quantity. To mention just some of the stats – while Facebook has 1.6 billion users, almost a billion more people use email. Furthermore, 91% of them use this channel daily, and for 58% of them, it’s the first thing they check online, compared to Facebook’s 57% and 11% respectively. Differences are radical when it comes to ROI as well, with email marketing being 4 times more successful than social media. The crucial reason for this is the fact that email is still the media most frequently used for transactions, as well as for doing business. A journey that starts by setting the list up and ends with collecting the money can be divided into three steps: developing the list, maintaining it and, last but definitely not least, converting.
November 14th, 2017
Posted by Jackie EdwardsAccessibility
0 comments on “How To Increase Your Customer Base With Website Accessibility”
Having a website that is universally accessible isn’t just morally right, and good for your reputation and your customer base — it is also the law. Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 states that it is illegal to discriminate against people with disabilities.
In the last almost three decades since the act was passed, the application to websites has become more and more relevant. The law implies that sites, as well as physical buildings, should be universally acceptable.
October 18th, 2017
Posted by Eagan HeathDigital Marketing
0 comments on “The Best Online Marketing Resources We’ve Found”
One of the great things about the internet is how you learn how to use it better by using the internet.
Yup.
But given how much information there is out there, it can be nice when someone curates it for you and just gives you the best of the best.
Here are the go-to internet marketing resources we’ve used to learn the trade and that we heartily recommend to others. Bookmark this page because we will update it as we find new ones.
Note: Here’s a video covering the same material as this article, in case reading detailed posts isn’t your cup of tea.
Take a moment to think about why your business has a website in the first place. Your site is not a static brochure that you tell people to go look at; it is a lead-generation machine. Your business’s site should be working for you, bringing in leads, and making your job easier (certainly not harder!). So how do you make your website into an effective tool for churning out valuable leads?
That’s where website analytics tools enter the picture. Website analytics can help you make sure that the site is doing its job — bringing in more clients/customers (or donations/volunteers if you are running a nonprofit). Secondly, analytics can help you identify ways to fine-tune your website so that it can do an even better job. Here are some of the questions that analytics can answer for you:
Is my website working for me and generating leads?
Where are people falling out of my funnel?
What can I do to bring them back?
Which channels are bringing in the most traffic and leads?
