Archives for January 2016

The Salesman & Inbound Marketing

marciacatlin · January 11, 2016 ·

death-of-a-salesman and inbound marketing
In preparation for my Hubspot Inbound Marketing Certification, I discovered an obvious but mostly forgotten fact of the new digital marketing age in which we live.
This is NOT good news for those of you who prefer the hard sell and printed media.
By the time your potential customer arrives at your showroom, enters your store or rummages through your many, exciting wares, 60% of the selling process has already been done. But not by YOU!
Likewise NOT by ads in newspapers or on TV, not by outdoor advertising, direct mail flyers, brochures, postcards, stickers or even car wraps!
The message or CONTENT is still critical. But the Messenger has changed platforms. It is now the Internet.
And, it is the Web in all of its colorful clothing, constantly changing locations, on all of its devices … iPhones, iPads, Androids, tablets, desktops, laptops … on different size monitors and used for different purposes.
Now the Messenger is under your complete control as buyer or consumer. You make the decisions, not the salesman.
“The Message” or Content now is multi-tasking. It can be a website, a blog post, a Facebook page, a newsletter, a tweet, a podcast, a YouTube video, a slideshow, a Pinterest page, an e-book , a Google hangout, and so it goes. Digital content has no size or time boundaries, unlike a 2 column newspaper ad.
Two More Advantages of Inbound Marketing:

Much cheaper – by a factor of 61% – to get leads on the net than to purchase sales leads by zipcode.
You can actually target cost-effectively and measure your audience, then edit/revise your content as needed.

– By Marcia Coffey
Find Marcia on Google+
Call Marcia, Genesis WordPress Web Designer, at 561.906.3436.
Follow @jmgroupdesign

Train, Learn & Sell with This Incredible Genesis Theme

marciacatlin · January 11, 2016 ·

Interested in setting up online courses? Are you a school or in need of a learning management system?
The Caroline Theme is a just released WordPress university theme that makes a perfect marketing solution for academic websites for universities, colleges, and k-12 schools. It is also ideal for non-profits in need of robust learning platforms.
The website template comes with great options for alumni/member profiles, forums, an online store, a learning management system for selling online courses, an event calendar, and options for building an email list.
Caroline is integrated with the LearnDash training system. Robust learning platforms and professional advice don’t have to be expensive. LearnDash is priced right for the price conscientious.
The theme also includes the WooCommerce eCommerce plugin, bbPress for forums, and the BuddyPress social network plugin. It also comes pre-styled for The Events Calendar, Gravity Forms, and Soliloquy.
The Caroline template is a mobile responsive child theme that overlays on the Genesis Framework. The Genesis Framework is required, but not included in the purchase price of this theme. It must be purchased separately if a license is not already owned.
Caroline can really be used for any website that would include forums, a social network, a learning management system, or an eCommerce storefront!
– By Marcia Coffey
Find Marcia on Google+
Call Marcia at 561.906.3436

Simple Trick for Click-Throughs: The Title Tag

marciacatlin · January 10, 2016 ·

computer-SEO

“Meta tags are a great way for webmasters to provide search engines with information about their sites. They can be used to provide information to all sorts of clients, and each system processes only the meta tags they understand and ignores the rest. They are added to the <head> section of your HTML page. “ – GOOGLE

SEO jargon and search terminology can be very overwhelming, particularly when you start talking to an “expert” in the field! So it’s important that business owners know the basics of on-page SEO so they can do some of it themselves.
Start with the single most important on-page SEO element: the <title> tag.
The <title> tag defines the title of the document and is required in all HTML/XHTML documents. SEOmoz, the largest SEO community in the world, believes that it is the single most important on-page SEO element (behind overall content). The title tag appears on the results pages just above the URL and also appears at the top of a browser.
Title Description for On-Page SEO Titles give users a quick insight into the content of the web page and how it might be relevant to their query. It is often the primary piece of information with the meta description that is used by potential visitors to decide which search result to click on, so it’s important to use high-quality and meaningful titles when you optimise your web pages.
Title tags generally should be less than 70 characters long so the whole tag fits on results pages when it is displayed and people can read it at a quick glance.
Every title tag on your website should be unique with distinct, descriptive titles for every page on your site.
Use keywords in title tags and place important keywords close to the front of the title tag. Search Engines will “bold” (or highlight) those terms in the search results when a user has performed a query with those terms.
Avoid keyword spamming. There is no reason to have the same words or phrases appear multiple times.
Google recommends titles include your brand so include your site name at the beginning or end of each page title, separated from the rest of the title with a delimiter such as a hyphen, colon, or pipe.
What is a meta description tag?
Title tags and meta descriptions are important elements of your website’s content. Like the title tag, meta description tags should include keywords relevant to the content of the web page they describe. This helps Search Engines understand what the page is about and index your web pages accordingly for relevant keywords or keyword phrases.
Matt Cutts, Google’s head of Webspam announced in 2009 that neither meta descriptions nor meta keywords factor into Google’s ranking algorithms for web search. However, he stresses that it is still important to write a meta description as Google will sometimes use the summary in search results snippets (located below the URL) if the Search Engine believes it is an accurate synopsis of the page.
– By Marcia Coffey
Find Marcia on Google+
Call Marcia at 561.906.3436

What are digital breadcrumbs?

marciacatlin · January 10, 2016 ·

As Forbes so correctly notes in a recent article (“3 Ways Social Media Is Driving A Business Revolution“), social media marketing can be deployed without spending millions. This should be reason enough for any business, large or small, to embrace it and to figure out strategies that would work for its particular industry and goals.
Like brand expert Cindy Ratzlaff, I am often asked how to analyze the ROI for a Twitter or Facebook account. There are plenty of measurement tools for this. Decoding the numbers for clients is another story.
So I was delighted to find Cindy’s analysis of the REAL value of social media. [See below.]
It’s branding!
I can see the “digital breadcrumbs” I’ve sprinkled about in my various Twitter campaigns with daily blog posts, branded images and curated content linked to Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. The ROI is cumulative. Time and consistency are keys to success. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Create digital breadcrumbs today. Then drop them where the people most likely to want what you offer are already spending time.
A potential client just asked me how he could quantify the ROI of social media. I get this question a lot and I understand the desire to have data or metrics to justify the time and money we spend on building a social network. Because I want you all to think of yourselves as a brand – and what you write, create or offer as a brand extension – it’s important for you to realize that your posts, tweets, images and other social updates are serving multiple purposes.
First, they start a conversation or at least let people know you have something to say. Secondly, they are digital breadcrumbs leading people back to your primary site – hopefully a website or blog site – where they can learn more about you. How? Add your website to images, make sure your URL is in your bio, share links to your blog posts and be present daily.
– Cindy Ratzlaff

– By Marcia Coffey
Find Marcia on Google+
Call Marcia at 561.906.3436