Digital Marketing Blog

Benchmark Your Industrial SEO for Growth

As a manufacturer, you know the importance of constantly measuring and improving your operations to stay competitive. However, many industrial companies neglect to apply these same principles to their marketing efforts. Why? Because it's hard to know where to start.

Navigating Google's Major Search Update (March 2024)

Google’s launching a new core update that will remove up to 40% of unhelpful content from search results. Here’s what it means for you.

Navigating Email Marketing in 2024: Essential Strategies for Compliance and Success

Demystifying Email Authentication Protocols: Learn more about the impact of Google and Yahoo's email policy changes on businesses and how you can ensure compliance in your HubSpot portal.

The Power of Sales and Marketing Alignment

Help us to understand the influence of sales dynamics on marketing strategy and operations, and identify effective ways for aligning marketing with sales in B2B companies.

Marketing AI Conference 2023: Key Takeaways for B2B Companies

Celebrating its 4th gathering, the 2023 Marketing AI Conference attracted over 700 attendees and showcased the rising influence of AI in marketing with talks on harnessing AI B2B and valuable networking opportunities.

How to Plan a Successful Website Launch

Introduction

Congratulations! You’re website project is finally complete, and you’re ready to launch after countless hours of meetings, writing, and hunting down content. 

A Guide to GA4 Migration

The Shift from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, nothing stands still for long. As advancements in marketing and data software multiply, we're seeing a paradigm shift that's hard to ignore. At the heart of this change is the transition from Google's Universal Analytics (UA) to Google Analytics 4 (GA4). This isn't merely an upgrade...

Search Engine Optimization Prices: The Truth About SEO Services Prices

There are more than 5.5 billion searches per day on the internet. 

But, surely, your ideal clients aren't looking for businesses like yours online because you’re in the B2B space, right?

Think again.

2023 Technical SEO Checklist for Digital Marketers

Technical SEO is a key element in ranking your site in Google SERPs, but it may be one of the most challenging aspects of SEO. To truly understand how SEO works and why it’s so important, you have to dig into the meat of it. We’re not talking about keywords and backlinks. We’re talking about technical SEO.

A Guide to Modern Marketing Strategy for B2B Manufacturers

The idea of marketing is not new to manufacturing companies. A quick review of the automobile industry shows that the manufacturing industry knows how to create and manage powerful brands through traditional marketing techniques.

A Guide on How to Measure the ROI of SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the unsung hero of any digital marketing strategy for any manufacturing company. While exciting digital campaigns with videos and hashtags grab the limelight and catch the eye, a well-planned and well-executed SEO strategy can help make the most of a business's most valuable digital asset: its own website. It can also help make the most of any digital campaign,...

The Guide to Digital Marketing for Manufacturers

Digital marketing is a vital part of all manufacturers' marketing strategies. With all the terms, concepts and platforms out there, marketing can be confusing if you're just starting your digital marketing plan. We created a guide to give you an overview of what you should consider when planning.

5 Ideas For Marketing a Manufacturing Company

Investing in digital marketing for your manufacturing company will not only serve your business right now, but it will build a foundation that will serve as a source of business for years to come. The process of finding clients has changed significantly in recent years, creating the need not just for standard advertising methods but the use of digital marketing for manufacturers.

Getting Started with GA4: What it Will Mean for your Marketing

With the rapid development of marketing and data software, the digital marketing field is constantly evolving. This benefits marketers since more data is available, so campaign tracking becomes simpler and data analysis easier. Software updates offer the potential to streamline data analysis and campaign management. But, a challenging aspect of ever-changing digital marketing tools is the need...

SEO Campaign Timeline: How Long it Takes to See Results

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is a strategic form of digital marketing that helps connect brands and businesses with their target audience. Even if they do not operate specifically in the digital space, many marketers know that SEO involves researching commonly searched terms in online marketing. When a user searches for one of these terms, the company’s and its competitors' websites will...

B2B Website Strategies: Qualities of the Best B2B Websites

In an internet-centric world, a website is often the first place many customers will encounter a Business-to-Business company.Business-to-business (B2B) companies, which supply products and services to other businesses, need to be ready for customers with high-quality websites that establish credibility and professionalism.

Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency: Considerations and Tips

As a growing business, you understand the importance of having captivating marketing materials and comprehensive marketing strategies. Businesses allocate significant budgets to their marketing efforts in order to build brand awareness, generate leads, and increase conversion rates. When your business invests in marketing materials, you want to have a good return on investment (ROI).

However,...

10 Quick Tips to Improve Google Search Ranking

When trying to solidify your business as a leader in your industry, being on the first page of Google isn’t just a “nice to have”— it’s a downright requirement. In 2022, so much of everyday life is happening online, so Google, the most popular search engine in the world, is your gateway to consumers. Businesses listed on the first page receive a majority of the organic search traffic and are...

How to Increase Website Traffic With a Winning SEO Strategy

Imagine spending thousands of dollars creating a gorgeous website for your business, only to find out that it’s missing an essential element for getting noticed by consumers: effective search engine optimization (SEO). Your website can be one of your company’s most valuable assets, but without an effective SEO marketing strategy backing it up, the value it creates will be minimal.

A B2B Guide to Building a Social Media Advertising Strategy

Business to business advertising, commonly referred to as B2B marketing, presents marketers with unique challenges, since the company’s target audience is another business. Marketers must make the products and services that their business offers appeal to an organization, rather than a single customer.

Programmatic Advertising: A Complete Beginner's Guide

When it comes to creating competitive and cutting-edge marketing campaigns for your clients, it’s crucial to understand all of the available advertising opportunities. Technological developments have rapidly advanced the ways in which advertisers and publishers can circulate advertisements. At times, these developments can be difficult to keep up with, but continuous education is the key to...

Conversion Rate Optimization Strategies: A Complete Guide

In addition to being visually appealing, user-friendly, and informational, a company website needs to drive consumers to action. For it to be considered successful, your site must deliver measurable results. This is where conversion rate optimization, which is often shortened to CRO, comes in. In this all-in-one guide, we’ll discuss conversion rate optimization best practices and strategies.

Purpose of a Website & Importance of Defining Website Goals

What purpose does your website serve and is it currently accomplishing your company’s goals? Let’s dive into the importance of having a clearly defined vision and objectives for your company’s website.

4 Design Tips From Websites That Convert

Having a beautiful website is great, but if it doesn’t convert prospects to customers, it’s useless to your business. It’s essential that you create a website that’s both visually appealing and effective in driving sales. We’re going to walk you through 4 design tips that will help you craft a website with high conversion rates.

5 Signs Your Manufacturing Website is Outdated

When it comes to achieving a competitive edge for your manufacturing business, you need more than the right products and attentive customer service: You also need a winning website that will convey your unique value proposition, attract new customers, and fuel your success for years to come. In the past, having a website, in general, was sufficient for attracting business, but times have changed....

Improve SEO by Following UX Best Practices for Websites

As a growing business, you know that your website is one of the most important assets you have for connecting with your audience and driving conversions. Maybe you’ve also done a little research, looking for tips on how to boost its performance. What you’ve read has probably centered around the various aspects of search engine optimization (SEO) and user experience (UX).

Top 10 Digital Marketing KPIs to Track to Improve Marketing Strategies

Marketing KPIs exist to give you benchmarks of success. You can measure the effectiveness of certain campaigns, see where your strategy is lacking and devise data-driven strategies for improvement. It puts numbers to each of your efforts so you can make informed decisions moving forward. Let’s take a closer look at marketing KPIs and how you can use them to set objectives and measure success.

Understanding Search Intent for Effective Keyword Targeting

Understand what drives users to your website to improve keyword targeting and ultimately boost your ranking.

How to Rank for the ‘People Also Ask’ Box

If you’re working on pushing your pages higher up the SERPs, then you’ve probably looked at that “People also ask” box before. It’s got a list of questions and drop-down answers so users can easily get quick, relevant information. But it doesn’t answer your biggest question: Is this box going to steal my SERP ranking?

What To Do When A Competitor Targets Your Branded Keyword

Imagine this scenario: you pull up your favorite search engine and type in your company name, but instead of your company being the first hit you see the name of a competitor.

Irresistible Content for All Stages of a Sales Funnel

Want to get more high quality opportunities for your sales team?

Duh, who wouldn’t?

How To Calculate Your Cost Per Lead… And 5 Ways to Lower It

So you just wrapped up another marketing campaign and you’re feeling pretty good. 

What is Schema Markup? Here’s how it can boost your website performance.

Schema markup, sometimes referred to as schema or structured data, is among the essential SEO tactics you need to improve technical SEO performance and increase your site's search engine positioning. 

Core Web Vitals: Google's Page Experience Factors Explained

If you haven’t opened Search Console’s Core Web Vitals report recently, you should do it today. Google has confirmed that page experience signals are a ranking factor, and these signals are showing up in the Core Web Vitals report. Google made the official announcement in November 2020 and told us the page experience update will begin to roll out in May and June of 2021. 

Four Tips To Build a Lead Generation Website

Your website is your most powerful marketing tool and the backbone of your strategy.  Well, at least it should be…

HubSpot vs WordPress: Which Is The Better CMS?

Whether you’re selling a B2B service or marketing a product directly to consumers, your website should generate new leads and revenue for your business.

8 Ways Sales and Marketing Work Together to Grow Your Manufacturing Brand

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

9 Tips to Optimize Page Speed & Climb Search Rankings

2 seconds or less.

That’s the number that Google set in 2018 as the magic speed number for desktop and mobile users.

Build a Sales Enablement Powerhouse: Use Lead Intelligence Software

In B2B marketing, it’s easy to assume that a lead generation strategy is working if traffic graphs are increasing and website conversions are growing month over month. It’s exciting to see traffic graphs soar and conversion numbers grow, but when lead quality and lead-to-customer rates start to decline, excitement turns into letdown. 

5 Pillars of a Digital Industrial Marketing Strategy

Digital marketing in the industrial space has moved beyond inbound marketing and omnichannel marketing. As 2020 wreaked havoc on the economy, many companies focused on investing in digital marketing to ensure their success in 2021 and beyond. Thanks to the digitization of the B2B sales process, many B2B industrial companies are investing in specific marketing trends in order to capitalize on...

7 Habits of Highly Effective Digital Marketers

As a marketing leader, you have a lot to balance between supporting sales, driving revenue, maintaining a brand image, trying to insert some much-needed creativity, and continually putting out fires. With so much to balance, it’s not uncommon that the to-do list you set out to accomplish today gets pushed back to tomorrow. 

Keep Your Sales Team Selling with a Call Queue in HubSpot

Nothing can happen until a sale is made. No amount of marketing, product creation, or any other business function truly matters until revenue starts coming in. Unfortunately, many business leaders often think their sales department could make the most improvement. 

Which SEO Ranking Factors Will Matter in 2021?

Google and Bing SEO ranking systems run on a combination of algorithms that bring many factors into play. But which factors matter the most for SEO ranking in 2021? 

Brand Voice: How to Stop Getting Lost in a Noisy Marketplace

Much attention is given to the visual aspects of creating a brand, and rightly so.

But what’s often overlooked yet equally as important, is how your company sounds to the world.  Companies may spend a considerable amount of time determining how it looks in the world, but not much time on the words it uses, the way it communicates, and how its audience perceives the company.

In the next few...

How Chatbots Help B2B Companies Scale

No matter the size, most businesses struggle to provide the consistent quality of service and level of attention that their customers deserve.

5 Keys to B2B Virtual Sales

Adapt if you want to survive. 

In today’s ever-changing world, this is the creed we must apply to every facet of our businesses, including B2B sales. Because the technological landscape changes so dramatically and quickly, it is no longer enough to rely solely on a field sales team to get your product or service in front of buyers and win sales. The fact is, most of your initial contact with...

Your Digital Marketing Plan Template

Digital marketing is critical to the ongoing success of your business, especially in today’s “virtual” economy. If your marketing team is overwhelmed and unsure where to focus, start with simplification. Simplifying your digital marketing reduces distraction and increases your chances of achieving your goals. It’s easy to overcomplicate your digital marketing efforts, wasting valuable resources...

Benefits of SEO for Your Small Business 

Small Business SEO Benefits:

A Conceptual Shift

It's common for small businesses and local companies to view search engine marketing as too complex or too expensive. While it’s true that not all companies need SEO, you may be missing out on the benefits of SEO for your small business by failing to consider it as a lead generation strategy. Today, small businesses should consider SEO as a...

SEO and Crawl Budget Guide

Ignoring the crawl budget can cost you rankings, traffic, and conversions. If your website is not optimized for a maximum crawl budget, no matter the size of the site, crawl activity may be wasted on low value or low performing pages, preventing the pages designed to improve SEO from being crawled.

Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising:  Is it Worth It?

Getting results from pay per click (PPC) advertising isn’t easy. It requires experience, expertise, and training. But even if you hire an agency who has all three, you’re still uncertain if pay per click advertising is worth the investment. 

Image Optimization for SEO

Image optimization for SEO was once a simple formula, but as search engine algorithms and devices evolve, image optimization looks different today than it did just a few years ago.

Digital Marketing for Manufacturers: Targeting The Right Audience

Many manufacturing companies like to stay in their comfort zone when it comes to digital marketing. Investing in pay-to-play ads and articles on industry websites, using a website that’s nothing more than an online sales brochure, and very few KPIs in place to measure digital performance. If it’s not broken, why fix it, right? 

Inbound Marketing Plan for a Manufacturing Company

For manufacturers, modern marketing is often trickier than it seems on the surface. Many brands are expanding market share and targeting broader audiences with help from an industrial marketing agency, populating the internet with even more choices for potential customers. Now more than ever, the marketing plan for your manufacturing company should focus on inbound strategies that increase RFQ’s,...

Conversational Marketing Examples

In our last post, Building Conversational Marketing Into Your Website, we shared a broader definition of conversational marketing and how it's much more than a chatbot feature. We provided a list of conversational marketing formats and styles that can integrate with website features:

• Conversational posts, articles, and landing pages
• Website UX/design features
• Chatbots 
• Messaging apps
• Nurturing...

Building Conversational Marketing Into Your Website

If a conversational marketing strategy is on your “to-do” list, it’s critical to define it correctly from the beginning. While chatbots and live chat are part of  conversational marketing, an article from Forbes provides a more precise definition:

How to Create a Content Marketing Plan with the 4 Ps

In traditional marketing, the Four Ps were developed initially by a Notre Dame marketing professor, Jerome McCarthy. They stand for:

How to Lead Digital Marketing During a Recession

There is little argument that the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic is wreaking havoc on business and industry across the globe. Many companies have temporarily halted production or have changed over to producing medical supplies. Others - many “essential businesses” - are experiencing exponential growth in demand and struggle to keep up. The rest of us are working to operate as normally as we can. 

5 Ways to Determine if your Digital Marketing is Effective

According to a CMO Survey from Deloitte, “marketing analytics spending is growing moderately but is expected to surge by 61 percent in the next three years.” While marketing analytics platforms can show you everything from clicks, page visits, entrance rates, bounce rates, conversions, and more, how can you determine if your digital marketing investment is effective?

Measuring the Performance of Your Digital Marketing

For some, the word “metrics” sends a chill down their spine, especially when it comes to measuring digital marketing performance. In our experience, this typically happens with clients who want to track their online efforts, but simply have no idea where to start, or which metrics to actually measure. For the uninitiated, it can be daunting.

Creating a Lead Generation Strategy for Your Company Website

If you’re an older business, your website has probably evolved to become an extension of a brick-and-mortar storefront (or multiple storefronts if you’ve experienced success). For newer companies born in the Internet era, an online presence might have been the driving impetus—or at the very least a serious consideration—of your start-up plan. While the age of your business might have dictated...

Top Trends That Will Influence Web Design in 2020

Now that 2019 has come and gone, it’s time to turn our full attention to 2020. The past decade has seen some web design trends introduced that will stand the test of time, while others have fallen by the wayside. In our experience, we’ve learned that the trends focused on improving the user experience are the ones that endure.

Creating a Content Strategy for Your Blog/Website

Over the years, we’ve seen varying degrees of success from our clients when it comes to content creation. Many do it well, and we just come in and make some minor enhancements to keep things rolling.

5 Ways to Improve the Performance of Your Enterprise Website

There are a variety of factors that go into designing a successful enterprise website. You need buy-in from a variety of stakeholders. You need a workflow that ensures the behemoth project stays on track. You need talented designers and writers to convey all that valuable information you want to communicate to your customers—and to prospective customers.

Using SEO to Find New Business Opportunities

The effective use of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) doesn’t stop at ranking and lead generation.  There is a data pipeline for companies to find new business opportunities. Follow these steps to uncover the data and discover new ideas for growing or expanding your business.

Benefits of CDN Hosting vs. Traditional Website Hosting

At one point in time, traditional web hosting ruled the land. Thanks to an abundance of different hosting companies, which housed websites of various sizes, this kind of hosting served the needs of most companies. Of course, as we all know, the Internet is constantly changing, and today has evolved into a massive archive that houses and delivers personal, corporate, and multimedia content. And...

How to Create Content that Engages and Converts Visitors on Your Site

Let’s be honest: the Internet is littered with content that was created for content’s sake. Over the years, we’ve seen our share of companies that created webpages, blog posts, and more simply to keep up with their competitors, or to create an online foothold since they felt so far behind. Unfortunately, creating content that doesn’t solve a customers’ specific problem—or encourage them to take...

5 Quick Ways to Generate Sales Leads Using Digital Marketing

Looking for quick-wins in your company's digital marketing strategy? Here are 5 easy ways to generate sales leads from your digital marketing efforts.

Understanding Schema Markup for Your Voice Search Audience

Google, which claims the overwhelming majority of search engine user’s love, processes 5.6 billion search queries every single day. That’s an almost unimaginably massive number of searches being streamed through one search engine alone. The fact that we’re obsessed with searching online is old news, but how we’re going about doing it has changed.

Increasing Conversions for B2B Lead Generation

Increasing conversions for B2B (business to business) involves so much more than building landing pages that convert better. Conversion rate optimization for B2B tends to be more difficult than business to consumer (B2C) because of these added complexities: 

Six Benefits of Implementing HubSpot During the Website Redesign Process

When it comes to technology—be it equipment or software—it's human nature to be reluctant to change. This applies to companies as much as it does to individuals. As change agents, we anticipate hesitation from our clients during a website redesign project. We understand that there are a variety of reasons for this reluctance, ranging from juggling too many initiatives at one time to the fear of...

Lead Generation Strategies for Your Website

Company websites serve many purposes, but brands who design their website with lead generation strategies in mind will see the most ROI from their investment. While some industries only require that businesses use their website to communicate who they are and details about their products and services, in today’s digital age, every website should be set up to capture a lead if a prospect wants to...

Why Websites with Blogs Generate More Leads

One of the main goals of your digital marketing strategy is lead generation. There’s a lot that goes into capturing leads, but none of it can happen unless you get traffic moving to your website. This should be the natural result of an SEO strategy designed for lead generation, but it isn’t enough to just get traffic landing on your site. Leads aren’t always captured on the first visit, which...

SEO Best Practices vs. Myths

Search engine optimization (SEO) has evolved into a science of its own. For many marketing teams, SEO concepts are easy to grasp but difficult to implement due to time, conflicting information about SEO best practices and outdated advice, and inaccurate reporting. SEO myths can cause long-term damage to a website’s placement options, adding to the pressure of getting it right the first time....

Modern Website Design Process

You may be thinking about hiring a website design firm, or you may have even begun your journey to a new or revamped site for your business.  The modern website design process takes a lot of science--from technical development acumen with the latest platforms and tools to leveraging design skills--and a little art--the art of storytelling.

5 Must-Haves for Professional Website Design

If you or your marketing team are on the brink of a website design project (or redesign), you’re probably trying to organize and prioritize a high volume of information and messaging. Whether you bring the perspective of an executive at a mature company, a startup entrepreneur, or a seasoned marketer, you know that the toughest part of getting a professional website design is sifting through...

Industry Watch: Responsive Web Design

There was a brief moment in time when every business was scrambling to ensure their website adapted to multiple screen types, evolving their online storefronts from the standard desktop computer to the smartphones and tablets that had taken consumers by storm. That time has long passed, as today’s marketing directors know the ins and outs of responsive website design, and don’t have to work as...

Aligning Email Marketing Campaigns with Inbound Marketing

Executing successful email marketing campaigns is a critical part of inbound marketing. Once a potential lead or customer opts in, your email is a communication opportunity that can create a new relationship or re-engage with an old one. When integrated with other website inbound marketing strategies, an email marketing campaign becomes an invaluable tool in your marketing toolbox.

Optimizing Your Website for SEO and the Demands of Voice Search Users

Since the early days of search engine optimization, the goal has been to earn the favor of search engines by building websites that appeal to the preferences of their users. They want mobile optimization? Check. Valuable, rich content? Check. Clean websites, fast loading speeds and video? Check, check and check.

How to Build Buyer Personas

It all starts here.

Everything. The products & services you offer. The tactics you use to communicate those offerings. Your growth strategy. Even your address. Everything your Inbound Marketing does is driven by the ideal customer you’re pursuing and building accurate buyer personas. But that’s why you’re in business, right? To serve, educate, and help that customer?

Why Review Generation Is a Must for Building Your Online Reputation

When was the last time you made a purchase or considered connecting with a company without reading a few online reviews first? If you’re like 91% of today’s consumers, you probably don’t remember the last time. Yes, that many people really do read online reviews, and what they read weighs heavily on their purchasing decisions.

5 Lead Capture Techniques Besides Forms

If asked, most businesses would say that converting leads into customers is among the top priority for their business. One of the biggest challenges for businesses in achieving this goal is attracting and engaging qualified leads in the first place. The internet has become increasingly crowded with businesses focused on lead generation, some of them practically nagging visitors to provide their...

How Should You Respond to Google’s Recent Core Algorithm Update?

It’s that time again. Google has officially rolled out another core update, causing yet another upheaval in the world of digital marketing. The most recent core update was released this past March and it has businesses wondering how it’s going to affect their online performance – both today and in the long term.

5 Engaging Web Design Tips to Boost Conversions Today

When you’re measuring the success of your business, there are a lot of different numbers and metrics that come into play. You’re probably looking at your sales revenue, profit margin, customer acquisition costs, along with a multitude of digital marketing analytics. With so many moving parts, how do you know which metric matters the most?

How to Revitalize Your SEO with a New Approach to Keyword Research

Every business today needs to have a strategy for being found online, and search engine optimization has been the rock start of digital marketing for years. There are a lot of components to SEO but it’s safe to say that one of the most important is your keyword strategy.

When Is It Time to Consider a Website Redesign for Your Small Business?

The moment you launch your first website is an exciting time for your small business. Finally, you have a beautiful, highly functional website that will serve as a representation of your business online. You understand the value of great web design and you worked hard to produce a site that you know will meet your customer’s expectations. Now it’s time to sit back, enjoy the rewards of a job well...

Why Is Website Speed Important for a Website?

While companies launch websites for a variety of reasons, website speed plays a vital role in overall business success on the internet. When we speak of website speed, we’re referring to the page download speed - the amount of time it takes for your web page to load for a user after they’ve clicked on the website link from the search engines or social media. Good website speed should be high up...

Why Using Structured Data in Web Design Is Important for SEO

If you’re a business that has taken on the task of building and managing your own website, you no doubt have gotten at least a taste of how complex it can be. There are some platforms out there that make it easy to create a nice looking, functional business website, which is great for small businesses that want to get their foot in the digital door but don’t yet have the resources to invest in...

Top Predictions Why 2019 Will Be an Amazing Year for SEO

Over half of all internet traffic comes from organic search. This isn’t just half of search engine traffic, but half of all the traffic, from all sources on the internet. According to Pew Research 77% of Americans are online every single day and more than a quarter of them admit to being online almost constantly. This represents the potential for businesses to reach a massive audience through...

5 Trends That Will Influence Web Design in 2019

In 2019, the idea that you need to be online is a given. The majority of consumers want to check a business out online before even considering contacting them through another avenue, meaning that it’s practically impossible for a business to thrive without a website. Most businesses know this, but what many of them don’t realize is that how current their website design matters almost as much.

Is Mobile Responsiveness a Google Ranking Factor and How Does It Affect SEO?

Our friends over at Google like to keep us on our toes, and they do a pretty good job by switching up their algorithm hundreds of times a year. Granted, most of these are smaller changes that go relatively unnoticed by the masses, but it seems like once or twice a year the search engine giant changes the rules of search engine optimization on a much larger scale.

How to Create Content That Meets Your Audience at Every Stage of the Sales Funnel

There are few things worse than feeling like you’ve done everything you should from a content creation angle, yet the results you were looking for remain elusive. You’ve done the market research, keyword research and put in the effort to create a piece of content that provided real value to your audience, plus you delved into a topic that wasn’t already covered to death. Still, you’re hearing...

Why It’s Important to Balance Performance and Aesthetics for Successful Web Design

There’s a lot of elements that go into the overall performance of a website, and we could spend a great deal of time going back and forth about what really matters for modern website design. However, at the end of the day, what’s really important is the overall experience of every person that visits your site. While we could break their experience down and analyze it to death, it all boils down...

Why Isn't My Content Getting Links?

Link building and content marketing are practically synonymous. In fact, according to a survey conducted by the masters of marketing over at MOZ, more than a third of respondents said that “content marketing” was actually the best name for link building strategies. Maybe this is because content without backlinks simply isn’t going to do much of anything for your search engine optimization.

Uncovering the Key Elements of High Performance Landing Page Design

Landing pages have become an essential element to practically every digital marketing strategy. They’re the tools, that when optimized, perform magic on your lead generation and conversion rates. While businesses have been using landing pages to help them meet their growth goals, optimizing them for success has become more complex.

Why an Optimized Sitemap Is Exactly What Your Website Needs for Success

Anyone who has ever tried their hand at SEO knows that there are many elements to the process and attempting to optimize each and every one can be overwhelming – especially if the concept of search engine optimization is a relatively new one for you. Maybe you’ve even wondered to yourself why you can’t just send search engines a cheat sheet that tells them exactly what to look for on your website...

Ranking Position Zero: Rich Snippets & SEO in 2018

Ask anyone who has devoted time and effort into building up their SEO what their ultimate goal is, and the answer will likely be “position one on Google”. Search engine optimization is key in digital marketing and the right strategy can quickly increase your visibility in the digital universe, but it’s difficult to really get the traction you need without a achieving a prime spot in search...

How Digital Marketing Is the Strategy That Sparks Success for Senior Living Communities

When it comes to digital marketing, there is an incredibly powerful demographic that often goes untapped – the senior community. There’s a biased assumption that seniors, speaking mostly of the Baby Boomer generation, aren’t in touch with technology. We know firsthand that nothing could be further from the truth.

Growing a Dental Practice Through the Power of Digital Marketing

Let’s talk for a minute about how your dental practice is attracting new patients. What are you currently doing to bring people through your door? For example, are you counting on your website to do all the work for you or do you maybe post to social media once in a while, but don’t put in too much effort to receive what you feel are mediocre results?

The Rise of the Podcast: A Guide for Content Marketers

It doesn’t matter who you are or what industry you’re in, it’s impossible to escape fierce competition in the digital world. The internet has made it possible for any size business to build a strong presence and compete on a level playing field. This is a great, especially for smaller businesses.

Is Voice the Future of SEO?

Until fairly recently, most internet users typed out their questions and queries into the little bar provided by search engines, whether they were using a desktop, phone or tablet. Since text was the vehicle that most customers were using to reach businesses, it provided us with some reliable strategies for search engine optimization.

Mapping Your Customer’s Journey in an Increasingly Digital World

Many of your current customers started at the same point: you were either completely or relatively unknown to them, but they had a want or need. Through a series of thoughts and actions, they ended up at your door. You nurtured the relationship, and like magic, they converted right into customer status.

Diona Kidd recognized as B2B Marketer of the Year by Industry Peers

Diona Kidd, COO and Co-Founder of Knowmad Digital Marketing, was named as 2018’s B2B Marketer of the Year by the Carolinas chapter of the Business Marketing Association (Carolinas BMA). Carolinas BMA is a professional resource of business-to-business (B2B) marketers that recognizes superior marketing strategies and innovative approaches that deliver the perfect balance of style and results....

Mallard Creek Polymers Wins BMA ProAds Award

Mallard Creek Polymers and the team at Knowmad Digital Marketing were all smiles last Wednesday after being recognized for their successful Inbound Marketing Campaign at the Carolinas Business Marketing Association’s (BMA) annual ProAds Awards Banquet. The BMA is a professional resource of business-to-business (B2B) marketers that acknowledges superior marketing strategies and innovative...

What does the GDPR mean for US Businesses?

In the last week or so, you’ve likely noticed a growing amount of emails about privacy policy updates. These emails are the result of an European Union regulation called GDPR that went into effect on May 25th, 2018. Setting opinion aside regarding the regulation, GDPR has been a massive headache for marketers, especially those in the EU. In the United States, businesses are determining if and how...

Turning Your Website Into a Conversion Machine

When people first land on a website, studies tell us that 92% of them aren’t there to buy, at least not right away. You’ve done a great job generating traffic to your site, but that doesn’t mean that every person that lands is going to convert. In fact, if your site isn’t optimized for conversions, there’s a good chance that you won’t see most of those 92% of visitors again.

Generating an Effective Local SEO Strategy for Multi-Location Businesses

For many local businesses, deciding where to focus their marketing energy and budget is one of the biggest challenges. After all, this is a decision that influences their visibility in the market and their success. One wrong move and the competition walks away with customers that should have been theirs.

Knowmad Ranks as Best Local Digital Marketing Agency

In a recent blog post, we discussed the research behind the importance of local SEO – 46% of Google searches are local, and understanding your customers’ needs is crucial to benefiting from increasingly location-based, and thus more personal, wants.

Crafting the Perfect Content to Aid Your SEO Campaign

Content is king in any SEO strategy. You’ve probably heard that so much that it’s starting to get old. While that one statement tells us that content is important, it really does nothing for telling us what it means to create great SEO content in 2018.

Deciding Which Pay Per Click Platform Is Right For You

Pay per click (PPC) advertising is a crucial part of a strong digital marketing campaign for any business that wants to be successful. In fact, in today’s competitive digital world, PPC is essential for many small and medium sized businesses. It’s been shown that PPC boosts brand awareness and converts 50% more visitors than organic traffic.

7 Effective Strategies for Ranking in the Local Pack

Do a search for any type of business on Google and tell us what you see. It doesn’t matter if it’s for a Mexican restaurant, auto insurance agent or digital marketing agency, there’s one feature that remains consistent across each search.

Find Out Why Directory Listings Are Crucial for Local SEO

Once upon a time, there was this archaic device called a telephone book. Depending on where you lived, the size of this directory could be unwieldy. As a business, if you didn’t make it into the directory for it’s annual publication, you were out of luck until next year.

Local SEO: What It Is and Why Your Business Needs It

Shop local. Buy local. We hear this all the time. It is the mantra of small businesses, and anyone that cares about their local community. Small businesses are great for local economies, but they’re also essential for building the communities we want to call home. Most people want to support smaller, local businesses.

How A Killer Website Can Boost Your Conversions

What is the most valuable selling tool of your business?

You may have come up with several answers, but the truth is that your website is probably the most powerful attractor to visitors that you own, and that means website design and web development are two of the keys to boosting your company’s return on investment. But if the number of visitors to your website has decreased, or you are not...

How SEO and Inbound Marketing Are Different and Why It Matters

You hear a lot of buzzwords in digital marketing like inbound marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), SEO services, and local SEO. But what does it all mean, and what is most relevant to your business?

How Will Google's Change to a Mobile-First Index Affect Organic Rankings?

Despite radical shifts in how Google ranks websites, search engine optimization (SEO) remains one of the primary ways for businesses to generate awareness and credibility.

But the game has changed, mostly because Google – the dominant search engine in the world – continues to change its algorithms, sending marketers scrambling to keep up.

Pay Attention To these 5 KPIs In Your PPC Campaigns

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are the metric that marketers most commonly use to determine how their campaigns are progressing, and what areas need tweaking to make them more effective.

If you’re running a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign, you need real-world data to determine your return-on-investment (ROI), and there are five essential KPIs you need to monitor to ensure long-term success.

How PPC and SEO Work Together to Drive Traffic to Your Site

In the marketing world, Pay Per Click (PPC) and SEO are usually seen as two completely opposite worlds.

One is heavier on your marketing budget, but is straightforward with predictable results. The other may involve a lower budget, but it depends on keyword trends and algorithms, which change frequently, to get results. Which is better for your business?

How Long Does It Take to See Results from Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing has forever changed the way businesses market themselves. With outbound marketing strategies, results are almost instantaneous. The consumer either reacts positively to your message or they don’t. The decision is often made on the spot. Inbound marketing is different.

The Ultimate Guide to Responsive Web Design

In the old days, businesses could get by with a website specifically designed for desktop computers that was easy to navigate and filled with outstanding content.

Historic Hardware Store Website Design Project

Medical Office Website Design Project

The Connection

When you think of Matthews Internal Medicine Group, words that come to mind are trustworthy, caring, personable, and quality service. While the doctors, staff, and facility fully support and uphold these descriptions, their website design did not. And that’s where Knowmad comes in.

When the Knowmad team initially met with Matthew’s Internal Medicine, they were in the middle of...

Prepare for Your Website Design Project in 6 Steps

Are you feeling that buzz yet?

As you get closer to kicking off your new website design project, you’ll feel the energy start to accumulate. Frustration with your existing website might have driven you to this point in your planning, but the closer you get, the more thrilling things are going to become. Along with all the excitement and potential, there’s probably more than a little uncertainty.

Case Study: Charlotte Works Website Design

Charlotte Works is a nonprofit organization that serves as the workforce development board for the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, N.C. We recently helped them redesign their website as they re-envisioned their role in the community.

There were rave reviews once the website was launched. It was attractive, innovative and useful for those who were just learning about Charlotte Works. It...

Beginner's Guide to AdWords Campaign Experiments (ACE)

AdWords Campaign Experiments, commonly abbreviated as ACE, has been designed for the online marketer. More particularly, the feature allows marketers to isolate certain aspects of their Google AdWords campaigns, test the elements, and split off traffic in ways that are both profound and impactful. By doing so, marketers can enjoy the instant feedback that comes with PPC campaigns by funneling the...

10 Metrics For Measuring Content Marketing Success

Content marketing is becoming more and more relevant as it is the easiest way to publish content that your audience will want to read. But how do you know its working and are their certain KPI's that you need to identify for measuring content marketing success?

7 Online Branding Strategies For Small Businesses

With today's online tools and tactics, small businesses don't need to give up on online marketing even when short on time or funds. Here are several effective online branding strategies tips to maximize your online results as efficiently as possible!

Is an Inbound Marketing Strategy Right for Your Business?

Last Fall, Larry Kim explored “3 Times When Inbound Marketing Really Sucks” in the Marketing column at Inc.com. As an Inbound Marketer, you may think that I would disagree with his premise. I actually agree with most of the points he makes. And, I even have a few to add.

Why Social Media is Important for Business

In the past several years, social media has widely evolved from individuals’ instagramming their food and tweeting every move they make in their personal lives to focusing on establishing connections and showing off their resumes in their professional lives. Businesses that have recognized the shift have realized social media marketing is a key practice in their overall marketing strategies....

How To Integrate Online Marketing With Event Marketing

Events represent a fantastic opportunity to connect with potential, as well as existing, customers. However, just showing up, without coordinating the event with your online marketing efforts, means you’re probably missing out on a ton of opportunities.

4 Vital Strategies To Create a Successful Inbound Marketing Platform

When it comes to inbound marketing, sound strategy begins with an integrated strategy. Like most efforts, the parts must work together cohesively to create the desired whole.

How To Out-Market Your Competitors

When it comes to outwitting your competitors at marketing, there are no shortcuts. There are no true industry secrets or trump cards either. To out-market your competitors, it takes hard work and time to develop a holistic marketing approach. While stepping back to create a comprehensive game plan may initially seem daunting and time-consuming, it can pay off handsomely in the long run—and by...

4 Tips for Solving Duplicate Content

Duplicate content is exactly what you would think it is: content duplicated across a website or elsewhere on the Internet. Even if you are careful about creating new and unique content, your website might be suffering from duplicate content and not even know it. This article will demonstrate how to identify and remedy duplicate content so that you can easily avoid the potential negative impacts...

How Much Does Inbound Marketing Cost?

When you’re in the market to buy inbound marketing services, it’s important to understand the cost is more than the investment in an outside agency. Let’s talk about what the investment into inbound marketing includes and important considerations to help you evaluate the investment.

Using Relationship Marketing to Help Your Buyers

In today's global economy, buyers are faced with more products and service providers than at any time in the past. While having options is never a bad thing, being faced with too many choices can make it more difficult to cut through the noise and commit to a purchase.

To counteract this catch-22, buyers tend to seek relationships with service providers and suppliers. The desire for a...

Inbound Sales Tactics

Putting together an effective digital marketing strategy takes skill, precision, and a strong focus on how you want to position your brand. Using inbound sales as a part of your marketing mix attracts the invisible buyers and keeps you on the mind of your target market. With inbound sales, becoming the preferred choice is the key.

What is Inbound Sales?

You have probably heard the term “inbound marketing” dropped in conversation or seen it floating across the Internet. The inbound practice is based on the idea of attracting potential customers with content that engages and educates rather than interrupts and irritates. With inbound, marketers target the people they identify as most likely to have an interest in what a business sells rather than...

Comparing Website Design Proposals

So, you’ve decided that it’s time to rebuild the corporate website. As a savvy businessperson, you do your research, poll your colleagues, and interview firms. Once you’ve identified the shortlist of candidates, you request proposals., and that’s when your work really begins.

While you may think buying a website is like buying a car, it’s closer to remodeling a home or building a new office....

Is Your Company Ready for Digital Marketing?

Getting ready for digital marketing is like preparing for an adventure. The greater your aspirations, the more planning and preparation needs to go into your efforts. Get your company ready for digital marketing by taking these seven keys into account.

How to Get A Marketing Internship

Landing your first job out of college is much like the classic “What came first, the chicken or the egg?” scenario. You need to be employed to gain experience, but to gain experience you need to be employed. The answer to this conundrum may be an internship that provides hands-on, real-world industry experience.

Here at Knowmad, intern Sarah Wolterman, says she started looking for a marketing...

Five Easy Inbound Marketing Fixes

Competing for attention in an increasingly busy world is a serious challenge for most businesses. To overcome this obstacle, there are a number of steps companies can take. Here we discuss five easy fixes that will improve your inbound marketing efforts.

Digital Marketing & Code

Adam Smith, an 18^th century philosopher, economist, and author of The Wealth of Nations, knew the division of labor was a fundamental aspect in efficiency. He stated that if large tasks were broken down into many smaller segments, and each worker became an expert on one certain job or area of production, this would increase efficiency and save money. Smith's vision and philosophy changed the way...

How to Promote Content Using Owned, Paid and Earned Media

Simply creating valuable content for targeted audiences and being visible in search results isn’t enough for a successful content marketing strategy. Your content needs to be promoted in the right marketing channels.

In this post, I’ll discuss how to build a plan to promote your content, where some great opportunities to promote your content across the three main media perspectives lie — owned,...

Who's Still Using IE8: A Case Study in Knowing Your Audience

As a web developer, I have to strike a balance between making websites that use modern and efficient code, and making websites that work and look decent on older browsers. The latest example of this is whether to support Internet Explorer (IE) 8. The answer to this question is (you could have guessed), “It depends.”

Launch into Sales Acceleration with HubSpot's New Sales Tools

If your sales-related job sometimes feels like a data-entry job, you’re not alone. Sales and business development professionals are often left with a pile of notes and to-do lists to process at the end of the day.

The buying process has changed. As a result, Sales is feeling the pain from having a growing number of new tools. These tools require time for training and management, taking time away...

6 Reasons Why Your Company Needs a Blog Today

Are you still on the fence about blogging to market your business? If so, this post is for you.

There are a variety of reasons for a company to have a blog, ranging from the simple to the technical. The bottom line is that if you don’t have one, you’re definitely behind the times.

Perhaps you feel like a blog wouldn’t work for your business, or you have concerns about how you’d create the...

Top 3 Ways to Use LinkedIn for Social Prospecting

What is social prospecting? According to HubSpot’s Social Prospecting Workbook, it is “the art of scouring the social web, identifying potential prospects for your business, and engaging them to draw them to your site and get those potential prospects to your sales team.”

Every sales person should be searching for prospects through social sites, especially LinkedIn. You already know that using...

How To Integrate Social Media Features On Your Website

Like every aspect of your inbound marketing efforts, there must be a sound strategy in place. This is no different with social media. Just like you must have a solid game plan for how you engage with customers in social media, the way you integrate that channel with your website will go a long way to your success or failure.

Be it Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Pinterest, coordinating every...

Do You REALLY Need A Website Redesign?

A website redesign is a tall order. Though challenging, it’s a popular topic that we’ve tackled previously on this blog. While a redesign certainly takes strategy, today we want to focus on whether or not you really need one.

From a pure marketing standpoint, your website should be judged on how good of a job it’s doing, and not necessarily on how good it looks. This is not just another case...

How To Turn Your Website Visitors Into Leads

If you had to choose the one universal call to action (CTA) you find on most websites, what would your answer be? “Contact Us,” right?

But here’s a better question: does this ever make you want to reach out to a company? We’re fairly confident the answer is a resounding “No.” It’s passive and ineffective—and often completely ignored. Maybe a customer who desperately needs your products or...

Optimize Your Facebook Business Page

You’re busy and don’t have time to to read a complete 20 page case study on how to optimize your Facebook business page to get more Likes and increase engagement. I understand, so here are 5 quick tips.

Recapture Lost Opportunity with Retargeting

How many visitors to your site actually take action? How many of them give you their email address? Conversion rates generally run about 2-5% depending on the nature of the site and the quality of the traffic. Anything over 5% is generally pretty impressive.

But is 5% good?

What about the other 95%?

Thankfully, marketers now have a tool to reach out again to that other 95%. The tool is...

Custom Dashboards in Google Analytics to Measure Performance

Custom dashboards in Google Analytics are a great way to see important website performance metrics at a glance. In this post, I'll show you how to implement a custom dashboard to track the results of a particular set of website changes. As a result, you’ll have a better understanding of the power of custom dashboards in Google Analytics and how to set one up for yourself.

Transforming Business: A Book Review

Twenty-five years ago this Spring, I was a freshman in college and had the fortunate experience to hear August Turak speak on campus. At the time, I had no idea what an influence he would have on the next four years of my life.

The Evolving Roles of CIO & CMO

Earlier this month, I participated in a panel discussion on CMO & CIO Engagement for SIM Charlotte. The evening event discussed the Evolving Roles of CIO+CMO and the Digital Marketing Trends Impacting IT. Joining me on the panel were Lisa McCarthy, president of Marcom, and Jack Rech, CIO of National Gypsum. Kelly Laughton, IBM Client Executive, moderated.

The Latest Trends in Facebook

A couple weeks ago, just before its tenth birthday, Facebook released it's 2013 Q4 earnings report. It was a happy moment for Facebook, but perhaps not for marketers.

10 Best Practices to Maximize Your Next Landing Page

To maximize your business' lead generation, you must have landing pages that promote your offers and captures appropriate customer information. For many businesses, landing pages take a back seat to developing a valuable offer. However, while having a quality offer is important, the landing page is also a key part of the process. Companies that overlook it do so at their own risk.

HubSpot's Content Optimization System: The Future of Website Design?

Yesterday at Inbound13, HubSpot founders Brian Halligan and Darmesh Shah announced a major renovation of their content management system that will have an impact on the future of website design. Based on the preview, the change in how we think about designing and building websites could be as significant as the impact that the HubSpot platform has had on Internet marketing.

How to Enhance Your Internet Marketing with Social Media

Leveraging social media is a great way to improve your Internet Marketing by extending your networking circle beyond the confines of your local area. How do you get to know and learn from the important industry thought leaders you idolize? No travel needed...just follow them on the social sites where they frequently share their ideas, industry lessons and best practices.

Is It Time for a Website Redesign?

Whenever I talk to a prospect who is planning a website redesign, I start with asking why. As Simon Sinek exhorts in his TED talk, knowing your why creates inspiration. What I've learned is that getting to the why isn't always easy.

It's often easier to fall into the assumption that a new website will solve a plethora of business problems from sales to marketing to customer service to branding...

A Better Way to Prospect: Utilizing LinkedIn

Cold calls not working?The dreaded cold call. No one likes to receive one. Not many sales people I know like to make them either, so explore a different route by utilizing LinkedIn.

Is Your Business Lost on the Web?

Last Fall, we reached out to local business leaders to get their input on how they are strategically using the Internet to grow. Not surprisingly, the results showed that companies that invest in their online presence are seeing valuable returns. What surprised us was the confusion between activity and expected results. Businesses are literally lost on the Web. This confusion leads to unnecessary...

3 Steps to Aligning Sales and Marketing

As an Inbound Marketing agency, we have the privilege of seeing first-hand how powerful it is to align sales and marketing.

Once you understand the power of collaboration that comes from aligning sales and marketing, the next step is creating alignment between the activities of these teams. The founders of HubSpot, a marketing automation company, like to talk about their formula for success in...

Today's SEO: An Opportunity for Alignment

Many in the SEO industry (and their clients) were taken by storm with Google's latest algorithm change, Penguin. This update targeted websites that were found to be engaging in so-called "black hat" SEO practices, specifically certain forms of link-building. Many sites have been penalized by the algorithm change, drastically reducing traffic from search engines, and in many cases, the revenue...

Do Facebook 'Likes' Increase Search Rankings?

"If more people like my business on Facebook, will my website rank better?" This question has been posed to me a few times very recently, so I became curious and decided to do a little research.

Lately, I hear often about businesses trying to get 'liked' more on Facebook to improve search rankings. I've been skeptical of this idea since I first heard it.

As SEO professionals, we know that inbound...

Reaching New Heights: Marketing Lessons from Nepal

Having recently returned from a trekking expedition to Everest Base Camp, I've found myself noticing the similarities between an expedition and an online marketing campaign. In both cases, you are most likely to succeed when you set a destination, make a plan, create momentum and continually adapt to the conditions that arise during the journey. But the first step is making the decision to take...

Content Marketing for Online Lead Generation

Content marketing is not a new idea. Some brands have been marketing their own content for over a decade. So why is content marketing getting so much attention now?

Changes to our buying behaviors, the rise of social networks, demand for unique, intelligent content, the popularity of thought leadership and the overload of advertisements has brought content marketing to the forefront of Internet...

Think Pay-per-click is dead? Think again.

Article previously published in Greater Charlotte Biz magazine, Feb. 2012.

Set Up Your Google+ Business Page in 2 Easy Steps

Google+ is gaining traction and, with the release of Search+, has become more relevant to businesses because Google+ company pages are now showing in search results. Setting up a page on this growing social network gives potential customers one more way to find your business.

You might notice as you setup your business page on Google+ that you don't have to verify you're the business owner....

Help! They Stole My Content!

Online plagiarism is a tough and frustrating problem; each plagiarism situation is different and the overall problem isn't going away. The content in need of protection could be copy, images, sounds, videos or other varied types of content. It becomes a little easier to address when you know where to start.

In our industry, we most often see content theft in e-commerce, blogging and publisher...

Join.me Screen sharing Tool

Tessa just introduced me to a new easy-to-use screen sharing tool called join.me.

Knowmad Partners with Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU) to Redesign University Website

Johnson C. Smith University and Knowmad are in process of building a new .edu website for the university. There is a lot of excitement about the new web presence for the university, both at the university and at Knowmad. The new website will more accurately represent the opportunities that the university offers and will offer a highly usable website to online visitors.

Facebook for B2B Businesses

As Facebook and social media have become more prominent in our daily lives, businesses have been moving into the social media arena in search of customers. At Knowmad, we've explored Facebook and decided it's not the ideal avenue for us but it's not to be ignored.

Why? Customers and prospects typically don't look for us on Facebook because we sell to businesses (B2B), not consumers. However, a...

Website Maintenance – The Key to Being Relevant on the Web

During my travels in Italy this fall, I witnessed both the beauty of this historic country as well as the impact that neglect has on its ancient structures. Indeed, a common job in the country is in the maintenance and restoration of its architecture, art and books. Likewise, in today's business world, the heart of a successful Web strategy is regular maintenance of your...