Web Design Wednesday

One of the most crucial elements that seem to have been forgotten by many web designers these days is the aspect of storytelling. Your website is telling a story about you or your company, and you need to design it that way. It needs to follow some sort of sequence and plan if you really want to reach your users in the most powerful, effective way possible.

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All Time Greats

The Wrong Way to Build External Links for SEO

Anyone who's worked on search engine optimization (SEO) for any length of time understands the importance of building relevant external links to a website. But whether you do choose to SEO internally, outsource it domestically, or offshore the effort, it's important to get this process right. If you're doing it internally, follow established best practices for this effort (including the information below). If you outsource your SEO, ask your vendor exactly how they perform their SEO work. I frequently receive reciprocal link requests for WebMarketCentral.com . Some of the requests are well-written, some inelegant, some spammy. But I recently received the following message, which was among the worst I had ever seen: Subject: Link exchange Dear Webmaster, My name is (name), and I run the web sites.: http://www.clickatest.co.uk/(PR>2) http://www.clickajob.co.uk/(PR>3) http://www.freshpromotion.com/ I recently found your site and am very interested in exchanging links. Y...

How to Use SEO: Leverage SEO To Be Found Online and Boost Your Online Marketing

All businesses that want to attract customers online, no matter the business size or age, have few options other than Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO In The Box™ by Results Driven Marketing®, LLC There are roughly 1.8 billion websites online, and basic SEO allows Google to find and index or catalog your webpages. After that, Google serves you up to searchers in the organic section. The question remains: where they list your site, on page one or page 22 or further back? SEO controls your positioning. Do you want to be found online or not? If your business is online or you want your product or service to be found online, then Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a must, and knowing how to use SEO to leverage the power of the internet is vital. Arguably, an effective SEO strategy gets you on the organic results section of the search engine results pages (SERP). Organic traffic is highly valuable and requires high-quality SEO. But even busines...

Email Campaign, Newsletter and Banner Ad Click-Through Rates (CTR)

When planning online advertising and email promotion budgets, it's critical to calculate the likely ROI upfront whenever possible, as well as to establish campaign benchmarks. The first step is understanding the average and likely range of CTRs for various programs. The growth in online advertising, the proliferation of enewsletters, the emergence of new forms of information delivery such as RSS and the emergence of social media sites have all affected CTR, so planning based on current data is crucial. It can be challenging to find current statistics, but based on several studies, these are typical CTR ranges for email newsletter ads, email campaigns (blasts or internally-produced enewsletters), and banner ads. Email newsletter advertisements Open rates range from 28-40%, with an average of about 33%—meaning that roughly one-third of the subscriber base is likely to see your ad. The Advertising Is Good For You blog tracks these statistics from DoubleClick . The average CT...

Fishing for B2B leads? Choose the right bait.

Fishermen (fisherpeople?) choose their bait based on the type and quantity of fish they hope to catch. On the lakes of Minnesota, worms and small leeches are great for catching sunfish, and if find a good spot, you can catch a lot of them in a short time. However, it's likely that you'll also end up throwing many of them back because they're too small to be "keepers." Bait such as sucker minnows or spinner lures will attract larger, more exciting prey like northern pike. These larger fish are more elusive, so you likely won't end up catching many, but each one will be larger and more fun to catch than a small panfish. The same principle holds true in b2b lead generation. Different types of b2b lead generation programs can be used to draw visitors to your landing page, but once there, your incentive for response is the bait that determines the quality and quantity of leads you'll "catch." The greater the involvement you require of respondents,...

Best of 2007: Web 2.0 Sites

A number of new social networking, social search, social bookmarking, and other Web 2.0-related websites and tools either got their start or got traction in 2007. Here are some of the most notable new sites and tools that made it onto the radar last year. Go2Web20.net Billed as "the complete Web 2.0 directory," this site has cataloged more than 2,000 Web 2.0 applications and services, searchable by an extensive list of tags and sortable by date and name. Snitter Snitter is a small desktop application that makes it easy to keep up with those you are following on Twitter, a social networking site that lets you keep "followers" up to date on what you're up to, and stay in the loop on what they're doing. KickApps A hosted web-based platform that enables webmasters and site owners to create, deploy and manage a branded social media community on any website. Socialtext An enterprise wiki tool that enables workgroups or organizations to create secure, group-editabl...

What is CRO and How Can It Skyrocket Your Conversion Rates? Expert Digital Marketing Strategies Revealed

‍ Image Source: FreeImages‍ ## Introduction to CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) In the world of digital marketing, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is a crucial strategy that can significantly impact your business's success. CRO focuses on improving the percentage of website visitors who take desirable actions, such as making a purchase, filling out a form, or subscribing to a newsletter. By optimizing your conversion rates, you can maximize the return on investment (ROI) of your digital marketing efforts. Why CRO is important for your business CRO is important for your business because it can directly impact your bottom line. By increasing your conversion rates, you can generate more leads, increase sales, and ultimately drive revenue growth. Instead of solely focusing on driving more traffic to your website, CRO enables you to make the most of your existing traffic by ensuring that a higher percentage of visitors convert into customers. In addition to boosting your revenue, C...

Top Notch Digital Marketing Tip: Google AdWords and PPC

MARKETING: 101 Looking for some online marketing strategy or social media tips to grow your business? Well, you’ve come to the right digital marketing resource! Web Market Central has been doling out the proper digital marketing advice for years. And as you already know, marketing to customers online is 100 times easier than using dated, expensive and traditional marketing tactics. Like seriously, who uses billboards in 2019? But you already know how effective digital marketing can be in the modern age. So now that you're totally convinced of what you already knew, let’s give you today's top-notch digital marketing tip! The Pure Unfettered Power of PPC (Pay-Per-Click) and PPC Campaigns Just like optimizing your site to rank for keywords, you can use our online marketing tips to pay to run advertisements on Google so that your business is shown on the first page of search engine results. Ranking this way is instantaneous whereas SEO (Search Engine Optimizati...

The Top 4 Ways to Use Social Networking for B2B PR

As noted here previously, from both the B2B vendor perspective and buyer perspective , social media is becoming an increasingly important channel for B2B communication. It's no longer just about teenagers discussing their favorite bands. Vendors are using social media to raise awareness and build market credibility, while B2B buyers are using these sites to seek out "the real story" on suppliers, products and services. With that in mind, here are four ways B2B vendors can use social media to spread their messages. 1. Get connected on Facebook and LinkedIn . Creating and maintaining a profile on both sites, then creating connections to other people you know, can pay B2B PR dividends in at least three ways: - Profiles (particularly those on LinkedIn) show up well in searches for terms related to your position (so make sure your profile includes those key terms). This makes you—and ultimately your company—easier to find. - You can link names of your executives use...