Having images on your site makes it a lot easier to read. We are visual people, and images should be used to help the reader understand your content or relate to it in some way. Pictures and other graphics also make your content seem less daunting. When your visitors come to your site and there …
As part of their continued effort to make mobile internet usage more user-friendly, Google changed their search algorithm to penalize pages that have “instrusive interstitials,” which refers to popups and popovers that cover the majority of the visible area. “They can frustrate users because they are unable to easily access the content that they were …
I came across this neat little tool the other day, and wanted to share it – the Call-to-Action Button Generator. I see a lot of websites with call to action buttons that don’t seem to fit in so well. Wrong color, wrong font, weird size/shape. It’s sad to see websites that people clearly worked very …
I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts lately while I work. I’m one of those people that can’t work in silence – the silence is actually distracting to me. So I work in coffee shops, or have the TV on in the background, or the radio, or, duh, podcasts. Listening to podcasts while I …
It’s January again – how did that happen? Well, okay, I know how it happened, but it just doesn’t seem like enough time has gone by for the Earth to have gone ALL the way around the sun again. But it has, and now is the perfect time to set yourself up for a great, productive …
It never fails – I’m scrolling through my Facebook stream and I see an article that I want to read, but know I don’t have time to read it just then. Sometimes I take a screenshot, so I can go back to the Page or Profile that posted it to find it later. Sometimes I …
Under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, there are certain conditions that have to be met for marketing emails to be sent from or to US residents. If you’re not familiar with those requirements, this video from the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) highlights seven things businesses that use email to promote their products or services need to …
MailChimp is a great email marketing platform, and is very user friendly to set up and get started with. In this video, I’m going to through step-by-step how to customize the design of your sign-up forms to coordinate with your website and more accurately convey your brand.
I was running around the house this morning, getting the kids ready for their respective destinations today. And it occurred to me that, on some level, marketing is like parenting. The basic tasks associated with marketing go something like this: define your target market determine their pain points – what do they need? find a …
For years, I’ve been watching everyone else do video marketing – tips, webinars, classes, product reviews, etc. And it always seemed like something that I didn’t have the right skillet to do. Or the right budget to pay someone to do for me. Until I found a 30 day video marketing challenge. Hm. The goal …
I was speaking with someone today about how using a Content Management System (CMS) can help them have more control over their small business website and was surprised to learn that she wasn’t familiar with the term. This was interesting to me as I thought it was a fairly well known term and was also …
SEO – WordPress provides good search engine optimization (SEO) right out of the box. There are always a few tweaks that can be made, but there are many SEO benefits that WordPress provides for free. Easy to learn & Use – Compared to other content management systems, it is so easy for someone to dive …
I applaud those that have the wherewithal and time to manage their own website. I really do. This may sound strange coming from someone who makes her living managing others’ websites but my goal is to make websites not look crappy. If you can’ t do that on your own, hire someone who can. If …
Several years ago, just after I opened my business, I sent out a round of letters to local real estate brokers. These letters were an introdution to the VA working model, and a listing of my services. I dutifully followed up on them by phone the following week, and got absolutely no response. Properly daunted, …