Google loves a website with built-in and well thought out SEO (search engine optimization). There are many other ways to improve your site’s optimization that SEO Experts will try to sell you – digital advertising, pay-per-click (PPC) ads … these have merit, but can’t compare to an already optimized from head-to-toe website.  SEO is important for businesses because it helps you attain visibility for search queries organically. This helps you earn rankings organically without paying for it time and time again. Ranking well in search results for queries related to your content, products, or services can increase your website traffic. This can translate into revenue if you convert prospects into customers. If you want to know how to make Google love you, keep reading.

Generally speaking, the more relevant your site content is to users searching for certain keywords, the higher within the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) you will appear.  On-site SEO is the process of optimizing the website itself. Google looks at both the public face of your website and the behind the scenes coding and technical set-up, so if you’re thinking either are unimportant to your overall SEO, you’d be wrong. Creative Juices Marketing does NOT specialize in SEO, but we hold current SEO expert certifications and we stay current in all of the new SEO trends.  We believe that the best way to set your business up for online success is to build your website with all of the right stuff from the very beginning and then analyze, update, and manage for any needed changes going forward.  Google changes, industries change, online searching changes … it’s best to have an expert keep a watchful eye to make sure you’re keeping up.  A maintenance fee of about $100 a month to take care of this and other programming updates is well worth it, in our estimation.  

What is Google Ranking?

Google’s ranking metrics are designed to sort out billions of web pages to meet search intent by offering the most relevant and useful results to searchers within the shortest time possible. Domains acquire ranking through Google’s algorithmic process that considers different factors to evaluate the quality, relevancy, and utility of an answer to a search query.

Here are some of the top factors in Google Ranking. There are 200+ other factors that Google takes into account, but these are the ones that you should focus on first if you’re interested in knowing how to make Google love you:

• Quality Content: Google wants to show users high-quality, informative, and relevant content.
• Backlinks: Links from other websites to your website are very helpful. They act like votes of confidence. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the higher your website will rank.
• Technical SEO: The technical aspects of your website, such as its website speed, mobile-friendliness, and crawlability. Make sure that your website is technically sound so that search engines can easily index and understand your content.
• Keyword Optimization: The process of using relevant keywords throughout your website’s content. This helps search engines understand what your website is about.
• User Experience (UX): A measure of how easy and enjoyable it is for users to use your website. Google wants to show users websites that provide a good UX.  If you have too many flying photos or shifting content, Google won’t like it.
• Social Signals: The more likes, shares, and other social interactions that your website’s content receives, the better. Make sure your website is built to encourage social interaction and that it’s easy to share it’s content.
• Brand Signals: Your website is the best representation of your brand.  It allows you to build brand perception.  Make sure that your site makes a solid brand impression so you are well-known and respected.

What Is SEO?

SEO is the process of improving a website’s ranking on the natural (unpaid) listings in Google. There are a number of factors Google considers when deciding where to rank a site, both on your website and externally. Hundreds of factors determine your position.

Google looks for relevant and helpful content within the body text of a page along with your page titles, header tags and a number of other factors.  One of the major factors Google uses to rank websites is their popularity, or more specifically the number of external links pointing at them. The more links you have from relevant and authoritative websites, the higher you’ll rank.

Google doesn’t like people gaming the system and building links.  They expect you to create content that people will naturally want to share and link to.  It is smart to utilize a range of social media and content marketing techniques to help earn the links you require to climb above your competitors.  Also, utilizing your website URL in every online listing of your business, every social media account and any other websites you might be connected to is extremely important.

Google provides a number of tools for your SEO arsenal. The most obvious is Google Analytics, which offers an in-depth analytics suite to help even the most basic user understand and improve traffic to their website. But Google Search Console gives the advanced search expert another perspective on planning and evaluating his or her search efforts and will help improve your website’s ranking In Google.

See also Importance Of Mobile Optimized Websites

Google Search Console: The Background

Google Search Console is essential for improving your Google ranking and for any strong SEO effort. It will help you see your website as Google sees it. The toolset gives you insights into what pages have been indexed on your site, what links are pointing to it, your most popular keywords, and much more. Having someone who knows how to use the search console and analyze your content is important.

A site that’s active on the Google Search Console has a better shot at being fully indexed and ranked well. There are also a number of deeper insights that can be turned into SEO tactical gold.

The Search Queries section is broken down into five main indicators:

• Query: Query gives you details on what keywords your site is currently ranked for. This is one of the fastest ways to decode whether your efforts to get on the map for a specific keyword are working. It’s important to remember that “rank for” means showing up in the SERPs – not necessarily actively attracting traffic (yet). This feature can help you quickly identify keywords that are relevant, but need a boost from linking or further content optimization.
• Impressions: If you’ve ever wondered how many people are seeing your website for a specific keyword search, this will tell you. This metric gives you a good sense of how many people are seeing specific sections of your content. This is another way to confirm the value of a keyword in addition to traffic data from the Google Keywords module and other tools.
• Clicks: Of the people who are seeing your site, how many are clicking? This information lets you know how many searchers seeing your site are taking action and clicking on your search result.
• CTR: Your CTR, or click-through rate, is the percentage of people that are clicking on your site in the search results. If your click-through rates are low, look at whether you can improve your meta description for that page. Can the content be made more relevant to the queries driving the most impressions for that page, or can you add a stronger call to action in the title tag or meta description? You should also consider the broader search landscape: is PPC activity driving traffic away from your branded results in the search, for example?
• Average Position: This metric tells you where your site typically ranks for each keyword. Since the vast majority of traffic goes to the sites in the top 2 positions for a given term, it’s helpful to see how you’re performing and the impact that has on your traffic.

See also Website Content Readability

Local SEO

Local SEO is about optimizing your website and related properties to increase local visibility and traffic. While it doesn’t apply to all businesses, it’s extremely important for those that have a local focus or a physical location.

Local SEO includes several factors, including optimizing your Google Business Profile, adding local business schema, researching and targeting local keywords, NAP (name, address, and phone number) citations, and more. The importance of search engine optimization for local businesses is unique. Your directory listings are important to your ability to be discovered, but monitoring them and making sure they’re accurate and effective also helps drive motivated customers to your business.

Focusing on organic search gives you the potential to attract even more traffic over time if you’re able to increase your rankings. Because  a clear correlation between high rankings and high click-through rates.

Organic SEO is obviously a more cost-effective way to drive traffic to your website compared to paid digital advertising, but it also works really well when combined with digital advertising.  With SEO, you have to spend on your website and on content production. But you don’t have to buy an ad placement.

Companies that invest in SEO tend to maintain or grow their results over time, even with reduced effort. But paid channels require continued ad spend to remain competitive.  So if you want to know how to make Google love you, it starts with a great website built with great organic SEO from the ground up.  Creative Juices Marketing and Advertising Agency is highly experienced in building search engine optimized websites that Google will really appreciate.  Call us to learn more 434 964 7511.

See also Why You Need A Responsive Website

The post How To Make Google Love You appeared first on Creative Juices Marketing Agency.

See also Website Content Readability

Visual Appeal

When people visit your site, they will see it as a reflection of your organization. If your site looks professional and is loaded with useful information, visitors will see you as an authority and expert. Likewise, if the site looks poorly designed and structured and/or out-of-date, they may make the same assumptions about your company. The website should highlight your product and/or service and the layout should look harmonious and consistent. If your website has blogs or articles that are dated, it makes sense to keep up posting and not look like you’ve neglected your site.

In general, as websites mature and grow, it often becomes apparent that certain parts just aren’t working well anymore. Website development is a complex thing. What makes your existing website tick will constantly be tested by new online technology sweeping through. You can’t just “set it and forget it” if you want your website to always look perfect. You may need to consider updating your website to achieve optimal effectiveness.

 Responsive & Mobile Friendly

If you don’t know this by now, the USA is a SMARTPHONE SOCIETY. We’re all spending on average 7 hours online on our smartphones every day. If you factor that the constant indexing updates that Google throws at us, ignoring the mobile market is a very risky business. The common practice to make a website mobile-friendly (responsive design).

Responsive Web Design is a collection of techniques that allow a website to flex and adapt to the size of the screen it’s being viewed on. Someone opening your site on a small smartphone could be shown on the same site as the person opening it on their laptop etc. For many businesses, it may even make sense to design your website “mobile-first”. If you haven’t updated your website in a while, chances are you may be driving mobile users and potential customers away.

Find information on our responsive on mobile website design.

Technique & Coding

Is your website browser compatible? Is your source code valid (HTML and CSS)? Does your website meet the basic web standards? Is the technique and/or (version) PHP programming language outdated? Do you have any idea about any of this? :) Every year web standards change radically and techniques to build websites become more advanced to comply with these latest standards. If your site was developed several years ago, it could have a lot of unnecessary HTML code, outdated SEO, non-optimized images and more. This all may be slowing down your website loads speeds – which may, in turn, impact your ranking in the Google search results. TEST YOUR SITE FOR YOURSELF – go to GTMetrix.com and put your businesses domain into it. Here’s how we graded:

We have no secrets here. GTMetrix is an actual Google tool that anyone “in the know” can use to see where their site’s weaknesses or strengths are. Performance, structure, layout, SEO, SO MANY THINGS make up your site and you want them to all be working at their optimum. Although you may be able to check your website’s grade yourself, what you do ABOUT issues may certainly concern you. That is why you should consider speaking with a website developer about your options. If website design isn’t what you do, it’s just not smart to rely on yourself to do it properly.

Content

Your website’s first impression really depends on the overall layout of it, but ultimately, the visitor is there because they are looking for useful information. A full site redesign could allow you to re-address how you communicate with all of your visitors and to write easy-to-understand copy that is specifically on target and more effective – remember, in the modern “go faster and faster” world you only have 2 to 4 seconds to engage new visitors.

The content of a website should be considered to be the most important thing, as it helps in determining how effective a website is. Fresh and unique website content is a very important factor in encouraging people to revisit your site more often.

If your website needs updating for optimal effectiveness OR if your business needs a new website developed, consider collaborating with Creative Juices Marketing Agency. We’ll use our creativity and ever-expanding experience to make sure your business is in the right position to compel your customer base, improve and build on your brand, and ultimately increase your revenue.  Contact Denise Hood at 434 964 7511.

The post Updating Your Website For Optimal Effectiveness appeared first on Creative Juices Marketing Agency.

A Great User Experience

Unintelligible copy on your website makes for a bad user experience. If you want people to understand your business, clearly state it. What services do you offer? What is your mission? Your website could have all of the latest technology and responsiveness for ease of navigation. The WORDS must be understandable and helpful.  Nobody likes to read something that’s difficult to follow, boring and/or overflowing with keywords. All of your online copy should be aimed and focused on your audience. It should be providing them with the information they need, a solution to their problem, or an answer to their question.  If you can do that, your audience will have a great user experience. Google will love you too.  Wasting time trying to trick the Google algorithm into high ranking your website isn’t necessary. Just give your audience what they’re looking for! 

Bottom line – Don’t repeat keywords because you think that’s what will draw people to you. Give helpful, intelligently-written content that lets visitors know they’ve come to the EXACT right place.

Get Your Site To Rank Higher Organically

You may think your content should be angled at “the bots”. Search engine bots are looking for cues to your site’s content on behalf of the search engine. It is MORE important that you provide great copy for your site’s visitors. THEY are the ones who USE the Search Engine’s to find you in the first place.  The user-experience on your website has a direct effect on your site’s organic SEO.  Google analyzes user signals (behavioral patterns) to determine how visitors relate to your site. For instance: if a user puts website design into Google’s search tool, Google gives them results that fit with that search.  If the user gets there and doesn’t find what they are searching for, they will bounce back to Google. This is a signal that the website does not fit the search query. It’s a sign to Google that the website they served up for that search is WRONG for it. Google uses this type of information to determine whether your site should come up for that specific search query. The content on your site needs to immediately show that it relates.

Bottom line – Thoughtfully written copy and strategically placed images should directly relate to the keywords that your audience will use to search for you.

Getting Higher Rankings On Google

There used to be a time when jamming keywords into your copy would improve your website’s rankings. Those times are long gone. Nowadays, you really need to consciously spread around your keywords in ways that read well.  Google has gotten really good at recognizing quality content.  It now recognizes synonyms, understands which words, entities, and content are related to each other.  In addition, search engines are becoming better at predicting what people want to read.  Whether you like it or not, those cookies (and we don’t mean chocolate chip) you pick up when you visit websites are being served up to search engines so they know more and more about what you’re looking for.  Search engines use that information to predict where users want to go. There is no guarantee for higher rankings. No SEO expert can promise that you’ll be at the top of the list. Getting higher rankings on Google is possible if the person writing your content really knows what they are doing.

Bottom line – keywords are very important, but use them carefully and be sure they flow with the surrounding content.

Google’s Algorithm

Overall, Google’s algorithm is trying to mimic a human. It tries to read text like a human would. As Google becomes more capable of understanding and scanning texts in a human-like way, readability will become even more important for your rankings. So, long story short, the trick to getting higher rankings on Google is writing easy-to-read content that is focused on your businesses purpose AND using keywords naturally and reasonably throughout your content.

Bottom line – Keep your copy smooth, concise, and interesting.  Is that too much to ask?  If you’re thinking so, GET HELP FROM AN EXPERT.

Accessibility Is Important

Keep in mind that not everyone who visits your website will experience it in the same way. Some people will visit on their phones while waiting for an appointment.  Reading lengthy text on a small device isn’t fun, even if the site is mobile responsive (which it SHOULD be). Much like Google itself, mobile users rely on the proper use of headings to understand what your text is about. Accessibility is important not only for mobile users, but any visitors to your website.

Bottom line – Well-written headers will lead your visitors right where they want to go and not scare off any mobile users.

Well-written headers will lead them right where they want to go.

See also The Importance of Mobile Optimized Websites

Readability For The Average Person

One of the most important things to remember with website content readability is making sure that the average person understands what you’re talking about. If I’m writing a blog about content writing (and I am), I won’t start throwing out a stream of tech terms and internet jargon that you folks may not have ever been exposed to. If I do use a tech term like Google’s algorithm, I’m going to hot-link it to an explanation of what it is. ;) In addition to that, the typical person visiting a website will scan through its text. They’ll read subheadings and the first sentences of the paragraphs they deem relevant. It’s very important that you get to the point and get there FAST. Again, remember –  All the things people do while reading your text are things Google will also do. That means that the structure of your text and the way you write your paragraphs becomes increasingly important. Core sentences – the first sentence of every paragraph – will need to contain the most important message. Making text easy to read and having a clear and logical structure in your text will be invaluable.

Bottom line – If your site considers the readability for the average person, it will be beneficial to the overall user experience AND the site’s search engine likeability.

Let’s Be Clear

Let’s be clear: your rankings won’t immediately soar when you improve the readability of your content. Improving your website content readability is an essential part of every SEO strategy. Strategically written content will result in more returning visitors and a higher conversion rate.

If your business needs help with your website content readability, consider hiring a professional marketing and advertising professional like Creative Juices Marketing Agency. We’ll use our creativity and experience to make sure your business is in the right position to compel your customer base, improve and build on your brand, and ultimately increase your revenue.  Contact Denise Hood at 434 964 7511 or send us this CONTACT FORM.

The post Website Content Readability appeared first on Creative Juices Marketing Agency.

Break Through The Noise

The normal human response to noise is to ignore it. That becomes impossible, though, when the noise is either very loud and annoying, or unforgettable. Most people will do everything they can to avoid loud noises, unless they are compelling ones. For example, it’s natural to tune out arguing neighbors or a screaming child. It’s just as natural to stop what you’re doing to listen to a songbird or a beautiful guitar solo. The latter noises are compelling, and that’s the type of “noise” you want your advertising to have.  It’s estimated that the average person sees and hears anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 branded messages every day.  Compare that to the average of 500 ads 40 years ago and you’ve got a whole lot of noise.

Why so many today? The enormous increase is due in large part to the ubiquity of smartphones and tablets. A recent Nielsen Company survey found that American adults spend more than 10½ hours consuming media daily, an hour more than the previous year. When you think about human reactions to noise, the important lesson becomes obvious. The best way to be noticed in the midst of advertising “noise” is to be compelling. And the most compelling ads are creative ones, which grab and maintain the viewer’s, reader’s or listener’s attention. The rest are just noise, which most people will avoid, ignore, or just plain overlook. As we said, creativity is a must!

Make It Memorable

Many ads are eminently forgettable, whether they’re on TV, in print or online; they often simply blend in with the noise and have no lasting impact. The best example is Super Bowl advertising. This past year, ads went for more than $5 million for each 30-second ad, and more than 50 unique commercials were shown during the game.  In surveys done a week or so after the Super Bowl, though, most people only remembered only a few of the ads.

Commercials which people do remember stick in their minds for one reason: creativity. Those who are old enough can still visualise the futuristic 1984 Super Bowl Apple ad, or the 1979 Coke commercial with Mean Joe Greene; they became classics. Similarly, the 2018 Super Bowl ads that people do still recall, even though they aired in a virtual blizzard of advertising during what many consider to be the

best game of all time, were memorable because they were creative.

Only a few companies are in the position to spend millions of dollars on a single ad, and online advertising costs just a fraction of that amount. But the important takeaway is the same as it is for Super Bowl advertisers: audiences remember creative, outside-the-box ads. Unexpected creativity seems to work best.

Viral

There’s never a guarantee that your advertising will go viral, but a strategy that gets you there is ideal.  Coming up with something that makes people say “Wow! I wish I had thought of that!” is the ultimate goal. Something people haven’t seen that’s clever and creative gives you your best chance at going viral. Being creative and engaging will ensure that your exposure and return is positioned to be great. Creativity is a must!

Budget

It might seem counterintuitive that you can save money by producing creative advertising. After all, hiring talented writers, artists, designers or directors – or paying an agency for conceptualizing and developing an

ad – sounds like a budget-busting expense. It just might be, unless the advertising is creative and effective – which is the only kind that will give you the exact results you’re looking for.  Additionally, hiring a good agency that is programmed to be mindful of your business’s brand, your customer bases’ needs and the professionalism you need to portray to them.

A study published in the Harvard Business Review was designed to measure the financial impact of creative ads. It found that every dollar invested in highly-creative advertising campaigns, particularly if the ads are artistic and elaborate or brilliantly illustrate a product benefit, returned twice as much revenue as money spent on “ordinary” ads.

There’s one other cost benefit: creative advertising that works well has a much longer shelf life than a series of moderately-effective (or ineffective) standard ads. Producing just a few creative gems can save a lot of money which would otherwise be spent on dozens of ordinary ads, benefitting a company’s bottom line.  Bottom line is, if you go cheap with your ad design, you will most likely be wasting both the money you spend having the cheap ads designed AND the money you spend to run them.  Moreover, you could damage your business’ image and cause potential customers/clients to doubt your ability to impress them.

Branding

Of all the 5 reasons that creativity is a must for businesses, this one is the “mustiest”.  If no one knows your business, no one will hire your business.  Being creative in promoting your brand will cause consumers to recognize and appreciate the effort you make to put your business in front of them. Even if they don’t remember the specific advertising over the long-term, and even if the ad doesn’t convince them to buy right away, there is a long-lasting positive effect on the company’s brand overall. A professional designer/creator of ads will know just how to grab your potential customer or client by the shirt and then make them smile at their cleverness.  That’s the goal anyway!  :)

Creative Advertising that gets attention and gets people to take action takes work and focus. Hiring a professional marketing and advertising professional like Creative Juices Marketing Agency is a smart way to make sure your business is in the right position to compel your customer base, improve and build on your brand, and ultimately increase your revenue.  If your business needs creative advertising, whether it be print, radio, tv or digital advertising; contact Denise Hood at 434 964 7511 or send this CONTACT FORM

See also Ultimate List Of Graphic Design Tips

The post 5 Reasons Creativity Is A Must appeared first on Creative Juices Marketing Agency.

1. Mobile Users are Different

Mobile users have different objectives than desktop users and typically this means they want information in quick, easily digestible bites. Customers report that their mobile purchases are often impulse buys and some statistics show that mobile users spend more money per purchase than customers do on desktop websites.

This underscores the importance of optimizing your mobile experience to match a visitor’s needs and behaviors in the context of how they will most likely be browsing your website. By making the path to purchase or enquiry simple and intuitive you’ll align more precisely with mobile users who need information rapidly to make decisions on the fly.

2. Mobile Gets Traffic

With one-quarter of global web searches conducted on a mobile device by over a billion users worldwide, mobile websites are just as important, if not more so, than desktop versions. Multiple sources report that smartphone users are engaging with mobile websites and apps while watching TV, commuting to work, and simultaneously while using a computer.

As Google made clear with last year’s Hummingbird update the future of search is mobile and websites that aren’t usable on handheld devices will see their search rank suffer for it.

3. Better Brand Engagement

People like your brand more when you offer a satisfying mobile experience and they’re more likely to return to your website later on a desktop. 90 percent of people report moving between devices, or “multi-screening”, to accomplish a task. When your mobile experience is optimized for functionality and consistency it fosters trust and affinity with users.

On the other hand if your mobile website is difficult to navigate customers are more likely to go to the competition than to visit you on a desktop computer. If you can’t provide what they need when they need it you will have lost the opportunity for the sale and risk losing a customer permanently to a competitor.

4. Increased Conversions

Desktop websites in mobile browsers are ineffective at converting visitors into buyers. Calls to action (CTAs) are often obscured, links are difficult to click and contact pages are buried in awkward menus. Mobile shoppers have little patience for an unwieldy website and one-third of them will leave a transaction if the site isn’t optimized for mobile.

To make the most of mobile, CTAs should be clear and easy to click and contact information should be one of the first things visitors see. 80 percent of shoppers admit that mobile purchases are impulse-driven and that they’re more likely to purchase from and interact with a brand that offers an engaging mobile experience.

5. Reduce Your Bounce Rate

Content that looks great on a desktop might be unreadable on a mobile device. Visitors won’t stay on your site if they have to pinch and zoom or squint at illegible type, or worse yet if it runs flash or anything that requires add-ons to display in a browser. If your website isn’t optimized professionally for mobile your bounce rate on mobile devices is going to be extremely high. By providing mobile visitors with an appropriate and intuitive user experience you will obviously engage visitors longer and drive more of them to purchase or enquire.

Mobile Health Check: Pick up your smartphone and go to your website. Ask yourself these questions:

• Does it load in less than three seconds?
• Does it draw your eye to your key selling points or message?
• Is the content easy to read?
• Is it easy to navigate?
• Is it easy to recognize and activate the call to action?
• Does it provide a good user experience?
• Is it a website you would spend time if it was not your own?

If you mostly answered “no”, then it’s time to update your website and capture the traffic and sales you’ve been missing out on.

Hopefully, you are now clear on the importance of mobile optimized websites.  Creative Juices Marketing is highly informed of the most effective and efficient ways to build websites. Give us a call to talk to us about how we can create or update your business’s website.  434 964 7511 or CONTACT US.

See also Top Website Trends 2021 and Why You Need A Responsive Website

The post The Importance Of Mobile Optimized Websites appeared first on Creative Juices Marketing Agency.

See also Website Content Readability

Glassmorphism – bringing a sense of depth to your website

Website designers have come up with some pretty clever tricks to give their work a sense of physicality. It’s very important that visitors feel interested, intrigued and comfortable on a website. Adding dimensionality to the design, for instance, if we combined a blur effect with transparency, pixels take on the slightly opaque quality of frosted glass. Extravagant gradients, heavy drop shadows, and excessive reflections are dominated websites. Textures meant to look like plastic, metal, and even wood grain are very popular. As exciting trends in website design go, this one is a cool one! Below is an example of glassmorphism.

App-Like Design Experiences – small, clean and user experience focused

Looking forward, it seems that smaller, experience-focused sites are the future of web design. Getting directly to the point of what you WANT from the user right away in a clean, simple way. The world has gotten used to apps, where interaction, animation, and dynamic experiences are the norm. The logical next step is bringing that energy to websites and creating more unique experiences there.

Some imagine we’re headed back to times where sites were self-contained, esoteric, and curious. But new tools for site building make dynamic, interaction-focused designs significantly easier to build.

One Page Websites – keep it simple, stupid :)

Sometimes the most effective sites are the least complex ones. We have seen the increasing popularity of the one-page website that forgoes menus and navigation in favor of simple scroll navigation. One-page sites work best when the business’s subject matter is narrower without so many complex offerings.

Basically, good one page websites offer the visitor ALL of the information they need right in front of them. This delivers a better user experience because they’ll get a complete overview of what your business has to offer them without having to click away. That’s not to say you can’t have additional pages that offer more in depth information, but essentially, you’re giving the user a way to ‘skim’ your offerings all on one page. On the list of exciting trends in website design, this one is a little tame, but it also perfectly suits the way most people are absorbing information these days.

See also 5 Reasons Creativity Is A Must

Oversized Typography – bold design trends

Typography of unusually large size is a fresh, bold website design trend for this year. At a certain size, words become more of a graphic element than simply part of the copy. This is a versatile technique that can be used in minimalist or maximalist designs alike.

Motion Design – subtle, playful movement

Now that we’re talking about interactivity, it’s time to talk about responsible motion design, which we see starting to become a standard practice. While movement is an intriguing facet of web design, it’s easy to not go overboard, so motion should be used in subtle ways and responsibly. Take a look at the Lady Street Builders website that we designed. Scroll down to the READY TO COLLABORATE section and you’ll see how we added a subtle movement to the background photo. This draws the user’s eye to this very important section and also makes you feel that you’re touring the inside of a home as well.

Page Speed Prioritization – reacting to Google’s 2021 algorithm update

On the technical side of exciting trends in website design, page speed has become even more of front-of-mind consideration for web developers this year. Google’s 2021 algorithm update makes speed a more important consideration for SEO. This also reflects a users’ higher expectations for site speed performance since research shows that 53% of users will abandon a page that takes more than 3 seconds to load. To improve the user experience, website speed is essential. Google PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse are tools that can be used to assess your page speed optimization if you’d like to check your website’s speed. Good website developers use optimized images, specific fonts, and keep the access to a minimum. The best way to prioritize speed is to do it from the very beginning.

If your business needs a new website developed and employ these exciting new trends in website design, Creative Juices Marketing Agency is here to help! We’ll use our creativity and ever-expanding experience to make sure your business is in the right position to compel your customer base, improve and build on your brand, and ultimately increase your revenue.  Contact Denise Hood at 434 964 7511 or send us this CONTACT FORM.

The post Exciting Trends In Website Design appeared first on Creative Juices Marketing Agency.

Social Commerce

Social commerce (the use of social network in the context of e-commerce- ie selling products online) is nothing new, but it is probably going to dominate social media in 2022. Consumers want to have experiences in the places where they are already spending time. We will see more brands testing shoppable functionality on all social media platforms. From shop buttons to livestreams to ads to influencers, the ‘social sale’ will be at the forefront of smart social strategies for product-selling businesses.

Customer Service

Businesses will find that getting back to the basics of relationship building and customer service on their social media platforms would be VERY beneficial. Communicating and connecting on social media was always what it was there for, but from a business’s standpoint, it hasn’t really been a thing in the past. Business accounts were communicating the SELL SELL SELL ideas to drive revenue – which is their main goal. More recent social media trends show businesses that leverage a more personal communication with their audience are also building trust and loyalty within that group. I realize that organic engagement is tough, but people just don’t want to be treated like they aren’t important or focused on. Working the customer service angle on social media will be a very important trend for businesses in the future.

Recruiting

As Gen-X and Z-ers search for workforce opportunities, social media strategies must shift to meet them on their preferred platforms. Facebook’s popularity (57%) among Gen X-ers barely trails behind YouTube (60%); while Instagram (37%), TikTok (20%), and Snapchat (20%) follow at a distance.  Among Gen Z adults, however, falls behind YouTube (69%) and Instagram (67%). Using next-gen social platforms such as TikTok for employer branding and recruiting will be critical for both B2C and B2B in 2022. While TikTok videos aren’t heavily branded, they provide a great opportunity to humanize your brand and give talent a behind-the-scenes view of life at your company.

Showcasing Your Human Side

We talked a little about this earlier, but something that should never go out of style is a business being HUMAN on social media. Consumers are sizing up more than products and services in their social feeds. They are looking at how aligned a brand is to its purpose, mission and social issues. Marketers should lean into this and use social media to showcase their brand’s personality and perspective. Showcasing your human side will also make your audience feel they know you better and to KNOW you is to TRUST you. It’s a win win!

Dominating Video Content

Video content remains one of the most engaging forms of content on Social Media. According to a Cisco study, by 2022, 82% of all online content will be video content. This clearly shows how important it is to start utilizing dominating video content to stay relevant in the social media domain.

If your business is interested in leveraging the latest social media trends but doesn’t quite know where to start, Creative Juices Marketing Agency is here to help! We’ll use our creativity and ever-expanding experience to make sure your business is in the right position to compel your customer base, improve and build on your brand, and ultimately increase your revenue.  Contact Denise Hood at 434 964 7511 or send us this CONTACT FORM.

The post Leveraging Social Media Trends appeared first on Creative Juices Marketing Agency.

With the number of internet users increasing day by day, the count of social media users is also at its peak. Day by day, different social media platforms are launched that deliver unique features which convert visitors into regular users. But as the numbers of social media platforms are increasing, they are also showing a remarkable capability to convert the users into verified customers. Social media experts play a vital role in increasing your business’s online visibility and driving traffic to your website.  Creative Juices Marketing Agency maintains the social media marketing for numerous businesses, but Social Media Guru is not what we call ourselves, although we are most certainly social media enlightened 😁 If you are planning to maintain your social media accounts, we have some tips for you:

Update Your Profiles

Proceeding ahead without knowing the different social platforms will totally be a waste of time. There are numerous social platforms, but few of them are famous and are highly visited by the global users. So, you must have a working hand on all those platforms.  1 million new active mobile social users are added every day. To target such a huge audience, you need to be purely familiar with the platforms you are going to work on.

Be In Contact With Experts

If you have decided to maintain your social media marketing in house, you may still want someone with experience to get the ball rolling in the right direction first.  Without proper guidance, you’ll spend a great deal of time testing the waters and running different experiments to find out what your audience will respond to.  You don’t necessarily need an in-house social guru, but and expert and influencer in social media marketing could set up strategies that work for your business and guide someone within the business to maintain it going forward.  That way, you’ll at least be heading in the right direction with your campaign.

Read Articles On Social Media Marketing

There are many online companies that publish articles on how-to, tips or tricks for successful social media marketing. Make an effort to stay informed on the latest strategies.  The online world is ever-changing and we just need to make an effort to keep up. Now read this one that we wrote – Power of Social Media

Attend Webinars/ Events

To be the best, you have to spend some time learning from the best.  Experts from all over the globe hold numerous webinars and events you could attend. So, if possible, you must visit as many events as possible. In such events, experts from different countries share their success mantra or any tips that can be helpful for the others.  You can note each and every tip and execute them on the available social platforms. After you attend any conference, you will acquire a level of confidence that will help you to execute different strategies successfully.

See also Social Media

If you are looking to become your business’s social media guru, we hope these tips have helped.  Hiring a professional marketing and advertising professional like Creative Juices Marketing Agency is a smart way to make sure your business is in the right position to compel your customer base, improve and build on your brand, and ultimately increase your revenue.  If your business needs someone to strategize, maintain and manage your company’s Social Media Marketing campaigns; contact Denise Hood at 434 964 7511 or send us this CONTACT FORM.

The post Social Media Guru appeared first on Creative Juices Marketing Agency.

Retro Fonts

As with fashion and music, many old things become cool again, and then in turn become even more UNcool.  Amongst the new website design trends, retro fonts have experienced this same type of ebb and flow in their popularity, and many designs featuring vintage typography haven’t aged well.  However, throwback typography has made a comeback. We’re not seeing the same tired fonts like Arial and Times Roman. Rather, stylization and a bit of artistry are reimagining what retro fonts can be.  You’ll notice this trend emerging on Spotify’s Carnival Sound promotion. Instead of feeling stale and cliche, they actually use the design to breathe new life into traditional bold fonts by mixing them with a retro font and feel. Making traditional fonts cool again with a modern spin, but still AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, maintaining legibility.

Multimedia Experiences

With most people having access to faster internet speeds, multimedia web experiences are popping up everywhere. This new website design trend brings together text, images, video, and audio makes for a much more rounded user experience – and a more unique one.  There are some important things to keep in mind:

• Keep it simple.  If you have too much going on, it can be distracting and even overwhelming.
• Make sure to maximize accessibility of content with thoughtful layouts.
• Include closed captioning and transcripts if using pre recorded multimedia in your design.
• Always include alt text for images, and accompany complex images with longer descriptive text.
• Ensure that all text used in your design is made with HTML rather than embedded into your images.  They won’t work for you otherwise.
• Avoid auto playing video or motion content. Instead, provide a clear “play” button that allows the user the option to play and pause the content.

Use Textured Backgrounds and Muted Colors

Rigid grids and flat blocks of solid color can really drain the personality from a website design. Grainy textures can give them a more natural and organic feel.  There’s beauty in graininess and lo-fi design elements that feel more warm and homey than the slick perfection that’s commonplace in many web designs.  Subdued colors are very appealing in new website design as well.  Muted colors are the perfect backdrop to the hand-drawn styled text and illustrations. 

From the ever-expanding no code movement to cool retro typography there’s a lot of new website trends to be excited about.  The last year and a half hasn’t been easy.  Gallons of hand sanitizer, awkward Zoom meetings, homes filled with toilet paper and the looming anxiety of uncertainty have made us all a little nutso, but gave us plenty of room (and alone time) to be very creative with our website layout ideas.

Retro Fonts

As with fashion and music, many old things become cool again, and then in turn become even more UNcool.  Amongst the new website design trends, retro fonts have experienced this same type of ebb and flow in their popularity, and many designs featuring vintage typography haven’t aged well.  However, throwback typography has gone through a bit of a resurgence. We’re not seeing the same tired fonts like Arial and Times Roman. Rather, stylization and a bit of artistry are reimagining what retro fonts can be.  You’ll notice this trend emerging c8 on Spotify’s Carnival Sound promotion. Instead of feeling stale and cliche, they actually use the design to breathe new life into traditional bold fonts by mixing them with a retro font and feel. Making traditional fonts cool again with a modern spin, but still AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, maintaining legibility.

Read also:  Ultimate List Of Graphic Design Tips

Multimedia Experiences

With most people having access to faster internet speeds, multimedia web experiences are popping up everywhere. This new website design trend brings together text, images, video, and audio makes for a much more rounded user experience – and a more unique one.  There are some important things to keep in mind:

• Keep it simple.  If you have too much going on, it can be distracting and even overwhelming.
• Make sure to maximize accessibility of content with thoughtful layouts.
• Include closed captioning and transcripts if using pre recorded multimedia in your design.
• Always include alt text for images, and accompany complex images with longer descriptive text.
• Ensure that all text used in your design is made with HTML rather than embedded into your images.  They won’t work for you otherwise.
• Avoid auto playing video or motion content. Instead, provide a clear “play” button that allows the user the option to play and pause the content.

Use Textured Backgrounds and Muted Colors

Rigid grids and flat blocks of solid color can really drain the personality from a website design. Grainy textures can give them a more natural and organic feel.  There’s beauty in graininess and lo-fi design elements that feel more warm and homey than the slick perfection that’s commonplace in many web designs.  Subdued colors are very appealing in new website design as well.  Muted colors are the perfect backdrop to the hand-drawn styled text and illustrations.

From the ever-expanding no code movement to cool retro typography there’s a lot of new website trends to be excited about.  The last year and a half hasn’t been easy.  Gallons of hand sanitizer, awkward Zoom meetings, homes filled with toilet paper and the looming anxiety of uncertainty have made us all a little nutso, but gave us plenty of room (and alone time) to be very creative with our website layout ideas.

Retro Fonts

As with fashion and music, many old things become cool again, and then in turn become even more UNcool.  Amongst the new website design trends, retro fonts have experienced this same type of ebb and flow in their popularity, and many designs featuring vintage typography haven’t aged well.  However, throwback typography has gone through a bit of a resurgence. We’re not seeing the same tired fonts like Arial and Times Roman. Rather, stylization and a bit of artistry are reimagining what retro fonts can be.  You’ll notice this trend emerging on Spotify’s Carnival Sound promotion. Instead of feeling stale and cliche, they actually use the design to breathe new life into traditional bold fonts by mixing them with a retro font and feel. Making traditional fonts cool again with a modern spin, but still AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, maintaining legibility.

2r1

Multimedia Experiences

With most people having access to faster internet speeds, multimedia web experiences are popping up everywhere. This new website design trend brings together text, images, video, and audio makes for a much more rounded user experience – and a more unique one.  There are some important things to keep in mind:

• Keep it simple.  If you have too much going on, it can be distracting and even overwhelming.
• Make sure to maximize accessibility of content with thoughtful layouts.
• Include closed captioning and transcripts if using pre recorded multimedia in your design.
• Always include alt text for images, and accompany complex images with longer descriptive text.
• Ensure that all text used in your design is made with HTML rather than embedded into your images.  They won’t work for you otherwise.
• Avoid auto playing video or motion content. Instead, provide a clear “play” button that allows the user the option to play and pause the content.

Use Textured Backgrounds and Muted Colors

Rigid grids and flat blocks of solid color can really drain the personality from a website design. Grainy textures can give them a more natural and organic feel.  There’s beauty in graininess and lo-fi design elements that feel more warm and homey than the slick perfection that’s commonplace in many web designs.  Subdued colors are very appealing in new website design as well.  Muted colors are the perfect backdrop to the hand-drawn styled text and illustrations.

Scrollytelling

How do you like that term?  Nice, huh?  We’ve seen a growing trend in website designers using visual storytelling in their layouts.  Compelling users to continue on through the website.  The best applications of scrollytelling practice restraint:

• Keep motion within a small area.
• Provide interactions on the user’s terms: provide obvious playback controls to play/pause/stop interactions and motions.
• Make sure that any scrollytelling elements help to emphasize the story, rather than distracting from important text.

Custom cursors

Cursors are probably one of the most overlooked aspects of web design. When a designer can take this insignificant part of a website and turn it into something cool, this is quite the achievement.  Check out this website The Pen Tool.  They take their circular cursor one step further with animation and text coming together for an almost psychedelic effect.

Read also:  Why You Need A Responsive Website

If you’re thinking of have a new website developed, knowing some of the new website design trends from 2021 can help you wrap your head around what you’re looking for.  Hiring a professional marketing and advertising professional like Creative Juices Marketing Agency is a smart way to make sure your business is in the right position to compel your customer base, improve and build on your brand, and ultimately increase your revenue.  If your business needs creative advertising, whether it be print, radio, tv or digital advertising; contact Denise Hood at 434 964 7511 or send this CONTACT FORM.

The post New Website Design Trends appeared first on Creative Juices Marketing Agency.

Digital marketing is cost-effective

One of the biggest benefits of online marketing is that it is cost-effective. Digital marketing helps you save money and obtain more leads.  Digital marketing can put all businesses on the same playing field. It is an affordable way to market your business to interested consumers. Many digital marketing and advertising methods are budget-friendly.  Not all businesses have the marketing budget to keep up with their much larger competitors and, while you do need to spend money to increase your reach, digital marketing is flexible enough to allow you to target your audience closely and keep your costs reasonable.

The most significant cost of digital marketing is time. It can take time to implement strategies and develop results from those strategies. The results, however, are well worth the investment of your time.

Digital marketing is measurable

When you invest money into a marketing campaign, you want to track the results of the campaign. It’s important to know if a strategy is driving results that help your business grow. One of the most significant benefits of a digital marketing strategy is the ability to measure your results.  There is no clear way to track the origin of leads with traditional methods beyond asking every person that visits your business. With digital marketing methods, you can accurately track the results of your campaign within the dashboard, from Social Media to Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  You can track various metrics with each campaign. This includes impressions, clicks, comments, shares, conversions, and more. It makes it easy for you to know how your campaign is performing.

Tracking your results leads to campaign improvements. You can see what’s working for your business and what isn’t. You’ll get insight into your campaign to see how you can improve it.  By measuring your results, you’ll run better campaigns for your business.

Digital marketing allows you to target ideal customers

To have an effective marketing campaign, you must reach the right people. You have to reach people interested in your business and that want to hear from you. Out of all the perks, the most significant advantage of online marketing is the ability to target people specifically.

Targeting people with traditional marketing methods is difficult. Generally, your message goes to everyone in hopes of reaching people interested in your business. It’s a challenge to obtain enough leads to justify your marketing costs.

With digital marketing, you reach people interested in your business. You can specifically target consumers with interest in your company, services, or products. It’s a level of depth that traditional marketing can’t match.  When you create other marketing strategies, you create digital buyer personas. These are made-up people that mimic your ideal customer. You use these personas to target people who are most likely to want your products or services.

Whether you create a Facebook or other pay-per-click (PPC) ad, you’ll set your target audience. You’ll define your audience by attributes such as age, gender, occupation, interests, hobbies, and more. With platforms like Facebook, you can get extremely specific with the audience you target. Oh, and by the way, in case you think Facebook is a dumb place to advertise, let me tell you that 2.89 billion people are there BY CHOICE waiting to see your ads.  Print and Broadcast media don’t allow you to choose the age, interests, location of your audience.  Being able to narrow your focus helps you reach people more interested in your business. It allows you to spend your budget more effectively and obtain more valuable leads for your company.

Digital marketing allows you to reach people at the start of the buying journey

When shoppers start looking for a product, it’s crucial that you make an impact as soon as possible. You want them to get familiar with your business and choose your company over the competition. The benefits of digital marketing include being able to get YOUR business into their brains even before they even know they want what you’re selling.

People often turn to the Internet at the start of the buying journey. They begin to research and look for a product or service that fits their needs. If you offer the product or service they want, it’s the right time to make a positive impact.  Your audience is looking to learn more about products or services to educate themselves. By utilizing online marketing, you can direct these users to your page to provide them with the information they need.

In doing this, you build brand exposure. These users have your business burned into their brain and they’ll learn more about it. Whether it’s through your social account or content, you’ll expose people to your company and brand.  Even if leads don’t convert right away, they will remember your business. When they get closer to the conversion stage, they will remember your company and choose your business over the competition.  This advantage of online marketing can help businesses like yours compete with competitors and grow.

Digital marketing enables you to make changes as you go

One of the biggest benefits of digital marketing is that you can make changes as you go. This is unique to digital marketing.  With traditional methods, once your ad is in the magazine or your billboard is up, you can’t alter it until the end of your campaign, meaning no matter what changes about your business, your ad stays the same.  When you invest in online marketing, you have the power to make changes whenever.

You can update your PPC campaigns, tweak your social media ads, optimize your SEO campaigns, and update your content as you need. This means you can adapt your campaign to drive the best results, whatever your call-to-action may be.

Digital marketing improves your conversion rate

Perhaps one of the most notable benefits of digital marketing is the improvement of your conversion rate. When you invest in online marketing strategies, like conversion rate optimization (CRO), you can increase your conversion rate.

This is due to your ability to target more specific leads. When you focus on people more likely to be interested in your business, you increase your chances of earning a conversion. Your company earns more conversions, which helps you grow.

Hopefully, you are now clear on the benefits of digital marketing.  Creative Juices Marketing is highly informed of the most effective and efficient ways to create digital marketing strategies. Give us a call today – 434 964 7511 or CONTACT Creative Juices Marketing.

See also Elements Of Business Branding

The post Benefits of Digital Advertising appeared first on Creative Juices Marketing Agency.