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 Likewise, if the site looks poorly designed and structured and/or out-of-date, they may make the same assumptions about your company.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 Is the technique and/or (version) PHP programming language outdated?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 If your site was developed several years ago, it could have a lot of unnecessary HTML code, outdated SEO, non-optimized images and more.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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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Web developers seem to have risen to the 2021 occasion by exploring many different avenues of visual communication that will increase levels of engagement. This includes novelty typography art, unusual color schemes, unique and lively videos and more.

Typography Trends For Websites

The old belief of using sans serif fonts as the go-to font style for web design has been changing with the times. Indeed, sans serif fonts have always been loved by web designers for their sleek legibility and simple structure. In 2021, screen sizes and resolutions are larger and clearer than they once were. Contrary to their “outdated” predecessors, the screens we now design for are more inviting to decorated, heavier serif fonts. Larger screens, for example, enable serif fonts to appear less cluttered and more readable — thanks to increased space around the words. Likewise, the higher resolution makes the heavier or more illustrious letters look clearer. Utilizing more unique typography is one of the most important, top website trends for 2021.

Take a look at the top 10 most popular serif fonts for websites HERE!

There are also new and exciting website plugins that allow designers to now use circular and wavy text paths on websites. Anything that is eye-catching and unique is terrific. Take a look at Elementor’s Text Path Widget.

Lastly on the typography trends for websites is EMOJIS. Whether two people are 1,000 miles apart or 5 feet apart in the same house, people are constantly interacting through type. This includes emails, texting, social media, messaging applications, and more. Communication has grown far beyond words – playful emojis inserted within written text elements are now an essential part of digital design plans. The rising popularity of emojis has made its way to the web designer’s tool box, too. Web creators are leveraging these illustrated gestures in a language familiar to users of all ages and backgrounds. Communicating with target audiences of all languages and dialects thrives on this technique — your brand voice can now be heard in a visual, non-verbal way.

Color Design Trends For Websites

Using light colors in website design represents one of the biggest differences between print and web design. The quality and visibility of light colors often get compromised when used in print design — losing their richness and boldness. Light colors have the opposite effect on-screen, and may even be preferred over dark, bolder colors. The screen’s sharpness and clarity can actually cause dark colors to be overbearing and even stressful to look at. Designers have now embraced the advantage of using light colors in order to avoid the latter. In fact, light colors are also conducive to user engagement.

At the other end of the color spectrum lies a color trend of an entirely different nature – Negative Colors. More and more designers have been gravitating towards using very bold colors, with an emphasis on primary colors: red, blue and yellow. This often involves multiple deeply contrasting primary color combinations that make you think of comic books and 90s retro style. It goes without saying that these types of color palettes often target younger audiences, accentuating an upbeat, exciting vibe. Negative colors in website design would not convey the professionalism of a doctor or lawyer’s website, for example. A gym or video production company – YES.

Images and Illustration Trends In Website Design

Once upon a time in the journalism industry, printing in color was not an option. To add artistic effects to their content, newspapers would feature black and white, hand-drawn designs created by cartoonists. This unique, cartoon-inspired style compensated for the lack of colored visuals and imagery. In digital design, however, color has never been an issue. The issue now is to always STAND OUT and in this 2021 world of COLOR, those same tricks used ‘back in the day’ in print are being used for their now fresh uniqueness in website design today!

All that being said, texture-based illustrations created digitally inevitably causes them to look slightly different to their hand-drawn predecessors. Whether identical to the original style of texture-based illustrations or not, it’s exciting to see this design trend reappear in the top website trends of 2021 because they are darn cool.

The artistic style of the 90s era has also made its comeback in web design trends — this time in the form of simple shape motifs integrated throughout design schemes. These simplistic, two-dimensional shape illustrations boast one shade of color and no depth or texture. These basic shapes may also have text written on them and are often reminiscent of stickers-design from the 80s or 90s. These shapes may also be used as buttons (either static or animated), or as a sticker that informs us about a limited time promotion. No matter what these stickers look like or entail, their common goal is to draw the attention of the website visitor.

Using creative and a-typical imagery on a website draws a great deal more attention than common, straightforward photos. Conceptualized photography that is thought-provoking and unusual will intrigue website visitors and make them think. Beyond the basics of that, many e-commerce websites are using 3D simulations to allow shoppers to see the product “in real life”. 2021 trends are bringing even further-enhanced 3D visualization techniques, with detailed intricacies and extremely high resolutions.

There you have it, the top website trends of 2021. If your business needs assistance with outstanding and on-the-edge website design, graphic design, social media marketing, or other content creation; feel free to contact Creative Juices Marketing Agency to discuss.  Call 434 964 7511 or click to CONTACT US.

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Ask yourself, where is your website traffic coming from? Did you know 93% of experiences on the Internet start with a search engine? What happens after someone makes a search? If you’re relying on people to find you through a Google search, search engine optimization (SEO) needs to be at the top of your priority list. You won’t be able to generate leads for your business if no one can find you.

The reason why other websites are ranking higher than you on Google is because they are making a consistent and conscious effort to improve their SEO. There are certain things you can do to increase your chances of getting ranked higher on Google searches.

See also Website Content Checklist

Improve your page loading speed – speedy is best

If your load speed is too slow, Google will recognize this, and it will harm your ranking. But a slow website will also impact the way your website visitors engage with your pages. Many will leave quickly and, as a result, those negative interactions will hurt your ranking too.

Research shows 40% of visitors will abandon websites if the page takes longer than 3 seconds to load. What’s even more shocking is that 80% of those visitors won’t return to that website. This is terrible for your SEO ranking because it ultimately kills traffic to your site.

But on the flip side, if your page loads fast, people will keep coming back. Google’s algorithm will recognize your website’s popularity and adjust your search ranking accordingly. This makes it extremely important to optimize both your page speed and server response time.

If you want to test the speed of your website, there are online services such as Pingdom or GTMetrix are available for free.

Produce high quality content – How often do you update your website?

If you haven’t touched your website since the day you built it, you probably don’t have a great SEO ranking right now. To drive more traffic to your website and increase its popularity, you need to give visitors a reason to keep coming back.

Your content needs to be high quality, recent, and relevant. You can obtain that by writing blogs, have a social media feed on your site, or just updating information on whatever new news your business has.

Another factor that impacts your SEO ranking is so-called ‘dwell time’. This relates to how much time people spend on your website per visit. If your site has fresh, exciting, or newsworthy information, it will keep visitors on your page longer and improve your dwell time. Websites that provide highly informative content typically have longer dwell times.  Make the cha cha cha changes to high quality website content and you’ll improve your website SEO.

See also Tips For Writing Compelling Content

Optimize your images – Pictures and other images are great for your website

But you need to make sure they are optimized properly if you want these images to improve your SEO ranking. I’m referring to factors such as the file format and size. Huge images can slow your page loading time, which, as I’ve said, hurts your ranking.  Always resize or compress your images to optimize them before adding them to your website.

It is also important that you use your images to sneak in keywords by naming them accordingly. For example, let’s say you have a website that promotes your authentic Mexican cuisine, you might want to name an image ‘awesome handmade guacamole’ rather than ‘avocado’.  Strategically use keywords in the title of your image as well as the caption or description and do it in every single image and you’ll improve your website SEO.

Start blogging – it’s great for your business

Blogging is an outstanding tool for lead generation and helps you engage with visitors to your website, but most of all, blogging can improve your website’s SEO rankings.  As I’ve mentioned above – producing fresh, updated, and relevant content can drive people to your website and give them a reason to stay on your pages for a while.  Well, blogs are the perfect channel for you to accomplish this.

If you can establish a large group of faithful readers, you can get lots of traffic to your site on a daily basis.  Plus, you can incorporate other things I talked about so far into your posts as well, such as images and header tags.  Other elements, such as links, increased readability, and keywords, can also be incorporated into these posts.  All of this positively impacts your search engine ranking.

See also Benefits Of Blogging

If you don’t feel comfortable writing your own blogs, one of the many services Creative Juices Marketing Agency offers is Ghost Blogging.  You could leave the work to us!  See ghost blogging

While there are many more ways you can use cha cha cha changes to improve your website’s SEO, we will stop here.  We hope these tips will help you.  Let us know if we can help further. If you need assistance with website design, graphic design, social media marketing, or content creation to promote your business; feel free to contact Creative Juices Marketing Agency to discuss.  We’d love to help you!  Call 434 964 7511 or click to CONTACT US.

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Go mobile!

With 79% of internet users conducting online shopping via mobile devices, you should be embarrassed if your website isn’t mobile-friendly. This is not optional, although many still treat it like it is. If you do digital advertising, don’t forget to create mobile-preferred ads that are tailored to this audience — and make it as easy as possible for them to convert. Direct link to your website and/or use call extensions so they can simply click to call your business.

Use more ‘human touching’ ads

Ads with super-high click-through rates generally speak to the emotions behind why your customer would want what you’re selling. For example, instead of writing an ad that just asks the prospect to register for your mountain climbing school, think about why someone would be interested in mountain climbing in the first place. One extremely successful ad said “Fluorescent lights are killing you. Be more than a warm corpse.”  WOW… that’s morbid.

Write content to help your audience

The best content for marketing is directed at helping and delighting your key audience. Understand your customer: know their pain points, what gets them psyched, and what keeps them up at night. Killer content address your audience’s needs and concerns! Try using keyword research tools to identify the questions your audience needs answers to — then deliver what they’re looking for. Creative ideas are the best for the web where attention-grabbing is essential.

Add a visual element

To ALL your content pieces on your website, your ads, and you social media posts — People get bored with text really fast! To keep visitors reading, it’s essential to have images breaking up your text. Don’t overlook the importance of a visual element, even in blog posts that are predominantly text-based.

Show and tell with videos

Video content, whether you’re trying to demonstrate how your product works or just educating and entertaining visitors, is incredibly powerful. Video not only draws in users, it sticks with them — retention rate for visual information can reach 65% vs. 10% for text-based info. Plus, customers who view product videos are much more likely to convert than those who don’t.

Get into symbols

Symbols and special characters, like exclamation points, dollar signs, and registered trademark symbols, are known to increase click-through rates. Don’t got completely nuts with the exclamation points though!  It may look like you’re trying too hard!!!??!

Invest in infographics

We know readers love visual content, and infographics are a prime example of linkable visual assets.  While the idea of creating a top-notch infographic may sound daunting, it doesn’t have to be hard. You don’t need fancy software — in fact, you can make a simple infographic just using PowerPoint!  You’ll find that Pinterest is a good resource as well.

Make a statistics lists

For an easy content marketing fix, collect interesting statistics on a subject related to your business and create a blog post about what you’ve learned. Massive lists of facts and stats are easy to create and extremely sharable — and other content creators will want to cite your research! (Man… maybe that’s what THIS IS!)

1. Discuss Current Events: According to HubSpot’s research, nearly 80% of shared and/or retweeted content is about news, and more than 50% of that content is entertainment-related.
2. Don’t Be Overly Self-Promotional: Become thought leaders!
3. Include Links to Your Website: More than 50% of shares and retweets include links.
4. Understand Your Audience: People follow others who they feel are thought leaders in their industry.  Your followers want content that is credible, intelligent, and valuable.
5. Share and Retweet Others: “You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.” Enough said.
6. Ask Others to Retweet You: If you have something valuable to share, you probably want as many people as possible to spread that content or message, and simply asking others to share.
7. Consider the Timing of Your Tweets: When sending out tweets, timing does matter.

But I digress…  :)

See also 10 Tips For Creative Marketing

The post Creative Ideas For Web appeared first on Creative Juices Marketing Agency.

See also Ranking On Google

What is SSL?

“SSL” stand for Secure Sockets Layer. OH.  Well that explains it … not at all.  In simpler terms, it’s how small business communicate with customers with their website. How they can browse, buy products or services, and share information safely with them online. Without being too technical, adding an SSL certificate to your website creates a secure connection for those kinds of activities. To figure out how Google views your website without SSL, you need to understand what it does.

Think of an SSL certificate as a giant windshield in front of you when you drive on the information super-highway. An SSL certificate protects your site — and its visitors — from many digital bugs, worms and other nasty web creatures. Before assuming that your site as “too small to be a target,” bear in mind that a human is most likely NOT on the other side of a hack.  Most hacking is done electronically, so no one will be picking and choosing which site makes sense to target. For that same reason, a site that does not take payments is also vulnerable.  A web hack doesn’t care how big you are, what you do for a living or if you have a super cute puppy. They have one goal, and that is to find vulnerabilities. Once discovered, its dirty work begins.

What does an SSL certificate do?

An SSL certificate works to create an encrypted connection between your visitor’s browser and the server. A secure session is established via a “handshake” process, one that involves a back-and-forth between the web browser and the web server, and it occurs behind the scenes — all without interrupting the shopping or browsing experience.  It’s kind of like sealing a letter in an envelope before sending it through the mail.  It’s a layer of protection.

Does your website really need an SSL certificate?

As mentioned above, Google began rolling out their new Chrome 68 browser in July 2018, marking a website as “Not Secure” if it is not protected with an SSL certificate. It’s all a part of making the global web more secure. Your site being labeled as not secure could make people leave it as quickly as they came OR worse – not trust your business overall.  It is NEVER good for your site to be labeled negatively, but if Google doesn’t like you – face it – you’re screwed. So beyond all of the ‘adding a layer of security to hopefully avoid hackers’, having an SSL certificate is really really important.

Accept payment securely

Do you plan to accept major credit cards online? An E-commerce website needs a merchant account, and most of them will require that your site have an SSL certificate. Also, many web hosting companies, including one of my favorites GoDaddy, have terms of service requiring websites to be secured with an SSL before accepting credit cards. Bottom line – would you really want to put your customers at risk of having their credit card information stolen while shopping on your site?  Not only will your company be looked at as liable, you’ll most certainly lose a customer and anyone that customer tells. It’s not exactly a great way to attract repeat business.

Protect password logins

A major reason you might want to add an SSL certificate to your website is if any of your pages are password protected. This includes WordPress or Joomla! or other database-driven sites with a login page for the administrator. Membership sites with multiple logins also create more opportunities for black-hat hackers to attack.  Remember, anything that needs to be secure online needs to operate under the safety net of an SSL certificate. The web is filled with bots lurking around seeking poorly protected password pages to provide them access to your website. You don’t want to log on only to find your pages have been defaced or deleted.

Secure all web forms

Not everyone collects money online. Some websites collect information. These could be leads for potential home buyers. Or questionnaires about your client’s employment history. Or anything. If you are collecting even the most basic information such as name, address, phone number and email address, chances are your clients would not want that information leaked.

Without an SSL certificate, some types of form mail can be intercepted. Some code is more reliable than others. Do you want to take chances that yours is susceptible to hacking? Probably not. This is why securing your online forms with an SSL certificate is also a must. You wouldn’t do business with someone who skipped this step. Don’t give anyone this as a reason not to do business with you.

Why Would Someone Hack My Small Business Website?

There’s only one answer to this question and it’s to make money… lots of it!

Yes, even a small website hack can generate a substantial amount of money. Cyber criminals can make money with your compromised website by distributing malware, SEO spam, and even set up e-mail spam servers and phishing sites.
Money is obviously the most common motivation behind the attacks.

Injecting backlinks and spam to a legitimate sites remains one of the most profitable and popular types of website attacks. After the website has been compromised, a malicious backdoor will be uploaded to the website which gives the attacker the ability to invisibly redirect your visitors to their scam sites any time they want. Apart from generating money for the hacker, your website gets a penalty from search engines, which will ruin your SEO (aka chances of showing up higher in the search engine rankings).

See also SEO Juice Dos and Don’ts

THE TAKEAWAY

It’s important to have an SSL certificate on your website.  We’ve explained how Google views your website without SSL and if you still have questions, we’re here to help.  If you don’t have an SSL, speak to your developer immediately or ask another web developer (like US) how you can add one.  You really do not want to wait much longer.  If your website does anything in this world, it HAS to be Google-friendly.  Everyone Googles for crying out loud.  The sad fact is, an SSL certificate is not enough to keep your site from getting hacked. If you have a WordPress, Drupal or Joomla website (nearly 40% of all websites are), you need to keep your plugins, php version, themes, etc updated to avoid vulnerabilities.  It’s also not a bad idea to get specific malware protection from your website host company – especially if you don’t have a developer watch-dogging your site all the time.

Now you know why you need SSL.  If you need assistance with your SSL Certificate, existing website, or if you need a newly developed site; feel free to contact Creative Juices Marketing Agency to discuss.  We’d love to help you!  CONTACT US

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