One question we get a lot is: What’s the best CMS for small to medium size businesses to use for SEO? There are many variables to take into account when considering the best Content Management System (CMS) for your small business’ company website in addition to SEO. Key considerations include: Maintenance and maintainability; Customization; Ease of use However, SEO is absolutely a consideration that you should take into account for your website. SEO needs to be a cornerstone of your…
One of the areas of digital marketing that I know woefully little about is franchises. I worked with a franchise company (InterContinental Hotels Group) years ago on their corporate site, but I never really had great answers for questions around what their franchises could do to help SEO or how to establish guidelines for digital marketing. Luckily there are people like Jordan Choo, my guest today, who are experts in franchise digital marketing. In this video we discuss: How much…
Google, on average, gets over 100 billion searches a month. Most of these queries come from mobile phones. However, arguably the best feature Google boasts isn’t its search capabilities, but rather its ability to identify nearby locals through its “near me” query (when it can locate your mobile device’s location). Whether you’re going to lunch in a specific locale or cruising an unknown interstate out of town, Google can use your location to identify nearby restaurants, grocery stores, salons…
The other day I was asked this question by someone I was speaking with on the phone: I don’t have much to spend (maybe $20k for the year including ad spend) on marketing this year, so if you were me where would you put your budget? I love questions like these, because it means they are usually very open to advice and wanting to do things right instead of demanding something like “SEO optimization”. We all start somewhere and in…
One question we hear a lot is if you should use Shopify or Magento for eCommerce. So our researchers dug into the problem and came back with a few findings. The short version is that Shopify is a commercial eCommerce platform where you pay to use the service as a subscription. Your site is hosted by Shopify on their servers. This is much like SquareSpace or WordPress.com, where you do not have to worry about hosting or upkeep, but you…
One sticking point around hiring someone for marketing services is around the cost. If you’ve ever had discussions with me or an agency/consultant, most of us will tell you that great work done by an expert does not come cheap. In our pricing survey, you’ll learn that most agencies and consultants charge $150+ per hour for their work. You won’t see those prices on places like UpWork usually.
There is a massive difference between knowing you need help with your digital strategy and knowing how to fill that all-important void. When it comes time to do just that, the ever-increasing pool of digital agencies makes it increasingly difficult to evaluate the differences between one marketing proposal (and digital agency) to the next. As of today, there are over 150,000 digital marketing agencies and consultants in the US alone. That is a lot of agencies trying their very best…
Are you in charge of marketing at your company, yet struggling to get buy-in or communicate across departments to get things done? The truth is that modern marketing teams have to partner with other business units. In the past, we were able to go off and do our “marketing things” like PR and trade shows that required very little overlap with other departments.
SEO can be a black box, and many business owners have minimal understanding of it. To that end, that’s why you hire a professional to help you out. At the same time, there are many things that agencies wish their clients knew so that progress could be made faster.
This is a question I get asked a lot, both as a business owner and an SEO consultant in my own right. The truth is, it’s a great question. If you’re hiring someone to do SEO for you, you need to know what you are paying for. This is why I coach agencies and consultants to help you understand specifically what they are including in a scope of work for your business. It’s also a great question because different agencies…
I am going to say something that many of you will disagree with: You should not base your marketing investment decisions off of cost per lead in the B2B space. In fact, I think cost per lead is the worst metric you can look at as you build a service-based business.
Most startups underinvest in SEO for a really long time. If that’s you, listen up. On the one hand, I can’t blame you. You’re trying to get a new thing off the ground and just keep it alive, and maybe even grow it. You’re trying to figure out your customer segments, how you’ll make money, who you need to hire and when, and so much more. Trust me, I’ve been through all of it over the last two years running…
Migrating your site to a new domain or URL structure is a huge undertaking whose SEO implications should not be taken lightly. In fact, I would say switching URLs and technical stacks can be one of the highest risk things you can do for your site’s SEO. Sometimes, though, we have to do things that are risky for other reasons. Maybe politics is at play and you were not involved in the decision. Or maybe the UX team has made…
If you are looking to market your small (or medium or even large) business, it’s all about your audience. That’s where you start and that’s how you market to them.
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