These days, it’s hard to tell if infographics are still hot in marketing, or if they’ve started to cool off. Based on our research and extensive market testing for every client, we’ve formed an opinion: infographics are still hot—but only when the infographic is truly innovative, or when you’re launching it in a space that hasn’t seen many infographics yet.
If your next content marketing project is an infographic in a content space that’s already saturated in infographics, forget it. Unless your project is truly original (and it probably isn’t), you’ll get lost in the noise. Unfortunately, given the level of competition, even great work in a saturated niche will likely get lost in the noise, too, unless it’s promoted properly.
So how do you crack this?
Start with a great hook, and create an infographic that’s GROUNDBREAKING in its niche.
That’s exactly what we did for our client, Berg Engineering. Berg sells NDT (nondestructive testing) equipment, such as the GE DM5E Basic Ultrasonic Thickness Gauge, in the engineering sector. NDT equipment like this makes gas pipelines, bridges, and airplanes safer for all of us—but almost no one outside of NDT has heard of NDT. We decided to change that. Take a look!
At 216digital, we carefully vet every content marketing concept that we come up with. (Believe me, we generate a lot of them—we keep a sort of running notebook on Google Docs.) If a topic or pitch doesn’t meet the following criteria, we drop it. It’s that simple. Here’s the rubric we use to build great content strategies for our clients:
In a good piece of content, several factors converge:
Obviousness—when a reader sees it, they should say, “why didn’t I think of that?” Surprise—it should be so obvious, it’s a surprise the content hasn’t been done before. Novelty—it should take a familiar concept and extend it into new territory. Value—it should provide genuine, useful information, or it should provide genuine entertainment. Appropriateness—it should align with the link creators’ editorial focus, while expanding that focus as explained above.
Content Marketing: An Evolving Field Requiring Constant Innovation
At 216digital, we constantly reevaluate our clients’ standing relative to every other content brand in their niche. That means we take a relative approach to content marketing. For each client, we ask, how does this content strategy fit into the niche as a whole, and how will it give our client a leg up? Without asking these questions, content marketers risk rehashing content that’s already been done. In today’s fast-paced web world, that simply isn’t good enough.
The Bottom Line
Content marketing has hit the “full bloom” stage. It isn’t enough any more to do content marketing; rather, it’s time to surpass content marketing with truly innovative content. Are you looking for help with your content marketing? Our team specializes in creating content that drives engagement and brand awareness. Get in touch today, and let’s launch your content marketing machine.
On 11/19/15, Google posted an update to their search quality rating guidelines. In the post, you’ll find a link to a PDF which provides instructions to Google’s search results raters. These are human users who rate the quality of results that Google returns for search queries. Google’s PDF does not provide direct advice on best practices for SEO—that’s simply not its intent. However, by reading Google’s instructions to its human raters, we can understand SEO best practices in a new way. In this post, we’ll comb the Google document for new information that’s relevant to ecommerce store owners.
A large portion of the document deals with mobile search results. While much of this information is not new, it’s great to have it all in one place, straight from the source. However, there are a few points to be made.
User Intent Behind Queries
Google classifies search types based on user intent. This is a great way to approach the keywords you’re trying to rank for. What is the user intent behind the keyword? It should always match what users will find on the page which you’ve optimized for that keyword. It’s a fairly obvious point, but it’s worth making. For example, if you’re a paid stock photo site trying to rank for the keyword “free stock photos” so you can persuade users to buy stock photos when they searched for free photos, the intent of your landing page does not respect the user intent behind the keyword. This practice is fundamentally deceptive. Just don’t do it. As Google’s instructions to raters show, Google continues to refine its ability to match user intent to honest search results.
If you’re a brick-and-mortar business, you should pay special attention to “Visit-in-Person” search intent—that is, local searches on mobile in which the user is looking for a nearby brick-and-mortar location. For example, a music store with both a physical retail location and an ecommerce store should prepare its online presence for Visit-in-Person search intent. As well as a fully functional, mobile-responsive online store, this business should have a fully populated Google Business page with accurate location, contact information, and hours. Incomplete or inaccurate information could stop mobile users from finding the brick-and-mortar location they’re looking for. You’ll find this information in section 12.7.4 of the PDF.
Google Is Getting Better at Understanding User Intent
Image Link
In that same section, you’ll find a discussion of ambiguous queries that could be the name of a restaurant (Visit-in-Person intent) or the name of a spice (purely informational query). In writing web copy for your site, you should be precise, leaving no room for semantic ambiguity, while also writing naturally. Be informative, clear, and natural. This will allow Google’s powerful Semantic Search to match precise contextual results to keywords that display ambiguous intent when examined out of context.
Take note here: fundamentally, Google is getting better at divining user intent behind queries. That means that SEO efforts will gradually move away from technical precision (e.g., including exact-match keywords in copy at a recommended density) and towards excellent, well-written copy that matches user intent. Good content marketing is fast becoming the most effective road to good SEO. We expect that trend to continue.
Special Content Result Boxes
Special Content Result Boxes Image
In Google’s PDF, you’ll also find a discussion of “Special Content Result Blocks” (section 12.8.2). If you haven’t noticed, this feature has started appearing at the top of SERPs when the query has a definite answer for which no entity can claim copyright. As the document makes clear, SCRBs only appear when the user has asked Google a specific question—for example, “how much does a gallon of water weigh?” In our screengrab, the SCRB appeared with a URL to a landing page—but not all SCRBs have landing pages associated with them.
Content Strategy
For ecommerce stores, that means checking content strategy very carefully. If some of your content strategy involves trying to rank for questions with definite, non-negotiable answers related to your niche, you should trim those topics from your content strategy. Google is so sophisticated at this point, it’s starting to give us answers directly, without sending us to 3rd party sites for the answers. That means content strategists must narrow the focus to topics on which they can provide fresh, useful information which Google can’t get elsewhere or prepare from aggregate data.
Give Users Fresh Content When That’s What They Want
For ecommerce stores associated with a niche that evolves regularly, that means publishing fresh, accurate content on news within your niche. If users google “boston marathon” and your business is associated with the marathon, you should publish timely content about the next marathon. That’s what users are likely searching for.
The Bottom Line
Google is always tweaking things. This causes some stress in the SEO community—but it shouldn’t. Google is trying to create a better experience for users. Keeping up with Google’s constant algorithm refinement helps us all to create better experiences for our users. For ecommerce store owners, happy users mean satisfied customers. There’s really nothing to lose.
In the early days, like everything else, design was a male-dominated profession. Today, women designers are changing the face of design with incredible innovation. At 216digital, we’re design connoisseurs. We thrive on innovative design thinking. We keep a pulse on the design industry, and we take note when someone creates something amazing. In this blog post, we wanted to talk about our favorite women designers and their work.
You’ll see an incredible amount of innovation in these designers’ portfolios. In the disciplines of graphic design, illustration, typography, and more, these 26 designers are pushing the boundaries of convention and creating new visual expressions.
We’ve organized our favorite designers into several specialty areas. But let’s be clear—these designers aren’t ranked in any kind of order. They’re all great, and no two are alike.
Jiani Lu practices groundbreaking graphic design in Taipei, Taiwan. Her work integrates all aspects of visual communication—imagery, graphic elements, and typography—with a new kind of flair that we haven’t seen before.
Shown: To My Future Self. Used by permission of Jiani Lu.
Jiani is a Canadian designer working in multiple disciplines. She has won awards from AIGA, Graphis, Adobe, and others.
Fanny Öhlund is forging a career in cutting-edge design. Her work features beautiful graphics and typography integrated into a unique whole. She has done work in print design, album cover design, branding, and more.
Shown: Áhpi album cover. Used by permission of Fanny Öhlund.
Fanny’s sense of pattern, contrast, and color is truly beautiful. For this writer, her work is often more than the sum of its parts. For more of Fanny’s work, see her website or Behance page.
Teresa Sdralevich has forged a remarkable career in illustration, poster design, and cover design. Her work utilizes large blocks of color and bold typography. She often engages social, political, and cultural issues, and her approach draws the most out of a simple collection of elements.
Book cover: Vota Larry, by Janet Tashjian. Used by permission of Teresa Sdralevich.
Teresa was born in Milan in 1969. She currently lives and works in Brussels, where she practices silkscreen printing in a collaborative space shared with other artists.
Best Ecommerce Platforms for 2015 – Pt. 4 – Bigcommerce
Welcome to Part 4 of our series on ecommerce platforms. In the previous installments, we examined WooCommerce, Shopify, and Magento. We discussed the inherent pros and cons of each platform. We concluded that WooCommerce is an excellent basic option. We also mentioned that Shopify’s transaction fee schedule could hurt high-growth businesses. In looking at Magento, we concluded that almost every business model would need custom development to fully utilize Magento’s functionality. In Part 4, we’ll look at another big ecommerce name: Bigcommerce. Let’s jump right in!
Bigcommerce:
Bigcommerce is growing fast. The Revolution Fund invested $40 million in Bigcommerce in 2013. SoftBank Capital and others pitched in $50 million in 2014, bringing the company’s net worth to $500 million. With something like 90,000 online stores running on the platform, Bigcommerce has big market share. Its features are quite competitive, though customer complaints suggest a lack of adequate support.
Industry insiders agree that Bigcommerce has one thing down pat: they’re a marketing powerhouse. An aggressive campaign has netted them tens of thousands of new users. When Magento pulled the plug on Magento Go, their SaaS (software as a service) version, they sent approximately 10,000 customers to Bigcommerce. However, big things develop their own kinds of problems. When a company’s goal is to eat up an entire market, other considerations can fall by the wayside. Though ecommerce beginners may not realize it, Bigcommerce has some serious shortcomings that limit its adaptability.
While Bigcommerce boasts tons of bells and whistles, it doesn’t give users some crucial features. As this thread in the Miva Merchant community forums explains, Bigcommerce doesn’t allow for template logic. In other words, you can’t add code to create a conditional statement like, “for this family of products, include a download link to the manufacturer’s docmuntation.” This is a serious shortcoming—and one with no workaround. Further, because of Bigcommerce’s API, you can’t integrate 3rd party functionality into the platform. This stands in stark contrast to Miva and Magento, which offer vibrant development communities and total freedom to develop custom 3rd party integrations.
Photo courtesy of Mark Sebastian. Licensed under CC 2.0. Modified by 216digital.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Unlike #miva and #magento, #bigcommerce can’t do template logic. @216_Digital” quote=”Unlike Miva and Magento, Bigcommerce can’t do template logic.”]
That’s not the only thing we worry about when we look at Bigcommerce. In the development area, user FTP access is limited to a few folders. Worse, Bigcommerce doesn’t provide any database access. That means if you want to change anything in those areas, you’re out of luck. Some developers complain that Bigcommerce’s code is too hefty, potentially dragging down SEO results. Finally, as with Shopify, you can only host a Bigcommerce store on Bigcommerce servers.
The Bottom Line
For a certain segment of the ecommerce market, Bigcommerce will work just fine. Ecommerce store owners who don’t need certain functionality and have no development background will love Bigcommerce. It works, it looks great, it provides a lot of power out of the box, it’s easy to use, and hosting is included. The trouble is getting functionality that’s not provided in the software itself. For store owners who want limitless custom functionality, Miva and Magento are lightyears ahead of Bigcommerce.
Stay tuned. In Part 5 of 5 in our series, we take an in-depth look at Miva. Mellier has built a remarkable career in graphic design, typography, and print design. Her work uses simple geometric shapes arranged in strategic placement. Her strong eye for color transforms her minimal geometry into vibrant, cohesive works.
Fanette completed her education at the Graduate School of Decorative Arts in Strasbourg. She learned from masters such as Pierre Di Sciullo and Pierre Bernard. With this background, she has contributed significantly to the world of typography and intellectual communication.
Anna Kuts is a graphic designer, photographer, and calligrapher from Kharkiv, Ukraine. Her work marries a strong emphasis on texture with a nuanced approach to color. She is passionate about logo design in particular. She often combines unique textures with clear vector elements, and the results are beautiful.
Kharkov Guitar Quartet Poster. Used by permission of Anna Kuts.
We see a little Soviet Constructivist influence in this poster, but the overall effect is unmistakably contemporary. The piece contains excellent contrast, and the overall look is quite balanced.
Mercedes Bazan specializes in UI, UX, and editorial design. She lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her work features strong graphic elements, complex alignments, and refreshing color palettes. Her editorial designs in the magazine field are fresh, contemporary, and surprising.
Shown: Nikola Tesla Pressbook. Used by permission of Mercedes Bazan.
Cristina Pagnoncelli’s work utilizes great typography, balanced composition, and a clear sense of cohesiveness. Cristina shows an ability to weave seemingly unrelated elements into a total composition. Her use of type and lettering is particularly inspiring. Facebook asked her to create 10 letterings inspired by American cities. Now Facebook users can use these letterings on their photos.
Shown: Orlando lettering. Used by permission of Cristina Pagnoncelli.
With her sister, Raquel Pagnoncelli, she runs Des Figure, a communication studio. Cristina’s work shows an intuitive understanding of diverse graphic disciplines. She is one to watch.
Sue Doeksen is a graphic designer based in Amsterdam. She often focuses on bold color, eye-popping texture, and a fun approach to high-concept design. Her work is thoroughly contemporary, yet it knows its roots in great European design.
Shown: Landmark Pins. Used by permission of Sue Doeksen.
Sue describes herself as a “visual adventurer.” This approach shows in all her work. Sue’s designs are not static works; they seem to transform themselves as you look at them—even those that aren’t animated. Sue has collaborated multiple times with fellow Dutch designer Marta Veludo (see below).
9. Marta Veludo
Marta Veludo is an Amsterdam-based graphic designer, artist, and visual thinker. She works in a wide variety of design fields, including art direction, graphic design, brand communication, and set design. Her work regularly features playful colors and visual relationships.
Shown: D & R Wedding Invitation. Used by permission of Marta Veludo.
Marta’s work is truly unmistakable. She marries a quirky eye to a strong sense of formalism. The result is a dynamic visual language that is contemporary, yet knows its history. She has collaborated multiple times with fellow Dutch designer Sue Doeksen (see above).
Along with Enikő Deri (see below), Nora Demeczky runs De-Form, a design agency based in Budapest. Her work features a strong graphic impact and carefully-constructed balance across a cohesive whole. She achieves a great balance between form and content.
Enikő Deri runs De Form, a Hungarian design agency, along with Nora Demeczky (see above). Her work often features dramatic use of geometry in strict black-and-white. Her shapes and organization are incredibly fresh, and the overall effect she creates is mesmerizing.
Shown: Albert. Used by permission of De Form.
II. Branding Design
12. Kelsy Stromski
Photograph by Kyle Caldwell.
Kelsy Stromski founded Refinery 43 to design cohesive visual identities for her clients. She has designed unique branding for interior design studios, personal brands, nonprofits, food products, and more. Her design expertise is highly fluid and adaptable.
Shown: Bouchard Family Farms Ployes pancake mix packaging. Used by permission of Kelsy Stromski.
Kelsy’s work is firmly grounded in a thorough knowledge of her clients. She combines this knowledge with a deep understanding of the intended audience for the brand. The result is highly-targeted branding.
Ipek Eris is a freelance designer working in the fields of branding, logo design, and corporate identity. She has lived in Kenya, France, Germany, and England. This experience has given her an eclectic visual sense, and it shows in her work.
Shown: Rumeli70 Pharmacy branding package. Used by permission of Ipek Eris.
Ipek’s work shows a keen awareness of her client’s needs, married to a great visual sense. She establishes unity between separate elements by repeating motifs with variation.
We didn’t have to look far to find this designer. Sarah Yeager works for us! And while you may chuckle at the fact that we included our own designer in this list, wait till you see her work. It’s why we hired her.
Shown: MatVacay app design.Shown: Textbookly.com website.Shown: Sarah’s award-winning design of EmpoweRING, a piece of jewelry that lets the wearer send a distress signal to emergency contacts if he or she is in danger.Shown: #BrainCandies branding for WedoWE.
Sarah received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Communication Design from Kent State University. Aside from her design education, Sarah’s wide range of interests also informs her design process. She has worked in entrepreneurship, videography, photography, and painting. She finds these experiences invaluable as she designs websites, logos, and creatives for our clients.
Shown: John French with Hasselblad, paper collage on panel, 18×12.5 inches. Used by permission of Lola Dupré.
Lola Dupré has created an incredible illustration style. Working exclusively with paper and scissors, she makes surreal, distorted images, often using the human body as her subject. In enlarging some parts of her source image, she criticizes cultural assumptions about gender and beauty. Her work is beautiful, disturbing, and unmistakable.
Nina Geometrieva is a rising star in photography, graphic design, and branding. She brings a strong sense of geometry to her design as well as her photojournalism. For this writer, her most incredible work is the stunning photoshoot of Tokyo which she produced with Damjan Cvetkov-Dimitrov—including the capsule hotel photos which you’ve probably seen somewhere on the internet already.
Shown: Tōkyō desu. Used by permission of Nina Geometrieva.
Nina and Damjan documented their Tokyo trip in this Medium post. Check it out for more incredible animated GIFs.
Nadzeya Makeyeva is an illustrator and designer based in Minsk, Belarus. Her work features ingenious use of texture and line, and each piece seems to create and inhabit its own world. Check out her Psilocybin Rabbit:
Shown: Psilocybin Rabbit. Used by permission of Nadzeya Makeyeva.
Nadzeya attended College of Arts #26 in Minsk. She has worked as a concept artist, illustrator, designer, and UI/UX designer, at multiple firms and as a freelancer. Her work shows a remarkable fluidity and ability to adapt to different purposes, styles, and materials.
Vicki Turner is a British designer and illustrator with a strong eye for color, shape, and line. Her work features incredible geometric representations of common shapes. Vicki has developed her own consistent style, almost an iconographic language which is easily understood by anyone.
Shown: Misty Morning Commute, shortlisted for the AOI & TFL Prize for Illustration. Used by permission of Vicki Turner.
Vicki has worked with non-profits, startups, and everything in between. She brings a problem-solving mindset to the client relationship, and she offers insight on product and branding. She is also the founder of Feist Forest, a boutique builder of fine wooden tables for creatives.
Erin Zingré started her illustration career in style, at age 4, with a preschool drawing of the Headless Horseman, a Guillotine, and Death Himself. As she puts it, this drawing still captures the essence of her work: “kinda cute, kinda creepy, and altogether not-quite-right.” It’s a beautiful kind of not-quite-right.
Shown: Coloring Book for Grownups. Used by permission of Erin Zingré.
Erin is a multidisciplinary designer now working out of Seattle. She is not taking freelance work at this time, due to her work designing at Amazon. With this talent, it’s no surprise she’s been snatched up.
Anna Grosh is a Siberian designer working in San Francisco, CA. She specializes in illustration, typography and lettering, and design. Her illustration shows a nuanced touch and a powerful expression of emotion.
Shown Circus D’Hiver Bouglion poster. Used by permission of Anna Grosh.
Anna also excels at highly ornamented work and calligraphy. In the digital age, it’s refreshing to see a human touch and detailed hand work. Anna is one to watch.
V. Typography, Calligraphy, and Typeface Design
21. Marian Bantjes
Marian Bantjes has forged a remarkable career. Her work spans graphic design, typography, calligraphy, and lettering, and it has won her international acclaim. In the following piece, which she created for AGI’s annual special project, she used dirt and sand from around the world to create a Coexistence poster. Note the obsessive attention to detail—and the transience: she didn’t glue the sand down, and she wiped the poster away after photographing it.
Marian worked as a book typesetter from 1984-1994. From 1994-2003, she ran Digitopolis, a graphic design studio which she cofounded. From 2003 to the present, she has pursued freelance work in design, art, and lettering.
Laura Pol is a designer, photographer, and videographer based in Venice, CA. As a designer, she has created a wide variety of logos, both type-based and graphic, in which she integrates clean typography with an overall aesthetic. She has also created several fonts, which are available for free (donation suggested) on her website.
Shown: Tyde Font sample. Used by permission of Laura Pol.
Typography and typeface design aren’t Laura’s only pursuits. She has also collaborated on editorial designs, art direction, branding, and more.
Lisa Pan (Pan, Yi) is a graphic designer based in Taipei, Taiwan. She has developed an incredible illustration style, and she also excels at creating beautiful typography. She often combines lettering with illustrative work. Her pieces are truly jaw-dropping.
Shown: Typoholic Zoology Collection. Used by permission of Lisa Pan.
Lisa shows an incredible ability to adapt her illustration style and her typographic sense to any project. Her work also shows a great balance between complex and simple textures.
Louise Mertens received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in graphic design at Sint-Lucas Antwerpen. While in school, she interned at Mirror Mirror. After an internship at Sagmeister and Walsh, she launched Louise Mertens Studio in 2014. She now specializes in art and art direction, with a strong emphasis on collage. In the work below, she achieves a dynamic unity from several competing elements.
Shown: Jiyu 4. Used by permission of Louise Mertens.
Louise’s use of color and her carefully-combined textures are unmistakable. As she says on her website, she is “inspired by the female body, the mysterious, and the incomprehensible.” She has developed a truly unique style.
Marta Gawin practices design in Katowice, Poland. She specializes in editorial, poster, exhibition, and visual identity design. Her work features strong contrast between graphic elements, plus incredible typography.
Shown: JazzArt Festival 2015. Used by permission of Marta Gawin.
Marta earned her MA in Graphic Design from the Academy of Fine Arts, Katowice, in 2011. She works as a freelancer now, and she is regularly hired by both commercial organizations and cultural institutions. Her work is high-concept, with a heavy emphasis on unique content.
Candy Chang takes her background in urban planning, her expressive sense, and her training in design and combines them to create beautiful public art installations. Among many incredible works, she created the Before I Die phenomenon—a black wall stenciled with the phrase, “Before I die _____”.
Shown: Before I Die. Used by permission of Candy Chang.
This is a participatory public artwork which invites passersby to share their deepest longings in public. The original Before I Die wall in New Orleans gained international attention, and now there are over 1,000 Before I Die walls in 70 countries around the globe.
Design is changing faster than ever. New trends are always emerging, and in our opinion, things just keep getting better and better. These 26 women are pushing design to new places we’ve never seen before. This is truly a golden age of design, whether in web, branding, typography, illustration, or photography.
From 216digital, a hearty THANK YOU to these designers for their willingness to share their work. Keep at it!
Google Plus: Google’s Gift to Local Area Businesses – EXPANDED
Editor’s Note: A version of this article first appeared on 216digital’s Cleveland Plain Dealer blog. It was such a hit there, we’ve expanded this version to include a few more helpful details.
Have you noticed that local search has changed? What’s going on? Instead of local business sites alone, Google now shows Google Plus results alongside websites. If you don’t have a Google Plus page, or if your page is in bad shape, it won’t pop up in SERPs (search engine results pages). Whoa. This is serious. Luckily, there’s a lot you can do to optimize Google Plus for local business. In this post, we’ll cover some of the basic techniques, as well as point you towards some in-depth resources.
Google Plus and SEO: A Little Nepotism Never Hurts!
At this point, you’re probably wondering if Google Plus affects your search rank on Google. You bet it does! Claire Abraham, social media manager at 216digital, stresses the importance of Google Plus for SEO to every client we get. As she puts it, “The more of Google’s toys you play with, the more it likes you.” In other words, Google favors its own product, Google Plus, in considering what to show in search results. Now, before you start yelling, “unfair,” consider this: Google is a corporate business entity. As this post from Copyblogger reminds us, Google can do whatever they want. They don’t owe any of us anything! The trick is to figure out what Google likes—and just do it.
The real gold that Google Plus offers is that G+ pages display in Google search results when the user is logged in to their Google account. This gives users a direct chance to interact with your business’s page if they’re searching for your business or something that you rank for.
As a social media platform, this is where Google Plus really integrates with SEO efforts. Facebook posts don’t show up in Google SERPs. That puts Google Plus in a great position to integrate your social efforts with your SEO efforts.
Every social media platform has its own quirks, and Google Plus is no different. It’s not simply Google’s version of Facebook or Twitter. Google Plus is its own space with its own rules and best practices. You’ll need a thorough understanding of how Google Plus works before you start leveraging it for your local business.
Getting Your Local Business onto Google Plus
This is easy. Simply sign up for a Google Plus account. One important note—do not use a Gmail address to sign up. Use an address from your business domain name (for example, you@yourdomain.com). This will help greatly when you go to verify your page in the future.
Linking Google My Business and Google Plus
While My Business and Google+ are separate Google products, local business owners should link them to get the most out of Google’s presentation of their businesses. For business owners, that means logging into your Google Plus account (or creating one, if you don’t have one), then finding your My Business page and claiming it. Note: you’ll have to verify your business by phone or by postcard. This is critical! An unverified page won’t show up in SERPs.
Another critical step: you’ll need to determine if there are any duplicate Google My Business pages for your business. If there are, you must delete them. Also, you’ll need to ensure that your My Business page hasn’t been penalized. Duplicate pages and penalties will kill the SEO contributions which your My Business and Google+ pages should be making.
Your Business Info: Get It Right!
Just about every point we make in this article is critical. This one is no exception. You mustensure that your business name, address, phone number, and hours of operation are 100% correct. If not every bit of information matches up between your website and your My Business page, Google sees a problem.
Also, take note of this. As Casey Meraz writes on the Moz blog, you can’t use a PO box as your address, and you can’t list an 800 number as your phone number. If your business has a physical address, you need to list that address. You also need to list a phone number with a local area code.
You’ll find a Categories field as you’re filling out your profile. This field is extremely important. You’ll want to use all the Categories that are allowed for your industry. Note: these categories reflect what your business is, not what it does. If your business is Dave’s Dry Cleaners, your category would be “Dry Cleaners,” not “dry cleaning.” Also note—there are no custom categories! You have to choose from the available options.
Your Profile: Complete It!
An incomplete profile will only hurt your Google Plus page. Make sure you fill out every bit of information until the profile says it’s 100% complete. There’s a lot to do, so pay attention to the details. For example, you need to fill out your intro description. Make sure it’s relevant, engaging, and at least 250 words long. You’ll also want to upload high-quality photos of your business location.
To really round out your appearance on Google, consider hiring a Google-trusted photographer to do a 360-degree shoot inside your business location. Google calls this Business View, and it’s quite possibly one of Google’s greatest gifts to local businesses. Business View gives online users the chance to see what your restaurant or store looks like on the inside before they even leave the house. This is an especially great opportunity for retail establishments with a unique, well-branded décor.
Don’t use a Gmail address to sign up. Use an address from your business domain name (like you@yourdomain.com).
[clickToTweet tweet=”Don’t use a Gmail address to sign up for #GooglePlus. Use an address from your business domain name. #localseo” quote=”Don’t use a Gmail address to sign up. Use an address from your business domain name.”]
Remember how almost every point in this article is critical? Here’s another one. You need to link your website to your Google Plus page. This will allow your Google Plus page to appear in SERPs.
Along those lines, you’ll also want to claim a custom URL for your Google Plus page. This is your opportunity to have a URL that matches the name of your business. For both users and Google, this custom URL will look better than a string of numbers and letters.
You’ll see a section of your profile called Links. You’ll want to put as many relevant links in this area as possible. Relevant links include your blog(s), your social media pages, and any other online properties which make up your business’s digital assets.
Google Plus Circles
Circles are unique to Google+. Photo courtesy of Horia Varlan, licensed under CC 2.0. Modified by 216digital.
Among social media platforms, the Circles function is unique to Google Plus. Circles are a way of organizing your connections—say, into groups like Personal Friends, Industry Leaders, and Coworkers. While Circles are primarily a backend organizational feature for your benefit as a user, they do affect your connections: when you post to Google Plus, you can choose which Circles see that post.
Like many aspects of Google Plus, Circles really have no analog on Twitter and Facebook. As Cassy Hicks Kerr (@modernmktgspark) writes on MMSpark, “The key to building circles is not to focus on the numbers but on the relationships you have with the people you circle.” On Twitter and Facebook, you might try to get as many relevant followers as possible. In Google Plus Circles, it isn’t the number of people in any given Circle that bring you marketing value; rather, it’s the people themselves and their position in your niche. Think of it like “less is more.” You want to get the right people in the right Circles. Rather than a broadcast perspective, trying to hit as many random readers as possible, this is “niche-casting”: hitting a few people in your niche who will find your content insanely valuable.
In this respect, the structure of Google Plus is far more optimized for digital marketing than the structure of Facebook–or even Twitter.
Posting to Google Plus
Google Plus has some quirks. For example, when you post to your Google Plus page, the first 45-50 characters get pulled like a title in SERPs. Weird, right? You’ll just have to work with it. That means writing the first 45-50 characters of your G+ post like a titleand like the first line of a post at the same time.
If you want to include a link in your Google Plus post (and you should), make sure you use the Link function rather than adding the link manually to your text. This Link function is SEO gold.
How often should you post to Google Plus? Well… the answer is, “regularly.” We recommend posting every day. However, if this simply isn’t feasible, shoot for once a week. Whatever you do, stick to it.
Getting Followers on Google Plus
To get followers, you should join relevant Communities and stay active in them. That means posting every day. However, take note: no one really scrolls through the Google Plus newsfeed like they would on Twitter or Facebook. You can choose which Circles see your posts, thereby targeting your information to the most interested parties. You should take advantage of this function. It will increase the content value of your brand in your followers’ eyes.
Communities and posting aren’t the only way to gain followers. Social media is all about networking. Since you’re using Google Plus for local business marketing, why not start leaving excellent reviews on the G+ pages of other local businesses? Whether you do this out of the blue, or for a longstanding partner of your business, you can’t measure the value of this act of good will. Don’t be surprised if some businesses reciprocate the favor and start leaving excellent reviews on your page.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Don’t just dump your email contact list into G+ and invite them all to follow you. #googleplus” quote=”Don’t just dump your email contact list into G+ and invite them all to follow you. “]
What shouldn’t you do to gain followers on Google Plus? For starters, don’t simply dump your email contact list into G+ and invite them all to follow you. That’s unprofessional, and it’s unlikely every contact in your list will find your business relevant.
The Bottom Line
Google Plus is essential to the toolbox of any small business. Like Facebook and Twitter, it offers great social networking opportunities; but unlike them, it also integrates easily with your Google SEO efforts.
If your small business isn’t using Google Plus yet, sign up now and start interacting with your customers. If you’re already using Google Plus for local business, we want to hear from you. What’s working? What’s not working? Leave a comment below, and let’s continue learning together.
In this week’s Digital Marketing Round-Up we’re going to analyze ways to improve your social media marketing along with taking a look at SEO from a local perspective.
Local SEO has some of it’s own rules compared to national SEO and it is important to recognize the difference.
When you’re talking local business, even when it is SEO, you always want to think about the people. If your business has a positive reputation in your area, then that alone can drive traffic to your social media or blog.
Join local directories and engage reviewers online. If your area has a local business directory make sure you are listed!
Make sure your logo is on point. Google pulls logos of local businesses and lists them along side of regular search results accompanied by phone numbers and hours.
LinkedIn is a great platform for sharing your content with your target audience because of the B2B nature of the social media.
When sharing content on LinkedIn use words to grab the readers attention. If you convey the benefit of the link to the reader, they are more likely to click through. You can also mention (or tag) a person in the post that the information might be relevant to, or tag an event you are attending.
Timing: avoid spamming, the landscape of LinkedIn is different than Twitter. You should only be posting to LinkedIn 1 to 3 times a day.
Long- Form Publishing: while this option is not available for publishing from company pages, if you promote your content from your personal LinkedIn this is a great opportunity. Long- form publishing has a larger reach than normal posting.
There is a Facebook ad functionality called multi- product ads (MPAs). These ads allow users to scroll through items before clicking to a landing page.
With these MPAs you can do more than offer a line of products, which is great news for Digital Marketing. These ads have the ability to show case multiple offers, multiple locations, or multiple pieces of content!
What is great about the multi-content ad is that people don’t share ads, but they do share content. So with one ad you got the visibility of 3 ads.
The pieces of content that your promote should relate to each other that way your target market is seeing all relevant information and not just 1/3 relevant information.
Miva Suivant ReadyTheme Customization: The Sky’s The Limit!
If you use the Miva shopping cart platform, or if you’re looking to start a Miva store, you’ve probably heard of Miva ReadyThemes. These themes offer beautiful, functional styling right out of the box. However, they look even better with a little customization. Here at 216digital, we regularly customize Miva ReadyThemes for our clients. One of our favorite recent projects was a redesign via ReadyTheme for D’Andre New York, a seller of fine shearling coats. In this post, we’ll talk about that project and explain the Miva Suivant ReadyTheme customization that we performed.
D’Andre New York: A Great Product Deserves a Great Website
D’Andre New York sells fine shearling coats. These jackets feature beautiful, understated styling. Since they’re made of real wool, the moisture-wicking property of the material gives the wearer natural climate control. That means shearling coats can be worn comfortably in summer or winter. With this natural flexibility and their finely-tailored lines, shearling jackets are the pinnacle of outerwear style. Of course, high quality comes with a price tag. Shearling jackets typically range in price from $1000 to $3000.
D’Andre New York’s target customer is affluent, style-conscious, and expects high quality. If the product itself delivers on all these—which it certainly does—then shouldn’t the website that sells the product display that same excellence? That was our reasoning, and Tatiana, owner of D’Andre, agreed. She wanted a redesign of her website, something that would showcase the beauty, durability, and value of her shearling products.
D’Andre’s Legacy Site
D’Andre New York’s old site had excellent functionality, and it had served the business well for years. However, the site was built in the days of low-resolution screens, and it looked a little small on today’s larger monitors. Worse, the site was built long before the mobile responsive revolution. It was awkward and cumbersome to use on a mobile device. With more and more customers shopping and purchasing products directly from their phones, D’Andre stood to lose out on potential business. With each sale worth a few thousand dollars, D’Andre needed to convert every prospect who came their way.
D’Andre New York’s legacy site in mobile simulation. Get ready to zoom and scroll!
It wasn’t just the resolution and lack of mobile responsiveness that worried us. D’Andre sells a fine product to an affluent market. We believed that D’Andre’s old site didn’t quite convey the level of luxury and comfort that wearers could expect from a shearling jacket. We thought the site ought to display the excellence that D’Andre’s shearling coats provide. Clearly, it was time for a redesign.
Miva Suivant ReadyTheme: Almost Ready To Rock And Roll
Miva ReadyThemes give Miva store owners beautiful, functional online stores right out of the box. But as with all cookie-cutter solutions, ReadyThemes leave a bit to be desired in the details. A little customization takes a Miva ReadyTheme to the next level. D’Andre New York had chosen the Miva Suivant ReadyTheme. We agreed that this theme was perfect for a retailer of fine shearling jackets. It just needed a few tweaks.
For starters, the Miva Suivant ReadyTheme has a large header. This isn’t necessarily a problem—except that by default, that header anchors to the top of the screen when the user scrolls. It’s not too noticeable on desktop, but on a mobile device, that pinned header eats up a lot of real estate. For every client using the Suivant ReadyTheme, we routinely recommend customizing the header. In D’Andre’s case, we changed the header so it wouldn’t stick to the top of the screen. We reasoned that users know where the header is. They know to scroll up if they need to use the navigation bar. This change significantly improved the user experience of D’Andre’s new website.
The header wasn’t the only tweak that the Suivant ReadyTheme needed. With the ongoing evolution of SEO (search engine optimization), Google now values good content more than ever, and many web users find value in useful, informative content. Blogs and magazines can display the entirety of a piece of content without compromising other organizational goals. However, in an ecommerce setting, selling product is critical. Too much content on a product or category page could keep the all-important buy buttons hidden from site visitors. Yet content is critical for SEO! What’s a webmaster to do?
For all our clients doing customized ReadyThemes, it’s a simple fix. We custom-code an option to display the first 150 characters or so of the content, followed by a “read more” button. This gives us the best of both worlds: 300+ word content for SEO purposes (and for those readers who want to educate themselves fully), and product imagery and buy buttons still displayed above the fold for users who are close to making a purchase. For D’Andre New York, this solution was a no-brainer.
Optimizing D’Andre’s Onsite Content
Speaking of content, it’s one of the most important components of branding. Content that doesn’t convey the right brand impression negatively affects marketing. In the case of D’Andre New York, we recognized at once that Tatiana’s great luxury brand needed content that created an opulent, luxurious impression. With Tatiana’s permission, our SEO content writing team began writing new copy for the D’Andre website.
Our process was simple. We researched other luxury brands, such as Rolex and Mercedes-Benz, to get a feel for the appropriate voice and tone. We settled on two points of focus for D’Andre. For Tatiana’s women’s collection, our content revolved around the word “elegance.” For the men’s collection, we chose the word “achievement.” These words matched D’Andre’s brand perfectly. With these two ideas in place, the rest of the content flowed. The result was a unique, memorable brand identity in all D’Andre’s onsite content.
Image Optimization: A Key Element In Ecommerce Marketing
Customers want to see what they’re buying. In the case of D’Andre’s fine shearling coats, customers want to see not only the overall look of the jacket, but also the elegant details of accents and trim. With D’Andre’s old site, product images looked small on larger screens, preventing customers from getting a complete picture of the jacket they were considering. Every product image on the site existed in two separate files: a tiny thumbnail version, and the full-sized version. Since the thumbnail had to be created manually in an image editor, and since both images had to be uploaded manually, the old system required double the work on catalog updates.
Enter the Miva Image Machine. This state-of-the art functionality dynamically creates multiple image sizes from one image file, eliminating the need to create thumbnail sizes manually and upload them separately. The Image Machine also allows alternative images. These show up as thumbnail images below the main image on a product page. Users can click on any of these alternative images and view the full-sized image in a popup. This allows store owners to provide multiple views of a product, giving customers a sense of what the product looks like from different angles.
The Bottom Line
We saw at once that Tatiana’s company offered a great product. We wanted to improve the overall value of her brand by optimizing the impression her company made on web visitors. With a little Miva Suivant ReadyTheme customization, Tatiana’s redesign was ready to go, clearly communicating the luxury and style that customers could expect from D’Andre New York.
It was a pleasure to work with Tatiana. Through deep market analysis and ongoing communication, we formed a partnership with her to improve the marketability of her brand. We think you’ll agree—the new D’Andre New York website looks beautiful, fully matching the luxury and elegance which D’Andre offers its customers.
If you’re considering a responsive Miva design for your ecommerce store, get in touch with us today. We specialize in Miva design and development, and all our work is fully mobile-responsive. Whether you need tweaks to a Miva ReadyTheme or a ground-up custom design, we’ll turn your vision into a reality. Drop us a line, and let’s start talking about your next big thing.
In this week’s Digital Marketing Round-Up we’ll cover tips to optimize your conversion rate, how to make your SEO content writing stand out, and whats next for the Penguin update.
So you’re getting visitors to your site but they aren’t converting. What can you do to turn those visitors into customers? Start optimizing your acquisition strategy for conversions.
Message Match – Make sure your ad copy is true to what your product or service offers. If a consumer gets to a landing page and finds what they expected to find, they are less likely to bounce from your page.
Help Your Customer Be Successful – Conversions are more likely to occur when a customer is confident in the quality of the product. This confidence can come from a variety of things, but offering support and customer engagement can make a customer feel secure in their purchasing decision.
Keep your landing pages short and simple – Provide enough information to the consumer for them to act on the CTA. Consumers who are in the purchasing phase of the sales cycle don’t want to read more information than the information they need to buy.
Nothing destroys readers trust like factual errors in a piece they were using to help make a decision in the purchasing process. That is why research is at the top of the list when writing content for SEO, get your facts straight and then start writing.
Divide your readers into segments. For example, customers who are researching your product, customers who are getting to know your product, and customers who have a long lasting relationship with your product.
As long as you are putting your audience first then your consumer will put trust in your knowledgeable and relevant content.
While the Penguin refresh isn’t knocking on our door step, it is still important to be complying with all the best practices (cough cough mobile responsive design).
Currently Google is dealing with a slow running Penguin algorithm, which is far from the goal of an algorithm that runs in real time.
Google is working towards a continuously updating Penguin, versus what they have now, which is data that has to be manually refreshed.
Until then we will abide by rules like easy to crawl site link structures, mobile responsive designs, and well thought out content.
This week’s Digital Marketing Round-Up is all about staying ahead of the curve. Make sure your eCommerce marketing efforts are aligning with the best practices.
Link building authority Brian Dean, put out a how to guide for promoting your blog content. While it sounds simple, it is more than just throwing it into the social universe.
Good influencer outreach email
Promoting your content takes time. This time should be spent identifying influencers in your industry, and once you know the names, reach out and ask them to share.
As you reach out make sure that the influencer’s audience will be interested in your piece, if the content is relevant to their audience they will be more inclined to share your content.
With promotion, you are not only putting your content in front of more people, but building valuable links for your website.
It always seems that once you get a grasp on a new marketing trend, it is the way of the past. Start playing by the rules of the future, and your marketing mix will stay creative and up to date.
Personalize your online shopping experience – customers are more likely to provide you with personal information if there is incentive. For example, free shipping on their next purchase if they create a customer log-in.
Make your mobile advertisements targeted towards discounts and deals. This is important to the two-thirds of U.S. mobile shoppers who are comparing and checking prices.
Don’t let your social strategy fall to the wayside. Social marketing is becoming increasingly important with the mass adoption of the “buy button” bringing one click shopping to the consumer.
It is hard to do keyword targeting when there is no search volume for your keywords. But as the Moz Blog points out in their latest White Board Friday video, SEO can be a channel for opportunity.
When there is no search volume for your product or service it is important to take a step back in the SEO process and do in depth keyword research. For example, what else is your target audience searching for?
When you identify what else your audience is looking for, you can optimize content for those key phrases, even though they might not directly promote your product or services.
Building brand awareness is also important when a product has low search volume. Build your brand awareness through a combination or organic and paid advertising on sites that your audience is already visiting.
Call-to-Actions (CTAs) are critical for Ecommerce marketing. And just a few simple changes can improve your click through rate. HubSpot took a look at what works and what doesn’t work.
This CTA doesn’t align with a couple important rules. The actual CTA text doesn’t stand out from the copy text, and the wording itself is traditional and uninspiring.
This example of a good CTA has more than one element that makes it good. The CTA stands out against the hero image, without other distracting copy text. The CTA text is also interesting, it invites the shopper to browse and buy, without saying “shop now”.
Move away from from traditional text on your CTAs. Try something that is fresh, fun, and aligns with your brand personality
Pick a CTA color that contrasts with your background or hero image
Make sure the button inspires action, “click here” does not inspire
Don’t make the mistake of not having a clear clickable image
Your competitors are a valuable resource to pull information from. And that information can be used to improve your own SEO.
With a quick search in SEM Rush, you can identify the main competitors in your industry.
Analyze 5-10 competitors in your space. Verify them with a variety of sources, including your own eye
Use a competitor’s Google my business page to mine their data. With this data we can see if there are any common trends between your competitors that are working for them
Analyze your competitors landing pages
Finally with a simple Google search, you can see what links Google thinks are authoritative, associated with that business
Using Google Analytics is the first step in understanding your customer’s behaviors. Search Engine Land put together a piece on how to stop spending money on people who aren’t going to buy from you.
Make sure your remarketing campaigns only target people that visited pages that warrant remarketing. For example, you’d want to exclude remarketing for a careers page on your website
Exclude remarketing to visitors who spend less than 10 seconds on your website
By making these edits you can increase your CTR, which can affect your quality scores and impact your ad’s positioning
