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lanasitra · 7 years

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tswtms is over (and here’s why)

Did I get you with the clickbait title? I did? Damn right. Bangarang.

In short, I made a mistake.

I goofed.

I made a miscalculation.

I did not make a good prediction.

I anticipated something that did not happen.

I made an error in judgment.

I screwed the pooch.

I shamed the cat.

I faked my death but returned just after the halizah was carried out and now it’s super awkward between me, my ex-wife and my brother.

I fucked up.

(This essay will sometimes sound high-and-mighty, sometimes accusatory, sometimes selfish, and sometimes all-business-no-pleasure. In previous essays, I’ve detailed that my passion for music is not driven by money or fame, BUT I have also argued that I can want those things without undercutting my true passion. For that reason, I will not apologize, but I will acknowledge in advance that I may come off as slightly salty and overly businesslike over the next few paragraphs)

For all intent and purpose, tswtms has proven to be a failure. Since Honeymoon became available on major digital platforms in July 2016, I’ve only sold two copies (I’m just now seeing that I got 226 streams on Spotify, etc., which I am pleasantly surprised by and grateful for, but, in the scheme of things, that’s nothing – and only equates to 97 cents in my pocket, might I add). While it hasn’t been long enough for me to get a sales report back for In Between, I have a feeling it will have done marginally better, but still won’t be the kind of break I’m looking for.

There are three potential reasons why I believe tswtms has had a sub-par performance, and I’d like to go through all of them here and now (there is purpose to this, and I imagine the smartest of you cookies will have probably already guessed what it is):

- The music is bad

- The advertising is bad

- The name is bad

(The Music)

I will concede that tswtms is not everyone’s cup of tea. I am exceptionally proud of every piece I’ve written, but, of the ones I currently have on offer: “Canadian Summer” is six minutes long and meanders during the intro and outro, “Honeymoon” lacks a chorus, “Hate” lacks a chorus, “The North Wood” lacks a chorus, “I Am Not Afraid” lacks a chorus, “SRND” has a meandering intro and lacks a chorus, and all my interludes, intros and outros are “weird” and “artsy” in some way or another. In brief, I have tended so far to not write “accessible” pop songs. “Dreams,” “What’s It Like” and “For You” are what I consider to be my three most accessible, “poppy” songs that are currently available (there’s also “Heavy Crush,” available on my SoundCloud, which I rank among the most “accessible,” but it currently only exists in a place that is not really on anyone’s radar). Having my oeuvre be only ~16% accessible, singalong-able music is perhaps a worry, but, considering how many times someone ensures themselves a comfortable life and diehard audience as a one- or two-hit wonder, I’m not really concerned in that regard.

Such talk of “accessibility,” musical forms and choruses drives me nuts. I enjoy the music I make, and I think that serves as a good enough indication that other people would like it if given the right listening context. Though I go through peaks and valleys of enjoyment with my catalogue, I go through similar phases with any music, regardless of the writer or performer (even Ariana Grande! F***ing crazy, right?). I sometimes get hung up and blame my every failure on the vocal tuning in my pieces, but I realize that I’m only so critical because it’s my own stuff; I listen to other artists’ songs that have some vocal imperfections, and these imperfections rarely diminish my enjoyment of a piece. I like to think that an imperfection here or there on my part will fly similarly under the radar for audience members.

All this has been to say that the music is not the problem. I write a variety of things that appeal to me, and I believe that, while it won’t all appeal to everyone all the time, there is, indeed, something for everyone with tswtms.

(The Advertising)

With In Between, I attempted to do some online promotion leading up to the album’s release. I feel the campaign (if you can even call it that, given its size) did well to get the word out in my close circles. On release day, I got critique back from people I had never even dreamed would be listening. On top of that, I am very proud of the visual media I created.

However, after observing my local contemporaries, I’m aware of better ways to advertise my music, including buying plays (which, at the time of writing, I think is a pretty slimy thing to do, but I can understand why it would be a necessary evil). I have friends who boast about how many Spotify plays they have, but, when comparing their day-to-day / week-to-week growth on Spotify vs Youtube vs Facebook vs Soundcloud, I can plainly see that they are buying listens. It’s pedantic and petty of me to go about comparing all this data, and I will admit this little search was initially born out of bitterness concerning my contemporaries’ seemingly inexplicable, magnificent successes. I have learned, though, that buying plays is just another way to make your product seem enticing. I hate to imagine that a prospective audience member or booking agent would think differently of my music or my project because it wasn’t “popular,” but I guess that must be the case if buying listens is actually proven to help a startup artist. For the sake of my integrity and transparency (which I like to think I hold above all else), I will make it public knowledge if I ever buy views, listens, followers, etc., and I will include where I got them, the number I bought, and for how much money.

If we’re thinking about an album as a product, let’s think about live performances as advertising that product (though, ideally, I would like to be at a spot where the album is being pirated and people are just paying to come to the shows, but that’s not how it is for me just yet). I haven’t performed live in about a year, and I believe I have a good reason for this: in my opinion, I don’t have a satisfactory live set worth paying any amount of cover charge or ticket price for. As a precursor to the next section, I’ll also point out that, with a name like tswtms or The Sunlit Woods, the Moonlit Sea, open mics are a bit of a difficult beast to grapple with, as it’s likely that people in attendance are just interested enough to go looking for you online, but not interested enough to ask you for your name if they don’t catch it during your performance (as you might expect, people do not catch my name during performances). In short, I don’t believe the returns would yet justify the work required to put on a live show.

Again, all this is to say that I don’t think advertising is the problem. I recognize that I could advertise better, but I don’t even think that’s a relevant conversation yet. My Soundcloud only has 51 followers after having it since high school, and the tswtms Facebook page only has 57 likes after 4 years. For comparison, my friends just started a Facebook page for their new Harry Potter podcast, Flipendo, and amassed more than 100 likes in less than 24 hours (yes, both pages invited people, but I will concede that Flipendo has the benefit of pooling three admins’ social circles). I was in a f***ing high school rock band that DIDN’T DO ANYTHING, and we were still sittin’ pretty above 300 likes when we deleted the page (pour one out for My Autumn Distraction, y’all). Before I even consider buying more ad space or any listens, I need a project that can organically grow in a satisfactory manner.

(BONUS POTENTIAL REASON: People hate me because I was a piece of shit in high school / early university who was annoying on social media and not a very good musician, and these people are deliberately ignoring and avoiding everything I do)

Maybe? Probably a little bit. This is a real insecurity of mine, but I think any effect this deliberate ignorance may be having is inconsequential.

(The Name Is S***)

Surprise, y’all.

It’s the name.

Of course it’s the name.

It was never not the name.

I’m finally changing the name.

No matter which way you say it – The Sunlit Woods, the Moonlit Sea, tswtms (tee ess doube-u tee em ess), tuhswuhtuhmuss –, the name does not roll off the tongue, nor does it stick in the mind. I wanted to take a few moments, though, to explain why I’ve stubbornly gone along with this dumpster fire of a name for four years and two albums:

There are already George Deans making music. George Dean and the Gospel Four. George Dean from the UK (We’rebothfromtheUKbutwhateverweallknowbynowthatIhaveaUSpassportandwishIwasCanadian).

I wanted a name that captured a dichotomy. For the better part of two hours, I brainstormed names that would capture the geographic dichotomy I see in Vancouver. We have mountains and lush forests, but we also have the sea. We can go on brightly lit, magnificent hikes during the day, but stare up at the stars as their lights dance across the waters of the Georgia Strait. For anyone who has listened to my piece “Tarot,” you know that there’s a metaphysical dichotomy that can be gleaned from this as well. As it happens, it proved quite hard to capture that imagery in anything less than “The Sunlit Woods, the Moonlit Sea.”

I wanted to take myself out of it. You’ll notice I tend not to post any performance photos on social media, and that my physical appearance is not part of any tswtms promotion. Other than in the music videos I’m planning, I want to remain ethereal and mysterious; I don’t want to be George Dean, but a purer distillation of my mind. I hate that One Direction’s and similar artists’ successes are so inextricably linked to the audience’s physical attraction to the performing artists, and I want so badly to be an artist that minimizes that as much as possible (short of wearing a mask to perform). Maybe, one day, if I’m ripped af – not if I keep living the way I am, I’ll tell ya! – and Vogue wants to do a shoot with me, I’ll bare all for the world, but I need that s*** to not be the reason I’m selling albums or concert tickets; the music comes first and foremost, and I will fiercely argue against the modern assumption that image is as important as the art itself.

I wanted to leave room for a band. Even on my FIRST album, I already had help from my friends: Janine on trombone, Jaelem on drums, Sean on lead guitar, and Are Been on piano. This continues on In Between, where Sean’s playing guitar on “For You.” This project clearly isn’t just George Dean, and it would be a disservice to my fellow musicians and artists if I called it George Dean. Sure, I write the music and lyrics, and I make almost all creative decisions, but, whenever another musician gets involved, they’re going to give their two cents and reshape a piece (no matter how minutely). Furthermore, I’m rarely going to give a solo performance of most of these songs, because they deserve to be played by a full band. I don’t want to go on stage with my friends and essentially say “Hey! I’m the guy you all came for and these five dunces can all f*** off!” Consequently, I have struggled with choosing any derivative of “George Dean and the ________” because, in my head, it may as well be the same thing in terms of dictating superiority. In live performance, I don’t want the audience to see me in front of a backing band – I want the audience to see tswtms.

SBTRKT, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance all exist. All three of these projects exist and have achieved a level of success that I’d be happy with. Despite it being pronounced “Subrtract,” I definitely had an acquaintance in high school who liked SBTRKT enough to go to their concert, but still called them “ess bee tee are kay tee.” Long names clearly work for some people, but I suppose mine was just too out there (and I am aware that Odd Future’s name has been organically shortened over time by the audience and the artists, and I was hoping that would happen eventually for tswtms).

I arrogantly wanted to create a barrier to entry concerning intelligence. In my mind, neither The Sunlit Woods, the Moonlit Sea nor tswtms are hard to remember, and I have always assumed that this feat of memory was a mark of intelligence. I realize now that the names aren’t hard to remember for anyone else either; it’s just that other people have other s*** going on that’s filling their heads, and I should be respectful of that. tswtms has been the primary thing on my mind for four years now, so no s*** I’d be well acquainted with the names. Even as I type this, I’m supposed to be working on projects for other people, but there’s so much on my mind that the minutia (or what I consider to be the minutia) is falling out. It would be hypocritical of me to expect someone to memorize cumbersome sets of words or letters that aren’t of the utmost importance to them if I’m not willing to do the same. Furthermore, I shouldn’t get salty about people choosing not to fill their mental hard drives with such nonsense.

Something I’ve often thought in the past – especially when I’m feeling bitter – is that, if someone couldn’t remember the name or wasn’t willing to put in a little bit of legwork to memorize it, then I wouldn’t want them listening to my music anyway. That’s a really arrogant, elitist, hurtful, b***s*** and insensitive way of thinking, and I apologize that I ever felt that way. As my buddy Sean Dales said to me, “You don’t choose your audience, your audience chooses you.”

I thought I was centuries ahead of the curve with the name tswtms. It’s arrogant to say, but I do actually believe this still. For the most part, you’ve got artists going by their actual names, but, when that’s not available, people are using whatever’s left to allow them to stand out against the incessant din of the modern world. Broadly speaking, you have artists throwing darts at walls, you have snappy mononyms, you have some variation on “X and the Y,” you’ve got “The ______,” you definitely have “______ the ______,” and NOW, with the rise of Chvrches, you’ve got people taking a snappy mononym and replacing letters with other letters. If this trend continues (and I’m sure it will as the digitally available library of art grows and grows with – hopefully – very little of it ever being deleted), I think it’s within reason to predict that, in 200 years’ time, people will be listening to popular bands whose names are just random assortments of letters. For the time being, though, I don’t think society is ready for this jelly.

The iconography is gorgeous. The thing that really sold me on going with the acronym tswtms as opposed to The Sunlit Woods, the Moonlit Sea (other than Soundcloud not allowing a name that long -.-) was the iconography I developed. In fact, the iconography for tswtms is impacting what the new name will be, because I want to keep the new iconography as similar to the old as possible.

I maintained a monopoly on search results. Google “George Dean” and tell me how many results pertain to me (you can get closer by searching “George TB Dean,” but NOT CLOSE ENOUGH). Google “Sean Dales” and tell me how many are related to either his music or his blog. Do the same with Kyle Cardigan. Now google “tswtms,” and you can bet your neck, back, p**** and crack that every result on the first page has something to do with me.

Banga-f***ing-rang.

It’s a little thing, but it was nice knowing that I wasn’t competing with anyone else.

I think that’s it for why I chose and stuck with tswtms. I felt that, if I pushed it for long enough, the music would persevere and people would come around to understanding and accepting the name. An anecdote that I believe accurately suggests how badly the name has failed is this: when explaining to a co-worker that I had “come up with a bad band name,” I opted to write down “tswtms” and “The Sunlit Woods, the Moonlit Sea” on a piece of paper and show it to them rather than just say the names, because I have not once said either name out loud and had it be understood without eventually writing it down.

I believe I’ve found a name that is more manageable, yet still allows me to remove my physical self, retain some air of mystery and avoid direct competition with similarly titled projects. Maybe I’ll use this name; maybe I’ll change my mind within minutes of posting this essay to Tumblr. Only time will tell. Anyway, I’ll soon be pulling the tswtms stuff off of iTunes and Spotify in order to re-upload it all under a new name, so, if you want that OG kush, get it while you can. The Tumblr, Facebook, Soundcloud and (hopefully) YouTube page will all just be swapped over to the new name when the time comes, but I’ll be sure to update you all with the social media links when they’re ready.

Namaste

t s w t m s

[2016-05-16 Edit: As of right now, the tswtms catalogue is no longer available on iTunes or Spotify]

#tswtms #The Sunlit Woods the Moonlit Sea

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wickedbananas · 7 years

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The Best Types of Content for Local Businesses: Building Geo-Topical Authority

Posted by MiriamEllis

Q: What kind of content should a local business develop?

A: The kind that converts!

Okay, you could have hit on that answer yourself, but as this post aims to demonstrate:

There are almost as many user paths to conversion as there are customers in your city, and

Your long-term goal is to become the authority in your industry and geography that consumers and search engines turn to.

Google’s widely publicized concept of micro-moments has been questioned by some local SEOs for its possible oversimplification of consumer behavior. Nevertheless, I think it serves as a good, basic model for understanding how a variety of human needs (I want to do, know, buy something, or go somewhere) leads people onto the web. When a local business manages to become a visible solution to any of these needs, the rewards can include:

Online traffic

In-store traffic

Transactions

Reviews/testimonials

Clicks-for-directions

Clicks-to-call

Clicks-to-website

Social sharing

Offline word-of-mouth

Good user metrics like time-on-page, low bounce rate, etc.

Takeaway: Consumers have a variety of needs and can bestow a variety of rewards that directly or indirectly impact local business reputation, rankings and revenue when these needs are well-met.

No surprise: it will take a variety of types of content publication to enjoy the full rewards it can bring.

Proviso: There will be nuances to the best types of content for each local business based on geo-industry and average consumer. Understandably, a cupcake bakery has a more inviting topic for photographic content than does a septic services company, but the latter shouldn’t rule out the power of an image of tree roots breaking into a septic line as a scary and effective way to convert property owners into customers. Point being, you’ll be applying your own flavor to becoming a geo-topical authority as you undertake the following content development work:

Foundational local business content development

These are the basics almost every local business will need to publish.

Customer service policy

Every single staff member who interacts with your public must be given a copy of your complete customer service policy. Why? A 2016 survey by the review software company GetFiveStars demonstrated that 57% of consumer complaints revolve around customer service and employee behavior. To protect your local business’ reputation and revenue, the first content you create should be internal and should instruct all forward-facing employees in approved basic store policies, dress, cleanliness, language, company culture, and allowable behaviors. Be thorough! Yes, you may wear a t-shirt. No, you may not text your friends while waiting on tables.

Customer rights guarantee

On your website, publish a customer-focused version of your policy. The Vermont Country Store calls this a Customer Bill of Rights which clearly outlines the quality of service consumers should expect to experience, the guarantees that protect them, and the way the business expects to be treated, as well.

NAP

Don’t overlook the three most important pieces of content you need to publish on your website: your company name, address, and phone number. Make sure they are in crawlable HTML (not couched in an image or a problematic format like Flash). Put your NAP at the top of your Contact Us page and in the site-wide masthead or footer so that humans and bots can immediately and clearly identify these key features of your business. Be sure your NAP is consistent across all pages for your site (not Green Tree Consulting on one page and Green Tree Marketing on another, or wrong digits in a phone number or street address on some pages). And, ideally, mark up your NAP with Schema to further assist search engine comprehension of your data.

Reviews/testimonials page

On your website, your reviews/testimonials page can profoundly impact consumer trust, comprising a combination of unique customer sentiment you’ve gathered via a form/software (or even from handwritten customer notes) and featured reviews from third-party review platforms (Google, Yelp). Why make this effort? As many as 92% of consumers now read online reviews and Google specifically cites testimonials as a vehicle for boosting your website’s trustworthiness and reputation.

Reviews/testimonials policy

Either on your Reviews/Testimonials page or on a second page of your website, clearly outline your terms of service for reviewers. Just like Yelp, you need to protect the quality of the sentiment-oriented content you publish and should let consumers know what you permit/forbid. Here’s a real-world example of a local business review TOS page I really like, at Barbara Oliver Jewelry.

Homepage

Apart from serving up some of the most fundamental content about your business to search engines, your homepage should serve two local consumer groups: those in a rush and those in research mode.

Be sure the former is being given must-have information to understand your business at a glance and contact it immediately.

For the latter, the homepage should offer clear navigation, consumer-centric content, and inducements to further explore additional pages of the website (take advantage of a special, look at products, see project photos, read a blog post, etc.) as they seek to get to know your business better before choosing it for a transaction.

Pro tip: Don’t think of your homepage as static. Change up your content regularly there and track how this impacts traffic/conversions.

On this incredibly vital website page, your content should include:

Complete NAP

All supported contact methods (forms, email, fax, live chat, after-hours hotline, etc.),

Thorough driving directions from all entry points, including pointers for what to look for on the street (big blue sign, next to red church, across the street from swim center, etc.)

A map

Exterior images of your business

Attributes like parking availability and wheelchair accessibility

Hours of operation

Social media links

Payment forms accepted (cash only, BitCoin, etc.)

Mention of proximity to major nearby points of interest (national parks, monuments, etc.)

Brief summary of services with a nod to attributes ("Stop by the Starlight tonight for late-night food that satisfies!")

A fresh call-to-action (like visiting the business for a Memorial Day sale)

Store locator pages

For a multi-location businesses (like a restaurant chain), you’ll be creating content for a set of landing pages to represent each of your physical locations, accessed via a top-level menu if you have a few locations, or via a store locator widget if you have many. These should feature the same types of content a Contact Us page would for a single-location business, and can also include:

Reviews/testimonials for that location

Location-specific special offers

Social media links specific to that location

Proofs of that location’s local community involvement

Highlights of staff at that location

Education about availability of in-store beacons or apps for that location

Interior photos specific to that location

A key call-to-action

For help formatting all of this great content sensibly, please read Overcoming Your Fear of Local Landing Pages.

City landing pages

Similar to the multi-location business, the service area business (like a plumber) can also develop a set of customer-centric landing pages. These pages will represent each of the major towns or cities the business serves, and while they won’t contain a street address if the company lacks a physical location in a given area, they can contain almost everything else a Contact Us page or Store Locator page would, plus:

Documentation of projects completed in that city (text, photos, video)

Expert advice specific to consumers in that city, based on characteristics like local laws, weather, terrain, events, or customs

Showcasing of services provided to recognized brands in that city ("we wash windows at the Marriott Hotel," etc.)

Reviews/testimonials from customers in that city

Proofs of community involvement in that city (events, sponsorships, etc.)

A key call-to-action

Product/service descriptions

Regardless of business model, all local businesses should devote a unique page of content to each major product or service they offer. These pages can include:

A thorough text description

Images

Answers to documented FAQs

Price/time quotes

Technical specs

Reviews of the service or product

Videos

Guarantees

Differentiation from competitors (awards won, lowest price, environmental standards, lifetime support, etc.)

For inspiration, I recommend looking at SolarCity’s page on solar roofing. Beautiful and informative.

Images

For many industries, image content truly sells. Are you "wowed" looking at the first image you see of this B&B in Albuquerque, the view from this restaurant in San Diego, or the scope of this international architectural firm’s projects? But even if your industry doesn’t automatically lend itself to wow-factor visuals, cleaning dirty carpets can be presented with high class and even so-called “boring” industries can take a visual approach to data that yields interesting and share-worthy/link-worthy graphics.

While you’re snapping photos, don’t neglect uploading them to your Google My Business listings and other major citations. Google data suggests that listing images influence click-through rates!

FAQ

The content of your FAQ page serves multiple purposes. Obviously, it should answer the questions your local business has documented as being asked by your real customers, but it can also be a keyword-rich page if you have taken the time to reflect the documented natural language of your consumers. If you’re just starting out and aren’t sure what types of questions your customers will ask, try AnswerThePublic and Q&A crowdsourcing sites to brainstorm common queries.

Be sure your FAQ page contains a vehicle for consumers to ask a question so that you can continuously document their inquiries, determine new topics to cover on the FAQ page, and even find inspiration for additional content development on your website or blog for highly popular questions.

About page

For the local customer in research mode, your About page can seal the deal if you have a story to tell that proves you are in the best possible alignment with their specific needs and desires. Yes, the About Us page can tell the story of your business or your team, but it can also tell the story of why your consumers choose you.

Take a look at this About page for a natural foods store in California and break it down into elements:

Reason for founding company

Difference-makers (95% organic groceries, building powered by 100% renewable energy)

Targeted consumer alignment (support local alternative to major brand, business inspired by major figure in environmental movement)

Awards and recognition from government officials and organizations

Special offer (5-cent rebate if you bring your own bag)

Timeline of business history

Video of the business story

Proofs of community involvement (organic school lunch program)

Links to more information

If the ideal consumer for this company is an eco-conscious shopper who wants to support a local business that will, in turn, support the city in which they live, this About page is extremely persuasive. Your local business can take cues from this real-world example, determining what motivates and moves your consumer base and then demonstrating how your values and practices align.

Calls to action

CTAs are critical local business content, and any website page which lacks one represents a wasted opportunity. Entrepreneur states that the 3 effective principles of calls to action are visibility, clear/compelling messaging, and careful choice of supporting elements. For a local business, calls to action on various pages of your website might direct consumers to:

Come into your location

Call

Fill out a form

Ask a question/make a comment or complaint

Livechat with a rep

Follow you on social media

Attend an in-store event/local event

Leave a review

Fill out a survey/participate in a poll

Ideally, CTAs should assist users in doing what they want to do in alignment with the actions the business hopes the consumer will take. Audit your website and implement a targeted CTA on any page currently lacking one. Need inspiration? This Hubspot article showcases mainly virtual companies, but the magic of some of the examples should get your brain humming.

Local business listings

Some of the most vital content being published about your business won't exist on your website — it will reside on your local business listings on the major local business data platforms. Think Google My Business, Facebook, Acxiom, Infogroup, Factual, YP, Apple Maps, and Yelp. While each platform differs in the types of data they accept from you for publication, the majority of local business listings support the following content:

NAP

Website address

Business categories

Business description

Hours of operation

Images

Marker on a map

Additional phone numbers/fax numbers

Links to social, video, and other forms of media

Attributes (payments accepted, parking, wheelchair accessibility, kid-friendly, etc.)

Reviews/owner responses

The most important components of your business are all contained within a thorough local business listing. These listings will commonly appear in the search engine results when users look up your brand, and they may also appear for your most important keyword searches, profoundly impacting how consumers discover and choose your business.

Your objective is to ensure that your data is accurate and complete on the major platforms and you can quickly assess this via a free tool like Moz Check Listing. By ensuring that the content of your listings is error-free, thorough, and consistent across the web, you are protecting the rankings, reputation, and revenue of your local business. This is a very big deal!

Third-party review profiles

While major local business listing platforms (Google My Business, Facebook, Yelp) are simultaneously review platforms, you may need to seek inclusion on review sites that are specific to your industry or geography. For example, doctors may want to manage a review profile on HealthGrades and ZocDoc, while lawyers may want to be sure they are included on Avvo.

Whether your consumers are reviewing you on general or specialized platforms, know that the content they are creating may be more persuasive than anything your local business can publish on its own. According to one respected survey, 84% of consumers trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations and 90% of consumers read less than 10 reviews to form a distinct impression of your business.

How can local businesses manage this content which so deeply impacts their reputation, rankings, and revenue? The answer is twofold:

First, refer back to the beginning of this article to the item I cited as the first document you must create for your business: your customer service policy. You can most powerfully influence the reviews you receive via the excellence of your staff education and training.

Master catching verbal and social complaints before they turn into permanent negative reviews by making your business complaint-friendly. And then move onto the next section of this article.

Owner responses

Even with the most consumer-centric customer service policies and the most detailed staff training, you will not be able to fully manage all aspects of a customer’s experience with your business. A product may break, a project be delayed, or a customer may have a challenging personality. Because these realities are bound to surface in reviews, you must take advantage of the best opportunity you have to manage sentiment after it has become a written review: the owner response.

You are not a silent bystander, sitting wordless on the sidelines while the public discusses your business. The owner response function provided by many review sites gives you a voice. This form of local business content, when properly utilized, can:

Save you money by winning back a dissatisfied existing customer instead of having to invest a great deal more in winning an entirely new one;

Inspire an unhappy customer to update a negative review with improved sentiment, including a higher star rating; and

Prove to all other potential customers who encounter your response that you will take excellent care of them.

You’ll want to respond to both positive and negative reviews. They are free Internet real estate on highly visible websites and an ideal platform for showcasing the professionalism, transparency, accountability, empathy, and excellence of your company. For more on this topic, please read Mastering the Owner Response to the Quintet of Google My Business Reviews.

Once you have developed and are managing all of the above content, your local business has created a strong foundation on the web. Depending on the competitiveness of your geo-industry, the above work will have won you a certain amount of local and organic visibility. Need better or broader rankings and more customers? It’s time to grow with:

Structural local business content development

These are options for creating a bigger structure for your local business on the web, expanding the terms you rank for and creating multiple paths for consumer discovery. We’ll use Google’s 4 micro-moment terms as a general guide + real-world examples for inspiration.

I want to do

A homeowner wants to get her house in Colorado Springs ready to sell. In her search for tips, she encounters this Ultimate Home Seller’s To-Do Checklist & Infographic. Having been helped by the graphic, she may turn to the realty firm that created it for professional assistance.

A dad wants to save money by making homemade veggie chips for his children. He’s impressed with the variety of applicable root vegetables featured in this 52-second video tutorial from Whole Foods. And now he’s also been shown where he can buy that selection of produce.

A youth in California wants to become a mountain climber. He discovers this website page describing guided hikes up nearby Mount Whitney, but it isn’t the text that really gets him — it’s the image gallery. He can share those exciting photos with his grandmother on Facebook to persuade her to chaperone him on an adventure together.

I want to know

A tech worker anywhere in America wants to know how to deal with digital eye strain and she encounters this video from Kaiser Permanente, which gives tips and also recommends getting an eye exam every 1–2 years. The worker now knows where she could go locally for such an exam and other health care needs.

A homeowner in the SF Bay Area wants to know how to make his place more energy efficient to save on his bills. He finds this solar company’s video on YouTube with a ton of easy tips. They’ve just made a very good brand impression on the homeowner, and this company serves locally. Should he decide at some point to go the whole nine yards and install solar panels, this brand’s name is now connected in his mind with that service.

A gardener wants to know how to install a drip irrigation system in her yard and she encounters this major hardware store brand’s video tutorial. There’s a branch of this store in town, and now she knows where she can find all of the components that will go into this project.

I want to go

While it’s true that most I-want-to-go searches will likely lead to local pack results, additional website content like this special gluten-free menu an independently owned pizza place in Houston has taken the time to publish should seal the deal for anyone in the area who wants to go out for pizza while adhering to their dietary requirements.

A busy Silicon Valley professional is searching Google because they want to go to a "quiet resort in California." The lodgings, which have been lucky enough to be included on this best-of list from TripAdvisor, didn’t have to create this content — their guests have done it for them by mentioning phrases like "quiet place" and "quiet location" repeatedly in their reviews. The business just has to provide the experience, and, perhaps promote this preferred language in their own marketing. Winning inclusion on major platforms’ best-of lists for key attributes of your business can be very persuasive for consumers who want to go somewhere specific.

An ornithologist is going to speak at a conference in Medford, OR. As he always does when he goes on a trip, he looks for a bird list for the area and encounters this list of local bird walks published by a Medford nature store. He’s delighted to discover that one of the walks corresponds with his travel dates, and he’s also just found a place to do a little shopping during his stay.

I want to buy

Two cousins in Atlanta want to buy their uncle dinner for his birthday, but they’re on a budget. One sees this 600+ location restaurant chain’s tweet about how dumb it is to pay for chips and salsa. Check this out @cousin, he tweets, and they agree their wallets can stretch for the birthday dinner.

An off-road vehicle enthusiast in Lake Geneva, WI wants to buy insurance for his ride, but who offers this kind of coverage? A local insurance agent posts his video on this topic on his Facebook page. Connection!

A family in Hoboken, NJ wants to buy a very special cake for an anniversary party. A daughter finds these mouth-watering photos on Pinterest while a son finds others on Instagram, and all roads lead to the enterprising Carlo’s Bakery.

In sum, great local business content can encompass:

Website/blog content

Image content including infographics and photos

Social content

Video content

Inclusion in best-of type lists on prominent publications

Some of these content forms (like professional video or photography creation) represent a significant financial investment that may be most appropriate for businesses in highly competitive markets. The creation of tools and apps can also be smart (but potentially costly) undertakings. Others (like the creation of a tweet or a Facebook post) can be almost free, requiring only an investment of time that can be made by local businesses at all levels of commerce.

Becoming a geo-topical authority

Your keyword and consumer research are going to inform the particular content that would best serve the needs of your specific customers. Rand Fishkin recently highlighted here on the Moz Blog that in order to stop doing SEO like it’s 2012, you must aim to become an entity that Google associates with a particular topic.

For local business owners, the path would look something like when anyone in my area searches for any topic that relates to our company, we want to appear in:

local pack rankings with our Google My Business listing

major local data platforms with our other listings

major review sites with our profiles and owner responses

organic results with our website’s pages and posts

social platforms our customers use with our contributions

video results with our videos

image search results with our images

content of important third-party websites that are relevant either to our industry or to our geography

Basically, every time Google or a consumer reaches for an answer to a need that relates to your topic and city, you should be there offering up the very best content you can produce. Over time, over years of publication of content that consistently applies to a given theme, you will be taking the right steps to become an authority in Google’s eyes, and a household brand in the lives of your consumers.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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jdaigleprocess-blog · 6 years

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Group Brainstorming and Debriefing

For our brainstorming session, we followed a very similar approach as to what we did in the class brainstorming activity. We revisited our list of 1 how might we questions, and as a group highlighted which of these we found most interesting or fruitful. From there, we each committed to remotely brainstorming for 15 minutes on each of the highlighted ideation prompts, and then another 15 minutes reflecting and giving feedback on the results once they were all in. We used google docs and slack as our main communication and brainstorming platforms- where we could begin live editing on the google doc while multiple of us were on the same document. We were able to hash out our thoughts after both in the google doc and through slack, where we shared our main concerns, or judgements, about the brainstorming results. Next, we went back in and reorganized our thoughts into a more categorical visual display. I found this ideation exercise exciting to come up with as many ideas as possible, and also a bit challenging. I found myself trying to go over the time limit or still pondering questions after I had already moved on. One thing that was kinda funny and weird during my reflection stage of this step, was that I said outloud in my apartment ‘why are phones more dangerous with data security than my google home ? Is it proximity?’ To which my google home responds ‘yes’ from the corner of my room. Perhaps she was brainstorming with me!

In reflecting on the exercise a day or two after completion, I am kind of caught up in the idea that some of the solutions posed strayed away from the ideation prompt. I found myself in this problem a few times, where I would come up with as many possible distribution ideas but then none of those would actually relate to Internet of Things. One take away is how vital it is to keep the prompt in front of us at all times during this process, so as to be constantly reminded. My favorite idea out of these so far is the mobile app that’s a personal assistant/ teacher to IoT and data security. Another is finding a way to parcel data created from IoT devices (let’s say google home alarm sleep schedule, or stating that you have run out of milk, to then have those voice commands integrated with mobile apps to automatically send milk your way, to analyze your sleep cycle in the health app, etc.) In essence, this idea is to integrate voice recognition, on demand delivery and convenience services, and smart phone interfaces to make our smart devices incredible more smart.

Below you can find a transcript of our ideation brainstorming session:

IoT Core definition:

as we ideate to have a macro view of topic we chose considering privacy/security issues

An IoT device is distinguished by being identified as a "Physical Object" ( not a person ) embedded with "Network Connectivity" (sensors, electronics) that enables "Data Exchange" (collection of information, data transfer & storage). Categories for the devices can include Consumer, Commercial, Industrial and Infrastructure and they are developed to make access to information ( via a wearable or Smart Home device) more convenient and readily accessible.

How might individuals gain access to their data:

JSON FILES

Color maps *

Emojis

Different type of data visualizations **

Based on pop culture

Based on your Soc

2 step verification

Maybe have to go to the town center every city has one to become a smart city **

Thumb print scanner

Based on your dna (insert a drop of blood) **

Housed in your amazon account

Data must be able to be digestible by smartphones

Government provided smartphones

Data libraries

Phone app that comes with smart phones with data access - *** Jenean

API

Self scanners at grocery stores *

ATMs

Making everything open-source

everytime a piece of data is produced, it is uploaded onto a public server

Treat data like puzzle pieces

reimagine data as a collective unit rather than individually focused

World atlas or like database of every individual’s data… registered into database with a device’s first use of internet.. Collective storing after

Legal protection.. Companies must distribute to each customer unless opted out *

Regulation of data access

Unlocking said data through fingerprints or eyescans

Everyone should be able to request to download their data

Cameras on devices

Notifications if you are sharing an alarming amount of data *

Piggybacking… notifications for each time data is shared with another company/user

A service that can delete your data across multiple devices

An app that helps you manage how and where you share your data **

Access to the data

We were looking at it from 2 different ways to have companies/governments to allow access to the data that they were using in their companies. And then on the other side of the spectrum

Looking into opting out of information but in a layer by layer that type of situation

Making it as digestible as possible. Imagine if privacy policies, or credit card statements, or mortgages where in a digestible format.

transparency/public

Pushing for an informed opinion

*Ooh guys just thought of an interesting example…. my current renters insurance is an app that is named maya and she tells me all the legal stuff of my policy in a texting format and i respond like ‘ tell me more’ and she explains in greater detail - Jaime *

Very Interesting ~Jenean

^^Love this, I could’ve definitely used Maya during my move out process lol (Johnnie)

Control our tracking settings on our devices

VPN

In private browsing/incognito

Restrict purchasing of user data

Notify users of their data being sold

Data exchange database

Increased encryption standards

Distributed file systems

Use Data receipts (public key cryptography)

Automatically delete data

Reapproaching cloud storage

Removing data collection

Scheduled data releases

Api integration

Application interfacing with what you say

Parce all the data into segments for Specific uses (connecting voice commands with mobile apps, order triggers, safety resources, scheduling and productivity apps) and distribute the segments separately like Blockchain… no one resource has access to entirety

Treat data like iTunes library/ App Store

scheduled data clearings

Data expiration and permanent deletions across all that have access

Lack of interface on IoT device could lead to something being hacked and you don’t know*

Distributing data through new or different media than the standard

Creating new file types that are locked to specific devices

DNA based

Physical record of data

Combining encryption with messaging platforms

Various servers for specific users and have them be checked out

Updated hardware to turn commercial grade into consumer grade

Intranets of various types of data

Using computer vision to move away from source code

Getting rid of the code

How can we have these devices be digital but not survive on code (to avoid hacking)

Each device creating its own coding language so no other computer could read it

Have the device man all the data usage

Jumbling up code after each data production

Provide examples of how companies are using their data to sell them different products

Requiring hover messages over everything that you click that states this gives companies this information about you

Showing the implications of actions like (this page would like to track your location), or saying that if you allow uber to track you when you are not on the app then they will use this to raise rates on your area

Letting users know when different data streams are commingled into information that is being used

How to implement web trackers into your handheld devices(there are different chrome extensions that show what type of cookies are tracking you and what type of data they are transmitting. Why isn’t something like that for mobile)

Push notifications on distribution

Incorporating transparency of data distribution in voice/messaging

Amber alert like messages when a breach occurs

Visualization of where data is housed, where its been sent/who has access (pie chart like slice)

Eguides about data sharing

Data encryption education

A website teaching users about what type of data companies are collecting and teaching how to opt out

Data-use fireside talks sponsored by companies big in data analytics

Hack-Athons put on by common mobile app companies

Infographic videos walking through use of specific data

Taking data use like a narrative journey… comic book stories of the journey, magic school bus

*why were phone books ok but sharing your other info scares people*

Sending transactional emails with each distribution

Transparent reporting of breaches

Phones carry more personal data than any other device

Once we download an apd we should have to double opt in to sharing data. Meaning once they ask uber wants to share your location and then they ask are you sure uber can now do XYZ click confirm to share this data

How do we fight robo callers/ robo texters

It is soo easy to click on a phishing link on your phone versus any other IOT device

We need to be able to protect ourselves from public wifi problems

Can almost always locate a person by their cell phone

Browsers are set to normal browsing… private mode not always accessible

Phones are a main device for communication

If not on wifi, they are consistently connected to cellular network..exposure

Proximity*

Because of phone logs

oversight

Traceable

Most mobile apps are connected to internet/ cellular connection

You have to give your phone number away for so many signups

Same with email, which many have connected to their phone

Frequent reminders that an app is using specific information… you have been sharing your location with ____ for 2 weeks. Would you like to continue sharing your location?

How might the government regulate the collection of data from IOT technology?

How might we use blockchain for better data privacy

How might Smart cities utilize bluetooth/wifi/QR/etc. to collect data more securely

How might the government become more strategic in their leadership on how to use IoT

funding to modernize IT infrastructure to enable IoT projects

How might we leverage the advance of sensor technology make data more safe

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lindyhunt · 6 years

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The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Trends in 2018

Marketing moves at the speed of light … er, at least it feels that way when you’re brainstorming a new campaign or strategy, and all of a sudden, a new statistic or technology release changes everything.

On a yearly, quarterly, and even monthly basis, new trends and techniques pop up and transform the way we attract, connect with, and market to our audiences.

But keeping up with the changes isn’t quite enough. To succeed in this fast-paced marketing world, you have to stay ahead of the game. That’s why we created this guide — influenced by some of our very own HubSpot experts — so you can bookmark and return to the most important marketing trends of 2018, time and time again.

Why Follow Marketing Trends?

If a certain marketing strategy or approach has consistently worked for your business, why change it? This just involves more time and energy, right?

Yes, but it’s worth it.

Marketing trends evolve for good reason. Google employees don’t sit around and say, “We’re bored. Let’s change up the algorithm of the search results page for fun.”

Nope. Changes in the marketing world happen because consumers change the way they shop, research, and spend their time and money … and changes in consumer behavior and priorities directly influence how they respond to marketing and advertising efforts.

Staying up-to-date on (and ahead of) trends helps your company save precious time and money and ensures you’re marketing to the right people who are in your target audience … and ready to buy.

So, sticking to your “reliable” marketing strategy might be cheaper in the short-term, but listening and responding to marketing trends will actually save you money and keep your business relevant in the long-run.

More so, digital marketing changes practically every day. It is the internet, of course. And if you’re not marketing on the internet, you’re already far behind the curve, my friend.

2018 Marketing Trends

Marketing refers to a wide range of activities that promote and advocate for a brand, so the term “marketing trends” is pretty vague. That’s why we’ve organized this section by the type of marketing, as you’ll see below.

Lots of things change in the marketing world, but we’ve chosen one or two for each section that we believe will best equip your business to succeed.

General Marketing Trends

Customers as Marketers

The marketing funnel is no more, my friends. Today, the flywheel — and a subsequent focus on service — have replaced the one-way direction of the funnel.

In the world of the marketing funnel, customers were an afterthought. Once they became a paying customer, businesses considered them obsolete — until, of course, it was time re-sign that contract.

The flywheel, on the other hand, places the customer in the center. Since word-of-mouth marketing is the single most powerful marketing tactic, it’s wise to not only serve your customers but also equip them to become advocates for your brand. The flywheel illustrates this process: excellent service as its own marketing strategy.

What does this mean for your business? Place a heavy emphasis on customer service. Train and equip your customer service team to not only handle requests and problems but also delight and empower your customers.

Content Marketing Trends

All kinds of businesses in all kinds of industries are starting blogs, investing in content marketing resources, and paying for content-related advertisements. Why? Because 47% of buyers viewed three to five pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep, and 70% of people would rather learn about new products through content than traditional advertising.

But contributing to a blog isn’t quite enough in today’s content dog-eat-dog world. To ensure your content is as effective and accessible as possible, you must pay attention to what type of content resonates most with your buyer persona.

Video Content

Video as a marketing tactic isn’t a new idea, but its effectiveness and popularity have definitely skyrocketed in the last year. In fact, YouTube is the second most popular social network behind Facebook. Also, when both video and text are available on the same page, 72% of people would rather use video to learn about a product or service.

The heightened impact of and interest in video means that the investment you put into video will pay off — literally. In the past, companies would create video and hope it reached and influenced its audience. Now, consumers and followers are literally begging for more video from their favorite organizations.

Alicia Collins and Megan Conley, video producers and editors at HubSpot, weigh in: “This [consumer behavior] also indicates that video can be used throughout all parts of the flywheel — not just as an asset for marketing. When incorporating video, businesses have historically used it as a means of introducing their brand and product or service offerings. But that’s not the case anymore. Video can be a valuable addition to both sales and customer service efforts.”

In the past, video was limited due to costly resources and production. Today, it’s much more accessible. With a lower cost barrier, video has become less intimidating to incorporate into your marketing efforts. You don’t have to hire a production team or marketing agency; all you need is a smartphone and editing software.

What does this mean for your business? Create video! Start at the bottom-of-the-funnel and create video assets for your sales and service representatives. “Video as a conversion asset versus a brand awareness asset is much more valuable and yields a higher ROI,” Alicia and Megan report.

These videos can also be lower quality and still as effective, meaning a smartphone and decent lighting is all you need to connect with your audience. For more information on how to use video for your business, check out our guide here.

Native Advertising

When your brand pays to feature content on a third-party website, you’re investing in native advertising. The point of native advertising is to naturally, organically advertise your brand or product within another environment, such as a publication, video, or graphic. Unlike traditional advertising, which is designed to interrupt and stand out, native advertising is designed to blend in and promote your brand to a new audience.

Native advertising has been around half a decade, but campaigns are still as successful as ever, if not more. Because they don’t “feel” like traditional ads, consumers are more likely to consume and explore native advertising efforts. In fact, consumers view native ads over 50% more than banner ads.

Buzzfeed is a popular publication and blog that routinely partners with brands for native advertising. In the example below, Google Home has published content on back-to-school recipes, and the only mention of the brand is in the byline. Google Home is advertising their product by incorporating their brand into otherwise native content.

Source: Buzzfeed

What does this mean for your business? Native advertising isn’t new, but it’s still just as effective. It shouldn’t replace all content marketing efforts, but it should definitely be added to or upped as part of your overall marketing strategy. Look for publications that are relevant to your brand, such as HuffPost for lifestyle brands or Entrepreneur or Inc. for business or B2B brands. The process of publishing native advertising content is typically pretty straightforward, as long as your content isn’t blatantly promotional.

Social Media Marketing Trends

According to the Data & Marketing Association (DMA), social media spending will account for almost 20% of marketing budgets in the next 5 years.

Social is an important part of every business’s marketing strategy. It allows brands to connect authentically with their audience and provides a fun, informal outlet to let brand personality and character to shine through.

It’s also an ever-changing medium, and it’s important to stay up-to-date with the ever-changing trends and best practices.

Permanent vs. Ephemeral Content

Not all social media is created equal. Different content types and lengths perform better on Facebook than Twitter, and some platforms encourage hashtags while others don’t.

And now, in 2018, Instagram and Facebook Stories have created another new type of content: temporary. Instagram and Facebook Stories are photos and videos that live for 24 hours then disappear “forever”. (Not really … there’s an Instagram Archive where all your Stories reside after they expire. But you get the gist.)

Kelly Hendrickson, a social media marketer at Hubspot, says: “Ephemeral content versus permanent content is often dictated by the social platform, as well as by the audience's behavior on the platform.”

Take Instagram, for example. “Stories are soaring in popularity, and the user behavior on Stories leans toward playful, low-fi, quick content with heavy use of features within the UX (gifs, boomerangs, polls, etc). Their fleeting design isn’t the only differentiating factor. Instagram Stories can be heavily edited, too, with filters, GIFs, colored text, and more. Because of these fun additions, brands have added a brand new strategy for producing and publishing ephemeral content that varies from their other social media content.”

Permanent content is a little different. “Instagram can organically serve up a wall post across a wide span of time, so there is less of an opportunity for brands to be timely (who wants to see New Year's post when they’ve already given up on their resolutions?!). Since Instagram users are more active on weekdays, during the standard workday, it seems users are looking for a break! It’s critical to use your brand voice and point-of-view to find how you can serve your audience during that break. Should your presence be inspirational? Beautiful? Informative? Playful? Trendy? They all have a place on Instagram’s permanent wall, it just needs to match your brand’s message.”

What does this mean for your business? Instagram and Facebook stories are a chance to showcase a little more of your brand’s personality and flair. Kelly says, “The combo of a running clock and a lively audience is a huge opportunity for brands to lean into quick, in-the-moment content that showcases the more light-hearted elements of their brand. Succinctness and clarity are key in content.”

Don’t shy away from adding new content just because you haven’t done so before … it’ll expire in 24 hours, anyway! For more information on creating Instagram (and Facebook) Stories, read our guide here.

Micro-Influencers

Influencers play a major role in modern marketing, but their influence isn’t limited to major celebrities and big brand names. Micro-influencers have found their niche in the social media world, too.

Micro-influencers are social media promoters that have smaller following, typically between 100,000 and 1 million. These folks might have a smaller follower base, but their posts pack more punch due to their engagement levels. Also, because they’re considered “average” and “everyday” people (unlike hard-to-reach celebrities), people view micro-influencers like friends and family — in that they’re more likely to trust their recommendations.

Rosie, known as The Londoner, is a popular travel and lifestyle influencer on Instagram. She only has 340,000 followers, but they’re fiercely loyal and engaged with her posts. The below image shows that: with almost 36,000 likes, Rosie is garnering almost 11% engagement.

Source: Instagram

Here’s another example: Non-celebrity beauty influencer @ling.kt only has 1.2 million followers … but it’s a much more dedicated, engaged follower base. In the below image, Ling mentions a brand partnership and receives over 103,000 likes — which is almost 10% engagement.

Source: Instagram

Micro-influencers are the future of influencer marketing. It’s tempting to look at the number of followers to determine how influential a user is, but the true influence lives in engagement rates. Micro-influencers deliver engagement (read: clicks, subscribes, and purchases), drive social buzz through more personal posts, and are much more cost effective.

What does this mean for your business? Don’t be swayed by high follower numbers. Instead, hop on Instagram and do some research on who’s active in your industry or niche. Search your brand hashtag and any generic hashtags related to your product or brand. A micro-influencers follower base might be small, but they’re loyal and interested in what that influencer has to say. Paying for a post or two will go a long way with those users.

Search Marketing Trends

61% of marketers say improving SEO and growing their organic presence is their top inbound marketing priority. Are you one of these marketers? If so, have you figured out how exactly you plan to improve your SEO and organic presence?

We encourage you to start with the trends below. Optimizing for the following consumer behavior will help your business become more discoverable online.

Voice Search

Let me guess — you’ve used Siri, Alexa, Cortana, or Google Assistant in the last month or so. Am I right? Probably, because digital and voice-based assistants have taken over the world … or, at least how we search for and consume information.

Lately, digital assistants have accounted for a greater number of search queries than ever. Not only do they answer very short informational queries, such as “Who is the actor in Mission Impossible?” and “What’s the weather in Boston today?”, but they’ve also started to process more local, customized searches. These are typically like, “Where’s a nearby coffee shop I can work from today?”, “How late is it open?”, and “Do they serve iced coffee?”

Because of this emerging behavior, businesses need to respond and change the way they frame information. Instead of catering to Google’s manual search algorithm, content should be framed around questions.

What does this mean for your business? Aja Frost, an SEO strategist for HubSpot, says: “Businesses should look at a topic and say ‘What questions could users ask about this?’ Then, they should plan sub-topics accordingly and look for opportunities to insert questions as headers. This will allow voice assistants to easily grab questions and recognize content as solutions.”

Aja also encourages businesses to look for featured snippet opportunities, which are the information previews Google provides when users search for definitions or questions. Voice assistants typically pull responses from these boxes.

Mobile-First Indexing

48% of consumers start mobile research with a search engine, and the first position on Google search results on mobile has a 31.35% click-through rate.

It goes without saying that mobile usage is skyrocketing, especially for search queries and research. Due to this, businesses should ensure their website is discoverable and readable via mobile devices — both smartphones and tablets. Website speed is also becoming important as Google prioritizes better performing websites in their search engine results pages (SERPs).

What does this mean for your business? If you’re not already, get familiar with how to design and optimize your website for mobile use. This typically requires a responsive design — meaning your website will “respond” and change its design and layout as users access it on their desktop versus their smartphone. For more information on this, check out our guide here.

Technology in Marketing Trends

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

In general terms, artificial intelligence refers to a subset of computer science that teaches machines to do things that would require intelligence if done by a human. Think of tasks like learning, seeing, talking, socializing, reasoning, or problem-solving. When completed by computers, they’re considered AI.

AI has completely infiltrated our daily lives and tasks. When Spotify recommends a song, Facebook recognizes and tags a person, or you text a friend using Siri, you’re tapping into AI. As we utilize AI more and more (especially as consumers), marketers and businesses will need to respond.

The point of AI isn’t to replace humans or the need for a human touch. It’s to improve and expand our ability to connect with our audience and help them solve their problems quicker and more thoroughly. In fact, authenticity in marketing is more important than ever to consumers. AI is also incredibly helpful when collecting and analyzing data and making data-driven decisions.

What does this mean for your business? Research ways you can incorporate AI into your business and marketing operations — not only to better serve your consumers but to also make your life easier. For more information on AI, read our guide here.

Virtual Reality (VR) & Augmented Reality (AR)

Virtual reality is viewing a computer-generated, lifelike scenario. Augmented reality is viewing the real world augmented with visual, haptic, olfactory or visual additions. VR and AR offer different experiences, but both are making waves in the marketing world in 2018.

And they’re affecting your lives, too. Ever watched a 360° video on Facebook? That’s VR. What about IKEA’s IKEA PLACE app that helps you visualize virtual furniture in your very real room? That’s AR.

Right now, VR and AR are being used to supplement and improve customer experiences online and at events. In the future, though, marketers will need to integrate VR and AR into their marketing efforts … or risk falling behind. Marketers thus far have been slow to adopt this trend due to pricey equipment and bulky headsets, but as VR glasses and AR apps become more accessible, businesses can expect to add this technology to their marketing strategy.

What does this mean for your business? VR and AR might not be necessary for your business and marketing strategy today, but you should definitely start thinking about it. The near future could bring about a mass adoption of VR glasses — not unlike smartphones or tablets. And if everyone has one, your business must, too. For more information, check our out guides on VR and AR.

Chatbots

More than half of consumers expect a response within 10 minutes to any marketing, sales, or customer service inquiry. How can this be humanly possible?

It’s not … for humans, anyway. Enter: Bots.

Bots are powered by a computer program that automates certain tasks, typically by chatting with a user through a conversational interface. Bots are made possible by artificial intelligence, which helps it to understand complex requests, personalize responses, and improve interactions over time.

Bots provide quick, easy solutions to problems — no matter how complex. No longer is the need for live chat or a literal one-to-one digital conversation. Bots provide the perception and dedication of a 1:1 service experience while working with hundreds of customers — something that no customer service representative or team would ever be able to do.

To the consumers who hate repeating themselves to multiple sales or service representatives (33%, to be exact), listen up. Chatbots are and will be making your lives much easier. If employed correctly, they manage conversations at scale and aggregate data from multiple sources of data — from calendars to knowledge bases to blog posts and videos.

What does mean for your business? Jon Dick, VP of Marketing at HubSpot, says: “It’s on you to make things as easy as possible. Your buyers want to use live chat? You should give it to them. They’ve had the same problem three times in the last month? You should already know, and have a plan to fix it.”

Not sure how to breach the subject of chatbots? Read our guide here … and keep an eye out for future HubSpot products that might help. *wink*

Privacy in Marketing Trends

In the marketing world, data is valuable currency … and not just valuable to you, as a marketer or business owner. Whether their email address, credit card information, or smartphone location, consumers also view their data as precious and privileged.

And it’s your responsibility to take care of it.

GDPR

Whether a software company, bank, government agency, or lemonade stand, each and every business operates using data. It’s the lifeblood of all things marketing, sales, service, and more.

And hackers know it. When data breaches happen, precious information is siphoned into the wrong hands, leading to untrustworthy businesses and exploited consumers.

That’s why the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was enacted in May of this year. The GDPR is an effort by the EU to give greater control to consumers over their data. Under the GDPR, organizations must ensure that their data is collected legally and safely and that those who collect and manage said data will protect it and respect consumers’ rights.

Following the GDPR guidelines might seem like a burden, but being fined for non-compliance will feel much heavier; fines range from 10 million euros to 4% of a company's annual global revenue. Is this a risk you want to take?

What does this mean for your business? Do your research! Read our GDPR guide and peruse our GDPR checklist to ensure your business is compliant.

Over to You

You’re up to speed … for now. If your current campaigns and advertising don’t align with these trends, don’t fret. Slowly apply these changes to your marketing efforts, and be sure all of your activities are compliant and legal.

As long as you’re keeping a thumb on the pulse of current marketing trends — and remain open to change — you and your business will never fall behind.

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zipgrowth · 6 years

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Why a K-12 Operating System is the Next Step in the Evolution of Edtech

Nearly ten years ago, I started my career in education as a math teacher at a new alternative high school serving over-age, under-credited youth in New York City. My students were labeled “at-risk” of dropping out because they were 16-21 years old and previously unsuccessful in high school. Many suffered from chronic absenteeism, caused by factors such as homelessness, family responsibilities, and/or incarceration. If we, the educators, were going to serve our students well, we were going to have to get pedagogically creative.

If we, the educators, were going to serve our students well, we were going to have to get pedagogically creative.

One of the first curricular tools I built to share—on the first day of school—was a public, student-friendly gradebook on Google Sheets. (Yes, this was before Google Classroom existed!) Students could track their progress and identify which skills needed extra work at any time. Little did I know this experience would eventually propel me to help develop a school operating system that tackles technology issues plaguing educators and supports them with more opportunities to offer individualized instruction.

Creating a Toolbox—and Filling It

After creating the gradebook, my colleague and I developed a curriculum aligned to New York state math standards. We scoped and sequenced the curriculum according to a set of power standards representing scaffolded skills. If students mastered a power standard, they could move on and didn’t need to wait for others. This competency-based system made sense; if students were chronically absent, holding them accountable to a pacing calendar would prove futile.

To supplement in-person support offered during class and lunch periods, I published a simple Google site to house my lessons, assessments, and other resources. If students missed class or needed additional help, they could go to my website and access the day’s lesson as well as videos and digital exercises from YouTube and Khan Academy.

Abbas Manjee's standards-based Algebra 1 scope and sequence. Full size image here.

As my students submitted work, I tracked everything in my gradebook. My goal was to minimize the information asymmetry that tends to exist between what teachers know about their students and what students know about their performance. At the time, I had no idea this system was called “standards-based grading.” I was so green at this point in my career that I probably assumed every classroom in the 21st century operated this way. I didn't realize what we were trying to build was innovative.

It felt like every tool I used in the classroom was inherently designed to work in isolation.

The following year, I wanted to ensure that when students did come to class, they could participate and engage—or at the very minimum—access the content via a class set of iPads. I stepped up my game by adding even more videos and assessment exercises to my class website, mining resources from IXL and CK-12. I generated logins for my students and started “blending” instruction using the free content from these publishers. This worked nicely for my students, who felt like I was carefully attending to their learning pace and providing them with targeted learning materials.

By the end of year, more than half of my students passed the Algebra 1 state exam. For context: in years prior, every one of these students had failed this exam at least once. Of those who failed again this time around, many had never come so close to passing and looked forward to retaking it in the summer.

Enter the LMS

I was proud, but also exhausted. The time required to maintain the number of tools I was juggling was eerily close to the time I used to spend working as an investment banker. I dedicated hours every week copy-pasting student achievement data from multiple systems into one gradebook, analyzing each student’s progress and assigning work based on need. The last thing I needed was another system to maintain, but that’s exactly how my third teaching year started: my school administration decided a centralized system for grades was necessary to assess how all classrooms were doing. They bought a learning management system (LMS) and asked us to start using it.

Procuring the LMS was purely an administrative decision, fueled by a desire to monitor school-wide trends to make resource allocation decisions. I couldn’t fault school leadership for this, but I still hated using it. I didn’t want to change the way I’d set up my class because my model working for my students. Now, in addition to importing data from IXL, Khan Academy, and an adaptive learning program called Carnegie Learning, I had to transfer the achievement data from my gradebook into another system. It felt like every tool I used in the classroom was inherently designed to work in isolation.

By the end of that year, my patience had grown thin. I stopped updating the LMS on a regular basis and wondered how long it would take before somebody noticed. My colleagues had mixed feelings about it too. Because the LMS was designed to contain a lot of tools for teachers in a single view, it was clunky and cumbersome to use. For example, it didn’t integrate with Google Apps, which we had spent the last three years using. Nor could I customize features to align with my class set-up, or remove certain features altogether.

Learn More About Kiddom Academy For Schools:

3 Ways a Company Can Personalize Its Support for Teachers

Apply to Kiddom's Pilot program

Kiddom Pilot’s 2018 Scope and Sequence

Learn more about Kiddom Academy

3 Types of Administrators Who Drive Achievement—and Two Who Don't

Slow Down School and District Leaders: You’re Moving Too Fast

Digital Promise Ed-Tech Pilot Toolkit

When I Buy Edtech Products, Our Teachers Don’t Use Them… What Do I Do?

Building and Brainstorming

After three more years teaching in alternative high schools, I left the classroom to join Kiddom and address this interoperability problem. In an ideal world, teachers would be able to access a set of tools driven by their classroom needs and aligned to an instructional model of their choice. Administrators would be able to measure and take action from macro-level trends, manage and review curriculum, and enable educators to incorporate the instructional models and technologies that serve their classrooms best.

Unfortunately, teachers are constrained by tools that are ineffective or redundant. Many education technologies are not interoperable. School and district leaders continue to spend an inordinate amount of time piecing together data to understand what’s really happening. When that takes too long or doesn’t work, they resort to classroom observations—because they’re easy to do.

During my time at Kiddom, I’ve had the opportunity to apply my teaching experience and work with a team of designers and developers to tackle these problems head-on. At first, we focused on teachers and learners and the tools needed to enhance a singular classroom experience; this led to a simple, visual standards-aligned gradebook. Next, we connected this gradebook directly to digital content publishers like CK-12 and Khan Academy so that teachers could access teaching resources in order to differentiate instruction efficiently and save time.

Because every classroom experience plays a role in the larger ecosystem within a school, we designed a set of collaboration tools to help teachers work together, share, and learn from each other more effectively. We then focused on the information asymmetry that exists between classrooms and their respective administrative bodies. Working with and listening closely to public school administrators, we brainstormed various ways we could support school systems from the top-down and bottom-up.

A K-12 Operating System

The result of this work is Kiddom Academy, a K-12 school operating system supporting collaboration and individualized instruction. Using Academy, administrators can identify and act on aggregate achievement trends, manage curriculum and assessment, and efficiently integrate other tools they’ve come to rely on. They can set up frameworks for a range of pedagogies in line with their organizational goals. Classrooms gain access to a comprehensive library of standards-aligned resources and curriculum development tools. Beautiful, actionable reports help students, teachers, parents, and administrators monitor progress and take action.

A K-12 school operating system is the next step in the evolution of education technology.

A K-12 school operating system is the next step in the evolution of education technology. Interoperability matters in schools and districts now more than it has ever before, because we’ve come expect it everywhere else. For example, I can purchase a pair of concert tickets using my EventBrite app, and then export the information directly into my iPhone calendar. So too should teachers be able to use a variety of learning apps in their classroom and expect them to work together seamlessly. As we see more content and pedagogy-specific tools in the market, we can expect increasing numbers of teachers to find and patch together the tools that work best for them; administrators will be no different.

My teaching experience helped me understand that I didn’t need to buy a blended learning or personalized learning product. I had a process and practice in place, and needed a set of interoperable tools. I can’t imagine how much more passion and creative energy I might have offered my students and colleagues if I wasn’t staying up late every night copying and pasting data to differentiate instruction. “Personalized learning” might be trendy, but it isn’t new. Teachers have been trying to enhance and individualize learning using the tools at their disposal for a long time.

That’s why at Kiddom, we’re hell bent on designing and implementing technology that enables all students to learn via pedagogy and pacing optimized for them. We’re betting big on the idea of building a system for other learning apps to run on—rather than in—to help schools plug and play the tools they find most effective. We can’t wait to see how schools will use Kiddom Academy to execute their vision for teaching and learning.

Why a K-12 Operating System is the Next Step in the Evolution of Edtech published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

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userexperienceinsg-blog · 6 years

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How to Create a Customer Journey Map in UX Design in Singapore

We all know user experience research is required to do before development, well, do you know the detail UX design process? Today I would like to share this article.

Despite best intentions and mountains of data, many organizations continue to offer lackluster experiences for their customers.

Many organizations function with an internal focus, and that becomes apparent when customers interact with their various products, services, and employees. Every interaction a customer has with an organization has an effect on satisfaction, loyalty, and the bottom line. Plotting out a customer’s emotional landscape by way of a Customer Journey Map, or Experience Map, along their path sheds light on key opportunities for deepening those relationships.

What is a Customer Journey Map?

A Customer Journey map is a visual or graphic interpretation of the overall story from an individual’s perspective of their relationship with an organization, service, product or brand, over time and across channels. Occasionally, a more narrative, the text-based approach is needed to describe nuances and details associated with a customer experience. The story is told from the customer’s perspective but also emphasizes the important intersections between user expectations and business requirements.

Inspired by user research, no two journey maps are alike, and regardless of format, they allow organizations to consider interactions from their customers’ points of view, instead of taking an inside-out approach. They are one tool that can help organizations evolve from a transactional approach to one that focuses on long-term relationships with customers built on respect, consistency, and trust.

All organizations have business goals but leveraging customer journeys as a supporting component of an experience strategy keeps customers (or members, patients, employees, students, donors etc.) at the forefront when making design decisions. They can be used in both current state review and future state visioning to examine the present, highlight pain points and uncover the most significant opportunities for building a better experience for customers.

How Do We Use Them?

Customer engagement is not simply a series of interactions, or getting people to visit a website, “Like” something on FaceBook, or download a mobile app. Genuine engagement centers on compatibility, and identifying how and where individuals and organizations can exist harmoniously together. Giving thought to how your organization/product/service/brand fits into customers’ lives is crucial.

I also use journey maps to gain internal consensus on how customers should be treated across distinct channels. Holding collaborative workshops with cross-disciplinary teams mixing people who otherwise never communicate with each other can be extremely valuable in large organizations in particular.

Illustrating or describing how the customer experience could be brought to life across channels allows all stakeholders from all areas of the business to better understand the essence of the whole experience from the customer’s perspective. How do they want to be spoken to, what are they thinking, feeling, seeing, hearing, and doing? Journey maps help us explore answers to the “what ifs” that arise during research and conceptual design.

What Components Does a Journey Map Include?

Must-haves

Personas: the main characters that illustrate the needs, goals, thoughts, feelings, opinions, expectations, and pain points of the user;

Timeline: a finite amount of time (e.g. 1 week or 1 year) or variable phases (e.g. awareness, decision-making, purchase, renewal);

Emotion: peaks and valleys illustrating frustration, anxiety, happiness etc.;

Touchpoints: customer actions and interactions with the organization. This is the WHAT the customer is doing; and

Channels: where interaction takes place and the context of use (e.g. website, native app, call center, in-store). This is the WHERE they are interacting.

Nice-to-haves

Moments of truth: A positive interaction that leaves a lasting impression, often planned for a touchpoint known to generate anxiety or frustration; and

Supporting characters: peripheral individuals (caregivers, friends, colleagues) who may contribute to the experience.

The Process

1. Review Goals

Consider organizational goals for the product or service at large, and specific goals for a customer journey mapping initiative.

2. Gather Research

Review all relevant user research, which includes both qualitative and quantitative findings to provide insights into the customer experience. If more research is needed, get those research activities in the books. Some of my favorite research methods include customer interviews, ethnography & contextual inquiry, customer surveys, customer support/complaint logs, web analytics, social media listening, and competitive intelligence.

3. Touchpoint and Channel brainstorms

As a team, generate a list of the customer touchpoints and the channels on which those touchpoints occur today. Then brainstorm additional touchpoints and/or channels that can be incorporated in the future journeys you will be mapping. For example, the touchpoint could be “pay a bill”, and the channels associated with that touchpoint could be “pay online”, “pay via mail” or “pay in person”.

4. Empathy map

Empathy maps are a depiction of the various facets of a persona and his or her experiences in a given scenario. This exercise helps me organize my observations, build a deeper understanding of customers’ experiences, and draw out surprising insights into what customers need. Empathy maps also provide a foundation of material to fuel journey mapping. The goal is to get a well-rounded sense of how it feels to be that persona in this experience, specifically focusing on what they’re thinking, feeling, seeing, hearing, saying and doing.

5. Brainstorm with lenses

The goal of lensed brainstorming is to generate as many ideas as possible in a short period of time. To gain focus as I generate ideas I use “lenses”—words representing key concepts, brand attributes or mindsets that help us look at a problem or scenario in a different way. For this exercise I recommend that the team agree on 3-5 lens words (for example: accessible, social, comforting), then set the clock for 2 minutes per lens word. Each person individually writes down as many ideas as they can think of in that time. After 2 minutes switch to the next lens word until all lens words have been used as idea inspiration. This ensures that every voice on the team is heard and generates a huge inventory of ideas.

6. Affinity diagram

This is a method to visually organize ideas and find cohesion in the team’s concepts. Affinity diagramming helps us shift from casting a wide net in exploring many possibilities, to gaining focus on the right solutions for this audience. All team members should put their ideas generated in the lensed brainstorming activity up on the wall. Have someone sort the ideas into categories and label them. As a group, begin to consider where you might combine, refine, and remove ideas to form a cohesive vision of the future customer experience.

7. Sketch the journey

Drumroll, please. This is the part you’ve been waiting for! It’s now time to put together all the pieces: timeline, touchpoints, channels, emotional highs and lows, and all the wonderful new ideas the team generated for how to improve the future customer journey. Get creative with how you lay it out—it doesn’t have to be a standard left to right timeline. It could be circular or helical. It could be one large map or it could be an interactive, clickable piece with embedded video. There are no templates, and there are infinite possibilities.

8. Refine and digitize

Journeys don’t always become a sophisticated deliverable—sometimes they begin and end as sticky notes on a wall or sketches on a whiteboard. But most of the time, when you go through the activities to arrive at a solid customer journey map, you want to polish it, leverage it in your work and share it with colleagues across the organization. If visual design isn’t your strong suit, consider collaborating closely with a visual designer who can transform the journey map sketch into an impressive artefact.

While journey maps are usually a tangible deliverable, like the one above, the process of journey mapping is what’s most important – it pushes us to think deeply about how we can use experience design to have a positive impact on our customers.

9. Share and use

It can be beneficial to maintain journey maps over time. For example, you could set a time each quarter or year to evaluate how your current customer experience matches your documented vision journeys. If your organization tracks quantitative KPIs, you can integrate these into a journey benchmarking process. Socializing journeys among stakeholders is critical in moving your organization toward action.

In addition to prioritization, the output of a journey map can serve as a backbone for strategic recommendations and more tactical initiatives.

For example, if you’re a mortgage company and you identify the closing process as a key area of frustration, anxiety and opportunity for engaging with the customer and designing for the “moment of truth”, then mark this as a high priority and get that on your strategic roadmap.

Tips

Schedule enough time to properly go through the recommended process. I’ve found that you can document a current state journey in about 3 hours, and a future state journey in about 5 hours. This makes for a full day to do both for one persona.

Make sure a good mix of people is involved in the journey map creation. It’s helpful to have stakeholder participants from many areas of the organization, as well as people of varying levels of seniority.

Once the journey maps are created, share them with zeal. Shout them from the rooftops and display them prominently in common areas.

Resource:

This article was written by Megan Grocki, named How to create a customer journey map, click the link to read more.

Or you can also see the Youtube video for more intuitive presentation. https://youtu.be/mSxpVRo3BLg

#user experience #UX #UI

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makeitwithmike · 7 years

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5 Steps for Landing Your First Client as a Freelancer

By Lucy Barret

Starting off a career as a freelancer – whether you work in web design, web development or content writing – is not easy.

One of the most challenging parts of freelancing is figuring out how to get a client in the first place. It doesn’t matter how experienced you are… sometimes it’s really hard to establish yourself in a crowded marketplace.

However, if you have a well-defined strategy, you might find that landing your first client is far easier than you imagined. After that, it’s simply a matter of keeping them happy and finding more. I’ve put together my top five tips for you to achieve this result.

1. Build and maintain a website

As a freelancer, you obviously need to put yourself out there. This means having your work and services easily found online.

Unless your first client comes to you from a personal recommendation, they’re going to find you through a search engine like Google. Check out this A-Z guide to building your own website and start one today, if you don’t already have one.

Your website should let visitors know about your services and skills, as well as showcase your work and achievements. It should also be in a constant evolution – that means regularly updating your portfolio, maintaining a blog, and adding to your ‘testimonials’ section.

Aim to be personable yet professional when writing your website’s copy. Treat yourself as the marketable product that you are – your website should be full of positive, passionate and perceptive information.

On the subject of blogs, make sure that your blog has a clearly defined purpose and direction. There’s no point in writing meandering blogs about the nice walk that you took through the park the other day. You are trying to get hired as a professional for a particular service, and your blog should demonstrate your focus on and knowledge of this niche.

Maintain a professional-looking portfolio to show that you know how to convert client’s ideas into high-quality projects. You can create one using a dedicated portfolio site such as hire an illustrator that’s independent to your website. If you don’t have anything to showcase yet, do the next best thing and add a downloadable resume to your website.

2. Network like crazy

Often when it comes to forging your way as a freelancer, you need to make friends to become influential. Talk to successful freelancers in the same industry or niche as you, and ask them how they got started. Send them emails, if you don’t know them personally, and politely request their tips for how to find clients. Chances are, they’ll remember what it’s like to be in your shoes and be happy to help out.

If you’re wondering how to find these successful freelancers, try searching for some of the more successful freelancer’s portfolios/sites. While you’re there, check out their client list and do a little independent brainstorming exercise. By this, I mean sitting down with a piece of paper and asking yourself the following questions:

Why did that client hire that particular freelancer?

How did they make initial contact with that freelancer?

Is is possible they still need work from another freelancer offering a similar service?

If the answer to the last question is a yes, you can always start following the client on Twitter, connect with them on LinkedIn or simply reach out to them via email to let them know you are a freelance professional who admires their work greatly and would like to be associated with their company.

You’d be surprised how effective this simple tactic is when it comes to broadening your network and gaining new contacts in your address book. Obviously, when you email anybody in ‘freelancer mode’ you should include an email signature linking to your website, portfolio and relevant social media accounts. Chances are, if you spark the person’s curiosity, they’ll check it out.

Also aim to participate in live Twitter chats or networking events both online and offline. These events will help you gain more visibility in your community.

3. Update your LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn is one of the best ways to find new clients as a freelancer. Since recruiters often look for freelance professionals on LinkedIn, it’s a goldmine of opportunities.

Dedicate an afternoon or weekend to making sure that your profile is up-to-date and polished. Ensure that you have selected the option that states ‘open to new opportunities’. Add any relevant information or uploads to your profile that you feel may help you attract new clients.

Don’t forget to add a good profile picture, a career objective or skill summary, and feature endorsements from others in your network.

Use your existing contacts, such as fellow classmates, employees, and other freelancers in the same field to increase your network (both online and offline). The ‘people you may know’ feature on LinkedIn is a great way to find potential clients and collaborators. You can also check out your competition’s connections.

4. Collaborate with others

Whether your collaboration takes the form of guest blogging or posting on another website, or building up your portfolio by doing some free work for a friend or sibling, do what you can to get your name out there and your work published… in exchange for testimonials and referrals.

Guest posting may not pay your bills but it may grab the notice of potential clients, particularly if you write for a website with a lot of authority and traffic. Ensure that the quality of your guest post is high and reflects your expert knowledge of a particular niche area.

Since the quality is more vital than the quantity, be sure to include infographics, images, videos and illustrations to make your content extra relevant and engaging. This will encourage people to see your content (and by extension, your freelance services) as valuable.

While you might be wondering why, if your aim is to be seen as valuable, you would work for free for a friend or sibling, but working for free initially can be quite a clever strategy in your freelance career. That’s because what you see as ‘free’ other people see as a ‘favor’. And people return favors.

For example, if you knock up a logo for a friend who can’t afford to hire somebody to do it (and you do a great job), their success becomes your success as every time they receive a compliment on it, they’re likely to mention you by name. If someone is happy with your work, they will nearly always be happy to spread the word about who’s responsible, plus you can boost your portfolio.

There are also a myriad of ways in which to combine the networking I talked about earlier with the notion of working for free to generate maximum freelance opportunities for you. Let’s say you email the content lead for a digital brand to politely (and humbly) point out that you noticed a few typos in a recent blog post. They’ll most likely be grateful and thank you for your attention to detail. With the initial contact already taken care of, you could use this opportunity to write a follow-up email saying that you’re looking to intern or volunteer for a business like theirs while you get your freelance business going.

Collaborating with established brands and other professionals is one of the smartest things you can do as a freelancer in the early stages of your career.

5. Be active on social media

This doesn’t just mean Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. It means niche-specific social media platforms that are used by professionals in your field of expertise.

For example, if you are a designer, then set up a profile on Behance. If you are a developer, use GitHub. If you are a videographer, utilize Vimeo. And so forth.

Update your profiles on relevant social media accounts and showcase your best work to your targeted social media audience. Know your strengths and weaknesses, and play to them. 99% of the time, clients are not going to fall into your lap. They will contact you through third-party sites or through a friend or through your website.

Make sure you are putting your best foot forward in this digitally accessible world of ours and treat social media platforms as a kind of virtual business card.

You also might want to join any relevant professional organisations (like AIGA for designers) and associations (like the Freelancers Union) to meet even more industry peers and learn how others have found their success.

Wrapping up

Finding your first client as a freelancer doesn’t have to be a daunting process: all you need to do is approach it with a collaborative and open attitude, and a clear sense of your goals and objectives.

Talk to as many people as possible – you never know where your next client is going to come from. Think about what you’d like your potential clients and customers to see and put it front and center on your website. Identify the types of clients you’d like to work for and research how they usually go about finding contractors.

In the beginning, aim for just a handful of clients. If you maintain a positive attitude and a community-minded approach to building your business, you’ll have more than a dozen before you know it.

Guest Author: Lucy Barret is a WordPress Developer and a passionate Blogger. She is associated with HireWPGeeks Ltd. and handles a team of experienced WordPress developers. She is fond of writing WordPress tutorials and loves to share her knowledge with other bloggers. You can follow her company on various social media networks like Facebook and Google+.

The post 5 Steps for Landing Your First Client as a Freelancer appeared first on Jeffbullas’s Blog.

The post 5 Steps for Landing Your First Client as a Freelancer appeared first on Make It With Michael.

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tainghekhongdaycomvn · 7 years

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The Best Types of Content for Local Businesses: Building Geo-Topical Authority

Posted by MiriamEllis

Q: What kind of content should a local business develop?

A: The kind that converts!

Okay, you could have hit on that answer yourself, but as this post aims to demonstrate:

There are almost as many user paths to conversion as there are customers in your city, and

Your long-term goal is to become the authority in your industry and geography that consumers and search engines turn to.

Online traffic

In-store traffic

Transactions

Reviews/testimonials

Clicks-for-directions

Clicks-to-call

Clicks-to-website

Social sharing

Offline word-of-mouth

Good user metrics like time-on-page, low bounce rate, etc.

Takeaway: Consumers have a variety of needs and can bestow a variety of rewards that directly or indirectly impact local business reputation, rankings and revenue when these needs are well-met.

No surprise: it will take a variety of types of content publication to enjoy the full rewards it can bring.

Foundational local business content development

These are the basics almost every local business will need to publish.

Customer service policy

Customer rights guarantee

NAP

Reviews/testimonials page

Reviews/testimonials policy

Homepage

Apart from serving up some of the most fundamental content about your business to search engines, your homepage should serve two local consumer groups: those in a rush and those in research mode.

Be sure the former is being given must-have information to understand your business at a glance and contact it immediately.

Pro tip: Don’t think of your homepage as static. Change up your content regularly there and track how this impacts traffic/conversions.

On this incredibly vital website page, your content should include:

Complete NAP

All supported contact methods (forms, email, fax, live chat, after-hours hotline, etc.),

Thorough driving directions from all entry points, including pointers for what to look for on the street (big blue sign, next to red church, across the street from swim center, etc.)

A map

Exterior images of your business

Attributes like parking availability and wheelchair accessibility

Hours of operation

Social media links

Payment forms accepted (cash only, BitCoin, etc.)

Mention of proximity to major nearby points of interest (national parks, monuments, etc.)

Brief summary of services with a nod to attributes ("Stop by the Starlight tonight for late-night food that satisfies!")

A fresh call-to-action (like visiting the business for a Memorial Day sale)

Store locator pages

Reviews/testimonials for that location

Location-specific special offers

Social media links specific to that location

Proofs of that location’s local community involvement

Highlights of staff at that location

Education about availability of in-store beacons or apps for that location

Interior photos specific to that location

A key call-to-action

For help formatting all of this great content sensibly, please read Overcoming Your Fear of Local Landing Pages.

City landing pages

Documentation of projects completed in that city (text, photos, video)

Expert advice specific to consumers in that city, based on characteristics like local laws, weather, terrain, events, or customs

Showcasing of services provided to recognized brands in that city ("we wash windows at the Marriott Hotel," etc.)

Reviews/testimonials from customers in that city

Proofs of community involvement in that city (events, sponsorships, etc.)

A key call-to-action

Product/service descriptions

Regardless of business model, all local businesses should devote a unique page of content to each major product or service they offer. These pages can include:

A thorough text description

Images

Answers to documented FAQs

Price/time quotes

Technical specs

Reviews of the service or product

Videos

Guarantees

Differentiation from competitors (awards won, lowest price, environmental standards, lifetime support, etc.)

For inspiration, I recommend looking at SolarCity’s page on solar roofing. Beautiful and informative.

Images

While you’re snapping photos, don’t neglect uploading them to your Google My Business listings and other major citations. Google data suggests that listing images influence click-through rates!

FAQ

About page

Take a look at this About page for a natural foods store in California and break it down into elements:

Reason for founding company

Difference-makers (95% organic groceries, building powered by 100% renewable energy)

Targeted consumer alignment (support local alternative to major brand, business inspired by major figure in environmental movement)

Awards and recognition from government officials and organizations

Special offer (5-cent rebate if you bring your own bag)

Timeline of business history

Video of the business story

Proofs of community involvement (organic school lunch program)

Links to more information

Calls to action

Come into your location

Call

Fill out a form

Ask a question/make a comment or complaint

Livechat with a rep

Follow you on social media

Attend an in-store event/local event

Leave a review

Fill out a survey/participate in a poll

Local business listings

NAP

Website address

Business categories

Business description

Hours of operation

Images

Marker on a map

Additional phone numbers/fax numbers

Links to social, video, and other forms of media

Attributes (payments accepted, parking, wheelchair accessibility, kid-friendly, etc.)

Reviews/owner responses

Third-party review profiles

How can local businesses manage this content which so deeply impacts their reputation, rankings, and revenue? The answer is twofold:

Master catching verbal and social complaints before they turn into permanent negative reviews by making your business complaint-friendly. And then move onto the next section of this article.

Owner responses

Save you money by winning back a dissatisfied existing customer instead of having to invest a great deal more in winning an entirely new one;

Inspire an unhappy customer to update a negative review with improved sentiment, including a higher star rating; and

Prove to all other potential customers who encounter your response that you will take excellent care of them.

Structural local business content development

I want to do

I want to know

I want to go

I want to buy

In sum, great local business content can encompass:

Website/blog content

Image content including infographics and photos

Social content

Video content

Inclusion in best-of type lists on prominent publications

Becoming a geo-topical authority

For local business owners, the path would look something like when anyone in my area searches for any topic that relates to our company, we want to appear in:

local pack rankings with our Google My Business listing

major local data platforms with our other listings

major review sites with our profiles and owner responses

organic results with our website’s pages and posts

social platforms our customers use with our contributions

video results with our videos

image search results with our images

content of important third-party websites that are relevant either to our industry or to our geography

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ubizheroes · 7 years

Text

The Best Types of Content for Local Businesses: Building Geo-Topical Authority

Posted by MiriamEllis

Q: What kind of content should a local business develop?

A: The kind that converts!

Okay, you could have hit on that answer yourself, but as this post aims to demonstrate:

There are almost as many user paths to conversion as there are customers in your city, and

Your long-term goal is to become the authority in your industry and geography that consumers and search engines turn to.

Online traffic

In-store traffic

Transactions

Reviews/testimonials

Clicks-for-directions

Clicks-to-call

Clicks-to-website

Social sharing

Offline word-of-mouth

Good user metrics like time-on-page, low bounce rate, etc.

Takeaway: Consumers have a variety of needs and can bestow a variety of rewards that directly or indirectly impact local business reputation, rankings and revenue when these needs are well-met.

No surprise: it will take a variety of types of content publication to enjoy the full rewards it can bring.

Foundational local business content development

These are the basics almost every local business will need to publish.

Customer service policy

Customer rights guarantee

NAP

Reviews/testimonials page

Reviews/testimonials policy

Homepage

Apart from serving up some of the most fundamental content about your business to search engines, your homepage should serve two local consumer groups: those in a rush and those in research mode.

Be sure the former is being given must-have information to understand your business at a glance and contact it immediately.

Pro tip: Don’t think of your homepage as static. Change up your content regularly there and track how this impacts traffic/conversions.

On this incredibly vital website page, your content should include:

Complete NAP

All supported contact methods (forms, email, fax, live chat, after-hours hotline, etc.),

Thorough driving directions from all entry points, including pointers for what to look for on the street (big blue sign, next to red church, across the street from swim center, etc.)

A map

Exterior images of your business

Attributes like parking availability and wheelchair accessibility

Hours of operation

Social media links

Payment forms accepted (cash only, BitCoin, etc.)

Mention of proximity to major nearby points of interest (national parks, monuments, etc.)

Brief summary of services with a nod to attributes (“Stop by the Starlight tonight for late-night food that satisfies!”)

A fresh call-to-action (like visiting the business for a Memorial Day sale)

Store locator pages

Reviews/testimonials for that location

Location-specific special offers

Social media links specific to that location

Proofs of that location’s local community involvement

Highlights of staff at that location

Education about availability of in-store beacons or apps for that location

Interior photos specific to that location

A key call-to-action

For help formatting all of this great content sensibly, please read Overcoming Your Fear of Local Landing Pages.

City landing pages

Documentation of projects completed in that city (text, photos, video)

Expert advice specific to consumers in that city, based on characteristics like local laws, weather, terrain, events, or customs

Showcasing of services provided to recognized brands in that city (“we wash windows at the Marriott Hotel,” etc.)

Reviews/testimonials from customers in that city

Proofs of community involvement in that city (events, sponsorships, etc.)

A key call-to-action

Product/service descriptions

Regardless of business model, all local businesses should devote a unique page of content to each major product or service they offer. These pages can include:

A thorough text description

Images

Answers to documented FAQs

Price/time quotes

Technical specs

Reviews of the service or product

Videos

Guarantees

Differentiation from competitors (awards won, lowest price, environmental standards, lifetime support, etc.)

For inspiration, I recommend looking at SolarCity’s page on solar roofing. Beautiful and informative.

Images

For many industries, image content truly sells. Are you “wowed” looking at the first image you see of this B&B in Albuquerque, the view from this restaurant in San Diego, or the scope of this international architectural firm’s projects? But even if your industry doesn’t automatically lend itself to wow-factor visuals, cleaning dirty carpets can be presented with high class and even so-called “boring” industries can take a visual approach to data that yields interesting and share-worthy/link-worthy graphics.

While you’re snapping photos, don’t neglect uploading them to your Google My Business listings and other major citations. Google data suggests that listing images influence click-through rates!

FAQ

About page

Take a look at this About page for a natural foods store in California and break it down into elements:

Reason for founding company

Difference-makers (95% organic groceries, building powered by 100% renewable energy)

Targeted consumer alignment (support local alternative to major brand, business inspired by major figure in environmental movement)

Awards and recognition from government officials and organizations

Special offer (5-cent rebate if you bring your own bag)

Timeline of business history

Video of the business story

Proofs of community involvement (organic school lunch program)

Links to more information

Calls to action

Come into your location

Call

Fill out a form

Ask a question/make a comment or complaint

Livechat with a rep

Follow you on social media

Attend an in-store event/local event

Leave a review

Fill out a survey/participate in a poll

Local business listings

Some of the most vital content being published about your business won’t exist on your website — it will reside on your local business listings on the major local business data platforms. Think Google My Business, Facebook, Acxiom, Infogroup, Factual, YP, Apple Maps, and Yelp. While each platform differs in the types of data they accept from you for publication, the majority of local business listings support the following content:

NAP

Website address

Business categories

Business description

Hours of operation

Images

Marker on a map

Additional phone numbers/fax numbers

Links to social, video, and other forms of media

Attributes (payments accepted, parking, wheelchair accessibility, kid-friendly, etc.)

Reviews/owner responses

Third-party review profiles

How can local businesses manage this content which so deeply impacts their reputation, rankings, and revenue? The answer is twofold:

Master catching verbal and social complaints before they turn into permanent negative reviews by making your business complaint-friendly. And then move onto the next section of this article.

Owner responses

Save you money by winning back a dissatisfied existing customer instead of having to invest a great deal more in winning an entirely new one;

Inspire an unhappy customer to update a negative review with improved sentiment, including a higher star rating; and

Prove to all other potential customers who encounter your response that you will take excellent care of them.

Structural local business content development

I want to do

I want to know

I want to go

A busy Silicon Valley professional is searching Google because they want to go to a “quiet resort in California.” The lodgings, which have been lucky enough to be included on this best-of list from TripAdvisor, didn’t have to create this content — their guests have done it for them by mentioning phrases like “quiet place” and “quiet location” repeatedly in their reviews. The business just has to provide the experience, and, perhaps promote this preferred language in their own marketing. Winning inclusion on major platforms’ best-of lists for key attributes of your business can be very persuasive for consumers who want to go somewhere specific.

I want to buy

In sum, great local business content can encompass:

Website/blog content

Image content including infographics and photos

Social content

Video content

Inclusion in best-of type lists on prominent publications

Becoming a geo-topical authority

For local business owners, the path would look something like when anyone in my area searches for any topic that relates to our company, we want to appear in:

local pack rankings with our Google My Business listing

major local data platforms with our other listings

major review sites with our profiles and owner responses

organic results with our website’s pages and posts

social platforms our customers use with our contributions

video results with our videos

image search results with our images

content of important third-party websites that are relevant either to our industry or to our geography

from Moz Blog https://moz.com/blog/local-content-building-geo-topical-authority via IFTTT

from Blogger http://imlocalseo.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-best-types-of-content-for-local.html via IFTTT

from IM Local SEO https://imlocalseo.wordpress.com/2017/04/18/the-best-types-of-content-for-local-businesses-building-geo-topical-authority/ via IFTTT

from Gana Dinero Colaborando | Wecon Project https://weconprojectspain.wordpress.com/2017/04/18/the-best-types-of-content-for-local-businesses-building-geo-topical-authority/ via IFTTT

from WordPress https://mrliberta.wordpress.com/2017/04/18/the-best-types-of-content-for-local-businesses-building-geo-topical-authority/ via IFTTT

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maryhare96 · 7 years

Text

The Best Types of Content for Local Businesses: Building Geo-Topical Authority

Posted by MiriamEllis

Q: What kind of content should a local business develop?

A: The kind that converts!

Okay, you could have hit on that answer yourself, but as this post aims to demonstrate:

There are almost as many user paths to conversion as there are customers in your city, and

Your long-term goal is to become the authority in your industry and geography that consumers and search engines turn to.

Online traffic

In-store traffic

Transactions

Reviews/testimonials

Clicks-for-directions

Clicks-to-call

Clicks-to-website

Social sharing

Offline word-of-mouth

Good user metrics like time-on-page, low bounce rate, etc.

Takeaway: Consumers have a variety of needs and can bestow a variety of rewards that directly or indirectly impact local business reputation, rankings and revenue when these needs are well-met.

No surprise: it will take a variety of types of content publication to enjoy the full rewards it can bring.

Foundational local business content development

These are the basics almost every local business will need to publish.

Customer service policy

Customer rights guarantee

NAP

Reviews/testimonials page

Reviews/testimonials policy

Homepage

Apart from serving up some of the most fundamental content about your business to search engines, your homepage should serve two local consumer groups: those in a rush and those in research mode.

Be sure the former is being given must-have information to understand your business at a glance and contact it immediately.

Pro tip: Don’t think of your homepage as static. Change up your content regularly there and track how this impacts traffic/conversions.

On this incredibly vital website page, your content should include:

Complete NAP

All supported contact methods (forms, email, fax, live chat, after-hours hotline, etc.),

Thorough driving directions from all entry points, including pointers for what to look for on the street (big blue sign, next to red church, across the street from swim center, etc.)

A map

Exterior images of your business

Attributes like parking availability and wheelchair accessibility

Hours of operation

Social media links

Payment forms accepted (cash only, BitCoin, etc.)

Mention of proximity to major nearby points of interest (national parks, monuments, etc.)

Brief summary of services with a nod to attributes ("Stop by the Starlight tonight for late-night food that satisfies!")

A fresh call-to-action (like visiting the business for a Memorial Day sale)

Store locator pages

Reviews/testimonials for that location

Location-specific special offers

Social media links specific to that location

Proofs of that location’s local community involvement

Highlights of staff at that location

Education about availability of in-store beacons or apps for that location

Interior photos specific to that location

A key call-to-action

For help formatting all of this great content sensibly, please read Overcoming Your Fear of Local Landing Pages.

City landing pages

Documentation of projects completed in that city (text, photos, video)

Expert advice specific to consumers in that city, based on characteristics like local laws, weather, terrain, events, or customs

Showcasing of services provided to recognized brands in that city ("we wash windows at the Marriott Hotel," etc.)

Reviews/testimonials from customers in that city

Proofs of community involvement in that city (events, sponsorships, etc.)

A key call-to-action

Product/service descriptions

Regardless of business model, all local businesses should devote a unique page of content to each major product or service they offer. These pages can include:

A thorough text description

Images

Answers to documented FAQs

Price/time quotes

Technical specs

Reviews of the service or product

Videos

Guarantees

Differentiation from competitors (awards won, lowest price, environmental standards, lifetime support, etc.)

For inspiration, I recommend looking at SolarCity’s page on solar roofing. Beautiful and informative.

Images

While you’re snapping photos, don’t neglect uploading them to your Google My Business listings and other major citations. Google data suggests that listing images influence click-through rates!

FAQ

About page

Take a look at this About page for a natural foods store in California and break it down into elements:

Reason for founding company

Difference-makers (95% organic groceries, building powered by 100% renewable energy)

Targeted consumer alignment (support local alternative to major brand, business inspired by major figure in environmental movement)

Awards and recognition from government officials and organizations

Special offer (5-cent rebate if you bring your own bag)

Timeline of business history

Video of the business story

Proofs of community involvement (organic school lunch program)

Links to more information

Calls to action

Come into your location

Call

Fill out a form

Ask a question/make a comment or complaint

Livechat with a rep

Follow you on social media

Attend an in-store event/local event

Leave a review

Fill out a survey/participate in a poll

Local business listings

NAP

Website address

Business categories

Business description

Hours of operation

Images

Marker on a map

Additional phone numbers/fax numbers

Links to social, video, and other forms of media

Attributes (payments accepted, parking, wheelchair accessibility, kid-friendly, etc.)

Reviews/owner responses

Third-party review profiles

How can local businesses manage this content which so deeply impacts their reputation, rankings, and revenue? The answer is twofold:

Master catching verbal and social complaints before they turn into permanent negative reviews by making your business complaint-friendly. And then move onto the next section of this article.

Owner responses

Save you money by winning back a dissatisfied existing customer instead of having to invest a great deal more in winning an entirely new one;

Inspire an unhappy customer to update a negative review with improved sentiment, including a higher star rating; and

Prove to all other potential customers who encounter your response that you will take excellent care of them.

Structural local business content development

I want to do

I want to know

I want to go

http://ift.tt/2nXQC4E

#The Best Types of Content for Local Businesses: Building Geo-Topical Authority

0 notes

fairchildlingpo1 · 7 years

Text

The Best Types of Content for Local Businesses: Building Geo-Topical Authority

Posted by MiriamEllis

Q: What kind of content should a local business develop?

A: The kind that converts!

Okay, you could have hit on that answer yourself, but as this post aims to demonstrate:

There are almost as many user paths to conversion as there are customers in your city, and

Your long-term goal is to become the authority in your industry and geography that consumers and search engines turn to.

Online traffic

In-store traffic

Transactions

Reviews/testimonials

Clicks-for-directions

Clicks-to-call

Clicks-to-website

Social sharing

Offline word-of-mouth

Good user metrics like time-on-page, low bounce rate, etc.

Takeaway: Consumers have a variety of needs and can bestow a variety of rewards that directly or indirectly impact local business reputation, rankings and revenue when these needs are well-met.

No surprise: it will take a variety of types of content publication to enjoy the full rewards it can bring.

Foundational local business content development

These are the basics almost every local business will need to publish.

Customer service policy

Customer rights guarantee

NAP

Reviews/testimonials page

Reviews/testimonials policy

Homepage

Apart from serving up some of the most fundamental content about your business to search engines, your homepage should serve two local consumer groups: those in a rush and those in research mode.

Be sure the former is being given must-have information to understand your business at a glance and contact it immediately.

Pro tip: Don’t think of your homepage as static. Change up your content regularly there and track how this impacts traffic/conversions.

On this incredibly vital website page, your content should include:

Complete NAP

All supported contact methods (forms, email, fax, live chat, after-hours hotline, etc.),

Thorough driving directions from all entry points, including pointers for what to look for on the street (big blue sign, next to red church, across the street from swim center, etc.)

A map

Exterior images of your business

Attributes like parking availability and wheelchair accessibility

Hours of operation

Social media links

Payment forms accepted (cash only, BitCoin, etc.)

Mention of proximity to major nearby points of interest (national parks, monuments, etc.)

Brief summary of services with a nod to attributes ("Stop by the Starlight tonight for late-night food that satisfies!")

A fresh call-to-action (like visiting the business for a Memorial Day sale)

Store locator pages

Reviews/testimonials for that location

Location-specific special offers

Social media links specific to that location

Proofs of that location’s local community involvement

Highlights of staff at that location

Education about availability of in-store beacons or apps for that location

Interior photos specific to that location

A key call-to-action

For help formatting all of this great content sensibly, please read Overcoming Your Fear of Local Landing Pages.

City landing pages

Documentation of projects completed in that city (text, photos, video)

Expert advice specific to consumers in that city, based on characteristics like local laws, weather, terrain, events, or customs

Showcasing of services provided to recognized brands in that city ("we wash windows at the Marriott Hotel," etc.)

Reviews/testimonials from customers in that city

Proofs of community involvement in that city (events, sponsorships, etc.)

A key call-to-action

Product/service descriptions

Regardless of business model, all local businesses should devote a unique page of content to each major product or service they offer. These pages can include:

A thorough text description

Images

Answers to documented FAQs

Price/time quotes

Technical specs

Reviews of the service or product

Videos

Guarantees

Differentiation from competitors (awards won, lowest price, environmental standards, lifetime support, etc.)

For inspiration, I recommend looking at SolarCity’s page on solar roofing. Beautiful and informative.

Images

While you’re snapping photos, don’t neglect uploading them to your Google My Business listings and other major citations. Google data suggests that listing images influence click-through rates!

FAQ

About page

Take a look at this About page for a natural foods store in California and break it down into elements:

Reason for founding company

Difference-makers (95% organic groceries, building powered by 100% renewable energy)

Targeted consumer alignment (support local alternative to major brand, business inspired by major figure in environmental movement)

Awards and recognition from government officials and organizations

Special offer (5-cent rebate if you bring your own bag)

Timeline of business history

Video of the business story

Proofs of community involvement (organic school lunch program)

Links to more information

Calls to action

Come into your location

Call

Fill out a form

Ask a question/make a comment or complaint

Livechat with a rep

Follow you on social media

Attend an in-store event/local event

Leave a review

Fill out a survey/participate in a poll

Local business listings

NAP

Website address

Business categories

Business description

Hours of operation

Images

Marker on a map

Additional phone numbers/fax numbers

Links to social, video, and other forms of media

Attributes (payments accepted, parking, wheelchair accessibility, kid-friendly, etc.)

Reviews/owner responses

Third-party review profiles

How can local businesses manage this content which so deeply impacts their reputation, rankings, and revenue? The answer is twofold:

Master catching verbal and social complaints before they turn into permanent negative reviews by making your business complaint-friendly. And then move onto the next section of this article.

Owner responses

Save you money by winning back a dissatisfied existing customer instead of having to invest a great deal more in winning an entirely new one;

Inspire an unhappy customer to update a negative review with improved sentiment, including a higher star rating; and

Prove to all other potential customers who encounter your response that you will take excellent care of them.

Structural local business content development

I want to do

I want to know

I want to go

http://ift.tt/2nXQC4E

#The Best Types of Content for Local Businesses: Building Geo-Topical Authority

0 notes

dainiaolivahm · 7 years

Text

The Best Types of Content for Local Businesses: Building Geo-Topical Authority

Posted by MiriamEllis

Q: What kind of content should a local business develop?

A: The kind that converts!

Okay, you could have hit on that answer yourself, but as this post aims to demonstrate:

There are almost as many user paths to conversion as there are customers in your city, and

Your long-term goal is to become the authority in your industry and geography that consumers and search engines turn to.

Online traffic

In-store traffic

Transactions

Reviews/testimonials

Clicks-for-directions

Clicks-to-call

Clicks-to-website

Social sharing

Offline word-of-mouth

Good user metrics like time-on-page, low bounce rate, etc.

Takeaway: Consumers have a variety of needs and can bestow a variety of rewards that directly or indirectly impact local business reputation, rankings and revenue when these needs are well-met.

No surprise: it will take a variety of types of content publication to enjoy the full rewards it can bring.

Foundational local business content development

These are the basics almost every local business will need to publish.

Customer service policy

Customer rights guarantee

NAP

Reviews/testimonials page

Reviews/testimonials policy

Homepage

Apart from serving up some of the most fundamental content about your business to search engines, your homepage should serve two local consumer groups: those in a rush and those in research mode.

Be sure the former is being given must-have information to understand your business at a glance and contact it immediately.

Pro tip: Don’t think of your homepage as static. Change up your content regularly there and track how this impacts traffic/conversions.

On this incredibly vital website page, your content should include:

Complete NAP

All supported contact methods (forms, email, fax, live chat, after-hours hotline, etc.),

Thorough driving directions from all entry points, including pointers for what to look for on the street (big blue sign, next to red church, across the street from swim center, etc.)

A map

Exterior images of your business

Attributes like parking availability and wheelchair accessibility

Hours of operation

Social media links

Payment forms accepted (cash only, BitCoin, etc.)

Mention of proximity to major nearby points of interest (national parks, monuments, etc.)

Brief summary of services with a nod to attributes ("Stop by the Starlight tonight for late-night food that satisfies!")

A fresh call-to-action (like visiting the business for a Memorial Day sale)

Store locator pages

Reviews/testimonials for that location

Location-specific special offers

Social media links specific to that location

Proofs of that location’s local community involvement

Highlights of staff at that location

Education about availability of in-store beacons or apps for that location

Interior photos specific to that location

A key call-to-action

For help formatting all of this great content sensibly, please read Overcoming Your Fear of Local Landing Pages.

City landing pages

Documentation of projects completed in that city (text, photos, video)

Expert advice specific to consumers in that city, based on characteristics like local laws, weather, terrain, events, or customs

Showcasing of services provided to recognized brands in that city ("we wash windows at the Marriott Hotel," etc.)

Reviews/testimonials from customers in that city

Proofs of community involvement in that city (events, sponsorships, etc.)

A key call-to-action

Product/service descriptions

Regardless of business model, all local businesses should devote a unique page of content to each major product or service they offer. These pages can include:

A thorough text description

Images

Answers to documented FAQs

Price/time quotes

Technical specs

Reviews of the service or product

Videos

Guarantees

Differentiation from competitors (awards won, lowest price, environmental standards, lifetime support, etc.)

For inspiration, I recommend looking at SolarCity’s page on solar roofing. Beautiful and informative.

Images

While you’re snapping photos, don’t neglect uploading them to your Google My Business listings and other major citations. Google data suggests that listing images influence click-through rates!

FAQ

About page

Take a look at this About page for a natural foods store in California and break it down into elements:

Reason for founding company

Difference-makers (95% organic groceries, building powered by 100% renewable energy)

Targeted consumer alignment (support local alternative to major brand, business inspired by major figure in environmental movement)

Awards and recognition from government officials and organizations

Special offer (5-cent rebate if you bring your own bag)

Timeline of business history

Video of the business story

Proofs of community involvement (organic school lunch program)

Links to more information

Calls to action

Come into your location

Call

Fill out a form

Ask a question/make a comment or complaint

Livechat with a rep

Follow you on social media

Attend an in-store event/local event

Leave a review

Fill out a survey/participate in a poll

Local business listings

NAP

Website address

Business categories

Business description

Hours of operation

Images

Marker on a map

Additional phone numbers/fax numbers

Links to social, video, and other forms of media

Attributes (payments accepted, parking, wheelchair accessibility, kid-friendly, etc.)

Reviews/owner responses

Third-party review profiles

How can local businesses manage this content which so deeply impacts their reputation, rankings, and revenue? The answer is twofold:

Master catching verbal and social complaints before they turn into permanent negative reviews by making your business complaint-friendly. And then move onto the next section of this article.

Owner responses

Save you money by winning back a dissatisfied existing customer instead of having to invest a great deal more in winning an entirely new one;

Inspire an unhappy customer to update a negative review with improved sentiment, including a higher star rating; and

Prove to all other potential customers who encounter your response that you will take excellent care of them.

Structural local business content development

I want to do

I want to know

I want to go

http://ift.tt/2nXQC4E

#The Best Types of Content for Local Businesses: Building Geo-Topical Authority

0 notes

kraussoutene · 7 years

Text

The Best Types of Content for Local Businesses: Building Geo-Topical Authority

Posted by MiriamEllis

Q: What kind of content should a local business develop?

A: The kind that converts!

Okay, you could have hit on that answer yourself, but as this post aims to demonstrate:

There are almost as many user paths to conversion as there are customers in your city, and

Your long-term goal is to become the authority in your industry and geography that consumers and search engines turn to.

Online traffic

In-store traffic

Transactions

Reviews/testimonials

Clicks-for-directions

Clicks-to-call

Clicks-to-website

Social sharing

Offline word-of-mouth

Good user metrics like time-on-page, low bounce rate, etc.

Takeaway: Consumers have a variety of needs and can bestow a variety of rewards that directly or indirectly impact local business reputation, rankings and revenue when these needs are well-met.

No surprise: it will take a variety of types of content publication to enjoy the full rewards it can bring.

Foundational local business content development

These are the basics almost every local business will need to publish.

Customer service policy

Customer rights guarantee

NAP

Reviews/testimonials page

Reviews/testimonials policy

Homepage

Apart from serving up some of the most fundamental content about your business to search engines, your homepage should serve two local consumer groups: those in a rush and those in research mode.

Be sure the former is being given must-have information to understand your business at a glance and contact it immediately.

Pro tip: Don’t think of your homepage as static. Change up your content regularly there and track how this impacts traffic/conversions.

On this incredibly vital website page, your content should include:

Complete NAP

All supported contact methods (forms, email, fax, live chat, after-hours hotline, etc.),

Thorough driving directions from all entry points, including pointers for what to look for on the street (big blue sign, next to red church, across the street from swim center, etc.)

A map

Exterior images of your business

Attributes like parking availability and wheelchair accessibility

Hours of operation

Social media links

Payment forms accepted (cash only, BitCoin, etc.)

Mention of proximity to major nearby points of interest (national parks, monuments, etc.)

Brief summary of services with a nod to attributes ("Stop by the Starlight tonight for late-night food that satisfies!")

A fresh call-to-action (like visiting the business for a Memorial Day sale)

Store locator pages

Reviews/testimonials for that location

Location-specific special offers

Social media links specific to that location

Proofs of that location’s local community involvement

Highlights of staff at that location

Education about availability of in-store beacons or apps for that location

Interior photos specific to that location

A key call-to-action

For help formatting all of this great content sensibly, please read Overcoming Your Fear of Local Landing Pages.

City landing pages

Documentation of projects completed in that city (text, photos, video)

Expert advice specific to consumers in that city, based on characteristics like local laws, weather, terrain, events, or customs

Showcasing of services provided to recognized brands in that city ("we wash windows at the Marriott Hotel," etc.)

Reviews/testimonials from customers in that city

Proofs of community involvement in that city (events, sponsorships, etc.)

A key call-to-action

Product/service descriptions

Regardless of business model, all local businesses should devote a unique page of content to each major product or service they offer. These pages can include:

A thorough text description

Images

Answers to documented FAQs

Price/time quotes

Technical specs

Reviews of the service or product

Videos

Guarantees

Differentiation from competitors (awards won, lowest price, environmental standards, lifetime support, etc.)

For inspiration, I recommend looking at SolarCity’s page on solar roofing. Beautiful and informative.

Images

While you’re snapping photos, don’t neglect uploading them to your Google My Business listings and other major citations. Google data suggests that listing images influence click-through rates!

FAQ

About page

Take a look at this About page for a natural foods store in California and break it down into elements:

Reason for founding company

Difference-makers (95% organic groceries, building powered by 100% renewable energy)

Targeted consumer alignment (support local alternative to major brand, business inspired by major figure in environmental movement)

Awards and recognition from government officials and organizations

Special offer (5-cent rebate if you bring your own bag)

Timeline of business history

Video of the business story

Proofs of community involvement (organic school lunch program)

Links to more information

Calls to action

Come into your location

Call

Fill out a form

Ask a question/make a comment or complaint

Livechat with a rep

Follow you on social media

Attend an in-store event/local event

Leave a review

Fill out a survey/participate in a poll

Local business listings

NAP

Website address

Business categories

Business description

Hours of operation

Images

Marker on a map

Additional phone numbers/fax numbers

Links to social, video, and other forms of media

Attributes (payments accepted, parking, wheelchair accessibility, kid-friendly, etc.)

Reviews/owner responses

Third-party review profiles

How can local businesses manage this content which so deeply impacts their reputation, rankings, and revenue? The answer is twofold:

Master catching verbal and social complaints before they turn into permanent negative reviews by making your business complaint-friendly. And then move onto the next section of this article.

Owner responses

Save you money by winning back a dissatisfied existing customer instead of having to invest a great deal more in winning an entirely new one;

Inspire an unhappy customer to update a negative review with improved sentiment, including a higher star rating; and

Prove to all other potential customers who encounter your response that you will take excellent care of them.

Structural local business content development

I want to do

I want to know

I want to go

http://ift.tt/2nXQC4E

#The Best Types of Content for Local Businesses: Building Geo-Topical Authority

0 notes