Category: Content Marketing

Is Your Business S.M.A.R.T?

Posted on by admin

UPDATE

Just like your business, we are constantly growing, learning and adapting to new ways of doing things. Although creating S.M.A.R.T. goals has been an awesome business tactic in the past, we’ve discovered a process that works even better for reaching and exceeding your goals.

An Evolved Process

Our new and improved process starts with discovery. We’re curious to know more about the ins and outs of your business and what makes it unique. We’ll ask questions to get a better feel for your company and where you would like to see it grow.

The next step in our creative process is to develop a strategy that can help you be successful in meeting your business goals. We will help you discover the things that are important to you and pave the way to meeting those aspirations.

A plan is only as effective as the team that is implementing the strategy. As the saying goes, actions do speak louder than words. In the execution stage, it is critical to have a group of individuals that utilize the latest and greatest tools and industry knowledge to help you meet your campaign goals.

Once our team has executed strategies to help maximize your campaign, we start the analysis phase. This is easily the most important, yet often overlooked, step of our goal identification and attainment process. Our team compiles all campaign data and analyzes it to identify the things that worked well as well as the things that could possibly be altered or eliminated going forward. A proper analysis can help your business get the most out of your marketing efforts.

Think. Do. Rinse. Repeat. At the end of our process, we’ve identified the goals important to you and your business, developed strategies to help you meet those goals, professionally executed each and every step along the way and analyzed data to provide an overview of your campaign success. The last step in our process is simply to start anew back at the discovery stage. Repetition is key in refining and optimizing your marketing efforts, so don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.

Sources

https://curiositymg.com/process/

8 Steps in Choosing a Panama City Web Design Agency

Posted on by admin

We recently were guest writer for the Business Innovation Center in Panama City. You can read our article: Why Every Small Business Must Have a Website in 2016  here (link).

We wanted to add to this article by offering some tips on what to look for when choosing a website designer and developer. Below you will find 8 steps you should consider when looking for an agency.

Following these steps will not only make your choosing of an agency easier, it will vastly help the process in crafting your web solution needs and requirements. And of course connect you with a solid agency.

Step 1: Know Your Need

Often times a client comes to us and they want or need a website. But our first question to them is what does your site need?

For example, if you are new company your site may be more of a general information site.  What does your company do, how does someone contact you, etc. It will be very clearly brand awareness focused.  If your website is e-commerce focused, you will want to turn your attention to return-on-investment (ROI), converting sales, and building and maintaining your customer base.

What to do:

Ask the agency to show proof of how they have approached clients in the past with similar goals and how they approached them. Seeing these can help you determine if the agency can accomplish what is required for your business.

Step 2: Know Your Budget

Ah, the elephant in the room. We place this towards the top of the list for a good reason. Budget will highly dictate what is a realistic approach to your goals. A great agency can work around a budget for a possible solution. However, do keep in mind the phrase “you get what you pay for” is a resounding response we have heard a number of times from clients.

But how do you determine this budget? The process is actually very simple. Do your research as you would with any marketing purchase. Look at the average costs of creating a website. Talk to fellow business owners about their costs. Compare this to your current marketing budget and see what the company can afford. Do keep in mind a strong honest agency will only offer what is really needed for your business to succeed based on your goals.

What to do:

Go into your consultation with the agency with a budget in mind, but also don’t be surprised or concerned by sticker shock. Ask the agency how they see your return on investment working and how their solution fits into the plan. Overall if you complete your research on your current marketing you will possibly see other areas that have not been effective. You can move some of the budget into digital and inbound marketing.

Step 3: Know the Track Record

With the growth of digital marketing, there are a number of fly by night agencies and so called garage workers that will surface. Just as you would ask for references, licenses, insurance with a roofer, electrician etc.; ask the same of the agency.

A solid agency can easily point you to these documents and references should be very easy to come by. If these cannot be produced in a swift manner, that should raise a red flag rather quickly. Also be sure to ask around to friends and other business owners that have done business with the agency. Sometimes the most honest reviews are not from the agency directly.

What to do:

This one is rather simple. Ask questions. An agency should produce answers, documents and case studies measured metrics to you rather quickly.

Step 4: Educate Yourself

One of the biggest phrases we hear when a new client comes to us is “I don’t understand this web stuff, that’s why I am here.” As an agency we are flattered that you are looking to trust us this much. However, a lot of times we have to educate clients just to set the expectations. Don’t get us wrong, we love to share our knowledge but other agencies are not. Having a basic understanding of WordPress development, digital advertising and social media management will vastly help you understand if the agency you are talking to is a professional and you are not blindsided by just a good salesman.

What to do:

Study. We wouldn’t ask you to know everything like an agency would. Leave that to them. Learn enough to be able to talk about it. Read some blogs, download some ebooks, watch some YouTube Videos. Spending a couple of hours reading can vastly help you understand enough to be dangerous in your consultation.

Step 5: Start Gathering Content

The item that will most delay your website development process is the creating / gathering enough content to fill your site to a comprehensive level.  You want it where people can feel comfortable knowing you are an authority on the type of business you are in.

Often, more than not, this will stall your website development process. Realistically content is the biggest hitch in development. A good agency will offer to help write your content or take existing marketing collateral and help you “refresh” it for the web.

What to do:

Start with current marketing collateral. Gather as much as you can for a starting point. Content is everything when it comes to your website. So gather everything you can: text, images and even videos to help speed the process up when you finally start. 

Step 6: Know what you want to achieve

We have already spoke on your needs, but now think of some specific goals of your new website.

  • • Is it for lead generation?
  • • Sell a product?
  • • Are you building the next gamer forum?
  • • Improve brand awareness?

A good agency will ask you these goals when beginning your website design. If they know what they are doing, the site design will be tailored around these goals. Designing a site in a vacuum is never a good a idea and results are never to your liking.

What to do:

Dig deep into your answer from Step 1. Having a solid understanding of what you want the site to achieve will vastly save time in the process of getting your company online.

Step 7: Ask For Strategy Advice

A good agency will be more interested in your website as a marketing tool verses the only item they are trying to sell you. If the agency does not talk past the site launch you may be talking to the wrong one. A strong agency will want to talk about Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Inbound Marketing and Social Media to name a few. If the agency does not want to talk past the site, move on. 9 times out of 10 they will not be a good partner for your digital marketing.

What to do:

Ask the agency to explain their process past the website design. Ask how they will fit their process to your budget and a timeline for these suggestions. 

Step 8: Maintain Quality

Your site is built, now what? Getting your business online is only the beginning of a successful digital campaign. Now you have to work at maintaining a good quality site. Ask the agency how they track metrics. A good agency will assist you in your analytic reporting and ensure that your website is helping you reach your goals.

What to do:

Ask the web agency about their existing ongoing relationships. How are they helping them? What hurdles have they faced and how did they solve them. Do they have ongoing service, maintenance and marketing plans?

CONCLUSION:

There you have it. Our list of 8 Steps for finding a Web Designer in Panama City.  If you follow these steps we can almost guarantee an easier process of beginning your web journey, but also help you choose your agency partner.

Inbound Marketing For Northwest Florida

Posted on by admin

HOW DO YOU ATTRACT CUSTOMERS WITH INBOUND MARKETING?

In today’s world, reaching your intended customer has become more demanding. Advancing your digital marketing is crucial to your success. However, one of the underlying issues with digital marketing is that customers are in a pandemic of online information. So how do you reach these individuals and provide them meaningful information?

Consumers do not want a barrage of digital information when they are looking for solutions to their problems; that’s where Inbound Marketing steps in. Inbound Marketing is the philosophy of attracting the right customers, at the right time, by producing the right content. When a consumer is searching for “Top 10 vacation spots in Florida,” your search result will be displayed because you have written an article on that very topic that has been viewed by previous consumers, organically placing your search result higher up the page.

“Inbound marketing is the philosophy of attracting the right customer…”

Inbound marketing is a customer-centric philosophy, as opposed to being product-centric. Instead of wasting valuable marketing resources on individuals who do not fit your buyer personas or are non-relevant to your product, inbound marketing focuses on creating meaningful relationships with your consumers. The ultimate goal is to produce long time advocates of your business’ product. From companies like Intel to small businesses like Joe Coffee Shop, marketing is seeing a huge shift from outbound to inbound marketing.

What makes this philosophy/strategy so advantageous, you ask?

Inbound Marketing is:
  • Cost-Effective
  • Improves Customer Relations
  • Highly Visible ROI (Return On Investment) and Metrics

INBOUND IS COST EFFECTIVE

Inbound Marketing is Ultimately Cheaper and More Effective

How is it cheaper and more effective? Instead of blindly firing your message to consumers who may or may not be interested in your services, inbound marketing aims at finding out who your buyer personas are, who your consumers should be, and then tailoring content to help find solutions to their problems. Instead of trying to find your audience, your audience will come to you. You will learn your audience, and through these exchanges, you’re able to classify your audience into different buyer personas and service them better.

Incidentally, it is a lot easier for your business to gain leads from consumers interested in something you provide or offer as opposed to those who just aren’t interested in the slightest. It’s no wonder many businesses are switching or incorporating inbound marketing into their marketing strategies, with contrast from outbound marketing to inbound marketing delivering a whopping 54% more lead generation. (Hubspot)

IMPROVES CUSTOMER RELATIONS

Inbound Marketing Creates Meaningful Relationships

One of the huge advantages of using inbound marketing is that it’s a two-way communication where customers interact with your business. They will post on your company’s social media pages, comment on your blogs, or take part in contests or surveys. When they participate, they become invested and engaged in your company. Consumers today want to be in control of what information they receive and when they receive it. Instead of bombarding them with information they may or may not care about, your company instead encourages consumers to come to you because your company has a solution to their problem. That in itself starts to create a meaningful relationship with your customers.

HIGHLY VISIBLE ROI

Everything With Inbound Marketing is Tracked

Everything within your business is analyzed; why not analyze the interactions your consumers have from the first click on your website’s link in a Google search to how they browse your site after they become customers? With a software program like Hubspot you can start analyzing which blog titles are getting the most clicks, calculating the ROI of every campaign, and understanding which ones are bringing the most money to your business. Also, for every campaign, you can analyze what parts of the campaign were successful and what parts were not, such as which call-to-actions were clicked more than others and/or what landing pages saw more visitors than others.

Need a refresher on the metrics that measure marketing success? Check out our list of key metrics and what they mean for your campaigns.

CLOSING NOTES…

For Northwest Florida companies in Panama City, Panama City Beach, Destin, Pensacola, Tallahassee, the 30A area, and beyond, inbound marketing offers so many great tools for your business. More importantly, your consumers will appreciate it! Inbound marketing does not aim at bombarding your consumers with information but rather solving issues they have with useful resources that point them in the direction of your business.

Are you ready for more customers to start pouring in? Click below!

Embrace Your Curiosity +

Web Design Must Haves for Leads Generation: Get Found Online

Posted on by admin

Websites have no use if they are not being visited.

In this part one of 4 series, we explore the first few items that every web design needs for proper and effective lead generation.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a must-have to any website strategy. For SEO to be successful it takes hard work and consistency when aiming for the top spot.

Every website has the goal of reaching the number one position in search engines. What gives you that first place ranking?  Off-page search engine optimization is one factor to increasing your ranking results.

Link building is not an easy process, but it is very beneficial to your website. High-quality links connected to your website can significantly increase your chances of ranking higher on search engines. There are a couple of key tips to remember when you are building links. The first is to ensure your links create high-quality, educational, or entertaining content. Secondly submit your website to online directories. This will help categorize your website.

On-Page Optimization

On-page search engine optimization is another important aspect and consists of placing your most important keywords within the content elements of your actual pages. These on-page elements include headlines, sub-headlines, body content, image tags, and links.

To ensure your on-page search engine optimization is done right pick a primary keywords for each page. Do not use too many keywords on one page otherwise the page will lose its importance. Search engines won’t have a clear idea of what the page is about. Focus on optimizing one keyword per page.

  • • Place your primary keywords in your headline and sub-headline. These          areas of content have greater weight to search engines.

  • • Include keywords in the body content, but don’t use them out of context.

  • • Include the keywords in the page URL and keep the URL clean.

  • • Lastly, write for humans. Prepare your content for your audience and then    look to optimize it for search.

Meta Tags

Meta tags (a line of code that is contained in the background of a web page) is another SEO component to keep in mind. Meta tags are not as important as SEO, but they are still important. The reason why Meta tags are important is because search engines look at them to learn more about the page.

 

XML Site Maps

XML sitemaps help contain listings of all your pages and when they were updated. The incentive behind an XML sitemap is to help search engine crawlers sift through your pages more efficiently. Sitemaps are easy to create. You can find sitemap generators online that you can simply upload to the root directory of your website.

 

301 Redirects

The last component to keep in mind is a permanent 301 Redirect. This method is used to change an old URL to a new one. When a page is moved to a new URL and the old link hasn’t been directed to the new page it causes a broken website link. This causes a lost opportunity for your customers or potential buyers. 301 Redirects helps SEO know where to find your new pages.

Web Design Must Haves for Leads: Exploring Proper Design and Usability

Posted on by admin

Most websites have an average of a 30-60% bounce rate.

This means a large majority of web traffic entering your website leaves without navigating to any other pages. What first impression are you giving your viewers?

Your website represents who you are and what you offer. When viewers visit your website they are looking for credibility, trust, professionalism, and stability.

Stanford University and Consumer Web Watch found that “a website’s design was more important than credibility such as having a privacy policy and awards.” The study also indicated that “the visual design may be the first test of a site’s credibility. If it fails on this criterion, web users are likely to abandon the site…”

A great web design should include:

Proper use of colors

To attract your audience and draw attention to select elements, use the right colors for your audience. Do not try to make everything jump out. Your audience will avoid the chaotic mix of colors. Stick to 2-4 colors for your template.

Animations, gadgets, and media

Only implement this to help support content and information. Avoid anything unnecessary.
Layout: A clear navigation structure is a must. Avoid clutter. Organize page elements in a grid fashion instead of scattering them randomly.

Typography

Use fonts, font sizes, and font colors that are easy to read to ensure your site is legible. This brings us to our next element. Maintain consistency. Keep your elements on your site consistent from page-to-page. Consistency will help your visitors navigate your site with ease. This will help your visitors from feeling lost.

 

Images

Images can be a powerful element to any website. Although stock images are easily accessible and inexpensive, visitors prefer real imagery. Marketing Experiments performed an experiment comparing the use of stock photography verses real imagery on a website. They found that photos of real people out-performed the stock photos by 95%. Stock images tend to be irrelevant.

Ultimately, make sure that anyone visiting your website can view it no matter what browser or application they are using. Accessibility is a key element to your website’s growth. Visitors should be able to view your website on a mobile device, a tablet, and a computer. Your website will get more views by allowing everyone to view your site no matter what kind of system they use.

During the Web Design Process, Stay Relevant and Don’t Send Visitors Down a Rabbit Hole

Posted on by admin

Search engine optimization (SEO) requires more than the use of keywords; it requires high quality content. You can no longer keyword-stuff your way to search ranking success.

“In creating a helpful, information-rich site, write pages that clearly and accurately describe your topic. Think about the words users would type to find your pages and include those words on your site. (Google)”

Keywords are often added to websites awkwardly which can penalize your website. Content needs to be for humans first, search engines second.

Keywords should be included 1-3 times, naturally, in the page content. Make sure keywords are included in your page title, meta description, and H1 text assuming it fits within the parameters. If a keyword doesn’t work well, work towards a more general keyword. If any word doesn’t contribute to the education of the visitor it likely doesn’t fit.

Marketers can reduce additional effort by including an SEO keyword analysis at the front end of a web redesign project – during website strategy development, then using the findings and recommendations from the keyword analysis to inform content development.

One way to ensure your content has useful keywords is to look at search engines trends such as Google. Refer to historical data to find seasonal content that has done well in the past. Keywords can keep web pages focused, which is important for SEO.

Another way to successfully create content during your website redesign is to capture all the on-site searches that visitors are doing on your site. This will help create helpful content for your viewers.

To successfully redesign your website focus on content development during the beginning phases of your redesign process.

 

Not setting up 301 redirects will send your visitors down a rabbit hole

During a website redesign your old URL needs to be transferred to your new URL. This is where 301 directs come in handy.  A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect from one URL to another.

When a page is moved to a new URL and the old link hasn’t been directed to the new page it causes a broken website link. This causes a lost opportunity for your customers or potential buyers. 301 Redirects helps SEO know where to find your new pages.

Launching a new website without putting 301 redirects will cause you to lose all of your past SEO history and your rankings will decrease.

Before doing any 301 redirects, create URL outline of your old site. Excel is a simple way to outline your old website. You can create a tab for each of your main menu sections and list all menu sub items with their corresponding URL in that tab.

One of the biggest mistakes marketers make when redesigning websites is that they create new pages to replace old ones and eliminate old website pages that they no longer want to include in their site.

You are eliminating all of the search engine optimization value that you’ve built up over time by eliminating old pages without redirecting them to the new URL.

In order to keep your SEO ranking high, create a 301 redirect to let search engines know where to find the new page you are creating so your SEO ranking will follow you to your new website.

Web Design Must Haves for Leads: Content is King

Posted on by admin

With the rise of inbound marketing…

With the rise of inbound marketing, content has become one of the most important aspects of any website. Content is what visitors and search engines are looking for. It also helps drive visitors to your site and turns prospects into leads.

Give your visitors clear messages. You want your visitors to know what you do within seconds, understand the page they’re on and what it’s about, what to do next, and why they should buy/subscribe/download from this site instead of someone else.

There are a few helpful tips to direct you in delivering the right message

  1. Create a few headlines and sub-headline ideas for your most important pages. This helps you portray to your buyer why they should buy from you.
  2. Include clear call-to-actions. Include links in your body copy, next step links at the end of the copy, and calls-to-action wherever appropriate.
  3. Test your copy. For the most accurate indication of winning a headline, use A/B testing to determine which variation drive the most conversions. You can use tools like HubSpot’s A/B Testing Tools, Google’s Website Optimizer, or services like 5 Second Test.

Educate your viewers about your offers.

Offer them more than product content. Provide eBooks, whitepapers, videos, and other forms of content that is educational. This will help your viewers feel as if they are receiving valuable information along the way and not just a sales pitch.

Offer your viewers quality content.

Create fresh content for your homepage that people can value. Know who your audience is when providing content. Create content that is relevant to your buyers and know your subject well. It is important to have accurate content when you write for your audience.

Keep your content clear.

Avoid using jargon terms and phrases; your audience will render them meaningless. In this day in age, consumers want the truth. They do not want advertising trickery, marketing cliques, and surreptitious methods of persuasion. Focus your content on being clear, not clever, and you will find that more people will trust you.

Blogging

Blogging is one of the most important assets to any inbound marketing strategy and it’s a perfect complement to your website. Blogging creates fresh content for SEO, it helps establish you as an industry authority and thought leader, it helps drive more traffic and leads back to your website, and it’s a great channel to converse and engage with your audience and customers. Blogging will also help make your content shareable and social.

 

Testimonials

Lastly, provide customer testimonials and reviews to prove to potential customers that you’ve successfully helped existing customers. Leverage other online sites to provide reviews such as Yelp to collect testimonials.

How to Build a Strong Wellness Marketing Strategy

Posted on by admin

The number of internet users in the United States is growing daily. More than 88% of the U.S. population are internet users; approximately a 45% increase since the year 2000. Google reportedly processes 1.3 billion searches monthly. “…more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers…including the U.S (Google)”

Most people report that the information, blogs, and medical information centric sites they visit are inaccurate or unsatisfactory.

An accurate healthcare resource that people can trust is vital for internet users. We have a 5 step process and strategy points to help put into practice when creating a digital content strategy for your practice.

Following the below 5 steps can greatly increase your effectiveness of your healthhcare marketing strategy.

 

Step 1:  Set your content goals and what you want to accomplish

Step 2: Establish tools and process

Step 3:  Liven up Your Content – What is best to write about and share?

Step 4: Distribute your Content – Placing your content where it deserves to be.

Step 5: Measure Results – Examine the process and begin again

With a combined experience of over 30 years in marketing and design, the team of creatives and marketers at Curiosity can take any of your business goals and put them into a plan that will strive for a positive solution. Since opening our doors we have gained experience to confidently understand
client objectives and easily establish strong client relationships in order to generate and deliver inspiring digital marketing and content strategy solutions. With every project our team strives to push the envelope and use the latest tech and solutions we have available to us.

Website Redesign: Consider your URL structure and referral sources

Posted on by admin

Looking further into mistakes commonly made when designing or redesigning a website

Another two points we would like to cover are URL Structure and Shady resources for backlinks

Failing to consider your URL structure

Your URLs play a significant role in your SEO success. If your URLs don’t align well with the actual content of your site pages, you should consider restructuring it during your website redesign.

A general rule to follow when creating a new URL: use dashes (-) between words instead of underscores (_). Google treats dashes as separators, which means it can return results when you search for a single word that appears in a URL. Underscores are treated as connectors by Google. It will only return results when you search for a group of connected words that appears in a URL. Using dashes creates more opportunities for your pages to be discovered.

Your URL structure needs to be organized for the user experience. Use keywords in your URL you are targeting for ranking. Keywords in your URL will help indicate to those who see your URL that they are getting what they want and expect. Keep the structure organized for user experience.

Shorter URLs between (less than 50 characters) are preferred for usability and user experience. Search engines are able to process long URLs without trouble, but it is important to write for humans first and think of SEO second.

Lastly, when creating a URL make sure it is accessible for all devices. Mobile friendly pages are normally ranked the highest in SEO.  Let major search engines know which web pages on your site are mobile friendly in a sitemap.

 

Leaving shady backlinks in place

Backlinks are incoming hyperlinks from one web page to another website. The more backlinks you have pointing back to your website, the more popular it will be.

When you create backlinks for your website, keep in mind that Google and other search engines prefer quality over quantity. Google prefers natural links.

A website redesign is a great opportunity for you to analyze your backlinks and remove the suspicious ones. Backlinks are great to have, but if Google suspects that there are spammy, low-quality sites linking to your site, your rankings could suffer.

A common mistake: Your search engine optimization firm built hundreds of bad backlinks to your website. Google’s penguin algorithm update in 2012 included penalization to websites that built erroneous back links in an attempt to drive ranking. Site links from unrelated sources, micro-sites, and false sources do more harm than good post-Penguin.

You can fix this mistake in your redesign by using Link Research Tools. This will provide detail on harmful link and help you get them removed from your site quickly and efficiently.

 

Most marketers think only about link-building instead of link-earning. Focus on making your content easy for your audiences to consume, understand, and share.

Web Design Must Haves for Leads: Become a Conversion Machine

Posted on by admin

You have the leads, now what?

To increase your websites conversions, you must have effective calls-to-action, CTA positioning, newsletters, landing pages and forms for your landing page.

The effect of a successful Call to Action is to drive a visitor to take a desired action. CTAs are the key to lead generation but they need to be done right to convert traffic into leads. The position of your call-to-actions is important also. Think about where you will be placing your CTAs. Do not place CTAs everywhere; that will give people too many options.

In order to drive CTAs you need to drive those links to landing pages. Landing pages are used to convert visitors into leads by completing a transaction or by collecting contact information from them. Landing pages consist of:

  1. A headline and (optional) sub-headline.
  2. A brief description of the offer/CTA.
  3. At least one supporting image.
  4. (Optional) supporting elements such as testimonials or security badges.
  5. And most importantly, a form to capture information.

Newsletters

Newsletters are easy to offer and effective. Not all CTAs need to be big offers. Newsletters or mailing lists are the perfect way to collect email addresses so you can nurture prospects over time to become leads. Make sure it is easy for people to find your subscription form.

 

Landing Pages

Landing pages are necessary to implement because they direct your visitors to one particular offer without the distractions of everything else on your website.

Once you’ve completed your landing page, it is important to have a form that customers can fill out to sign-up, subscribe to your site, or download an offer. Forms are the key to a landing page. Recommendations for landing page forms:

  • • Only ask for the information you need. Avoid asking for sensitive information that companies or                consumers may not want to disclose.
  • • Consider the value of the offer. The more valuable an offer may be perceived, the more information        you may be able to ask for in return.
  • • Lastly, reduce anxiety for your clients by adding a privacy message that indicates their email will not      be shared or sold. Avoid using the word submit on your form buttons; offer them a free download or      newsletter instead.

Internet usage is growing rapidly which makes a website an important factor for your business. The integration of search engine optimization, social media, blogging, content, call-to-actions, and landing pages will drive traffic, leads, and sales.