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Content Management

5 Top Web Designs That Will Take 2019 By Storm

Posted on December 28, 2018


2019 is coming in fast, and if you want to get that sleek, new look before your competition does, enlisting the aid of a digital marketing consultant is the best way to do it. It’s time to renovate those stale web design trends of 2018.

Check out these top 5 web designs for 2019.

1. Clean, Minimalistic Design

The days of cluttered images and overly complex web design are fading away. Since 2017, developers have started to change their website to cleaner, more minimalistic designs. Developers did so in anticipation of the mobile-first indexing revolution, knowing that getting it done early would mean a huge boost in their revenue-earning potential.

This brilliant form of “flat design” not only provides a cleaner look but also improves function as it reduces the amount of time it takes to load a webpage for both PC and mobile devices. It also benefits a website’s Google ranking as sites which prioritize quick load times are better ranked, something image-heavy websites can’t dream of.

2. Micro-Animations

Sometimes as web designers, you’ve got to learn how to appreciate the little things. This is especially true for micro-animations — a subtle trend that is quickly gaining traction.

A micro-animation can be a number of things. It can be something as simple as changing the color of a call-to-action button when the user moves their cursor over it. It can also be something a little more visually appealing, like a list of links expanding downward when a “hamburger” menu button—the three parallel lines stacked horizontally that you find on the top left or right of a website—is activated.

While this may seem inconsequential, that couldn’t be any further from the truth. Little animations like these actually help site visitors better understand its layout better, increasing retention by providing an intuitive and satisfying experience as they explore what you have to offer.

3. More Detailed Footers

Footers, as far as web designing is concerned, have mostly been overlooked, but 2019 is looking to change that. In most cases, it was a space on the homepage where visitors could contact information and little else.

Now, designers are looking to utilize that space in a much more effective and efficient manner. While it should still have your company’s contact information, it should also feature clickable social media icons that can send a user to your social media pages (hopefully so they start following you).

However, it won’t be limited to just those elements. In fact, it can be heavily improved upon based on what your particular niche or business is. Take for instance 360gardalife.com. This sports magazine/blog shares local sporting information around the Malcesine area of Italy – and they are really hitting it out of the park in terms of a footer.

Now imagine having a customized footer that a potential customer can access to personalize the information that they receive from your company. You can bet top dollar that user experience and customer reviews with your company would skyrocket in a positive way.

4. Better Video Backgrounds

Remember when I said that minimal-looking websites may take the cake in 2019? Well, they are going to have some competition with websites that will feature a video background. I know, hard to believe since websites that can load quickly will be scored better, but video backgrounds have also been shown to increase conversions – and that’s always a good thing.

Before we continue, it won’t be like a YouTube video playing in the background while you are trying to read a blog. When a user lands on your site, they may see the video playing in the background—muted, of course. Short video content commands users’ attention more than texts or images can because it delivers your message quickly and effectively. Because of that, users are more likely to stick around to watch the video.

Of course, the more likely they are to stick around means that your time-on-site metric is going to increase.

5. Non-Traditional Scrolling

For as long as the Internet has been around, users have become accustomed to vertical scrolling—top to bottom. Twenty-nineteen is looking to change that up a bit, offering a unique twist to scrolling and piquing potential customers’ interests.

Some sites are looking to embrace horizontal scrolling, where instead of the page moving top to bottom, it is moving from left to right. This offers a refreshing and attention-grabbing experience to potential customers that are getting to know your brand.

To illustrate this in action, picture yourself as an owner of a business that sells artisanal cheeses. When a user lands on your home page, they see a brief loading screen—we’re talking 1 to 2 seconds of load time here—and then they are greeted by a quick history of your business.

As they scroll, the history portion shifts to the left and now the home page is featuring a special cheese on sale for the week. At some point, the carousel of information—if you will—will stop, and the page can scroll vertically as normal to other portions of your homepage that feature the daily product review, customer reviews, accolades, video content, or even that souped-up website footer that you created.

Kick off the New Year with a fresh new website style and then reap the benefits of your investment. Contact your experienced digital marketing consultant at (956) 566-4998 to get started.

Content Management SEO

Beef Up Your On-Page Optimization Game With These Three Quick Tips

Posted on August 23, 2018

Let’s face it. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with all of these updates that Google implements on a frequent basis.

Even for a seasoned search engine optimization expert and digital marketing consultant like me, Mauricio Piña, it can sometimes be difficult to keep track of what works and what doesn’t after an update to Google’s core algorithm, but lucky for us, there are some fundamental things that hardly ever change.

And a lot of it has to do with how your on-page optimization is set up. Today, we’re going to discuss how to beef up your on-page optimization so that your website can climb—and stay—high in ranking.

But First, What Is On-Page Optimization?

To put it simply, on-page optimization is a special modification of individual web pages in order to earn relevant traffic and raise higher in Google’s ranking system.

What exactly is modified? That depends.

On-page usually refers to content that is on the page as well as HTML source code that can be modified—or what we in the industry call “optimize”. Since Google is updated constantly, sometimes what works one day doesn’t work as well as it should the next day.

That’s why hiring a digital marketing consultant is a valuable business decision. Running a business is hard enough without a digital marketing plan, but having an expert that can advise you with all of the latest information about on-page SEO, even off-page SEO, and the like is crucial to staying on top of the search engine results page (SERP), maximizing your revenue by being visible to more potential customers.

So without further adieu, here is what can be done to make sure that your on-page optimization is on point.

1. Avoid Low-Value Content Writing and Coding Tactics

Your content, in a nutshell, should not only answer your visitor’s questions—whether it be about your product or service—but it should also help them understand the purpose of your site and guide them throughout it as well.

While our first instinct may be to focus on writing content that is solely geared toward ranking high in search alone, it is pertinent to understand that ranking high is an added benefit. Your true focus should rely on helping searchers, even when they become visitors.

How? By remembering Google’s golden rule: Thou shalt create valuable content.

To ensure that your content is attracting the right traffic to your site, you’ve got to play by Google’s rules, meaning you should avoid:

  1. Thin Content – This type of content is generally defined as content that offers little to nothing of value to the visitor. Back in the old days, in order to compete with other websites, it wasn’t unusual to have content that was used—or duplicated—across many other relevant pages of product that you wanted to sell. It also wasn’t unusual to have nearly the same content on those pages with the keyword being the only distinguishing factor.

    2. As one particular example, this happened a lot with local businesses that would create multiple pages of the same content targeting regions or cities they wanted to pull clients from. The only thing that was different about these pages were the location keywords. This content would ultimately prove to be of little value to visitors, causing them to leave and increasing the business’ bounce rate.

    Before this problem was rectified in 2011 with Google’s update Panda, taking advantage of SEO in this manner was the norm, and it spawned much low-value content all over the ‘net. Now, Google rightfully demotes websites like this in an effort to keep the high-quality content that helps the most people ranking high in the SERP.

  2. Keyword Stuffing – Back then, keyword stuffing is something that a lot of digital marketers did in an effort to rank up their keywords.

    3. When Google was still figuring out all of its semantics, it wasn’t unusual to see pieces of content pop up here and there that were loaded with keywords. For example, let’s assume that you are generating content that has a keyword of “cherries”.

    “Are you looking for cherries in Austin, TX? Hi, I’m Tom, and I pick cherries in Austin, TX! I am the best picker of cherries in Austin that you’ll ever find. These Austin cherries…”

    You get the gist. It wouldn’t be long until Google determined that content stuffed with keywords was considered low-value. Reading it comes off unnatural—almost robotic or auto-generated—to the reader, and no one wants to read something like that. It turns visitors off, leaving you with nothing but an increased bounce rate.

  3. Hiding Text in Your HTML Code, or “Cloaking” – As a general guideline, you want to keep the text within your HTML visible. Why?

    4. In short, you want web crawlers from search engines to see the same content that a visitor would see. When this guideline is broken, it is called “cloaking”. Search engines normally don’t take too kindly on cloaking and will prevent these websites from ranking in the SERP.

    However, Google will, in certain cases, allow cloaking if it contributes to a positive experience for the visitor.

2. Optimize Your Images

An image-heavy website can weigh you down in terms of ranking. Images take time to load, and if your website takes a long time to load—over 3 seconds—then you could be penalized for it.

Luckily for us, that is why we can utilize image compression to our advantage. Because there is no particular “one size fits all” aspect in web design, image compression is the next best thing.

A bevy of options await for anyone interested in using image optimization to improve their Google ranking through on-page SEO. Compression tools like Optimizilla works wonders in compressing images, but you could use other options like “save for web” or tinkering with image sizing if you know your way around that.

Another tried and true way to optimize your images is by choosing the right format for your image. To put it simply:

  1. Gifs are the perfect format for images that need animation.
  2. If high image resolution isn’t a priority for you, use JPEG and test its different compression settings.
  3. If you do need higher image resolution, use PNG-24 for images that have a multitude of colors and PNG-8 for images that have less.

You’ll also want to adjust your thumbnails accordingly, and while you’re at it, make sure that your alternative text describes images for the visually impaired. By doing this, you are providing context of the image to your visually impaired potential customers, increasing your earning potential and becoming a trusted—and frequently visited—source for visually impaired customers interested in purchasing your product or service.

Oh, and web crawlers also gather information about your images from the alternative text, so having an accurate depiction of your alternative text is essential to these little friendly bots and the search engines they serve.

3. Make the Most Out of Meta Descriptions

In short, meta descriptions detail what your website is about to searchers. It is the few sentences below the link to a website that describe what that website is about that you would see after a quick Google search. They are normally created through HTML elements that are nested into the head tag.

You’ve got around a 150 to 300 character limit to make an effective meta description. That’s it. Within that limit, you’ve got to make sure that you have:

  1. An effective Call to Action.
  2. Your brand name visible.
  3. Your geographical location visible.
  4. Any featured details regarding your business.
  5. Any sort of unique value that your business offers.

Make sure that your meta descriptions are relevant to the content on your website. It should essentially summarize the key concept or purpose of your business without giving away too much information that won’t lead a searcher to click through.

Google frequently chooses and displays text that is relevant to the searcher’s query on the SERP. While this helps your meta descriptions for searches that are more unique, you cannot afford to leave out an effective meta description. Google may not consider meta descriptions a ranking factor, but they sure do help your click-through rate.

With These Three On-Page SEO Tips, Paired With Great, Valuable Content Meant to Inform and Entice Your Visitors, Reaching High Search Engine Ranking—And Staying There—Is Easy, Especially When You Have an SEO Guru Like Me, Mauricio Piña, By Your Side. Contact Me at (956) 566-4998 Today.

Content Management Digital Marketing SEO

The 411 on Conversion Funnels

Posted on June 16, 2018

Lead Generation

Maybe your website is doing just fine without a particular marketing strategy. Maybe you’re making okay earnings every month with what you are doing right now.

But the truth is, without a direction, you could be ultimately shooting yourself in the foot – so to speak.

A conversion funnel can organize not only the way you run your business – but more importantly – it can make your shoppers transition to customers much easier.

If you don’t know what a conversion funnel is or haven’t developed one, you’re in luck. In today’s piece, we are focusing on what a conversion funnel is, why they are so important, and how they can benefit your business.

First thing’s first: What is a conversion funnel?

A conversion funnel is a concept that helps marketers visualize how a customer lands on their website and is directed to perform a certain desired action – usually to purchase a product or service.

You may have heard it called a “sales funnel” before. In truth, they are one in the same. It is called a funnel because it guides the customer toward a conversion point in a multitude of ways:

The terms “desired action” is defined by what the business hopes to accomplish. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the desired action is to have your customer purchase a product or service, although it mostly used as such.

A conversion funnel can also be used to gather customers’ email addresses in an effort to create an email list that your business can use for an effective email marketing campaign. It can also guide visitors to download useful PDFs on certain subjects, offering a little more information that wouldn’t be found in a traditional blog.

However, the word “funnel” may implicate some sort of haphazard pouring of customers into your business. Of course, you need to do your best to attract customers to your funnel, but don’t narrow it down so much that a customer feels closed in. Your customer needs to have options that they can select (like proceeding to a landing page, opting in or out of an email list, etc.), and the funnel must also present clear directions to them there.

Let’s Put This All into Context

Take, for instance, a customer interested in purchasing scented candles. They’ll type in “scented candles” in the Google search bar and find a distributor recommended by a friend. The moment the friend told them about the site, they were already in the first stage of the funnel known as “Awareness”.

The potential customer will go to the website and immediately notice a blog: “Three Scented Candles You Want to Use Around the House For Summer”. They’ll click on it because that was just what they were looking for. This particular stage in the funnel is called “Interest”.

They’ll read the content and are pleased with the inspiration that it provided them. This is the “Desire” stage of the funnel.

At the end of the blog post will be a “Call to Action”. A call to action attempts to convince your potential customer to do a desired action. In this case, perhaps it will be a link that leads to the three candles that were highlighted in the blog with an option to buy. This stage is known as “Conversion” because you are converting shoppers into customers—assuming they make the purchase.

So, let’s recap. The stages within a conversion funnel are:

  1. Awareness – making customers aware of your product through SEO, content marketing, word of mouth, etc.
  2. Interest – providing engaging and attractive content like blogs or email campaigns.
  3. Desire – essentially building upon the interest stage with product reviews, tantalizing images of your product, fantastic product descriptions, or inspiring videos.
  4. Conversion – turning the shopper into a customer.

While these are all crucial components of a conversion funnel, people tend to forget another important part of it: re-engaging.

Customer retention is the lifeblood of an e-commerce business. These customers are crucial to your revenue streams because:

  1. You don’t have to pay much of anything to get these type of customers.
  2. They already demonstrated an interest in your business.

Needless to say, you’ll want to pull these customers back to the top of the funnel to start the process all over again. Some of the easiest ways to do this are to:

  1. Have them sign up for an email list.
  2. Encourage them to follow your social media accounts for latest news, offers, products, and more.
  3. Send coupons or special deals to their email.
  4. Ship marketing or loyalty materials with their purchase so they know they are a valued customer.
  5. Expand your product line or develop new services to entice them back.

These are all cost-effective ways to re-attract customers that you can use to pump up your revenue stream.

Why are conversion funnels so important?

Simply, conversion funnels are important because they help you pinpoint where customers are having difficulty transitioning from potential shoppers to actual customers. If your website doesn’t have a conversion funnel strategy, that could be a big reason why your conversion rate is so low.

Maybe the shopping cart is buggy or not user-friendly. Maybe content is not engaging or missing a call to action and customers don’t know where to go to purchase your product or services. Cluttered or poorly detailed product pages and descriptions can leave a customer confused.

So many minor and major things can compromise the conversion of shoppers to customers, and your earning potential may be suffering as a result. With a proper conversion funnel strategy, you can easily see where improvements must be made – and then make them. In the end, taking the time to address these pain points only builds up your business’ earnings and that is always a good thing.

With a good conversion funnel, your business can truly thrive. To start developing yours, enlist the help of an expert digital marketing consultant like me, Mauricio Pina. Contact me at (956) 566-4998 today to find out how I can help you grow your business through digital marketing.

Content Management Digital Marketing Featured

Why Is Your Website’s Content Important? – Part 2

Posted on October 6, 2015

In Part 1 of my series discussing the importance of content, I provided you with some vital information on why your business should implement a content strategy ASAP. After all, if you’re not filling your website’s pages with valuable pieces of information, you’re missing out on your own company’s untapped potential. Now it’s time to take an even deeper look at more reasons why content truly matters.

Get Your Lead On

According to HubSpot’s State of Inbound 2014-2015 Report, business-to-business (B2B) companies that produce blogs generate 67% more leads than those companies who have yet to catch up with the blogging trend. If your company creates and properly executes a marketing strategy that targets your customer’s needs, then more leads will approach and use your website. If you keep up the work to establish your company and website as a reliable resource, you’ll create a relationship with many potential customers.

Integrated Marketing is a Must

Your content has the ability and potential to work hand-in-hand with your other digital marketing tools. According to the 2015 B2B Content Marketing Report, more than 80% of B2B marketers employ LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to share their website’s content. These tools are some of the most effective ways for your content to find its way to the eyes of users who will greatly appreciate information that is designed to fit their specific needs.

It’s a Hot Hot Trend

The B2B Marketing Report additionally revealed that 86% of marketers are employing a full-pledged content strategy! The success has been so staggering that 70% of marketers created even more content in the last year and 55% plan on increasing their content output within the next year. However, it’s important to understand content can’t just be thrown into a website without a solid plan. To be effective, your content strategy must be meaningful and well thought out.

What Are You Waiting For?

The statistics, success and pleased marketers speak for themselves. A content strategy is an incredible tool that can be used to optimize your entire digital presence. If you’re ready to begin working on your very own content marketing strategy, know that my team of professional and creative writers is ready to help. From interesting blogs to informative articles, we’ll make sure your foot is planted firmly in the digital world.

Content Management Digital Marketing

Why is Your Website’s Content Important? – Part 1

Posted on September 23, 2015

The phrase “Content is King” gets tossed around every now and then. But, while some may find it a bit of an overstatement, the truth is content is one of the most important parts in a digital marketing strategy. A successful content marketing campaign works hand-in-hand with your digital marketing strategy and, if used to its fullest potential, can yield a wide array of benefits for your brand. But why exactly is it important? In this two-part series, you’ll find out exactly why your website’s content is vital for your company.

An Education

Your target audience relies on the content you put on your website to find out exactly what you have to offer. This, in turn, helps you cut time in the selling process that can potentially drag on for unnecessary amounts of time. An engaging content strategy will additionally help you adapt to the client’s ever-changing shopping habits by keeping them involved and interested in the product you sell.

Move the Masses

The continuing flow of quality content on your website will continue to drive the masses of potential customers deeper into your pages. This is due to the fact that consumers want to educate themselves on a product before making a purchase. A solid content plan can give them the education they need while keeping the traffic flowing.

SEO Improvement

A website’s rank on search engines can be pivotal for the success of a company. Content that provides insight into your visitor’s common questions will make your website much more attractive to search engines and help it stay within the best ranks.

Let’s Get Started

If you’re ready to fill your website with content that will prove to be highly beneficial for your brand, dive right in! My team of content creators will ensure that your pages are filled with informative blogs, articles and FAQs that are designed to keep the traffic moving while optimizing your chances for success.

Content Management Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing v. Traditional Marketing

Posted on September 17, 2015

digital-marketing-vs-traditional-marketing2

Over the years, traditional marketing has given everyone something to remember and talk about. Chances are you remember the crying Native American in the Marlboro commercials or the cheeky Got Milk? billboards that covered every major city. Yet while traditional marketing has offered us with plenty of mainstays in popular culture, things are now moving at a much different pace. Digital marketing has provided a powerful tool for companies to use for growth, reach and success.

Don’t Be Afraid to Take the Plunge

Your business is your pride and joy, so it might be difficult to dive right in to the digital marketing world. However, there are a few things you should acknowledge before paying a ridiculous amount of money to get a commercial on TV or an ad in your local newspaper.

  • Level the playing field – With digital marketing by your side, your business can now go toe-to-toe with your competitors, regardless of their size. You’ll no longer try to catch up and match the budgets and scales of your competitor’s prices! A clean and crisp website can truly rule your marketing, and in the digital world, size doesn’t matter.
  • No more high costs – Gone are the days of dropping some serious cash to get an ad on the Yellow Pages, radio, television or a magazine. Your online marketing strategy can be planned out, evaluated and executed for a lower cost than what you would be spending with traditional marketing.
  • Broaden your horizons – Now honestly, when was the last time you picked up a newspaper or really listened to the radio? Better yet, if you were to go to a public place how many people are on their tablets and smart phones? Digital marketing lets you take advantage of all those eyes and minds focused on screens. Your product or company could potentially be seen by the audience you decide to target across the globe!

Try to Keep Up!

If you want nothing but the best of your company, perhaps you’re strongly considering a digital marketing strategy. You’ve made the right choice, but now it’s time to get to work and put your business on the map! Whether you’re looking for expertly-designed content for your website, search engine optimization services or professional consulting, contact my team today. I’ll make sure to help you take the first step in the best direction.