Creating a Website for Your Business: 5 Things You Need to Succeed

Creating a Website for Your Business: 5 Things You Need to Succeed

by | Apr 21, 2021 | Business & Marketing Strategy, Insights

Creating a Website for Your Business: 5 Things You Need to Succeed

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Are you thinking of revamping your old website, or maybe creating something completely new? If your website brings back memories of Y2K, you might want to level up your web presence but hesitate to hit “go” because you don’t really know what a modern website needs. The good news is, building a website doesn’t have to feel so complicated. For most websites, you need to focus on just a few main aspects to ensure you’re making the most of your digital presence. So, what 5 things do you need to do when creating a website for your business?

#1 Make a good first impression.

Take a look at the two websites below. The first has outdated visuals and tells you nothing about who the company is or what they offer. The other has a modern look and delivers clear and concise information in her hero header.

Here are a few “must haves” in order to make a good first impression with your website: 

  • Up-to-Date appealing design
  • Consistent brand aesthetics
  • A clear message and brand story
  • Obvious and direct calls-to-action

#2 Be mobile friendly and accessible.

Few things are more frustrating online than trying to load a website on your phone only to discover it’s not mobile friendly. People will bail from your site…and fast. Our attention span has sunk to goldfish levels, especially on our phones, so it’s crucial to grab them with speed and functionality on mobile.

Mobile accounts for around half of all web traffic. So if your website doesn’t look good and function well on mobile, you are losing half of your potential online customers.

Let’s do a simple test. Pull up your website on your smartphone. (Go ahead, we’ll wait.) Put yourself in the mindset of one of your potential customers, and try to quickly find information. If the experience wasn’t pleasant, imagine how your prospects feel.

#3 Have data collection and reporting.

Your website is the best way to understand your market and see how people engage with your content. You might be spending hours updating certain pages on your website, but if it only gains a few views each month, is it really worth it? It’s important for you to know how your website is performing so that you can tailor content and focus your energy on the places that are getting the most attention.

Not only is important for your website to collect data, it’s imperative that you have a collection strategy and regular reporting. You may have all of the stats in the world available to you, but if you don’t know how to interpret them, they aren’t doing much good.

#4 Utilize Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and digital advertising to drive traffic.

It’s not enough to simply have a website presence these days. Your website may be live and might have stellar content, but we aren’t living in an “if you build it, they will come” environment on the internet anymore. That’s why it’s important to utilize SEO and digital advertising.

Understanding what keywords and search phrases your customers use when searching for your company is an essential first step. Then, you need to make sure that you have those words or phrases embedded into your content (but NO keyword stuffing!).

With digital advertising, spend time focusing on where your audience is hanging out, whether that be Google, LinkedIn, or Facebook, and get hyper targeted with your audience, offer, and keyword focus.

#5 Have top notch security and routine maintenance

Not surprisingly, Google now penalizes websites that are not secure and gives preference to secure ones, which is a good thing! You might not ever even know if your website has been hacked, as most hacks run in the background to collect data. Regular maintenance is required to keep your website safe, which it’s important if you want to stay on Google’s good side and keep your content and business secure.

We’ve created a quick reference guide to help you make sure your website is ready for visitors. Grab our “&Marketing Website Go Live Checklist” below.

Download Checklist

Not sure if your website is up to snuff? Fill out the form below to receive a complementary audit.

About the Author

Content Manager and Copywriter Beth McDonough brings nearly a decade of professional writing and editing to the team at &Marketing. With extensive experience in an array of fields that range from entertainment publications to a Fortune 500 energy company, Beth has the ability to produce written content that speaks directly to the needs of a breadth of clients and channel their brand personality into a compelling story.

 About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

&Marketing Case Study: Healthcare Digital Marketing Strategy Simplified

&Marketing Case Study: Healthcare Digital Marketing Strategy Simplified

by | Apr 14, 2021 | Case Studies

&Marketing Case Study: Healthcare Digital Marketing Strategy Simplified

Business Challenge Summary

A cutting-edge healthcare technology company (BUDDI.AI), whose target audience includes C-level healthcare executives, was poised for major growth in 2021. However, they were playing in a fragmented competitive landscape that would require them to creatively “break through the noise” in order to build and maintain brand awareness, drive lead generation, and achieve tangible results. To become a true thought leader and partner of choice in the industry, they needed to enhance their digital presence.

Like many growing businesses, this client had neither the time nor the resources to hire an internal team to drive the level of marketing strategy and execution needed in order to achieve success. They also struggled with bringing an unknown concept to market and helping potential customers understand the value that it brings to their companies.

The &Marketing team worked with BUDDI AI to quickly understand our technology platform and develop messaging based on data and Business Intelligence. During this time of rapid growth for our company, they found a way to harness the power of our own data and leverage it to get in front of the right audiences and decision-makers. This directly impacted our ability to more than double our lead generation goals in less than three months.

Ram Swaminathan

Co-Founder & Chief Architect, BUDDI AI

&Marketing’s Approach

Internal Discovery & Immersion

Due to the complexity and newness of the company and its product, a foundational “reset” was first needed, to create consistency and alignment within the company itself and ensure their positioning and messaging was delivered in a way that would resonate with their target audience. This discovery phase consisted of:

  • A comprehensive review of backgrounding documents from the client
  • Several internal stakeholder interviews and exercises
  • Supplemental secondary customer research
  • A high-level audit of competitor websites and messaging

&Marketing used this as fuel to build the following foundational outputs:

  • Audience segmentation, customer research, and identification of pain points
  • Brand voice and tonality/personality for each audience segment
  • Value proposition and key message document, using our Storytelling & Branding framework
  • The customer journey
  • Alignment on success goals and KPIs (metrics)

 Business Intelligence

To identify digital marketing opportunities and create the building blocks for a comprehensive strategy and execution plan, &Marketing needed to first understand A) the target audience’s behavior online and B) the competitive digital landscape. To do this, we ran a Business Intelligence and Analytics project for this client to review and assess the digital online landscape:

  • Keyword Striking Distance Analysis: Identifying top keyword opportunities based on current rankings
  • Enhanced Competitive Analysis: Identifying competitor strengths and opportunities in which Buddi could steal their online market share
  • Nontraditional Competitor Analysis: understanding where our target audience is going to consume information about our product/service that are NOT competitors.
  • “People Also Ask” Research: Related online searches that may provide less expensive opportunities to rank or advertise for that reach our audience at each stage of the sales funnel

This research served as the building blocks for a future comprehensive strategy and execution plan that would include content, digital advertising, website enhancements, and SEO optimization.

Execution & Reporting

Discovery and Immersion combined with Business Intelligence data allowed &Marketing to create sophisticated, yet engaging content, automated email campaigns and highly targeted paid advertising on Google and LinkedIn helped to drive website traffic, lead generation efforts, and overall brand awareness.

Results

In four and half months, we helped BUDDI.AI generate 253 qualified leads at cost per lead of $121 – more than double their goal and all within their budget!

Additionally, we helped increase website traffic 434% compared to the previous period, furthering BUDDI.AI’s presence amongst the marketplace.

We continued to support this client as their business expanded with new products and audiences.A comprehensive marketing strategy was developed that included digital marketing, social media exposure, website and SEO enhancements, content creation, sales enablement, email automation, and a lead generation plan that expanded their brand awareness and accelerated their sales efforts.

Are you facing challenges of your own in generating leads and meeting your business’s growth goals?

We’d love to learn more about your challenges and how a coordinated marketing approach might help take your organization to the next level.

About &Marketing:

&Marketing provides the robust outsourced marketing department growing companies need without the high overhead costs of big agencies or full-time employees. Our variable model empowers businesses to reach their growth goals through access to the guidance and expertise of senior level strategists and a flexible execution team.

Case Study: Marketing for a Drug & Alcohol Addiction Recovery Facility through the Pandemic

Case Study: Marketing for a Drug & Alcohol Addiction Recovery Facility through the Pandemic

by | Apr 14, 2021 | Case Studies, SEO

Case Study: Marketing for a Drug & Alcohol Addiction Recovery Facility through the Pandemic

Business Challenge Summary

Our client is an addiction recovery center dedicated to improving the delivery of vital services which include drug and alcohol rehabilitation and treatment. Before engaging &Marketing (pre-pandemic), the center wanted to enhance its online presence and messaging to more closely connect with its audience and simplify the process of seeking help as much as possible. Driving more consistent leads would also reduce fluctuations in staff workload to provide a better overall patient experience.

The center’s website was already optimized well for SEO but was outdated in terms of user experience and engagement. In addition to updating the site, the client wanted the capability to monitor their automated Google Ads and use that data to make incremental improvements. They also wanted to create and execute a clear plan of action to retain close connections with past graduates, so they began searching for a partner that could help them reach these goals.

Additionally, the pandemic accelerated the already growing mental health crisis in the United States. Those populations at highest risk for addiction grew as rates of stress, alcoholism, and drug abuse soared. According to the American Medical Association, in December 2020 more than 40 U.S. states saw increases in opioid-related mortality along with ongoing concerns for those with substance use disorders. A reporting system called ODMAP shows that the early months of the pandemic brought an 18% increase nationwide in overdoses compared with those same months in 2019. It’s also likely that the total impact of the pandemic has on this industry will not be known for decades to come.

Major life events are often triggering for those coping with substance use issues. Through our discovery work with the center, we learned that these events often drive one of two parties to take action: either the person facing addiction or a loved one seeking help on their behalf. Each group has unique needs, so it was important to create campaigns that are helpful to each.

Because of the high urgency of need paired with growing search volume, it’s also important to top the first page of Google search results to reach audiences that need assistance. With only ten spaces available on the first page, this can be challenging. We took a 3-prong approach, including:

  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Google Ads
  • Google My Business / Google Maps (especially helpful to this industry because most searches are focused on a localized area)

&Marketing’s Approach

&Marketing guided the client toward improving their results in five steps:

  1. We conducted a Business Intelligence analysis of their current SEO, digital advertising, social media, and content marketing practices.
  2. We implemented the strategy and tools required to continuously improve Google Ads paid search campaigns, offering a more dependable way to reach the client’s audience.
  3. Using that data, the team generated comprehensive messaging and value propositions to provide a strong foundation for building marketing assets. We helped the center update its website with improved visuals and messaging, applying our Storytelling & Branding framework and letting the data guide further optimizations.
  4. We also recognized the opportunity to improve local SEO and organic reach by improving the client’s Google My Business reputation. The center had positive but infrequent reviews, so the team ran campaigns to encourage alumni to add new Google reviews and made review requests part of the graduation process.
  5. To build on relationships with potential patients and alumni, we developed a content calendar and email marketing campaign with two blogs and one email per month. Email content focuses on driving traffic to the blogs, highlighting employees to offer their expert insights into the recovery process, and driving awareness for upcoming events or newsworthy items.

Results

  1. Putting a strong foundation in place for building marketing assets, the process is less daunting and more repeatable and reliable.
  2. With Google Ads monitoring and optimization in place, the client now has guideposts to help them set and reach progressively higher goals.
  3. The freshly updated website puts a working tool in their hands that allows them to become a better resource for their audience.
  4. Improved engagement with alumni through content and a clear call to action to leave reviews has created a better Google My Business reputation and increased their organic reach, which is the primary source of their traffic. The positive reception to review requests was a pleasant surprise that the center didn’t expect.
  5. The client has benefited from an overall incoming traffic increase of 96%.

By the numbers:

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Inbound Phone Inquiries: Now reaching more of the right audience with a 363% increase in inbound phone calls. Up from 19 in 2019 to 88 in 2020

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Organic Search Traffic: This is their biggest driver of traffic and has increased from 48% of their overall traffic in 2019 to 55% in 2020

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Local SEO: Positive calls generated from Google My Business have increased 153%. Up from 76 in 2019 to 192 in 2020.

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Website Traffic: Average time on page increased by 15%. Bounce rate decreased by 12%. Pages per session increased by 18%.

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Email Marketing: Open rate ~23%. Click-through rate ~1.5%.

Are you facing challenges of your own in generating leads and meeting your business’ growth goals?

We’d love to learn more about your challenges and how a coordinated marketing approach might help take your organization to the next level.

About &Marketing:

&Marketing provides the robust outsourced marketing department growing companies need without the high overhead costs of big agencies or full-time employees. Our variable model empowers businesses to reach their growth goals through access to the guidance and expertise of senior level strategists and a flexible execution team.