Some of us can visit a car dealership online and in person, find a car to fall in love with, and drive it off the lot after providing all the needed info and signing the documentation.

Others may find something they like at the dealership but not get the features or color they want. They have their car special ordered from the factory so it’s just what they want.

Still others will buy the make and model they want and then get to work customizing the body, motor, suspension, wheels, lights, etc. until they build the “hotrod” they’re happy with for all it’s customized look, feel and performance.

There you have an automobile analogy to sum up the different ways website clients go about designing new sites.

Some websites come together quickly, such as when clients articulate their design preferences, have written page content and provide an image library ahead of time. They see their new site design and are excited to launch it.

Other client sites take some time to fine tune a few of the design elements, write new or additional content and gather images.

Finally, some clients will buy a web design as a basic shell and customize it from header to footer and margin to margin, clarifying their message and evolving their brand in the process.

In the end, all these clients get what they want and the latter two ways add progressively more time to the process, and oftentimes more money. That’s reasonable to expect and completely okay. A good web design company will communicate up front what post-approval changes and add-ons cost, and improving the user experience is usually well worth the extra development work.

What kind of website client are you?

Choose an agency or designer who will accommodate your style – ideally one that works well with diverse client types. That way, you’ll work with someone well accustomed to how you like to be treated as a customer.

That’s how Chuck Sink Link works with each individual client. We have experience serving so many different professionals over the years that we know how to listen, understand and accommodate practically everyone.

So whatever your work style and web design preferences, feel free to speak with us and get an estimate for your next website project. We’ll ask the right questions and provide what you need for a sound decision and ultimately the best results.

The post Website Design – Realistic Expectations for Unique Clients appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Great marketing design, whether digital, print or environmental, has one thing in common. For your marketing messages to be effective, all you really need to start with is this one thing. Without it, people will gloss over your web pages, eblasts, brochures social posts and ads without caring whether your message registers in their mind or not.

But you care!

You can put a ton of effort into writing your messages but you need the key supporting element to give them enough life to make people stop and interact – to engage or be called to act. Your brand needs this desperately and so does mine; bright, high quality, high-resolution visuals – Photographs and Videos!

Through the eyes is where most marketing magic happens. So it doesn’t help when you cut corners on photography and video production.

Impressive cameras on phones are a blessing and a curse to marketers. While you can sometimes capture a great image just by pointing and shooting, people become convinced that they’re great at DIY photography. As they scroll through nice photos they took on vacation or out on a walk, they think they can shoot pictures of their location, people and products for their website. The odds are very low that you’ll get anything truly marketable with an impromptu session using your phone.

Caught you looking!

Now you know this is true about pictures. When you “see what you’re looking for” what do you do? The right image tells a story in proper context within the viewer’s mind. When you are perusing anything, it’s the most striking and high-quality images that arrest your attention; make you stop, look and pique your interest.

One of the fundamental reasons that iconic brands are successful is they take their image seriously and they execute visuals with consistency. You’ll notice how leading companies that you can immediately recognize, whether local, national, B2B or consumer, all invest in creating great looking images and they produce them professionally across all media.

The Social Classroom

The quality photography phenomenon is demonstrated over and over in Social Media. I was recently trying to figure out why a self-promotion post on LinkedIn got so much more interaction than most of my other “interesting” stuff. Then it hit me. It was the beautiful picture. That is all. The link content wasn’t really all that impressive so I’m convinced that people just liked the photo, so they hit the like and share buttons. Social metrics always prove that pictures and videos draw!

About 5 years ago on Facebook, I shared a beautiful bed image with a giveaway promotion for a furniture store client. It went viral! The Facebook Page went from just over 200 Likes to over 20,000 Likes within 2 weeks. To this day, they enjoy a very large Facebook following originating from the impact of one high-quality photo!

If you must do this…

When you decide to go Do-It-Yourself with website and promotional photography, take the time on every snap to be happy with what you see on the screen. Shoot each subject at various angles and keep lighting bright (or focused) and above as well as behind you. Sometimes a good designer can work with non-professional photography as long as it has high resolution. Zooming and cropping can be beneficial here.

Do you want your website or print designer to wow you? Provide excellent photography and graphics or else let them help direct a professional photo shoot. The best way to distinguish your brand in website and marketing design is to start with high-quality visuals.

Remember that video adds another dimension and it’s just as important to keep video production value up to your audiences’ expectations. For more about implementing video in your marketing, click here.

If you don’t have a big photography budget and you still need a great website design, have no worries. There is a superior approach to website design that creates an excellent user experience even if your graphics and photo assets are limited. Read about this extremely cost-effective approach.

We’ll close with a sincere wish to you and everyone in this audience: Thank you for reading this post about photography. I hope your day started out pretty as a picture and ends in a photo finish!

The post Your Website’s Hook and Anchor appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Choose a website hosting plan that actually works hard for your business!

Your website has parts that will break or expire and cause communication problems, just like your car’s parts will eventually break or malfunction and cause transportation problems. If you have a website for any length of time, you’ve surely experienced a utility malfunction, broken page link or even a complete outage. Panic can set in when that happens, especially in a marketing or sales-driven company. You can begin to imagine people visiting your site and leaving with the impression that your company’s act isn’t really together.

Listen up! The technology overlords of the Internet don’t particularly like websites that aren’t cared for, which clutter up the data universe with a bunch of old, static and irrelevant content. And, they have ways of punishing those sites!

FACT:  You do not know the identity of your website visitors unless they give it to you by opting-in to an offer; filling out a form. That means potential customers, perhaps big ones, are examining your online offerings and possibly getting frustrated with their experience when your site lacks an adequate maintenance program… and you won’t even know about the lost opportunities.

FACT:  Without a professionally managed program of itemized, ongoing technical maintenance and content updates, your website will suffer lower search results and diminished user experience. Some browsers such as Google Chrome might even flash a warning screen cautioning visitors before entering what they deem could be a malware prone or unsafe website.

Does your website have an SSL Security Certificate yet? If not, visitors are already being warned about entering it.

BEST PRACTICE: Put your website on a managed hosting and maintenance plan instead of a basic hosting plan. A fully managed website maintenance plan costs more than basic hosting and it’s more than worth the difference! You avoid disruptions in sales and workflows caused by malfunctioning web pages. Search bots “see” a secure and well-built, mobile-friendly site to crawl and properly index content for searchers of your products & services.

So, what do want your website to do?

Here are the two main service options available:

1. With a low cost basic hosting plan, you can at least have an online presence where people can find you by your own domain name or URL. However, without having and complying with the terms of an SSL Security Certificate, visitors may be warned before entering. Hopefully, your site would be mobile responsive by now, had someone paid attention to evolving standards several years ago and kept your site up to acceptable standards.

2. With a managed hosting and maintenance plan, your website would be searchable for your prospects’ & customers’ keyword queries about your product or service, not just your domain name. Your web service provider would have already alerted you to and installed SSL security certification on your site, especially if you have any contact forms or user portals. Years ago, they would have had your site complying with mobile-friendly (responsive design) standards giving mobile device users a seamless and high-quality mobile web experience before some of your competitors were even aware of the responsive design best practice. Every link would work as redirects are taken care of upon the first warning signal. Real human beings constantly work on the back and front ends of your website to make sure it’s optimized for speed, search and user experience.  Design and functionality plugins are always updated to the latest versions. Malware is constantly scanned for, isolated and removed. And get this: You can call them and talk with them on the phone whenever you need to! Sounds like best practices for online marketing doesn’t it?

My colleagues and I cannot stress enough the importance of maintaining SEO and website competitiveness today, and it’s only getting more intense out there! If you have any questions about website maintenance plans and how they can help improve your business, feel free to contact us online or call 603-345-7223.

The post Website Maintenance Maintains Business Growth appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Marketing Automation (MA) works amazingly well when careful planning and diligence are behind it. But caution: you cannot throw money at a third party professional, sit back and expect MA to generate qualified leads. Building an effective marketing automation platform requires an investment in staff time as well as funding to implement the campaigns.

The work is required on two fronts: data management and content development. Unless you invest the time and tedium necessary to capture, build and manage customer data, all the best technology won’t help you. You also need to focus on the quality of your content and calls to action: writing, design, photography, video… PRODUCTION! That cost is always there because you need strong, relevant messages to compete in the digital marketplace.

So, if you have to put so much into it, does Marketing Automation really offer a lot of value in return? Yes, especially if you use it as designed: a tool for “smart” and efficient content distribution.  The automation part kicks in to help boost campaign results by distributing content based on known audience preferences – all stemming from their actual behavior. But first, you need to pull people to your content; get them to navigate your website and take action on your landing pages.

Marketing Automation “turbocharges” well-produced content.

You can set up the most powerful and sophisticated MA system available but if you write and produce gobbledygook content with lousy graphics, your visitors will shrug and move on. If your landing pages don’t convert, MA is a complete waste of your time, resources and money.  Without conversions, i.e. qualified inbound leads with authentic inquiries or direct online sales, you may as well just start randomly cold calling prospects. You’ll probably sell more that way!

Getting anyone to take action requires that you persuade them through a series of emotional and logical appeals. When you apply the AIDA method of persuasion, you’ll have an ideal guide for writing your messages. It helps convince your prospects to decide that your solution is right for them. So what exactly is AIDA?

AIDA simply stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. There you have the universal progression of thought processes leading to a decision to act. Breaking it down further…

Attention:  How do you grab someone’s attention? Call them by name if you can or else “shout” something valuable to their known persona. This can be a perfectly relevant subject line, headline or maybe a 3-second audio/video clip.

Interest:  Once you have their attention, signal that your information is relevant to them. Apply it directly to their needs and aspirations.

Desire:  What’s really valuable to your target audience? What’s in it for them? How will your solution make life and business better? Tell a compelling story. Paint a picture of success or pleasure with words and images.

Action:  The only thing that really matters in your campaigns is, do your visitors and prospects take the desired action in response to the messages? Do they ultimately purchase? Show them clearly what to do. Offer personal assistance or an incentive to sign up, make the appointment or buy!

Keep marketing technology “right-sized” for your business.

It’s easy to lose sight of marketing fundamentals with so much emphasis on new tactical technologies. For many small and even some medium enterprise businesses, an effective marketing program can be accomplished with a website, an active blog, an email marketing platform and 2 or 3 social media pages. If using a CRM, it’s crucial to promptly feed the database (manually if needed) with inbound web leads emailed to a salesperson and/or saved in the forms capture database. Then your sales team can better fulfill their roles to advance relationships, follow up and close more deals.

While I’m wide open to changing my views with evidence, it’s currently my opinion that Marketing Automation is a tool best suited for large organizations with multi-faceted products and multiple target audiences. Most small businesses probably don’t need it, at least not yet. Forms code from many low-cost Email Service Providers can be embedded on landing pages and generate auto-responder emails with drip campaigns.

The automatic segmentation of leads and ad retargeting based on site visitors’ behavior can be very powerful for large sales organizations and professional service firms. To remain competitive today, most big companies need the qualifying, segmenting and lead funneling capabilities of a robust CRM integrated with a Marketing Automation platform. Think Salesforce & Pardot or Pipedrive & Sharpspring.

Whatever you do to modernize your marketing efforts with technology, remember that, to cite my friend and former colleague Gary O’Neil, “You cannot move people unless you touch them.”

The post Marketing Automation automates what you feed it! appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

To get the most out of this article: Embrace all of the questions asked and answer them honestly to yourself. Then perhaps you could ask others in your firm these same questions and have a serious business discussion about your team’s candid answers…

Are you excited by the vibe your company puts out there? Are you certain that people in your target market are talking about you and your company in mostly flattering terms? Are you showing up in enough digital newsfeeds for your brand to remain top-of-mind in your business network or target audience?

What does your social timeline look like should a prospect look through your company’s digital history on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and your blog?

Does your digital report card show a multi-year history of industry leadership, community engagement and growth, in other words, do you get straight As?

Or, are you like many companies that struggle to publish one or two articles a year and have 6 to 18-month gaps in social media posts, earning an F, D or maybe C- in the minds of prospects looking at your business online?

Think of your business social media pages as your company’s public historical records and a current report card, because that’s what they are. What does the record show about your business strengths, your success today and what you did to get here?

If people can easily follow a story of consecutive events and milestones along with insightful discussions on your social media pages and website, you’re obviously doing your homework. You’re studying your market and providing insights and answers to what people are talking about.

Continuing our school analogy, the A students of social media and digital marketing sit up front (advertise and promote), raise their hands (engage with their networks) and turn completed assignments in on time (post high-quality content frequently). And many A-students go for extra credit (write white papers, produce webinars, etc.).

The historical record and content quality of your business’s social media say a lot about your organization, especially to people who don’t yet know you. How is your present digital messaging and your company history looking to searchers and visitors these days?

If you need help in this area, go get some help. With the right approach, you can quickly liven up your online image and show people what you’re really up to today. With the right content and post frequency, you can build your business page timelines to throw off a lively and accurate vibe of how your business is making great things happen. Why hide your knowledge and successes when your customers & prospects are looking for active players to work with?

The post Social Media: Your Public Report Card appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

When you think about it, everything positive in your business is the result of a relationship that enabled a transaction or other favorable action. Therefore, everything about your online promotional offers and calls to action should be about strengthening your relationship with customers, prospects and other users of your website.

Google favors websites with more social referral traffic and ranks them higher. This is because people who click shared links in social media are opting to consume the message based on its relevance to their specific interests. Search engines raise your website’s authority as a trusted resource in your category when people recommend or share your page links. Social media provide the easiest and most direct channels for link sharing.

As business relationships are also social relationships, how do you go about nurturing your social relationships with your web visitors? Read the full article on our client’s blog to learn 4 effective ways to make your website social…

The post I know your customers. They’re social! appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Google gets bored and turns away from old content just like you do. That’s why their spiders or “bots” are always out crawling through websites, including yours, looking for the latest relevant information that their consumers (most people) are seeking.

What’s new? When you ask that simple question, you really do want to know the answer because what’s old is irrelevant. Is there anything less interesting than old news; stuff you seen and heard before?

Frequently updating website content tells the search engines that you are at least an active publisher of information. The more relevant the information is to your business category, and the more valuable it is to your target audience, the better Google and other search engines will rank your pages organically. Provided that your website is coded well enough, quality content is pure SEO gold.

The more often you add fresh, high quality information to your website, the more Google’s crawlers will come back around to see what’s new. As that new content is determined to be relevant and valuable to searchers, Google will index it and raise your pages’ visibility. They are looking for authoritative sites that will deliver the right information to the searcher. Freshness and frequency combined with relevance and quality build authoritative status into your website. Again, this is SEO gold!

Effective SEO is not complicated but it’s extremely competitive. Maybe we should just leave it at that.

The post Entertain Google! appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Have you ever been curious about the status of a company or associate you haven’t connected with in a while? If you’re like me, you go to their website for their latest information. Maybe you go to a LinkedIn profile for an individual person.

Have you ever visited a website looking for new, only to find old? You go to their blog and the most recent post is from June, 2013. Then you see a tab labeled “Latest News” so you click it and find a press release from the same month and year talking about the same thing. That’s communicating to you that the company has little regard for its online audience. It could also be telling you that the company may be in trouble if it can’t keep up with basic web updates. Incongruity of messages like “Blog” or “Latest News” with content dated two years ago just doesn’t jive!

As I facilitated a networking event yesterday, a salient point became very clear. The group was sharing success stories in what works for them in sales and marketing. An unmistakable pattern emerged from a very diverse group of professional men and women. Most of them were finding success through content marketing, particularly with organic search traffic resulting from dynamic web content, blogging and email marketing. Some talked about relationships and word of mouth but there was a noticeable emphasis on fresh, relevant web content.

We’re in the content creation business and I don’t want you to think I’m trolling for leads. My point in this article is that fewer and fewer businesses can get away with ignoring their websites because almost all potential customers now search for ALL of their needs on the Internet.

“Set it and forget it” is no option with websites. A beautiful website is a total waste of time and money if you leave it static for a long time. It will fade away to obscurity in the search engines, and tell returning visitors that you haven’t done squat in the market lately.

We’ll be writing a lot about website maintenance in coming weeks because now, your website may as well be your business phone number. If it’s “unlisted,” what good is it?If the content is old and obsolete, visitors will ask, “Is there anybody home?”

The post Are you slowly killing your website? appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.