Archives for April 2020

There are many things you can do to get more traffic to your door.

One of the things that are surprising is that many local physical businesses don’t have, or don’t think they need local SEO, such as getting listed on major local business listings.

Not having some type of online presence is a big mistake for companies. Take into consideration that more people are closely connected to their mobile devices more than ever.

People use their smartphones to do everything from ordering pizza, to finding out who has the best price on the car part they suddenly need. And while this is just a small example, you may or may not be surprised that many people go online to check to see if a business has what they need, what the prices are, if they are currently open.

They do these things before deciding to drop by a store!

There are many things that a local physical business can start doing besides having a website online so that they can be found easily by new prospective customers. Getting yourself listed on Google My Business is free, and the page is likely to get indexed very quickly since it is Google.

The next best thing to do is get listed on local directories and review sites. Many people are using these sites to check business reviews and will be able to find your business quickly.

Some other things that you want to be sure to do are building links from local news sources, establishing partnerships with other businesses and of course, utilizing search engine optimization using locally targeted keywords which very well could be easy to rank for.

If all this sounds great to you, and you need more information on how to get started, then contact us now, and we can help you get your business in the important places that matter most and help increase your foot traffic.

johnny@johnnymurray.com
Johnny Murray

There has been a lot of testing and research done over the past couple of years, and it’s no surprise that more people are using mobile devices to find products or services. The one thing that may or may not come as a surprise is that many businesses haven’t adapted to these changes, or even tested their website. Prioritizing user experience should be the first thing you or your website designer should do.

Any website needs to have design elements that make the website easily seen, and also make it easy to navigate should be on the top of this list. Many websites are starting to get rid of images because they take too long for mobile devices to load, if too many are used. However, if you do use images, they should be scaled down, and the images should use text, such as a card menu seen on Microsoft homepage. This one easy design element shows people what they are looking for quickly, and describes it easily.

And if you’re doing to use video or animation, then fast-loading cinemagraphs are the way to go for mobile devices. These small half-photo, half-animated clips, are quite popular, and load quickly. Make sure that your copy is relevant to the visitor quickly depending on their query, and what got them to your website in the first place. Give a quick big picture of what your site is all about, and what you offer the minute the customer gets there. Realize they may be on a mobile device, and test it, or have your website designer continually test and improve the experience.

Make your site easy to navigate, create different designs for the different sections, but use a consistent theme. Use eye-catching transitions from section to section to keep the user interested. And make sure the font for your copy can be easily seen. Visitors still do the quick scan, so if they quickly scan, make sure you grab their attention quickly. Use custom visual and iconography, or images and symbols, that tells your brand story and shows some personality of who and what your business is about.

All of these design trends are based on statistics. And with the statistics comes the realization that effective website design that makes life easier for users when they visit your site, should be the main goal of you and your website designer. Your competitors are optimizing their websites, if you don’t optimize your site, then you will be left behind.

If you would like to learn more about optimizing and using the latest design trends to improve customer experience, then email us today at johnny@johnnymurray.com, and we will be happy to help you deliver a great user experience.

Johnny Murray

If you own a website, or even several websites, it’s a good idea you know and understand the design changes that have been happening over the last couple of years.

We’re talking about how a change in technology, and change in how people use your website, are directly affecting shifts in design.

Website design as it was a few years ago, has changed to meet a whole new type of user, mostly the mobile device user. In fact, mobile devices have changed the way many big company websites are designed, such as Apple and Microsoft, who made it far easier for their customers to navigate and find what they are looking for.

Many design changes seem to have been driven by mobile devices. In other words, these changes had to take place for mobile users to be able to navigate websites on small screens. If you want to see what we mean, find an old online website that isn’t designed for mobile use, and try to navigate it. If it has lots of menu items, and even menu dropdowns, you will find it unfriendly as you try to see those tiny buttons and find what you are looking for.

The changes that do make it easier, and give a great experience are things like; better use of negative space, using bold and expressive typography instead of heavy loading images that eat up bandwidth for the user, using cinemagraphs instead of static images or full blown videos.

There are some other cutting-edge design tricks like scroll triggered animation such as the new Mac Pro on Apple’s website.

Another thing you can do is create a website application hybrid. A good example for this would be Pinterest. When going to the Pinterest website, users are asked if they want to download the application because ‘Pinterest is best viewed with our application’. And applications are amazing because they can learn and react to each user’s preferences and styles. And of course, Facebook is also another example of taking the desktop website and converting it to an interactive application.

Other things like Intelligent Conversation Bots who can answer questions like: what your store hours are, or what your prices are. You would simply type in the URL where you want to go, and then have a conversation with a virtual helper on that website. It’s fairly high tech stuff that you will likely see more of soon. You will want to take advantage of these new design changes because they will ultimately drive more conversions, and you will have happier customers.

Want us to take a look at your website to see if it’s optimized for a great user experience no matter what device your visitors are using?

Contact us now at johnny@johnnymurray.com for an evaluation, and get your website fully optimized.

There has been a lot of testing and research done over the past couple of years, and it’s no surprise that more people are using mobile devices to find products or services. The one thing that may or may not come as a surprise is that many businesses haven’t adapted to these changes, or even tested their website. Prioritizing user experience should be the first thing you or your website designer should do.

Any website needs to have design elements that make the website easily seen, and also make it easy to navigate should be on the top of this list. Many websites are starting to get rid of images because they take too long for mobile devices to load, if too many are used. However, if you do use images, they should be scaled down, and the images should use text, such as a card menu seen on Microsoft homepage. This one easy design element shows people what they are looking for quickly, and describes it easily.

And if you’re doing to use video or animation, then fast-loading cinemagraphs are the way to go for mobile devices. These small half-photo, half-animated clips, are quite popular, and load quickly. Make sure that your copy is relevant to the visitor quickly depending on their query, and what got them to your website in the first place. Give a quick big picture of what your site is all about, and what you offer the minute the customer gets there. Realize they may be on a mobile device, and test it, or have your website designer continually test and improve the experience.

Make your site easy to navigate, create different designs for the different sections, but use a consistent theme. Use eye-catching transitions from section to section to keep the user interested. And make sure the font for your copy can be easily seen. Visitors still do the quick scan, so if they quickly scan, make sure you grab their attention quickly. Use custom visual and iconography, or images and symbols, that tells your brand story and shows some personality of who and what your business is about.

All of these design trends are based on statistics. And with the statistics comes the realization that effective website design that makes life easier for users when they visit your site, should be the main goal of you and your website designer. Your competitors are optimizing their websites, if you don’t optimize your site, then you will be left behind.

If you would like to learn more about optimizing and using the latest design trends to improve customer experience, then email us today at johnny@johnnymurray.com, and we will be happy to help you deliver a great user experience.

Johnny Murray

A Social Media Marketing Industry Report by Social Media Examiner revealed that Facebook is the most popular channel used by 94% of the survey respondents.

Twitter follows with 68%, LinkedIn at 56%, and Instagram at 54%.

72% of B2C marketers project an increased Facebook usage more than their B2B counterparts at 63%.

Are you actively promoting your business on Facebook?

Any smart business that is keeping up with current business trends will know all about how reputation marketing can affect their business, and how it directly affects things like customer retention, brand awareness, and most importantly, consumer trust.

And if you aren’t taking advantage of online review sites for your business, you could be missing out on gaining more customers and clients.

Having a good reputation marketing strategy where you have someone manage the aspects of online reviews can be very rewarding especially when it comes to building trust for your brand.

Getting listed on these review sites is the first step in wowing potential customers, and at the same time showing these future prospects that you care about your brand, and care about customer experience. If you don’t do this, your competition will, and are already likely taking advantage of getting positive reviews.

If you are interested in getting started on improving your online reputation, then contact us today.

Don’t wait a minute longer to find out that your business has unchecked reviews online. Take control of your reputation marketing strategy now.

Contact us at johnny@johnnymurray.com and we will help you get started with 5 easy steps to immediately improve your business reputation.

Johnny Murray
johnny@johnnymurray.com

Anyone in the marketing game can tell you that online ads can boost your business’ visibility. But if you’re new to online advertising, you might be wondering, which platform is right for you and your business? And, where should you start?

One strategy is to start with the heavy hitters. Google AdWords is the top dog in search advertising with 79.79% of the global desktop search engine market share, according to Net Market Share.

Another powerful option is social media advertising. Based on recent lead generation and conversion studies on social media advertising, Facebook is best if your business is B2C: business to end-consumers. As a bonus, there are over 2 billion monthly active Facebook users worldwide, so the odds of finding new customers through targeted ad campaigns are very good.

For the business to business type (B2B), LinkedIn is your best bet. As you may already know as a LinkedIn user, this platform has 500 million users across 200 countries, according to Fortune.

If you’ve already explored these options, don’t worry! There are many more to choose from, each with their own strengths. In addition to Facebook and LinkedIn, social media marketing options (which get your business in front of their impressive user bases) include Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat.

Search advertising platforms get your business priority placements whenever someone makes a search. While Google AdWords is the leader in search advertising, Bing Ads is also a strong option. The widely used pricing model in search advertising is CPC (cost-per-click), where you only pay when your ad gets clicked.

The third main type of platform is display advertising. Google’s DoubleClick Media and Yahoo’s BrightRoll are two of many that fall into this category which provides ad placements across their networks of publishers.

There are many options and variables to consider. Feeling overwhelmed? We can help! Contact us today.

Just about everyone has some sort of mobile device, be it a tablet, smartphone or laptop.These people are also searching for a business that offers your services. If your site does not function properly on their variety of devices, they won’t waste time trying to make it work.

Test your web pages for mobile-friendliness here: https://search.google.com/search-console/mobile-friendly

A mobile website is one that has been designed to be responsive. This means the site can detect what kind of mobile device it is being viewed on. It then adapts itself to fit and function properly on the device.

Here are 5 reasons why you should have a mobile site:

1. Social media shares are huge on mobile devices because they are so easy to do. Your content, pictures, and videos will get shared more often because your website is readily accessible on mobile devices.

2. Google favors mobile-friendly sites in the search engines. That means they rank mobile-friendly sites higher.

3. A mobile-friendly site means more opportunity for sales. If the visitor’s experience on your site is fast and straightforward and NOT clumsy and difficult, of course, you will have a better chance of a sale.

4. Users on mobile are bigger buyers! Why? Because more often than not they quickly browse for what they want, checking for info before buying.

5. And finally, the most important reason is that most people now have a mobile device or two. Why ignore the majority of your customers?

Reach out to us if your website has mobile issues. Visit our website: http://icumarketplace.com.

Businesses around the globe are cashing in on Facebook’s massive audience and unique features to increase their growth, sales, and overall success.

Is your business using Facebook Ads yet? Are you apprehensive to get into Facebook Ads?

Never fear! At ICU Marketing Associates, we can help you get a well-deserved Facebook boost by:

1. Capitalizing on Facebook’s huge captive audience: Facebook has over 1.7 billion active users, and features that help you target your ads so that they’re seen by your potential customers.

2. Transforming Facebook visitors into customers: turn your cash into traffic to your landing pages and conversion funnels. Facebook even lets you re-market towards users who have engaged with you before.

3. Utilizing Facebook’s powerful Call-to-Action feature: Unlike others, Facebook Ads lets small businesses choose from a variety of call-to-action options, which lets you focus on exactly what you want your audience to do.

4. Developing demand generation advertisements: The average Facebook users spends 40+ minutes a day there to explore, connect, and discover. Help them discover just how much they need what you have to offer!

5. Testing your content before you spend money to maximize engagement: Another reason to advertise on Facebook is that it lets you get the most bang for your buck. How? You can test how engaging your content is by posting it on your page for free and analyzing your Insights. Then you can put your money on the most successful posts!

6. Creating video ads: Facebook videos have high rates of engagement and can help create buzz around your business.

Ready to begin your next Facebook Ad campaign?
Contact us at johnny@johnnymurray.com or 908-375-3030 to get started!

SEO is a great marketing tool. Social Media is a great marketing tool as well. You have Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc. at your disposal.

Many businesses fill their feeds with discussions about how reliable and celebrated their products or services are. Many have the persuasive copy needed to convince people to buy from them.

All of these tactics are good. Nonetheless, self-promotion alone is not enough to make yourself known to your target market. This is where Reputation Marketing comes into play.

Reputation marketing is about building a positive online reputation, which allows you to use that stellar reputation to gain the trust of your target customers.

With reputation marketing, you now have more authentic content. Content that draws people’s attention to how reputable your business is!

As your customer is contemplating their next purchase, they go through a process to decide if they want to buy. Some of these stages include Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action. For some, this process is instantaneous, and for some, it could take months. Your reputation and reviews can help them jump into action!

Use reputation marketing to validate your potential customer’s decision to buy from you!

Here at ICU Marketing Associates we want to help you ensure that you are delivering the best version of your business to the customer!

Contact us today to get started with reputation marketing!

Johnny Murray
johnny@johnnymurray.com, 908-375-3030, http://icumarketplace.com