October 12, 2023

Why Isn’t My Website Getting Traffic?

A well-oiled and well-maintained website can be a money-making machine for your business, but sometimes, websites don’t get the right quantity and quality of website traffic. A good website might help your business drive sales and get you in contact with potential customers.

However, digital marketing is complex and multifaceted, and it’s not as simple as merely launching a website and walking away. Sometimes, changes in the digital ecosystem impact how much traffic a site receives, and you need to respond in kind.

Good news: web development is our specialty! The JSL Marketing & Website team has some tips on responding if a website is not getting traffic!

Lack of Insight

There’s a real possibility that your website is performing, but you don’t have the visibility to understand the site’s traffic and behavior properly.

What do we mean by that?

Well, a website is a complex and living, breathing organism in some ways. To properly track site traffic, revenue, conversions, and changes in site behavior, you need to properly set up a system for reporting, measuring, and tracking. This can be difficult if you used a simple website template, built it yourself, or went with a less-than-stellar web design agency.

It is important to remember that properly enabling Google Analytics tracking and auditing the site’s website traffic trends is not a magic bullet. Sometimes, the site in question is underperforming, and changes are needed. However, deep diving into reporting is always the first step. You can’t see patterns and optimize accordingly without visibility into the site’s performance.

Lack of Content

Well-written and informative content is the bedrock of search engine optimization. When you publish blogs and web pages centered around business-relevant keywords, Google can read that content and show your website to relevant search terms. So, if your website ranks well for “family care doctor near me,” your website will show that search term when someone looks for a doctor on Google. That’s all great, but what happens if your website doesn’t have enough well-written content to rank for “family care doctor near me?” Even though that’s a relevant search term for your business, your website won’t show for that term.

What’s the solution, then? Writing more informative content! (It’s not the only thing, but a significant first step!) Publishing more search-engine-optimized content around relevant search terms is usually the best way to show Google.

Lack of Promotion

The best websites in the world need a little help occasionally. While a good website will drive revenue for you, it is worth pointing out that a good website should complement other marketing tactics. How does that work? Well, think about the different marketing tactics that you might use to reach new or current customers. What are you imagining right now? Email marketing? Google Ads? Local SEO?

Well, your website is likely the destination of each of these tactics. If you click a Google Ad for “doctor near me,” the ad will take you to a website. If you open an email newsletter from your doctor’s office, it likely will take you to a website as well, and the same is true of a Google listing for the physical location of that doctor’s office.

Let’s face it; your website isn’t just a stand-alone. It complements other facets of your digital marketing strategy. If your website isn’t getting the correct type of website traffic, your analysis of that problem should examine both the website and your other marketing tactics. Sometimes, tweaks to other elements of your strategy or adding different marketing tactics are what you need to get more website traffic.

Lack of Updates

Web design is an ever-evolving process. Everything from changes in customer preference to algorithmic updates from Google can dramatically impact your website. Unfortunately, too many businesses think they can “Set it and forget it” with their website, and nothing could be further from the truth. You likely are behind if you haven’t kept up with your website since 2017. There are hundreds of Google ranking factors, and not being compliant can hurt a site’s performance.

Staying up to speed with technical, graphic, and structural best practices dramatically increases your site’s odds of seeing more website traffic. Staying current increases the number of people finding your site and increases the odds that these site visitors complete an action on your site.

A full website content is necessary to determine what, if any, updates need to be made. Everything from graphics, low speed, schema markups, and the content management system itself could need tweaking. Sometimes, depending on how old the website in question is, a completely new website might be in order. Other times, a facelift of the original site is enough. Consult with our web development team for a customized answer.

Get More Website Traffic with JSL

If you’re ready to discuss increasing your website traffic, contact JSL Marketing & Web Design!

Our team is standing by to discuss….

Site Promotion
SEO
Web Design
Social Media Strategy
Email Marketing
Web Development
& More

Contact Us Today for a Free Website Assessment!

January 12, 2023

Why Isn’t My Website Getting Traffic?

Your website is a crucial element of your digital marketing and, by extension, your business strategy. The right website can be a simple, but cost-effective way of finding new customers, generating revenue and promoting products and services. However, the mere existence of a website isn’t enough anymore. We wish it was as simple as launching a website and watching the revenue pour in, but sometimes, your website traffic needs some tweaks.

What do you do if your website isn’t getting traffic?

Our team here at JSL Marketing & Web Design collected their thoughts to give you an idea of how to increase your site’s traffic. These recommendations are high-level suggestions. For a full recommendation, consult our team and we can conduct a full site audit for a tailored website recommendation.

Website Traffic Tip 1: Improve Content

Your website is a great way to be found by new customers. Your written web content, however, is king when it comes to discovering new customers. The reason why is pretty simple. The written content you display on your site is what will be crawled, evaluated and read by Google and other search engines. If the relevance is right, the webpage or website in question will be displayed on the search engine results pages.

If your content isn’t up to snuff, you’re losing a potential stream of website traffic. If your website isn’t getting the right type of traffic, we’d recommend evaluating your content strategy.

Depending on your industry and content, you could…

Develop More Content
Rewrite Underperforming Content
Lengthen Content
Evaluate Content Voice & Tone
Offer More Consumer Insight
A/B Test Certain Elements Of Your Written Content

Website Traffic Tip 2: Reevaluate Keywords

Reevaluating keywords is a likely next step if you aren’t seeing as much website traffic as you’d prefer. You can have the world’s best content on your website and still struggle if you’re targeting the wrong keywords. Ideally, when you’re evaluating content, you’ll also look at the keywords targeted and optimize concurrently.

When evaluating your keyword strategy, be sure to…

Evaluate Through A Scraping Tool Like semRush
Focus On Long Tail Keywords
Work To Align To The Most Popular Keywords In Your Area
Consider Competition For Keywords You Want To Rank For

Website Traffic Tip 3: Better Your Website UI

The best keyword strategy and content can’t overcome aesthetics. Google and other search engines might not rank websites based on beauty per se, but site visitors do. If your website is dull, boring, and lackluster, the greater the chance your site visitors bounce off the site as soon as they visit. Google does take this into consideration; the more your site visitors bounce off your site immediately, the lower your rank from Google.

To combat this, work on…

Improving Loadspeed
Adding More Videos & Pictures To Break Up Content
Add Calls To Action
Using White Space To Keep Users Engaged

Website Traffic Tip 4: Acquire Quality Backlinks

Backlinks to and from websites are the highways of the internet. Site users can follow the links from other sites to land on yours. This isn’t just a vehicle for growing traffic; Google actually uses this as a key ranking factor and the reason why stands to reason.

Backlinks indicate that other sites consider your site one of quality. However, it’s not as simple as merely getting any link. Google sees links from quality sites as an indicator that your site is trustworthy.

Website Traffic Tip 5: Better Promote Your Website

Sometimes, the world’s best website needs a little help for better site traffic. Promotion strategies are a great way to fill in the gaps and drive quality site traffic while you work to better your website’s organic ranking. If done right, your business can use social media, Google Ads and email to drive the right customer and potential customer to your website.

It’s important to note the tradeoffs that come with this strategy. Driving customers to your site will require active work and occasionally some ad budgets, but this does come with a benefit. Promotion strategies will have a tangible impact almost immediately. The best SEO strategy, on the other hand, can take months to drive a 200% increase in site traffic.

What then should you do?

To reap the best of both worlds, we’d definitely recommend utilizing website promotion AND SEO strategy simultaneously. You’ll be utilizing ads, social media and email to drive site visitors through your promotion strategy while you work to improve your SEO on the backend. This one-two punch tends to work very well, especially if your website needs some time to climb in Google’s rankings. Ultimately, this will be cheaper in the long run as well and can even improve long-term SEO.

Drive site visitors through…

Email
Organic Social Media
Social Media Ads
Paid Ads

Website Traffic Tip 6: Freshen Technical SEO

Your technical SEO is a nearly-invisible, but critically important aspect of ranking. Google has some 200 unique ranking factors that go into determining where a site will rank. Many of these are quite technical and would be quite hard to diagnose if you weren’t in the day-to-day of site development and SEO.

No single one of these ranking factors will make or break a website’s SEO. Google is too sophisticated for that. However, a combination of technical errors and structural improvements could be hampering your rank. Many times, these technical SEO issues are clustered; if you’re using the wrong site or haven’t invested in a website revamp in a few years, it’s likely a number of these issues will be present together.

We recommend a full site audit to understand…

Your Website’s Site Map
Title Tags, Schema MarkUp & Alt Text
The Site’s Security Precautions
Structured Data
Canonical Tags
Site Uptime & Architecture
& More

Get More Site Traffic With JSL Marketing & Web Design

If your website isn’t getting traffic, it’s probably time to make some changes. Maybe it’s been a few years since you’ve refreshed your site. Maybe you have new competitors in the area. Maybe you don’t know why your website is faltering, but you know you need to do something.

That’s where we come in!

If your website isn’t getting traffic, you need a full SEO audit to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your current website. Your website might not be getting enough traffic, but there are a variety of reasons why that could be and a variety of fixes. It’s important that we understand the particulars of your site before we make any recommendations.

From there, we might suggest….

New Website Content
A Completely New Website
A Redesigned Site
One-Off SEO Tweaks
A Long Term SEO Schedule
A New Promotion Strategy

Your website’s traffic is too important to your business to be left to chance. Turn to Dallas’s best SEO agency to help you get to the top of your local rankings.

Fill Out The Contact Form Below To Get In Touch!

December 15, 2022

How to Create a Marketing Strategy in 7 Easy Steps

How do you create a marketing strategy?

It’s a great question to ask. Research indicates that businesses that think strategically in their marketing see better results. Most brands know they need to evaluate their marketing more strategically.

However, creating a marketing strategy is more complicated than planning your next campaign. Knowing you want to get in better shape is good, but until you take steps to get in shape, all that knowledge is theoretical.

Never fear! The marketing experts from JSL Marketing & Web Design are here to walk you through how marketing strategy development should go and common pitfalls to be aware of.

Read on to Learn More About Marketing Strategies!

Marketing Strategy Dos & Don’ts

Before we run through the process of creating a marketing strategy, let’s start with some ground rules to help guide you through the process.

Do….

Consult With Multiple Members From Diverse Teams

Take Time to Plan

Have Fun

Use Verified Data to Guide Your Strategy

Don’t…

Feel Like Every Idea Needs to Be Perfect

Only Consider What Has Been Done in the Past

Create a Strategy Without Input From Other Teams

Plan Tactics Like SEO or PPC Before You Have a Strategic Goal

How to Create a Marketing Strategy

Now that you have a framework to keep in your back pocket let’s discuss the actual process of creating a marketing strategy!

Look at Your Goals

The world’s best marketing strategy can fail if it doesn’t align with your goals. You must align your marketing strategy with existing business goals for the best results.

Most businesses immediately assume that improvements in revenue are always their topline goals, but that’s not always the case. There’s nothing wrong with focusing on increasing revenue by X percentage, but we caution against automatically assuming that should be your overarching goal.

Sometimes, businesses need to increase the average contract size of their core 50 customers. Sometimes increasing the average order size is a better business goal. Be sure that you know what your business’s goals are, whether it’s an increased number of leads, decreasing churn rate, or getting to the top of Google.

Without this info, your marketing strategy is destined to achieve lackluster results.

Research Your Customers

Knowing your customers is the next step in developing a marketing strategy. Focus on understanding their firmographic info. How many employees do they employ? What industries do they operate in? From there, analyze their pain points. Why do they frequent your business? What problem does your brand solve for them? What are their goals?

It can be helpful to consider this in terms of current and prospective customers. The makeup and goals of your current customer base might differ from your potential customers, which might necessitate different marketing for each customer base. If you have the time, defining multiple subsets of customers could be worthwhile!

Know Your Competitors

Your competitors are the next stop on this journey, so evaluating them makes sense. Your competitors are operating in the same space as you, marketing to the same customers, and will often have similar brand messages, so the more you know about them, the better.

However, knowing the differences between each competitor is an integral part of developing a marketing strategy. Understanding what value propositions, core competencies, and product offerings your competitors offer help you align your business accordingly. Maybe one competitor is the dominant player in your local industry, but their customer service is lacking due to the sheer volume of clients. Maybe another has a great product but positions itself as a high-end solution.

Knowing this, you might decide that your brand should position itself as a white-glove, cost-effective solution, contrasted against the less-personalized Competitor 1 and the more expensive Competitor 2. This differentiation will help you stand out from the competitors and educate potential customers on what you offer: good customer service at a reasonable price. Ideally, customers who want a higher-end solution will go with Competitor 2, and customers who don’t mind less-personalized customer service will go with Competitor 1.

Plan Objectives to Get There

You now have a solid goal and knowledge about your base and competitor, but you still need to get a plan.

You have an overarching goal in mind, and it’s time to plan the steps to get you to your end goal. It’s worth mentioning that this stage probably will see the most variation. A large business’s objectives to increase lead quality necessitate different actions than a small business looking to decrease churn. We can’t give you specifics since it will depend, but we encourage you to think through the following.

What tactics should I use?

Which teams are responsible for this?

Are there internal milestones to pass before another stage can begin? How about external milestones?

Are there seasonality trends to plan around?

Set a Timeline

Your marketing strategy must be timebound. Determine when this strategy will be evaluated and then set your timeline. Every team should know when their objectives are due. Usually, we recommend that you set aside six weeks at least to focus on any campaign. (Usually, a full 3-month quarter is better.)

Launch

It’s time to go live! Now that all the planning is done, it’s time to put rubber on the road. In this step, the content is written, the social media posts are scheduled, and the SEO work is completed. It’s important to note that this marketing work will not produce an immediate result. Moving a client through the marketing funnel takes time, from awareness to consideration to purchase. That’s why it’s so important to set aside time in the future to …

Evaluate

A marketing strategy isn’t done when it launches. Every marketing strategy needs to be evaluated against its benchmark to ensure that it is meeting its goals. Set aside time to return to your marketing strategy and look at results. Maybe everything is working great; maybe you need to make some tweaks. Regardless, be sure that you are constantly double-checking and reevaluating your strategy’s results.

It’s alright to need to adjust. Market conditions are always dynamic; you must evaluate if changes are necessary.

Plan Your Next Marketing Strategy with JSL

Interested in planning a marketing strategy? Call JSL Marketing & Web Design today! We’re an award-winning, Dallas-based, full-service marketing agency, and we’d love to help you with your strategic needs.

We always custom-tailor our marketing strategies to every client’s unique needs, so rest assured that every element of your marketing strategy will be designed to fit your business! We might recommend the following, depending on what we uncover in our conversations and audits.

Email Marketing

SEO

Web Design

Videography

Social Media

Content Marketing

Brand Collateral

Logo Design

& More

Call JSL Marketing & Web Design today to plan your next marketing strategy!

November 10, 2022

Is Email Marketing Dead?: Email Marketing in 2022 & Beyond

As marketers, we’re always trying to keep up with the latest trends and be aware of what the marketing world is talking about. But one question that’s circulated over the years (and is still a hot debate) stood out to us:

Is email marketing dead?

More small businesses are reevaluating their marketing strategy and making tough decisions based on a channel’s impact, return on investment, and relevance to their strategy. Email marketing, in particular, is the tactic that often gets pushed to the side or forgotten, as business owners are more likely to invest in SEO or web design, which have a seemingly “instant” impact (spoiler alert — they don’t).

We put our heads together to talk through the pros and cons of email marketing to help equip you with the best data possible. Every marketing strategy is different and it’s likely that email marketing might not be a good fit for your brand, or that your email marketing execution will be unique. That’s perfectly fine — we’re here to simply share our thoughts!

The Challenges Of Email Marketing

Cluttered Inboxes

How many times have you opened your inbox and recoiled in horror at the number of unread emails? One of the biggest challenges with email marketing is competition. The sheer number of emails sent, often sporadically and without rhyme or reason, can deter email recipients from actually checking their inbox, since there are just so many emails to wade through.

Low Chance of Touchpoint

When you send an email, there is no guarantee that the recipient ever opens it. In fact, most probably won’t! That can be off putting to some marketers, who want to know they are making an impact on their desired targets. For some, the risk of an email being unopened is too large, so they opt for display, SEO or SEM instead.

Active Engagement Can Be Hard To Measure

Even an opened email is no guarantee. A recipient still needs to actually read the content, let alone take the desired action, like call or buy a product. Some marketers instead prefer more passive marketing mediums, like Youtube ads or broadcast TV, which require little action on the viewer’s part.

The Benefits of Email Marketing

While there are definitely challenges with email marketing, it is worth remembering that these can be overcome with the right strategy. Targeting the right people, writing good email copy, and incorporating a compelling call to action all will improve the odds that you see success with email marketing.

However, it is also worth remembering that email marketing offers a ton of benefits, benefits that other mediums do not.

Email Marketing Is Automated

One of the key benefits of email marketing is that it’s a completely automated outreach strategy, if done correctly. The number of touchpoints your brand can establish with customers and potential customers with email marketing is many times what you could do with manual outreach from sales. Other mediums, like social media and pay-per-click advertising, can be automated, but the potential reach is just typically so much higher with email marketing, at least for the typical small business.

Email Marketing Is Conversational

The biggest brands in the world pay top dollar to perfect their brand message when reaching out to potential clients. A natural, low-pressure, and informative brand message can help entice your clients to learn more and can often lead to gleaning bits of insight from your clients. Remember, the whole point of marketing isn’t just to advertise; you also should be encouraging real and authentic two-way exchanges of information with your clients and potential client. Email marketing is a great medium to do just that.

Email Marketing Is Cost Effective

They are better ways to reach more people than email marketing, but none are as cost-effective as email marketing. Pay-per-click advertising, paid social media campaigns, and broadcast advertising can reach more people, but these mediums do come with a hefty price tag. Email marketing typically requires no ad spend budget, fewer hours of maintenance, and less manual setup versus other marketing channels, making it a lower-cost medium. But that’s not all! Because email marketing allows you to reach specific people at specific times and is used to nurture existing clients to purchase again, it also drives more sales than other low-cost mediums. Email marketing punches above its weight!

Email Marketing Is Tailored

Marketers are always thinking through how to create marketing funnels, or paths to draw their potential clients from awareness to consideration to purchase. There are ways this can be done with web design, SEO or social media, but none have the versatility that email marketing does. If done correctly, marketers can use their email marketing campaigns to “build their own adventures” for potential clients and clients, depending on user quality or actions. Maybe a different follow up email should be sent to those who didn’t open the previous email. Maybe you are putting leads down an automated email campaign and realize that there really need to be two campaigns, depending on the industry of the lead. Never fear; with the right CRM and email strategy, you can segment your campaigns to be tailored to each unique lead.

Email Marketing Strategies

When we view email marketing holistically, acknowledging its weaknesses and noting its strengths, we see that there are a few rules to keep in mind when using email marketing.

Don’t Rely on Email Marketing To Grow Your Business; Use It To Grow Clients

Email marketing, at least for small businesses, doesn’t tend to be a great vehicle for net-new growth. Few people will open emails from a sender they don’t recognize, so using email marketing to reach new clients doesn’t pan out for a lot of small businesses. However, that doesn’t mean that we don’t encourage email marketing to existing clients or leads. The medium is a great way to continually nurture existing clients or leads and sporadic email communication, such as through a product recall campaign or an existing client recall campaign, can keep you top of mind with your existing clients. Remember, an existing client is 60% likelier to convert, so this approach tends to work well!

Use In Tandem With Other Channels

Email marketing has its benefits, but it needs to be used in tandem with other marketing methods. As mentioned previously, email marketing works well as a remarketing tool. We recommend using other channels, like SEO, paid search, and paid social to reach new clients. There are multiple ways of doing this, but we recommend an approach where each individual piece of the campaign complements the other tactics. For instance, use paid social media to redirect to a contact page, where users can request a piece of content by filling in their name and email address. Now that you have email addresses, utilize a well-planned and informational email marketing campaign to educate and inform your lead about your brand!

Follow Best Practices, As Always

Email marketing isn’t a cheat code. You won’t see results if you don’t follow industry best practices for best results. Make sure…

Your email bodies are short and digestible
Your emails have concise and enticing subject lines
Your emails come from a trusted email address
Your emails don’t make pushy sales plays, but mainly offer informational content and news.
You comply with all relevant privacy and can spam regulations.

Consider Your Main Objective And Plan Accordingly

We will always recommend using email marketing as a part of your overall strategy, but it might not be the crux of your marketing strategy at any given point. If you’re a new business with hardly any customers, you need to focus on the essentials. Local SEO, branding, and logo design are much more important than email marketing at this stage. If you’re a company with a broader customer base, but an old, less-responsive website, we’d recommend putting more effort into a website redesign or a brand new site before email marketing. Now, if you’re a brand with a large customer base, but most of these customers haven’t purchased lately, then email marketing might be the perfect way to reengage them!

Need to revamp your email marketing strategy? Get in touch with the JSL Marketing Team for a free consultation!

March 17, 2022

How To Use Testimonials In Marketing

Testimonials are a great way to grow a potential customer’s trust in your business, but knowing how to use testimonials in your marketing isn’t always intuitive. Most small business owners understand that showing social proof is a key to winning new business. That’s a compelling reason to use testimonials to grow!

Our team got our heads together and put together some recommendations on how to use testimonials. (Look, we even take our own advice!)

Focus on the Problem That Your Brand Solved

A lot of times, small businesses are thrilled merely to receive testimonials, whether from a Google review, a complimentary email, or a video recording. Any praise is good praise and they’re happy to use what they have. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but there is a better way to use testimonials.

Web-users read reviews and look for testimonials that convince them to invest in your brand. Generic reviews like “Great product” and “Helpful people” aren’t necessarily bad, but they’re forgettable. To make the most impact on your potential customers, find and use testimonials that center on the problem your user experienced and how your brand solved it.

Let’s say that your business imports exotic cheeses and that you’re hoping to grow your subscription pairing service. Let’s say that you receive two reviews from thrilled customers and you’re debating using one of them in an email blast. The first review speaks to how tasty your cheeses are. That’s not bad, but it’s incomplete.

Suppose the second review contains this line:

“I always have a hard time pairing cheese with wine. I always Google for pointers and can never get it right. Your subscription service lets me submit my fav wines and get tasty cheese pairings delivered to my door. Thank you!”

This review emphasizes the problem your user experienced and how your product or service solved it. That’s a critical step in taking a user from considering your product to purchasing your product!

Overcome Common Objections

Testimonials aren’t just a way to prove that your brand is legitimate. They’re also a great way of overcoming common objections your prospect might have.

Maybe you sell watches. A review that talks about how lightweight and water-resistant your timepieces are overcomes your prospect’s objection. It helps to have customer research at the ready to understand common objections.

Do Potential Customers Consider Your Product Overpriced?

Do Potential Customers Wonder If Your Product Performs Its Tasks Well?

Do Potential Customers What Your Customer Service Is Like?

Once you know what your potential customers are concerned about, find the right testimonial to relieve those concerns.

Let’s go back to our cheese example. Maybe a common objection to our hypothetical cheese subscription service is that most customers have never heard of most of the brands. That’s a real hurdle to clear, but the right review can offset that objection. Consider this review.

“I’d never heard of the spicy cheddar, honey goat cheese, and the Zamorano, but they were all fantastic! Could not recommend more and would never have tried them without your service.”

This review actually takes the fact that most cheese types are unknown, a common objection, and turns it into a fun way to experience new flavors. That sort of pivot is a great way to overcome that objection and make a weakness into a strength of your brand!

This review for JSL Marketing & Web Design actually does the same thing. A common objection most small business owners have to marketing is the fear that they will spend more money than they intended. This review overcomes that objection with the client’s own words!

“I worked very closely with JSL on my company’s new website. They did a great job accomplishing all the work that needed to be done and staying within my budget. I look forward to utilizing them again for other websites and marketing items.” -Angie H

Use Multiple Mediums To Display Your Testimonials

Testimonials are useful when displayed on your website or left printed out in your business’s lobby, but they need to be promoted elsewhere. Your customer’s words are invaluable and need to be used wherever your potential customers are.

The good news is that testimonials tie in beautifully with a variety of marketing mediums. Customer testimonials can be successfully used in…

Social Media Marketing

Email Marketing

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Print Marketing

& More!

A key point for this type of testimonial is to remember to use the right testimonial for the medium. A longer testimonial may be great on a webpage or in the body of an email, but you likely can’t use more than 20 or 30 characters for Pay-Per-Click advertising or social media marketing. Even then, a ‘longer’ testimonial for email or web content is probably in the range of 50-60 characters.

Length isn’t the only consideration to remember when pairing the testimonial to the medium. Depending on the format of the testimonial received, you may be able to use video testimonials from your top clients. We’d encourage this approach wherever possible.

A video testimonial can be successfully shared on social media, embedded in a web page, or linked to from an email, making it a versatile way to share customer praise across a variety of mediums.

Use Testimonials To Supercharge Your Sales Team

Testimonials aren’t just for Business-to-Consumer marketing. They also can be a great asset to your Business-To-Business marketing team. Your sales team is your window into your client’s mind frame. To help support your sales team, sit down with your sellers and listen to their insight into your client.

What Don’t Prospects Understand About Your Product?

What Common Objections Do Your Prospects Raise in the Sales Cycle?

What Benefits Of The Product Or Service Help Overcome These Objections?

Your sellers’ insight is invaluable to crafting case studies that will jumpstart your B2B sales cycle. Take the feedback you receive and work on crafting case studies for your sales team to go to market with.

These case studies should be longer than a mere blurb, but not exhausting to read. 3,000 words are the utmost limit and are best suited for very technical products and enterprise-level businesses.

For most brands, 1000-2000 words are the right length. Focus your case study on a business like your ideal prospect. Introduce the business’s situation and then introduce a problem. Maybe your customer was struggling with high employee churn rates due to poor candidate screening in the interview process.

Now that the problem is introduced, show how your service solved the problem mentioned prior. In this fictitious example, a case study could show how using your recruiting firm greatly improved the amount of time new hires stayed with a company!. Here are a few quick tips for case studies

Be Sure To Work With the Client To Get Great Testimonials & Praise: Your case study may be well-written, but you need the client’s own words for best results. It just won’t sound authentic without a quote from the end client.
Don’t Forget To Put The Case Study On Your Website: Case studies are best utilized for conversations with prospects as you guide them through the sales cycle, but they can also be useful on your website. Leave them up for prospects to read.
Don’t Neglect The Graphic Design: The content you create and the words your customers use to praise you are invaluable for your case study. However, be sure that you use proper graphic design and branding to make that content pop! You can browse our catalog of testimonials for some thought-starters and design ideas.

Prove That You Value Your Customers

The best product or service in the world means nothing if your customer experience is terrible. Web users know this and are always on the lookout for brands they know will not disappoint. Businesses know this and are looking to showcase their customer service and their streamlined client experience.

That’s all well and good, but a lot of businesses just say they offer a great customer experience and then leave it at that. They’re ignoring a hard and fast rule of life: Show, Don’t Tell.

If you can find a customer who will publicly testify that they were amazed by the customer service you offered, you have struck gold.

Real clients vouching for your customer care means so much more than claiming that you value your customers. After all, no business will admit that their customer experience is terrible. Prove it with the right testimonial.

“I appreciate the detailed and thorough process of reviewing my site and assessing my needs that I had them start to do SEO for my website. It has been easy to work with the JSL team. There has been true accountability and I’m very glad we chose them during our selection process. Thanks JSL for all of your hard work so far!” – Valerie L

Partner With JSL Marketing & Web Design For Testimonial Marketing

Are you looking to use testimonials to supercharge your marketing? We’re here to help you take your marketing to the next level.

Are You Not Getting Reviews?

Are You Getting Mostly Negative Reviews?

Do You Have A Library Of Reviews, But Don’t Know How To Use Them?

Do You Want To Create A Great Case Study For Your Sales Team, But Don’t Know How To Start?

We’ll help you solve these review questions! Reach out to our team for more information!

Fill Out The Contact Form To Get In Touch With Our Marketing Experts!

October 28, 2021

4 Quick Tips For Excellent Copywriting

Copywriting is a great way to reach new customers, but it can be easier said than done. And many things can go wrong when you’re creating a new content marketing strategy.

Writing for the web is very different from writing for a professor, and many excellent writers struggle to take their skills from the page to the digital screen. If you’re rolling out a new content schedule, you may find yourself disappointed with the results.

Luckily, you’ve come to the right place. The copywriters here at JSL Marketing & Web Design put their heads together and came up with these four tips to improve your copywriting performance.

Please note this isn’t an exhaustive list, and you may need more tailored recommendations, depending on your specific situation. However, if you have been writing new web content and have seen lackluster results, these may be a great first place to begin.

Without any further ado, here are our four tips to improve your copywriting!

Copywriting Tips To Drive Results

Don’t Neglect Visual Mediums

At first glance, this sounds like an odd recommendation for a copywriter. It’s not your job to create videos and graphics, right? Why should you worry about the visuals?

This is true, but you’d be surprised how much of an impact improving the aesthetic of your content can have. A few well-placed visuals or videos can break up the page for your reader and make it easier for them to skim the page. This also increases the odds that the reader will stay on the page and finish the content. After all, you’ve worked hard to write this piece for their consumption. Augmenting your content with visuals is a great first step to take before reexamining your content.

This is also the time to inspect how your content can support your visuals! It doesn’t necessarily need to be solely content-supporting visuals! For instance, consider plugging a video of a product or satisfied customer within the copy of a blog. You can also use this to write your copy in a way that highlights and echoes what the customer will see in the enclosed video. This is a great way to support your videos, but too many copywriters don’t think of web design when they write. Connect those two dots to create a powerful impact on your customer for the best possible effect.

Spend More Time Researching

As copywriters, you’re likely used to laboring exhaustively over your copy. After all, why wouldn’t you want to perfect every syllable your user will see? There’s nothing wrong with spending time analyzing and rewriting your copy, but too few copywriters spend as much time researching as they do writing, and that’s a mistake. Researching what you want to write is a critical part of the process, and frankly, it’s the part of the process that gets overlooked the most.

There are two big pitfalls of not researching correctly. The first is writing on the wrong topic. Maybe you narrowed in on a niche topic, one that you think is perfect for your content strategy goals. However, maybe there’s a related content topic that you’re eschewing for this topic, one that has two or three times the search volume of the title you went with. That’s the first issue we typically see with the research stage of copywriting.

The second most common mistake is focusing on the wrong set of keywords. Maybe you went with a reflexive instinct and defaulted to targeting a set of keywords without adequately understanding the search volume and competition associated with each keyword. Perhaps you are bound by the list of keywords supplied by a client, marketing team, or other third-party stakeholders. Maybe you just messed up and found that there are better keywords to write your content around than the ones you chose.

Regardless of how you got here, you must get out. Focus on strictly regimenting your writing process into set phases. Ideally, you should spend about a third of your time researching what you want to write about, why you need to write on this topic, and what keywords to include. If you can’t make a third of the process research, aim for at least a quarter of your time. It may feel weird at first, but remember that this painstaking writing process isn’t to make you less productive; it’s to make your writing more impactful.

Forgetting The Reader’s Main Concern

You can write the best copy in the world, meticulously research every aspect of your topic, and religiously optimize your keywords, but you still could make one fatal error. Don’t forget to answer your target audience’s question succinctly and authoritatively. It’s easy to treat your digital content as if you’re in a creative writing class, and that’s a mistake. Remember, the main point of digital content is to provide some sort of value to the user, whether it’s basic information, authoritative knowledge, or insight into a complicated topic, product, or contact information.

Don’t just write to write. Think about what you want your user to do after reading your content. This will look different from client to client and industry to industry, but do your best to place yourself in the client’s shoes. What do they want out of your content, and why should they keep reading this content? This usually means writing succinctly if the user is looking for contact information, product information, or a simple answer and writing longer, more nuanced content if they’re looking for your depth of knowledge in a field. Again, every client is different, but if you’re getting a lot of views of a piece of content, but poor results, reexamine your calls-to-action and if you’re writing your content to drive action.

Using Jargon In Your Copy

You’re an expert in your industry, and that’s important to highlight. However, there’s a difference between displaying your expertise and using overly technical and cumbersome jargon in your copy. This will strangle your copy’s effectiveness. Terms that are commonplace and easily understood in your field may as well be ancient Greek to your prospective customer. Take it from us! Digital marketing is our jam, but we’ve learned that we can never assume that our readers know what SEO, PPC, UI/UX, landing pages, and HTML are when writing!

Apply that to your field of expertise! If you’re a family law practice, you shouldn’t use legal terms like ab initio and pendente lite in your copy without defining them for the reader. Write for the level of knowledge of your potential customers when describing anything related to a product or service, even if that means using simpler terms sometimes.

This also applies to the content titles you plan. If you’re a nephrologist in Denver, you might think about creating blog titles like “Best Nephrologists in Denver” or “Tips For Choosing a Nephrologist.” However, your readers with more limited medical knowledge are probably not using official medical titles when searching. They’re probably searching “best kidney doctor in Denver” and you need to center your titles around those keywords accordingly. This might be a difficult adjustment, but trust us when we say that your readers and your website will thank you in the long run.

Remember, assume your reader has limited knowledge on the topic at hand and write your copy accordingly. It will create a more enjoyable reading experience for your user, help your site rank on Google, and drive better results for your business!

Improve Your Copywriting Process With JSL Marketing & Web Design

Are you looking for more substantive content marketing and copywriting process improvement? Consult with JSL Marketing & Web Design for a FREE content consultation. Our copywriters will review all the following with you…

Calls-To-Action
Tone Of Voice
Branding
Linking Strategy
Conversion Rate Optimization
Value Propositions
And More!

Ready To Improve Your Copywriting? Consult the Experts at JSL Marketing & Web Design by Filling Out The Contact Form Below, And We’ll Be In Touch!

January 07, 2021

How to Create a Digital Marketing Plan in 2021

The New Year is a great time to reevaluate and rejuvenate your daily life, but it’s also a great time to reevaluate and rejuvenate your digital marketing plan!

Many of us will be taking the first few weeks of 2021 to take stock of our exercise, eating, and other health habits in order to find places that could use a little improvement. However, it’s also the perfect time to analyze your digital marketing efforts and to create a new digital marketing plan for 2021!

With 2020 in the rear-view mirror, it’s time to go over your business strategy, your ideal customer, your past performance, and your 2021 marketing goals!

It can certainly be a daunting task. Creating a 2021 business marketing plan is part art, part science, and the line between them is not always clearly demarcated.

Luckily, JSL Marketing & Web Design is here to offer some guidance. Read on to learn more about the definition of a marketing plan, the best ways of creating a marketing plan, and some solid templates!

What is a Digital Marketing Plan?

A digital marketing plan is, first and foremost, a plan of attack. It’s a way of analyzing your business situation, defining your perfect client, and then creating a game plan to reach those clients!

While we’re at it, though, it’s important to reiterate what a digital marketing plan is NOT. It’s not merely a content calendar for blog titles or social media posts. This is an important part, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking that making a few blog titles is the end-all of digital marketing.

It’s also not merely a list of goals or a simple timeline. This is a great element to include as well, but goal setting in and of itself is not a digital marketing plan.

A true digital marketing plan will begin at the 10,000-foot view. Here, you’ll think through overarching business goals. At this point in planning, it’s important to think high-level and take a “bird’s eye view.” However, eventually, your digital marketing plan should translate into specific and actionable steps (and SMART goals).

This is the midrange of your digital marketing plan. Once you’ve thought through overarching goals, you’ll work on thinking about your business’s strengths and weaknesses through a competitive analysis.

Once you have done this, you’ll define your ideal clients and think about how you will reach these clients.

It’s also important to include some way of measurement as well to determine if the actions you have taken are helping move the needle! After all, the point isn’t just to get your message out in front of as many people as possible. It’s to convince users to take action!

Take a little bit of time to flush out your business goals. Once you have a few goals in mind, and we’ve defined what a digital marketing plan is, let’s think through HOW to develop this plan.

How to Develop a Marketing Plan

As you’re beginning to develop your digital marketing plan, ask yourself the following questions:

What is Your Value Proposition?

What makes your business unique? What do you want your customers to know about your brand? What messages resonate with your audience? What makes you the better choice? You need to be showcasing this throughout your marketing, online voice, content, and more.

What Are Your Most Profitable Products & Services?

Is there a product that drives 50% of your revenue? Do you have a new line of products that customers are not yet aware of? Did you start a new special that needs promoting? This kind of internal look can greatly help you ensure you are putting your efforts toward the highest ROI or return on investment.

What Trends Are Shaping Your Industry?

What are customers expecting from businesses like yours? Think of the last year and what that may mean for continued expectations from clients, customers, employees, even society as a whole! Remember, you are the expert on your ideal customers (or you should be).

Who Are Your Top Competitors?

What are their value propositions? What separates you from these competitors, and where are they beating you, or you them.

What Opportunities Can (Could, Should) Your Business Capitalize On?

What products and services could you add? Is there a gap in the market, industry, or offerings? Do you have a Refer-a-Friend or a Customer Loyalty program? This is a great time to get creative with your digital marketing plan.

What Are Your Business’s Weaknesses?

We all have them, so what are yours? What could your brand do better? Is your product or service the best it possibly can be? What are complaints or poor reviews often revolving around?

These are not the only questions to ask yourself when working on a comprehensive digital marketing plan, but they’re a great start!

Marketing Plan Templates from JSL Marketing & Web Design

The best marketing plan template we can think of begins by taking the questions asked above and translating them into a simple “SWOT” analysis.

A SWOT Analysis stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats – and we could all benefit from using these more often!

The first two (Strengths and Weaknesses) assess your business’s internal situation, like customer service, superior products, etc. The last two (Opportunities and Threats) assess externalities, like your competition, your industry, your particular market, etc. Here’s an example of what a SWOT could look like for a local sandwich shop.

Strengths: Prime location downtown, best quality sandwich in the area.

Weaknesses: higher-priced food, low Google reviews, despite food critic acclaim.

Opportunities: Nearby college market has not been tapped for lunch specials.

Threats: Three other sandwich shops with stronger customer bases and reputations are in the area.

Now, once this is complete, pair your SWOT analysis with your business goals. Let’s assume our sandwich shop wants to grow its monthly revenue by 5% in Q1. From the initial work they’ve already done, the team might lay out the following plan.

Goals:

Grow Monthly Revenue 5%, YoY in Q1

Add two new positive Google reviews per month, six total in Q1.

Receive ten contact form submissions from the new landing page per month, 30 total in Q1.

Step 1: Create a College Lunch special.

Step 2: Invest in Google Ad campaigns around lunch special search terms to promote lunch special.

Step 3: Begin a Repeat Customer Email campaign (offer coupon for email submission).

Step 4: Train staff on how to take new email addresses from first-time customers and add them to an automated campaign.

Step 5: Write the following blog titles and post them to the website. Blogs will also be promoted via social media and email campaigns.

Best Sandwich Shops in the Area

Best Lunch and Beer Pairings

How to Choose your Order.

Etc…

Timeline:

Evaluate Reviews, Website Traffic, Email Open Rates, and Click-Through-Rates Jan 15th

Evaluate Reviews, Website Traffic, Email Open Rates, and Click-Through-Rates February 15th

Evaluate Reviews, Website Traffic, Email Open Rates, and Click-Through-Rates March 15th

Source of Truth:

Google Analytics

Contact form submissions

Google reviews

Now that you’ve got these goals defined and perfectly laid out, you’re ready to put rubber to the road and start executing this plan!

But how do you do so? You have the steps, but what’s the best way of making those steps a reality?

If you need marketing expertise to help define and execute your marketing plans and strategies, call JSL Marketing & Web Design! We’re an award-winning and highly reviewed digital marketing agency specializing in digital marketing strategies, SEO, web design, PPC, and more!

Our team has helped many clients reach new heights with our custom-made digital marketing plans and strategies, and we’re ready to discuss what our experts can do for you!

Call Us at 855.944.1201 to Learn More! We Look Forward to Making Your Perfect Digital Marketing Plan a Reality!

September 10, 2020

Cornerstone Service: Content Marketing & All It Can Include

The saying ‘content is king’ could not be more true. In today’s day and age, marketing looks a lot different than it used to, and the tactics that worked well 10+ years ago don’t cut it anymore.

A big reason for this is that people don’t like being sold to. We’re all getting much better at detecting a sales pitch from a mile away, thanks to the overload of advertisements we’re all bombarded with on a daily basis. It’s almost as if those old tactics – cold calling, direct sales, and advertising, etc. – are white noise at best, and annoying at worst.

If you want to truly be helpful, and cut through that white noise, then consider something new…

Consider, Content Marketing

Content marketing is all about creating useful, informative, and just generally good content for your readers. This could be anything from blog posts, emails, e-books, webinars, and videos to social media posts.

In the end, some of your readers might not convert into customers – they might just be there for the free stuff. But in the long run, you’re going to convert many more casual readers into loyal customers than you would have using traditional advertising and marketing methods.

And ultimately, you’ll be recognized as an authority figure in your industry since you’re always publishing such good content, which will only help you to land more leads and close more deals as time goes on.

Content marketing is definitely not a quick fix. It’s a labor of love that takes some blood, sweat, and tears to get right. But in the end, it’s totally worth it. And it’s even more worth it when you’re not the one shedding the blood, sweat, and tears – like when you work with a content marketing company.

JSL Marketing & Web Design (+ Content Marketing)

We’ll do the heavy lifting for you when it comes to content marketing so you can get back to running your business.

To start, we’ll sit down with you and talk about your goals and expectations. We’ll also take a detailed look at your audience. Once we have a clear idea of what you’re marketing and to whom, we’ll begin to develop a content marketing strategy.

Your personal content marketing strategy might include:

Blogging
Email Marketing
E-book Creation
Online Courses
Webinars
Videos
Social Media Posts
Podcasts
Infographics
Etc.

Strategic Blogging + Content Creation

Through our blogging services, we’ll help you develop SEO-targeted blog posts that will really work for your business. We can write just one blog, but it’s usually best to keep the ball rolling once you’ve started. In fact, many of our clients choose to have us continually produce high-quality content on a regular basis, which is great for their readers (and Google, too).

Our talented team of writers has written for companies in many different industries, and chances are good that we’ve written for your industry as well. All of our writers not only love to write but also love to learn, something that is important for writing great content.

Content Marketing is the Future – & We Can Help You Get There!

Each content marketing strategy is a little different, but they are all based on your needs and your audience. And as time goes on, we will tweak things to make sure you’re getting the most bang for your buck.

Content marketing really is the way of the future. If you’re not already doing it, or even if you are and just want some help bringing your content marketing strategy up to speed, we can help!

July 23, 2020

Content Targeting: Are You Creating Content for the Right People?

By the time you’re done reading this blog, thousands of new pieces of content will have emerged. Content exists on every possible topic, in every imaginable format, and don’t even get us started on the channels you can choose from to distribute it. An estimated 4.6 billion pieces of content are produced daily. Let that sink in for a minute – in which time about 3.1 million more pieces of content will be created.

Meanwhile, everyone is online. Every age group, in every city and small town. We’re shopping, scrolling, swiping. The amount of information and content we consume is incredible. Unsurprisingly, not much of it actually sticks. That’s because a big part of what we see isn’t even created for us, and nothing more than ‘noise’ on our timelines.

As a marketer, you put a lot of energy and time in creating slick content. But once it’s out there, it has to fight for a place in the spotlight. But are you even creating content for the right people? Make sure your next marketing masterpiece will be your most effective one yet: say hi to content targeting.

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

What Is Targeted Content?

Let’s look at what is not, first. It’s not usually offline: it’s displayed in places in which as many people as possible will see it. By chance, someone who might be interested might drive by, read fast enough, and take action. But most people won’t remember it at all, or relate to it – no matter how impressive the design is.

Online content offers us more possibilities. For a long time, marketers wanted more, more, more. Going viral was the goal. You wanted your content to be seen. We counted views, but while the ticker was rising, sales were, well, not.

When you actively try to get your content within eyeball range of your desired audience, you’re targeting your content – or rather, you’re targeting the right people. To get started with targeted content, ask yourself two questions: who do you want to reach, and how can you best reach them?

All About the Audience

Targeted content is created and distributed with a buyer persona in mind. As specific as can be. And thanks to today’s technology, you can get very, very specific.

When it comes to your audience, quality tops quantity every time. The aim should not be to get your content in front of as many people as you can, but to get it in front of people for whom it is relevant, who will be triggered – intrigued, if you will.

It’s no surprise the biggest priority for B2B content marketing teams in 2020 is improving the quality or conversion of their audience.

Paid distribution is arguably the most effective way to target the right people. But before you start spending the big bucks, let’s take a look at how to finetune your targeting skills and what options you have to get the best out of every dollar.

Create a Persona, & Dig a Little Deeper

Content targeting revolves around who you are creating content for. Your ideal customer. Time to get to know them!

Talk to your target group. Research them. Create a quiz to learn more about them. Find out what makes them tick, what they want to see, what they need to know, and where they would like this information delivered, please.

Look under the top layer of info about your target group. Sure, demographics, gender, geographic location, education level, occupation, household income, are all great for foundational knowledge. But there are so many perimeters monitoring our every move, allowing you to find people that are very likely to want to hear from you and interact with your content.

The most effective way to go about this by syncing your marketing automation tool and your CRM. With all the targeting you need to do, there’s no way you thought you’d do it with an automation workflow, did you?

Let’s say you are using Hubspot’s marketing automation tool to create buyer personas, segment your target audience, and track user browsing patterns. Simultaneously, you are using a CRM like Salesforce to monitor and coordinate all sales opportunities that transcend from your marketing activities.

To put both of these in sync, try integrating Hubspot and Salesforce (or whichever tools you are using) and see how all buyer information and purchase details tie up together to give you a complete 360-degree overview of each target user.

Now that you have all the details in hand, you’ll be in a better spot to determine what kind of content will trigger conversation and conversion.

Meet Them Where They Are

Apart from a pretty static persona, take into account that the people in your audience will evolve as they go through their customer journey, meaning they will need different content. Make sure you’re creating content that fits the person, channel, and the stage they’re in.

A one-size-fits-all approach won’t work. Not even when you’ve got your persona figured out down to their happiest childhood memories. Apart from the channel, the tone, and frequency of your content can vary in each stage for different personas. Find what works through actively monitoring the interactions on posts. Keep your eye on the data.

GIF via Giphy

Paid Content Targeting

SEO and SEA help your audience find you when they need you. But with smart targeting techniques, you can find them first, presenting them with content that you know they’ll love – because you researched it.

The Social Media Beast

Your timeline is as unique as your fingerprint. And for a good reason. Good content used to rise to the top, like oil on water. Now good content isn’t good enough anymore. Also, the water is getting quite dirty. The reason we haven’t completely ditched the internet because of constantly seeing irrelevant content is that we’re most likely getting targeted, and targeted well.

Photo by camilo jimenez on Unsplash

On social media, you can have a substantial organic reach, especially if you know how to use the right hashtags and build a large enough following. But nevertheless, organic reach has its limits and has been dropping. This means that reaching new people through organic means is becoming increasingly difficult.

Luckily for us marketers, all major platforms allow us to very specifically target our posts to an audience that isn’t already following us, but ticks some boxes on interests and (online) behavior that fits the profile you’re looking for – or rather, that is looking for you.

Retargeting, Retargeting, Retargeting…

That’s right: even if you slap a ‘re-‘ in front of targeting, you’re still targeting. Isn’t that cheating? Not at all.

Yes, it is easier, since you can track people who’ve already expressed interest in what you have to offer. But it’s only smart to keep them in the loop. Saves you time, gets you money. Win-win.

Organically Targeted Content: Create a Community

It’s not impossible to organically target the right people, without spending extra money on placed ads or targeted posts. 35% of content marketers say online communities are the best way to promote your content to the right audience.

Though it takes time to build an online community, once you’ve established it, it’s a surefire method to know your content reaches people who are interested in your industry, brand, or product.

Ready, Set, Target!

Are you down for higher conversions? Ready to let go of the idea that more content is better content?

Conduct audience research to find high-potential views
Invest in the right channels and social media platforms
Start creating quality content based on what your audience wants to see

And we promise they will love you for it.

June 10, 2020

Keywords & Content [Tips From Our Content Director]

Keywords are one of the most important aspects of your SEO journey, as without good, relevant, and researched keywords on your page, Google doesn’t know what your purpose or services are, or when to show you in search results!

This means that no matter how beautifully designed your website is, without great content and relevant keywords throughout…no one will ever see that gorgeous website. And as a company that makes beautiful websites, we want to make sure they are seen!

Keyword 101

Let’s start from the beginning – keywords are words or phrases that your customers are typing into Google when they want to find your industry or services, like: ‘best practices for web design’, ‘SEO agency near me’, or ‘how to do keyword research’.

Make sure you use relevant and local keywords throughout your webpage in order to clearly let Google know what you do and where you do it (are you a local business or do you ship/work around the US or world?).

And though ‘put relevant keywords in your content’ may seem simple, it’s almost so broad that it doesn’t help at all. So, make sure you have keywords in these four places:

Page Titles:

Your page title is one of the most important places for your keywords to appear. Your page title is essentially the page ‘name’ or title that shows on search engine results pages for users to click to visit your webpage. Your page title is the purple text below:

Meta Descriptions:

Metas are the grey text above, showing a snippet of what is on your page. This is a great place to put keywords, so the user knows what to expect. Make sure you have a unique meta for each of your pages – because each of your webpages gives unique information.

Headers (H1, H2, H3):

Your headers are like an outline of your content with H1 being your subject at the top of the page (in the biggest font). You can have multiple H2, H3, H4, and more per page, but only one H1. Since Headers are ‘subject lines’, they are weighted more heavily by Google and therefore a great place for keywords!

Content:

Content is any of the written words on your page. Of course, having your keywords in your H1, Title, and Metas are more visible and therefore most helpful, but if you are going to talk about a subject fully and thoroughly, then these keywords and phrases will naturally be throughout your on-page content as well.

Google likes to see ‘in-depth content’ that shows you know what you are talking about – it’s one of the ways it judges your expertise! So make sure your content is long enough to fully explain your services or products, and has adequate keywords to make the subject clear.

Content & Keywords: Putting it All Together

The content throughout your website is important, but making sure the content on your home page shows your value, or why you are a better choice than all the other companies out there, is paramount. What makes you unique? What benefits do you give? What’s your ‘elevator pitch’ of why someone should choose you over a competitor?

Having at least 700 words on your Home Page is ideal – and this is just a minimum. Remember, Google likes to see ‘in-depth’ content that fully answers a customer’s question or fully informs them.

Look at the below example that ticks all the style, H1, Call to Action, and content boxes for a homepage. Of course, there is more content below the fold – but this is a great snapshot of the ‘first look’ of a homepage.

The above H1 has great keyword placement, as does the H2 and content. Additionally, the banner image (the black and white photo) is clean, attractive, and lends to a modern web design.

Next, the CTA, or Call to Action, leads your customer to your main goal (blue button, or ‘contact’). After you scroll down the page, you should also see sections on:

Who you are (link to your About Page)
Your services/products (link to your Services/Products Page)
Testimonials, awards, benefits, or other trust factors
Updates or connectors at bottom of page (social media, blog, mailing list, contact form)
Try to have all pages of your website represented in small sections on your Home Page

Here are some more content tips for your other pages:

About Page: Having an About Page shows your history and is a great place for your values, why, experience, journey, and purpose. Try to shoot for at least 400-700 words here.

Products or Services Page(s): This should be a keyword rich page, as most people will be searching for a specific service or product that they need. Write a section on each product or service that ‘sells’ it to the customer and includes relevant keywords.

Resources or Blog Page: Content freshness shows you didn’t just ‘make a website and forget it’ but are constantly updating and caring for it. It also allows you to put out new content in the form of blogs or articles where you can put more keywords and inform your readers and website visitors. Aim to write at least one 600+ word post per month.

Contact Page: Unless you are e-commerce, this is the ultimate goal of your website: to be contacted or visited, so make sure you have accurate NAP information: Name, Address, Phone (email or online submission forms are great, too!)

Need Content, Keyword, or Web Design Help? JSL Are Your Trusted Experts for a Reason!

JSL Marketing is your go-to company for web design, keyword research, digital marketing, and content marketing.

Check out our own homepage to see the styles that are most successful for web design lately. Or, see our past work, testimonials, and resources to learn more.

Contact to get your content, keywords, and more in tip-top shape!