by GRD Creative | Mar 6, 2024 | Advertizing, Business, Digital Marketing, Gleneden Ridge Design, Marketing, Social Media
Are you looking to boost your business presence on the digital platform? Look no further than Facebook, the ultimate social media giant that can take your marketing efforts to new heights. In this blog post, we will explore some great ways to effectively market your business with Facebook, ensuring success and growth in the ever-evolving world of digital marketing.
Establishing a strong social media presence is crucial for any business in today’s competitive landscape. Facebook offers numerous tools and features to help you reach your target audience and generate leads. Let’s dive into some proven strategies that will make your business stand out from the crowd.
Creating a Facebook Business Page
First and foremost, creating a well-optimized Facebook business page is essential. Make sure you fill out all the necessary information and use eye-catching visuals that accurately represent your brand. Engage your audience with compelling posts that highlight your products, services, promotions, and company culture. Quality content is key to building a loyal and engaged following.
Facebook Ads
To expand your reach even further, consider utilizing Facebook Ads. This powerful advertising platform allows you to target specific demographics, interests, and behaviors, maximizing the effectiveness of your campaigns.
Boost your posts or create custom ads to drive website traffic, increase conversions, and grow your customer base.
Professional Tools
Managing your Facebook presence can be a breeze with the help of scheduling tools and professional dashboards. Utilize Facebook’s built-in scheduler or explore third-party platforms to streamline your content creation and publishing process. This will save you time and effort, allowing you to focus on other important aspects of your business.
Don’t forget about the Facebook Ad Center, where you can monitor the performance of your ads, track conversions, and optimize your campaigns for better results. Stay informed about the latest trends and insights to make data-driven decisions and continually refine your marketing strategy.
Other Facebook Features
Leveraging the power of Facebook’s interconnected ecosystem, consider using the “Invite Friends” feature to expand your reach beyond your existing audience. Encourage your employees, business partners, and satisfied customers to like and share your business page, helping to spread the word organically.
Additionally, don’t overlook the opportunity to connect your Instagram account to your Facebook business page. This integration allows for seamless content sharing and cross-promotion between the two platforms, enabling you to leverage the visual appeal of Instagram to attract more followers and potential customers.
Lastly, remember that your Facebook marketing efforts should align with your overall digital marketing strategy. Your website plays an integral role in converting Facebook leads into loyal customers. Ensure your website is user-friendly, visually appealing, and optimized for search engines. Provide easy access to your social media profiles and encourage visitors to like, follow, and share your content.
Facebook offers endless possibilities for businesses to thrive in the digital realm. By implementing these great ways to market your business, you can tap into the vast potential of Facebook, expand your online presence, and propel your business towards success. So, embrace the power of Facebook and unlock the full potential of social media marketing for your business!
For more information or help with your Facebook business page and other social media, contact Gleneden Ridge Design today!
by GRD Creative | Jan 18, 2024 | Advertizing, Business, Business Listings, Content, Digital Marketing, Gleneden Ridge Design, Google Analytics, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Web Site Design, Website design & development
In today’s competitive online business landscape, it can be tough to gain traction and achieve growth when you have limited resources. But there are effective strategies you can implement to market your business even when budgets are low. With a focus on website optimization, digital marketing, and smart utilization of available resources, you can still make a significant impact.
When it comes to marketing your business online, your website plays a crucial role. A well-designed website with good quality content not only enhances your online presence but also serves as the foundation for your marketing efforts. Start by ensuring your website is visually appealing, user-friendly, and optimized for search engines. By implementing SEO strategies, you can improve your website’s visibility and drive more targeted traffic.
Investing in web design is a wise move, even when budgets are limited. A visually appealing and user-friendly website creates a positive impression, encourages engagement, and increases the likelihood of conversion. Consider utilizing affordable web design tools or hiring freelancers or local designers like Gleneden Ridge Design to create a unique and professional website that reflects your brand identity.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a powerful tool that can elevate your business’s online presence. Research relevant keywords related to your industry and incorporate them naturally throughout your website’s content. This will help search engines recognize your website as a valuable resource and improve its ranking in search results. Remember, higher rankings mean increased visibility and more opportunities for potential customers to discover your business.
Another effective way to market your business on a tight budget is through digital marketing. With the rise of social media platforms, harnessing their potential can significantly impact your brand’s growth. Identify the channels that resonate best with your target audience and focus on creating engaging content. Whether it’s informative blog posts, captivating visuals, or behind-the-scenes glimpses, be creative and showcase the value your business offers.
To maximize your digital marketing efforts, consider collaborating with influencers or industry experts. Partnering with influential personalities can expand your reach and attract new customers. Their endorsement and genuine feedback can build trust, credibility, and ultimately, drive more traffic to your website.
And don’t neglect your Google Business Profile, where you can market your products and services, create promotions, add updates and events, and list your contact details and media.
While the online world may dominate marketing strategies, don’t underestimate the power of offline tactics. Leverage your existing network, attend industry events, and establish partnerships with complementary businesses. By sharing resources and cross-promoting each other, you can tap into new audiences and generate greater exposure for your brand.
Lastly, measurement and optimization are key to marketing success. Monitor your website’s performance, track the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, and make data-driven decisions. Identify what strategies are generating the most significant returns on your investment and focus your efforts accordingly.
In conclusion, marketing your business on a limited budget requires strategic thinking and resourceful execution. By maximizing the potential of your website, implementing SEO practices, leveraging digital marketing channels, and embracing offline tactics, you can effectively reach your target audience and drive business growth. Remember, creativity and adaptability are your greatest assets when it comes to marketing on a shoestring budget.
by GRD Creative | Nov 24, 2023 | Business, Content, Digital Marketing, Gleneden Ridge Design, Google Analytics, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Website design & development
In today’s digital landscape, having a well-rounded SEO & digital marketing strategy is essential for the success of your online presence – and your business. With Google’s introduction of core web vitals in 2022, it has become even more important to optimize your website to meet the evolving standards of search engine algorithms.
Digital marketing encompasses various strategies and tactics aimed at enhancing your online visibility and driving organic traffic to your website. It involves leveraging different channels such as search engines, social media platforms, and content creation to attract and engage your target audience.
One crucial aspect of digital marketing is search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is the process of improving your website’s visibility on search engine result pages (SERPs) by optimizing various factors. These factors include your website’s content, structure, keywords, backlinks, and user experience.
Google’s core web vitals are a set of metrics that measure the user experience on your website. These metrics include loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. By optimizing your website to meet these core web vitals, you can improve your website’s performance and enhance user satisfaction.
Analyzing your website’s performance using analytics is another vital component of your SEO strategy. Analytics provide valuable insights into how users interact with your website, allowing you to make data-driven decisions to improve its overall performance and user experience.
Effective website management is also crucial for the success of your digital marketing efforts. Regularly updating and optimizing your website’s content, ensuring it is relevant and valuable to your target audience, will help attract and retain visitors, ultimately improving your search engine rankings.
In addition to your website, leveraging social media platforms can greatly enhance your digital marketing strategy. By engaging with your audience through social media channels, you can increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, and foster a community around your brand.
Blogging is another powerful tool in digital marketing. By regularly publishing informative and valuable blog posts, you can establish yourself as an industry authority, attract organic traffic, and improve your website’s search engine rankings. Creating high-quality, shareable content is key to driving engagement and increasing your online visibility.
In conclusion, a comprehensive digital marketing strategy that incorporates SEO, core web vitals, analytics, website management, social media, and blog posts is essential for the success of your online presence. By optimizing these key elements, you can improve your website’s visibility, attract a targeted audience, and ultimately achieve your online goals. Stay ahead of the competition and ensure your online success by prioritizing these vital aspects of digital marketing.
For help and advice with your digital marketing strategy, contact Gleneden Ridge Design.
by GRD Creative | Nov 7, 2023 | Business, Content, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Website design & development
Content marketing strategies have become a fundamental aspect of online success for businesses, whether big or small. In today’s digital age, having a well-executed content marketing plan can make all the difference in driving traffic to your website and building strong customer relationships.
One of the key components of a robust content marketing strategy is creating compelling blog posts. By regularly publishing informative and engaging articles on your website, you can establish your business as a thought leader in your industry. Blog posts provide an opportunity to showcase your expertise, educate your audience, and generate organic traffic through search engine optimization.
Social media is another essential tool in content marketing. With billions of active users, platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter offer a wide reach to connect with your target audience. By sharing valuable, shareable content on these platforms, you can expand your online presence, increase brand awareness, and drive traffic back to your website.
A successful content marketing strategy involves more than just written content. Incorporating videos, images, and infographics into your digital assets can enhance user experience and captivate your audience. Visual content is highly shareable and helps convey complex ideas in a more digestible format. Utilizing a mix of written and visual content is key to engaging your audience and keeping them coming back for more.
Educational and nurturing content is vital for building strong customer relationships. By providing valuable insights, tips, and advice, you position your business as a trusted resource and build credibility with your audience. Newsletters and emails are valuable tools for delivering targeted content directly to your subscribers, keeping them informed, and nurturing their interest in your products or services.
Incorporating content marketing into your overall business strategy is essential for sustained online success. Whether you are a small business or a large enterprise, creating and distributing valuable content across various digital channels is key to attracting and retaining customers. By consistently providing valuable content that addresses the needs and interests of your target audience, you can establish your brand as a trusted authority, build credibility, and foster long-lasting customer relationships.
In conclusion, content marketing is a powerful strategy that can drive traffic, build brand awareness, and nurture customer relationships. By leveraging blog posts, social media, videos, images, educational content, newsletters, and emails, businesses can create a comprehensive content marketing strategy that resonates with their target audience.
by GRD Creative | Oct 26, 2023 | Business, Business Listings, Content, Digital Marketing, Gleneden Ridge Design, Google Analytics, Graphic Design, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Website design & development
In today’s online-driven world, digital marketing has become an essential component for businesses aiming to thrive and grow. But what exactly is digital marketing? Let’s dive into the realm of this exciting and ever-evolving concept.
Digital marketing encompasses a wide range of strategies and techniques aimed at promoting a website or online presence. It involves utilizing various online platforms and channels to reach and engage with a target audience. Whether you’re a small business owner or a large corporation, digital marketing has the power to take your online presence from ordinary to extraordinary.
One of the key elements of digital marketing is search engine optimization (SEO). SEO enables your website to rank higher in organic search results, making it more visible to potential customers. By optimizing your website’s design, structure, and content, you can enhance its visibility on search engine results pages and attract more online traffic.
But digital marketing extends far beyond SEO. It encompasses the entire online ecosystem, including social media, web design, and content creation. With the right digital marketing strategy, you can leverage the power of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter to connect with your audience, build brand loyalty, and drive website traffic.
Creating compelling and informative blog posts is another integral aspect of digital marketing. By crafting engaging content, you can position yourself as an authority in your industry, attract new visitors to your website, and nurture relationships with existing customers. Blog posts offer an excellent opportunity to share valuable insights, promote your products or services, and keep your audience up to date with the latest industry trends.
Furthermore, digital marketing involves leveraging online profiles such as Google Business and Bing Places to enhance your online visibility and reach a wider audience. These platforms allow you to showcase your business information, including contact details, opening hours, and customer reviews. By optimizing your profiles, you can boost your credibility and attract more potential customers.
Digital marketing is a catalyst for business growth in the online realm. With effective strategies and techniques, you can reach your target audience, increase brand awareness, generate leads, and ultimately drive conversions. From web design to social media management, every aspect of digital marketing plays a crucial role in capturing the attention of your target market.
In conclusion, digital marketing is the secret sauce that can transform your online presence and take your business to new heights. By harnessing the power of SEO, social media, web design, and various online channels, you can build a strong and influential digital presence. So, dive into the world of digital marketing and unlock the limitless potential it holds for your business.
For help and advice with your digital marketing, contact Gleneden Ridge Design; we’d be happy to help!
by GRD Creative | Oct 18, 2023 | Uncategorized
In today’s digital age, having a website for your small business is absolutely crucial. A website serves as your online storefront, providing a platform for potential customers to discover and learn more about your products or services. But it doesn’t stop there. A website offers numerous benefits that can greatly contribute to the growth and success of your business.
One of the key advantages of having a website is its ability to boost your online visibility. With proper search engine optimization (SEO), your website can rank higher in search engine results, making it easier for potential customers to find you. By optimizing your website’s content, keywords, and meta tags, you can effectively target your desired audience and attract more organic traffic.
Furthermore, a website allows you to establish a strong online presence and build credibility. In this digital era, consumers often turn to the internet to research businesses before making a purchase. Having a professional-looking website not only showcases your products or services but also instills trust and confidence in your brand. Your website becomes a platform to showcase your expertise, highlight customer testimonials, and share valuable information, positioning your business as a reliable and reputable choice in the market.
Moreover, a well-designed website enables you to engage with your audience and drive customer interaction. Integrating social media links and interactive features such as comment sections or contact forms allows visitors to easily connect with your business. This not only fosters a sense of community but also provides an opportunity for you to gather valuable feedback, address customer concerns, and nurture relationships.
In addition to being a powerful marketing tool, a website also offers cost-effective solutions for your business. Compared to traditional forms of advertising, digital marketing through your website allows you to reach a wider audience at a fraction of the cost. With the right digital marketing strategies in place, your website can attract targeted traffic, generate leads, and convert them into loyal customers, all while maximizing your return on investment.
So, if you haven’t already, talk to Gleneden Ridge Design. Recognize the significance of having a website for your small business and realize this important marketing platform. From boosting your online presence and driving growth to enhancing your brand’s credibility and facilitating customer interaction, a well-designed website is a valuable asset in today’s competitive business landscape. Invest in professional web design, leverage SEO techniques, and embrace the digital realm to take your business to new heights.
by GRD Creative | Sep 18, 2023 | Business, Content, Content Management Systems, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Website design & development
Rich snippets – also known as rich results – are search results pulled from schema markup code on your website that provide extra information to your listing when your website appears on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). They are not a Google ranking factor, but can give audiences more information about your services, helping to drive more traffic to your site.
How do rich snippets, rich results, and SERP features differ?
Rich snippets, rich results, and SERPs have similar features but are not exactly the same, which can lead to confusion. Lets look at the differences:
- Rich snippets –Google’s official statement is that ‘rich snippets’ are now known as ‘rich results’.
- Rich results – According to Google, rich results include text-and-image carousels, images, and other non-textual elements.
- SERP features – Provide related information on the user’s search query, such as the reviews, videos, and the knowledge panel.
Types of rich snippets
Google supports different types of rich content within its search results. Here are some of the more common ones:
Review
One of the most common rich snippets, the ‘Review’ snippet adds a yellow star review rating to the search results, with additional information about the reviews. Review snippets can appear for the book, course, event, local business, movie, product, recipe, and software app content types.
Product
Useful if you have an e-commerce website, product snippets provide more information to potential buyers about your products, such as stock level, shipping info, and.
Recipe
Recipe rich snippets show information about the recipe on the page, including ingredients, preparation time, and reviews.
Event
Event snippets are useful if you have ticketed events such as concerts or shows.
A note about FAQ and HowTo snippets
Google announced removal of these snippets in September 2023 to provide a cleaner and more consistent search experience for users.
How to get rich snippets for your web pages
For your website to be eligible for rich snippets, you’ll need to add some code called ‘schema markup’ to your web pages that follows Google’s structured data guidelines.
Some website content management systems either already have it installed, or have plugins or modules available that can add the code for you easily. You can double-check this by running a page through the Google Rich Results Test tool. If no markup is present on the page, the rich results test will display the message ‘No items detected’ and you’ll need to add the code with a plugin module or manually. We’d suggest that if you’re unsure, you get a professional company such as Gleneden Ridge Design to add the code for you.
Here’s how to add the code.
- Create the code: As noted above, if you use a popular content management system (CMS) like WordPress, adding schema to your website is as easy as installing a schema plugin such as the ‘All-In-One SEO’ plugin, with which you can deploy the schema very easily without having to write any code yourself.
- If you don’t use one of these CMS systems, you may have to create the code yourself, or talk to a developer to help create and add the code.
- You can use an online service such as the Merkle Schema Markup Generator to create Product schema markup code, and Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper is good too. To generate the code, simply fill out the prompts from the tool.
- When the code’s been created, copy the JSON-LD code; this is the code format Google recommends for schema markup. Remember to only add code for content that’s visible to users and adheres to Google’s guidelines.
- Check and validate the markup: When you have the code, you need to check that it’s valid; if not, your page won’t be eligible for rich results.
- If the code has been generated with a plugin or within a CMS, you can check it by:
- Opening the SEO tool or section on the page that needs checking.
- Next, go to the Structured data tab.
- Then click on Validate, and on the Rich Results Test.
- Clicking this will take you to Google’s Rich Results Test. If it’s valid, you’ll see a green tick. Once you’ve confirmed it’s present and valid, go on to the next section below.
- If you’ve manually added your schema code, you’ll need two checks:
- Check the code is valid before adding it to your website
- Check the code is valid after it’s added
- To see if your code snippet is valid, select ‘Code’ on the Rich Results Test and paste your code snippet in. If it’s valid, you’ll see a green tick appear under the subheadings ‘Detected items.’
- Add the code to your website: Once you’ve validated your code, you can add it to the
<head> or <body> of your website. Once the code is added, you can run the page URL through the Rich Results Test to double-check it’s valid on-site. This time, select “URL,” and enter a URL you want to test. If it’s valid, you’ll see a green tick. - Monitor marked-up pages for performance: monitoring your marked-up pages is important for several reasons: Websites break easily (even if your code is valid, it can break later on), and code may become invalid (old schema markup may become invalid over time and need updating). You can check and monitor your pages with Google Search Console (GSC), and with the Google Rich Results Test tool.
Conclusion
Rich snippets can get more clicks than the standard links that appear in the SERPs, but it largely depends on the content or your website as to whether it’s actually worth putting in the time and effort to implement it. You don’t need to be good at code to get rich snippets for your website. It does take some work to get going, and even once everything is set up, there’s no guarantee that your snippets will appear, so it needs to be judged on a site-by-site basis. If you have an online store, run events, or publish recipes, you’re more likely to have success with structured data like rich snippets than if you have a website that simply displays your services.
by GRD Creative | Jun 27, 2023 | Advertizing, Business, Gleneden Ridge Design, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Web Site Design, Website design & development
There are many ways to market your products and services digitally online. Your website is of course the cornerstone of your online campaigns, and in this post, we outline some of the more popular ways of using online digital marketing to bring prospects to your website and turn them into clients.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The mother of all online marketing. SEO is the process of building-in search criteria to your website and web pages, so that your site can be properly crawled and indexed by Google, Bing, and all of the other search engines out there, and then displayed in organic search engine results pages (SERPs). This includes not only the SEO Title, SEO Description, and Keywords for each page, but also Alt-text for each image, social media thumbnails and data, and to have good descriptive naming for your images, files, and pages. And it’s vital to make sure that you have really good quality content, which these days is more important than your keywords.
Other things that effect your SEO are back-links (links to your site from other sites), and the quality of the domain, content, and usage, such as how often your site or products are mentioned on other sites and online resources, for instance. Website responsiveness also affects your SEO profile; ideally, your website needs to look as good on a mobile device as it does on a desktop computer. If it doesn’t, then your SEO could suffer.
One other facet is Local SEO. This is where you make sure that when you’re creating web pages, content, and posts, and building in your SEO data, make sure that you include your business location and services areas. That way, your more likely to appear to people searching for your services in those local areas.
Business Profiles
Online business profiles, such as Google Business Profiles and Bing Places, are a ‘must’ when it comes to listing your website online. A business profile like this appears on the right-hand panel of Google and contains all of the info that a potential customer may need when they search for a service or product like yours.
https://www.google.com/intl/en_ca/business/
Pay Per Click Ads
Google Ads and Facebook Ads are two examples of Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising. They are setup within the Facebook or Google interface, and work on a auction system, whereby you set a value for your ad to appear whenever someone searches with the appropriate search terms. To win (to have your add appear at the top of the listings), you need to optimize your ad for a variety of factors, such as ad quality, bid amount, search terms, and business demographic. You are only charged when someone clicks on your ad, hence the ‘Pay Per Click’ name.
Email Marketing
With email marketing, also called database marketing, you create promotional emails and send them out to groups of users. These users can be registered subscribers from your own website, or users from a list that you’ve purchased. Whichever the case, the users need to subscribe explicitly to receive your emails, otherwise it’s considered spamming and is looked upon rather gravely.
Email Marketing software comes in a variety of forms and price points. If you have a WordPress website, you can use a CRM such as GroundHogg to create mailing lists and design and send emails. Otherwise, you can use self-contained system such as HubSpot or a mail service such as MailChimp, which has a variety of packages to suit anyone, and is intuitive and as in-depth as you need it to be.
Blogs
Blogs are everywhere on the internet, talking about any topic that you can think off. They are essentially web pages where you can create and display posts about specific topics, relevant to your website, services, products, or area of interest. The great thing is that you can link them directly to your website, and build SEO data to them, so blogs are really worthwhile when it comes to online marketing.
Social media
Sometimes it seems that a new social media platform appears every week, and it can be difficult to keep up. Our advice is to use the platforms that are relevant to what you do, rather than trying to cover everything. Social media doesn’t impact your SEO to a great degree, but it is great for getting the word around regarding your products and services. You can place informational content, instructional videos, help and advice, images, and testimonials on your timelines. But remember to update your content regularly as social media moves fast and your content can get quickly lost among the plethora of other posts out there.
Below, we outline a few of the most prevalent ones:
Facebook
The archetypal social media platform, almost everyone knows Facebook, even if they don’t use it! Facebook allows you to setup personal profiles, groups, and business pages. You can follow friends and businesses, share media, posts, and other content, and communicate effectively and freely with Facebook Messenger.
https://www.facebook.com/
Twitter
Twitter is a ‘micro-blogging’ network in which you can create short posts and content snippets of up to 140 characters and follow and interact with others.
https://twitter.com
LinkedIn
The social media platform of choice for careers, companies, freelancers, and other business opportunities. Connect with and share info with companies, business people, professionals, and prospects.
https://www.linkedin.com
Instagram
Instagram is a visual social media platform. Consisting almost entirely of images, the platform allows users to share pictures and videos with their followers.
https://www.instagram.com
Tumblr
This platform allows users to create a ‘Tumblelog’ of short blog and media posts for their audience. The platform has a more free-form approach than other social media, and is very customizable.
https://www.tumblr.com/
YouTube
The world’s #1 video platform, YouTube allows users to upload, edit and share videos, create playlists, comment on videos and subscribe to other users’ video channels.
https://www.youtube.com/
TikTok
TikTok users can create and watch millions of personalized short videos on the web or on mobile devices. There’s also a version for business with ready-to-use templates, video editing features, and more.
https://www.tiktok.com/en/
Other Social Media
There are a ton of other social media channels out there, and it would be difficult for us to cover them all, so here are a list of many common ones.
Banner Ads, Interstitials and Popup Ads
Banner Ads
Banner ads – also known as display ads – can go on your own website to highlight products or services, on Facebook pages and other social media, or on industry-specific or magazine websites. Obviously, the latter are chargeable, and pricing can be expensive, so pick-and-choose where you going to place your banner ads with care.
Interstitial Ads
Interstitial ads are those that appear in the transition when you’re browsing from one website page to another on the same site. They tend to be full page, advertise a great deal of detail about your product or service, and are generally placed on industry-specific or magazine websites. Be careful to check pricing structure if you’re interested in this kind of ad placement.
Popup Ads
Popup ads can appear on your own site, or on those of magazine or industry-specific websites, at a premium of course for the latter. They generally contain info that could be useful to the viewer, offers, or downloads for instance, and can be set to appear after a time interval, or when a viewer scrolls a certain percentage of the way down a page, or on entrance to, or exit from, a page on your site.
Backlinks
Backlinks are links to your site from other third-party sites, such as partners, business directories, and blogs.
It’s good practice to build up a relationship with your business partners as you can both benefit from links to and from each others websites, but be careful with business directories; many free ones are not worth a penny, so avoid them as they can also be detrimental to your SEO profile. Always research them thoroughly before committing.
And with blogs, with a bit of research, you can find people with interests in what you do who can write ‘guest blog posts’ for you on your site and on their sites where they can mention your name and link to your online resources. In turn, you do the same for them!
In Conclusion
Whatever way or ways that you consider for your digital marketing, make sure you’re aware of the pricing, time, and effort that goes into putting a marketing campaign together. Many of the above methods are free, and can be linked together for increased coverage, however, they can take up a lot of your time. Putting together a marketing campaign, and maintaining it can be taxing on your resources, but it can also be very effective and bringing visitors to your website, which of course can turn into prospects, who can then turn into clients, so it’s very worthwhile.
Remember though, that we are here to help, and if you need any advice, guidance, or assistance in putting together your ads, marketing campaigns, and maintaining them, please get in touch with Gleneden Ridge Design, based in Salmon Arm, BC, as we’re very happy to help.
by GRD Creative | Jun 1, 2023 | Responsive Design, Web Site Design, Website design & development
Many people who use the internet on a daily basis may have never heard of ‘responsive’ web design, or have never heard about a particular site’s ‘responsiveness’, but what is a responsive website, and how do we make one? If you’re web-savvy, you’ll probably already know, but if not, then read on and we’ll try and shed a little light on the mystery.
Traditional Web Design
In those olden days, websites were often either static websites built with HTML, or database-driven sites created with non-responsive Content Management Systems. This way of building gave the site a fixed (or static) width, meaning that if the site was built to a width of 800 pixels, it would always be 800 pixels, irrespective of the size of screen that it was being viewed on.
As mobile technology began to take hold, this obviously led to problems as websites were bigger than the screens they were being viewed upon, so users had to zoom-in to read text because it was too small, zoom-out to view the whole page, or scroll inconveniently in all directions to search for what they were looking for, which of course rapidly became tiresome and irritating, leading to a loss of views and users.
Alternate Mobile Versions
The fix for this back in the day was to have an alternative version of your website, formatted to the width of the typical mobile device. A user would browse to a website, and a script on the entrance page would detect whether the viewer was using a desktop computer, a mobile phone, or a tablet. The script would then redirect the user onto the appropriate version of the website.
This seems simple enough, but it had issues. Some website elements would not work on the mobile versions of the website because of their static nature, mobile devices had limited support for some website technologies, and of course, you had multiple versions of your website, so whenever you made a change to your main site, you had to make sure that you changed all of the others too, so it could rapidly become a management nightmare.
Responsive Web Design
This is where responsive design comes in. Responsive design came into being as a solution for the alternate mobile version management nightmare. With responsive design, page widths, columns, rows, images, and graphics are set with a percentage width, rather than a pixel width, So if a page width is set to be 95%, then it will always be 95% of the width of the screen that its being viewed upon. Similarly, if that same page has two columns, one set to 33% and the other to 67%, then the left column will always be one third of the page width, and the right will always be two-thirds. And if an image in the right column is set to be a 50% width, then it will always display as 50% of the width of that column. Simple!
Additional controls also make life easier for viewers of responsive sites. If a site has 3 columns when viewed on a desktop computer, it’ll probably have one column when viewed on a smart phone, with the content logically layered below each other; very nice!
Text is a little different. Text was normally set to have its height measured in points, which is traditional in typography, but using points, text could look too small when viewed on a smaller screen. Instead, we use a pixel measurement, which proportions to the size of the screen much better than points or picas!
For those who are interested, here’s an example of some of the code that makes a modern website responsive:
- Xvw measurement: (vw = viewport width – viewport is the browser window width), which is a percentage scale, so 8vw is a text height that is 8% of the browser window width, so it will always stay to scale.
- Cascading Style Sheet media queries: you can use cascading style sheets to detect the screen size and then apply the appropriate CSS styling to the text for that screen size. Here’s an example:
- /* If screen size is 728 px wide or more, set font-size of <p> to 18px */
@media screen and (min-width: 728px) {
p.example {
font-size: 18px;
}
}
/* If screen size is 727px wide or less, set font-size of <p> to 12px */
@media screen and (max-width: 727px) {
p.example {
font-size: 12px;
}
}
That’s a simplistic overview of what responsive design is and how it works. Obviously, there’s a lot more to it, and if you search online you’ll find a vast range of responsive web design resources, and we’ll cover some other aspects of web design in future posts.
For more info on creating a responsive design, contact Gleneden Ridge Design.
by GRD Creative | May 30, 2023 | Advertizing, Best Practices, Business, Content, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Website design & development
SEO is often misunderstood by many people, especially by those less tech-savvy as it can get quite technical. SEO questions range from basic to advanced level, and this article aims to answer some of the most common ones.
1. What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a set of tactics and strategies designed to increase the organic traffic to your website – Google cannot show your content to people looking for your services and products if it doesn’t know about your website. This typically means improving your website’s visibility to search engines (like Google or Bing) by creating content that your customers and prospects are searching for, and building in the technical SEO aspects, such as keywords, SEO descriptions, featured snippets, title tags, and alt-text so that the search engines can actually find, scan, and display your pages and content.
2. Why Is SEO Important?
Your prospects can only find your website and content if you have the correct SEO pieces in place. Social media has limited organic reach as most social media content is not picked up by search engines, and paid ads can become expensive. That’s why Search Engine Optimization is the most cost-effective means of driving traffic to your website. SEO drives traffic that is interested in what you have to offer, and provides your prospects with the information they need to make an informed choice.
3. How Does SEO Work?
Prospects use search engines like Google to answer their questions; the task for these search engines is to find the best answers to each question. Search engines use special code called robots (or bots) that crawl your web pages and indexes all of the written content, categorizing and listing it in their database, then when someone searches for that content, the search engine pulls the relative information from it’s database and lists your website info and links in a Search Engine Results Page (SERP), along with all the other websites it can find that contain similar content.
SEO specialists claim that Google uses over 200 ranking factors to decide whether a particular page is the best answer to your question, and these ranking signals are weighted by machine learning (AI). For any given SERP, the weight of each ranking signal may be different, so fine tuning content and technical SEO is vital to continued SEO profile growth.
4. What Are The Main Categories of SEO?
SEO can be broken down into three categories:
- On-page optimization
- Off-page optimization
- Technical optimization
On-Page SEO refers to changing the content of a web page to provide better searchable information. This includes keyword research, keyword placement within your page and content, and adding/editing HTML tags.
Off-Page SEO refers to optimization that occurs outside of your webpage, for example, the creation of links from external sources to your site. These are called backlinks.
Technical SEO refers to improving technical aspects of a website, such as site speed, crawling, and indexing.
5. Why Are Backlinks So Important?
Webmasters are in control of on-page and technical SEO, but not necessarily backlinks. Good quality backlinks are basically links to pages on your website from reputable external sources. The more quality backlinks you have, the more Google will ‘trust’ you.
Good quality backlinks come from reputable websites such as respected newspapers and organizations. Free listings and such like are categorized as poor quality, so never sign up for these.
As your website gains more quality backlinks, Google trusts it more as a general authority. As sites gain authority, Google becomes more and more likely to give it visibility.
6. Should Backlinks be Purchased?
Its tempting to buy backlinks; this is known as Black Hat SEO. It’s quick and easy, but too many of these can end with your site being demoted as it goes against Google’s guidelines, so don’t take the easy road!
The best way to get backlinks is to write great, informative content of such interest that other websites naturally link to you as their resource.
7. How Long Does It Take For SEO to Start Working?
For a new website, it can take from six months to a year before SEO results in increased organic traffic, mainly because new websites lack quality backlinks.
Established websites with a strong backlink profile can increase their organic traffic much sooner because Google already trusts these websites.
8. Should I Use SEO, Paid Ads (Pay Per Click or PPC), or Both?
It depends on your priorities and available resources & budgets.
SEO has a higher return on investment than paid ads, but take longer to appear.
Paid Advertising is much quicker, but you can often pay dearly for it.
- If you need quick sales, use paid ads.
- If you can wait for a few months, use SEO.
- If you have the resources, time, and budget, you can combine SEO and paid ads to build a strong profile in both categories.
9. What’s The Difference Between SEO and Inbound Marketing?
Your prospects encounter your website as organic, paid, social, referral, or direct traffic. SEO is only responsible for increasing organic traffic. SEO stops once traffic hits your site.
Inbound marketing integrates SEO with paid, social media, referral, and direct traffic. Inbound Marketing continues after a prospect hits your site to try and nurture them into becoming a client.
Contact Gleneden Ridge Design for more information on SEO and digital marketing.
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