by Mark Bloom | Jul 17, 2013 | Website Content
Every Size Business Needs a Website, Period
Most savvy business owners today get a website before they even open their doors for business. While some actually need the site to run their companies, others do it just because everyone else is doing it. Is that a good enough reason to dump time and resources into something you’re not even sure you need?
If you’re a business owner, especially if you’re a small business owner, you know you have limited resources. Not just money, but time and energy, too. Building, maintaining and marketing a website, like any other business strategy, can use up those valuable, and limited, resources. Therefore, you should carefully consider your options and your needs before you rush to hire a web designer.
Go through the same process you would for any other business expense. Ask yourself why you need it, who you’re trying to reach and how it’s going to help you build your business. Know what you’re getting into before you invest. Below are our top four reasons to get a site of your own … as well as a few tips on when and how to use it.
1. Contact
Hardly anyone uses the yellow pages anymore. Is it worth the money to get your little square published alongside all your competitors? You’ll likely get a much better response with a good search engine hit. Even when people know your company name and just want to find your phone number, they’re more likely to search online through their home computers or smart phones than to pick up the yellow pages.
Make it easy for people — your prospective customers — to find you. Put your phone number, email address and physical address on your home page. Put this contact information in a conspicuous spot. In this era of instant gratification, visitors will click off your site in a heartbeat if they can’t find what they’re looking for. See our previous blog posts for other tips on how to optimize your website to attract visitors.
2. About You
Before future clients call you, however, they may want to find out a little bit about you and your company. Especially if your business requires a substantial investment, they will browse your site to see if you’re the right company to hire. For shoppers who do their research, provide clear, concise copy that highlights your goods and services. What do people need to know about your business to make the decision to hire you?
Furthermore, if your business is a brick-and-mortar destination, such as a restaurant or retail store, add a map or simple directions beside your address. Make this information easy to find. Make sure your hours of operation are listed on your home page too, because that’s one of the most common things customers look for online.
3. Unique Information
Another good strategy for attracting potential customers is to provide information that’s not available anywhere else. That’s the value of a well crafted blog, newsletter or set of articles on your site. When people search for a related topic, they’ll see a link to your web page, and they are now one click away from your website.
How does this work? Here’s an example. According to the Pew Research Center, a think tank that tackles all kinds of interesting issues, 80 percent of all Internet users have used the web to look up health information. That’s 93 million Americans. If you can write about a health-related topic that ties into your own business, you can tap into that market. If you own a shoe store, for example, provide information about hammer toes and flat feet. Write about how your food is gluten-free or low-fat.
4. Entertainment
Don’t underestimate the power of engaging entertainment. Most Internet users go online to be entertained. Satisfy them by providing some gossip about your area or your industry. Add videos and links to YouTube that relate to your business. Add top ten lists, a la David Letterman, and share funny quotes.
Give your readers reasons to keep coming back to your website. Marketing is about keeping your name in front of their eyes on a regular basis. Make your site so inviting that visitors will bookmark it and send links to their friends. “Hey, did you hear about the joke that Auntie May’s Cookies put up on her site today?”
If you can accomplish these four things on your website, you’ll have a successful site … and likely, a successful business. To learn more strategies for improving your website, contact us today.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Elle Ray | Jul 12, 2013 | Website Content
Ray Access’ Secret Service: Website Content
When we say that we’re “content providers,” most people — even some technical people — give us the deer-in-the-headlights look. We’re never upset or surprised. Providing content is a reasonably new field, and we’re always eager to explain what it is we actually do.
Fewer people hear “content providers” and immediately make the association that we write blog posts. They understand that businessmen and women usually don’t write their own blog posts, even if they do come up with the topic.
Providing Content Means More
But as content providers, we’re proud of all the services we perform. One of the most popular at the moment, in a trend that even took us by surprise, is writing — or more frequently, rewriting — website content.
The words on your website have a lot of work to do. They have to positively influence search engines to help deliver a high page rank for the keywords that are important to your business. Website content also has to attract the attention of those real people who find your site, either accidentally or on purpose. Perhaps most importantly, they have to tell your story.
Put Website Content to Work
If you find your website slipping in page rank, all the signs indicate that updating your content should be a first step. It’s certainly less expensive and longer-lasting than an all-out pay-per-click marketing blitz. Remember, the best traffic to your site is organic — that is, the people who find you through a search or a referral, not through an ad.
Revising your website content, checking for the keywords you need, even redesigning the site are all ways to freshen up a stale site and reinvigorate your online presence. Every time you change or add content to your website, whether through a rewrite or a blog, you force the search engines to re-index your site. And that’s usually a good thing.
Gradual Change for Best Results
So think about what you want from your website in the next year. Then start putting the pieces together to make it happen. You don’t need to complete this project overnight. In fact, it may be best to approach it piecemeal, making small changes over time, keeping those search engines busy.
When you’re ready to start work on improving your website content, consider turning to the pros. That would be us, here at Ray Access. Contact us for a free estimate for your site. Join the many other satisfied clients who have seen positive change just by updating the text on their website pages. It works!
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Elle Ray | Mar 29, 2013 | Website Content
Spend Your Work Time Running Your Business
When you’re in the groove, doing what you do best, you feel energized. Everything seems to fall into place, and time passes so quickly that you barely notice. It’s why you got into business for yourself — to follow your passion, to turn your avocation into your vocation, and to follow your bliss.
Unfortunately, owning a business requires entrepreneurs to engage in all sorts of activities that have nothing to do with the core of the business. You have to market your products and services to let customers know you exist. You need to do the books, pay the bills, write your blog, send out press releases, find suitable employees, and manage your time.
A Smart Solution
So if you’re smart, you turn to outside contractors. Using a third party to do those things that you aren’t very good at anyway can be a wise investment. Hiring local professionals to use their expertise to solve your challenges also supports the local economy. It’s not only big corporations that create a trickle-down effect to the local economy; entrepreneurs like you also drive those economics.
According to the Small Business Administration, hiring an outside contractor can save you money in the long run, too. The projects that you don’t want to do actually take you longer to accomplish, and you could be much more productive in those hours, doing what you do best. Because you only pay outside contractors for the work they perform for you, you have no payroll or tax issues to worry about.
Added Benefits
In addition, the project is more likely to be successful because you’ve hired an expert to do it. We were so pleased this year to find a local accounting firm where we could just deliver our pile of receipts and return a few weeks later to sign the tax returns. We’ve all done taxes ourselves in the past, and while we did a good enough job, we learned that the time involved wasn’t worth it. In the hours it took to figure out all the codes on the various self-employment forms, we could earned twice as much money as it cost to hire the accountant.
At Ray Access, we’re writers. Our passion is writing and editing. It’s what we often do when we’re not even working. Our heads spin with ideas on topics to write about and angles to take them in. As writing professionals, we can save you time and money by writing your web content and your weekly blogs. Jot down all your notes, and we’ll put together a marketing strategy or business pitch you can present to your clients in readable plain language. It’s all part of what we do.
Since your time is money, spend it doing what you do best. Hire us to do what we do best. You follow your passion, and we follow ours. Everyone wins.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Mark Bloom | Feb 7, 2013 | Website Content
Your Website Content Will Reign During 2013
Most of you know that we’ve repeated our belief that content is king to our friends, our business associates, and of course, our clients. In fact, we’ll tell anyone, including you.
The best way to gain exposure on the Internet is to provide good, informative content on your website, delivered consistently over time. Good quality content is the absolute best way to reach your marketing goals and to establish your company as an authority in your field.
You may think we say this because we’re Ray Access and we’re in the business of providing content, but you’d be wrong. We say it because it’s true, and we’re not the only ones to assert it. We follow the trends of the online marketing industry, and we’ve found marketing experts, trendsetters, and bloggers who agree with us.
While we’re not privy to whatever Google or Bing has in store for the future of search engines, we believe sincerely that good writing and useful information will win in the end.
Keywords will always have value and backlinks work for now, but search engines keep refining their criteria. It always comes back to quality content, delivered consistently. Now others are confirming what we already knew. eMarketer.com recently wrote that content is the number 1 marketing priority for 2013, overtaking the focus on social media.
Getting on social media has been an industry mantra for the past several years, but eMarketer.com stated that “companies understand social media’s potential value in engaging customers and generating leads, but are having trouble developing effective methods of measuring return on investment.”
In other words, an actual visit to your website has value; a “like” really doesn’t. And even when you do develop a healthy social media presence, what are you going to give your followers? You’ve got to give them reasons — new reasons every day — to keep coming back for a visit. It’s your content that not only lures them in the first place, but keeps them coming back until you become a household word.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Mark Bloom | Nov 6, 2012 | Website Content
What Is a Content Strategy for Your Website?
Having a content strategy simply means planning for the creation, delivery, and maintenance of fresh online content. It’s a process that defines the what, why, how, and when for developing the content you use to market your business. Your content strategy must be a repeatable system that allows you to most effectively take advantage of your website and your presence within the Internet.
Simply put, a content strategy is an plan for communicating with your online audience. While your content strategy usually begins with your website, it certainly shouldn’t end there. To be at all effective, you must embrace all digital methods of communication.
Why Do You Need a Content Strategy?
A content strategy allows you to plan ahead to develop and produce fresh content over time for your online audience. This content, delivered consistently, provides specific and measurable benefits:
- Search Engine Optimization: What many SEO experts may not tell you is that Google rates new, relevant website content very high in its super-secret algorithm for ranking. Every time you post new content, search engines find it and index it, which gradually increases your ranking.
- Customer Engagement: Fresh content is but one of the many ways online visitors find your website. Continuing to post articles of interest engages your audience, keeping them on your website longer. Studies document that the longer visitors stay on your website, the more likely they will contact you, sign up for more information, or buy your product or service. And the goal of any business website is to turn eyeballs into dollar bills.
- Website Visibility: A content strategy allows you to employ every means at your disposal for a single purpose. For example, if you post a blog about a specific topic, you can promote it through your social media accounts. Ultimately, every marketing campaign needs to be coordinated to point your audience to one place and/or encourage them to do a single thing (like go to your website). Thinking out your content goals in advance allows you to spend less time on each campaign while increasing the effectiveness of each.
- Business Authority: With each new piece of content you publish (assuming it is professional, useful, and on topic), your company gains credibility and respect. When you write to inform, and not just to sell, you become an authority in your field, which increases the effectiveness of each of the other three points.
What Does a Content Strategy Cover?
Your content strategy should cover everything digital. What do we mean by “everything digital?” Here is a far-from-thorough list of outlets and methods in which you can digitally communicate with your audience (which includes your customers, prospects, vendors, and even fans):
- Web page content
- Blog posts on your website
- Press releases
- Email newsletters
- Social media outlets, including:
- Facebook
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Google+
- Note: In this blog post, we focus on content strategy for your website; however, to learn more about the opportunities and challenges presented by social media, download our helpful Social Media DIY document on navigating social media.
Now, focusing on one outlet at a time, determine the following for each:
- Who is your specific audience for the outlet (e.g., existing customers or leads)?
- What are your goals within the outlet (e.g., finding or serving customers)?
- What kind of content should you create or update for each outlet (e.g., white papers or 144-character blurbs)?
- How often should you attend or post on that outlet (e.g., monthly or hourly)?
- Who will be responsible for creating the content (e.g., your marketing department or a hired gun)?
- What is the approval process for posting the content (e.g., editorial review or just initials at the bottom)?
- What action do you want readers to take at the end of each post (e.g., visit your website or buy your product/service)?
- How can you measure success (e.g., increased sales or website visits)?
While some of the different outlets seem very similar, make sure you carefully examine each to find the subtle differences. For instance, many novices link their Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages so they only have to post once to multiple outlets. Unfortunately, this is a fairly easy thing to accomplish, even for a novice.
What you may not understand, however, is that these three different outlets cater to three different audiences, and these audiences have three different reasons for participating in each community. Think of how you personally (not professionally) use Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. See the difference? If you don’t provide distinct audiences with the right information in the right way at the right time, you may miss your target market… or worse, alienate the very people you were trying to connect with.
Summing Up
Much like a brand document, once clearly defined, your content strategy becomes a resource that you can and should refer back to regularly. Update it when necessary to ensure that it stays aligned to your goals. If you spend the time, energy, and yes, money to correctly work through this process, you should expect to see a fairly quick increase in website ranking, traffic, and engagement.
You build your community of customers and fans one missive at a time. Make sure they are all on target.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
