Your Website as a Marketing Machine

by Mark Bloom | Sep 5, 2013 | Content Marketing

How Your Business Website Can Generate Cash

An earlier article by a content marketing firm revealed that the fastest growing companies get at least 40 percent of their leads from online marketing. That’s impressive enough, but the tactics of online marketing are so common sense these days that it’s a wonder everyone isn’t doing it.

Your Website Can Work for You

Your website should generate phone calls

The most obvious online marketing strategy is using your website to attract potential customers and to reach out into the Internet to actively find potential customers. How can this work? Here’s a football analogy:

If a team has the fastest wide receiver in the game, that’s a tactical advantage. If the quarterback never throws to that receiver, however, the team has lost any tactical advantage and might be better off without that super fast receiver, who probably cost them a lot of money.

Your business website is just like that super fast receiver. You can have the slickest site in the world, but if you don’t use it properly to gain a tactical advantage, you might as well post a single page with your phone number on it. That site probably cost you a lot of money that you are now wasting.

To get the benefit of any website, whether it’s a super fast receiver or a third-and-long specialist, you need to make it active. An active site attracts the very people who are looking for your business. Those people are potential customers. It’s that simple.

How do you make a site active? Again, the simple answer is to keep it fresh. An active blog adds content to your website weekly. Adding information and changing content on other pages — even your About Us page — keeps the search engines busy re-indexing your site while moving your site up the page rankings.

Don’t Forget the Other Obvious Strategy

The other obvious online marketing strategy is SEO. SEO, in case you’ve been under a rock since 1999, stands for Search Engine Optimization. This strategy involves making each page of your website a clear destination for a specific question. Everything from the copy to the photos to the title should all say the same thing: what the page is about.

Keywords play a large role in SEO, but too many can backfire. Keyword placement on the page is important, but again, consistency is the real key. A content provider (gee, like us) can rewrite your website content to be SEO-friendly as well as human-friendly. It’s a win-win.

Hence Our Motto

We truly believe these strategies can increase traffic to your website without breaking your budget. It led us to our motto, which is: “If you’re ignoring your website, it’s likely ignoring you.” We mean it, too. Keep your site active and updated, and your company will benefit. Remember, according to CopyPress.com, the fastest growing companies get 40 percent of their leads online. What’s your percentage?

So when you want to use your website to grow your business, we can help.

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.

Words Matter

by Elle Ray | Aug 28, 2013 | Editing

Make Your Words Count with Correct Grammar

When all you have is a funny video and a few lines of text in a Facebook post, those words better be correct. When you’re looking at a 140-character tweet, one misplaced modifier could ruin your message.

Grammar is not dead. In fact, the need to know and use proper grammar is more important than ever because you have less time and fewer opportunities to do it right. Marketers abbreviate words because they believe that the attention span of consumers has been reduced to that of a gnat. So the words you use — and how you use them — are vitally important. Take this simple example:

Let’s eat grandma.
Let’s eat, grandma.

Do you want to send out your latest ad to bring in customers to eat grandma? I think not. Then there’s the popular example: “A woman without her man is nothing.” Punctuation and grammar make all the difference when you write:

A woman, without her man, is nothing.
A woman, without her, man is nothing.

Grammar Lessons Pay Off

Photo by Valentina Degiorgis

We love the thousands of examples out there that cross our desks every day. We collect them. Here’s one of our favorites: “The average American consumes more than 400 Africans.” Apparently, we are a very hungry nation.

Improper grammar also makes you look incompetent. iFixit owner Kyle Wiens says: “Grammar signifies more than just a person’s ability to remember high school English. I’ve found that people who make fewer mistakes on a grammar test also make fewer mistakes when they are doing something completely unrelated to writing — like stocking shelves or labeling parts.” And he won’t hire anyone with bad grammar.

If you can’t remember your high school English lessons, please let someone else read your words before you publish them, especially if you are paying for the privilege. Websites, Facebook updates, LinkedIn pages, Twitter feeds and all your print advertising must be correct if you are to be taken seriously.

Put simply: proper spelling, punctuation and grammar increase your credibility. Bad writing doesn’t.

So regardless whether you know the difference between “it’s” and “its,” or you are just too busy to care, give Ray Access a chance to proof your words before you post. We’re not merely writers — we edit and proofread too.

Writing vs. Good Writing

by Elle Ray | Jul 26, 2013 | Writing

The Problem with Creating Effective Writing

Anyone with a fourth-grade education thinks he can be a writer.

Writers aren’t like athletes, who have visible physical attributes that define their profession. We’re not like scientists who have a wall full of diplomas. We look like ordinary people, so it’s easy for an untrained and unproven writer to blend in.

If any literate person with a pencil and a notepad can sit down and write something, then what’s the value of a professional? It’s not our spelling or grammar. It’s our skill at rhetorical writing. It’s our imaginative use of words. It’s our ability to get to the heart of a message and verbalize it. It’s our uncanny knack for saying the right thing at the right time.

Do you want good writing or better writing?

What Good Writing Does

Good writing, therefore, isn’t just spell-checked writing. Good writing serves a purpose. It answers questions, makes the complex understandable, and fills a need.

For example, let’s say you have a website to sell cars. If your home page shows photos of the cars you sell and lists the technical specifications, it has some value. You know potential customers can come to your site, do their research, and decide if one of your cars is right for them.

But if your home page instead highlighted the cars’ best features and told stories about what makes your cars so great, you may get those potential customers to invest time and emotion into your products. You may be able to persuade those website visitors that not only are your cars great, but your company or dealership is the best place to buy them.

Why Good Writing Matters

We’re advocates of good writing not just because we’re writers. We want to see the world a better place, and good writing — good communication — helps move it in that direction. The art of writing is the art of storytelling. The art of rhetorical writing is the art of shaping a story to a target audience.

the trait of good writing You have a story to tell. You have a product or service to sell. The two merge in the message. Your website, your blog and your communications should all reflect your core story in understandable ways. Your business writing should reach out and attract, entice and tantalize. Good writing can accomplish this.

Not Tricks, But Techniques

Good writing can combine business and pleasure. In other words, if you’re blogging about your catering business, you can write about the new royal boy named George and tie it into your business, whether through a special, a new item, or just a pondering about what the parents eat. It’s a technique that can potentially find a wider audience than people looking for caterers. And it works.

Another technique is to explore your business. There is more to catering, for example, than meets the eye, especially if the eye belongs to your customers. They don’t know what goes into making those delicious cakes and pies show up on time and piping hot. That’s what your blog can do; that’s what a blog is for: educating your customers. And if you can entertain them along the way, you’ll make friends and loyal fans.

This is what we do at Ray Access: we help you make fans. We help you reach out to potential customers with good writing techniques and stories that explain your advantage and uniqueness. Anyone can pick up a pencil, but not everyone can manage good writing. That’s why there are pros like us.

4 Reasons to Get a Website

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.

get expert advice about your website

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

website ideas 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.

We Do Website Content!

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.

Ray Access is hard at work

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!

SEO Tips from the Front Lines

by Mark Bloom | Jun 28, 2013 | Content Marketing

Ray Access and Search Engine Optimization

First, let us state that we are not in the SEO business. Our core business, however — writing blog posts, press releases, and especially website copy — can directly effect a website’s page rank. The problem for many online marketing professionals, SEO firms included, is that Google continues to tweak its algorithms for what it values … and what it punishes.

Past SEO Practices

It used to be that you could load up on backlinks — essentially, links back to your site from other sites, reputable or not — and enjoy a high page rank. No more. So here are some SEO tips. As CopyPress.com recommends, “create a compelling site (i.e., engaging content)” and “use social platforms to increase [your] visibility organically.”

At Ray Access, we see the new paradigm as a positive development. What is SEO after all except the process of positioning truly useful websites at the top of applicable search results? Google wants you to use its search engine, and so it works hard (too hard, say some) to deliver useful results every time.

Creating a Compelling Site

Again, advice from CopyPress.com, so you know it’s not just us making things up:

With so much content created everyday online, it’s not enough for a company to mass-produce dull copy and then push it heavily on every social site with a heavy paid social campaign. If you’re satisfied with a quick spike in your social traffic that will disappear as soon as your budget does, then by all means you should continue.”

Indeed, as we’ve been saying since Day 1, quality content will eventually win the SEO wars. Quality content attracts both search engines and potential customers. Quality content — without tricks or hidden costs — increases your website’s page rank organically.

Increasing Your Visibility

How does quality content do all that? People online often want answers. If you can deliver those answers in your particular field, people will find you, learn to trust you, and share your content. Yes, Virginia, quality content has “shareability,” and it’s a trait every business wants.

“Shareability” means that your content can go viral. It increases your reach on social media outlets as well as in search engine results. “Shareability,” in other words, increases your website’s visibility. And it all starts with quality content.

To learn more about how your company can benefit from the kind of quality content that we develop at Ray Access, contact us. We’re always happy to discuss our passion: clear communication.

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.