Whether you choose to refer to it as content marketing, Internet marketing or Web-based advertising, they all form a part of your online outreach. Modern marketers understand the advantages of utilizing websites and social media to boost and enhance customer interaction, generate sales and guarantee satisfaction. The primary goal of effective online marketing is to promote your business but the end goal is to make your business relevant to your target market.

“Have you launched online campaigns or websites and become frustrated with the process or the results?”

“Are you now contemplating outsourcing your online portfolio to a marketing agency?”

Valid questions when it comes to marketing and building your online presence. Before diving in head first and testing the limits of your patience or know how, there are a number of factors to consider and understand before making any investment. To help you, we thought we’d share a few of the top reasons companies outsource their creative needs to an Online Marketing Agency, with the end goal of building a trustworthy brand and reaching those top pages in the search engine results.

1. Brand Marketing Control

Websites, social media pages, blogs and other online assets are owned and maintained by you or your online marketing agency, because of this you’re far better positioned to leverage the benefits of your products and services than ever before. The “press releases” and content that you publish are usually in a news format and pushed through social media platforms, in addition, you’re able to post multiple news or blog items, updates, discounts, and major announcements through your social media network. This allows you to build your brand efficiently and drive it to your target market whilst essentially retaining creative control over your message and delivered content.

2. Customer Interaction

Engaging with your customers is important for any company whether it be in the “brick and mortar” stores or conducting business online. With social media, you’re able to communicate and share with your clients, gain insight into their thoughts and opinions on your products, pricing, services and updates. It is far more efficient for a customer to comment on Facebook or send a Tweet than it is to fill in a survey form.

3. Analyzing the Competition

Why is competitor analysis so important? Well if you have a website and you are lucky enough to be in the top 50 search engine results, then every website above you is doing something better. If you want or need to be on page one, then one option to is buy Pay Per Click, or better still split the budget between Organic SEO and PPC, the Organic SEO will have far longer lasting results, but also needs to be kept up in order to maintain the competitive advantage. The trick, of course, is to undertake SEO campaigns that outdo your competition and work in favor of your brand and online recognition.

4. Return on Investment

The return on investment for your SEO, online content and social media marketing campaigns can be exceptionally favorable. For a few hundred dollars a month (standard with most online marketing agencies), you can reach thousands of customers on social media, whilst retaining control when it comes to your message an Online Marketing Agency manages and develops the content and visuals to best deliver it to your target market. Social Media allows you to talk with industry leaders through blogs and LinkedIn and build a stronger online market base through the multiple channels that exist. Better yet, Online Marketing can be monitored with several tools that are available, this allows you to see just how effective each of your multi channel online assets are performing.

5. Social Media Opportunities

Most businesses use a combination of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, blogging, websites, and press outlets to market on the Internet. These online assets give an in-house or outsourced marketing team much more to work with than traditional billboard and print advertising.

6. Accurate Demographic Targeting is possible

You want your message to get to the right people, so ensuring that your website and online content is current and relevant to your audience makes them essential to the success of your long term SEO and online marketing campaign. With a strong emphasis on online marketing, we are able to target specific customers searching for your business or product type. With Facebook, for example, you can promote your page to certain genders, ages, cities and interests. This is another reason content marketing has such a high ROI for small business. Collaborating with local businesses on events or over social media is also critical to the success of your brand awareness.

7. Online Branding

Branding, both on and off line, where possible is of course Key to success. Businesses that initiate online campaigns are capable of positioning their brands and brand recognition higher up in the search engine results, thereby appearing more professional and trustworthy to customers, and reach out to new markets while building a better and stronger brand.

The post Why Use An Online Marketing Agency? first appeared on Howzit Media Marketing.

Collaborating with local businesses and building a strong working relationship is an important part of B2B Marketing. Interacting and engaging with your community, gives them a reason to want to communicate and work with you.

B2B Marketing (Business to Business) has changed and evolved into communicating and collaborating online. An online presence can change your prospects and audience. Customers today rely on the internet to research brands, build relationships and find facts. It is important that any small business takes advantage of this not only for sales turnover but to build a relationship with like minded business owners in their area.

Who are you talking to and what do you want to say?

If you’re a small business looking to work with or sell to other businesses it is essential that you have a marketing plan to deliver your message and make sure your audience is listening.

Your Content

What is the story of your brand or product? Nobody likes a boring story so it is important that your content delivers your message in a dynamic way, making it relevant to your audience. The goal of relevant content is to educate and in turn sell your product or brand, the customer should be drawn in not only by your message but in the way you deliver it. Good content not only consists of useful information but visuals and media that work to promote your company, make sure that your story is heard and shared.

Your Website

Your online presence needs a home, your internet store front so to speak. Your website is a vehicle to convey a message and tell an audience your story, explaining your business goals to prospective clients and partners. It is an important part of building trust and delivering information to your consumer. First impressions do last and it is important that when people search for you online that they are engaged and connected to your brand. The online consumer has a very short attention span when it comes to sub par websites and those that have no relevance to them or their business.

Who is your audience?

This is one of the most important questions when developing a marketing plan. You don’t want your brand to get lost in the crowd, instead the goal is to target your specific market. It is key to listen to your customers as well as your competitors, following trends in your industry and taking notice of how people are being influenced and who is influencing them. When marketing to other businesses for sales or collaboration it is obvious to target those that you can build a working relationship with and will benefit from your product or services.

Express Your Ideas Socially

Social Media is no longer just people chatting on Facebook and Twitter or posting their home made video’s on YouTube. It has become a tool for your business to connect with the consumer and audience, express your ideas, promote your brand and increase your online presence. Social Media is where your content should be even more dynamic and more relevant. Successful B2B Marketing embraces social media as a tool to collaborate and build business relationships, communicating and working together to drive sales, create leads, entice new customers and develop long term clients. People like to share useful information and will do so if your content is relatable and can benefit them or their business.

Commit and Engage

You may have an online presence and be socially active but if people search for you, find you and then leave thinking that’s all you have to offer, all the hard work is for nothing. It is important to engage with the audience and stay in touch, give them options of email or newsletter subscriptions where you can offer them rich and relevant content on a constant basis. Your social media links should be prominent giving them the option of following, liking and more importantly sharing your content. Committing to your audience or B2B relationship is about delivering a better and beneficial customer experience, developing trust in your product or brand and funneling that into referrals, sales and long term clients.

The digital economy is very competitive, but successful and unique B2B Online Marketing can even the odds and benefit your business in more ways than one. It is important that your online marketing plan is driven by creativity and relevant content that builds trust in the reader and consumer. A good brand our message is found, followed, shared and liked.

The post B2B Online Marketing Essentials first appeared on Howzit Media Marketing.

Use Howzit Media Marketing as your next Marketing company!
This is quite a bold statement you may say, but with our years of experience, the confidence in our creative team and the rate at which we can get you high up on Google search results, it is well worth considering us, and having an in depth chat about how we can assist you in marketing to the the greater Fort Lauderdale area and beyond.

Your Website and the value of SEO Consulting

The challenge for so many business’s today is having an online presence, it has become a vital part of practicing business in the 21st century. Some businesses are big, some small, but they are all competing with one another to get to that all elusive page one Google ranking.

You may well ask, well I have a website and it has been up for years, why are there no visitors? Why can no one find my website? The simple answer is that every single website that is above you in the rankings, is doing something you aren’t, or has something you don’t! This is where Howzit Media Marketing come in, whether it is on line or off line marketing, We are here to help.

There are so many different reasons why your website has, or could have the position that it does, it could be technical i.e. A problem with the site structure or the back links – not enough or a lack there-of. There could be insufficient content on your site, or it could be poor quality. Now don’t get offended when we say “poor quality” because to a viewer or prospective customer “poor quality” has no value to them, it does not peak their interest enough to take notice. We believe in delivering relevant content, creative visuals and functional SEO that captures the reader and their attention, bringing them back for more. This is key in the success of your website, a constant customer or viewer base with return traffic. In SEO consulting we believe it is important to explain to each of our clients the key aspects that drive the success of their website. We do the work and build a solid structure but we like our clients to know how the house is built.

We get results and we tell you how!

The Howzit Media Marketing team has many years of working with clients around the world and building successful brands. Having extended our reach into South Florida, specifically Fort Lauderdale, we are ideally suited to give you world class service and results you want and need. Your brand is as important to us as it is to you, you may have heard that before, but we believe it and it shows in our clients results. Almost all of our clients who have SEO contracts with us, are ranking in one term or another on page one of Google and other search engines. There is a science and proven method behind what we do, and we explain this to you, how we go about improving your rankings to get you the best position possible and drive the traffic to your site.

Sticking to the budget

Our creative team are not there to bog you down with technical jargon, or confuse you with details that you have no time for. We use non technical language that will help you better understand how your business will benefit from our services. Our fee structure is clearly outlined and will enable you to choose what services you feel you can afford and at what rate you wish to progress. There is a reason we don’t publish our fees online, each clients needs are different and we work with your budget to produce the greatest results.

Give us a call today and lets get your business moving up the search engine rankings.

CALL US

The post Ft. Lauderdale Marketing Agency and SEO Consulting – Working Together first appeared on Howzit Media Marketing.

In our last article we had a look at GAP Analysis, what it meant and and how we implement it for our clients, We touched on the process of collating sufficient data to see how much work lay ahead in getting a clients website to the illustrious and oh so illusive page one of Google.

Now we will take a look at the “CRO” or “Conversion Rate Optimization” for your Fort Lauderdale business website, what it means and how to configure it for the best results, we will not be covering all aspects of it, but just enough to provide some information to our readers and clients. We will mention one or two tools that we use in today’s best practices.

Conversion Rate Optimization relates to the optimization of the various landing pages on the sites to ensure that the maximum conversion of inbound leads is achieved. This is a practice which we consider to be very important when looking at any SEO review of a clients website.

This is best explained with means of an example. On your current website your stats are as follows, for every 10000 visitors you have, you have 800 enquiries of which you convert 200. This is your baseline.

If we test different landing pages using the current best practice techniques, for example, we split the email lead generation, email or social media campaign to two or more landing pages, we then monitor the results using analytics. Any page that breaks the baseline becomes the new landing page etc.

Now there are techniques and products to assist with this, products like Crazy Egg which show where your visitor is looking and tracking his movements, thus allowing you to optimize your page with current images, content and forms to absolutely maximize page revenue.

If the visits to your site were the same and your enquiries up at 2800, then converted to 1200 in leads due to the better “CRO”, your ratio is up 33%, and that adds quite a bit to the bottom line. In layman’s terms it is quite possible to double your turnover in a day by optimizing certain webpages.

We don’t need to tell you that these techniques are viable options to look at when investigating CRO as part of an SEO package.

For more information about CRO and optimizing your website contact us at Howzit Media Marketing.

The post Marketing to Fort Lauderdale – CRO first appeared on Howzit Media Marketing.

We have been asked by many of our local Fort Lauderdale clients what it takes to develop an Online Marketing Campaign that is geared towards increasing a company’s web presence in our area. They want to know how they can reach a top ranking on search engines and get their business noticed by a local and national audience.

Checking out the competition

We sometimes have to start at a point where the company may have a website, but their search engine ranking is non existent, not noticed or just cannot be found. A lot of companies at this point are frustrated and going nowhere. They type in the keywords related to or describing their business, but all they see are competitors. This is when we begin to get their SEO house in order and create relevant content to drive up their ranking. Before we get down to the nitty gritty comes the research and it involves “checking out” the competition.

We take the first 10 websites listed for the multiple keywords and phrases that our client would like to rank under and perform a “Gap Analysis.” You’re probably asking what on earth is a “Gap Analysis.” Well as SEO Consultants, how we would explain it to a client is… “It is starting at the place (ranking) you are now, analyzing how far we have to go and what we have to do, to get you to the place you want to be (page one).” We aim for the best! For most companies the best is Google Page #1 and Rank position #1. As SEO Consultants we are able to supply our clients with this information and advise them after extensive research on their competitors and the local target market.

Comparing Content

Now whilst there are some things that cannot be overcome i.e. the age of a domain, there is a lot that can be done. Using a spidering tool such as screaming frog, we analyze the website for content, some examples: The number of articles or pages that exist on the site, images, links, tags and meta tags, we then check the website for compliance with web standards.

Using other web tools which investigate the number of backlinks and the “domain authority“, we create a comparative chart between you and your competition in Fort Lauderdale or your local area. You will probably see a whole lot of sites that you do recognize and some that you do not recognize, these are your competitors all looking for business and top ranking in Fort Lauderdale. After all the information has been compiled, there will be a number of websites that rank for multiple keywords and phrases, there is a 99% probability that those websites are under an ongoing SEO and content contract.

We take all this information and look at what the results tell us, the easy part is comparing the data. The likelihood is that the website is lacking in a number of areas, this gives us an indication of how much work, content, time and money will be required to get a favorable ranking and noticed by the target audience.

If this is not the case and the website volume and quality of content is up there, including backlinks, we advise building a new website on a better platform. This may sound extreme, however the reality is this, that by transferring the site and content over to a platform that is web standard compliant, it will make a world difference to the current and ongoing ranking in the search engine results or serps. This effectively presents the content in a way that is far more visible to the search engines.

Let’s chat first about the SEO

Before doing anything drastic, we consult with our clients and offer them the facts based on the information that is available to us. We approach these hurdles more as SEO Consultants rather than Web Developers, you may ask why? We don’t look at your website in the same way as a developer would. We take into context the visual and relevant content that puts you apart from your competition. The structure of your site is built to promote your brand and achieve the rankings you need to increase sales and traffic.

If you find yourself not knowing how to increase your search engine ranking, or feel like you are losing out on potential sales, please call us at Howzit Media Marketing. We are a full shop creative marketing agency with years of experience in resolving situations exactly like this in Fort Lauderdale and Nation wide. We can walk you step by step through the options and the costs involved, also offer a social media campaign solution to give your company the boost it needs to get to where it should be.

In the next article on Marketing to Fort Lauderdale we will investigate “CRO” or “Conversion Rate Optimization”, what it is and how it impacts your website.

The post Marketing to Fort Lauderdale – Website GAP Analysis first appeared on Howzit Media Marketing.

The SEO Marketing Challenge

Howzit Media started out as a creative advertising and branding agency focusing on specific services and a market based in Fort Lauderdale. Over time we have adapted and evolved our business model to suit a wider market, one that requires innovative, creative and unique tools to capture a diverse audience. Even with a foothold in the creative industry it was still a struggle to get the leads and enquiries that we knew page one would bring us. We had to adapt, and gain the knowledge and expertise in the best practice techniques of SEO, learning how they benefit a campaign in todays economy and online based consumer markets.

The SEO Marketing Solution

The solution was embracing our need to adapt in order to give our clients the best all round service possible, especially for their online marketing needs. We decided to build up and equip our “tool shed” as we like to call it, with tools like SEO Consulting and Implementation. We needed to offer our clients said tools in addition to our creative services when it came to marketing their brand. Being firm believers in the philosophy “If you don’t know, embrace the knowledge of someone who does know” we went in search of a partner, specifically one that could help us and our clients attain the search engine presence that is required when marketing a brand to the online consumer.

The Results Of Great SEO And Marketing

We found our match when we partnered with a Specialist SEO Consulting Company (Organic and White Hat SEO only) you could call it creative marketing kizmit! The results have been amazing for us and our clients. From striving to get a high result on our name alone, we are now sitting on page one for Broward County and Ft Lauderdale with over 19 Google page one results, these are for relevant terms like “Branding Agency Broward County“, Organic SEO Consultants for Broward” or even “Organic SEO Consultants Ft Lauderdale“. We are moving quickly through the ranks for terms like “Marketing Agency Ft Lauderdale” and have another 20 terms bubbling just under page one. Many more have broken through into the top 50 and top 100 positions, all in just 7 weeks! It has been a lot of hard work, but very rewarding. We are now in a position to say with confidence to each client, “If we can do it for ourselves, we can do it for you.”

SEO Consulting and the SEO Techniques are not rocket science, but there is an exact science behind using them effectively in marketing a brand or product. When used correctly they can give you amazing results on the search engines. How did we get to the position we are now? Great analysis of our current standing, a strategy and the implementation roll out plan based on our seo research, and with all of this, we have seen amazing results.

The Future | SEO And Marketing With Howzit Media

We are constantly involved in that “never ending struggle” for that illustrious and oh so illusive page one status, but it’s what we do, and part of the services that we offer our clients to promote their brand for a better return on their investment. We have the best people for the job and our marketing team works closely with each client to cater to their needs, we all succeed when we work together. The South Florida market is diverse and we constantly need to evolve to better suit our clients needs. The future is bright and it is our goal every day to break those creative design and marketing boundaries, building brands and captivating that target market.

If you would like to chat to us about achieving the same results for your website, contact us today and tell us about your company and your marketing needs.

CLICK HERE TO CONTACT US

The post 19 Google Page One Positions In Just 7 Weeks – SEO Marketing first appeared on Howzit Media Marketing.

They are techniques that really go “back to the basics” on some level, when it comes to marketing your your Business online.

Onsite SEO Techniques

Onsite SEO techniques are those which the name suggests “Onsite“, they include some of the following.

• Web standard compliant website or platform.
• Correct canonical redirects in place.
• Inclusion of rich snippets.
• Site to be at least mobile friendly, responsive is better.
• Inclusion of social media buttons.
• Correct usage of H1-H6 headers and the suitable keyword content at all levels.
• All images to have descriptive alt tags filled in.
• Fast page load speed.
• High Quality Unique content.
• Clearly discernible architecture for the sales funnel.
• Set language.
• Include some form of analytics.
• We still like to use all Meta data and Meta tags where possible.

Offsite SEO Techniques and Requirements

Offsite SEO, in terms of the SEO consultant, is ensuring that a level of reputation management is maintained as well as the standards of the offsite content that is distributed. “Offsite” SEO requirements would be some of the following.

• Social media platform integration within your bracket of influence, these should currently include at a minimum, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
• Offsite Blogging Platforms.
• Local Directory Services.
• Forum Posts.
• Link monitoring.
• Regular and consistent posting of high quality material.
• Analytics tracking
• Etc

As you can see there are a number of aspects to consider and monitor when it comes to using SEO to promote your online business, hence the requirement for a strict regiment of posting and monitoring. These are a few of the items that we, your SEO consultant or SEO agency will undertake for you.

For more information about Offsite SEO services and targeting local businesses click here

The post Onsite and Offsite SEO Techniques first appeared on Howzit Media Marketing.

Using our trusty friend Google, we typed in “Definition of Marketing“, and it was at that point when the fun started…

According to the Google search, which came back with thousands of results, at the top of the results page was the definition of Marketing;
“Marketing, ˈmɑːkɪtɪŋ/, noun, noun: marketing ” the action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising.” Google.com

The American Marketing Association defined it as follows, Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” (Approved July 2013 ama.org)

From Investopedia, the following “DEFINITION of ‘Marketing‘ “The activities of a company associated with buying and selling a product or service. It includes advertising, selling and delivering products to people. People who work in marketing departments of companies try to get the attention of target audiences by using slogans, packaging design, celebrity endorsements and general media exposure. The four ‘Ps’ of marketing are product, place, price and promotion.”

What it brought home to us is that when researching particular topics, it is important to do it with your particular vertical industry sector as the reference point, especially in this case when looking at marketing.
As this article was never meant to be about giving a definitive answer for the term Marketing, only the challenges one faces when researching key word terms and values (for there is no one true meaning for marketing, it would appear – depends on the who, what, where, when and why syndrome applies here)

If you would like to read more on this topic, Heidi Cohen wrote a great piece with far more definitions in, it can be found here: http://heidicohen.com/marketing-definition/

If you feel that we can be of assistance with your online marketing, then please call or drop us an email, we would love to be able top assist you in whatever “Marketing” space you maybe in.

The post Marketing – What Is It? first appeared on Howzit Media Marketing.

In our previous three articles on online content marketing, we cover a number of different areas to consider when reviewing your content, and how you intend to use it to market to clients and business’s in your area. Ask yourself these questions…

Does your content matter to your audience? Is your content guided by your audience intent? What is your audience searching for? It is beneficial to be useful to your readers because once you are not, they have no use for you. That might sound harsh but as we explained in previous articles the relevance of your content is extremely important to the reader, if they can benefit from it they will continue to read it.

The SEO value of well written content cannot be understated at all. To SEO consultants, content allows them to focus clients activities across their sites. You can write all the content in the world, but at the end of the day if it is not useful to your readers then there will be no conversion in to results, and conversion is the only reliable test of success.

When online content is created, it’s purpose is to achieve certain goals, like establish brand authority; or serve as a helpful informational and educational resource for readers. The web content that you create is written for the overall purpose of promoting a product or service and educating the public about your brand. At Howzit Media Marketing when we create content for our clients we take into consideration their target market and location. It is important to “keep the locals happy” and create content that will encourage them and a wider audience to take notice of your company. We live and work in Fort Lauderdale, so in turn we market to our “backyard” and surrounding areas. Our content is beneficial and informative to the local businesses, but can also be adopted to target a larger market.

Regardless of what the underlying intentions are behind your thought process when creating content, it is likely to fall short of your ultimate goals if it does not elicit some form of response from whomever reads it. Sharing is caring, if your readers care about the content they are reading they will share it, this is a beneficial response.

Whether you are writing content that will be used to entice your audience into purchasing your product or service, creating engaging social media updates, or producing online content, you should strive to include consistent and compelling calls to action. You do this in order to help guide your audience through the stages of the engagement process and, ultimately, your business sales funnel successfully. Leaving these vital components out of your online content is like a buying a Ferrari but having no keys to drive it, sure it’s all flashy and looks cool but it’s useless. This leaves you unable to enjoy the fruits of your labor and an inability to power it through to its conclusion.

Look at the triggers that suit the demographic of your client base and write your content to suit them.

As you plan ahead in 2015-2016, consider now what kind of writing practice works for you, and then go forth and create compelling content.

Thanks for reading, we hope that the information in this 4 part series has been beneficial to you. If you would like to get in touch with us about marketing your company please feel free, we are always up for a good chat and love to help.

The post Online Content Marketing. Part #4 – Good Intentions first appeared on Howzit Media Marketing.

Welcome to Part 3 of our 4 part series on Content Marketing

This is not a title.

This is a title!

Titles are used to “Hook or Grab” the attention of the reader and state the significance of your content. It is important to write attention grabbing titles whilst using visual breaks, dynamic images or graphics related to your content.

There are a large number of companies and business’s that operate in and around Fort Lauderdale that are all competing for results on search engines and landing pages. The requirement for the competitive edge when it comes to local search has become a game changer. Howzit Media Marketing is a well positioned Marketing agency with years of search experience in Branding, Creative and Organic SEO.

As we all look to add that one item that will change the game in our favor, website content is playing a critical role; but the title, even more so. Statistics show us that up to 80% of the click through’s from any article, or social media content is from the words that are contained in the header or tag line, those words that strike a chord with readers and engage them!

Anyone who has arrived at the world of website content creation by way of journalism, understands the value of a “catchy headline”. Readers’ eyes tend to navigate towards what they find the most intriguing, compelling, or curious on the page. When the reader is presented with multiple options, or when faced with a limited time frame for absorbing content, the headline or title is the hook! If you are creating online content for a business client, it will do absolutely nothing for sales, lead conversions, or ROI if you are unable get readers to engage with that content, end of story.

Once you’ve captured your readers’ attention with your headline, you still need to keep their eyes on your page until the very end of the piece (so they see all of the calls to action). Using sub-headings correctly formatted with the correct heading tag is also very important, as are the use of meta tags and tags that reference the various sections or categories within your site. Use bullet points to break up the page and use engaging images that capture your clients interest as well.

The post Online Content Marketing. Part #3 – Titles first appeared on Howzit Media Marketing.