Smart Marketing Blog

Want to Market Against Your Competitors? Proceed Carefully

Remember when you were young, and there was that kid who spent more time dissing you or others than making something of themselves? Maybe you wanted to let them have it, but you knew (or maybe your parents gave you some advice) that it was best to take the high road and focus on your strengths and success.

How to Build a Topic Cluster

Topic clusters are now king when it comes to search engine optimization. Building out topic clusters is a new SEO strategy that focuses on fully covering a topic and building relationships between keywords.

5 Web Hero Headers that Capture Technical Buyers' Attention

Whether you’re meeting in-person at a trade show or a customer finds your company via Google search, first impressions are important. Companies were once judged based on their store fronts or conference rooms. Now, buyers are making judgments and gathering information about you based off of your website.

Stop Expecting Engineers to Write Marketing Content (and vice versa)

You likely have many subject matter experts and levels of marketing expertise floating around your marketing organization. For that reason, creating content often becomes everyone’s problem (read: no one’s problem). There are a lot of hallway conversations and a lot of big ideas, but very few actual words on paper. 

Microsites: Effective Marketing or Bad Idea?

As Google’s search algorithm has evolved to emphasize trusted, well-established domains and unique content, the debate is heating up on the marketing value of microsites. Some experts believe that creating a microsite is never a good idea, diluting the brand and hurting coveted search results, while others think they still have a place in a targeted, strategic marketing campaign.

4 Crucial Elements to a Website Redesign

Your website serves many roles. It has the unique ability to serve as both an outbound and inbound marketing tool, as a way to communicate your brand image to your audiences, and as a response mechanism for prospects interested in learning more about your company, products and services. You can think of your website as a valuable, 24-hour-a-day employee in your marketing organization. It’s always on, always ready to communicate your brand value and always focused on generating leads.

B2B Website Checklist: 6 Steps to Generate Leads

Your website serves many roles in your organization, from your company storefront, to a customer support resource, to a recruiting center, to name a few. From a marketing standpoint, it is the hub of all your activities and the main vehicle for generating leads and creating your online branding experience. It has the unique ability to serve as both an outbound and inbound marketing tool; as a way to communicate your brand image to your audiences; and as a response mechanism for prospects that are interested in learning more about your company, products and services. You can think of your website as a valuable, 24-hour-a-day employee in your marketing organization. As such, it’s always on, always ready to communicate your brand value, and always focused on generating leads.  

Web Strategy: 5 Steps to Website Redesign Success

We like to say that developing your website strategy is like architecting a blueprint before you build a house. You need to fully understand the design and requirements and have your foundation fully set before you build it. Your website plan should work similarly.

Avoid These 3 Website Navigation Fails

When companies redesign websites, they often overlook or incorrectly implement a few website navigational elements. Because they are often overlooked or undervalued, we include the following site navigation fails and corresponding best practices during the website strategy meeting or as part of the design review process.

6 Crucial Steps in Preparing for a Web Redesign

Google’s algorithms, people’s search behavior, technology and web trends change rapidly- is your website keeping up? Without making routine, data-driven-design changes, and fully redesigning your site every few years, it’s easy to get left behind. Since your website is a crucial, 24/7 representation of your business, you want to be sure it accurately portrays and efficiently serves your business day in and out. To do this, you need to start any web redesign process by firming up your marketing foundation. Doing so will give you a clear strategy moving into the redesign, guiding content, structural and design decisions.