Category Archives: Website Development

Link Building | Creating Meaningful Website Links

Building meaningful links, also known as link building, is like networking at an event, but for your website. So the good news is the introverts in the room won’t be overcome with anxiety!

Why is Link Building Important?

Link building is an essential part of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Everyone’s favorite subject! Links help search engines find and then rank your website pages. Without links, search engines like Google may take longer to recognize just how excellent your content is. First let’s look at what different link types we have:

  • Internal Links: These are links on your website that direct users to other places within your website.
  • External Links: These are links on your website that direct users to another website with relevant information.
  • Backlinks: A backlink is a link from another person’s or business’s website back to your website. This builds credibility for your website and content.

Not All Links Are Treated Equally

Although establishing internal links is important and can help end-users explore content, it isn’t the same as link building. The ideal goal is to get other websites to link back to your pages, but it is important that these links are credible and beneficial. Not all links should be equally coveted. Take a look at the good and not-so-good link examples below.

Good Back Linking

If you own an elite restaurant, having a review on a renowned food critic’s website that links back to your website will give you more credit on search engines. Hopefully, it is also a positive review! Event bloggers who visit your restaurant and mention it in their post is beneficial! However, the higher traffic and rating a website has that mentions you, the more credit and ranking that link get as well!

Not-So-Good Backlinking

As we mentioned earlier, not all backlinks boost your site’s credibility in the same way. Low-quality backlinks are links to your site from websites with little to no engagement. When looking at sites to help build your backlink network we advise against software or services that promise to add you to “100’s of directory websites.”  The key here is to build your backlinks with websites that relate to your business and may resonate with your audience.

Build Great Content

Before even considering building meaningful links, it is essential to have unique website content (see what we did there? what a beautifully placed internal link!) that represents your brand that people want to share with others. This includes a company history, employee bios discussing their contributions to the company, and industry-specific content that highlights your expertise. Creating and sharing content that is interesting to other individuals in your industry or your highly engaged consumer base makes it that much more easy to get those coveted links.

Define Your Audience

Who are you trying to reach with your content? How do those individuals usually consume information? Now, this is the part where the introverts will start squirming. This part feels a lot like networking. Once you have a defined list of ways your ideal end reader consumes information, it is time to reach out to them. Depending on your industry, the communication might look different.

For example, if you have a new tech product you are working on promoting, you could send a few samples to major tech publications asking them for a blog review to be featured on their website. Or maybe you invite a well-known health and wellness blogger to visit your state-of-the-art gym for free in exchange for an article on their blog highlighting how they can use your equipment. It is important to remember people will only add links to your website if it’s in their own or their audience’s interest.

You have to get creative when creating a link-building strategy! If you need help establishing your website content and marketing strategy to grow your business, promote an event, or increase product sales, we can help!

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Heather Morrison
Heather is the VP of Operations at Innereactive and we are lucky to have her. She has over five years of experience running an HR department and enjoys helping businesses like yours find solutions to their HR needs.

Google Analytics: Measure Website Metrics That Matter

You’ve dedicated the time and effort to launch a new website complete with a beautiful design, customized messaging, and search engine optimization, but now what? If this is as far as you read in this blog, we hope you take this one thing away. Don’t just let your website sit there! Use it as a tool to help you reach your company goals and measure website metrics that matter!
We’ve talked in the past about the importance of marketing goals and for 99.9% of businesses, your website is an essential tool to helping you reach those goals. To see how your website is helping accomplish those goals we need to track, report, and pivot.

Tracking Website Metrics

Installing Google Analytics & Google Search Console

First, make sure Google Analytics and Google Search Console are installed on your website. Google Analytics released a new tracking code version called GA4 that will replace Universal Analytics (UA) in 2023. If you have Google Analytics installed on your site, it’s important to make sure your code is updated or includes a GA4 version because, at this time, historical data is not able to transfer over.

Reporting Metrics That Matter

There are a million and one metrics that you can dive into and report on within your analytics dashboard. Our advice is don’t track just to track. Track and report on data that:

  • Provides insight into how users are engaging with your business and website.
  • Gives you insight into your goal performance.
  • Shows if you need to pivot your efforts to reach your goal.

While there are similarities in what to track across different business websites, the specific tracking for your website is unique to you!


Website As A Lead Generator

Is your marketing goal to gain more new clients? Your website should be a main reporting source to determine how this goal performs. Some metrics to track may be:

  • # of new users to your website you are receiving each month.
  • # of users that click on your call to action button or page
  • Of these users, how many complete your lead generation or new customer form?
  • # of users that click to call your office

Influencing or Informational Website

While all websites could be considered lead or customer generators, some business, like a restaurant may utilize their website as a tool when customers are already in-store. These websites are more informational or influencing in nature to help increase revenue per customer. Some metrics for these types of sites are:

  • How long are users spending on each services page?
  • Which services page or product is getting the most views?
  • Which services page is leading to the highest conversion?
  • Do your website views and revenue trends match?

Website As Revenue

For businesses with ecommerce, your marketing goals are probably directly related to your website’s traffic and performance. For these types of websites, important metrics to report may include:

  • # of users visiting shop vs # of customers placing orders (capture rate).
  • # of products placed per order.
  • Average dollar value of an order.
  • Source of website traffic (google, social, email marketing, etc).
  • Metrics of purchases made from automated website emails like an abandoned cart.

Report and Pivot

Once you’ve identified your key metrics to track, report on them monthly and quarterly along with your social, marketing, and revenue goals. Are all your metrics showing the same thing? Remember, not every metric is a simple pass or fail. Some metrics listed above can help guide your strategy if and when you need to make a change.

Our team of dedicated marketing strategists are here to help guide your marketing goals and determine which website metrics are the best to report on for your business.

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Marie Wiewiora

Marie is the VP of Client Relations at Innereactive and has experience in marketing strategy, graphic design, and web development. She has over 8 years of experience creating comprehensive marketing strategies.

Domain-Based Emails | Building Trust and Credibility

As a new business owner, did you start sending emails from a personal email account? Maybe you always had plans to get a more credible email address, but it got lost in the shuffle. If you’re still sending from your Gmail or Hotmail account, you may think, “what’s the big deal?” Our answer is trust and credibility! The email you’re sending plays a major effect in the appearance of your business.

Domain-Based Emails Build Credibility

If we asked for your initial impression of the following three emails, which one would you say was most credible or trustworthy?

  • MirandaLovesPandas@gmail.com
  • MirandaVeterinarian@gmail.com
  • Miranda@westlakeveterinarian.com

We chose Miranda@westlakeveterinarian.com as the email that seemed most credible… did you? Compared to the other two email addresses, this email sends a clear message of an established and professional business. We naturally view this person as invested in their business’s growth and success.

Help Increase Marketing Results

You’re growing your brand recognition every time you email or pass out a business card with your professional email address. Sending emails with domain-based emails increases its legitimacy in the eyes of the consumer and the email providers. It can also reduce the likelihood of your sales emails being marked as junk or blocked as spam as compared to a free email address.

An Affordable Investment

Most domain-based email providers offer email accounts for a few dollars per month for each email. Don’t look at this as an unnecessary expense but as an investment in your business. Many providers offer credible domain-based emails, and you can often get them through the company hosting your domain name. Robust providers, such as Google Workspace, offer an abundance of additional benefits within their domain-based email packages.

If you’re ready to get domain-based emails set up for your business, we recommend doing it as soon as possible! This avoids needing to complete a huge undertaking of migrating the emails. As part of your marketing team, we can help set up your domain-based email and have you hitting send in no time.

Heather Morrison
Heather is the VP of Operations at Innereactive and we are lucky to have her. She has over five years of experience running an HR department and enjoys helping businesses like yours find solutions to their HR needs.

Three Reasons to Create Unique Website Content

So, you’re ready to redesign your website and build a new site for your potential clients to navigate? That’s amazing! But before you get started, have you thought about how you will update your content as part of this design? Content unique to your specific business is essential to reach your audience effectively and stay on top of trends to ensure your website performs well and accomplishes its desired output. Here are the top three reasons we recommend unique website content.

Unique Website Content Improves User Experience

Before jumping into the design or content of your website, ask yourself, “why does a customer visit my website?” Most users visit a website to learn about your business and determine if they want to work with you. Stay true to your brand, vision statement, and core values to connect with your target consumer.

Brainstorm your messaging by asking yourself some of these questions. We love the Story Brand approach to exploring your brand and online presence.

  • What makes your business unique?
  • What information do consumers ask about?
  • What personal information do I want to share about my company’s journey?
  • What are the steps a customer will go through when working with us? – Share insight into the customer journey, highlighting what will make their experience with your business unique and spotlight the products and services your team specializes in.
  • Who on our team will customers interact with? – This is where compelling team bio’s come in handy!

Generate Sharable Content

Another benefit of unique content is sharing! The best content will resonate with your audience so much that they want to share it with their networks. Creating unique content increases your likelihood of conversion by allowing you to direct the sales journeys for potential customers with custom calls to action (CTAs) and landing pages. Personalized content equals a more personalized experience for potential clients.

Unique Website Content is Key to SEO

At the heart of every website is the need to be found! Effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is essential to make this happen! Ultimately, search engines aim to provide their users with the best results for their needs based on keywords and content! While many unknown algorithms determine what is shown or ranked on a search result page, the idea behind it is simple. When developing your content, put yourself in the mind of your consumer. What would you search online if you need your product or services? Try to use these ideas and keywords to develop content for your website.

Creating the perfect website can be a complicated process. However, one thing has remained consistent, visitors to your website want a clear understanding of who you are as a business. Contact our team today if you need help creating unique website content (and photos)!

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Writing a Bio You Will Want to Share with Others

It’s not uncommon for individuals to struggle with writing personal bios because it’s…awkward! Now is the time to shake off those feelings and prepare to toot your own horn! To make writing your bio a little easier, take our tips below!

Include the “Obvious”

In most professional settings, sharing your name, job title, educational and professional experience, accomplishments, future goals, and aspirations is appropriate. Write all your obvious facts in a list, and then pick the top five! Use those accomplishments to write a few sentences about yourself. 

Writing a bio for outside your company:

While most people find themselves writing a bio when beginning a new job, sometimes you need to write a bio for another professional setting or while pursuing personal goals. If you are representing your company at an event, include your company information in your bio so attendees can build context about you.

Writing a bio for personal endeavors:

Even in a personal setting, like volunteering, there are benefits to including the basic information mentioned above. However, we recommend mixing it up a little bit! Try to focus on accomplishments that are relevant to your endeavor and explain your personal mission statement. 

Get Personal 

Even in a professional setting, it is important to share personal information. You don’t have to jump into your religious or political views, but sharing information about your hobbies and causes you care about can be valuable. This information humanizes and increases the likelihood that readers will remember you! It allows the reader to relate to you and understand your motivations easily. 

Tie Company Bios Together 

If these bios are being added to a company website, consider a piece of information unique to your business and include it in all employee bios. If you work in food service, ask people for insight into their favorite item on the menu. A travel agency? Ask if you had to drop what you are doing right now and travel to one place, where would it be and why? If you ask an interesting question during your interview process, include it! 

Still struggling to get started? Download our list of questions below to start outlining your thoughts! Even when asked the right questions, connecting the answers in a meaningful way can be challenging. Our copy experts can create a bio that tells the story of your team members and encourages your clients to feel a personal connection to your team.

Ready to craft the perfect bio for your team? Download our bio template here!

Heather Morrison
Heather is the VP of Operations at Innereactive and we are lucky to have her. She has over five years of experience running an HR department and enjoys helping businesses like yours find solutions to their HR needs.

What is SEO and how can I improve mine?

SEO stands for Search engine optimization, but what does it truly mean? Optimizing your site for search engines allows them to consume your site’s content as efficiently as possible, allowing new and returning traffic to find your site easier. So, where do you begin? When working with Innereactive on a website design, we will make many of these choices on your behalf to optimize your website SEO or walk you through any decisions needed. If you’re looking to set up a new site or improve on an existing site on your own, here are our tips and tricks!

New Website SEO

When establishing a new website, first sit down and determine what type of traffic you expect and outline your target audience. Narrowing down an audience will allow you to focus on the keywords that will perform best for your needs. For example, suppose you are a brick-and-mortar store looking to optimize for local users. In this case, place less emphasis on globally applicable terms and focus your keywords on geographic features coupled with your industry. (Ex: Eyecare in Detroit, Lawncare in Grand Rapids, etc)

Optimizing Existing SEO

Before making any changes to your SEO, the first step should be establishing a baseline of existing performance. Use this baseline to determine if your changes improved or hurt your site performance. A baseline can be established through a variety of metrics, the easiest being pulled from existing analytics platforms like Google Analytics or Google Search Console. Some of the more important metrics to focus on are:

  • New Users
  • Returning Users
  • Average Engagement Time
  • Keyword Results & Ranking

Using the above data points will give you insight into what drives successful performance on your website. If you plan to run a digital ad campaign, keyword results can be invaluable to provide insight into already successful search terms related to your business.

What Affects SEO Optimization?

Search engines place a lot of emphasis on data like keywords and meta descriptions to discover your website content properly. But there is much more that goes into SEO of a site! Many search engines also factor in the frequency and freshness of content, social media presence, backlinking, site mobile usability, etc. So how do you use this knowledge to your benefit?

Blogging

If your industry is suited for it, blogging can be a fantastic way to bring frequent and relevant content to your site. When recognized by search engines, this new and recurring content proves your business is still active and relevant. Coupled with driving new and returning visitors to your site, blogs can be a powerful marketing tool for your business.

Social Media & Backlinking

Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Linkedin expand your potential website reach and can create a healthy network of backlinks to your site. There are many tools out there to help analyze your existing backlink structure and allow you to identify who is referring traffic to your site. We are a fan of Ahref’s tool, which offers free and paid options for all business scales. Ready to take your social media to the next level with digital advertising? Check out our blog about Paid Social Advertising or reach out to us today!

Mobile Usability

With 4 out of 5 users browsing and shopping on their mobile devices, search engines include metrics like how fast a site loads and how easy it is to use on a mobile device to determine results and rank. If your site is not mobile optimized, you may be losing a lot of potential user engagement. To learn more about how to optimize your website for mobile usage, check out our article about mobile-first design.

As you can see, SEO is a large and complex topic with many aspects to factor in and adjust. If you are interested in improving your website performance and SEO, fill out the form below or subscribe to our blog for future tips and tricks! We are excited to help you grow your business online.

If you are interested in improving your website performance and SEO, fill out the form below or subscribe to our blog for future tips and tricks! We are excited to help you grow your business online.

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Josh Glovak
Josh is the Web Development Manager at Innereactive. He finds a lot of enjoyment in the puzzles and problem solving that comes with managing a web department. Josh chases that desire of making faster, cleaner, and user-friendly websites.

 

Email Marketing Dos and Don’ts

Email marketing continues to be one of the most popular channels of communication and promotion for many companies. According to OptinMonster, 99% of people check their email inbox every day, with some even checking it 20+ times a day! So, it’s no surprise email marketing is an effective way to reach large audiences. Check out our recommended do’s and don’ts of email marketing below to ensure you don’t fatigue your email list and promote engagement in your send.
The Do's of Email Marketing

The Do’s of Email Marketing

Do Choose Quality Over Quantity

The goal of your email marketing list should not be based just on subscriber numbers. An extensive subscriber list is useless if they never open, click, or buy from you! The most important aspect of email marketing is content & engagement. Creating content that resonates with your audience will help your subscribers engage with what you are sending.

Ever heard the phrase, “less is more”? This phrase rings true even in email marketing. Instead of sending mass emails to all your subscribers, review your content and segmentation lists to ensure you are sending high-quality content first and foremost. If you notice high unsubscriber reports or low open rates, it may be time to scale back or revisit your marketing strategy.

Do Make Sure Your Emails are Clear and Concise

You might think a fancy design, GIFS, or auto-play videos are crucial to catching your audience’s attention and standing out, but the chances of everything loading correctly or quickly are slim. With users viewing your email across various devices and email clients, your cute graphic may appear as just a grey box to many users. If you are investing in heavy email marketing, we recommend partnering with an agency like us or using a tool like Sendgrid Email Testing to catch as many code-based differences as possible.

Tips for Including Videos

If you have a fantastic video that you want to share, take a screenshot and link to the actual video on your website. This tactic will increase your click-through rate, and subscribers will appreciate not having a bulky email in their inbox.

The Dont’s of Email Marketing

Don’t Blast Your Email List at the Same Time

The great thing about today’s technology is that you can set up different times when emails go out, even if you aren’t in the office. If you have customers around the country, make sure that the email blast is staggered based on their time zone and needs. For example, subscribers in New York may want to receive emails early in the morning during their commute, whereas subscribers, where you are from, might wish to have it closer to lunchtime.

Try testing out sending email blasts at different times to see how customers respond or use analytics to determine the highest open rate time for email messages.

Don’t Mislead Your Recipients

Click-bait or misleading subject lines will not only hit spam filters quickly but will also mislead your audience. Be very clear about what your marketing email includes and what action you want your subscribers to take. Avoid spammy subject lines and always welcome your call to action. Remember that email blasts require carefully organized emails to be sent at the right time to the right person.

If you need assistance writing, designing, or sending email blasts, we can help! Our team can help develop your email marketing strategy, write copy, design graphics, develop an email template, and create a personalized schedule ideal for communicating with your customers.

 

Ready to send effective emails to your audience? We can help you with everything from strategy and design, to the development and implementation of emails to successfully reach and engage your audience.

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What marketing services are you interested in?(Required)

Marisa Lyon
Marisa is the Finance and Marketing Manager at Innereactive, and we are so grateful to have her. She enjoys helping businesses find the right solution for their marketing needs.

 

The Importance of Mobile First Website Design

We do many things each and every day that we don’t give much thought to. One of those things is browsing the internet. Do you recall the last time you visited a web page? Was it on a mobile device or a computer?

Prevalence of Mobile Usage

As of 2021, mobile device market penetration has reached approximately 80%. This means four out of five people browse the internet on a mobile device when waking up. This statistic is important to keep in mind when designing your website.

The average user spends about three hours a day on their mobile device. This is a significant portion of your audience’s day that could be missed by neglecting to design your site with Mobile First thinking. Three hours may not seem like a lot of time at first glance. However, it accumulates to approximately 70% of all time spent on digital media. Additionally, 69% of users use their mobile devices to do product research and online shopping.

Creating a Mobile First Website

As a website owner, you can optimize your site structure using Progressive Advancement techniques. Progressive Advancement is the practice of starting with the bare essentials needed to get your users where they want to go on the mobile site and then adding structure, functionality, and complexity as you scale up to larger screens and devices.

You could miss critical customer engagement if your website doesn’t interact seamlessly with mobile devices. So, is it time for a website update?

To achieve a strong and impactful mobile experience, start by organizing your content based on its importance.

  • What information should be conveyed on all screens to all audiences?
  • What are users going to be looking for the most? This content should be placed front and center.
  • What content is more impactful when browsing on mobile vs a desktop?

By asking yourself these questions when designing your site, you can reap the benefits of an organic user experience that flows nicely between desktop and mobile devices, ultimately driving higher conversion rates of your users and customers.

Using Analytics to Improve User Experience

To truly tailor your experience to your audience, leverage website analytics tools to analyze how your users are interacting with your site. Information of this nature can assist in cutting out unnecessary elements or re-designing them to drive better engagement. Poorly laid out pages can lead to a significant drop in retention and interaction if design choices drive users away before they reach your content’s target.

At Innereactive, we optimize all websites with Mobile First design. Fill out the form below to update yours and increase engagement.

Name(Required)

Josh Glovak
Josh is the Web Development Manager at Innereactive. He finds a lot of enjoyment in the puzzles and problem solving that come with managing a web department and chasing that desire of making faster, cleaner, and user-friendly websites.

Sources
https://www.oberlo.com/blog/mobile-usage-statistics
https://medium.com/@Vincentxia77/what-is-mobile-first-design-why-its-important-how-to-make-it-7d3cf2e29d00

Let’s Talk About Website Conversion

A lot of small business owners know that they should pay attention to their web traffic and care about how many people visit their website because it can be a good way to assess your overall popularity and the quality of your content. What many business owners don’t realize is that the behavior of people on a website and how they are converting may be even more important, especially for understanding the sales funnel and metrics relating to your conversion rates. Here’s why. Continue reading →