Marketers are always talking about content—how important it is for driving leads, building brand identity, developing loyal audiences, and more. However, there’s one question every marketer must answer when it comes time for them to develop content for their own brands or clients: how much content do I really need? The short answer is that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. There are, however, a few guidelines you can use to determine the amount of content that’s right for you and your business, and they come in two flavors: audience analysis and […]

For the past several years, the concept of increasing consumer data privacy has been gaining momentum and has been slowly impacting how marketers use your data. GDPR and CCPA regulations have driven awareness of this movement, and big data collection companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple have been shifting to meet the increasing demand for more data privacy. Last summer, Apple made the announcement that their iOS 14 update would include significant privacy updates that will affect all apps. Starting this month, these privacy updates (called App Tracking Transparency) will […]

Writer’s Block when Blogging—we have all experienced it. We sit down and are all set to write, but we don’t know what to write about. A million different topics run through our brain, but which do we choose? What do readers want to see? How can we attract our target audience? We want to write about a topic that has meaning and will also be ranked high for organic visibility so everyone can read it and to do so we must include SEO.   How to Find Blog Topics that […]

Acquiring leads can be difficult. Getting the right leads can be costly. And, getting them to come to you can be a slow process. So, go where they lead you. Go to YouTube.   Google has created a new feature for you to get leads while they are doing what they love—watching videos. This new feature is called YouTube lead forms. One of the great things about these lead forms is that the user doesn’t have to leave the video they are watching to visit your site or another landing […]

It’s hard to comprehend how small paid media ads used to be. My earliest working memories involve having to abbreviate company names to fit into a headline and split 70 characters evenly across two description fields with 35-character limits on some platform called Overture. The first Facebook ads I created had limited text and imagery so small you could barely make out what the product was (which didn’t stop me from buying a Denny Crane bobblehead from an ad).   Today, ad copy character limits have increased dramatically, allowing media […]

In celebration of International Women’s Day 2021, the emfluence team is participating in #ChoosetoChallenge. As the challenge states: “We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can all choose to seek out and celebrate women’s achievements. Collectively, we can all help create an inclusive world. From challenge comes change, so let’s all choose to challenge.” Raising our hands shows that we commit to choose to challenge inequality, call out bias, question stereotypes, and help forge an inclusive world. See how emfluence Chooses to Challenge this year:   […]

If you were of recent belief that social media is not the right platform for you or your demographic but are now seeking advice on what to do, and most importantly what not to do, then congrats! You’ve taken the right first step by seeking out advice on possible social media marketing mistakes.   Let’s dive right in with the first Oops, which you’ve already overcome—thinking social media is not the right platform for you.   This is actually a common misconception—thinking social media is only for Generation X. Based […]

In Summer 2020, with the killing of George Floyd and the soul searching many of us found ourselves doing, many brands began increasing their focus on diversity and inclusion. Seemingly overnight the imagery used in social and display ads became more African American, Asian, or Hispanic (if not also more female). Even the cynics among us would have to recognize, though, that this trend should continue and should be taken seriously.   Digital advertising provides an array of options for promoting inclusion, along with an assortment of hazards to navigate. […]

After you decide a WordPress Multisite is the right strategic move for your website, how do you create one? If you Google “How to create a WordPress Multisite?” or “How do I convert my WordPress site to a multisite”, you will find A LOT of articles. So then why did I write another one? Is it my newfound love of writing complete sentences instead of code? Am I doing it for the glory of the clicks and likes?   Maybe a little bit of both, but the truth is—the last […]

As you may have already known, Google announced late last year that they are unveiling a brand-new ranking factor for Google Search in May of this year. The new ranking factor, Core Web Vitals, is being combined with existing page experience ranking signals like mobile friendliness and HTTPS security. We’re announcing that page experience ranking signals for Google Search will launch in May 2021. This will combine Core Web Vitals and previous UX-related signals. Learn more: https://t.co/OrrR8LDl1a — Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) November 10, 2020 If you weren’t aware of […]

Since the early 2000’s, social media has been a phenomenon that has been a major driving force for the rapid growth of internet adoption in the United States and around the world. As more people have flocked to social media, brands have constantly struggled with how to engage their customers without pushing them away. In this blog post, I will cover some high-level points on how to get started (or improve) your business’s utilization and engagement on social media. In future blog posts, we will cover more specific planning tools […]

What is a WordPress Multisite and What are the Pros and Cons of Creating One? WordPress is one of the most popular and well known website platforms—it powers over one-third of the sites on the Internet. The depth of functionality and flexibility it has goes beyond the free blog you can create with the famous five-minute install. One of these features is WordPress Multisite. WordPress Multisite transforms your single site into a network where you can create and manage as many sites as you want to showcase several brands or […]

It is easy to report on your organic traffic data. But how do you show the value of your SEO efforts?   How to Measure ROI on SEO   (SEO Conversions Value – SEO Expenses) / SEO Expenses = SEO ROI   You measure the return on investment of your SEO efforts by subtracting your SEO expenses from your SEO conversions value and dividing that by your SEO expenses. In order to fill out the formula above – you need to find out your SEO conversions value and your SEO […]

Pandemic. Protests. Election. Insurrection. Impeachment. Platforms v. Publishers.   It’s hard to believe that these and other major societal and social shifts happened in the last year alone. If you are a business owner or an individual responsible for the operations and image of a company trying to adapt to these changes, it’s been a herculean effort to even keep the doors open up to this point with so many external factors weighing upon us.   Whether it’s local business owners trying to keep their teams and businesses afloat amid […]

For those of you still lamenting the retirement of the Products and Services tab from LinkedIn Business Pages in 2014, we have good news for you! LinkedIn is rolling out a new feature called Product Pages (and will soon be rolling out another feature called a Services Showcase Module, which you can learn more about here.). Some of you may already see the new Products tab on your company’s page in the Page Admin View, but if not, don’t panic—it isn’t available to everyone just yet. We’ve scoured the internet and can’t seem to find a timeline for when […]

Pivot is an understatement for 2020. Marketers and consumers were forced to change behaviors in dramatic and unexpected ways. People are resilient, though, and marketers proved again their ability to adapt and thrive in an everchanging landscapes. While vaccines are on the horizon, a return to pre-pandemic behavior probably isn’t likely for a while. What changes should we expect to continue into 2021?   Virtual Events Turns out there is still value in virtual conferences. High quality live and on-demand content still managed to draw crowds. Virtual conferences eliminated the […]

We’ve all heard the classic saying that “content is king,” but is that still the case? If so, how can you maximize your output of quality content?   It’s still true. Content is king, and given how 2020 has played out, it may be even more critical than ever as more and more people spend time at home, online. According to Forbes, global online content consumption more than doubled during the pandemic. The average daily content consumption is six hours and 59 minutes.   Content promotes your brand. It’s how […]

What is LinkedIn Sales Navigator? LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a sales management tool designed specifically for lead generation and sales prospecting on the LinkedIn platform. Sales Navigator is available in three different versions, each with varying features, but each version allows users to search for, connect with, and save leads within their LinkedIn account while also offering integration with different CRM programs.   Why You Should Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator If you have a sales team, you probably already have multiple tools and technologies that your team uses every day. 74% of B2B sales teams say that LinkedIn products top their list of sales intelligence tools (LinkedIn). […]

If you have any experience with digital marketing, chances are that you’ve probably heard the term “link building” before, but what is it exactly? And why is it such a big deal in the world of search engine optimization? To answer this question, we’ll first have to examine what search engines use links for.   How do search engines use links? There are two fundamental ways that the search engines use links: 1.     To discover new web pages 2.     To help determine how well a page should rank in their […]

2020 has been a challenging year for small businesses, to say the least. Let’s face it, every year is tough when you’re running a small business, but COVID has made 2020 even worse. Well, finally, there’s some good news for small business owners. Facebook has introduced a free tool called “Paid Online Events”.   What Is Facebook’s New Paid Online Events Tool? While there’s no doubt that they will profit from the tool in the future, Facebook says it will offer the new service for free for at least the […]

Losing track of time has been one of the most disorienting aspects of the pandemic. In the early pandemic, losing track of days was common. “Is it Tuesday or Wednesday?” As the year has progressed — with no graduation ceremonies or summer vacations, cancelled sports seasons and muted holidays — the normal markers of time have been completely absent. To my daily life, the difference between March 24th and September 24th isn’t all that significant.   For client retention, that’s bad. Like forgetting-your-mom’s-birthday bad.   This year more than ever, […]

Understanding link building and identifying link building opportunities is only half the battle when it comes to implementing an effective link building strategy. What really separates a great link building campaign from a not-so-great campaign is your ability to determine what is a “good” link building opportunity and what is not. To help with this, we’ve boiled the complicated link qualification process down into a simple eight item checklist:   Use common sense! Ask yourself: 1.    Is the placement relevant to the niche? This is arguably the most important factor […]

You’ve completed the content writing process after countless hours of research, analyzing, writing, and proofing to end up with a conversion generating masterpiece, but now how do you start driving traffic to your content, outside of organic search? The answer is social!   The promotion of each post on your social network is just as important as organic search. To help you get more from each social media post, here are some quick tips for promoting content on social media.   Draft a social media promotional schedule using all relevant channels Using social […]

Consider the various ways you generate leads – inquiry forms on your website, webinar registrations, tradeshow events, outbound prospecting, etc. As diverse as the opportunities are for lead gen efforts, so too are the need states of the leads themselves.   Ideally, lead states should guide follow-up attempts. For example, someone at a tradeshow who’s interested in a product demo may be expecting a call soon, whereas someone who just attended a webinar is looking for nothing more than the educational opportunity you provided. How and when you follow up […]

Contrary to popular belief, keyword research is not just for SEOs. You can use keyword research practices to get a better understanding of your audience’s wants, needs, questions, concerns, and more. I also cover this topic with a little more detail in my How SEO Can Boost Your Marketing Automation Efforts talk and blog post. Free Keyword Research Tools Google Google Search Console Google Trends Answer the Public Keyworddit ahrefs Keyword Generator   1. Google Just search a general topic in your industry or a keyword for which you’d like […]

69% of B2B Marketers are increasing content marketing budgets or holding steady from their budgets last year. Meaning, the content marketing space is noisy and full of marketers trying to gain attention/get their message across. Add on the shift to work from home and increase in digital services and online ordering and marketers have a unique opportunity to intercept more prospects than ever before.   It’s important to have a clear plan to ensure you capitalize on your content marketing efforts. Before we dive into how to maximize reach for […]

Today, conventional banks and credit unions have an ever-growing pool of competition. Thanks to the emergence of more and more challenger “banks” like Simple, Chime and Card, as well as the growing prevalence and usage of payment apps like Apple Pay, PayPal, Venmo, Cash App and Zelle, consumers are presented with more options for fulfilling their monetary needs than ever before.   The increase in competition has made it harder than ever to acquire a new customer or gain a new account – which means that when you do, you […]