online marketing Archives - Cuppa SEO

Online Marketing Tip: Make it About Them, Not You

Joey Donovan-Guido — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 18:01:23 +0000

When it comes to online marketing, there’s a golden rule I encourage everyone to follow …

Make it about them, not you.

In other words, everything you do within the realm of online marketing — or analog marketing for that matter — needs to be customer focused.

Here’s an excerpt from the web design section of my book, A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing that explains this well …

Making Your Website “Customer Facing”

In other words, make it about your customers and potential customers — not about you.

In working with hundreds of clients, I’ve found that many of them struggle with similar issues. In fact, hearing the same pain points over and over was the inspiration for the Holistic Guide to Online Marketing workshop, which eventually became this book.

I mention this here because I want you to know that many organizations believe they need to share their accolades and experience to clients and potential clients — right on their website’s homepage. Sometimes this sharing occurs because there’s a belief that awards are impressive and might be the tipping point in gaining more business. Sometimes an organization wants to share simply because there’s a rich company history they want everyone to know about — whether it’s being in business for over a century, or being completely employee owned, there’s an authentic excitement about the organization that management and team members want to share.

Frankly speaking, nobody really cares.

At least not when they first arrive on your website. When they first arrive on your site’s homepage, a visitor wants to know — often times, right away — if you can fix their problem, and ease their pain. This isn’t to say that your company’s awards and heritage aren’t important, they just typically shouldn’t be taking up prime real estate on your homepage. Instead, use that space for benefit-driven, customer-centric content.

— Excerpt from A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing, Part 2, Chapter 4

Taking this one step further, making it about the customer also means understanding the language and thought processes they use when they think about their business. For instance, with our customers there is a diversity that needs to be understood …

The $100K customer is often thinking first and foremost about getting more clients and making more money. Their annual revenue likely isn’t enough for them to move into a place of financial stability. So, even though building trust is a key element in Cuppa SEO’s web design process, that may not be something a small business cares about (at least not when they are looking to hire a web developer).

On the other hand, a $50M+ may very well have a marketing team and understand that engagement and trust building is important, so when they’re looking for a web design firm trust building — which is part of the user experience (UX) — may be much higher on the list of must haves.

So how do you talk to both types of clients? It’s not easy, and it’s why as business owners we need to be intentional about choosing a business niche to live in so we’re not trying to please everyone. This is a topic that will be discussed in a future article. Until then, stay well, and make it about them not you!

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SEO & The Raft Analogy

Joey Donovan-Guido — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 18:17:05 +0000

The following is an excerpt from my book, A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing …

Getting your website to appear at the top of search results can be compared to how a raft works. Let me explain …

Imagine that you’re embarking on a whitewater rafting expedition. You and five fellow adventurers are ready to brave the rapids — and probably get soaking wet!

What would happen if you took your un-inflated raft out of your car and threw it in the water? It would sink, right?

Before you get into your raft, you have to pump it up to the optimal number of pounds per square inch (PSI). With every pump of air, your raft comes closer to its optimal PSI, which makes the raft more and more buoyant.

Half pumped, some parts would probably be above water and others below, but the raft would not yet be ready to bear any weight. Once you’ve attained the optimal PSI, the entire raft will sit on the surface of the water — even with six people in it!

Your website, metaphorically speaking, is similar to a raft. It needs to be “pumped up” before it can rise to the top. But instead of air being the catalyst to bring it to the surface, your SEO efforts help your website become more buoyant.

Every well-optimized web page and blog post is like a pump of air into that raft, assisting with your website’s “buoyancy factor.” The same is true for your social media efforts. Every optimized social platform, and every optimized post, is like a pump of air that improves the “PSI” of your website. As mentioned earlier, Google My Business is going to be the most influential channel for SEO value.

Want to learn more about SEO?
Check out A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing, or contact Cuppa SEO Web Design anytime to schedule a complimentary consultation to discuss.

Stay well!

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Are you being proactive with your business during the pandemic? Or simply waiting for it to be over?

Joey Donovan-Guido — Wed, 22 Jul 2020 00:07:50 +0000

Right before the country started to lock down because of COVID-19, I was on the cusp of officially launching my speaking and consulting business. My book, A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing, was already published and I was all geared up to get started.

Of course, as with most businesses, the pandemic put the kibosh on these plans, at least temporarily.

And although it felt natural to be proactive in transforming Cuppa SEO Web Design, I kind of didn’t think too much about my speaking and consulting until recently — when it became clear to me that I was waiting for the right moment to start speaking and consulting again.

The right moment? When will that be? Two months from now? Two years?

In an instant I realized that waiting until conditions were better was akin to waiting for the right moment to have kids or start one’s own business. The “right” moment may never come — all we have is this moment.

The last thing I wanted was for two years to pass and not have grown as a speaker or consultant — let alone to be in the same place professionally in those areas. So, I’ve decided to just start offering online workshops and consulting services until we’re able to safely be around people again.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because I don’t want you to wait around for the “right” moment, either. It’s the businesses that are being proactive during this time that are excelling — or at least surviving. So if you want your business to survive, here’s what I recommend:

1. Assess your business processes and how they can be improved during the pandemic and beyond. There’s an excellent tool for this called MindNode that can help you see your processes visually, determine sticking points, and then discuss solutions with your team. That’s what we did here at Cuppa SEO Web Design, and it’s been SUPER helpful.

2. Talk with your team to see if there are new ways to do business. You might find some low-hanging fruit to get you through the pandemic — or you might find some things that transform your business in the coming years. It’s worth a shot and you won’t know unless you have the discussion.

A good example of this is Lighthouse Healing Massage Therapy (the owner happens to be my wife). Lighthouse, of course, provides massage therapy, but also does a lot of energy work and shamanic work, too. When the lockdown occurred, my wife Kara and I discussed alternatives to in-person sessions and we came up with virtual versions of her energy and shamanic work.

Did all of her clients book virtual appointments? No. But some did, and she was able to help them in a way that didn’t exist for her just days earlier. This kind of thinking has lead the development to even more online programs that are being finalized. In a few years, I can see her business being completely transformed by what we’ve learned over the past few months.

Want more tips and insights from Cuppa SEO?

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Dealing with the Trauma of a Pandemic, Part 2

Joey Donovan-Guido — Thu, 21 May 2020 17:36:58 +0000

In Part 1 of this series, we talked about different ways to deal with the trauma of a pandemic on a personal level.

Today, we’re going to tackle the professional side, focusing on the following online marketing strategies:

Short-term strategies to help make things better now
Mid- and Long-term strategies that can help your business down the road
We’ll also revisit self-care, as it plays a role in your professional success, too!
A Resources section is also included to help you further dive into these strategies …

Short-term Strategies to Help Make Things Better

Email: are you sending out a monthly newsletter to you email list?
If you are, great! If you’re not, now is a good time to put a newsletter together. Whether you have an email list of 100, 1,000 or 10,000, connecting with clients, colleagues and friends is a good idea. We’ll talk about WHAT to include in the newsletter shortly …
Zoom: Beyond meetings, how else can Zoom serve you?
In addition to being used for client meetings, are there any other ways you can use Zoom to connect with clients and potential clients?
– Are there any services you can offer remotely?
– Are there some webinar-like presentations you can facilitate that help educate people, or help them through the pandemic?
Social Media: are you still connecting with people on social?
If so, what are you talking about? Are you selling in the same old way, or are you connecting with people in meaningful ways? And are you using video as part of your social media mix.Whether it’s video or text in your post, there’s one important detail I want to share with you:
– If you’re including a text link, be sure to place it in the “first comment below,” as opposed to directly in your post’s content. There’s a good reason for this. When you post a link right in your content the social media platform — whether it’s LinkedIn, Facebook, or whoever — doesn’t like it, and will present your post to LESS people because they don’t want people leaving their social media channel.
– When you include a text link in the first comment of your post, you wind up bypassing the penalty and your post is likely to be seen by more people. I’ve tested this out myself, and have seen a marked improvement in impressions — which has also led to more engagement.

Now, whether it’s email, Zoom of social media, the big question is WHAT do you present to the people you’re talking to? In other words, what do you post in the middle of the pandemic, and beyond?

Since nobody likes to be sold to, the content you create should be focused on connecting and building relationships in human ways. How is the pandemic affecting your business? How is it affecting your clients’ businesses? What have you done, or helped your clients do, in order to survive the pandemic? Or, maybe your products or services can help people or organizations through the pandemic — like Zoom has done. Bottom line? Keep it real, keep it honest — and keep it human.

In order to accomplish this, I have three “magic” questions to ask for every single piece of content you create. To ensure your content packs the most value possible, always do your best to CLEARLY and SUCCINCTLY answer these three magic questions …

What is it?
What does it do?
How does it help me (benefits)?

I call them magic questions because they get to the heart of what your content needs to contain.

“If they like you, and they believe you, and they trust you, and they have confidence in you … then they MAY buy from you.” — Jeffrey Gitomer

More Short-term Strategies …

Review and improve the user experience (UX) an conversion methodologies on your website.
– User experience is the positive, negative or neutral experience someone has on your website. From your navigation, to the hierarchy of your web pages, to how well you present your calls-to-action, every part of your site affects the user experience — make sure the experience you’re providing is a positive one!
– Conversion, in a nutshell, is a strategy that takes a website visitor from where they are, to where you want them to go. Please note how I’ve worded this, “from where they are, to where you want them to go.” More often than not, your call-to-action will take the form of a button on your website.

Mid- and Long-term Strategies that Can Help Strengthen Your Business Down the Road

Before we begin this section, it’s important to note that you’ll want to continue all of the above mentioned strategies. The only difference is the short-term solutions are more “fast-acting,” while mid-and long-term strategies take longer to bear fruit.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
– Have a professional, experienced SEO expert — with a proven track record — optimize you website. An optimized website can help get you found more often.
– If you can’t currently afford an SEO expert, I suggest you implement what I call “common sense SEO.” There’s a lot more info on this in my book, A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing, if you want a low-cost way of getting more SEO into your website ASAP.
Blogging: are you creating written or video content consistently?
Blogging consistently helps you connect with clients and potential clients and provides fresh content on your site — which helps improve the SEO on your website. Why is this important? Because fresh content can literally affect where you land in search results for the products and services you provide. Yes, it may be a hassle to write at least one blog post a week, and yes it’s also worth your time. Just like we discussed earlier, answering those three magic questions is critical to writing successful blog posts.

How Self-care Plays into the Equation

Without self care, you are not at your best to help others, or find solutions for yourself. I will repeat what I mentioned in Part 1 of this series here (for those of you who missed it), as it’s a critical component of dealing with life and business during the pandemic, and beyond …

It’s incredibly important to exercise, meditate, be kind to yourself — and find healthy self-care habits. In other words, make self care a part of your daily life.
I’ve found this concept to be a difficult one because my goal is to always take care of my family and clients first and foremost. What I realized, the hard way, was that if I’m not taking care of myself I’m no good (or less good) to anybody. Once I started consistently taking care of myself, my overall well being improved — and all of my relationships improved, too!
Awareness: Check in with yourself to see how you are doing. If you’re like many people and are still super busy, you may have to be very deliberate to actually STOP for a minute to check in and gauge where you’re at emotionally, cognitively, spiritually and physically. Leaving any of these parts of yourself unchecked can have negative results like burnout, emotional outbursts and exhaustion.
Acceptance: Once you’ve assessed, in a mindful way, how you’re doing you may feel resistance (especially if you’ve determined you’re not doing as well as you’d like!). Accepting how you’re doing, and “meeting yourself where you’re at,” as opposed to resisting what is, can go a long way in helping you get back to a place of balance.
Practice a “Yes, And” Philosophy: Diving deeper into practicing acceptance, I wanted to share the following. I’ve worked hard on removing the word “but” from my vocabulary, and it’s made a rather large difference in my life. So now, instead of saying something like “yes I have a flat tire, but I don’t want a flat tire,” (resistance) I say, “”yes I have a flat tire, and what can I do about it?” (acceptance) This puts me in a way more positive frame of mind — and helps find a solution.

Resources

Finally, I’d like to share some resources with you that all expand on the concepts presented in this series.

Meditation & Spiritual

Eckhart Tolle – A New Earth : audio version is fantastic, as you can meditate while you listen
Meditation Apps: Check the app section of your iPhone or Android and try some of the free (or freemium) options that look good to you; since this is so subjective, a little trial and error may be necessary

Exercise

Take a walk or run in the park
Carrot Fit: provides quick, as-intense-as you-want, workouts you can do in your own home; this is a kind of snarky app, so you might want to turn off the audio “commentary”

Positive Thinking & Goals

Zig Ziglar – Goals:Get the audio recording, Zig’s voice is a big factor in his greatness; You can also find this at most libraries or on Apple Music

Business

A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing: this covers everything we spoke about today in our webinar — and more — in great detail
The Little Red Book of Selling: hardcover is best, as it’s an action-oriented read that takes time to complete; the book is also about RELATIONSHIP BUILDING, not selling

Until next time, be well!

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Reference Materials to Help You & Your Business

Joey Donovan-Guido — Thu, 26 Mar 2020 17:40:34 +0000

Meditation & Spiritual

Eckhart Tolle – A New Earth : audio version is fantastic, as you can meditate while you listen
Meditation Apps: Check the app section of your iPhone or Android and try some of the free (or freemium) options that look good to you; since this is so subjective, a little trial and error may be necessary

Exercise

Take a walk or run in the park
Carrot Fit: provides quick, as-intense-as you-want, workouts you can do in your own home; this is a kind of snarky app, so you might want to turn off the audio “commentary”

Positive Thinking & Goals

Zig Ziglar – Goals:Get the audio recording, Zig’s voice is a big factor in his greatness; You can also find this at most libraries or on Apple Music

Business

A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing: this covers everything we spoke about today in our webinar — and more — in great detail
The Little Red Book of Selling: hardcover is best, as it’s an action-oriented read that takes time to complete; the book is also about RELATIONSHIP BUILDING, not selling

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Celebrating the Publishing of My Book

Joey Donovan-Guido — Sun, 24 Nov 2019 19:16:08 +0000

On November 21, 2019, my book, A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing, was published.

I’d like to take a moment to express my gratitude to the Universe, my wife and kids, as well as Eric Olive (editor), Jon Wuebben (coach), Kathy Watson (editor), Robert Rubin (formatter), and Hannah Sandvold (graphic designer) for their expertise through this long, and often-times grueling process.

One of the best decisions I made early on was to gather a team of professionals to support the creation of the book — so all I had to do was write it!

What the Book is About

The book provides a global view of online marketing — looking at your website, blog and social media efforts as a whole.

In Part 1, three major disciplines are discussed and defined: SEO, user experience and conversion — providing a solid understanding of what each of these methodologies are, and why they’re important.

In Parts 2 through 4, we dive into a practical approach on how to APPLY each of these methodologies to your website, blog and social media efforts, respectively. Chock-full of actionable steps on how to assess your website, blog and social media — the book can help new and savvy marketers make meaningful improvements to their online marketing efforts.

You can check out the book on Amazon.

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Local Workshop: A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing

Joey Donovan-Guido — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 16:11:57 +0000

Does online marketing leave you scratching your head?

If so, then join me at DreamBank on Sept. 10 for a workshop that will help you gain an understanding of SEO, user experience and conversion — and how to apply these methodologies to your website, blog and social media.

The workshop will be interactive, and chock-full of usable strategies!

Sign Up Now

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The Best Way to Brew Fresh Content into Your Website

Joey Donovan-Guido — Fri, 07 Apr 2017 14:40:00 +0000

Once a month, Cuppa SEO presents a Facebook Live event called Five-minute Fridays. As you might have guessed, this five-minute video takes place on a Friday, and covers a topic associated with online marketing.

In this installment of the series, we answer an important question regarding the “freshness factor” and your website: what is the best way to brew fresh content into your website?

There’s a lot of value packed into these five minutes, so be sure to check it out!

If you need assistance creating fresh content for your blog, optimizing your existing website — or web design services with SEO brewed right in, feel free to contact Cuppa SEO anytime.

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Two-minute Tuesdays: Why Your Blog Needs to be a Subpage of Your Website

Joey Donovan-Guido — Sun, 02 Apr 2017 17:55:58 +0000

Once a month, Cuppa SEO presents a Facebook Live event called Two-minute Tuesdays. As you might have guessed, this is a two-minute video that covers a topic associated with online marketing. And of course, it occurs on a Tuesday.

In this installment of the series, we cover an important blogging tip: why your blog needs to be a subpage of your website — not a subdomain.

Check it out to make sure your blog is working to improve engagement AND your overall website authority …

If you need help with your blog, or simply have questions, feel free to contact Cuppa SEO anytime.

We hope this tip helps you brew a better blog!

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Understanding Online Marketing, Part 6: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Joey Donovan-Guido — Sat, 19 Mar 2016 19:39:59 +0000

In the final installment of our Online Marketing series, we’ll be talking about search engine optimization (SEO) and how it threads through your website, blogging and social media efforts.

As you may have guessed, here at Cuppa SEO we talk about search engine optimization quite a bit. To follow is a brief definition of the term, but for a more detailed look at SEO you can check out our What is SEO? page, or you can click on SEO in the categories box to your right for a variety of articles.

What is SEO?

In a nutshell, search engine optimization is the selection and implementation of optimal keyword phrases along with rich, relevant content into your website, blog and social media efforts.

Keywords and relevant content help Google identify what you do, so when an individual searches for your services or products there’s a better chance you’ll show up in natural search results. And the better optimized you are, the better chance you have of ranking high in these search results.

There’s a lot more nuance involved in the art of SEO, but we’ll leave those details for another day. For now, it’s enough to know that search engine optimization needs to be present, in a meaningful way, on your website, blog and social media.

Does SEO Need to Be Maintained?

In most cases, NO. Although there are many SEO firms that would lead you to believe otherwise.

If someone offers you an ongoing “SEO package” to keep your search engine optimization efforts “fresh” on your website be very careful — in many cases this can do more harm than good.

What about Fresh Content and SEO?

Fresh content is another part of the SEO equation, but on your website homepage and subpages you’ll want to leave well-optimized content alone.

Changing your SEO efforts on your web pages is similar to changing your phone number every month — it’s bad. Just as your customers depend on your phone number to reach you, Google is depending on your optimized content to find you and connect you with individuals who need you. Once you change the SEO on a page, the result can often be going back to square one — losing some or all of your page authority (credibility) with Google.

So, if we need fresh content, where does it come from?

Fresh Content Comes from Your Blog

Use that blog of yours to generate the fresh content Google, and your viewers, are looking for. Adding a minimum of one blog post per week can do wonders for your “freshness factor.” And, by the way, each blog post is excellent fodder for your social media efforts!

SEO & Social Media

Speaking of social media, you’ll want to incorporate relevant keywords into each social media post you publish. Plus, be sure to include an image, with an optimized image name, in each post, too!

Looking to learn more about online marketing?
You can sign up for our complimentary Holistic Approach to Online Marketing webinar.

You can also check out other articles in this series:
– Understanding Online Marketing, Part 1: Your Website
– Understanding Online Marketing, Part 2: User Experience (UX)
– Understanding Online Marketing, Part 3, Conversion
– Understanding Online Marketing, Part 4, Blogging
– Understanding Online Marketing, Part 5, Social Media

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