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Build site authority with Google, Yahoo, Bing, search engines. Allow the right people to find you online
The right content attracts the right people
Make indelible impressions at a glance. Direct visitors intuitively to the next experience.
The key to any great experience is simplicity. Web design is no different.
Increasing sales is a mission all businesses have. This mission begins by understanding your audience well and solving their problems with your goods or services and eliminating anything that slows that goal. Let’s do that for you.
Get a handle on your bottom line. We’ll find the value you offer and a healthy return on it. Annually, thirds, halves, quarters, however you slice it, we’ll discover ways to increase your return through best practices.
The best practice is to deliver the best service your audience could imagine and go beyond. At Ep, this is our core belief. If we all start there, brand awareness increases internally and externally, public relations is smooth, social acknowledgment grows, and a fan base develops around your company, your marketing cost decreases.
Acquiring expert advice on things digital, for instance, the internet, applications, programs, the use of digital technology and how to achieve the desired results.
Inbound marketing is a method used to attract consumers to your business by providing the right content at the right time—a process endorsed by Hubspot. The technique is to Attract, Engage, and Delight your visitors and clients.
Digital Marketing strategy is a process that uses digital materials ( Images, Text, Video, Audio, etc.) on digital channels to engage the public and assist them in purchasing goods and services.
Content marketing is the process of creating information that solves the needs, wants and cravings of consumers causing them to purchase goods or services. Content takes the form of text, images, video, audio.
Web design refers to creating the look and usability of a website. Still, it may go further into cross-discipline technology related to a website’s front-end and back-end development, SEO, and graphic design.
Graphic design is a means of stimulating emotion, thought colour, text and imagery. Advertisers, marketers, UX designers (user experience) UI designers (user interface) also implement its principles.
Pay-per-click (PPC) is a type of search engine marketing (SEM). Advertisers pay for hosting their ads on platforms like Google, Bing, Facebook, Instagram and others. When someone clicks the advertiser’s ads, the advertiser pays the venue for each click.
Social media marketers and businesses use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other similar platforms to promote products or services to attract people of a specific social demographic.
Acquiring expertise advice on things digital, for instance, the internet, applications, programs, the use of digital technology and how to achieve the desired results from its use.
Your journey is unique and vital to us. Even top athletes need coaches. You are in the game. The coach’s advantage is he or she sees the overall play. Similarly, we act as an advisor or coach. With our experience, we examine your whole game plan for success.
To best serve you, we’ll need to get to know you better. Your company’s goal and history is the first step. You will appreciate for us this is a listening and discovery session. To best prepare, here are some general questions. See the link below for a more detailed list
Pointing the way to success can only prove fruitful if the path is understood. Our mission is to help, and also clarify steps to your destination. We will present the reasons for any suggestion in the form of the latest guidance, stats, case studies and depending on your learning preferences.
Your previous, present and future content are crucial. It’s your voice; it’s your brand, its how you speak to your audience. Being that the internet is a search instrument where tens, hundreds and potentially thousands are searching for your content, your availability is critical.
Inbound marketing is a method used to attract consumers to your business by providing the right content at the right time—a process endorsed by the company Hubspot. The technique is to Attract, Engage, and Delight your visitors and clients.
Inbound marketing is a reciprocal process. It’s mostly a natural and straightforward human behaviour practiced online. The more you genuinely and lavishly give your insights, knowledge, resources, and attention to solving for your audience, they naturally return, share, and show appreciation, trust, and loyalty to your brand.
By offering reliable, valuable up-to-date content in a form easily absorbed, consumers’ prospects and customers form one-to-one trusted relationships with your organization.
When your content genuinely resonates with your audience, they are likely to recommend you to others.
The process of satisfying the right visitors with your insight, product, service and brand start a rotatory action. HubSpot calls this method Attract, Engage and Delight.
Strangers visit your website; they, in turn, become prospects because they are delighted with your product and services; they become enthusiastic fans, loyal customers and promoters of your brand, saving your company tons in advertising dollars.
HubSpot, a champion in this methodology, uses a flywheel to explain.
It should go without saying, marketing, sales, and services should act as one organization. Still, there are endless complaints about customers feeling lost in a perpetual maddening shuffle between departments; this is friction.
Marketing has the responsibility of attracting by blogging and content creatives, attracting leads. Sales teams add momentum through social selling, while customer service concentrates on referrals from present customers and making sure they are happy.
Communication must be seamless. To make this possible and smooth, prevent valuable leads and customers’ from frustrating experiences, we solve this using HubSpot software.
At its core, HubSpot offers a free customer relations system (CRM) and tons of support, insight and training. It’s paid software catapults any organization into marketing heaven. I have never seen any company like it; it’s an inbound model company; its inbound marketing success is unmatched.
Inbound is developed around buyers personas. Creating content creation strategies that offer real value, publishing articles, content offers, videos, user-guides, ebooks and engaging with social media. This process has a proven track record of success. Solving your visitors’ pain points show a deep understanding of their needs and wants.
You have heard it said in business, “Location Location Location.” Combining SEO strategies in your content delivery program boosts your campaigns by finding you the right people, people looking for your services.
SEO puts your company on Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERP). It produces website authority needed for Google to rank your site and recommend your organization to its searchers.
Here is a wise and honoured saying that has faced the test of time “All things, therefore, that you want men (or women) to do to you, you also must do to them.” That saying is ever faithful when it comes to delighting customers.
Marketing, sales and service play a huge role here. Members belonging to this fraternity must be trained advisors to assist customers at any point in their relationship with your company.
In many cases, automation helps alleviate some of the work involved in returning thank you messages when someone makes a purchase or even fills out a survey. This type of automation, when personalized, makes your customers feel appreciated.
Chatbots are becoming more excepted. Exercise caution here! While I’ve had some good experiences, improperly programmed bots have caused me grief. Programmed correctly, it’s no doubt the future.
Keep abreast of social media, especially channels you use. It plays a crucial role in modern marketing. A timely response can prove fruitful.
Customers use your profile to ask questions, express their opinions, review your products and services. Responding quickly and appropriately shows you care.
“A market analysis is a process of gathering information about a market within an industry. Your analysis studies the dynamics of a market and what makes potential customers tick. Market analysis may seem complex, but it’s necessary if you want to lead your business in the direction of success.” Mike Kappel, CEO of patriotsoftware.com
Using the word research here, we’re talking about market analysis since there are many necessary research types.
You may also want to look at internal communication, communication between departments like marketing, sales and service, where friction occurs between organizations and clients. This area has made many companies and also brakes many companies.
Another place not to be ignored is the journey taken by strangers, leads, customers as they interact with your organization. It’s critical.
Most businesses have this type of study done already. If you have it, you’re off to the races. If you are a startup and haven’t had this done yet, it is necessary that you have it done as soon as possible. It does take time to gather this information accurately..
What should this study show you?
Here’s what to look for;
Market research helps your organization identify where you are among your competitors and how to position yourself in the market.
You can now look for areas your competitors may be neglecting. On further examination, these areas may turn out to be your niche market.
With market research available, this helps all involved, marketers, writers, content creators, search engine optimizers (SEO), web designers, UX designers, web developers.
This information gives you what you need to formulate a strategic advantage over your competition.
There are other benefits as well; consider a few.
We’ve all heard the story about Blockbuster and Netflix. Research helps you to see where your industry is heading; something Blockbuster failed to do. It allows you to take advantage of trends, and see whether or not a particular direction is worth your time and investment; you can anticipate changes in your marketplace. Market analysis shows stakeholders that you have an excellent understanding of your organization and industry.
Once again, you can determine who your target customers are. These are folks who are the most likely candidate to be your customers. You would want to know their:
With this information, you can build personas. Of course, you’ll add your present customers to the mix. They would be a more reliable source in persona building.
You want to take your competitors seriously. You can learn much from them.
What do they do better than you?
Where are they located, are their customers happy with them, and why?
What are their offers?
Prices?
Be meticulous; make a list of all your competitors using a spreadsheet. SWOT Analysis is a good idea.
There is much to business analysis. It would be hard to cover it all. We’ll stick to what’s relevant to marketing, sales and service and any overlapping factors.
A strategy is a process taken to accomplish an end goal.
Digital Marketing strategy is a process that uses digital materials ( Images, Text, Video, Audio, etc.) on digital channels to engage the public and assist them in purchasing goods and services.
The process is the same for any marketing whether or not it’s a digital marketing strategy or a marketing strategy in general.
First, your plan must take into account where you are at at this marketing moment.
A written document must be ever-present, outlining the overarching goal to achieve.
Mapping progress is critical.
Next, what are the challenges? What are the guiding principles in dealing with obstacles? With a clear goal in mind and how to deal with problems along the way, you can now choose what digital vehicles you will use to get to your final destination.
Using actual data from your present customers, armed with a market analysis of potential customers, leads and new website visitors or anyone beneficial to your strategy. You build a profile of persons at each step of the buyer’s journey. You will be creating several. Only then can you address how you can solve for them.
Your goal might look like this: To get a 20% increase in sales, I will need 500 visitors to my site each month for three months using Facebook, AdWord, Instagram, using gated offers to generate 50 leads a month and 15 sales each month.
You may want to examine the content you’ve used in the past that have been successful in previous campaigns. Make an examination of which channels were successful and those that weren’t.
Creating content your company owns is an objective. They are assets. Certain types of content never become dated and or may remain fresh for long periods. Once designed and tested, these creations continue to deliver, long after the campaign is over. The market analysis will set a clear mandate on the type of content you will create to attract your audience.
Search engine optimization are methods used to increase your content and website’s visibility to searchers like you conducting searches on the internet for content, thereby increasing the quality and quantity of traffic to your website.
It’s about understanding what people are searching for online, the answers they are seeking, the words they’re using, and the type of content they wish to consume. Knowing the answers to these questions will allow you to connect to the people who are searching online for the solutions you offer.
As the term search engine implies, searching is involved. Google provides an engine. Bing, Yahoo, Baidu are service providers as well and have their engines. They help people find information on the internet. Based on what an individual is searching for, they aim to give the most relevant answers in a time-sensitive fashion.
Search engines are answering machines. Search engines pre-index the internet’s vast store of websites content worldwide through a process called crawling. All this information is stored at Google servers ( and Yahoo, Bing and others) waiting for someone to ask a question. When a query is typed into a browser or voiced search is made, the database responds with the most relevant answer. The answers come back on the search results page (SERP).
Your company and competitors offer information about products and services on the web. It’s now the search engine’s job to find the best and most relevant answer to a search. It makes a choice based on how easy it is to retrieve that information and serve it to the inquirer. If the search engine encounters difficulties retrieving that information form your site, it looks to your competitor.
To facilitate searches, Google and the likes, Bing, Yahoo, and others publish their criteria. Search engine providers instructing website owners on how they can make it easy for their bots or crawlers (computer programs that search through your site in advance and index it.) to find the information their searchers are querying.
The description here of SEO is to provide you with an idea of what is involved in optimizing your website. This description is oversimplified here.
You will find resources at the end of this section for a deeper dive if your time permits.
The first step to accomplishing great SEO. Is a technical audit. Here’s is a description of what it entails.
SEO (search engine optimization) refers to techniques that help your website rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). One aspect of the overarching SEO topic is technical SEO. Technical SEO includes key ranking factors that are embedded in the structure of your website, including crawling, indexing and more! To understand how technical SEO affects the overall performance of your website, it is necessary to conduct a technical SEO audit.
Content marketing is the process of creating information that solves the needs, wants and cravings of consumers causing them to purchase goods or services. Content takes the form of text, images, video, and audio.
The word content takes on a different meaning depending on the context, whether a noun, adjective or verb. Content on the internet refers to materials presented online. People go online for varied reasons. Content is shown in the form of text, images, video, audio. Content marketing comes into play when folks are surfing the web looking for goods and services.
Delivering content to an audience does not necessarily fall under the term content marketing.
Content marketing is part of a broad strategy with many components. Here are a few aspects.
Only then can you enter into a productive content creation process.
This is an oversimplified view of content marketing strategy and content.
We’ll be getting into more details on this broad subject in future articles.
In the meanwhile, here’s an in-depth article by: i-scoop; Content marketing: defining a content marketing strategy
Web design refers to creating the look and usability of a website. Still, it may go further into cross-discipline technology related to a website’s front-end and back-end development, SEO, and graphic design.
The key to any great experience is simplicity. Web design is no different. People are busy, and we all feel our time is valuable, and it is. If the information your visitors come for isn’t readily available, they’ll bounce and go elsewhere.
When someone comes to your site, the visitor begins a scan with there eyes for what they came for, if your site’s navigation is intuitive and within a few clicks they arrive at their destination, they’ll likely stay and consume the information.
We talk a lot about market strategy; your website is a part of that overall plan; it’s critical to get the design right. Here are features to consider;
Being visual by nature makes it essential to order things visually. It helps our brain prioritize what action to take next. We are looking to lead the visitor to complete the desired action. This action shouldn’t feel forced but comfortable, almost effortless.
The term UX, user experience is often used. It expresses where the focus of design should be. As time goes by, we’ll delve more into the psychological side to this subject, if you have a day or two set aside for reading, for now just the facts. When it comes to designing your website consideration of your overall marketing plan is most important, the users become our focus.
Logically navigation is essential, so let’s consider it.
Your main navigation should be straightforward, void of clutter. Like a good servant, it shouldn’t be too far from a quick mouse click. Many use a stickie menu or stickie header; you’ve seen them; as you scroll, it’s always visible.
What other types of navigation are there? There are breadcrumbs. It’s called breadcrumbs because of its nature. It should intuitively lead visitors along a trail of information to his or her final destination. It appears on pages as mini clickable headings. These are very helpful if, at a glance and click, it leads to the topic searched.
Another form of navigation is those found inline. Inline navigation is useful when words or phrases which are distinctly highlighted lead to more in-depth subjects. While this can be help full, if the inline link doesn’t suit your visitor’s intended interest, they should be able to get back to where they were. In this case, provided the user with a back button or open the link in another browser so they may return to the tab where they were if necessary.
Navigation is the footer area is essential. Here the user has an opportunity to view other helpful links or a sitemap. This area is known for regenerating a user’s interest.
Your pages should have conformity. Consistency is necessary, so the user knows what to expect from page to page. Headers used consistently establishes topic importance. Fonts types used correctly highlight what a user can expect from page to page.
You may want to use colours and font sparingly to lessen confusion. It’s recommended a few colours, and a few fonts should be applied sitewide.
The layout can be changed, but keep the simplicity of your site and your users in mind.
We can’t forget our brothers and sisters online with limitations. There should be no barriers to prevent interaction with your site. Making your website accessible is deemed good practice by Google and search engine standards, and they reward you for it in their system of rank and site authority.
Accessibility is not a convenience; it’s a necessity. To give you an idea of what accessibility in-tales, keep in mind these features are not visible on your site, they are internal and must be triggered by someone with challenges.
Here is where SEO and site design intercept, and can be challenging.
This concept is unknown to most internet users, and the implementation shouldn’t be an option.
Here are just some examples of where SEO and accessibility can overlap:
In designing, good designers keep in mind what the online public already knows and has come to accept as standard website convention. Users already know what a menu looks like, a button, a link, the pointer changes and the text colour changes when hovered. Use this website convention to your advantage. Remember user convenience.
Credibility has the best rewards. Let visitors know what you do upfront.
Let them know what you do best and let your customers in on selling your services. Deliver, Deliver and Deliver. While many use social media to build authority, your site should speak volumes and louder when it comes to credibility. There’s a monetary value attached to trustworthiness, build it and protect it. Make it easy for users to find your information. If your information solves for your users, Google rewards your site and rank it high.
Design your site to solve for your visitors. A website owner should consider users first while weaving the business plan to assist buyers and customers..
Graphic design is a means of stimulating emotion, thought colour, text and imagery. Advertisers, marketers, UX designers (user experience) UI designers (user interface) also implement its principles.
The implementation of graphics into advertising and its success is undisputed.
Graphics is a powerful tool for stimulating the human soul.
The use of it aimlessly will stimulate emotion, but that’s not the purpose of this writing.
Used with a focus an intent, the desired feelings, thoughts and actions can be counted on, usually.
Why did I say usually? Because when considering colour, shapes, text, imagery, symbols, we are dealing with infinity. That being said, the use of shapes, text, colours, imagery, while cultural in many cases, can be used effectively and is being used with astounding success.
Pay-per-click (PPC) is a type of search engine marketing (SEM). Advertisers pay for the privilege of hosting their ads on platforms like Google, Bing, Facebook, Instagram and others. When someone clicks the advertiser’s ads, the advertiser pays the platform for each click
45% of small businesses engage in this type of marketing because it can offer an immediate return on their investment. It is an excellent way to jump-start your startup because getting unpaid traffic to a new website takes time; unpaid is called organic traffic. Some companies have used PPC with little success, why, became as simple as it sounds pay-per-click is much more involved.
The principles behind how it works must be understood to gain the upper hand.
Let’s examine some principles of how it works. There are a few acronyms and terms you should know.
Key terms:
Mentioned earlier in the description above was the fact that PPC is a form of search engine marketing. You can pay for search engine advertising, or you can use SEM without paying, that method is called organic marketing, but this is about PPC. Google, Bing, Facebook, many other platforms offer PPC as a service.
Cost per click is what you will pay when someone clicks your ad.
The system is an auction. An auction is a competition for a desired item, keyword, keyword phrase; in this case, it’s an auction for top placement of your ad or rank.
You decide what you are willing to pay. You may be tempted to spend more to outbid the competition, not so fast! There are other considerations.
There’s a formula, and here’s how it works: (Competitors Ad Rank/Your quality score)+ $0.01= your cost-per-click(CPC).
Quality score, what that? We’ll get to that in a minute. Try to preserve your sanity as we proceed.
Ad Rank is the position your ad appears on the search engine results page (SERP).
The quality score takes into account several attributes. Google, especially looks for these; other search engines follow suit because Google is the giant in this field.
These features are click-through-rate (CTR);
Google already knows how the best ads perform in your category, so they grade the quality of your ad according to the best performing ads in their database.
The quality or choice of keywords used.
When someone clicks your ad, they are lead to a page of some sort. The relevance of that page to your ad is rated; in other words, does that landing page fulfill the searcher’s expectations?
Yes, Google takes note of how well you have crafted your ads in the past and rewards you or not.
Quality score =
So as you can see, throwing more money at a lousy performing ad can be likened to throwing your hard-earned investment out the window or giving it to Google and other platforms.
If you get your quality score right, even though someone else outbids you, you can still earn the top rank if your quality score is excellent.
Cost per mille means cost per thousand. You pay per thousand views or what is called impressions. Impressions are used mostly for building brand awareness as display ads also do. Most platforms offer this service, but especially social media.
Webster dictionary says a campaign is: “an organized course of action to achieve a goal.” So there are PPC campaigns. Let’s follow Webster’s advice. What is the purpose of this campaign or theme? : e.g. A Sale on widgets.
An ad group contains one or more ads that share similar targets. You set a bid, or price, to be used when an ad group's keywords trigger an ad to appear. This is called a cost-per-click (CPC) bid. You can also set prices for individual keywords within the ad group. Use ad groups to organize your ads by a common theme, such as the types of products or services you want to advertise.
Keywords, how do they work? As the word implies, there is a key to unlocking the secrete to ranking on Google’s search engine results page (SERP).
A keyword, or a focus keyword as some call it, is a word that describes the content on your page, ads or post best. It's the search term that you want to rank for with a certain page or ad. So when people search for that keyword or phrase in Google or other search engines, they should find that page or ad on your website or landing page.
Landing pages are a critical element in PPC and other forms of SEM.
This page is usually extremely focused. One thing you may notice about landing pages is the fact that there’s often no way to navigate off that page. You present your offer, and the visitor has a decision to make, sign up, or buy, or you may choose to have them subscribe for more information or a one time offer. Signing up for more info or a special offer is called a gated offer, in which you collect their data on a form and give them something of real value.
Later you may choose to use their information to further their interest in your product and services.
How you present your landing page counts towards your quality score.
PPC is rewarding once one understands the methods and requirements behind the scene. It would be best if you followed the principles discussed here, but more is required. A significant concern in any marketing venture is the margin between your spending and your return (ROI)
To be successful at any marketing, you must know how to calculate the return on your investment; also, the customer acquisition cost (CAC). Another calculation is the lifetime value of a customer (LTV). When these and other factors are in place and known, only then can one understand whether they are getting value on their spending.
We will continue to inform you about other considerations regarding PPC and different types of SEM.
As the internet continues to grows and systems become robust, this and other subjects on marketing are becoming inexhaustible and highly specialized.
To succeed in online marketing takes knowledge and know-how. Being in the trenches, so to speak, keeps us sharp and busy. PPC and SEM are challenging, you will need help to some degree, to what degree? That’s a choice you’ll need to make, and we are accommodating that way.
We know for experience, to research, formulate strategies, launch, monitor and feed a campaign with winning content takes an experienced team. Find out more, why we are passionate about what we do, and how we can help. We offer a free consultation to understand your goals and if our services can benefit your company and, of course, to see if we are a good fit for your project. Contact us by filling out our contact form and giving us a little info about yourself and your company, and the next business day, someone will contact you. We’d Love to hear from you.
Some systems and platforms make businesses and marketer’s lives easier, like Hubspot marketing software. Still, there is no total autopilot yet 🙂 We use their software for marketing, and love it, and you might find it works for you too. In the meantime, we can offer you professional Marketing Campaign management and free HubSpot software to test drive.
Check out these resources: We recommend these to you because it puts marketers and businesses on the same page. Enjoy.
Social media marketers and businesses use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other similar platforms to promote products or services to attract people of a specific social demographic.
The word social is related to society, and media has a relationship to publishing to the masses. Social platforms are where people socialize or hang out, exchanging thoughts and ideas. That’s what social media is all about. It’s a place where people meet, form social pockets, special interest groups, clubs, fraternities, a watering hole, even more so as the world awakens to the new reality of Covid19.
Since it’s a place where society frequent, social platforms have proven to be a treasure trove for businesses. Businesses can focus on their clients, their products and services, and even have the public weigh-in and comments on products and services offered. It’s a great place to build brand awareness.
All social media platforms are different; In that, they cater to varying types of socialites. The folks on LinkedIn differ from the folks on Instagram. The users on Snap-chat form a different demographic than on twitter. Knowing the difference is the key to running successful marketing campaigns.
For example, if you are going for that target audience of athleisure-loving millennials, you may want to focus the majority of your social media efforts on Insta"gram — this is because millennials cover the largest portion of users on the platform.
Statistics formulated by HubSpot.
Automate your sales and marketing with HubSpot’ software Check out their story
Everyone knows that social media is powerful. How powerful? Statistics show that 3.2 billion people are on social media globally. It easy to see why its a great place to invest. Approached right, it’s a business branding mecca.
The content you produce has an enormous impact on leads generated and conversion rates. When someone engages with your profile, they have made themselves available. You can now answer any questions they may have, offer something that speaks to their pain point or solve an issue they have. Being helpful can always benefit you with likes and followers.
