Google using schema.org tags to highlight events in search

/in ,

~Recent Google Update

Google has now expanded the use of Schema.org tags and created a tool to check your website to see if there are any errors.  Here are 2 links that Google has created.

Structured Data Testing Tool

Prototype and test your markup

Knowledge Card

In March of 2015, Google made a change in how they display entertainment and events in their search results. Before the change, if someone searched for his or her favorite band, Google would often display a knowledge graph panel that presented a lot of great details about them. Details like the names of group members and upcoming concert dates appeared with clickable links for additional information. For Google, in their ongoing effort to provide the most accurate and relevant information possible, instead of providing information from various sources, they began providing information directly from the band’s website.

Musicians, comedians, and other entertainers could have their events shown to Google users with details about them and information on where and how they can purchase tickets. This great feature provides an exceptional way for entertainers to advertize their events, but also a super way for fans to learn more about them. However, in order to use this feature, it is the responsibility of the entertainer or their webmaster to make sure they have the correct schema.org markup tags on their website. If not, Google will not recognize and display their information.

About Schema.org Tags

You may be familiar with HTML tags that used on web pages that guide the web browser in the best way to display the information in the tag. The problem is that the browser may misinterpret HTML tags. A good example of this related to how browsers interpret HTML tags regarding dates. Because there are many different formats to display a date, the HTML tag may not display it as you’d like. The schema project is a collaboration between the major search engines to standardize the structure of the markup. Schema microdata helps to define what something is and how it to handle it. The use of schema microdata can help your SEO strategy because it has the likelihood of increasing visibility, including event information for entertainers.

How to Add Your Information with Schema.org

Schema is considered a best practice for SEO and a requirement under the new Google rules for their knowledge graph panels. That does not imply there is not some level work needed to do so. Fortunately, Google has provided comprehensive information that will assist webmasters and entertainers to appear in the feature. If you are promoting your event and would like Google to highlight information from your website, adding the schema microdata can provide a tremendous boost to your potential audience. After all, isn’t it more fun to entertain a full-house?

Wondering how your digital marketing efforts are doing? Use our complimentary Digital Marketing Scorecard to gain valuable insight on how your website rank compares to others. We are also glad to answer any questions you may have and provide Cohlaborative digital marketing solutions to meet your company’s needs.

Website Spring Cleaning

5 Spring Cleaning Tips for Your Websites You Can Use All Year Long

/in , , , ,

After months of cold temperatures and gray skies, the thermometer is finally beginning to rise and the sun is once again showing its cheerful face. As we recover from our annual bout of cabin fever and begin to feel the energy and motivation that spring often brings, we often look for ways to do some much needed spring cleaning. However one thing many people miss is the spring cleaning that may be needed on their website. Just like our houses and cars, after a time they need a little freshening up, and spring is a wonderful time to make it happen. Here are the top 5 tips to give your website a spring makeover.

# 1 – Scrub Your Website Content:

Content is the lifeblood of your website and is one of your websites most important attributes. It is a key component that will generate traffic and increase the amount of time people are interacting with your brand. If you have older content that should stay on your site, consider freshening it up with a new structure. Perhaps change the titles to something a bit more interesting, or include updated statistics and information. Also, make sure there are no broken links. Another project could be to add links within content that is the least visited to help traffic. Or, simply add content that is fresh and relevant to provide something new to drive people to your site.

# 2 – Sweep Your Website Design:

If your website is looking a little tired and outdated, it may be time for a bit of design rehabilitation. This type of website spring cleaning may require a bit more thought and effort, but it can be invaluable to your digital marketing efforts. Imagine yourself as a visitor to your own site and think about if the information seems well organized. Are the pages are easy to navigate? Consider the message your website is providing visitors, and determine if there are any small adjustments you can make so it is more inviting and interesting.

# 3 – Dust Your Details:

It’s often the little details that people notice about your website that seem the most unprofessional. Check out things like your copyright date in the footer, the events on your calendar page, the staff on your about us page, or the contact information. Make sure everything is current. You might also want to read through your content, or have another set of eyes do it to find any grammar or punctuation issues.

# 4 – Tidy Up Your Website Calls to Action:

Websites serve many purposes. One is for marketing and brand recognition, but another is to prompt people to take action. To really move people to take the action you are shooting for, spend some time thinking about how well your call to actions are crafted. Make sure they are very clear and easy to find. Think about if they are easily shared to social media. If you have been wondering why your call to action is ineffective, it may be it just needs a ten-minute tidy.

# 5 – Shake Out Your Website SEO:

Search Engine Optimization is pretty important, that is if you hope people will find your website. It’s a good idea to take some time to review your SEO and make sure it is clean and polished. First take a peek at your analytics and use it to determine your best traffic drivers, and also any errors that visitors may be running into. Also important, think about how you are using social media. Add links to share content on your various platforms. Consider doing some guest blogs. Review your personal and professional contacts and think about who may benefit from your content. In short, seek out new ways to drive traffic and expand your traffic sources.

Make Your Website Shine Year Round

It’s always refreshing to spend some time doing a little spring cleaning. And while the warmth and brightness of spring is a good reminder to do a little freshening up, the truth is that these same tips to tidy up your website are great things to consider any time of the year. Efforts you make with your web presence today can bring excellent advantages for a long time to come.

Wondering how you are doing? Use our complimentary Digital Marketing Scorecard to gain valuable insight on how your website rank compares to others. We’re also glad to answer any questions you may have and provide Cohlaborative digital marketing solutions to meet your company’s needs.

 

Meta Tags

3 Tips to Get the Most from URL Shorteners | Cohlab Digital Marketing

/in ,

URL shortening is not new; in fact it has been around for many years. And while some may argue reasons why a small business should not use them, they can’t argue that there are some truly great benefits on the pro side. A URL shortener is a service that takes a long and messy looking URL and shortens it into a small and clean looking address. While this in itself can provide some obvious benefits, there are ways a small business can take the use of a URL shortener to the next level. Here are three important tips to get the most out of your URL shorteners.

What URL Shorteners Should I Use?

We recommend two URL shortening services for small business applications. The first is Google’s own Goo.gl. There are several benefits to using Goo.gl. First, people trust Google. Because a shortened URL provides little detail on what it points to, some can be leery. Knowing that Google is behind it and that they remove short URL’s used in spamming, they may not think twice. Also, Goo.gl offers some great analytics tools and is also fabulously easy to use.

Another great service is called Bit.ly. Like Goo.gl, Bit.ly is also a powerful analytic tracker with a full functioning dashboard to make things very easy and understandable. Also with Bit.ly, you are able to create branded short domains so that your short links are clearly recognized as coming from your company. Whichever platform you choose, it’s always good to use your short links wisely to get the most out of them.

Pay attention to your analytics

One of the best uses for shortened URL’s is the ability to better analyze your statistics. This is especially true for your social media. In fact with Bit.ly, you can even have a different short link for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn that points to the same content, and find which social media platform performs better. It can provide invaluable information about your audience and make your marketing efforts significantly more effective.

Use them in unique ways

Shortened URL’s are great for online marketing. Just don’t overlook ways in which they could be useful for traditional marketing as well. A great example would be to use alternate short links on different marketing materials to see which garner the most response. They are also great for things like billboards or signs so you can match specific content with an easy to remember address. Using a little creativity can make them go a long way for you.

Target Your Marketing

Shortened URL’s make it exceptionally easy to track click-through rates, and even determine in which areas you are finding the most response. This helps you to segment your audience and target the right people based on how they interact with your brand.

Use our complimentary Digital Marketing Scorecard to gain valuable insight on how your digital marketing efforts compare with others. We’re also glad to answer any questions you may have and provide Cohlaborative digital marketing solutions to meet your company’s needs.

Tesla Model S image

3 Ways that Tesla and Digital Marketing are the Same

/in

Tesla Motors has slowly made its presence felt in the United States car industry. A combination of product differentiation, and supreme customer service has taken Tesla motors from a small start up to a major player in the automotive industry. Initially viewed as an overpriced boutique car for the rich, Tesla barely registered on the radar of most major car dealers. Now the brand is seen as a viable threat to the entire automotive manufacturing and marketing industry. But sleek and sophisticated car design, and cutting edge technology, are not the only reasons that Tesla Motors is becoming a consumer favorite. Many in the automotive industry attribute its success to a well-designed digital marketing strategy. Check out these three ways that Tesla and digital marketing in general have taken the world by storm.

Digital Marketing & Tesla Blow Away the Competition and Deliver

Digital marketing is not a buzz word, it’s the lifeblood of the modern company. Investment in a solid and progressive digital marketing strategy is an investment in the prolonged success of your company. Digital marketing is more than just a company webpage; it exploits all of the digital tools at the disposal of the modern consumer. This includes websites, television, smartphones, email, QR codes, augmented reality, and more. At the heart of any impactful digital strategy is knowing the way that your target audience prefers to communicate and exploiting these channels.

Tesla has differentiated itself from the competition by actually being as good as they claim. Like digital marketing, the brand simply performs when utilized to its full potential. For example, Tesla’s Model S creators claim that the car can travel 250 miles on one charge. This has been tested and proven true, and has even been exceeded by some drivers.

Use of Social Media and Support

Social media is one effective instrument of digital marketing. Social media spaces like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tumbler, Vine, and Youtube have connected businesses to their customers in new and unimaginable ways. Today’s customers expect an online presence. Companies who manage to establish daily interaction with customers develop customer and brand loyalty, plus their customers have a more positive view of them. Loyalty combined with trust and optimism leads to more sales.

Tesla has a reputation for going above and beyond in their customer support efforts. For example, Musk is working with Tesla to create a network of charging stations across America so that Tesla customers can charge up for free. Owners of Tesla’s Model S can look forward to having follow-up service delivered to their door.

Connect with Customers

Digital marketing will only really work if it connects companies with their consumers. Proper market segmentation and analysis will allow for companies to send specialized messages to different segments of their base via mobile phones, emails, and other forms of personal devices. This drastically increases the likelihood of sales and conversions.

Tesla’s level of dedication to customer service sets them apart from other car companies. A stroll through their retail store shows how much Tesla cares about satisfying their customers. Brand representatives float through the crowd to answer customer questions. A design studio allows customers to customize their own vehicles, surfing through various interiors, exteriors, and accessories.

Tesla and digital marketing share a few important traits that make them both highly efficient. They both deliver great results when handled properly, use social media and support to create loyalty, and connect with customers on deeper and more profitable levels.

Use our complimentary Digital Marketing Scorecard to gain valuable insight on how your website rank compares to others. We’re also glad to answer any questions you may have and provide Cohlaborative digital marketing solutions to meet your company’s needs.

5 Tips to Use MailChimp Effectively for Your Email Marketing Platform

5 Tips to Use MailChimp Effectively for Your Email Marketing Platform

/in ,

The web is filled with different tools and services that are designed to help small businesses successfully implement an email marketing campaign, and for good reason. Email marketing continues to provide a phenomenal return on investment. One of the best known of these products is MailChimp. The service is fairly straightforward and easy to learn quickly. However, knowing how to send an email marketing campaign with MailChimp, and knowing how to maximize the use of it for the best possible result are two different things. In this article, we look at 5 ways your small business can maximize your success and use MailChimp more effectively.

Your Audience

Without a good list and a number of quality subscribers, nobody is even seeing your email campaign. A good subscriber list is the foundation on which any great email campaign is built. Generating a list of people who wish to receive and read what you are sending takes time to build, but it is worth the investment. More importantly, once you have a list, take the time to segment it into targeted groups. Separate them by demographic, their activities, purchase history, or other specialized groups. Once your list is segmented, you have the ability to specifically target certain groups with specialized content that will have the greatest effect on that particular segment.

Your Statistics

One of the great things about MailChimp, is that it provides a great deal of information that can help determine if your content is hitting the mark. Those stats aren’t just there for MailChimp to look professional. They are there to be used. Pay attention to your statistics like open rates, unsubscribes, and click-through rates. If you sent an email last week that had a 60% open rate, and your email this week is only at 20%, what made the difference? Taking the time to review and evaluate your statistics can greatly increase the impact your campaigns will have.

Your Opening Line

It has been shown that 33% of your audience opens an email strictly based on the subject line only. If your subject line isn’t something that entices recipients to open the email, you are eliminating a third of your list immediately. Use creativity, clarity, personalization, capitalization, powerful words, conciseness, and make it compelling. Sounds easy right? Don’t panic, if you are taking advantage of tip 2, knowing your exact target will make crafting a great subject line much easier.

Your Timing

Knowing when to hit the big red launch button that MailChimp ceremoniously provides takes a little research. Fortunately, the research has mostly been done; all you need to do is follow what it tells you. MailChimp did their own study and found that emails sent Tuesday through Thursday around 4 PM have the best open rates. You may find that your own segments have their own open rate sweet spot. And, MailChimp even provides a send optimization tool to help hit the moving target that is your audience.

Your Content and Layout

Even if you have a masterful subject line that is simply impossible for people to skip, the stuff inside that email is critical to achieving any action taken by the recipient. Various studies give an average email reading time of 7 to 15 seconds for over half of the population. That’s not much time, and chances are that whatever is at the top of your email will be the content that is viewed. Whatever your mission for the campaign, whether it’s information about an event or a call to action, make sure it is at the top of your layout. Structure your email so the most important information comes first. Use color, use images, use infographics, and use different design elements that capture their eyes like you want the written content to capture their mind. Fortunately, you don’t have to be a graphic designer to do this successfully. MailChimp has pre-made templates that guide you through the process and help find that balance between catching and overbearing.

Don’t Waste Your Time

As the old saying goes, time is money. Any activity you do, any investment you make regarding your company’s marketing strategy should be successful and provide a great return on the investment. MailChimp, and other email marketing products can be a tool that slingshots your marketing efforts into the stratosphere. But they can also be an utter waste of time. Before you decide to start your own email marketing campaign, take the time to familiarize yourself with how it works, and then follow these tips to maximize the result of your efforts.

Use our complimentary Digital Marketing Scorecard to gain valuable insight on how your website rank compares to others. We’re also glad to answer any questions you may have and provide Cohlaborative digital marketing solutions to meet your company’s needs.

 

5 Tips to Use MailChimp Effectively for Your Email Marketing Platform

/in ,

The web is filled with different tools and services that are designed to help small businesses successfully implement an email marketing campaign, and for good reason. Email marketing continues to provide a phenomenal return on investment. One of the best known of these products is MailChimp. The service is fairly straightforward and easy to learn quickly. However, knowing how to send an email marketing campaign with MailChimp, and knowing how to maximize the use of it for the best possible result are two different things. In this article, we look at 5 ways your small business can maximize your success and use MailChimp more effectively.

Your Audience

Without a good list and a number of quality subscribers, nobody is even seeing your email campaign. A good subscriber list is the foundation on which any great email campaign is built. Generating a list of people who wish to receive and read what you are sending takes time to build, but it is worth the investment. More importantly, once you have a list, take the time to segment it into targeted groups. Separate them by demographic, their activities, purchase history, or other specialized groups. Once your list is segmented, you have the ability to specifically target certain groups with specialized content that will have the greatest effect on that particular segment.

Your Statistics

One of the great things about MailChimp, is that it provides a great deal of information that can help determine if your content is hitting the mark. Those stats aren’t just there for MailChimp to look professional. They are there to be used. Pay attention to your statistics like open rates, unsubscribes, and click-through rates. If you sent an email last week that had a 60% open rate, and your email this week is only at 20%, what made the difference? Taking the time to review and evaluate your statistics can greatly increase the impact your campaigns will have.

Your Opening Line

It has been shown that 33% of your audience opens an email strictly based on the subject line only. If your subject line isn’t something that entices recipients to open the email, you are eliminating a third of your list immediately. Use creativity, clarity, personalization, capitalization, powerful words, conciseness, and make it compelling. Sounds easy right? Don’t panic, if you are taking advantage of tip 2, knowing your exact target will make crafting a great subject line much easier.

Your Timing

Knowing when to hit the big red launch button that MailChimp ceremoniously provides takes a little research. Fortunately, the research has mostly been done; all you need to do is follow what it tells you. MailChimp did their own study and found that emails sent Tuesday through Thursday around 4 PM have the best open rates. You may find that your own segments have their own open rate sweet spot. And, MailChimp even provides a send optimization tool to help hit the moving target that is your audience.

Your Content and Layout

Even if you have a masterful subject line that is simply impossible for people to skip, the stuff inside that email is critical to achieving any action taken by the recipient. Various studies give an average email reading time of 7 to 15 seconds for over half of the population. That’s not much time, and chances are that whatever is at the top of your email will be the content that is viewed. Whatever your mission for the campaign, whether it’s information about an event or a call to action, make sure it is at the top of your layout. Structure your email so the most important information comes first. Use color, use images, use infographics, and use different design elements that capture their eyes like you want the written content to capture their mind. Fortunately, you don’t have to be a graphic designer to do this successfully. MailChimp has pre-made templates that guide you through the process and help find that balance between catching and overbearing.

Don’t Waste Your Time

As the old saying goes, time is money. Any activity you do, any investment you make regarding your company’s marketing strategy should be successful and provide a great return on the investment. MailChimp, and other email marketing products can be a tool that slingshots your marketing efforts into the stratosphere. But they can also be an utter waste of time. Before you decide to start your own email marketing campaign, take the time to familiarize yourself with how it works, and then follow these tips to maximize the result of your efforts.

Use our complimentary Digital Marketing Scorecard to gain valuable insight on how your website rank compares to others. We’re also glad to answer any questions you may have and provide Cohlaborative digital marketing solutions to meet your company’s needs.