By Max Klein, Marketing Coordinator

Staying competitive in the digital marketing requires dedication if you want your small business to thrive. Ensuring your website is well-optimized with the best search engine optimization (SEO) practices is one way to be a step ahead of your competitors. Being up-to-date on the latest changes in SEO can also help you improve the performance of your various digital marketing campaigns, ensuring that you yield the maximum return from all your investments. 

If you have a website, then conduct an SEO audit to check if you are making these below SEO mistakes. These could be one of the reasons why your website is not garnering enough traffic or is still not ranking well.

By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant & President

A number of our small business clients come to us because they need a better web presence or want to begin marketing their business online. We hate to do it, but sometimes we have to pump the brakes, take a step back and discuss their branding. For most small businesses, "branding" may consist of their logo and perhaps a small set of preferred colors, and maybe, if we're lucky, some defined fonts and images. 

But the importance of your small business' logo cannot be overstated. The logo is often the first interaction and subsequent reaction a new prospect experiences when discovering your business. So the important question is: does it send the message you want to communicate about your company?

By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant & President

In 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) became law, and since then businesses, both large and small, have been required to make their physical business environment accessible to the differently abled. 

The ADA is a broad civil rights law that seeks to shut down discrimination, whether intentional or not, of those that need physical or cognitive accommodations to have equal access to state and local governments, nonprofit organizations, labor unions, and businesses. ​

ADA requirements apply to any agency, organization, or business with 15 or more employees. According to the law, these entities must make “reasonable accommodations” for employees that are disabled. But there is more you need to know to avoid running afoul of the law and ADA compliance when it comes to your small business website.

​By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant & President

Have you ever gone into a brick-and-mortar store and been frustrated by the experience? Maybe the aisles were too narrow or the line at the checkstand was too long. Or perhaps the music was too loud or the staff just unhelpful. As shoppers, we understand that these negative customer experiences impact sales. But as small businesses are we looking at our web presence in the same light? If not, we should and here's why. 

​By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant & President​

A great website homepage is built with intent and designed to serve different audiences. Think about how and why visitors may come to your website. There will be those seeking to find a solution to their problem, hoping your product or service does the trick. But there will be visitors who are still researching and gathering information as well. Your homepage will also need to help job seekers, vendors, and potential business partners find their way around, too.

A great homepage incorporates elements that will attract traffic, educate a variety of visitors, and invite conversions. These elements move visitors from "just looking" to completing their desired task and submitting a contact form and becoming a lead.  Or if you're selling online, these elements will help shoppers with completing a sale and becoming a customer.

​By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant & President​

Any time Google makes a change to the way websites are indexed and ranked, feathers get ruffled and there's a bit of a "the-sky-is-falling" response. But no need to fret. With every change to made by Google, we've actually seen opportunities and improvements that deliver better results and better user experiences for consumers. So change is good. 

That said, this means that there's some new attention to be paid to your website to ensure that you're truly optimized to reap the most benefit from this latest decree from the Googledom.