Checklist Before You Accept Your New Website
Make sure that your website is on the right shape when it is turned over to you. I’ve seen and helped some company owners who are disenchanted with the kind of website handed back to them by their web developer/designer. There are a lot of excellent website creators but there remain a few who deliver horrendous result way beyond the agreed timeline. They drown the clients with unnecessary technical jargons pushing them away to have revisions.
Web developer is usually more expensive than web designer. To simplify, the first makes code from scratch while the latter is like a graphic artist that beautifies the page. If your goal is creating simple sites to display your services without a need to code for e-commerce or app usage, for example, then getting a web designer should be okay. Luckily, there are Content Management System (CMS) that is so easy to use like WordPress and Wix. CMS have themes ready to be applied and web designers can produce pretty pages without writing codes.
Before hiring a website team, don’t hesitate to request and identify the following aspects:
Portfolio – authentic rockstars would be proud of their craft and will not refuse to show sample work in reason of confidentiality or busy schedules.
Scope – Ask in detail the task lists. What’s the maximum pages? Will the contents (text and images) come from you or from them? Will they apply basic SEO? Will the website turnover include a live training?
Good to discuss here the expectations of both sides; share your pegs and what do you like to achieve by launching a (new) website. You must also not hesitate to ask questions on the process.
People – Know the people you are working with. Will you talk straight with the developer, or will they have an account manager? For sure, you can skip this part if hiring a freelancer but make sure communication gateway is clear.
Communication – Will they answer a call in the morning via Viber? Can they reply to email within 24 hours? Good to have this stipulated in the agreement as well.
Timeline – Don’t jump into a contract without knowing the schedule. When will they start the preparation? When will they start the migration? When will you go live? How long will they troubleshoot? Sometimes delay happens when there are glitches on the site but doing a troubleshoot should not go more than two weeks.
The moment you get an access to your website, take a look at the following checklist before you proceed with the sign-off:
Proofread your site. Avoid typo and grammar error as it diminishes the professional value of your online presence.
Check each CTA button and hyperlink if working and if it is anchor to the right page.
Photos are not distorted on web and mobile.
Since most traffic comes from mobile, make sure that yours is friendly. Go to this site and find out: https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
You can report it back to your web team to make sure they improve the result. Same goes for page speed.
Slow website is not good. Your site visitors (humans and bots) are not very patient to wait for your contents to load. It should be on the good mark based on this test: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
It may take a while before your new website is crawled by Googe-bots. There is no schedule as to when it will visit but give it about two weeks to one month then try this on the search box, type: site:mywebsite.com
Search Engine Results Page (SERP) should generate for you the index pages (this means the pages from your website that it sees).
Another way to make sure it is crawlable is via robots.txt. Try this, type: www.yourwebsite.com/robots.txt
You should see something like this:
User-agent: *
Allow: /
“User-agent” means search engine robots.
“Allow: /” means you permit the user agent or the bots to crawl your website.
You can revert back to your web team if you see “Disallow: /”, they should be able to fix it quickly. Note that it is okay disallow archive folders or membership private pages.
When your package includes basic SEO, they should be able to sync your site to Google Analytics and Webmaster plus creating meta descriptions based on your identified keywords.
Some on the list may sound complicated but you need to establish an open working relationship with your web team so they can guide you every step of the way.
Your Next Digital Marketing Content Strategy
New year is a great start to restructure your business with an improved content strategy. Your social media posts, website narration, blogs, infographics, and videos must be integrated to deliver one voice while following well-thought digital marketing objectives. When you have team members with varying ideas, it helps to drive them back to the defined strategy and align their thoughts to a single goal. This way, content creation comes polish in terms of tone and integrated in manner of presentation. It avoids disconnection as the message reach the audience.
• Create contents with a clear purpose in mind – avoid the rush and take time to know the “why” of your campaign. Draft your own content strategy.
• Know your audience by heart – create a picture of who you are talking when writing a post or making a video. Who will read and watch these materials?
• Maintain one brand identity across platforms – Don’t alienate your clients. Whatever gateway (site, social, app, even print materials) they visit, they should see a same brand.
• Incorporate keywords to your copy – What words and phrases are used by your customers to find you.
• Keep the flow simple – Simplicity is the essence nowadays. Make your message quick and easy to understand.
• Offer real value – Be the expert and go-to person. It’s not just selling all the time, offer solution to the problem.
• Organized your distribution – remain consistent and declutter your campaigns.
• Monitor your reach – you will never know if you are winning unless you measure. There are free platforms like google analytics that can track activities of your website. Identify your benchmark, compare and analyze so your campaign continues to improve.
Your Team’s time and effort can be saved if all these pointers are applied to your next content strategy. If you have questions on how to implement a specific item on the list, just send me a message and I’ll be happy to discuss.
10 Website Tweaks to Boost SEO
Eye on these hacks to make sure that your website appears good looking to the bots of search engines and make it friendly for human visitors as well.
- Use your keywords at the above-the-fold page of your site and within the stretch of your first paragraph.
- Rename your images based on your brand name and identified keywords. Example, file name “logo-version 1.jpg” to “my-company-name-logo.jpg”.
- Create a Google My Business account, link your website, and verify. Information here is vital especially when people start to Google you.
- Align with your web developer and alert them that your page must be within the good speed and must be mobile friendly. Google offers a free tool to identify these factors.
I initially wrote a blog giving tips to business owners and marketing team before proceeding with the sign-off. This is important to make sure that the website handed to you is at the right shape.
5. Avoid 404 or page not found. All your sites intended to be seen by Google should not be empty. There are sites that you don’t want Google to see like the archives or test pages, apply “no index” at the backend or via robots.txt file. Your web/SEO team should be able to assist you in this step.
6. Install Google Analytics and Search Console to monitor the activity of your site.
7. Draft your blog pipeline and commit to write an article every other week or at least once a month depending on your human resource. Your blogs must cover your keywords immediately at the title part and content must look professional to amplify your expertise.
8. Create a meta title and meta description per page the right way. Imagine writing a unique advertising campaign when doing so and each page of your site must be catchy and unique.
9. Call to action buttons and anchor text must go to the right pages. Social media buttons and other outbound links to open in a new tab.
10. Draft ways to build backlinks. You can start with social, directory listings, and links from your clients, member organizations, and associations.
It is part of my scope as a Digital Marketing Consultant to set-up the SEO campaign of a client’s website and train the marketing team to maintain the strategy; result does not just happen overnight. If you have questions or if you need an expert assistance, just send me a message.
Our Website’s New Design
It has been about seven years when I first launched the “Online Marketing Switch” website and from there, I had the opportunity to work with amazing people. The site has been the voice to share my work portfolio and spread my personal advocacy to help companies in the Philippines and overseas to switch to online marketing as I help them learn the jargons and reap the benefits for their business. My goal is to open the door of digital marketing to clients and allow them to appreciate it, make them be comfortable with the tools, and use it as part of their overall business strategy.
Our old site has been a huge help but it’s time to introduce a new face and apply some major updates at the backend.
Thankful to have worked with a reliable Web Designer, Ryan Laxamana. We collaborated with the first design long ago and now he is doing his magic with the new one. The site is now using a visual designer called Elementor and php move up to 7.4.
As we agreed from our chat last week, the page is still a work-in-progress, but I already love how the new look! Why I’m blogging on it while still on WIP!
Excited to polish the contents and yet to not lose the heart of the site. I think that’s the most important thing in digital marketing—stay focus, be authentic, and remain human. True that we have to adapt at some point to the many changes from voice search to metaverse and we can find ourselves drowning in jargons, but it is a must to swim and stay afloat with what matters. Our audience are human beings with real concerns, go where they are and talk to them as you would to a friend. Only use the technology to know them more, analyze behavior to tweak the approach to the campaigns, and for them to get in touch the easiest way possible.
There will always be changes. A lot of time and energy are required to create social media contents, interpret the analytics, and for us recently, to redesign the website but let’s keep our ground and stay firm with our objective for our clients and customers to learn from us, and trust that we can truly help them. And when they are ready to reach out, we are just a click away.
Are You Ready to Run Your Next Digital Marketing Campaign?
Now that you have a picture of your digital marketing campaign, it is time to roll and implement! We need to make sure that we don’t lose sight of our goals and get lost in the puzzle; losing control can happen easily if our strategy is not rooted at the right spot.
You wish to rank #1 on Google Search as soon as possible but you don’t have an adept SEO Team to do it for you. You aim to increase Facebook fans to 1000 in one week but you have no allotted budget for advertisements. You are so eager to create an industry white paper but you have no qualified researchers and writers on board. All set to send an email campaign but there is no direction on the messaging and no verified addresses on the list.
Simply put, your campaign has to be aligned with an objective, schedule, available human resource and allotted budget.
Objectives
Start with SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) objective and build a realistic plan around it.
Say, get at least 5 quality leads every month from the website’s contact form within a sixth-month period.
What are the next steps to achieve the objective?
- Make sure contact form is working and measurable (install Google Analytics to track successful inquiry and check email addresses if sync). Create landing page if needed.
- Run a campaign to drive traffic to the website where the contact form is located.
- Connect with niche influencers to amplify the objective. Have them mention you with URL on their twitter posts, YouTube videos, or blogs.
Timeline
Create a timetable to specify the tasks, example as follows:
- Check and improve contact form
- Assign who will answer the inquiries (and identify internal processes to take place)
- Install Google Analytics
- Create relevant posts
- Run ads (social and search)
- Monitor and report
Human Resource
Take a look at your team if the current pool has expertise or if you need to start recruiting. Will the job require full-time or part time work? Do we have a budget to hire an expert? Delegate who will do what and maintain ownership of each assignment.
Budget
How much are we willing to spend for the campaign? We can’t be too frugal if part of our activities include running ad campaigns on social and search, getting influencers, or if we decide to on-board an industry expert.
Many company owners immediately quit on digital marketing without eyeing on the long-term results and appreciating small wins. If you stop over a minor drawback, then you can lose a big opportunity along the way. There are just so many benefits that we can get from digital marketing if we utilize it properly.
Success of a Digital Marketing Campaign with Your Team
When presenting a digital marketing campaign to your team, provide a comprehensive plan anchored by data (use your Google Analytics, Search Console, Insights from Facebook, Instagram, Mailchimp, etc.) to strengthen the success of the project and eventually earn everyone’s trust.
Review what has been done and how it can improve. If you have an existing website with no keywords, then it is time to explore SEO. If you have been posting on social with less than a hundred engagement, then consider running FB ads.
Create a timeline so everyone knows what needs to be accomplished every week or month. A delay of one is a delay of all.
Assign owner/s per task to make each member accountable to every deliverable. Everyone has their own to-do’s; it is a must to carry it out right and submit on time.
Don’t leave the meeting with members clueless of their role. It is our responsibility to make sure that they are aware of what’s going to happen and what can they contribute to achieve the goals. We can start by giving an overview of their job or go as far as explaining their upcoming assignment in detail.
Pin the expectations with the right information. If client demands for a daily blog posting but you only have one writer onboard with other projects on hand, then proposed to make adjustments on the current writer’s load and rate or get additional manpower along with the added professional fee.
Get the full support of the team and other stakeholders. Make sure each staff follows the timeline and familiar with the processes with full understanding of “why” we are on this path.
Inspire the team but do not go beyond what cannot be accomplished. Offer realistic wins and real-life drawbacks. Client conversion will go up but first, we have to build on awareness strategy, and this can take a while.
Focus on sales but not just that. We should also keep our eyes on building strong relationships as this will go after a single purchase. Repeat and referrals are very much valued.
Successful implementation is going to be difficult if your team is not one with your endeavor. Work hard. Learn together. Stay focus and remain patient. Watch your business grow with digital marketing properly implemented and supported by each one involved.
Budget Overview for a Do-It-Yourself Digital Marketing Campaign in the Philippines
Drafting a digital marketing strategy can be overwhelming but it is always a must to create it before starting the campaign implementation. There are times that we might feel overloaded by the many information and we get lost in the process so it is necessary to run back to the written strategy. In the chaos of all the online activities (with trolls, fake news, endless platform glitches, and gazillions of information made ready and free), this serves as your anchor.
Know your company voice. Define your audience. Understand your industry. Build a core reason why you are here. And deliver what you promise. This goes on and we invest on more ways to improve. I’ve seen clients spend so much on software that they don’t really need, or they do not know how to use.
For a start, it is advisable to make the most of organic approach and take advantage of freemium services. This does not mean that we will not spend anymore. You must allot a reasonable budget for it.
Website
One of the most practical expenses for digital marketing at the onset is getting your own domain name, hosting, and web designer. For the latter and if you have some extra time, you can opt to do it yourself; Content Management System (CMS) like WordPress or Wix is user friendly. The domain name can go from Php2,500 to Php15,000 annually. For Web designer, around Php15,000 to 50,000 for non-ecommerce site. Once live, take care of it. Start with a human and search friendly website; the contents must be crawlable by Google and useful to human visitors.
Social Media
There are media that you must run an advertisement like Facebook. It used to be generous on free impressions ages ago for fan pages but business is business, and you don’t get that for free anymore unless you boost. Page like conversion can go from Php2 to 40 depending on your targeting and industry. Send message campaign can go from Php20 to Php175.
While Linkedin ad is more expensive but to some (depending on industries like that of B2B), can get more conversions— Cost Per Click (CPC) is Php200 to Php300 (will always vary on targeting and industry).
Influencers
Most relevant influencers will not really feature you for a minute or two on their platform unless you pay them. Some are okay to get x-deal. Important to make sure that your selections represent your audience and they have the number of reach that you cannot achieve for now. Per blog article (+social media mentions) can go from Php5,000 to Php75,000 for non-celebrity bloggers.
Email Marketing
You can also explore free trials then jump into subscription only if you appreciate the value to your business.
For email marketing, Mailchimp is a something to consider. It offers free subscription for 2,000 database. I would normally recommend the paid version because of the extended features and better design dashboard. Pricing for Essentials Plan (1,500 contacts) is around Php1,350/month
Design
For those who are not very much into photoshop, get Canva without a blink. It has wide design templates and very easy to use. Premium rate is Php2,500 annually for all the unlimited designs.
Post Scheduler/Listening
Hootsuite gives another freemium service with 2 social accounts. This comes handy for scheduling, tidying your profiles in one quick view, and listening. An upgraded Hootsuite to manage 10 social accounts is about Php2,500/month.
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There are many other tools to purchase with the promise of easing your online marketing life. Getting subscriptions may cost some money but it saves so much time and effort. But remember, not everything is worth buying. Try a free version and analyze how it can assist you before you subscribe.
The rates are overview and approximates only; it may change at a random but this gives you an idea on the cost estimate. From here, you can allot a more realistic budget to your campaigns.
Why Business Owners Must Be a Part of Online Marketing Campaigns
Even if your company gets a digital marketing team to run your campaigns, you just don’t drop the tasks to your consultants completely without understanding what’s going on. This does not mean that you have to write the social media content plan, interpret the insights, review the keywords for SEO, or run the boost—it is for them to work on. Rather, be a part of the online journey of your Team and contribute to improve the strategy. I have some clients who are suddenly in awe when they see their ranking move higher on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) or notice an increase in booking via Messenger. Wins cannot be achieved overnight and there will always be hiccups; some learning curves, trials and errors, series of adjustments but it is always an amazing process to take part.
Consider to have a key participation in identifying who your customers are. Where to find them, what they like, how to converse. There might be jargons that you need to explain; resources to share to the team so they can get a better grasp of the industry and the audience.
You are probably the best endorser of your company. On occasion, why not share and comment on your fan page posts; create a video narrating your story and services or maybe write an article to share your expertise. You are not going to do this alone; you have an online marketing team to back you up. They will definitely give their 100% support as you are providing one of the best contents ever! You do it naturally when writing for a blog page, for example, answer the common questions you have heard from your buyers and let ideas flow. It is then the role of your Team to edit the material for grammars and tweak it for SEO purpose. Engage. Put a face to your brand.
Monitor what’s going on. I would recommend to meet the Team weekly especially during the first three months to polish the direction and then once a month after that. No need to dive so much into the technical side; what matters is to know if the key performance indicators are achieved. Are we getting conversions on the website after running the Google Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign? How much are we paying for every inquiry sent on messenger? Did we increase our database on Mailchimp after promoting opt-in promos?
"Listen. Ask questions. Learn. Participate. And witness the growth of your business.”
Thank You 2021!
Another year has gone by and it comes with many blessings and challenges. Learning several lessons in online marketing and gaining new friends from the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand; conversations mostly happen through virtual setup due to the persistent COVID-19 but fruitful talks happen either way.
I am very thankful to have been granted amazing clients for the entire 2021 despite the economic turmoil brought by the pandemic. It always brings some level of excitement when diving into a new industry and slowly understanding specific jargons; I love creating digital marketing strategy and watch it come to life with real results.
To all my clients, colleagues, partners, and readers… Thank you for the trust and for giving me an opportunity to help, teach, and learn at the same time.
To my family who is always very supportive as they see me daily in my office corner in high and low spirit, excited, puzzled, serious, grumpy (with no coffee yet), lost because of platform glitches and random algorithm updates, and beaming when I get to rank a client #1 on SERP. It is certainly an everyday dose of ups and downs at work but always worth exploring.
Here are some thoughts to contemplate for the new year:
What do you aim to achieve for your business this 2022? To get more valid inquiry from the website and messenger and convert them to buying customers.
How are you going to implement it? Run an SEO and Facebook advertising campaigns. Tweak content strategy based on insights.
How much is your budget?
Do you need to hire a consultant to make sure that the campaign is on the right track?
So many considerations at this point but always good to begin drafting what and where to focus for the new year so we don’t lose path midway.
Wishing everyone the best year and ultimate business growth for 2022. Excited to be part of your online marketing journey.