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Published on April 13, 2023

In terms of inbound marketing for your site, we tend to talk about traffic in two major ways: either as organic traffic, or referral traffic.

Broadly speaking, organic traffic is best categorized as the clicks that come from users who find your site directly from a Google or Bing search. Referral traffic, then, refers to the visitors who come to your page through any site other than a major search engine.

For your site to truly generate value and help your brand achieve its strategic goals, it’s important to have campaigns in place to drive in both organic and referral traffic. Unfortunately, we see many too many people who tend to focus on the former at the expense of the latter, not realizing that SEO and referrals are deeply interconnected.

Referral traffic is, indeed, a key part of “off-page SEO:” The more trustworthy sites that link to your pages or content, the more the search engines value your content. The more that Google and its ilk trust and recognize your content, the higher they prioritize it on search engine ranking pages (SERPs). Consistent, steady referral traffic, then, will also net you more organic traffic down the line.

Published on March 1, 2023

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a process your brand can use to position itself highly on search engine ranking pages (also called SERPS).

In a lot of ways, SEO is one of the most important tools you can use to get future customers to find your business’s information online. It’s also an effective way to keep users coming back for more, and increase the likelihood that your newfound website visitors will be primed and ready to become eager conversions, either right away or at some point down the line.

In short, SEO really does matter. It’s an essential strategy for businesses of all sizes to have in place.

But, then, this beggars another question: What goes into a successful SEO effort today?

From the jump, it’s important to realize that SEO is a multi-faceted process, and a lot of different elements go into generating search engine success. It’s part art, part science, and part game – and you need to master all three of those buckets if you want to claim your rightful place at the top of the SERP.

Today, we’re going to focus on one part of the SEO formula that often goes overlooked: The user.

Published on February 13, 2023

Maybe you’ve been at a fancy restaurant, only to look over at the corner booth and see a young couple who can’t seem to keep their hands off of each other. They’re canoodling, they’re sharing food, and they’re generally showing to the world that they’re, like, so totally in love.

And then your gaze glides over to another table, and you see, perhaps, an older couple. They’re sitting in silence and swapping bites. For them, the passion seems to be missing, that spark just burned out with time.

In a lot of ways, gaining and retaining clients for your business can be a little like entering into a long-term relationship. At first, it’s all about the thrill of meeting each other, and seeing all the amazing, novel things you can do together. But over time, familiar patterns settle in, and the old tricks just don’t seem to be working as well as they used to.

This is particularly the case when it comes to digital marketing, centered on high-quality content creation. While some things, like blog posts primed for SEO success, only get sweeter with time, the fact is that other elements slow down or stop working on audiences altogether the longer they’re in play.

Published on February 10, 2023

When it comes to SEO, it seems like someone comes up with a new “magic trick” every day. And as organic clicks decline due to the addition of search engine results page (SERP) features such as “people also ask,” first page results stuffed with ads, and “featured snippets,” it can seem more difficult than ever to create growth through organic search. This reality leaves many companies wondering whether traditional ways of generating pageviews remain viable as the way people search for content changes.

However, even as Google’s algorithms change seemingly constantly, it remains true that keyword research and content marketing are the best way to create robust, sustainable growth. Keyword research, high-quality, readable content, and content marketing through SEO and social media continue to “beat the averages” and show real growth. 

Published on February 6, 2023

Even the most advanced demand-generation strategy can falter if you don’t have compelling content that addresses your customer’s pain points throughout your sales funnel. 

And if you’re a new entrepreneur or just learning about the benefits of content marketing, you may not realize how effective it can be, especially for a small business without a massive marketing budget.

While a growing number of B2B and direct-to-customer brands are now dedicating more resources toward developing engaging content, these moves won’t truly reveal their ROI without a cohesive approach, consistent delivery, and a reliable system for tracking content performance.

Why waste effort on pay-per-display or pay-per-click ads or unhelpful messaging when you can create a plan to leverage your content and generate qualified leads? Let’s dig deeper.

Published on July 22, 2022

Do you ever feel like your personal productivity goes down during the summer? What about your company’s overall productivity?

If you answered yes to either of the above (and we’ll bet a cool Mai Tai that you did), then you’re definitely not alone. In fact, tons of research indicates that the productivity of American businesses goes way down during the summer months.

In fact, a study from Captivate Network indicated that:

• Workplace productivity drops 20% during the summer months
• Workplace attendance decreases by 19%
• Projects take 13% longer to complete
• Workers are 45% more distracted

Think about it! How much time do you spend over the summer months traveling? Or what about day-dreaming about traveling? Or how about spending time trying to play catch-up with your clients who are off on vacation, even as you keep working?

And vacations are just the tip of the iceberg! Science says it’s harder to work in the heat and the humidity - and, conversely, in an office that’s too cold from AC!

Basically? Trying to get things done in the summer is a lose-lose proposition - except when it comes to digital marketing.

Published on July 14, 2022

If you spend any time at all talking to marketing people, you’ll hear the expression “content is king.” In this age of omnichannel communications, people prefer to educate themselves and would rather learn about a brand via their “own research” (a.k.a. curated content) than be punched in the face with heavy-handed advertising. That’s just science. 

So if you’re going full speed ahead into content marketing, you’ll need to identify your pillars first to create a strong framework for your overall strategy. Let’s dive in!

Published on March 18, 2022

Are you finding it hard to navigate the sea of social networks available to today’s businesses? Do you find yourself burdened with questions about what platforms you should be on? 

“Are people still on Facebook?”

“Is LinkedIn better for my business?”

“Am I missing out by not being on TikTok?”

Let’s tackle these questions together as we provide you with some underlying knowledge of what platforms can suit you best in today’s market.

We’ll start by breaking our field up into two primary categories: established platforms and emerging platforms. What’s the difference? We’ll admit, in an ever-changing environment it’s a slightly arbitrary distinction. But in our judgment, an “established” platform is one that has been around for over a decade, with a proven track record of helping businesses across all sectors. Emerging platforms are the opposite: they may contain more niche communities that have only been around for a few years or less. Now that we have that sorted, it’s time to dive into the names you’ve already heard of. 

Published on March 16, 2022

According to recent studies, 70% of people would rather learn about a company through articles than an advertisement. 68% report feeling more positive about a brand after consuming content from it.

What’s more, research shows that B2B decision makers tend to engage with at least five pieces of content before they buy. And yet, in spite of all of this, there is still a common perception that content marketing is only about bringing in prospects, rather than generating real, substantive conversions.

While content is a vital tool for inbound marketing, it can also be put to work turning leads into customers – at every step along the buyer’s journey, and in a variety of creative ways.

Published on March 10, 2022

It’s fair to say that practicing law may be one of the world’s oldest professions. That is to say that, as long as there have been laws to enforce, there has been a need for lawyers – going all the way back to ancient Greece.

And, for our Chicago-based audiences, we hardly need to reiterate how important lawyers are – after all, Illinois’s favorite son and America’s 16th President, Abraham Lincoln, got his start practicing law, as have countless other politicians and prominent figures in world history.

With all that being said, it’s important to realize that the practice of law has always adapted and shifted with the times. The young Mr. Lincoln may not have needed to worry about what people were saying about him via online reviews – but the practicing attorneys at your law firm certainly do!

Whether your focus is on real estate, personal injury, business, family law, estate planning, or any other area where lawyers practice today, it’s important to be able to keep in contact with your audience – so that new clients can always be ready to find you when the time comes.