In today’s world of an often cluttered online space, coming across innovative,

If we think of a website similarly to how we would view a used car, it helps put this notion into perspective. Let’s say you go to a used car lot and a sparkling vehicle catches your eye. While on the outside it may look visually pleasing and refined, it could have a faulty engine and no breaks. However, this car would pass the “eye test” and fool those who merely look at the exterior. If you were quick to jump the gun and purchase it based on a great price for a flawless appearance, you will eventually learn that the car performance and price correlate. In that same respect, if a website is designed to be graphically interesting and does not keep in mind user experience (UX) or technical components, it is nothing more than a work of art.

Therefore, user experience should play a vital role in website design. Various tools exist for companies to analyze this aspect. For example, heat and scroll map software generates a series of reports on a webpage over a period of time. From the findings, a strategic team can gain insight into user behavior and better determine if a page needs to be reworked in order to benefit UX.

Making adjustments based on UX is crucial, especially as accessing websites through mobile devices becomes increasingly popular. You want to ensure that your website creates a clear path for users to convert on both desktop and mobile. A mobile-friendly is website crucial, as sleek design and functionality on a desktop alone is simply not enough.

Apart from the user experience related to website design, search engine optimization (SEO) and other technical components of a site are important. In order for your site to be found favorable in the eyes of Google, and thus rank higher, hundreds of ranking factors are taken into consideration. Providing relevant, credible, optimized content specific to what your key demographic is searching is a starting point. Trusting SEO in the hands of a technical team, such as the team at Clix, would be advantageous.

Thus, if user experience is factored into website design along with sound SEO practices in place, your website is headed in the right direction. Another aspect to keep in mind would be the overall health of your site. For example, if a theme or plugins are left outdated,images and links on your site may break. With numerous broken elements, your website becomes less credible as a resource, damages the UX, and potentially impacts rankings. Taking a proactive approach to monitoring these items becomes of great importance.

Overall, having the knowledge to determine if your site needs help is a significant first step, but sometimes the hardest. Jason Hylan, Clix CEO, gives an analogy of knockoff handbags on the streets of New York City. Similar to these replica handbags, there are companies that may pass the “eye test,” as we discussed previously. The service they provide can appear to be what your business needs. As with many things in life, you get what you pay for. If the service you pay for is far cheaper than the standard, your website design and technical elements (if any) will reflect that.

At Clix, we strive to be not only a leader in website design and digital marketing services but also a trustworthy partner to the companies we serve. We want our digital marketing efforts to have substance at the core. For more information on our services, or what sets Clix apart from others in the field, contact us today!

The post Why “Gorgeous” Website Designs Still Fail to Convert appeared first on Clix.

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Using a SaaS platform for local SEO does have its benefits and can help automate some of the more monotonous aspects of citation building. The ability to store a company’s location data and then push it out to publish on over 50 websites from one dashboard is a game changer. Not only will the company’s information be published on various local channels such as search engines, local directories and social media outlets, but their information will be accurate and consistent. This is perhaps the most appealing aspect of using a SaaS platform because it can save a company time and money on citation building efforts. Utilizing a SaaS platform takes away the need to manually search each local directory website and claim or create a listing.

In addition to data management and citation building, here are a few more benefits of using a SaaS platform for local SEO:

• Duplicate suppression: Some SaaS platforms will suppress or completely remove duplicate listings for a company based on their NAP (name, address, phone number) information. This is an important feature as duplicate listings can hinder local SEO efforts by creating confusion for the search engines.
• Citation building on more websites: The site distribution list for most SaaS platforms include websites that do not offer free listings. These websites, such as Yahoo! (major search engine) and Insider Pages (aggregates data to other websites), are often very important for local SEO.
• Review management: Some platforms offer review management which typically includes the ability to aggregate reviews from different sources into one dashboard and respond to them.
• Social media content publishing: SaaS platforms also offer the option to push out content to various social media outlets from one dashboard, all at the same time. This can be convenient for companies with several locations and many social media accounts.

The SaaS platform will get a company’s location information published across many different websites, but after they are published, that’s it! The SaaS platform’s job is complete. Meanwhile, in the search marketing world, a local SEO strategy is never complete. It is an ongoing process that requires continuous optimization as the internet continuously changes; this is where the human management portion of a successful local SEO strategy comes into play. After the listings have been published and cleaned up, they need to be monitored for their positioning and accuracy. In addition to monitoring performance, there are two more critical reasons for including human management in a local SEO strategy: site specific information and compliance with the overall SEO strategy.

For more information on all of these processes and how human management is essential to their success, take a look below:

• Positioning: A way to determine if a local SEO strategy is helping online visibility for a company is to monitor the positioning of their local listings on the websites that are most important to their industry. For instance, a plumber might want to monitor their listing’s positioning on Google (because Google is important for every industry) and Angie’s List (because ‘plumber’ is a service area business). This positioning data is not available through a SaaS platform and therefore needs to be done manually. If a company is not monitoring their positioning, then they will not know if the SaaS platform they paid for is helping to increase their online visibility.
• Accuracy: Although most SaaS platforms promise 100% accuracy of listing information, this does not always happen. Listing information can be changed due to user edits to the site or due to the site’s existing database of information. This is another example of how human management is extremely important even while using a SaaS platform. The SaaS platform will not alert you that your listing information is inaccurate, and most of the time, the issue will only be resolved by reaching out to the site directly or by working with the support team for the SaaS platform.
• Site specific information: There are some websites that offer additional fields of information that cannot be filled out using an automated service. These fields must be filled out manually by logging into the account. A perfect example of this type of listing is Yelp. In addition to the usual listing fields, Yelp offers an area to include the business’s history and the business owner’s name, background, and photo. Without human management to go in and fill this information out, the listing would be left uncompleted and might be outranked by other listings that are more thoroughly filled out.
• Compliance with overall SEO strategy: Perhaps the most important reason for including human management in a local SEO strategy is to ensure the local strategy complies with the overall SEO strategy for the company. This is not something any automated platform can handle, as it includes: evaluating categories, evaluating keywords in business descriptions and products/services, evaluating where to direct traffic to…etc.

The growth of local search SaaS platforms in the digital marketing world has helped agencies and companies automate the tedious tasks that come with local SEO. They help to consolidate listings and ensure accuracy across various local channels. Although there are many benefits to using a SaaS platform, it should not be viewed as a one-stop-shop for local SEO. Solely relying on a SaaS platform for a local SEO strategy will get your listings published and cleaned up, but that’s about it. Without the human management aspect, you will not know if the platform has helped your online visibility (or what needs to be done to help it), inaccurate listings may slip through the cracks or listings may be left incomplete. Most importantly, you will not know if the SaaS platform is aligning with your overall SEO strategy. For more information on local listing management, contact us today.

The post Human Management vs. SaaS Platform: Local SEO appeared first on Clix.

Though the names are unsettling, Crawlers, Spiders and Bots are actually just software programmed to read the material on your website. Watch as our senior account manager, Jared, dives deeper to explain why these crawlers are so important to our industry.

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Because local SEO is such a crucial element to an overall SEO strategy, it is important to stay on top of the ever changing local search ecosystem and the influence it has on search engines to ensure you are not wasting your time or efforts. The local search ecosystem is the network of directory websites and data aggregators that publish or aggregate local citations across the web. These websites publish citations and also pass their data onto other websites to publish, who then pass their data onto more websites, and the cycle continues to trickle down to smaller and smaller websites.

In the early days of SEO, the local search ecosystem was much larger than it is today. The main focus of a successful local SEO strategy was to create as many citations as possible that include identical name, address, and phone number (NAP) information. It was also easier to “scam the system” by not appropriately representing a business online in hopes of ranking higher in search engine results pages (for instance, keyword stuffing the business name to rank for a certain keyword or not adding a service area to a listing if the business is a service area business).

Although these tactics may have worked in the past, they will not get you very far in today’s local SEO world and could even push your account into penalization on major sites such as Google. The local search ecosystem has shrunk over the past couple years as search engine’s algorithms have evolved to better understand content and citations. Instead of reading hundreds of citations’ NAP information to determine if a business is legitimate, search engines are now able to understand the NAP information and enhanced content of a smaller amount of listings on authoritative sites such as YP.com. Instead of spending time creating hundreds of listings on obscure sites, a local SEO strategy should focus on building out NAP and enhanced listing content on a smaller list of authoritative sites.

Here is an example from the Clix local listings of how a fully built listing might look.

Search engines have also evolved to understand different variations of NAP information. For instance, if Yelp publishes your address as “32 W Broadway Ave” but City Grid publishes it as “32 West Broadway Avenue,” Bing is not going to count it against you when determining your business’s accuracy in their search algorithm. This is important to know because on some sites, such as Google, a business’s address will be abbreviated no matter how you submit it to their system.

Keeping up with the local search ecosystem is an ongoing task. As local SEO grows in importance, Google and Bing are constantly testing new capabilities of their local map pack and the different factors that can affect its results. Staying on top of these updates is crucial, as falling behind could dramatically affect the local visibility of a business.

An example of this happened recently when Google started testing a more thorough verification process in San Diego for local service area business industries that typically have a lot of spam in the local search ecosystem (plumbers and locksmiths). After this new verification process was implemented, 89% of listings in the plumbing and locksmith industry on Google were removed from the local search results.

Suffice to say, it is critical to stay informed on the latest local search updates. If this SEO strategy is neglected, it could mean lower rankings or even penalization from a search engine. For more on how to stay on top of these updates and increase your local online visibility, contact us today.

The post The Ever Changing Local Search Ecosystem appeared first on Clix.

Creative and logical design will not directly affect your Google Ranking in a technical sense. Creative design is not built for Google – it is built for the user (AKA your client or customer). The ranking increases are a byproduct of having a user-friendly design and functionality. Since the Panda update in 2011, user metrics have become a very important factor in digital marketing.

With that said, I think we need to explore what Google is and how it is supposed to work.

Google, in essence, was created to help users find websites they deem useful or informative. The results that appear on screen after a search query are determined by an algorithm devised by Google to mimic what they think a user wants or, more often than not, by user proximity or previous user history/experience. This algorithm is organic, ever advancing as marketers(and users) become more savvy and obviously to help Google’s business model.

A good analogy is to think of SEO initiatives as advertisements for a retail store and your website as a salesperson or the store’s layout. The advertisements get the person to the store. The layout of the store can affect shopping patterns with the salesperson answering questions and, ultimately, making the sale.

OK, that is neat and all, but how will design effect my Google rankings?

To quote Moz:

“When a search engine delivers a page of results to you, it can measure the success of the rankings by observing how you engage with those results. If you click the first link, then immediately hit the back button to try the second link, this indicates that you were not satisfied with the first result. Search engines seek the “long click” – where users click a result without immediately returning to the search page to try again. Taken in aggregate over millions and millions of queries each day, the engines build up a good pool of data to judge the quality of their results.”

SEO tactics and clean development can only take a website so far. When all of these optimization tools are sharpened, we turn to content and personal interaction with the site. So we know that Google’s algorithm can be directly affectedby how a user interacts with your website. Generally, when a person is an interested party, they interact with the website more (exploring multiple pages and more time spent on site can have a direct effect on Google’s ranking system).

Within this user visit, you have two major aspects that contribute to personal interaction: User Experience(UX) and User Interface(UI). These two facets of design often blend together, in unison, to help a user find what he or she is looking for (or maybe discover new services products, or ideas).

So, What is User Experience & User Interface?

User Experience, or UX, is the overall experience of a person using a product such as a website or computer application, especially in terms of how easy or pleasing it is to use.

User Interface, or UI is the means by which the user and a computer system interact, in particular the use of input devices and software.

So basically, UI is how a person interacts with the website, and UX is how that interaction makes the user feel. Common sense tells us that a slick, easy, and fun interface often leads to a better experience. This experience is monitored by Google, giving better designs a rankings or results bump.

The post The Importance of Creativity & Design on Google Rankings appeared first on Clix.

What do you need to answer the “why?” In short, anything you can get your hands on. It’s surprisingly easy to complete a conversion optimization review and implement changes these days as long as you know about the tools available. These tools, along with proper setup and segmentation, can make information gathering a breeze.

What is Conversion Optimization?

Conversion optimization describes reviewing and changing a website based on user behavior to make the most of the elements that users interact with the most. Not only is software used to make judgment calls on what changes to make, but understanding of best practices on website design and technical updates help us along the way. Knowing what users are doing when they land on a page is crucial to determine what changes, if any, a page needs to better convert interested users into leads, ultimately growing your business.

At Clix, we always think about using the strategies below to hone our conversion tracking and optimization:

• Think about each contact opportunity individually. What reason would a customer have to contact us here? Are they being given the chance to do so?
• Consider tracking options. What information is being collected, and who is it being sent to? Is a phone number or a form more appropriate?
• Make sure the proper tracking it set up, and layer as much as possible. For example, if a phone number is the primary contact method, make sure it has its own tracking number, that it has a corresponding event such as a Google Analytics goal, and that if no sensitive information is being collected, that the call is being recorded and monitored for quality on the part of the sales rep.

Those of us who grew up with School House Rock remember that knowledge is power. Now, with the power of the Internet in our hands, knowledge has never been easier to access when you incorporate digital marketing into your company’s business growth strategy. Even a simple call tracking system or a form setup can at least replace a hunch with concrete information. For a lot of businesses, that’s an important first step.

While it’s not a quick process, gathering the information needed to find out why your website is or isn’t working can start today. Over time, you’ll be able to convert potential customers more and more effectively because you can anticipate some of their behaviors. And that is the kind of knowledge that carries real power.

If you’re ready to take the next step and use strategy to drive your website’s layout, ultimately leading to better user experience and increased leads from digital marketing, contact our experienced inbound marketing team for help!

The post Conversion Optimization 101 appeared first on Clix.

The flexibility we have at Clix allows us to adapt to these ongoing changes and have open lines of communication with our clients, keeping them in the loop. This is what makes Clix unique in the market. We are not a vendor – we are a partner.

Digital marketing is essential for businesses today. The days of relying on a printed directories, billboards, and other dated means of promoting your business are long gone. Every day, more and more people are utilizing the power of the Internet to get their questions answered, so it’s important that your business be a resource for this inquiries. That’s what we do here at Clix. We focus our efforts on ensuring that your website is that resource.

Depending on the nature of your business, there are so many ways to effectively advertise and marketing your business online. There’s SEO, SEM, social media, e-mail marketing, pay per click, etc…. where do you begin? What’s the best option?

It can be difficult, if not impossible, to decide where to go if you decide to start these efforts on your own or hire a catch-all company that doesn’t have strategy at the core of what it does. We can help you navigate through the clutter that is “online advertising” and offer a solution that best fits the needs of your business. Plus, since the Internet is ever-changing, having a team that can adjust plans and shift quickly when software changes and Google algorithm updates impact our efforts is a real bonus to our clients.

These long-term efforts can have a tremendous impact on the bottom line. Our clients who commit to the process have seen a profound return on investment over time. And that is key to what we do. Looking at your digital marketing as a long-term plan allows us to have the flexibility to make strategic decisions that can not only adapt to change but are robust enough to withstand it. There is no “silver-bullet” when it comes to online advertising. Google is getting smarter every day. Thus, your website must be technically sound, cater to your audience, and be a valuable resource in the market place. That’s what we do here at Clix.

If you’re looking for a truly adaptable partnership that can make a measurable impact on your business, using creative strategy and reporting along the way, contact us to learn how we can help.

The post What Does Adaptability Mean in Digital Marketing? appeared first on Clix.

Our business development team understands that in order to grow your business, it is our job at Clix to understand the human side of the work you do. We get to know your leadership team and learn what drives you. Our team discusses your products or services and what makes you stand out from the crowd. We want to know your goals and are willing to adapt to the changes in your goals over time, often adjusting our strategy when necessary. Using digital marketing and the various tools and software available to us, we create strategy that focuses on what our partners need and want from their business.

The human side of business not only needs a dynamic team to work as your marketing partner, but a willing and open minded client that understands the expectations we have in place for them. We thrive on communication and make the best progress on campaigns where there is a collaborative creative process. We love coming up with creative solutions, and we’re most successful when our clients are engaged in the ongoing process of improving their campaign. At Clix, we are ready and willing to listen to the concerns you have about the progress of your campaign.

The benefits of collaboration go beyond the business itself. As your business grows, the employees and families who have contributed to your success also see the ways in which their success is affected. Communities can benefit from the human side of business growth because companies can better contribute and give back to them not only through jobs, but through charity events and fundraising sponsorships.

Digital marketing offers up your business to potential growth you may not have envisioned. You might find yourself having to hire more people to keep up with the number of leads you get per day because your local citations have been standardized and the content on your website is a robust resource. You may find customers tell you the information you provide on your social media platforms enticed them to call, or the follow up emails you are sending through marketing automation provided them customer service no one else has. And to think this can all begins with simply becoming a partner with a robust, adaptable, and knowledgeable digital marketing partner.

If you have a desire to make your business better through tapping into the potential that digital marketing provides, you can go far. But you also need the right partner who will be transparent and honest with you along the way. Clix is that partner and has the track record to prove it. If you have questions about any of the services we offer, don’t hesitate to reach out.

The post The Human Side of Business Development appeared first on Clix.

Digital marketing offers a number of solutions for getting honest, constructive customer feedback. Through a variety of channels such as automation marketing and a focus on local citations, you can use the tools and software digital marketing offers to collect and analyze evaluations of the services or products you provide.

Automation Marketing and Customer Feedback

One of the most clear-cut ways to use digital marketing to benefit your business, automation marketing, allows you to create campaigns that drive engagement and feedback from customers. Campaigns might be focused on surveys to gauge customer satisfaction, or even something as simple as an automated follow up to an opened promotional email can help you determine whether or not your marketing efforts are paying off.

But automation does not exist in a vacuum, and neither do any of your other marketing efforts. An effective automation marketing campaign still relies on high quality customer service from your team, such as personal phone calls to customers or email checkins to touch base when appropriate.

Your automation campaigns are also an opportunity to increase usage of your website, using blogs, website pages, and other digital resources to benefit your customers, giving them the right information they need to make decisions.

Customer Service Software

When people think about digital marketing, they might not realize they can use tools like tracking numbers to not only record their own business calls, but to make more informed decisions about what their staff are doing on the front lines. Using call recording can open up a lot of avenues for internal improvement and allow business owners to hear the questions their customers ask in real time.

At Clix, we have had clients use call recordings to make informed decisions about their staffing and better serve customers’ needs in the office. We also take a proactive approach and give recommendations following our call reports in order to continue to be an active partner in your business success.

Form fills also provide our clients insight into the information customers are seeking. More often than not, having a report of the number of form fills and quality of leads helps our clients determine new information about customers they might have thought about or make adjustments to their website copy in order to move their campaign along. Plus, unlike having an email address on your website – an email address that could be in many other places or handed out by customers via word of mouth – a lead from a form fill can be directly correlated to the success of your digital marketing campaign.

Website Content and Customer Participation

Many businesses may not realize the kind of resources available to them to make their customer service even better, but using your website and other avenues for sharing your content can make a difference. From regular blogs and news updates, to using video and social media to drive engagement to your website, a robust website can set you apart from competitors in big ways.

If you’re ready to use digital marketing to gain customer feedback and grow your business, contact us today!

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WHO IS CLIX?

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