Digital Marketing – Palmer Web Marketing

Voice Search Optimization: Preparing Your Content for the Future

October 8, 2024June 15, 2024 by Palmer Web Marketing

Hey there, forward-thinking marketers and content creators! Ready to dive into the world of voice search optimization? Grab your smart speaker (or just your smartphone) and get comfortable, because we’re about to explore how you can prepare your content for the voice-activated future that’s already here.

Before we jump in, let me share a quick story. Last year, Slinky Digital Agency worked on SEO for a local pizzeria – let’s call it Slice of Heaven. The owner, Tony, was skeptical about voice search. “People order pizza with their fingers, not their voice,” he’d say with a chuckle. Fast forward six months, and 30% of their online orders were coming through voice-activated devices. How’d we do it? Well, that’s exactly what we’re going to explore today.

Understanding Voice Search: The Basics

First things first, let’s break down what voice search actually is. In simple terms, voice search is a technology that allows users to perform searches on the internet or a device by speaking into a microphone, rather than typing their query. This could be through a smartphone, smart speaker, or any other voice-activated device.

For Slice of Heaven, we realized that people were increasingly using voice commands to find local restaurants and place orders. This insight formed the foundation of our voice search optimization strategy.

Why Voice Search Matters for Your Business

You might be wondering, “Why should I care about voice search?” Well, let me give you a few compelling reasons:

Changing User Behavior: More and more people are using voice assistants for everyday tasks.
Local Search Dominance: Voice searches are often local in nature, which is great for local businesses.
Featured Snippets: Voice search results often pull from featured snippets, giving you a chance to leapfrog competitors.
Natural Language Processing: Voice search is making search more conversational and natural.
Mobile-First Indexing: Voice search aligns perfectly with Google’s mobile-first approach.

According to Google, 27% of the global online population is using voice search on mobile. That’s a huge audience you could be tapping into!

7 Marketing Tactics That Can Help Family Lawyers Boost Client Acquisition

October 16, 2024August 10, 2022 by Palmer Web Marketing

Unless family lawyers are seeing new clients request their services regularly, that practice is in danger of becoming unviable. Given the nature of family law, and that some aspects of it such as divorce and adoption, whilst prolonged procedurally, are ultimately a “one-time” event, the danger is that, as existing client cases are completed, there are no new clients to take their place.

Family lawyer practices that are aware of this issue have several options to try and attract new business, and one which has proven to be more effective than most is digital marketing. With the internet playing an ever-increasing role in everyone’s life, it is online where most people who might be seeking the services of a family lawyer will start their research.

Those family lawyer businesses which have taken the wise step to create a digital marketing campaign or have had one created for them, are the ones whom those searching online for the sorts of services they offer, will find. Those family law businesses which have done nothing will continue to see their client numbers, and thus their revenue, diminish.

Several online marketing tactics can be used to attract new clients, and by reading further you will see that we have outlined seven that have proven to be the most effective for family lawyers seeking to use the internet to boost their client numbers.

Top 7 Must-Have Digital Marketing Tools For Businesses

October 8, 2024August 8, 2021 by Palmer Web Marketing

The internet has had a significant impact on how businesses operate even greater than the industrial revolution of the 18^th and 19th centuries and it means that if a business wants to succeed today, then it must have a website or at least some form of online presence that allows them to market themselves.

Just as tasks in the offline world are made easier with the use of tools, the same applies online. There is a multitude of software and tools available to business owners and such is their quantity and diversity that it would take 1,000s of articles to explain each one of them, which we are not going to do here.

However, what we can do is point out 7 key areas of digital marketing that play a key role in a business’s online success, and highlight one of the top tools or software that assist in its implementation.

Social Media Management – Sprout Social

With the influence, social media has on so many people’s thoughts and decisions it is imperative that businesses have a presence on at least one social media platform where they know their audience is. To help manage their social media activities Sprout Social proves an array of tools allowing for post scheduling, responding to messages and analytics.

10 Tips for Mastering Google Remarketing Ads

October 8, 2024June 27, 2011 by Palmer Web Marketing

Remarketing is a popular topic in the web marketing world lately. And it’s no wonder why. Who better to show ads to than your previous site visitors? Personally, I’ve found the ROI on remarketing ads to be incredible, second only to email marketing. If you haven’t yet tried it, what are you waiting for?

For those unfamiliar with Google remarketing, here’s how it works. A visitor lands on your website. Google’s ad network writes a cookie in that person’s browser, identifying them as having previously visited your website. When this same person is visiting another website in the ubiquitous Google display network, your ad appears, “remarketing” them back to your site. The power of this concept is self evident. It’s far more effective to show ads to people who’ve previously shown interest in your products, versus the person whose never heard of you.

With that background in mind, let’s look at some tips for mastering this powerful tool.

4 Shocking Truths about your eCommerce Site

October 8, 2024April 26, 2011 by Palmer Web Marketing

#1 – Barely anyone sees your homepage
Far too many online businesses worship at the alter of the homepage. While certainly important, homepages today carry far less importance than in years past. When I review the analytics on most of the sites I work with, the vast majority of visitors never see the homepage. (When you have a moment, take a look at not only how many of your visitors never see the homepage, but also what percentage of overall pageviews your homepage represents, you’ll probably be shocked at how low it is.) This is due to a myriad of reasons, one of which is that people simply search for specific content, and Google does a pretty decent job of landing you on the specific page you’re looking for. There’s just no reason to pass through an overly generic destination like a homepage.

I believe one of the biggest sins in web design is promoting mission-critical products and promotions only on the homepage. I typically see sites where an email signup or free shipping promotion is highlighted only on the homepage. This is a tragedy, because there’s very little leverage in the homepage, compared with other, more frequently viewed pages. The time you spend redesigning and testing is much better spent on your product, category, or shopping cart pages.

Putting A/B Tests to the Test: 4 Pitfalls of Testing

October 8, 2024January 2, 2011 by Palmer Web Marketing

Website testing can be one of the most fruitful website optimization tactics in your arsenal. But, it can also be a huge waste of time. Below are 4 pitfalls I’ve found myself in at one time or another.

1. Testing “Everything”

A common axiom in website optimization is to “test everything.” The problem with this advice is it ignores the reality we all find ourselves in, that we have limited time and resources. If you have the choice to test between testing your checkout process or a different coloured add-to-cart button, which do you think will legitimately provide long term value to your visitors?

Quite frankly, not everything is worth testing. Yes, you might inch out a slight improvement to your add-to-cart rate with a flashy new button, but how will that translate to profit and lifetime customer value? My advice is to skip the gimmicks and test stuff that matters.

4 Reasons your Product Pages Don’t Convert

October 8, 2024December 28, 2010 by Palmer Web Marketing

I believe online stores focus too much on technology, too much on traffic generation, and even too much on site conversion optimization, and forget that it’s still all about the product. Everything else is just a tool. Below I’ll share what I believe to be the 4 biggest mistakes made on the product pages of today’s online retailers.

1) Too much imagination is required

All too many product pages require their customer’s to have a good imagination. For example, product images convey the product alone with a white background. Not exactly awe-inspiring. Online shopping can be devoid of context when product images aren’t show in use. Lifestyle and contextual images help create mental ownership by giving specific examples of use.

Yes, it’s a lot of work to get this type of photography on your site. But as I recently shared my experience in lifestyle images, it can be earth-shatteringly effective.

Don’t require your customer to have a good imagination. Paint a picture for them. How will it look in context, in their hands, in use?

Creating Remarkable Touchpoints

October 8, 2024April 2, 2010 by Palmer Web Marketing

We spend a lot of time on obvious customer touchpoints such as our website, products, call-centre, and marketing creative. But what about these not-so obvious ones?

Packing lists/invoices – Most packing slips are cold and formal. What if the person who picked and packed the order took an extra 10 seconds to write “thank you [customer name]” and sign their name with a red marker?

Email notifications – Most shipping and order confirmation emails look like the digital equivalent of vomit. What if you added pictures of your staff and answered common questions regarding shipping and returns? What if you made it send from an actual person, instead of “donotreply@company.com”?

5 Anti-Resolutions for Marketing Success in 2010

October 8, 2024January 5, 2010 by Palmer Web Marketing

The not to-do list is often as important as the to-do list. As you begin planning your web strategy for 2010, consider making these new year’s anti-resolutions:

1. Stop relying on discounts: Pretend that for the next year your business had to survive selling only full price products or services. Would you survive? What does your answer say about the health of your brand? Kevin Hillstrom reminds us that “discounts and promotions are taxes placed on brands for being unremarkable”. What truly sets your business apart? Why would a customer choose you over a competitor? If you’ve been overly reliant on deals during last year’s economic debacle, ask yourself when enough is enough. The sooner you start weaning customers off discounts, the sooner you’ll begin cultivating healthy, long-term business.

What Offline Can Teach Online

October 8, 2024September 14, 2009 by Palmer Web Marketing

In the early days, online retail built itself upon the foundation of convenience and value. It was easier to buy online, and many times cheaper. With the astonishing growth of e-commerce, and the unique combination of an always on store with relatively low overhead, some online store owners would assume they’ve got a leg up on their offline counterparts.

On the contrary, I would argue we can learn much from the offline world. After all, with hundreds of years of experience, traditional retailers are in many ways much more polished than their online counterparts. Here’s 7 pointers we can take from the brick and mortar world.

Merchandising Matters: Countless hours of research have been performed on product merchandising. Grocery stores make a killing off selling prime locations on their shelves. I believe we are just starting to learn how to effectively merchandise online. How much thought have you given to how your products are ordered on your category pages? What about the way you order your categories in your nav? It kills me every time I see products or categories ordered alphabetically. Should accessories really be listed first if you’re known for your jeans? Probably not.

6 Lessons from 1600% Growth

October 8, 2024September 7, 2009 by Palmer Web Marketing

For the last several years, I’ve had the privilege of personally helping the directors of an e-commerce site acts as a portal to an online clothing store. In the last 3 1/2 years, we’ve been fortunate to experience a 1600% increase in sales.

I’ve recently been reflecting on lessons I’ve learned through this exciting but tumultuous experience. What follows is a list of 6 lessons I’ve learned, often the hard way. I hope these lessons are helpful to your business as well.

Lesson #1: Serve your Customers Offensively

All businesses give lip service to good customer service, and yet few are known for the truly remarkable kind. I believe this is due to a defensive rather than an offensive approach to customer care. Too much emphasis is placed on serving customers who initiate contact with the company rather than the company initiating contact with them. Would you be considered a good friend if you never called? Probably not. Your customers aren’t impressed that you answer the phone with a friendly voice, that’s an expectation. Do the unexpected. Call or email them first. Actually listen and respond to all feedback. Publicity recognize them. You can’t win in sports if you’re always on the defence. Neither will you win the hearts of your customers if you never go on the offense.

The Internet Marketing Toolbox

October 8, 2024August 23, 2009 by Palmer Web Marketing

For those not mechanically inclined, looking through a toolbox can be overwhelming. It’s frustrating when something is broken, but you’re not sure which tool to use.

Such is the problem for many online business’ when gazing into the vast array of tools available in internet marketing. As with any tool, the internet marketing tactics are best when used for their intended purpose. Despite what any consultant says, there is no one web marketing tactic that works for everyone, in all situations. Below is a guide to help you choose the proper tools for your unique marketing needs.

Search Engine Optimization

When to use it:

When you have time, and can patiently wait for results
When people are already searching for your product/service
When you serve a local market (competition is much less)

When not to use it:

When you need results fast
When people don’t know they need your product (more often than not, extremely innovate products with little competition fair poorly with SEO, because no one is searching for them)

The Web Marketer Who Cried Wolf

October 15, 2024July 25, 2009 by Palmer Web Marketing

It’s a dilemma we’ve all faced: sales are hurting for the month, and you’re in danger of missing your goal. You know that if you send one more marketing email to your list (or any campaign for that matter), you’ll hit the target. After all, you’ve calculated your averages – a 15% open rate, 30% click-through rate, and 2% conversion rate, therefore you’ll generate X dollars in sales, right?

Will it work? Yes. Will it work next month? Maybe. Will it still work after this tactic of desperation has been used for months? Absolutely not.

When the cost of an additional marketing endeavor is virtually nothing, the directive from management will always be the same. “Do it more!”

Have You Created a Frankensite?

October 8, 2024June 20, 2009 by Palmer Web Marketing

It starts with a clean, professional, easy to use website.

Then you launch a new product line, so you add a new button/ad/page, etc. Innocent enough right?

Next your company receives an award from an industry publication. Why not show it off on the homepage?

Then you read an article about a Google Adsense millionaire. Why not throw a few ads in, and pick up some extra revenue?

Is Your Customer Service Offensive or Defensive?

October 8, 2024February 12, 2009 by Palmer Web Marketing

As much as customer service is all the rage, and heralded as the new marketing, it’s still viewed as a cost-centre by most online businesses. This I believe, is entirely due to a defensive approach to customer care.

Defensive customer service can be defined as any type of reactive customer servicing such as answering calls, responding to email inquiries, or responding to live chat sessions.

Providing good defensive customer service will never result in a flood of new business for two reasons:

You will only have personal contact with a fraction of your total customers. (those who have questions, problems, etc.) Only this small segment will be impacted by your excellent service. Note the uniqueness of this situation, in a brick-and-mortar world, you do have personal contact with each and every customer.

Good service is an expectation. Yes, some companies like Zappos go above and beyond customer expectations with extraordinarily helpful service, including referring customers to competitors for products they don’t stock. But for the most part, good service is a requirement for doing business.

At it’s very best, good defensive customer service will only prevent you from losing what you already have. It will not, by itself, create hoards of new word of mouth business. Unless… you change the paradigm.

Web Marketing Success in 3 Words

October 8, 2024January 26, 2009 by Palmer Web Marketing

It’s staggering to consider how many marketing failures are the result of broken promises.

We rarely think of it this way, but every button, every subject line, every headline on our website is a promise. Whether or not that promise is kept determines whether we win the trust of our visitors, or lose them for good.

To illustrate, let’s take a look at a fictional shopping scenario, not unlike an experience that happened to me recently.

Customer receives an email from electronics retailer with subject line “HDTV’s Starting at $700″
Customer opens email and finds a graphic showing only 1 TV and no details. BROKEN PROMISE:
Subject line promised an HDTV for $700, but email contains no support for this theme
Customer clicks on Button that says “Shop HDTV’s”, and is taken to the website’s homepage, which differs completely in the look and feel of the email creative. BROKEN PROMISE: Button claimed to let visitors begin shopping the TV models, instead they’re left stranded on a seemingly unrelated page
Visitor reaches HDTV category page displaying dozens of HDTV models. The $700 model is the last item on page 5. BROKEN PROMISE: This retailer made it very difficult find the $700 TV model promised in the subject line
Once on product page, customer clicks “Add to Cart”
Customer lands on a page upselling the extended warranty. BROKEN PROMISE: Customer received no confirmation that item has been added to cart

Survey Says… You’re Not Getting the Right Feedback from Your Customers

October 8, 2024January 22, 2009 by Palmer Web Marketing

Nearly every business collects feedback from their customers, and rightfully so. Yet something has always bothered me about the way most online businesses elicit customer suggestions and criticism: they usually get it from their best customers.

In other words, the people most likely to give feedback are the people who spend the most money. So what’s the problem with this? Simply put, these are the people who’ll give you the least helpful advice. Let me explain…

Here’s the 2 types of people that volunteer feedback:

the first time customer, who is excited about your products/services
the long time customer, who has an ongoing relationship with your business
Here’s the problem: if we only receive feedback from the paying customers, what is everyone else thinking? After all, if your products suck, or your website is broken, people leave, they don’t hang around to give input.

Top 10 eCommerce Startup Mistakes

October 8, 2024December 17, 2008 by Palmer Web Marketing

If you have any experience working in eCommerce, I’m going to bet you can list 10 mistakes you’ve made, or have seen others make while running their online store. Or maybe you’re currently setting up shop online, and need some advice on what pitfalls to avoid.

Below are 10 eCommerce startup mistakes I’ve encountered while working with online businesses. Specifically, many of these blunders are made by companies who are taking a traditional business online for the first time.

#1 – Blowing the budget on web development and neglecting marketing:

In the brick and mortar world, you get free traffic just by setting up shop on the street corner. The same does not apply for eCommerce. The “if you build it, they will come” mentality still exists in the minds of zealous, first time internet entrepreneurs. If you want a successful website, plan on spending as much on marketing and optimization in the first year as you pay for developing the site.

#2 – Getting Stuck in Endless Cycles of Design Revisions:

In traditional marketing or store operations, you have to get it right the first time, because it’s too expensive to redo your store signage a week after you open. However, the tools available to you online allow you to easily evolve and optimize your website overtime. As General George Patton once said, “A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.” The same applies to websites. Don’t expect a perfect website on day one. Rather than focusing on perfection, make a commitment to optimization after the website launches.

The Ultimate Holiday Checklist for E-Commerce Success

October 8, 2024November 12, 2008 by Palmer Web Marketing

I’m making the list, be sure to check it twice to ensure success for your e-commerce website this holiday season.

Offer Bounce Back Discounts: Your site will be flooded with traffic this holiday season. How can you harness that traffic to create year long business? Consider offering a good discount incentive for customers to come back and shop in January. You can automatically email them a coupon after each order, or send one along with the package. Don’t forget to email and remind customers to come back and use their discounts.

Loosen Up & Emphasize Your Return Policy: While a 30 day return policy is commonplace for the rest of the year, it may scare off early shoppers during the holidays. Make it clear to your visitors that you will accept returns and exchanges on all Christmas gift purchases. Be sure to let visitors know early and often about your policy, such as on product pages and the shopping cart.

Review Past Failures & Successes: Try this as you plan your busy holiday season. Take a look at you and your competitor’s website’s through the lens of the Wayback machine. What worked and didn’t work last year? What can you improve upon?