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The Path to Conversion – Is Your Website Doing as Much as it Could?

Posted on by Phil

If you’ve built a website but haven’t noticed an increase in leads or sales, it might not all be in your head. It’s true that a good website can bring home the bacon, but what if you have a well-designed site that people are finding but you aren’t seeing the results? What gives?

A common mistake people make is to get a website built and leave it at that. Then they go out and share it with the world. But what are people supposed to do once they get there? How can you turn anonymous visitors into qualified leads? Sure, some people might read your content decide to call you and that can be hard to quantify and attribute to your website. But your website can do much more.

 

Designing a conversion path can help you turn strangers into leads. It can help guide people into doing a positive action on your page and make it so the website you already put time, effort, and resources towards can pay you back.

What’s the goal of your website?

Depending on what type of business you have, your website might serve a different purpose. If you have an online store, for instance, you likely want people to buy your products directly. If not, you might want to use it as a first step for people calling your or coming to visit you in person. Your Call to Actions on your site should reflect your goal.

What is a Call to Action and why do I need them?

Before we jump into conversion paths, we need to talk about what a Call to Action (CTA) is. A CTA is a statement with the goal of getting someone to do something. It’s the type of thing you see at the end of web pages and ads, “Call now”, “Stop by today”, “Get yours here”, those types of phrases. The goal of a Call to Action is to tell the person what you want them to do next. Usually, they’re near the end of a piece of content because if someone read to the end to see it, they’re already interested in what you have to say. A CTA is the opportunity to suggest the next step in doing business with you while the information is still fresh.

Some business owners don’t use any kind of CTA because they believe that the visitor will already know what to do next, or that CTAs will be annoying. While this might be true for a segment of the population, they are used frequently enough that someone who was interested is unlikely to get soured and leave just because you ask them to call you for a free estimate. It might not be obvious to everyone what you expect them to do, and having a little reminder could make all the difference.

 

Your Call to Action doesn’t need to be obvious and straightforward either. Feel free to get creative if that matches your brand’s tone and style. Like “Pounce on our deal now before it goes in the litter box” for a cat toy company is purrfectly fine. A good CTA can help someone along the path to conversion.

What is a conversion path?

Simply put, a conversion path is a series of steps a visitor takes to make a desired action. That action could be signing up for your newsletter, making a purchase, giving you their contact information, or any number of things. If you have a CTA, a conversion is when somebody does the action the Call to Action suggests.

For many people, a conversion is a journey. People tend to do research and follow the steps on the Buyer’s Journey before making a purchase. And for the most part, the higher the price tag, the longer it takes to make a decision. A good conversion path takes this into account and provides visitors with information, helps explain why you’re the right choice, then finishes with an effective Call to Action.

How can I make effective conversion paths?

When done right, a conversion path can be very smooth. Instead of a serious of separate steps, it can be more likely an escalator, naturally guiding people to the top with minimal effort. If one company is unclear on what they want to do and hard to figure out, the potential customer might look to a competitor. After all, who wants to spend all that extra effort when there’s an easier option nearby?

Probably the most effective way to make conversion paths to work is to offer something of value to your visitors. This can be additional content like an eBook, a way to subscribe to your newsletter, or a coupon for a discount. What works best for you depends on what kind of products or services you offer and your target market.

If you have competitors who are active online, you can see what they’re up to as well. If they have a Facebook, which type of their posts are getting more results? You can emulate the successful posts not only online, but through your website too.

Becoming a convert

A standard place to add a CTA and the end of your conversion path for your pages is to add a contact form at the side or bottom of the page, like we have here. But it isn’t your only option. Some other varieties include:

  • Linking to a resources page with other related content
  • Having a quick animated pop-up message appear on intent to exit with an offer
  • Ending with a call-to-action that calls the business number directly if the user is on a mobile device
  • You can also add a welcome gate–a full-screen welcome pop-up–but we recommend having it based on cookies so it only happens on the first visit

There are plenty of options, but always make sure to take your target market’s preferences and your various buyer personas in mind. And once you do manage to get some new customers, it’s only the first step. By focusing on a positive customer experience on every step of the conversion path, you can earn regular customers or customers that might promote your business themselves. To learn more about effective websites and trends for 2020, you can download our eBook here. You can also call or come in and talk with us here at Back9 and we’ll be happy to show what we can do to make your marketing efforts more effective.

Who is the best Marketing Company in Southland?

Posted on by Phil

Updated Wednesday 4th December 2024

When it comes to any business in any industry, not all businesses are created equal. The same can be said for Design and Marketing Companies. With that said, how do we define the best?

Business is not a finite thing, in fact, if business were a game, it would be an infinite one. There is no official way to measure who is better. Or is there? We have business awards, design awards, and a number of other ways to measure who is best in business, but these are still finite things within the infinite.

The best way to decide is by reframing the question – or adding to the end of it – Ask not “Who is the best Marketing Company?” but “Who is the Best Marketing Company for me? And my business?”

Truthfully, there is no one-size-fits-all company in any industry–which will be the best for you depends on your needs and circumstances. What’s your criteria for partnering with an agency?

One of the most important parts of teaming up with a company is working with people who believe what you believe. You can usually feel that in your gut. And from my experience, I would say trust your instinct!

Based on Google search results, below are five of the most visible design and digital marketing companies that do business in Invercargill, New Zealand.

Well, it’s us… Back9 Creative!

There’s no way of disputing it when you’re ranking number one on google for Best Marketing Southland! Especially when you have a featured Snippet!

Screenshot-from-Google-Search-for-Best-Marketing-Southland

At Back9 we’re a trusted agency in the digital marketing landscape of Invercargill, Back9 Creative was started back in 2011 by Phil & Alli Robinson. With the rise of digital technologies, they believed that without the huge budgets of global brands, the ‘traditional’ outbound way of ‘interruptive’ selling and marketing was no longer as effective.

As design-driven agency with a focus on Web Design, Custom Apps and Search Engine Marketing, Back9’s goal is to help is to help ambitious businesses grow and succeed by tapping into new technologies and new ways of thinking.

Market South Now Naked Creative

Market South was an award-winning marketing, communications, and graphic design company. A recent rebrand to Naked Creative, they still appear to be a full-service studio. This can include Branding, Web Design, Advertising Campaigns, Strategy, Copywriting, PR, Print, and more.

Market South was passionate about creating kick-ass brands and campaigns that drive sales and help their clients make more money! The new Naked approach is stripped back. Honest. Authentic. Naked Creative believes “Quite simply, our job is to sell more things, to more people, more often and at higher prices.” 

As well as a full-suite of marketing and advertising services, they produce and own a range of products and publications focused on promoting Invercargill and the greater Southland region under their brand The Locals. Owner and Director Carla Forbes is a well-known Southland business personality and has held a number of roles on boards including the Southland Chamber of Commerce, where she was president. Forbes has also been the face of a number of local campaigns including, Stand up for SIT and The NZAS Tiwai Point Fight for Fairness campaign.

Market Elements

Market Elements offer Google Ads, Social Media Marketing, SEO and Web Design services. They have been providing marketing support and integrated marketing campaigns for small and small-medium businesses since 2010.

Market Elements say “It’s all about the relationship and the results for us. Most of our clients ask us to work with them well beyond their initial project, as they value the fact that we’re local and offer professional, independent advice and services”.

With team members collaborating from multiple locations, Market Elements do not appear to have a home base. However this can probably work to their advantage too. Lower overheads can mean more cost-effective pricing.

If you are a small or medium business then Market Elements are well worth touching base with to see if they can help you grow your business.

Digital Club

Digital Club, based in Invercargill, Southland, is a leading digital marketing agency dedicated to helping businesses of all sizes achieve their online marketing goals. Their comprehensive services include responsive website design, tailored SEO strategies, and targeted advertising on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Google. With a mission to turn business aspirations into achievements, Digital Club focuses on guiding young entrepreneurs, revitalising existing businesses, and partnering with startups. Their transparent communication and client-centric approach ensure that each business receives personalised solutions to enhance its online presence and drive growth

Grow NZ Marketing

Grow NZ has recently shown up in Google for the Search query: Best Marketing Southland. They specifically say on their Landing page “We’re your Otago – Southland based marketing partner. Let’s work together to grow your business with strategic and savvy marketing”.

They may have over 20 years of successful experience with profitable marketing and to be fair they have managed to rank in Southland for this query. However the title in the google search result clearly says Bay of Plenty.

Grow-NZ-Marketing-Google-Search-Result

A quick search of the website shows they claim to have multiple locations and to be fair in the realms of digital marketing you don’t need to be in the same town these days – Or country… The question you need to ask yourself is. If this business is claiming to be based in Southland (and Otago) why do they not have an address here? And that being the case, how honest are they. If you don’t have a problem with businesses making misleading claims, then they may well be worth chatting to. If honesty and integrity are important to you, then you may want t give them a miss. Your call.

Who is the Best Marketing Company for me and my business?

So which design and digital marketing company that is based in Invercargill, is the best for you and your business? Well… That really depends on what you’re looking for.

At Back9 we strive to be the best digital marketing agency in Invercargill. Firebrand, Grow NZ and Market South aka Naked Creative, all aim to offer a full-service. From managing social media to building a brand new website they say they can do it. Netbranding and Market Elements appear to be more focused on the web side of things. That makes them good options if you are looking to go full digital and don’t need traditional marketing campaigns.

If you’re looking to partner with an agency for your marketing endeavours, it’s worth taking time to do the research! Check out each of these businesses and other Invercargill-based design and marketing companies. Look over their services and see if their style and tone match what you want for your own business. See how well their own efforts work. How well does their website rank? Do you like what they have done and what others are saying about them? At the end of the day, as marketing agencies, we all say we are experts. We all say that we can help your business succeed. Ultimately, the Best Marketing Company will be the one you feel most comfortable approaching. One thing is for certain, Taking time to find that right fit and work with credible, reliable businesses can save time and trouble later on. So it’s worth the effort!

How to Choose a Marketing Agency

Are you accidentally harming businesses you love through online ratings?

Posted on by Allison Robinson

Online ratings and customer reviews are one of the most important metrics to help first-time visitors decide to visit a company. Most review sites such as Google Reviews, Yelp, and Trip Advisor use a five-star rating system where 1 is the worst and 5 is the best. Something we’ve noticed, especially for local businesses, is that some satisfied customers are leaving low review scores, yet their review is nothing but praise. Some people have even admitted to never giving 5 star reviews. If you’re one of them, we hope this article will help change your mind.

A 3 star review is NOT a good review score. It means you were unhappy and that the business didn’t deliver on its promises and expectations. Even if you personally think 3 stars means a job well done, the majority of people see the scale a different way. Satisfied customers giving poor star ratings is frequent enough that we think that some people are misunderstanding what the star rating on some of these sites mean.

Happy customers giving those 3-star ratings could accidentally be harming a business they love.  A couple of these for the same business could  lower the online rating enough for people to not bother clicking in and reading more, all because satisfied or even regular customers rated it poorly. Are you one of them?

Continue reading “Are you accidentally harming businesses you love through online ratings?”

How does Google’s BERT Update affect site rankings?

Posted on by Phil

In late October 2019, a major shift happened with the way that Google comprehends search phrases known as the BERT Update. Google is constantly making updates, to the point that Google’s Gary Illyes tweeted that they make 3 updates a day on average. Most of the time, these are small, unnoticeable changes, but every once in awhile there’s a major shift that drastically shakes up the search results like new ways pages are crawled or new innovations like the featured snippet. BERT is one of these big updates.

BERT  stands for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers–which sounds like they really wanted a specific acronym–an algorithm designed to better understand search terms. With the new update, approximately 1 in 10 searches were affected, and search engine results pages will have massive changes. This means that some pages that were ranking well fell sharply, while others rose. Is there anything you can do to make sure your site is helped instead of hurt by BERT?

What did the BERT update do?

The primary goal of BERT was for Google searches to understand “longer, more conversational queries or searches where prepositions like ‘for’ and ‘to’ matter a lot to the meaning”. So what does that mean? As an example, if I was an American looking to move to New Zealand, I might search for “America move to New Zealand visa needed”.  Previously, Google wouldn’t know how to understand “to” in the sentence so results would be a mix of articles about visa options for Kiwis going to America  or visa options for Americans coming to New Zealand. Two very different sets of results. After the update, the results will only be the second option.

This is great news for the end user. While shorter, concise keyword searches like “best pizza” aren’t likely to change, longer searches like “Where can I find the closest doctor for a sprained ankle” may have new results. For these longer terms, search results will be more relevant and it will take less time to discover the right keywords or phrase order for people to find what they want. Everyone will start seeing better, more accurate results. It also means that many pages that are currently ranking high might not be anymore.

How can I optimise my content for BERT?

The simple answer? You don’t. Google’s goal has always been to provide the best, most useful search results to its users. Ideally, there would be no keyword confusion and your search would return several different helpful results you could go through to find the information that you want. BERT helps by having a better understanding of natural, conversational language and nuance. This means that Google will be better at understanding individual words in your search and how they relate to each other.

BERT and voice searches

Voice search as fluctuated in popularity over time, but is now steadily gaining popularity due to advancements in technology like SIRI, Google Voice Assistant, and Amazon Alexa. While BERT is still in the early days of release, changes to voice search are expected to be significant. The goal of BERT is to understand conversational language, and many people talk to their voice assistants more conversationally and in longer sentences; sentences that can now be understood better with the BERT update. This means voice search results should be more relevant and accurate now.

How does BERT affect business websites?

Overall, BERT is a great advancement for users. But what about your business? Do you need to change the content on your site? You might need to change your written content because of BERT; it depends on the way that you wrote it in the first place. The best practice is to write your content for humans, not to try and trick Google. Writing content because it’s helpful for users is basically future-proofing it against algorithm updates, especially if you write for the user and manage to rank well.

Writing for search engines, on the other hand, is an ever-changing game. Some people find exploits that trick Google by manipulating page layouts or by using other types of black hat SEO. And while these might seem to work short term, a major change to the search algorithm can cause all of those unhelpful, strangely-formatted pages to drop off the top results completely.

How can I improve my keyword rankings?

If you had some keywords drop in the results and you wrote the pages to be helpful, don’t panic right away! Take a look at your analytics and see if those pages were converting like they should. If you were getting high-traffic but few conversions or a high bounce rate, it could be because of terms that brought up your page that weren’t actually relevant. You might end up with fewer visitors, but those that come should be of higher quality.

If this isn’t the case, take a close look at your content and to see if it’s actually high-quality and helpful with those keywords in mind. The easiest way is to go straight to the source and look at Google’s EAT Guidelines for high-quality content. By following those guidelines the best you can, you’re more likely to have content that will rank well with BERT and future updates.

So how can you make BERT more likely to help than hurt your rankings? Make sure your content is high-quality and well-researched. Follow appropriate SEO guidelines. And write for humans! Of course, you could always contact the experts for blogs, copywriting, and other writing for your website and let us handle it for you and keep track of this and future updates. Get in touch now to get started.

AMP Up Your Website for Mobile Devices

Posted on by Allison Robinson

When you’re out and about, you’ve probably noticed that it seems like people spend more time on their phones than they used to. And it’s true; the data backs it up. In the last four years, the amount of mobile data usage has quadrupled, and according to Google, mobile is now the go-to choice for browsing the net, and their mobile-first index is now in effect.

Yet, a lot of sites are still buggy or slow on phones and tablets. Speed is a huge issue. Nobody wants to sit around waiting for sites to load, and to help out, Google has created the AMP framework that anyone can adopt for their sites to load faster, but it has a few requirements your site must meet first.

What is AMP?

AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages, and the goal is to make pages load lightning fast on tablets and phones. An AMP page is a simplified version of the code created specifically for mobile that is stripped down to optimise for speed.  Pages using the AMP framework have a little lightning bolt next to them on the Google search results.

While this stripped-down code does come with some restrictions and limitations, for many business owners the speed advantage is worth the change. And for the most part, sites look and function the same as they did without AMP—only faster. AMP pages don’t allow custom JavaScript (unless in the amp-iframe) and have a size limitation for the stylesheet, and instead uses an optimised script that loads faster.

Accelerated Mobile Pages

The AMP Logo

 

Are there other benefits to AMP pages?

The main benefit of AMP is to deliver lightning fast, amplified pages to users. But you might find that you get some other benefits as well, such as:

  • More likely to have a higher spot in Google when someone searches on mobile
  • Less load on your web servers so performance can go up
  • Potentially higher chance of display network ads being shown if your site has advertising
  • Chance to be featured at the top of Google results in the Top Stories Carousel. 

AMP is great thing to implement on your site. Just keep in mind that it requires making changes to the code of your website, and it’s important to pay close attention to make sure it’s done right so your website keeps working. If you aren’t comfortable doing this or aren’t sure how to access or change the code, the team at Back9 has an experienced website development team that’s happy to help!

Quick Tips for Website Maintenance

Posted on by Phil

In the past, we’ve talked about how a website can be your hardest working employee. It works nights, weekends, and even holidays. As a point of reference or even a place to purchase products directly from, your website can make a substantial, measurable difference on your sales. When it’s well maintained and works properly of course. Website maintenance ensures that your website will continue working for years to come.

Is your site loading right?

Proper page loading is an essential part of having a functional website. Pages that aren’t working or redirect to a 404 page (Page not found placeholder) don’t provide any value to visitors. It can erode trust, especially if they encounter multiple broken pages on the same site.

Loading speed is another crucial thing to check for. People don’t want to wait around hoping that slow pages load anymore. Instead, they’ll be more likely to leave and do a Google search on the topic to find the content they’re interested in. A Google study says that over 50% of people will leave a site where the page takes 3 seconds or longer to load. So it’s important to check your pages regularly.

But just checking briefly on a desktop isn’t enough. Most people access the internet through their mobile device these days. Therefore, don’t neglect fast loading on mobile. Are the pages loading correctly? And what about the photos? A giant grey box isn’t going to appeal to most people. If you’ve spent the time and effort to get good-quality photos, it’s important that they get seen!

Website Maintenance Graph

Keep your content up to date

If your business is still doing the same thing it’s been doing forever, it might not seem like there’s any point in updating your content. But you might want to take a closer look.

Have you hosted or attended any events lately? Did you talk about them on the site? Then make sure it wasn’t for one that happened several years in the past. What about your staff? Have you hired new people you want to talk about on your site? Can you upgrade your years of experience?

Checking your content for accuracy is important—both for your users and for your visibility online. Some websites go so long without updates that their About page still shows an old business name!

Refreshing or adding new content also signals to Google that your site is active, which can help boost your rankings. Ideally, aim to add new content every few months. At the very least, review your site occasionally to make sure nothing is outdated.

If you spot old or irrelevant info, it might be time for a bit of website maintenance. A few updates can go a long way.

Website Maintenance (Unstocked)

 

What if my site has a complex issue?

You don’t know what you don’t know. And if you don’t know that your site’s having performance problems, how could you know how to start fixing them? To keep you in the know, we recommend giving your site a performance review every 6 months. This is much like you probably do with your staff.

In your review, track your site’s performance. Is it doing what it should? Are you getting the kind of sales that were projected? If you aren’t, there may be a bigger issue at play. If this is the case, you might want to check in with your website provider. They can see if there are any issues that they can make right or tell you how to fix. For more complex issues, you might need the help of professionals. However, if it helps get your site performing how it should be, it’s a good investment!