Posts By: Chris Wielinski

5 Mistakes Companies Make When Creating Their Websites

Posted by & filed under Website Design.

Each month, Google rakes in 100 billion searches. Searches like this are what millions of Americans use to find businesses online — and nearly 93% of all online experiences begin with a search. If you currently own a business, searches like this can be beneficial for you… but only if you’re able to keep people interested once they click on your website.

Website design is incredibly important, but many businesses either overlook or underutilize it. Through the use of visual assets and intuitive design, you can use the traffic garnered from searches and create new customers. However, there are many common mistakes that businesses make when it comes to web design. These mistakes can end up costing then potential customers. To help you avoid making these mistakes yourself, here are five of the most common mistakes businesses make and how you can avoid them.

1. Under-Planning

No business is able to run without a carefully crafted business plan and the same is true for your company’s website. From the very beginning, you need to have a plan for marketing your website online while also taking care to construct your website with both originality and credibility. This means utilizing web design services that can customize your website for improved quality and search engine rankings. You want to design a website that is both aesthetically pleasing and geared towards usability so that visitors will enjoy their time on your site.

2. Lack of Visual Assets

Visual assets are another important factor when it comes to constructing your website. You want your website to be a good first introduction to your company. Low-quality images and early-2000s-style interfaces are not going to do it. Professional web design services know how to utilize visual assets and high-quality imagery to create a visually pleasing site. Without these visual assets, you can risk visitors becoming turned off buy a bland and boring page. Furthermore, high-quality assets can help promote a more professional appearance to your website, allowing you to increase your credibility and appeal.

3. Forgetting SEO

SEO — or search engine optimization — is another highly important step that many businesses overlook. Regardless of how good your website looks, without SEO, you’ll make your page harder for customers to find. Because online searches are one of the top ways potential customers find businesses, this can seriously impact your ability to draw in new clients. An SEO expert can help you increase the discoverability of your site by building the optimization into the design. Without the knowledge of how to do this correctly, you can risk losing out on customers and falling behind the competition.

4. Omitting a Blog

Adding a blog to your website is another thing many companies overlook. However, it is a good way to differentiate you from competitors and personalize your website further. It also gives you a chance to engage with customers and keep them up-to-date with the latest happenings in your field. For instance, if you run a home improvement business you might wish to update your blog with style trends and information on the home improvement process. Some businesses can benefit from hiring an outside writer to help them manage their blogs and ensure that they can produce high-quality content regularly.

5. Unintuitive Design

Lastly, the design of your website needs to be intuitive and user-friendly. If visitors have to spend long amounts of time searching for information that should be easily available, they will most likely become frustrated and turn somewhere else (most likely, a competitor). To prevent this, a website design company can help create a website that is easy to navigate while still being aesthetically pleasing and optimized for search engines.

If your company’s website is falling behind and you would like to improve its ability to bring in customers, consider partnering with a web design company who got to help you get a leg up on your competitors online. While it may seem like a small step, overall it can help increase business and customer engagement, something every business should be eager for.

4 Things To Consider When Launching Your Business Online

Posted by & filed under Website Design.

Now more than ever, it’s important that small business owners understand that their online presence truly matters. While many people are unable to or feel uncomfortable shopping for certain items in person, they feel no such thing about shopping online. Therefore, business owners who previously conducted their sales within brick and mortar stores are being forced to move online.

But it’s one thing to have a website; it’s another thing entirely to have a good website that will actually please shoppers. Right now, it’s believed that around 93% of all online experiences start with a search engine. But just because an experience starts online doesn’t mean that it lasts in any way. If a website is unattractive, difficult to navigate, or poorly made, users will move on. It’s important that small business owners understand that they have competition. Few products or services are truly original, and if one business has a website that is easier to use or understand than others, they move on to that one.

All of this means that a lot of people find themselves working to make their websites as appealing as possible. But however much you work on your site, if it’s difficult for you to accomplish what you want, you’ll need to consider working with professional web design services. But what should you prioritize when creating your website and online presence in general? Let’s look into the elements of launching your business’s brand online below.

1. Creating An Attractive Website

It’s incredibly important that you work with the right web design services provider when planning your website, and in general your online brand. This is because it’s hugely important that your business’s website matches your overall brand. The website needs to be modern and aesthetically representative of what you want your business to be. Think about everything from the color to the fonts used, because all of this will affect the overall impression your website leaves with visitors.

2. Using Social Media

Some of the companies that offer web design services also offer social media tips. The reason why social media is so important to businesses today is that it’s the main way in which businesses interact with regular users. Think about how easy it is to interact with a major corporation today, simply by moving online. You can create an entire personality for your brand by using social media. Not only is this an important part of marketing, it’s also an important part of creating an online identity in general, and receiving feedback from clients and customers.

3. Utilizing SEO

SEO, or search engine optimization, is just as important as creating an attractive identity through web design services and social media. Essentially, SEO ensures that your business is one of the first results to show up in a search engine. But it can be difficult to navigate on your own at first, which is why it’s important for you to work with a professional digital marketing company in order to ensure that your business is the first thing that people encounter once they begin their searches online.

4. Strengthening Mobile Capabilities

It’s not enough for you to be prominent online when people are using their computers to search. You also need your website to be easily accessible when they search through their tablets and smartphones. Therefore, you should do what you can to make your website as mobile-friendly as possible. A lot of websites fail when people attempt to access them through mobile devices, and as many people shop online when they’re out and about, this could result in you losing a surprising number of customers. Don’t let this opportunity slip through your fingers.

Now that you’ve learned a few tips about making your website as prominent and easy to navigate as possible, you can move on with a much better idea of how to transition your business online. Shipping items that were once sold in person, and relying upon online stores to facilitate business that was done in brick and mortar stores, may be tricky at first. But once you make this transition, your business will be appealing to a much broader audience, and ultimately your future as a business owner will be assured.

7 Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring a Marketing Firm

Posted by & filed under Uncategorized.

Finding the right digital marketing services is a huge step in the right direction. You can boost your business’s growth through better brand awareness, lead generation, sales, and customer retention. However, hiring the wrong digital ad and marketing firm can be a nightmare.

It’s easy to make mistakes while outsourcing the marketing services, especially when you skimp out on your research. Here are six common pitfalls that you need to avoid when searching for “marketing firms near me.”

1. Falling for Fancy Presentations

Some digital marketing firms create unrealistic expectations through shiny packages used to pitch to potential clients. The marketers usually layer the fancy “SEO audit” gimmicks with a “secret sauce” pitch. Don’t fall for the smoke and mirrors. There is no short-cut search engine optimization. It is a culmination of hard work, time, and patience.

2. Working with Marketing Agencies Without a Defined Plan

It is important to ask for a detailed plan with all the marketing goals outlined. Carry out enough research within your company to set clear goals and expectations for the marketing firm. You don’t want to sign up for services that you do not require. Always ask for a written service agreement stipulating all terms and conditions of the contract.

3. Disregarding the Company’s Experience

Organic marketing may take years to master, with most experts regarding it as an art. You may need to choose a company with a proven track record. Ask to see past case studies within your industry. Find out how the company helped them achieve their goals. Rookie mistakes can be costly and can negatively impact your brand image.

4. Choosing the Cheapest Digital Marketing Services

Be wary of results for “online marketing firms near me” that quote extremely low prices — way below the industry average. In the quest to achieve the targeted ROI, the cheap SEO agencies tend to turn to black-hat techniques such as paid links and keyword-stuffed content. It may result in penalties and damage to your business reputation. Remember, in business, you will always get the quality of service you pay for.

5. Focusing Only on Local Firms

While it is tempting just to Google “marketing firms near me” and choose the top-listed agency, it may not always be the wisest idea. The beauty of technology is that it allows firms to offer digital marketing services from any part of the world. You do not have to sell yourself short by fixating your mind on only local agencies.

6. Not Choosing a Full-Service Marketing Agency

Some digital marketing firms today only specialize in one area. The specialization can be on SEO, social media marketing, PPC advertisement, or perhaps web design services. While it may be perfect for their business model, it may not be right for you. All the facets of the digital marketing space are vital in creating an effective long-term strategy.

7. Not Following Up on References

Client testimonials on marketing firms near you can reveal the strengths and weaknesses of individual firms. Ask for references to past clients and follow up. Ensure you get to know their experiences, level of satisfaction, and the results delivered.

Outsourcing your marketing services can often prove to be the best route for business growth and success. Avoiding these seven mistakes can place you in the right trajectory to increased revenue.

7 Top Benefits of Outsourcing Marketing Services

Posted by & filed under Inbound Marketing.

Successfully marketing a brand may demand a lot of time and patience. Small business and start-up owners tend to wear many hats, eventually neglecting the marketing aspects of their operations. Eventually, some come to the painful realization that the sector is a key pillar to the success of their enterprises when the damage has already been done.

Outsourcing marketing services has now become a common practice for small and large brands. It is a smart move that enables businesses to tap on the skills of a talented pool of experts. Here are seven benefits outsourcing digital marketing services.

1. Access to the Latest Technology

Most marketing departments are usually cash and technology-starved. Others work with a mixed assortment of non-compatible tools. With thousands of tools available, it may be challenging to choose the right technology for your marketing campaigns. Data-centric marketing agencies invest in the latest software to craft and implement your strategies.

2. A Pool of Experts at Your Disposal

Hiring a qualified in-house marketing team can be an expensive, time-consuming endeavor. Hiring a digital marketing and advertising agency can grant you access to top talent to visualize, create, and implement your plan. SEO, social media marketing, PPC advertising, email marketing, website design can easily overwhelm your in-house marketing staff.

3. Keeping up With Industry Trends

The digital marketing landscape is ever-changing, with more algorithms and software launched to ease your brand-building process. Social media has taken center-stage, with nearly a third of marketers stating that Facebook is their most important social platform. Marketing firms are constantly improving on techniques and strategies to better serve their clients. Stay attuned to the latest trends by subcontracting marketing services to a reliable agency.

4. Assured ROI

A full-service marketing agency has to continuously prove their worth by delivering on the potential goals agreed-or you may have to pull the plug on their retainer. The result is that you get a marketing partner that is interested and invested in your success. It may translate to better outcomes for your company.

5. Fresh Insight and Perspective

It is relatively easy for in-house marketing teams to become complacent, especially when office politics come into play. You end up falling into a marketing rut, stuck with outdated, non-performing strategies. Outsourcing marketing services can bring in new and innovative ideas to spruce up your marketing campaigns. Consistency is key in creating a successful brand.

6. Less Time Consuming

Coming up with a robust in-house marketing unit is a slow process, involving hiring and re-training the new employees. With the average employee moving out of their current employment after every 2.8 years, it can be quite disruptive. A marketing agency will hit the ground running, with the experts tackling issues with your strategies immediately.

7. Increased Efficiency

An external marketing company can help augment the efforts of your in-house team. Your staff can focus on the core of your business and activities that generate the most impact. Besides, you do not have to worry about shortages in staffing during annual leaves or layoffs.

Whether as a small or large brand, digital marketing is an essential ingredient in the success of your business. Outsourcing marketing services can help streamline operations in your in-house department, increasing efficiency. Think Cre8tive is a digital ad and marketing agency in Fort Worth that can transform your current marketing efforts.

Digital Marketing: Why Your Business Needs It

Posted by & filed under Branding.

As times change, so do your business practices. You should invest in digital marketing help to make your business more relevant to your online customers. Even if you are only using digital marketing to reach out to your customers on your website, you can use SEO services to make your company more well-known and to help retain the attention of your would-be customers.

Digital marketing: why is it so important to helping your company succeed? When you do the right things to make your company more relevant, you can get more customers, retain the customers you do have, and make your business easier to find and use online.

Your Business Must be Reachable Online

Did you know that most people go online and use a search engine to do so? Nearly 95% of online users will look for products, services, or even websites using a search engine, so you need to make sure your business is reachable and discoverable. You can use pay per click advertising to make your business more easily found, or you can rely on the services of digital marketing help to make your website easier to navigate or find.

You Have to Be Competitive

In order to be competitive with the rest of the businesses who have a strong online presence, you have to use social media tips and social media SEO tips and blogs. These are presented to you by your digital marketing help team.

You can have a custom plan created by your website design team and social media experts to make your experience most successful. Whether you need help making your social media platforms more exciting and user-friendly or you need someone to manage your website, your digital marketing help team will be there to give you the assistance you need.

You Lose Money Without Help

Basically, you cannot afford to forego digital marketing help. Without this type of assistance, your website can rank too far down in search engine results to be relevant to customers, you can lose customers who prefer to shop online, and you can miss out on the large piece of marketing pie you are owed.

If you want your company to succeed in the best of ways, don’t ignore the importance of digital marketing help. The right specialists will be there for you and make your experience most successful in the right ways.

Is PPC Still A Thing?

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You likely have heard all about how organic traffic is the best, but how do you get to the point where your traffic is organic? PPC that is how. Pay per click advertising is still very much alive and well, and still a necessity.

PPC advertising is an excellent bridge between getting started and getting to the point of regular organic flow. PPC is a must when you first launch your website.

What is Pay Per Click?

Pay per click advertising is a way to drive traffic to your website. Your website is advertised on other websites, and you pay a fee to the other website owner every time someone clicks on your ad and navigates to your website.

The fee structure can vary. It is an easy way to drive traffic to a new website from a well-established website. It is worth the small investment to get your website shared among a target audience.

In the early days of internet marketing, PPC found its footing. It was one of the most powerful tools available in the early days. Today, it has not lost its steam. It is still one of the best ways to get traffic to a new website.

Your marketing strategy should include a PPC campaign that draws attention to your website and builds a strong foundation for other marketing strategies.

Why Is It a Good Option?

PPC is a great tool for driving traffic but that is not its only function. It can help lend credibility to your website as well. When visitors are at a site that they have a trusted relationship with, they assume that if that site is connecting to your site, then your site is equally trustworthy.

Of course, it can also help to establish your authority in your field. Connecting with the best SEO services Fort Worth has to offer can ensure that your PPC campaign is a success and you benefit from all the value that it has to offer.

If driving traffic to your website is your goal, and it should be then a strong PPC program is a way to get started. All you need is the right support to pull together a winning strategy. Pay per click should always be a part of your marketing arsenal, especially during the launch phase. Learn more about PPC and how it can help to build a strong internet presence for your business.

7 Social Media Tips to Optimize Your Online Marketing Strategy

Posted by & filed under Social Media.

Social media use has skyrocketed over the last decade. Over 75% of American adults spend an average of five hours daily on social media platforms. Now more than ever, social media marketing needs to be an integral part of your business strategy. Research shows that over 40% of digital users use these online platforms to research new brands or products.

New and established brands are using social media to reach out to their target audience and generate leads. While it may sound like a massive undertaking, Think Creative compiled a list of seven social media tips and tricks to help create more sales.

1. Craft a Workable Social Media Strategy

Just like any marketing strategy, you need to create a specific and detailed social media marketing plan for every platform you use. Set goals and targets for each, with a deeper understanding of the tricks and best practices for consumer engagement. Streamline the content creation to fit your various business goals.

2. Create a Content Schedule

To keep your audience engaged, you may need to be consistent with your social media posts. As you craft your social media marketing strategy, determine how much you need to publish on your platforms. A social content calendar may help you plan and post the right content at the right time to the right audience.

3. Focus on Quality

The sheer numbers of content produced on social media pages are overwhelming. You need to craft creative posts that stand out from the rest. Select the key channels to actualize your strategy and fine-tune the content created. You need to offer value through your posts, setting up your brand as an authority within the industry.

4. Join Industry-Related Groups and Communities

Increase your engagement within the platforms by joining relevant online communities. The Social Media Marketing Industry Report shows that nearly 66% of marketers cite Facebook as their most important platform. The groups within Facebook allow you to interact with potential clients as well as build a relationship with other industry players. Combining this with other social media tips may help you gain new and free exposure, increasing brand loyalty.

5. Build a Relationship with Your Audience

Create time for engaging with your audience. It is extremely vital to respond to your followers’ comments and questions. Talking directly to your customers creates a humanly touch to your posts. Your audience doesn’t have to feel like they respond to a bot that only burps out links and images.

6. Find the Right Tools

Social media tools may help boost productivity by simplifying the posting and analytics stages in your strategy. Scheduling tools allow you to craft amazing content and share it at a precise time. Other tools that may help include content creation programs, graphics software and data analytics.

7. Invest in Social Media Analytics

You cannot complete the list of social media tips without mentioning data review and analytics. All platforms use different metrics that churn out data useful for making informed decisions about your business plans. Besides the analytics tools, you may also use the A/B strategy to determine the effectiveness of your social media marketing programs.

Social media is continually evolving, with more platforms emerging daily. Whether you are a large or small enterprise, the social media tips above can help you better connect with your potential customers, and build your brand reputation. For more information on online marketing tips, visit our website today.

The Importance of Backlinking to Your Business Website

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‘Backlinking’ is one of the most commonly used terminologies in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) world. Link building continues to play a crucial role in offsite SEO as they help build your website domain as well as rank higher in search engine result pages (SERPs.) With a professional digital marketing company, you can develop an effective SEO strategy that incorporates robust backlinking techniques for your website.

What Are Backlinks?

A ‘backlink’ is a one-way hyperlink on another site that directly links back to your website. Backlinks are simply incoming links to your webpages. Link building dates back to the early days of ‘PageRank’- the Google algorithm almost entirely relied on backlinks to rank websites on SERPs. Even with multiple updates and upgrades to search engine algorithms, backlinks continue to be one of the three leading ranking signals.

However, you need to ensure that your link building avoids links from spammy sources. The Google update-Penguin focuses on link quality and not quantity, and may penalize your site for using black-hat SEO strategies while backlinking to your site. Your goal should be to have quality backlinks from authoritative websites.

Here is why you need to take backlinking seriously to ensure business growth:

1. Improve Rankings on SERPs

Link building can significantly improve your website search engine ranking. Backlinks act as direct indicators on how search engines such as Google believe your site to be. Backlinking contributes to your page authority, thus allowing your website to rank higher for specific keywords. If your content continuously gets links from other authoritative sites, you may secure a spot in the coveted first page. Ranking higher enables your business to edge your competitors by getting quality leads and better conversion rates.

2. Increased Referral Traffic

Backlinks are essential in driving referral traffic to your site. The links provide web visitors with a chance to follow an authoritative voice within the industry, thus increasing your organic traffic. The referral traffic may be from an informative blog post, an elaborate how-to video, or perhaps a detailed infographic that points back to your site. The referral traffic has a direct impact on your online reputation, thus allowing more consumers to trust your business.

3. Faster Indexing

Backlinking plays a vital role in your web performance. Search engine crawlers discover new webpages through backlinks from existing sites. The spiders can only crawl your webpages effectively after coming across your website. Backlinks help the search engines to index your site quickly, thus promoting better ranking.

4. Improved Domain Authority

Backlinks from trusted and popular websites build your webpage and site authority online. When trusted domains continually link back to your site, search engine bots see the links as a ‘vote of confidence’ for your website. With many ‘votes’ coming in, your site builds its strength and authority within your industry, thus ranking you higher. The more authoritative domains link back to your site, the more ‘link juice’ you enjoy. Domain authority builds trust, making it easier for consumers to accept your products.

Proper backlinking is an essential strategy for any online business. Backlinks can help build authority, rank you higher in result pages, and increase traffic to your site. Remember-only quality links count. Working with a digital marketing company can increase your chances of coming up with an effective link building strategy. For more information and tips on SEO and backlinking, please visit our website today.

Think Cre8tive Receives 2020 Best of Keller Award

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Keller Award Program Honors the Achievement

KELLER June 29, 2020 — Think Cre8tive has been selected for the 2020 Best of Keller Award in the Advertising Agency category by the Keller Award Program.

Each year, the Keller Award Program identifies companies that we believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and our community. These exceptional companies help make the Keller area a great place to live, work, and play.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2020 Keller Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the Keller Award Program and data provided by third parties.

About Keller Award Program

The Keller Award Program is an annual awards program honoring the achievements and accomplishments of local businesses throughout the Keller area. Recognition is given to those companies that have shown the ability to use their best practices and implemented programs to generate competitive advantages and long-term value.

The Keller Award Program was established to recognize the best of local businesses in our community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to recognize the small business community’s contributions to the U.S. economy.

SOURCE: Keller Award Program

CONTACT:
Keller Award Program
Email: PublicRelations@town-best-ofinformation-2020.com
URL: httpss://www.town-best-ofinformation-2020.com

Are You So Focused On Marketing For Search Engines That You Miss an Important Mark?

Posted by & filed under Search Engine Optimization.

In the early days of marketing for search engines, the goal was simple, get the attention of search engines anyway you could and not worry about whether what you were putting out made sense to your audience. Of course, that approach only solved one problem of how do you get people to your website? It did not solve the question of how do you get people to stick around and learn about your business?

Focusing on marketing for search engines is still very important, but today, it is not all you have to consider. You have to focus on marketing for search engines to get the traffic flowing, but you also have to be marketing with the reader in mind and what they are thinking about your content.

Algorithms Change and So Do Consumers Buying Habits

In the early days of internet marketing your audience was not as wide, it was not as savvy, and people were still pretty leery about shopping online. Today, the opposite is true, the potential audience is tremendous, consumers are very savvy, and just about everyone has bought something online in the last six months according to surveys.

What does it take to get the most out of digital marketing today? You start with a marketing company that has the expertise in the constantly changing algorithms that Google and others are using to deliver search results and that also understand consumer behavior and what it takes to engage your target audience.

Today you need a multi-layer approach for marketing services. Marketing for search engines is only part of the plan. Marketing through social media, providing content that establishes your business as trusted, expert, and an authority in your field, all come into play. Finding marketing firms near me that can deliver a complete marketing strategy that is driven by results is the way you gain traction.

A Complete Approach

Consumers and other businesses use the internet over 89% of the time to find businesses and services that can meet their demands. Your marketing has to answer a few questions to keep you ranking high for search results and keep the audience interested. Who is your business? What does your business have to offer? Why is your business better than your competitor? Where are you located? And, other questions.

Your consumer wants to be engaged. About 83% of consumers surveyed report that they “like” or “love” when a business responds to them via social media. If your campaign is focusing solely on marketing for search engines, and not engaging that audience, you are missing the mark.

Get complete marketing support today to make sure you are hitting all the marks.