Brooke Desmond
Organic SEO has quickly become a necessity for businesses who want to be competitive online, yet search engines like Google make this even more challenging by being quiet about their algorithm updates. Mickey covers a lot of them over on the DigitalCast podcast, but Google simply doesn’t say anything about many of them. No matter how significant these changes are, there’s still a list of SEO best practices you should always apply to your website. Take a look at the top tasks you need to perform for your SEO efforts, no matter what! Include Image Alt Text Google has confirmed that images on your website should have alt text if you want to boost your rankings. This is because search engines read this text to determine what images are showing and what searches they’re relevant for. No matter what, always add alt text to your images so search engines can […]
Read MoreA question we regularly get in regards to email marketing is when’s the best time an email should be sent. When your emails are delivered to your subscribers’ inboxes at the optimal time, you could receive more opens and clickthroughs to get more traffic to your website. Here are some stats that will help you decide when you should send out your emails. Aim to Emails in the Beginning or Middle of the Week According to customer.io, MailChimp and HubSpot, based on open rates, Tuesday, Thursday and Wednesday (in that order) were the most successful days to send emails, with Monday being a close fourth. While Wednesday and Thursday were both about equal, Tuesday consistently proved to be by far the best day to send emails. Why Tuesday? It could be that Mondays are spent catching up with clients or project-related emails, so that promotional emails could be more of […]
Read MoreWe’d like to introduce our newest addition to the GreenMellen family, Elena Maas! Elena joins us as our Lead Graphic Designer, where she will lead all our print and digital design efforts for our clients. Born and raised in Germany, Elena came to the U.S. as an au pair and worked in New Jersey. While working, she attended design school at Rowan College. Once she graduated, Elena was immediately hired as an in-house designer and later moved to Atlanta. Before coming to GreenMellen, she worked for the American Cancer Society, where she assisted in both print and digital design and photography. In her spare time, you’ll find Elena hiking with her husband and dog, snapping photos with her camera, or partaking in any horse-related activity. Please join us in welcoming Elena to the team!
Read MoreMany people don’t know the relationship SEO and email marketing share, but your emails can have an impact on your rankings. While Google isn’t crawling your emails and your list size doesn’t have a direct impact on organic SEO, there is a correlation you need to know about. Here are the top strategies you can utilize your email marketing efforts for SEO. Drive Engagement Through Emails Emails alone will not help your rankings in and of itself, but the content within them could. Most of the time, emails entice your lists to click on a call-to-action (CTA) which then lead to a website. If you point these CTAs to your website and encourage people to engage on your website, this could help boost your SEO. For example, if you have a new blog about the top strategies to gain new business, you can encourage someone to share these strategies via […]
Read MoreContent creation needs to be a part of your ongoing marketing efforts, as it brings a plethora of benefits for your business. No matter if it’s a blog post, white paper, or a website, the steps each piece takes to create, promote, distribute and analyze content can be a long, daunting process that seems to last longer than it should. By optimizing your content creation process, you can not only improve your pieces, but get results quicker. Here’s how to save time on creating content for your business. Streamline Your Research Process This step in the process always seems to be the most time consuming if you let yourself get carried away. The perfectionist in all of us wants to make sure we’ve covered every detail before writing, but the worker in us wants to complete our pieces as quickly as possible. Consider streamlining this process by honing in on […]
Read MoreToday, your website is arguably one of your most valuable digital assets. It serves as a digital window into your business, and consumers have come to expect a certain level of seamlessness when they browse through websites. It’s up to you to deliver and meet those expectations, or your website efforts will be wasted. Here are the things your customers are expecting from your website, no matter what industry you’re in. Easy Navigation at the Top of the Website We’re a digital marketing agency and always appreciate creativity and unique thinking. However, some things don’t need to be reinvented, and one of them is having the navigation at the top of the website. It’s the norm for a good reason; it’s easy to find, which reduces the time for someone to learn how to explore your site. Also, it has become the standard to have your logo at the top […]
Read MoreOne of the biggest misconceptions about websites is that once it’s live, it’s not a concern anymore. Sites require ongoing maintenance to make sure they’re secure and up to date. If you’re stumped on what dependable website maintenance looks like, here are the top nine actions we handle for our maintenance clients and what you need to do each month to keep your website sound. Update WordPress Core When Available If you have a WordPress website, you will need to keep up with its core updates. A new version of WordPress is released roughly once a month, and many of them contain essential security patches. It’s vital that you stay on top of those updates to make sure you aren’t leaving any holes in your site. The lack of core updates to WordPress is the #1 reason that websites get hacked. How we do it: We handle core WordPress updates […]
Read MoreThe term “fake news” seems to be a phrase we hear every day, but it doesn’t apply to just trending topics. In the digital marketing world, we hear a lot of myths going around about every subject from SEO to video marketing. Today, we’d like to shine a light on the common myths that go around about content marketing. Here are the top six content marketing myths we’d like to set the record straight about. Myth #1: Content Creation is More Important than Content Marketing We’ve seen business owners who blog only for the sake of creating content, and their content is very watered down and offers no value to their readers. With so much content being produced every hour, the key is to create strategic, purposeful content that can be used in someone’s life. Before you write anything, you should take the time to gather data/information, outline your piece’s […]
Read MoreEmail preheaders are short summaries that follow the subject line of an email, and these have become the latest trend in email marketing. Here is a visual example of what these look like in Gmail: These preheaders may appear different on mobile devices and other email carriers, but they all serve the same purpose: to get people to open your email. The question is, do they help with your email open rates? Let’s find out the answer together. They’re Effective for Mobile The biggest reason why email preheaders are the newest trend in email marketing is because of how effective it is on mobile. According to Adotas, “They deliver a seven percent higher open rate, on average. With nearly half of all emails opened on a mobile device, and the average inbox swelling to more than 100+ emails per day, clever preheaders are a great way to capture your audience’s […]
Read MoreBroken links on your website can have a drastically negative impact on your search engine rankings. What’s more is that these can hurt your site’s user experience, which can also damage your site’s analytics. We at GreenMellen know how important a clean website is for our customers and are always looking for new ways to make their site better. This is why we have added a broken link checker to all our maintenance clients. Learn more about the benefits of a broken link checker and how we can help you make sure your site doesn’t have any broken links. The Importance of Broken Link Checkers As stated, broken links on your website will hurt your rankings and user experience. There are billions of sites out there, which make the web very competitive. These pesky, little details can be bad for your digital presence in the long run, which means broken […]
Read MoreOrganic SEO is, and continues to be, very competitive for websites in all industries. However, to gain more attention in search engines, pay-per-click (PPC) strategies like Google Ads will help your site be discovered by not only more people, but people who are ready to take the next step with businesses like you. If you choose to go this route, you may want to revisit your website design, as it has a lot to do with your PPC performance. How does your website design impact your PPC efforts? Read on, and we’ll explain. Website Mobile Responsiveness is Crucial in PPC It’s no secret that mobile is the device of choice for today’s users, and if your website is not mobile responsive, make this priority one. This is especially true if you are running PPC campaigns, as in a lot of cases, people click these paid ads while they’re on the […]
Read MoreA common misconception among business owners is that once their website is launched, their work on it is done. However, much like society, trends and user behavior change, and your site needs to consider these shifts as they come. Depending on your website goals and target audience, the elements you include on your site will vary, but there are still some elements many of the same businesses and industries need to consider. Here is a list of the top elements most sites should take into consideration in 2019 and beyond. No Sliders on Your Headers Sliders were once a great idea for your header images, and while it technically makes sense to showcase as many visuals as possible in this section of precious real estate, it’s terrible user experience. It’s very rare that someone is going to watch all the photos pass through a slider, so it’s best to stay […]
Read MoreToday, writing content for the web needs to be more than just an opinion piece. If you want eyes on your words, you need to consider writing search engine optimized (SEO) content that keeps best practices in mind. However, while Google and other search engines need to be considered in your writing, you need to remember who you’re writing for – people. The overall goal for anything you write should have an equal balance of value for the user and search engines, but which one is more critical in today’s digital world? Search Engines Read Human Language, Not Search Language Unlike our other blog posts, we’re going to answer the question early: you should always write for people over search engines. Here’s why: As you know, Google and other search engines are continuously changing their ranking factors (not majorly, but little by little) to make sure they’re delivering the most […]
Read MoreStudies have proven time and time again that blog content on your website helps build trust, helps generate leads, and increase your authority online. This is true across all websites, especially eCommerce sites. As long as it’s updated regularly, these kinds of websites can see a lot of benefits with a blog, which all drive the goal of increased sales. Discover the top reasons why an eCommerce website needs a blog as a part of their marketing strategy. Answer Your Customers Questions Think about people’s primary motivation to use search engines; they want to answer a question, solve a problem, or accomplish a task. A blog is a great way to deliver the answers to their needs, and if you can do this without overtly selling your items in the post, that’s even better. Aim to make your blog a knowledge hub around answering your target audience’s questions without coming […]
Read MoreOn-page search engine optimization (SEO) is much more in-depth than placing a keyword or phrase in your website content, meta descriptions and page titles. As you may know, organic SEO is a long-term strategy, and with it being as competitive as it is, you need to optimize everywhere you can. If you want a particular web page or blog to rank high on a search engine, there are other techniques and strategies you’ll need to remember. Here is the shortlist of the top eight missed techniques for on-page SEO. H1, H2 and H3 Headings The H1 tags are often used as headlines for your page. If you use WordPress, it’s easy to mark what content you want to live within an H1 tag, and many sites use the page title within an H1 toward the top of a web page. No matter the case, make sure your primary keyword is […]
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