A Brighter Web | Grow your business with digital marketing

Finding Clients 1. Referrals How can you encourage and appreciate your referral sources? This could be from other clients or business partners. Refer back: this makes you look better to the potential client, too. Using a gift tool like Thnks to surprise and delight. 2. Networking Business associations Professional groups: eg. AMA, Chamber Conferences: We've got a lot of work from these kinds of gr...

1. Website traffic For us, it's mostly checking for red flags. Basically, that’s any spikes in traffic, either good or bad. 2.  Engagement rates This specifically refers to social media. Engagement is when someone actually interacts with your posts. Actions like sharing or commenting are always more valuable. 3. Sales Pipeline We'll talk more about this in our next episode. This is a leading indic...

What is the goal with productivity? Make the most of time Not just to stay busy Keeping your mind like water is a key to staying productive. Email productivity Is Inbox zero a realistic goal? Emails aren't messages, they're actions Task management Task management systems: Asana, Clickup, Teamwork Hundreds of Ways to Get S#!+ Done—and We Still Don’t (Wired Magazine article) Block off time on your c...

Mickey's List Think Again by Adam Grant Getting Things Done by David Allen The Go-Giver by Bob Burg How to Take Smart Notes by Sonke Ahrens Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson Robert's List Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller Everybody Writes by Ann Hadley Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk Deep Work by Cal Newport Other Book Suggestions This is Marketing by...

We're taking a look at the state of blogging as we head into 2022. Mickey Mellen has been blogging every day for more than a year. He’s following Seth Godin's advice that everyone should blog, every day. It seems crazy, but it's largely not for the reasons you think. Here’s why to blog daily:  Writing daily helps you grow yourself and your thoughts. There are some SEO benefits, but that's secondar...

There are three main reasons why you should care about email legitimacy. Legality: don't get sued Deliverability: Email inboxes are more limiting.  User experience: build customer loyalty CAN-SPAM is the main legislation for email marketing in the United States. It stands for The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act in 2003. Fair warning, there are a bunch of acro...

Website accessibility is an often overlooked, but vitally important part of effective website development.  Accessibility is essentially making sure that ALL users can consume the content on your website, even if they have disabilities (such as vision impairment) that could make it difficult. There are more people who  There are at least three reasons why you should address accessibility on your w...

On this episode of the podcast, we're examining a tool every digital marketer should use: a content calendar. Why should we use them? 6 reasons to use a content calendar Manage more content. Don’t try to juggle everything manually. Be more intentional about content. Be proactive, not reactive. See how content works together. Align your strategy over multiple channels. Get the timing right. Manage...

Company websites can take a long time to create and cost a major piece of your marketing budget. What if there was a quicker and cheaper way to build a website that was also more responsive to your audience’s needs? That’s the idea behind Growth-Driven Design, a more modern way to build websites. Growth-Driven Design is a very different approach to web design, more of an iterative approach rather...

A marketing funnel is essentially a path for how users could interact with your marketing content as they move closer to becoming a customer with your business. For example:  A business might be found through a search engine by a potential customer.  The customer lands on their website and reads a blog post on the topic they searched for. They then download a related free PDF resource.  This means...

We have 55 things on our official website launch list, but this is the top 10 things to check when you launch a site. Set WordPress to allow indexing: Settings —> Reading: "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" Make sure Analytics is installed Add launch date to Analytics as a "shared annotation" Along with any other tracking software, like FreshMarketer or CrazyEgg Add new site to Go...

A messaging strategy is a filter to figure out the right words to say to the right people.  The 5 components of any effective messaging strategy are: Audience: who are you trying to do business with? Problem: what is their issue? Solution: how can you help them? Credibility (Guide): why should they trust you? Action: what do they need to do to get started? So where does all of this go? Use this as...

SEO is a key strategy for having your business discovered online. But what is SEO and how do you take advantage of it? SEO is more than just flipping a switch on your website—it’s a long-term, intentional strategy. But getting some of the basics right are easier than you think. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. That refers to organic search results compared to paid search. Google doesn't...