Month: March 2023

Emotional branding is a powerful marketing tool that allows companies to establish emotional connections with their target audience. By evoking positive emotions and memories, such as joy, love, nostalgia, and excitement, brands are able to craft a memorable experience that creates lasting loyalty in consumers. This article will cover the fundamentals of constructing an emotional branding strategy.

Emotional branding can effectively target the subconscious desires of consumers for love, power, emotional security, and ego gratification. Companies engage in emotionally triggered marketing to tap into human emotions and create an emotional connection with their customer base. This type of marketing has proven to be highly successful as it appeals directly to a person’s natural instincts and desires.

When companies build strong emotional connections with their customers through brand development, they reap significant rewards. As an example, a large financial institution recently released a credit card that resonated particularly strongly with millennials. The result? Usage among this group jumped 70%, while the number of new accounts rose by 40%.

Emotional Branding – What Is It?

One of the core techniques used in modern marketing is emotional branding. This strategy forms a link between a product or brand and a consumer by playing on emotions. To make this connection, we craft content that resonates with customers’ needs, egos, desires, or mental states. The effectiveness of emotional branding makes it an important tool for any successful business.

How Emotional Branding Works

Emotional branding (not marketing) evokes emotion to form a stronger relationship with consumers and companies to increase sales.

The Neuroscience Behind Emotional Branding

Neuro/emotion marketing is a tactic used to influence customers on a psychological level. This technique combines neuroscience and marketing to understand how the mind responds to advertising and brand content. Neuroscientists study the cognitive and affective responses of consumer behavior, allowing brands to gain insight into how effective their messaging strategy is.

Neuromarketing goes beyond traditional art-based branding strategies by utilizing advanced data analysis tools such as eye-tracking, facial coding, and electroencephalogram (EEG). By analyzing consumer reactions in these ways, companies can ensure that their brand messages are resonating with their target audience’s emotions.

Harvard Business Review research has confirmed that 90% of buying decisions happen subconsciously in the brain, visuals can be processed over 60,000 times faster than text, and 50% of a brand experience is driven by emotion. Neuromarketing helps businesses identify the types of marketing experiences consumers need.

How To Perfect Your Emotional Branding in 4 Steps

1. Find A Problem

Businesses must be able to appeal to a broad target audience in order to successfully reach their commercial objectives. Creating emotional connections with customers and prospects is challenging, but essential. Strategizing and implementing effective marketing techniques can help build stronger, more meaningful relationships with your audience.

Figure out what motivates your customers and make sure these are themes throughout your branding and campaigns. If you don’t yet know what triggers an emotional reaction, research your competitors on social media and explore market insights. Additionally, seek actionable feedback from your audiences through surveys or interviews in order to discover which messages strike the right chords.

2. Describe Your Feelings About It

To connect with a crowd, it’s important to consider the market and sector of your company and how your customers feel about it. By taking some time to reflect on the answers to questions such as: What can I expect from this business? What are the benefits for me if I use their services? How will working with them be of value in my life? Are they connected to any social causes that I’m personally invested in? And how will this company work better for me than others like it?

By understanding your customers on this level, you’ll be in a better position to recognize areas where there are opportunities to maximize your product and service offerings. Knowing what stirs emotion in your audience is an excellent way to create meaningful connections.

3. Create A Story Around Your Product / Service

It’s important to build emotional connections with your customers, and storytelling can be a great way to do this. When choosing which tales to tell, consider these three points:

Vulnerability – Show that your products or services came from humble beginnings, struggles you have faced as a business owner, or challenges your employees have encountered. These types of stories speak to the human experience and enable others to relate.

Relatability – Link each story back to the core of what your brand stands for and ensure it resonates with who you are as an organization. Depending on how much sadness it portrays, a sad story may work for some brands; still, it is important that there is always something positive or inspiring in every tale.

Legitimacy – Back up details in every story shared with real anecdotes from people who use or benefit from the products or services offered by your business. Sharing authentic feedback from these stories strengthens both brand equity and value in what you offer customers. Keep in mind that all stories highlighted should be connected back to your company’s purpose.

4. Prepare An Outstanding Offer To Your Customer

Here are 3 tips to get your emotionally grasped customers to move on your product:

1. Create appealing and attractive content around your product – In order to maximize the response of potential customers, you need to create a compelling offer. Drab language will not entice anyone to take action. Write something unique that stands out and encourages readers to take advantage of your product or service now instead of waiting – for example, ‘start today – why wait any longer?’

2. Produce a sense of urgency.

3. Give simple and effective CTAs (Call to Action).

The Pros Of Emotional Branding

1. Grow Your Numbers Of Customers

Exploring the power of storytelling is a great way to engage and communicate with customers. By understanding the intention behind your brand’s mission, you can create meaningful messages that stand out from the crowd. Crafting compelling stories is a great strategy for reaching new customers and growing your consumer base.

2. Establish An Emotional Connection With Clients

People often create their own personal “brand” by associating themselves with certain products or services. Whether it’s Nike, Coach, Apple, or just a “no label” approach; we all have our identifying characteristics. Personalization is key for building a connection with people.

If you want your marketing efforts to hit home with your audience, then employ an approach centered around understanding their core emotions and problems in their everyday journey. This can help build relationships and even generate a sense of belonging through your brand. Go the extra mile and get to know their story so that you may leverage this knowledge for stronger results.

3. Build Client Loyalty

When you connect with your audience on a deeper level, they’ll come to value your brand more and commit to it long-term. When customers relate to the mission of your company on a personal level, they become part of something larger than themselves—which can add tremendous value to your business.

4. Enrich Your Customer’s Lifetime Value

If you successfully reach a client’s emotions then they will work with you for the longest time possible.

Customer service does not end once your products or services have been purchased. Maintaining communication with your customers after making a sale will express to them (and potential repeat customers) that you are invested in their experience even after the sale is completed.

Additionally, post-sale customer service provides an opportunity for increasing brand awareness and fostering customer loyalty over time. Remember that addressing customer concerns is only one part of expressing care; there are other activities you can do to demonstrate attention to customers whilst promoting the growth of the business.

The 5 Best Examples Of Emotional Branding

These are 5 of the best emotional branding examples.

1. Nike – Just Do It

Nike is an industry leader with a massive following and a big part of this success is attributed to their emotional branding strategy. Their ads rely heavily on engaging stories which showcase the hero’s journey, by emphasizing the idea of tackling adversity. These stories touch on a deeply relatable sentiment – namely, that one is always fighting against the “voice in your head” which says you can’t do something.

Nike encourages people to blur those boundaries and “just do it” — giving shape to an aspirational lifestyle many seek to achieve. As such, Nike sells more than just products: they are selling aspiration.

Nike Phenomenal Shot

In 2014, Nike and Google partnered to create the ‘Nike Phenomenal Shot’ during the FIFA World Cup. This innovative program allowed fans to commemorate the incredible goals scored by Nike athletes in real time with a personalized experience. Fans could take 3D shots of their favorite players, customize them with filters, captions, and stickers, and then share their ‘Phenomenal Shots’ on social media.

2. Gatorade’s Emotional Branding Film – The Boy Who Learned To Fly

Gatorade’s “The Boy Who Learned to Fly” short animation was produced in collaboration with Academy Award-winning studio Moonbot. It depicts the inspiring story of Usain Bolt’s rise from humble beginnings in Jamaica, to becoming an internationally renowned icon. The film took viewers along his remarkable journey.

“For The Love of Sport” Campaign

Gatorade’s “For the Love of Sport” campaign used revenue from special bottles to donate to 19 select sports-focused organizations. Consumers can vote online for who Gatorade will donate to in order to help athletes pursue their passion. It’s an incredible cause and a great way for Gatorade to make a difference!

3. Coca-Cola – Christmas ADs

Last holiday season, Coca-Cola was working to show stories of why their brand and Christmas share something special. According to Tom Hidvegi, Coke’s director of creative strategy, “We don’t just restate the values and benefits of Christmas; we seek to show how Coke and Christmas are connected in a meaningful way.” The campaign centers around themes of inclusivity, gifting from the heart, and watching out for others – all important focuses during a time when many feel isolated.

Coke’s 2020 holiday agenda consisted of a few noteworthy items as well. First, there was a live virtual event on December 1st featuring Santa Yule-bod and celebrity cameos. The return of the Holiday Caravan, with its usual array of twinkling lights, Santa’s cheery presence, and an opportunity to donate to charities. Lastly, they had a special glass bottle packaging featuring Santa Claus himself on the side of it.

4. Apple – Think Different

1996 was a tough year for Apple, but Steve Jobs wasn’t ready to give up. He wanted to remind the world about why Apple was so great and inspire people to stick with the brand, so he came up with the ‘Think Different’ ad campaign. It did just that—it celebrated Apple’s vision and uniqueness, inspiring customers all over the world to stay loyal to the company. This slogan proved to be a powerful asset for Apple and remains one of the most famous advertising campaigns of all time.

This campaign consisted of print and video marketing that was incredibly engaging and unique.

Steve Jobs was renowned for his attention to detail when it came to Apple’s marketing. He personally approved each new ad, understanding that while great products were key, fantastic marketing would influence their turnaround. The ‘Think Different’ campaign wasn’t the sole factor in restoring Apple’s success; however, it certainly played an extremely important role in rallying customers, employees, and shareholders during a difficult time. This campaign undoubtedly reaffirmed the brand and its goals and showed everyone that with Jobs back at the top, Apple had regained its focus and ambition—and ultimately this ended up being true.

5. Google – Reunion

“Reunion,” an emotional Google India advertisement, was released on YouTube in 2013 and received a strong response from viewers in India and Pakistan. Directed by Amit Sharma, and written by Sukesh Kumar Nayak, the ad tells the story of two elderly men separated as children during the 1947 partition of India. The impactful advertisement led to sentiment for easing travel restrictions between these countries, going viral with over 1.6 million views prior to its television debut on November 15.

Hire Emotional Branding Experts Today!

We know the latest trends, updates, and news to use to your advantage and create an emotional branding strategy that does exactly what you need. We build a lasting connection with you and your customers.

This makes sure your business is the first thing that comes to mind when your clients need a product. Contact us for amazing emotional branding!

Brand reputation management isn’t the erasure of negative commentary but rather the careful monitoring of what others say about your company. The opinions of your customers or former customers can create a ripple effect, influencing audiences either for or against your products and services. What must go into online brand reputation management?

Here are the components of a reputation management strategy:

• Content marketing
• Social media marketing
• Social listening
• Customer reviews
• Brand advocates
• Employee satisfaction
• Customer experience
• Customer satisfaction

This guide to managing negative reviews and improving customer feedback will explain brand reputation and the importance of managing your reputation. We’ll also delve into the strategies above and recommend software solutions.

What Is Brand Reputation?

All brands have a reputation that precedes them. This refers to the perception that others hold of that company.

The “others” in question include customers, former customers, partners, employees, and former employees.

These parties are free to think for themselves and formulate their own opinions, but your company isn’t helpless in what others think of you.

As we’ll discuss more in this guide, the measures you take to improve your customer and employee satisfaction will go a long way toward bettering your brand reputation.

Why Is Brand Reputation Important?

Brand reputation is everything.

As a consumer, if you heard about a brand embroiled in a scandal, you wouldn’t have much interest in purchasing their products or services, right? Most people wouldn’t.

They’d assume that if the company got themselves in hot water like that, they’re not worth it.

Having a negative reputation trickles down into your reviews, which will also turn resoundingly negative.

According to software resource TrueList, 79 percent of consumers put high stock into an online review, valuing it as much as they do their friends’ thoughts and opinions.

Negative reviews will inevitably crop up, as it’s impossible to make 100 percent of your customers happy all the time.

However, when customers have issues with how you conduct business or the level of quality of your products or services, those are areas within your control. You can make changes based on feedback to improve and win back positive customer reviews.

What Is Brand Reputation Management?

That brings us to the crux of our conversation: brand reputation management.

As we mentioned in the intro, you’re not eliminating negative reviews by managing your reputation. Rather, you’re monitoring what people say about your company online and actively changing based on what you hear.

Reputation management has three components, so let’s go over them.

1. Review Data

The first part of reputation management is review data. As we’ve made clear, negative reviews directly influence brand image and reputation.

To engage in effective brand reputation management, you must comb the Internet for reviews of your products or services.

Look beyond your website, your socials, and your Google Business Profile. Browse websites like Trustpilot and Yelp to get your finger on the pulse of what people think of your company’s products and services.

You also want to monitor employee reviews using resources like Glassdoor.

Review data allows you to see what kind of feedback your customers and employees have left for you and then create a game plan from there.

2. Competitor Data

You might wonder why you should pay attention to what your competitors are doing when you’re trying to improve your brand. Well, you should always watch what your competitors do, as that can help you stay one step ahead of them.

Social data on your biggest competitors provides many valuable insights. You can see how much people talk about your competitor (and then compare that to your own social mentions).

You can also gauge how well-liked your competitor’s products and services are and what existing strengths and weaknesses those products and services have.

More so, through competitor data, you can glean the degree of customer loyalty your competitors have.

You can then use this data to determine which products and services of your own to prioritize and how to position them to drive customer loyalty.  

3. Listening Data

Lastly, you can use listening data such as social listening as part of your reputation management. We’ll talk more about this type of data in the upcoming section.

Brand Reputation Management Strategic Plan

Now that you better understand the importance of brand reputation, it’s time to implement a brand reputation management strategy.

Per the intro, here are eight pillars that strategy must possess.

1. Strong Content Marketing

Your company likely already produces content, but does it resonate with your audience? That’s the difference between regular content and strong content.

If the aim of your content has been selling, it’s time for a redirection. Instead, take a more educational stance in the infographics, blog posts, eBooks, webinars, videos, and other types of content you produce.

This high-value content will get noticed and, ideally, widely shared. If you can produce the next viral content, that can restore trust in a tarnished image or further improve a positive brand reputation.

2. Social Media Engagement

When your reputation takes a hit, going silent on social media may seem like the solution, but it very rarely is.

Rather, revise your social posting and possibly even ramp it up.

Now is also a good time to reevaluate your tone. You want your followers to enjoy your social posts, not dread them or wish to mute them. By maintaining an upbeat attitude (that enmeshes with your brand tone, of course), you’ll create the kind of positive atmosphere you’re striving for.

Reputation resource Reputation X reports that 71 percent of consumers will recommend a brand to their family and friends if they have interact positively with that brand on a social media platform.

Another 39 percent of consumers say they only trust a brand if they’ve had prior interaction on social media.

That’s all the more reason to get out there and post, respond to comments, and generally engage with your audience.

3. Social Listening

As promised, it’s now time to talk more about social listening. Reputation management software includes social listening tools for collecting feedback from others on social media.

The feedback can come from all sorts of parties but usually customers, leads, and former customers.

The social listening tool will comb social media platforms so you don’t have to, collecting every mention of your brand.

When you receive negative comments, you can respond to them directly to ameliorate the issue and restore some goodwill to your brand name.

4. Customer Testimonials and Reviews

Per video testimonial company Boast, 92 percent of consumers read reviews before making a purchase. By sharing positive reviews and testimonials on your website and across your social media channels, you could influence your next customer to buy your product or service.

If you don’t have enough positive reviews, it’s time to begin collecting them. After a customer purchases your product or service, send an email asking them to leave a review.

You can incentivize your audience to take time out of their busy schedules to write a review by offering them a discount code or an entry into a contest or giveaway.

5. Brand Advocates

A good brand advocate can be huge for brand reputation management. These advocates vouch for your company because they’re truly passionate about and enjoy your products and services. They want to share that with others.

To find a brand advocate, start by looking internally. Your employees could be a good choice for an advocate; the same goes for your most loyal customers.

If you seek a third party to work as your advocate like an influencer, ensure the party you choose gels with your brand and its products or services. Your audience is smart and can tell when you’re pushing someone to shill your company that doesn’t mean it.

6. Employee Satisfaction

Reputation management can’t focus only on improving customer satisfaction (more on that in a moment) but employee satisfaction too.

That starts by elevating employee engagement. Here are some strategies you can use for that:

• Ask for and implement feedback
• Revise your onboarding experience
• Provide more flexibility for a better work/life balance
• Rebuild your company culture
• Recognize your employees when they do good work

7. High-Quality Customer Experience

You should also prioritize the customer experience as part of your online brand reputation management strategy.

From the moment a lead or customer lands on your website, what kind of experience do they have? Do you have a well-designed, fast-loading, easily navigable website?

When a lead signs up for your newsletter, do you send too many emails or just the right amount? Do the emails you send have high open and click-through rates?

Is it easy to shop on your online store and check out? You can ask for customer feedback to answer those kinds of questions so you can further sharpen the customer experience.  

8. Better Customer Satisfaction  

Emphasizing the customer experience is one way to improve customer satisfaction but not the only method.

Take your customer service to the next level. Improve response times if possible and implement chatbots to address customers when you and your staff leave the office for the day.

Actively incorporate the feedback your customers leave you in their reviews. Continue to work on becoming a better company and you’ll have a good reputation.

Brand Reputation Management Software

We’ve touched on reputation management software and the social listening tools therein. Now we want to introduce you to five options and review each one.

1. Birdseye

Birdseye is a social media software tool designed for multi-location businesses. You can scale up your brand reporting, monitoring, and even bulk publishing through Birdseye whether you’re a small business or an enterprise.

Here are some features of the software.

• Reviews: With Birdseye Reviews, you can generate and share your reviews across 200 websites on the Internet. Send texts through Birdseye to encourage customers to leave more reviews.
• Social media management: Birdseye monitors the biggest social media platforms like Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. Their social media management tool also personalizes your posts with business location details.
• Insights: Birdseye uses Athena, an NLP engine that can break down big data so it’s usable for your company.

2. GatherUp

Cull your NPS scores, survey data, third-party and first-party reviews, and more using GatherUp. Integrating with sites like Google, Avvo, WebMD, TripAdvisor, Facebook, and the BBB, GatherUp includes lots of top-notch features.

Let’s take a look.

• Customer experience management: GatherUp is a customizable SaaS with customer experience management tools for all business levels, whether you’re a startup, an SMB, or a large business.
• Review management: GatherUp will pull all online reviews and feedback into one dashboard so you can monitor it at your leisure.
• Automation: With GatherUp, you can automate reminders, requests, and even content to free up more time in your schedule.

3. Signal AI

Reputation management tool Signal AI promises to save more time, identify unique opportunities to enhance your reputation, and provide around-the-clock insights through its monitoring services.

These are some other standout features.

• AI briefs: The AI in Signal AI shines through with automatic briefings that detail your search volume and other critical data of your choosing.
• Advanced monitoring: You select keywords to monitor, and Signal AI does the rest. It will even comb global regulatory content, online broadcasts, and print.
• Real-time alerts: When someone mentions you, you’ll know about it instantly with real-time update alerts emailed to you.

4. Podium

Built for small businesses, Podium is brand reputation management software to add to your shortlist. The software even has tools for collecting payments, so it’s doubly useful if you’re on a startup budget.

Podium’s review features are a standout, as you can use the dashboard to automate your review invites, track social media mentions, and check your online ranking.

5. SOCi

SOCi is a location marketing solution that calls itself a central command for multi-location marketers. Users receive real-time alerts of new comments and reviews to respond fast before a negative review can fester.

You can even use SOCi to make social media content when away from the office.

How to Improve Brand Reputation – Hire a Brand Reputation Management Company

Another great strategy for bettering your brand reputation management is to work with a reputation management company.

Mediaboom is a marketing agency with years of experience serving industries such as luxury goods, B2B, construction, real estate, manufacturing, and many others.

Whether you have an okay reputation and want it to be better or need a complete reputational overhaul, our team can help you make a more positive impact on your audience.

Conclusion

All companies must actively engage in brand reputation management, as bad reviews and commentary can actively drive away customers and cause your reputation to further slide backward.Contact Mediaboom today to discuss what we can do for your reputation! 

Emotional marketing touches on a consumer’s feelings, including their aspirations and needs. This can drive purchasing decisions, as emotions are powerful.

Once you connect with a consumer emotionally, you might be likelier to close a deal. What are the top tips for emotional marketing?

Here are some can’t-miss emotions-based marketing tips:

• Know your audience
• Tell a compelling story
• Choose the right colors
• Embrace good visuals
• Build a strong community

Today’s guide to emotional marketing will delve further into what this form of marketing entails, how it differs from rational marketing and its benefits. We’ll also expound further on the tips above so you can harness the power of emotional appeal marketing!

What Is Emotional Marketing?

The average person is hugely driven by emotion. A Moz article reports that content eliciting anger in viewers has a nearly 40-percent chance of going viral.

Emotional marketing, sometimes also referred to as emotional branding, uses human emotions as the basis of a marketing and advertising campaign.

The campaign taps into one emotion (be that anger, as mentioned above, or scarcity or happiness). In doing so, the campaign should inspire a strong reaction in a consumer, such as the urge to share content that makes one angry.

Ultimately, emotional marketing aims to establish positive associations between brand and consumer, as these associations drive long-term loyalty.

Rational vs. Emotional Marketing

The opposite of emotional appeal marketing is rational marketing. This form of marketing taps into someone’s rational approach, aka their logical thinking side.

To present a product or service as beneficial, a rational marketing campaign will focus on statistics, quotes, data, and benefits.

The goal of the campaign is to prove how much a product or service will benefit a consumer or how much the consumer needs it but without emotional appeal.

The preference for rational vs. emotional marketing varies across the world. In some cultures, where reserving emotions is the norm, you’re more likely to see rational campaigns. In cultures where freedom of emotion is widely embraced, the opposite type of campaigns proliferate.

It’s hard to say whether emotions-based or rational marketing usurps the other, as both have their place.

However, Neuroscience Marketing found that emotional marketing ads performed at a rate of 31 percent versus 16 percent for rational ads.

The Benefits of Emotional Marketing

Next, let’s delve into the benefits of emotion-based marketing, including how it can help your business grow to new heights.

Improves Brand Message Retention

Consumers are inundated with advertisements, with career resource Zippia projecting that the average person sees 4,000 to 10,000 ads a day. What makes a consumer remember a particular ad?

Emotional marketing can!

Marketing emotional triggers often involves telling a story. At the end of the day, it’s that story and the methods you use to tell it that consumers most remember.

Humanizes Your Company

The line between consumers and companies has blurred as today’s consumers demand more transparency from the businesses they hand over their hard-earned money to.

While you can show behind-the-scenes glimpses into your company in your newsletter and social media posts, emotion-driven marketing is another way to increase that transparency.

You’ll establish that there’s a human element to what you do, and consumers instantly connect with a good human element.

Increase Customer Loyalty

As we discussed in the section above, using emotions in marketing can create positive associations between your brand and the consumer.

When a consumer feels positively about your brand or even nostalgic, they’re going to be immensely loyal to you.

Emotional Appeals to Use in Marketing

According to Frontiers for Young Minds, the average human can feel 25 unique emotion categories. Here’s a full list that you can utilize in your next marketing campaign.

• Surprise
• Satisfaction
• Sadness
• Relief
• Nostalgia
• Joy
• Interest
• Horror
• Fear
• Excitement
• Entrancement
• Empathetic pain
• Disgust
• Craving
• Confusion
• Calmness
• Boredom
• Awkwardness
• Awe
• Anxiety
• Anger
• Amusement
• Appreciation of beauty
• Adoration
• Admiration

Emotional Marketing Tips and Strategies

If you’re ready to begin planning your first emotion-driven marketing campaign, these strategies and tips will help you do so.

Know Your Audience

You can’t possibly appeal to the emotions of your audience without intrinsically understanding who comprises that audience.

If you have yet to segment your leads into niched groups, that’s your first order of business. As you create audience segments, identify the pain points of each group. It may help if you make a customer avatar, an amalgamation of the traits of that group.

Once you understand your audience’s pain points, it becomes easier to build a campaign that addresses those pain points.

Tell a Story

Storytelling is a major strategy for connecting with your audience emotionally. You can frame a problem and how you solved it through a story to engage your audience in the narrative and have them eagerly waiting for more.

The Sound

What kind of sound does your story embody? In other words, what tone do you choose?

You should look to your brand to motivate your tone, as you don’t want to deviate from the tone you’ve already established. That said, you can slightly pivot in tone depending on your audience.

For example, the way you speak to newer versus established customers might lead to a slight tonal shift.

Inspire

You can also use emotional marketing to inspire action, such as through positive storytelling. The goal is to get the reader to emulate actions you took to solve a specific problem. This can inspire further positive action!

Leverage the Power of Words

You’ll recall that it’s the storytelling element of emotional marketing that hooks people in.

Every brand has a story worth telling, but how you frame it is the difference between resonating with your audience or falling flat.

To that end, using the right words is everything. For example, in the luxury sphere, you’d incorporate words such as exclusive, elegant, classic, tailor-made, heritage, and timeless into your prose.

These visceral words make an impact, especially when interwoven into a brand story.

Another subset of words to consider is known as power words. These words can invoke emotion.

For instance, if you want to introduce happy feelings, you might use words like heartwarming, profound, or inspiring. To invoke feelings of sadness, try power words like heartbreaking, crushing, or alarming.

Choose the Right Colors

Colors sure are fascinating, as they can have a profound emotional effect on us. Here’s an overview of the emotions and traits associated with popular colors.

• Blue: Truth, faith, intelligence, confidence, wisdom, loyalty, and stability
• Purple: Ambition, luxury, nobility, and power
• Green: Fertility, freshness, harmony, and growth
• Yellow: Energy, intellect, happiness, and joy
• Orange: Happiness, vitality, and energy
• White: Purity, faith, safety, innocence, and goodness
• Black: Mystery, evil, formality, elegance, and power
• Red: Love, desire, passion, determination, power, strength, danger, and energy

Depending on the colors you select for your emotional marketing campaign, you can amp up your audience with red or orange, calm them with green or white, or appeal to their mysterious side with black.

Before you confirm the usage of any colors in your branding and advertising, split-test to determine which colors will generate the desired emotional response.

Use the Right Visuals

How do you use the colors you selected? With visual marketing, of course.

As we discussed in our post on visual marketing, visual marketing embraces various media formats in campaigns.

Some examples of visual marketing include before and after images, visual quotes, interactive timelines, screenshots, presentations, infographics, videos, memes, gifs, and still images.

Visual marketing gives you a backdrop for incorporating colors but more so than that, it helps cement your branding with memorable visual elements.

Build a Community

To leverage a sense of belonging to a group, building a community is another emotional marketing tip to consider.

Use inclusive language when promoting your products or services. Start an initiative that gives back, and make it clear how when a consumer purchases one of your products or services that they’re participating in that initiative.

This fosters a sense of togetherness that unifies your customers. You’re also tapping into a sense of FOMO, also known as the fear of missing out.

Consumers who have yet to buy anything from you will become curious, so they’ll jump on the bandwagon, then more consumers will jump on the bandwagon, creating a positive snowball effect.

Emotional Marketing Examples

To see some marketing emotional triggers in action, we compiled examples of real marketing campaigns that have performed incredibly well.

Apple

Tech brand Apple has mastered the art of emotional marketing campaigns. Theirs frequently tap into four primary emotions: love, connection, surprise, and delight.

Apple does this through more than introducing the latest iPhone or iPad but when designing its products and respective user interfaces. Strengthening those four emotions is even a part of the company’s customer support mission.

As one of the biggest brands on the planet, Apple is clearly doing something right with its emotional branding appeals.

Nike

Nike already has the insanely catchy “just do it” tagline, but the company has not rested on its laurels one iota. Instead, Nike uses emotional marketing to further its branding message.

In its series of “Find Your Greatness” ads, you wouldn’t even guess by watching them that these are Nike commercials. The ads don’t focus on Nike shoes or Nike exercise gear.

Instead, it’s all about storytelling. These ads focus on everyday heroes who could be any one of us and the challenges these incredible people face. Then, at the end, the ad connects the feel-good triumph of the message with the Nike name and brand.

You can watch a collection of Nike’s “Find Your Greatness” ads below.

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola exists in a heavily competitive sphere and has to thrive in an era where everyone knows they shouldn’t consume soft drinks. It’s not like Coke can fall back on how tasty their soft drinks are forever, so the brand tried a different, more emotional approach.

In the “Share a Coke – Share a Feeling” campaign, Coke cans featured printed emojis such as kiss, wink, love, or happy. All the emotions were positive, as the goal was to share Coke with others to introduce some happiness into their day.

B2B Emotional Marketing

What if you don’t market to consumers but to other businesses as a B2B company? You can still use marketing emotional triggers to close more deals and make the sale.

You have to remember that companies are comprised of people, and those people have real lives, problems, and emotions. If you can tap into those pain points and position your products or services as a viable solution, you can take your B2B partnerships to a new level.

So how should you use emotional marketing to appeal to a B2B audience? Here are some triggers to focus on.

Business Growth

Every company wants to experience more business growth no matter its size. If your products and services can drive growth for your business partners, what kinds of emotions can you attach to a marketing campaign to prove that?

Remember that you don’t want to slip too far into rational marketing with figures and data when focusing on business growth.

Time Savings

We all only have 24 hours a day, so we have to make the most of the time granted to us each day. That’s easier said than done at times! If your business partners feel tight for time, you can appeal to their stresses and position your time-saving product or service at the forefront.

Business Losses

Here’s a very powerful emotional trigger to use if you wish: the fear of business loss.

Although fluctuations in business are inevitable, backsliding into a downward pattern can keep any business owner awake at night. By connecting with that fear with your emotional marketing, you can likely close the deal.

Conclusion

Emotional marketing is a form of advertising and marketing that uses the power of emotions to create meaningful brand connections, bolster customer loyalty, and increase sales and conversions.

You wield a major power by tapping into emotions, so it’s important to use it wisely. If your marketing campaign needs a boost, give the pros at Mediaboom a call.

We can help you create a new campaign, revitalize existing campaigns, and understand more of the metrics that drive success.

One of the biggest debates that happens within a marketing team is whether to focus efforts on a company’s website or their social media channels.

What will generate more leads? Which channel offers the highest return on investment? What option will expedite the company’s growth?

Which is the clear winner? Website vs Social Media

When discussing website vs social media and how it pertains to your business strategy, one thing is clear: neither should be overlooked or neglected. 

There’s a lot to dive into when discussing how social media and websites generate viable leads for a business. When debating website vs social media, there are ten key things to consider:

Website’s are great for:

1. Helping your company get found online 
2. Promoting your services In the digital space 
3. Integrating into your sales funnel
4. Establishing credibility and social proof
5. Providing key data for your company 

While social media is great for:

1. Helping you connect with your audience 
2. Building your brand and reputation
3. Sharing your content
4. Reaching new audiences 
5. Encouraging interaction with your brand 

Website – Your Company’s Go-To Digital Space 

When debating the role of your website in lead generation efforts, keep these five important things in mind. 

1. A Website Helps Your Company Get Found Online 

When discussing website vs social media and its impact on lead generation, one of the most important concepts to remember is that a website is the way your company gets found online.

If you don’t have a website and properly maintain it, you’re missing out on critical opportunities to be found. 

Having a website means your business can utilize a search engine optimization (a.k.a SEO) strategy to grow its online presence. Statistics show that 53.3 percent of all website traffic comes from organic search, so if businesses double down on their SEO and organic search strategy, they can see incredible growth in their lead generation efforts. 

Strategies you can utilize for organic growth include: 

• Creating a blog that provides valuable information for your audience
• Targeting a local audience via local SEO strategies
• Gaining a national audience by utilizing national SEO strategies
• Choosing relevant keywords to rank for in search results

If you focus on building a website that’s clean, valuable, and can be found easily, you’ll get quality leads flooding your website before you know it. 

2. A Website Promotes Your Services In The Digital Space 

Another crucial aspect of a website is its ability to promote your services in the digital space. Fundera reports that 1.79 billion people shopped online last year, which means there were 1.79 billion people who could have found your website and looked at your services. 

The internet is an incredibly powerful tool for lead generation, which is why your services need to be outlined and promoted properly on your website. 

You can promote your services in multiple ways, but one of the most effective ways is to have a targeted landing page. 

A landing page is a webpage leads land on after they click on a link, whether it’s from a marketing campaign or an organic search. You can create landing pages that target specific locations (a.k.a. Geo-specific landing pages) as well, in case your business has several locations spread out across the country. 

Your landing pages should effectively describe what your services are and how they solve your audience’s problems. You can also spruce up your landing pages and further reward your website visitors by displaying special offers. 

For example, you could create a landing page that describes your services and encourages leads to provide their email addresses to receive a special offer, such as: 

• 15% off their first order 
• A free demo with a sales rep 
• A free PDF download when they book a sales call 

The more effective your landing page is, the more conversions you’ll see. The more conversions you see, the better your chances of gaining new customers.

3. A Website Is a Crucial Part Of Your Sales Funnel 

When debating website vs social media for your business, keep in mind that a website plays an important part in your sales funnel. Your website guides people from the top of the sales funnel (where they learn about your business and services) to the middle and end of your sales funnel, where they convert and become customers. 

A website aids in the efficiency of your sales funnel by doing the following: 

• Taking users from the awareness stage (top of the funnel) to the interest stage (middle of the funnel). 
• Offering free resources for your audience in exchange for email capture. 
• Creating a unique user experience that leaves a positive impression on leads. 

A website also serves as a great sales automation tool for your business. 

It’s a space where leads can learn about your services 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days per year. That makes it incredibly valuable to your sales process. 

You can automate parts of your sales process by: 

• Installing a 24/7 live chat feature. 
• Creating forms leads can use to schedule appointments and demos. 
• Having leads fill out questionnaires to identify their pain points and streamline the scoping process. 

Your company’s website is an all-day, everyday sales tool to capitalize on.  If you aren’t utilizing these strategies, you’re leaving valuable sales leads on the table. 

4. A Website Helps Your Company Establish Credibility 

Credibility means a lot to consumers in today’s digital-first landscape. 

If a business looks credible online, their website visitors are more likely to trust them and turn into customers. In fact, the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report shows that 81 percent of consumers said that they need to be able to trust a brand in order to buy from them. 

A fundamental way to build trust with your audience is to establish credibility through your website.

Ways to establish credibility online include: 

• Posting content such as helpful blogs and how-to videos. 
• Creating free resources available for leads to download. 
• Encouraging leads to follow your brand on social media to get more helpful tips.

Part of increasing your search engine visibility is providing valuable information to your users. 

The more valuable information you provide, the higher your chances are of ranking well online and establishing a good reputation with your audience. 

Another way to establish your company’s credibility is to showcase testimonials and reviews from customers. Positive reviews of your products and services shows that other people have done business with you and were happy with the results. This tactic can validate your services and show that your brand can be trusted. 

5. A Website Provides Key Data For Your Company 

When looking at the tactics surrounding website vs social media for your company, remember that a website provides important data that’s important for your business’ web, sales, and marketing teams. Forbes reports that 64 percent of marketing executives “strongly agree” that data-driven marketing is crucial to success in a hypercompetitive global economy. 

The more data you have, the more you can piece together what’s working for your business’ web presence. 

Your team can use tools like Google Analytics to track user behavior on your website.

Data to track includes: 

• The number of visitors to the website 
• The time visitors spent on the website
• The number of conversions on the website 
• The bounce rate for important web pages 

Your company’s web and marketing team can also install tools like heatmaps to determine where leads are clicking and where they’re dropping off. 

Your company’s website can provide a lot of valuable data that, when analyzed correctly, can tell a clear story about how your leads are interacting with your brand. 

Social Media – Where Your Brand Shines 

While your website provides a lot of value for your company, social media helps spread the word about that value. Here are five things to remember when thinking about social media and your brand. 

1. Social Media Helps You Connect With Your Audience 

Something vital to consider when discussing website vs social media in lead generation is that social media helps companies connect with their audience on a personal level.

Digital Information World reports that internet users are now spending, on average, 142 minutes per day on social networking and messaging platforms.

Companies need to make sure their brand’s social media accounts are getting seen within that time frame. 

One way to do this is to create a community your audience will want to participate in and follow on social media. This also allows your brand to reach new audiences and build brand awareness.

Tactics for connecting with your audience on social media include: 

• Responding to questions and comments
• Sharing inspirational quotes to motivate your audience 
• Giving shoutouts to loyal social followers and celebrating their wins

These tactics also encourage people to learn more about your brand and go to your website to check it out. These leads may not have found your website on their own, but did find more information about your company because of what they saw on social media. 

2. Social Media Is Where You Build Your Brand 

Social media is also a vital channel to use when building your company’s brand. The more connected social audience is with your brand, the more likely they’ll become customers and brand advocates. 

One key way to build your brand on social media is to humanize your company. Some ways to do this include: 

• Showcasing your team members and celebrating their wins
• Filming short video interviews with the leadership team
• Sharing the key pillars of the company’s culture

Another way to build a trusted brand that people connect with this providing product and service support on social media. The more people know that there’s an actual human being on the other side willing to help them, the more likely they’ll trust the brand you’re building. 

3. Social Media Helps You Share Your Content 

As you debate website vs social media and how they help your company, remember that social media helps you share your content with the masses.

All it takes is one piece of valuable content to reach the right person at the right time to create a loyal customer. 

Social media users like to consume content in different ways on different platforms, so keep this in mind as you share your content.

If you’re on Facebook or Twitter, you could share a link to your blog. If you’re on Instagram or TikTok, create content that’s primarily images and videos.

When you’re on YouTube, make videos about your blog posts or your free resources.

Sharing content across multiple platforms can also increase your company’s status as an industry-leader. The more you share, the more you enhance your gravitas, which can influence people to keep following you to obtain valuable information. 

4. Social Media Lets You Reach New Audiences 

Another thing to consider when discussing website vs social media is that social media lets you reach new audiences in ways you can’t solely through your website. Social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram allow you to use hashtags to follow specific topics.

If you post content on these platforms and use hashtags, your content can be seen by people who follow those hashtags. 

Using the hashtag strategy can help you reach targeted audiences organically on social media. You can also reach targeted audiences through paid social media marketing, but that will come with a price tag. 

5. Social Media Encourages Interaction With Your Brand 

Something that’s unique for social media usage is that it encourages interaction and engagement between brands and their audience. Think about it: every like, comment, or share is a validation that your brand is worth engaging with. It’s a form of social proof that everyone on social platforms can see. 

The more you engage on social media, the more your brand will be seen. 

You can also study when people interact with your social posts most and adjust your social strategy to capitalize on it. Sharing a piece of content that people will want to share at the right time can get your brand’s name in front of hundreds (or even thousands) of new people.

Study the data and capitalize on when your peak engagement times are to increase your chances of a post going viral. 

Website vs Social Media – Which Is Better For Your Company?

When paired together, your website and social media channels are complementary parts of the same well-oiled machine. They have the same goal: to get your brand out to the world and convert leads to customers.

When done right, your website and social media strategy will be fundamental pillars in your lead generation and growth strategies. 

Storytelling marketing is one of the most successful aspects of marketing overall, and when you consider the fact that humans have been telling stories since the dawn of time, it makes sense!

Storytelling marketing is a unique form of  marketing in which a brand communicates a carefully developed message, such as a launch story or product narrative, to its audience via narrative and fact. Many organizations develop cohesive narratives to weave together the facts and emotions that evoke feelings in potential consumers.

Storytelling marketing can be an incredibly valuable tool for your brand, which was why we have compiled an in-depth guide to help you understand how you can weave together rich and inspiring tales to drive the emotions of your audience.

What is Storytelling in Marketing?

Storytelling and marketing is essentially the act of using a story to communicate a message, as opposed to your typical sales jargon. The goal with this type of marketing is to make the recipient feel something that will eventually motivate them to take action.

Your consumers want to know why they should care about your product or service so much, and coming up with a story to provide that answer humanizes your brand.

Why is Storytelling Important in Marketing

For starters, there are a variety of ways to tell stories, including verbal, written, and visual media. From billboards to social media, you can tell stories across every marketing channel. The beauty of storytelling marketing is that it helps marketers cut through marketplace noise, which is mainly filled with distracting advertising.

Secondly, storytelling helps marketers develop deeper connections with their audience. Nothing can unite and inspire people quite like a good story. For example, let’s think about the Purina commercial for a minute, which communicates the love and fondness we have for our furry friends through a recognizable story. Whether the story is about a man and his two dogs on a road trip or a woman and her cat playing in the garden doesn’t make a difference.

The idea is that Purina is able to communicate the message of the brand through a story, therefore elevating the meaning of the brand and showing customers how their products can fit into their lives.

Lastly, stories bring us together. In many ways, stories are a universal language. Every person processes emotions, whether hope, elation, anger, or despair. Sharing a great story can provide people with a sense of community, no matter how vastly different they are.

One of the best examples of this is TOMS. The shoe brand shares stories of its customers and the folks they help out using money from customer purchases, creating a community and a movement with people across the world.

Content Marketing vs. Storytelling

Content marketing is a tool used to nudge consumers into altering their behaviors, instead of trying to hard-sell a product. Brand storytelling, on the other hand, is exactly what it sounds like — telling a story that may, but not necessarily, involve the advertised product.

You can think of content marketing as a tool under the umbrella of brand storytelling, as brands will often use storytelling in content marketing to better engage their audiences. It aims to help brands become authoritative voices in there specific industries, building trusting relationships with consumers.

Some examples of content marketing include:

• Blogs, articles, and ebooks discussing relevant industry topics
• Videos, images, memes, and GIFs for social media platforms
• White papers, which are in depth and authoritative reports on relevant industry problems
• Webinars
• Infographic content

Brands will use content marketing strategies to craft content surrounding topics that they believe their target audience will engage with.

6 Types of Stories Used In Marketing

When it comes to storytelling marketing, there are many ways to develop stories you can tell. Let’s look at a list of some of the best and most common types of stories used in marketing to get your creative juices flowing.

Brand Stories

The brand talks about the history of your brand and why you came to fruition in the first place. This type of story can showcase the journey of the founder, explain the evolution of the brand, share the values of your company, talk about your brand mission, or spotlight the important people in your brand’s organization.

Product Stories

Many people want to know about the stories behind the products and services that brands offer, which is especially important if you’re charging a premium for your offerings.

For example, if you are a luxury brand, your product story is everything. It’s the only reason why a consumer would spend $80 on a shirt rather than going down to the local thrift store and buying a similar shirt for five dollars.

The product story can tell customers where you source or materials, how your products solve common needs, why you decided to create a product in the first place, or how your product created a successful outcome.

Customer Stories

One of the most relatable types of stories in storytelling marketing for consumers is the customer story. Consumers want to know how your products or services are used by others.

Customer stories can include showcasing how a customer found success in using your product or service, talking about how your product or service helped a customer who was down on their luck, or spotlighting the winner of a recent contest you ran.

Community Stories

When it comes to cluttered marketplaces, the brands that truly stand out are the ones that invest in their communities. Everyone wants to be a part of a community, especially one in which they feel does good for its people. If you have a brand that is deeply rooted in a specific community, tell a story about it.

Community stories can include times you donated to specific charities, spotlights of community members who gave back to their communities, or a timeline detailing the history between the community and your brand.

Educational Stories

Storytelling can be an incredibly effective learning strategy, as it allows people to paint pictures in their heads, creating realities that reinforce meanings. Plus, educational stories can deliver value to your target audience.

You might tell a topic story, in which you teach your audience about a particular topic while shrouding the facts in an inspiring story, or an expert story, in which you interview authorities on relevant topics and gear the conversation toward addressing the needs of your audience.

Industry Stories

The last type of storytelling marketing comes through industry stories.

Is there a unique spot in which the company fits in the larger industry?

What makes you unique compared to similar companies in your industry?

Are there ways in which your brand is pushing the industry forward?

Industry stories can romanticize your industry’s history, tell the story of how your company came to be in the realm of your industry, discuss past problems and future solutions in your industry, or share stories regarding your industry’s technological advancements.

Microsoft has many great examples of industry storytelling related to advancements in technology.

How to Use Storytelling in Marketing

Storytelling in digital marketing can elevate your campaigns when used properly, but understanding how to implement it can be challenging. Let’s look at a few ways you can integrate storytelling marketing into your brand’s overarching marketing plan.

Create a Brand Story

Your first plan of action should be to create a brand story, in which you tell the story of your brand and how you came to be.

Within this brand story, you can discuss the mission of your brand, share the values that your brand stands for, and give a detailed timeline of your brand’s evolution.

Data-Driven Storytelling

Data-driven storytelling turns raw data into engaging stories that are more digestible, making complex data easy to understand. This structured approach to data communication uses tools like infographics and visualizations to show why specific data is so important to consumers or people in the industry.

Visual Storytelling

A picture is worth a thousand words, and nowhere is that cliche more true than in marketing. According to the experts at Forrester Research, even a minute-long video is worth 1.8 million words.

When it comes to visual storytelling or visual marketing, you use visual content to communicate your brand’s narrative. This could be anything from a social media post to a video to an infographic. A story can also be achieved through several complementary content pieces that are connected with one another.

Storytelling in Email Marketing Campaigns

Storytelling in email marketing is an alternative to your conventional or ordinary punch lines found in most email campaigns.

There are many ways to deliver an email marketing story, such as in a single, long email, or as a drip campaign, dealing the story out chapter by chapter, as an author would with a novel. Not only is this style of storytelling marketing a great way to freshen up your emails, but it also improves the way in which readers perceive your message.

Storytelling in Advertising

The best advertisements evoke emotion and connect consumers with brands. Storytelling in this regard can be inspiring, clever, funny, heart-warming, or heartbreaking. The focus is to tell a story that people feel pleasure in hearing again and again, leaving potential customers feeling inspired or nostalgic for your products or services.

Leverage Emotional Storytelling Marketing

Decisions about what consumers purchase are often based on emotional impulse, so one of the main things we want to focus on when targeting customers with advertising is whether or not we are inspiring or satisfying them emotionally.

There are hundreds of emotional triggers you can consider using when integrating storytelling in digital marketing, but make sure it is clearly defined and that you find the right way to communicate it best.

Craft a Good Story

While there is no objective group of elements that make a good story, there are a few components that we believe are non-negotiable when crafting a story audiences will latch on to:

• Memorable:  a good story must stick with the recipient, whether humorous, scandalous, or inspirational.
• Relatable: A good story will feel relevant to people, and they’ll be able to recognize similarities to your story in the world around them.
• Educational: A good story provides knowledge and sparks curiosity.
• Organized: A good story must convey a message in a succinct and organized manner.
• Believable: A good story is convincing enough to feel like reality, making it easier to trust or engage with a brand.
• Entertaining: Most importantly, a good story must keep the recipients engaged, waiting for the next ‘chapter.’

Check out our guide on storytelling for hotels.

Storytelling Marketing Examples

Apple Example

Apple regularly employs storytelling marketing in their brand, and the “Share Your Gifts” holiday advertisement was one of the best examples of it.

The ad revolves around a young artists living in a colorful local town, locking away here artwork in a small box until it progressively fills to the top, so much so that it’s about to burst. Eventually, her furry friend opens her bedroom window, letting her art blow outside and down to the town below.

The townspeople are then seen admiring her art, giving her a heartwarming instance of validation, which we can all relate to.

This gleeful ode to connection and creativity is very resonant, an idea that Apple has used for decades.

“Like Mike” Gatorade Commercial

The “Like Mike” Gatorade commercial is a classic example of storytelling marketing, using visual storytelling to touch on the community. You don’t hear the classic commercial voice-over, but instead, a catchy song with a children’s choir backing it up.

Throughout the commercial, we see iconic basketball star, Michael Jordan, scoring baskets out on the court, interspersed with videos of him hanging out with friends and kids.

The subtle hint in the commercial is that Gatorade is the drink choice of Michael Jordan, and anyone who wants to be “Like Mike” should also drink Gatorade.

Guinness “Made of More”

The Guinness “Made of More” ad from 2011 shows the Irish fighting off what is believed to be the Romans in ancient times. The commercial was meant to motivate viewers to drink Guinness while watching the Rugby World Cup, though it is just as relevant in discussing the rich history that Guinness has in Ireland, and how it has fought through the battlefield of the beer industry since the 18th century to remain one of the world’s most iconic Irish beers.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, there are several different ways to integrate storytelling into your brand’s marketing strategy. The sky is the limit.

If you need help developing an engaging story for your brand, get in touch with us at Media Boom today. We’ve helped hundreds of brands develop unique stories and growth strategies to raise awareness and accumulate more customers.

As a veterinarian, having a strong online presence is crucial to attracting new patients and growing your business. That’s where veterinary SEO (search engine optimization) comes in.

However, with so many veterinary practices vying for attention, it can be challenging to stand out, especially since most offline experiences now begin online. Search engine optimization is a crucial aspect of digital marketing for increasing the online visibility of your veterinary practice.

A well-optimized website not only enhances a practice’s visibility in search engine results but also helps establish credibility and trust among potential patients. With the majority of people turning to search engines for information and resources, veterinary SEO has become a vital tool for ensuring the success and growth of vet practices.

If you’re looking to improve your online presence, increase brand awareness, and gain more patients in your practice, you’ve come to the right place. We’re here to guide you through the process and show you how to effectively boost your veterinary SEO through 5 proven steps.

What Is SEO and Why Does Your Veterinary Clinic Need It?

Search engine optimization entails making improvements to your site so that search engines like Google can rank it more highly. The ultimate goal of SEO is to increase organic traffic to a website which can lead to higher visibility and more customers. When a site is optimized, it’s more likely to appear on top of search engine results pages (SERPs) when people search for your business.

For a veterinary clinic, having a strong online presence that uses veterinary SEO is essential. The majority of people now turn to search engines for information and resources, making it crucial for veterinary clinics to establish a strong presence in SERPs. A well-optimized Veterinary SEO plan can help a vet clinic reach new potential patients, build credibility and trust, and ultimately grow its business.

In a highly competitive market, investing in veterinary SEO can give a clinic a significant advantage over its competitors.

Here are 5 steps for optimizing your online presence.

5 Steps To Make Veterinary SEO Work for You

1. Optimize Your Google Business Profile

The Google Business Profile or GBP is an online directory by Google that enables businesses and practices like yours to establish and enhance their listings. It’s very handy since it’s integrated with Search and Maps — two applications that are frequently used with GBP. The GBP feature is an extremely useful tool for local businesses because it uses local SEO. Instead of having to compete with SEO internationally, results are often confined to businesses in a specific area. Imagine its potential for your veterinary clinic!

By customizing and owning your GBP profile, you can improve your visibility in local search results, provide important information such as your business hours, address, and phone number, and respond to customer reviews. To optimize your GBP profile, make sure to:

Provide Complete and Accurate Information

When creating your Google Business Profile, it’s important to provide complete and accurate information about your veterinary clinic. This includes your business name, address, phone number, website URL, and hours of operation. Accurate information makes it easier for potential patients to find your clinic and helps build trust with potential patients.

Include High-Quality Photos of Your Clinic

Visual content can help potential patients get a feel for your clinic and what they can expect when they visit. Including high-quality photos of your clinic can showcase the facilities, services, and staff and help potential patients make an informed decision about whether to pay your clinic a visit. Make sure to include photos of the waiting room, exam rooms, and other areas of your office to strengthen your veterinary SEO initiatives.

Respond to Customer Reviews Promptly

Responding to customer reviews can help you build trust with potential patients and demonstrate your commitment to providing high-quality veterinary care.

If a customer leaves a positive review, take the time to thank them for their feedback. If a customer leaves a negative review, respond in a professional manner and offer to resolve the issue. Responding to reviews can help you identify areas for improvement and make changes to better meet the needs of pet owners.

By focusing on these key elements of your Google Business Profile, you can improve your local SEO, build trust with potential clients, and stand out from your competitors. Additionally, these steps improve your veterinary SEO performance so you can attract new patients and grow your veterinary clinic over time.

2. Focus On SEO On-site Optimization

On-site veterinary SEO refers to the steps you take on your website to improve its ranking in search results. To optimize SEO for vets, you should focus on the following key elements:

Title Tags

The title tag is the main text that describes the content of a web page. The perfect title tag should be unique, descriptive, and contain relevant keywords.

Meta Descriptions

The meta description sums up the content and makes it easier to discover on a web page. It should include relevant keywords and a call to action.

Header Tags

Think of header tags as you would the headers on a restaurant menu. Having these tags (H1, H2, etc.) helps veterinary SEO by making your content easier to navigate and subtly guides a reader toward the end goal of the content which is visiting your clinic. Header tags should thus be used appropriately. They also make your content easier for Google to crawl and contextualize.

Header tags must be engaging, easy to read, and convince people to act.

Internal Links

Internal links are links from your website that lead to another page on the same site.

By linking related pages, you can help search engines understand the structure of your website and improve its relevance. It is one of the fundamentals behind how  the Google search engine works.

External Links

Another way to optimize your website’s SEO is to include external links to your content, especially blog posts. Unlike internal links that refer to links within your site, external links reference links that lead to external sources.

When choosing external links, it will aid your veterinary SEO efforts to link to reputable websites that cater to your industry. If a large part of your practice entails treating dogs, for example, you can link to the American Kennel Club (AKC). Since their organization is the most widely recognized registry for canine pedigrees in the United States, it’s an appropriate and high-value link that will be looked at favorably by Google.

3. Create a Link Building Strategy for Backlinks

Google loves it when a lot of websites link back to yours. This is a valuable indicator that your site is relevant and useful. But how can you promote link building for your site?

To have a link-building strategy, consider the following:

Guest Posting

Guest posting is a way to reach new audiences and build backlinks to your website. It is a widely accepted method for improving your online presence and veterinary SEO.

According to a survey, one to five guest posts per month is the strategy followed by up to 60% of websites.

By reaching out to other websites that belong to your niche, you can write guest posts that provide valuable information to their readers. In exchange for your content, you can request a backlink that leads to your website. This can help improve your website’s visibility in search results and attract new pet owners to your animal hospital.

Influencer Outreach

Did you know that at least 81% of Americans online trust the recommendations of blogs before making their choices?

Influencer outreach involves connecting with influencers in your niche and collaborating on projects that will result in backlinks to your website. By partnering with influencers, you can reach a new audience and gain exposure for your veterinary clinic. For example, you could work with an influencer to write a guest post on their blog or collaborate on a social media campaign. These collaborations can help you build backlinks and improve your website’s ranking on Google.

Broken Link Building

Broken link building entails identifying broken links (or links that no longer work) on other sites and offering to fix them by having them lead to your website instead. By finding and fixing broken links, you can help improve the user experience on other websites while demonstrating your SEO-savvy. Most importantly, this can help you build backlinks to your website which can improve your visibility in search results and attract new clients.

4. Focus on Pet Owners’ Local Search

To reach pet owners in your local area, it’s important to focus on local search optimization. To do this, you should:

Conduct Keyword Research

Use tools like Google Keyword Planner to determine the keywords pet owners are using in your area to look for veterinary clinics like yours.

Target Keywords in Your Content

When it comes to veterinary SEO, use relevant keywords in your website’s content. Make sure to include them in your page titles, meta descriptions, and header tags.

Post High-quality Blog Posts

Regularly publishing high-quality blog posts can help improve your website’s relevance and visibility in search results. Blog posts can also be used to demonstrate your knowledge and establish your credibility as a veterinarian which can attract more pet owners to your clinic.

5. Implement Additional Digital Marketing Strategies

In addition to SEO, there are other digital marketing strategies you can implement to support your veterinary SEO and reach new pet owners. Here are some strategies you should consider:

Social Media

Use social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to reach new potential clients and engage with your current customers.

An integrated approach featuring social content and influencer marketing can help engage and build a community of pet owners who may become your clients. These can also be used to attract more website visitors.

Ad Campaigns

Consider running ad campaigns on platforms like Google Ads to reach new potential pet owners. Most online ad campaigns operate on a pay-per-click (PPC) basis which means that you only pay for specific actions from your target audiences. These actions could be people who view your ad, click on it, or sign up for your promotion among others. This makes them a lot more affordable than traditional ad campaigns where you have to buy expensive advertising space. Plus, these campaigns can also be targeted toward certain people within your vicinity.

Newsletter

Create a newsletter to keep in touch with your current clients and attract new ones. Newsletters are useful and cost-effective  collaterals for increasing awareness about your business, sharing promotions, establishing yourself as a credible and knowledgeable authority figure in your practice. You can share updates, discounts, and informative articles through well-designed and thoughtfully written email bulletins.

Collaborate With Local Businesses

Consider partnering with a local business to reach new pet owners and increase your visibility in the community. You could look at local businesses that have the same target audience to grow your practice. For example, you could reach out to a the website of pet shop for cross-marketing opportunities. You could refer customers to them and vice-versa using promo codes that are distributed and submitted by online customers.

Collect Pet Owners’ Testimonials

Encourage pet owners to leave positive reviews and testimonials about your clinic to build credibility and trust. During consultations, ask your clients for their email addresses. You can then send them a thank you email and provide a link where they can rate your services.

FAQs From Veterinarians About SEO

What do I risk if I don’t do Veterinarian SEO optimization?

Not optimizing your website for search engines can result in poor visibility in search results and a lower number of potential clients. In today’s digital age, it’s more important than ever to have a strong online presence. Ignoring SEO optimization can put you at a disadvantage compared to your competitors.

Is optimizing my site’s SEO easy or difficult?

The difficulty of optimizing your website’s SEO depends on a number of factors, including the size of your website, the level of competition in your niche, and your level of expertise in SEO.

In some cases, it’s possible to optimize your website on your own, but in many cases, it’s more effective to work with a professional SEO agency. Hiring an SEO agency can provide you with the expertise and resources you need to improve your website’s ranking in search results and reach new potential pet owners.

Hire an SEO Agency to Boost your Veterinary SEO

Hiring an SEO agency like Mediaboom can provide you with the SEO experts and resources you need to improve your website’s ranking in search results and reach new clients. Mediaboom can conduct a thorough audit of your website, identify areas for improvement, and implement proven strategies to boost your website’s performance in SERPs. Additionally, we can help you adjust your strategy to ensure successful veterinary SEO.

Mediaboom works exclusively with small businesses across a variety of industries, including veterinary clinics. With Mediaboom’s expertise in SEO strategy and page optimization, you’re free to focus on what really matters: giving care and helping animals in need. Contact us to know more.

Website design and SEO seem unrelated at first glance, but the two are more interrelated than you might think. Does web design affect SEO, and why?

Your website design affects SEO for these reasons:

• It’s more difficult to index your website
• Low-quality visuals reduce how long the average visitor stays
• Too many elements reduce site loading speed
• Outdated design makes it more difficult for users to engage

Today’s guide will further explore the relationship between SEO and website design. We’ll also recommend 10 SEO elements to add when you create a website to enhance the user experience.

What Is SEO for Web Design and Why Is It Important?

Most business owners understand that SEO is the difference between their site ranking well or falling to the second or third page of search results. Still, they don’t necessarily know which factors influence their search engine optimization one way or another.

Google and its SEO ranking algorithm will look at various ranking factors to decide where your site lands. They include:

• The accessibility and security of your website
• Your page loading speed
• Whether your site is mobile-friendly
• Accurate business information
• Social signals
• Links
• Quality of the user experience
• Technical SEO
• Optimized content
• Domain authority
• Domain URL and age

Website design and SEO are intricately linked. As we discussed in the intro, if you don’t have an SEO-friendly website, the search engine crawlers that index your site will struggle to do so.

This can cause the crawlers to create an inaccurate site architecture, which hurts your SEO standing. 

Even if the crawlers get the job done correctly, you’ll still fall behind in the SEO rankings if you have poor site architecture.

Users will also be unable or unwilling to engage with your site because it looks horribly out-of-date and loads too slowly.

According to a Neil Patel survey, 30 percent of respondents said they’d wait only six to 10 seconds for a site to load before abandoning the website. Another 20 percent will wait 20+ seconds, but patience wanes from there.

For all these reasons, utilizing website design and SEO packages is within your company’s best interest.

How to Design a Perfect SEO-Friendly Website

Now that you understand the link between website design and SEO services, you’ve turned your attention back to your website. How can you design it with SEO principles in mind so your site has a better chance of ranking higher?

We recommend starting with these elements.

Choose Your CMS

CMS stands for Content Management System.

You’ll recall in that bulleted list above that search engine algorithms look for optimized content, so implementing a CMS if you’re not already using one will greatly benefit your company.

The front end of your CMS should include a homepage with at least your five most recent posts. You’ll also need all the articles on a listing page and a view article page so users can pick and choose which content they want to see.

Then, on the back end, you need edit and delete options for published content, the option to add new content, and administrative access.

Building a CMS database uses advanced coding techniques such as MySQL and PHP. If you hire website design and SEO services, they can help you navigate through this code to get a functional CMS database up and running quickly.

Consider the Site Structure and Navigability

Next, it’s time to turn your attention to the site structure. Structure affects website navigability, so it’s critical to your SEO website design.

A good website structure resembles a pyramid. It starts with your homepage and then branches off into categories and even subcategories, such as singular web pages or posts.

If you don’t follow this structure when designing your website or organizing the elements therein, users will struggle to navigate.

You already know that the average Internet user doesn’t have a ton of patience for a badly designed website, so take the time to restructure your site elements.

Add the Theme, Colors, and Fonts

The last part of the process is more fun. You can add website themes, colors, fonts, and other visual elements.

Don’t choose these at random. The colors, fonts, and themes must play nicely with one another, or you’ll further hinder website appeal and even navigability in some cases.

Portfolio resource Dribbble reports that, among 1,000 websites, Sans Serif remains the top font choice. That’s followed by Arial, Helvetica, Helvetica Neue, Robot, and Open Sans.

Those fonts all have something in common, and it’s readability. They’re also standard fonts that most computers come preloaded with so you don’t have to worry if users can read your font when accessing your website from their mobile devices or desktop computers.

What about colors? WordPress theme resource Colorlib states that 46 percent of consumers prefer blue. Another 30 percent like green, and 23 percent are yellow. Despite that, most logos on company websites are black.

You shouldn’t necessarily choose popular colors but hues that make sense for your company. For example, many companies use logo colors for their website color scheme.

Here’s some more food for thought. Colorlib also found that 26 percent of users like primary colors for website color schemes.

The Top 5 Advantages of SEO for Website Design

Focusing more on website design and SEO will benefit your company exponentially. We could easily write an entire post dedicated to the perks, but we’ve narrowed it down to five of the most important benefits.

1. You Don’t Have to Spend Extra Money to Significantly Increase Your SEO Standing

SEO is one of those areas where you should work smarter, not harder.

If your current SEO isn’t working because of poor website design,  you can funnel all the money in the world into your SEO campaigns. At the end of the day, your site will rank no better.

You can spend as much money as you’ve set aside for SEO now but focus it on website design and SEO packages. Once you create a more efficient website, your SEO standing will naturally rise! 

2. Your Website Will Reach a Larger Audience

One of the advantages of a better SERP position is increased visibility. More leads will find your website, broadening your audience and increasing the number of leads in your sales pipeline.

With your keen eye on a website redesign, you’ll have hopefully implemented opt-in forms and lead magnets to incentivize leads to share their contact information. Now you can capitalize on this new influx of leads.

3. You’ll Enhance Customer Satisfaction

SEO-focused website design is all about bettering the user experience. When customers land on your website and can find what they’re looking for, they’re happier and likelier to return to your site again.

4. You’ll Have More Credibility

Living in the age of the Internet as we do, many customers’ first impressions of your company will be your website. A slow-loading, poorly-designed website can absolutely damage your company’s reputation.

By improving your website design, besides the advantage of a better SEO ranking, you’ll enjoy the byproduct benefit of coming across as more credible.

5. You’ll Have a Competitive Advantage

Customers expect well-designed websites. If all your competitors have such websites but your company doesn’t, that puts you well behind the pack. 

Redesigning and optimizing your website with SEO principles in mind levels the playing field.

You could even gain a competitive advantage if your site surpasses the competition in the rankings.

10 SEO Elements to Implement During Website Design

With your website refresh on the horizon, these 10 SEO elements must go into your new design.

1. Indexing

One of the most important elements of SEO and web design is indexing.

Known as Internet or web indexing, indexing refers to the organization and inclusion of elements on your website, such as metadata, keywords, and related webpage content.

Google uses this material when crawling your site to determine if the average user can understand your content strategy and find what they need on your website. The better-indexed your site is, the greater its SEO ranking. In order for your site to be indexed properly, make sure to build an XML sitemap and add it to Google Search Console.

2. HTML Tagging

Even if you’re not a coding guru, you can still incorporate HTML tags into your website design for a better SEO position.

HTML tags tell a search engine which content areas to add to a SERP display so you can become more findable on the Internet.

Here are some HTML tags your website needs:

• Canonical tags to prevent duplicate content
• Robot meta tags, which create indexing and crawling rules that search engine algorithms will use to rank you
• HTML5 meta tags such as

1. Nav (for isolating navigational elements or menus)
2. Footers (for isolating the bottom of a page and its metadata)
3. Header (for isolating the top of a page and its metadata)
4. Aside (for setting supplementary content aside)
5. Section (for isolating parts of a blog post)
6. Article (for isolating an article from other code for portability

• Schema markups for rich SERP snippet enhancement
• Image alt text (more on that to come)
• Heading tags H1 through H6
• Title tags for creating SERP headlines

3. Permalink

Permalinks or permanent links are SEO links designed to remain intact for years. The best permalinks feature SEO keywords and are short and unique, so they’re less likely to succumb to link rot.

You can make any link on your website a permalink, but you must choose wisely. The quality of your links does inform your SEO standing, so if your links are low-quality, you could hurt your SEO efforts rather than help them!

4. Metadata

Your SEO and website design must include metadata, which informs other data.

For example, look at any file on your computer. You’ll see information such as the file size, the date you created the file, the date you modified it, and the author of the file. Those are all examples of metadata.

Webpages can use meta tags to create metadata. Here are some common tags to incorporate:

• Meta robots attributes such as follow/nofollow or index/noindex. These tags provide instructions for search engines on your website.
• Meta descriptions.
• Title tags.

5. Alt Text

Websites use alternative text or alt text in XHTML and HTML as a secondary source of text if an element doesn’t render properly. 

For instance, if an image doesn’t show up on your website, you should write descriptive enough alt text that a user can envision the image without having to see it.

6. Internal Linking

All websites have a substantial number of internal links. By connecting those links together, you’re helping search engine algorithms discover facets of your website and build relationships between the links.

Pages or posts with many links usually have a higher value than those with fewer links, and that goes for external and internal links alike.

That’s no excuse to stuff a page full of meaningless links, though. That hurts your SEO standing. 

7. Responsive Design

Throughout this entire article on website design and SEO, we’ve touched on the importance of a responsive, mobile-friendly website design to connect with your audience and appear higher in search engine results.

This is just one more reminder to prioritize your website design!

8. Targeted Keywords

Keywords have a relationship to SEO outside of people typing in keywords on Google, you having those keywords on your site, so your site appears well in the SERPs.

Ideally, you should use keywords as descriptors for your website and content.

Search engines will comb through your keywords, connect keyword usage to content relevancy, and determine how your site should rank.

9. Security

Search engines cannot push websites with poor security to the tops of results pages. That would be a huge disservice to users, who would end up with viruses or even become the victims of phishing schemes.

Your site must have airtight security if you hope to rank better.

10. Speed

The last element of website design and SEO is speed.

As we discussed earlier, the average user doesn’t have a lot of patience for a slow-loading website. The average loading speed of today’s websites is one to two seconds, so your site has to get up to speed if you’re not already!

How to Monitor SEO Performance

Monitoring your SEO performance needn’t be a struggle. This section will divulge what you should look for.

How Long to Wait

As much as we wish it could be, SEO isn’t an overnight process. Your company should prepare to wait between four and six months to see results in terms of ranking.

If more time has elapsed and you’re not rising in the ranks like you had hoped, then it’s time to change tact.

Which Tools to Use

You should rely on an assortment of SEO tools to streamline your processes, from marketing SEO tools to keyword trackers and performance measurement tools. You can even find some of these tools for free!

Hiring an Agency for Website Design and SEO

For website design and SEO services, you can also entrust an agency to deliver results. Mediaboom is a marketing firm that specializes in SEO. Our services can revitalize your website as we redesign it with SEO rules in mind.

Contact now Mediaboom to boost your website design and SEO

Google Business Profile (previously called “Google My Business”) is a great tool for businesses to use. However, many businesses may not realize that they’re holding their listing back by not utilizing it properly. How do you know if you’re doing everything right? 

Here are key things to know about utilizing the full potential of your listing, including: 

• What Google Business Profile is 
• Why it’s important for your business 
• How to optimize it properly 

What Is Google Business Profile?

Google Business Profile (the old “Google My Business”) is a free tool Google released back in June 2014. Its purpose is to help businesses and organizations manage their online presence across Google.

This includes listing: 

• Your business’ name 
• Your website 
• Your business hours 
• Your locations on Google Maps 
• Photos of your business
• Customer reviews 

Essentially, it helps internet users find essential information about your business, its service, and its products. 

Why Do I Need Google Business Profile? 

Google Business Profile is essential for your business for a number of reasons. For starters, it helps your customers (and potential customers) find your business faster online. Here’s how your business benefits from this free tool. 

It Helps People Find Your Business

We live in a digital-first world where, if people can’t find you online, you’ll likely get looked over. Studies show that between 70 % and 80% of people research a company online prior to visiting a small business or making a purchase with them. That means if people can’t find you, you’re missing out on sales. 

Let’s use Dunkin’ as an example. If you search “Dunkin’” on Google, the first thing you see on the right side of the screen is their listing. It outlines the company’s name, its website, and a brief description of the company’s history.

If you scroll down further, you’ll see the flavors of coffee they have available, nutritional information, and links to their social media profiles.

This listing gives you an easy understanding of Dunkin’s brand, what they sell, and where you can find more information about them. It’s an effective online one-stop shop for the brand. 

It Lists Customer Reviews

Social proof is essential for any business’s marketing strategy. Nielsen.com reports that 92% of consumers are more likely to trust non-paid recommendations than any other type of advertising. These non-paid recommendations include: 

• Customer reviews 
• Testimonials 
• Positive social media comments about your business 

Google Business Profile listings contribute to social proof by listing customer reviews. Here’s an example of reviews being left by customers at an auto garage in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. 

As you can see, there’s an option for customers to write a review or add a picture of their service. This form of social proof helps businesses gain credibility and build a loyal base of brand enthusiasts. You can get customers to leave a review of your business in a number of ways, including: 

• Emailing customers & asking them to leave a review 
• Running a promotion that encourages customers to leave reviews
• Encouraging employees to remind customers to leave a review 

It’s Free Advertising For Your Business

Another perk of using Google Business Profile is that it is free advertising for your business. Think about it: if you set up your listing properly, it’ll show up at the top of the first page of Google. That’s prime real estate for businesses trying to reach internet users. And you get to claim it for free. 

A properly established listing will provide your business with free advertising on a highly sought-after space in Google. Normally, businesses may have to use paid Google Ads to get within the same space. However, if you set your listing up correctly, you could own the space when someone searches for your business or its products. 

It Boosts SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a crucial part of a business’s organic growth strategy. Sparktoro reports that 92.96% of global traffic comes from Google Search, Google Images, and Google Maps. If you want even a fraction of that traffic to find your business online, you need to make SEO a priority. 

Google Business Profile helps boost your SEO by helping you rank for local SEO. Local SEO is essentially how it sounds: it helps your business become more visible in local searches. For instance, if you were to search “nail salons near me”, you’d likely get a map with locations pinned. Below the map, you’ll see a list of nail salons in your area. 

Part of the reason these businesses show up organically on the first page of Google is that they rank well for local SEO and, therefore, rank within Google’s Local 3-Pack. A listing can help you rank locally and increase your chances of landing on a map like the one above if it: 

• Is accurate and well-organized 
• Promotes engaging content 
• Provides essential updates and news for customers 
• Has photos of services and products 
• Is known for responding to customer reviews 

There’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it: if you serve customers in a local area, you must have a listing if you want to be found by more people. 

How To Optimize Your Google Business Profile Listing 

Once you set up your listing, the next step is to properly optimize it. Here are some key things you must include to properly optimize the listing. 

NAP (Name, Address, Phone)

The most important information to put on your listing is your business’ name, address, and phone number. After all, if people search for your business, you want them to know who you are, where you’re located, and how to contact you. 

You’ll be able to edit your business’s name, address, and phone number within your account. If any of these things change for your business, change the information as quickly as possible. Google rewards your account for showing accurate information about your business. If you accidentally forget to update it, it could negatively impact your organic rankings. 

Updated Information On Multiple Locations

If your business has multiple locations, you’ll want to manage each location separately in your account. Luckily, Google allows you to manage all your locations in one spot. 

According to Google’s Support page, here’s how to create your locations: 

1. Sign in to Google Business Profile
2. Click Manage locations (If you’re part of multiple organizations, make sure to choose the right organization first)
3. Click Create location group
4. Enter the name of your group
5. Click Create
6. Start adding locations

If you need to add a new location, Google advises you do the following: 

1. Sign in to Google Business Profile
2. Click Manage locations (If you’re part of multiple organizations, make sure to choose the right organization first)
3. Use the drop-down menu to choose a location group (A green checkmark will show next to any location groups owned by a bulk verified account)
4. Click Add location
5. Enter the business name, location, and other details
6. Follow the prompts to create the new listing 

If you need help managing multiple locations, Google Support can help. 

It’s important to stay on track with each location’s listing. Each location will have different reviews, and each location may have different store hours. Managing your locations properly will help keep your business’s legitimacy intact and create a better customer experience. 

Business Hours

Remember: Google rewards listings that provide as much information as possible. The more it can tell consumers about you, the better. Not only will listing business hours help your SEO, but it also provides your customers with vital information about your business. 

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. If they’re looking for the services you provide, they’ll want to know when they get those services. Listing your business hours builds consumer trust and lets customers know when they can find you. 

Here are steps from Google Support on how to add your business hours to your listing: 

1. Sign in to Google Business Profile and if you have multiple locations, open the location you’d like to manage 
2. Click Info from the menu 
3. Next to “Add hours” or your current business hours, click Hours 
4. Turn on each day of the week that your business is open
5. Next to each day of the week that your business is open, click Opens at, and then select the opening time 
6. Next to each day of the week that your business is open, click Closes at, and then select the closing time
7. After you’re done setting your hours, click Apply 

Setting your business hours up correctly is essential for your listing. It tells customers vital information about your business and proves to Google that you’re trustworthy and legitimate. 

Website Link

As you set up your Google Business Profile account, don’t forget to put your website link onto your listing. Think about it: if customers are interested in your services, they’re going to want to check out your website. 

Instead of making them click back and forth between your listing and the first page of Google, make it easy on them and put your website link in your listing. 

According to Google Support, here’s how to put a link into your listing: 

1. Sign in to Google Business Profile and if you have multiple locations, open the location you’d like to manage 
2. Click on the Info New features URL section, which lets you edit several different fields. Depending on your business category, you may get options to add more links 
3. Select the type of link you want
4. Enter the links in the appropriate fields 
5. For action-oriented links like an appointment, order, or reservation, you can choose a preferred link to display at the top 
6. Click Apply 

Photos Of Business, Products, And Services

Photos are essential if you want to properly optimize your listings. Images help drive higher click-through rates from listings to websites and show Google that you’re a legitimate business. 

You can upload pictures of: 

• The interior & exterior of your business 
• Pictures of your products 
• Photos of your services 
• Your business’s logo 
• Pictures of events you’ve hosted 

Here’s how to upload photos to your My Google Business listing, per Google Support: 

1. On your computer, sign in to Google Business Profile 
2. If you have multiple locations, open the location you want to update 
3. In the left menu, click Photos
4. In the top right, click Post Post
5. Choose the type of photo or video you’d like to add
6. Upload the photo or video from your computer

When uploading photos, make sure they’re good quality pictures. Your listing may be the first thing a customer sees about your company, so it’s crucial you make a great first impression with your photos.

Posts 

Posting on your Google Business Profile account is a smart strategy that legitimizes your business and lets Google know that you’re an active business. If Google knows that, it’ll be more likely to rank your posts online. 

Examples of what to post on your listing include: 

• New updates about your business 
• Special promotions 
• A limited-time special offer 
• A picture of a special event 
• A description of a new product 

Here’s how to post on your listing, per Google Support: 

1. On your computer, sign in to Google Business Profile and if you have multiple locations, open the location you want to update
2. From the menu, click Posts
3. At the top of the page, choose the type of post you want to create: Update, Event, Offer, or Product
4. Click the elements you want to add to your post: photos, videos, text, events, offers, or a button, and enter the relevant information for each post addition you choose 
5. Choose to publish or preview your post 
6. To publish your post: In the top right, click Publish 

It’s important to consistently post on your listing, as these posts go away after 7 days. The more consistent you are with posting, the better. 

Key Things to Remember About Your Google Business Profile Listing 

Remember: your listing is only as good as you make it. When optimized correctly, your listing can provide a lot of value for both your business and your customers. As long as you keep things updated, consistent, and accurate, your listing will be in good shape. Contact now Mediaboom to boost your Google Business Profile.

Website redesign should come up on your company’s to-do list at least every two or three years. You might also have to spruce up your site sooner for a new major product launch, a company merger, or rebranding. What elements does your redesign project need?

Here’s what must go into a successful website redesign: 

• Color/font update
• Modernized communications
• New theme
• Removing/adding website pages
• Updating old content
• Using dynamic elements
• Adding high-quality images
• SEO audit

This guide will help you redesign a website whether it’s your first time or your fifth. You’ll learn how to approach the redesign and more about the elements you need. 

What Is a Website Redesign and How to Approach It

To start, what exactly is a website redesign?

As the name implies, redesigning a site takes an existing website and changes it up, either in whole or in part. As we mentioned in the intro, a company can consider a redesign for an assortment of reasons, so let’s quickly go over them.

To Improve the User Experience

The user experience is paramount on your website. If you have a higher-than-average bounce rate, we’d bet it somehow goes back to your site.

If your site loads too slowly, you don’t have search-optimized content, the site isn’t secure, the design lacks appeal, your site is too hard to navigate, your site isn’t mobile-optimized, or your CTAs are incorrectly placed, you will lose site visitors.

In turn, you miss out on leads and could even lose some customers.

To Keep the Site Current

The backbone of web design may stay about the same, but new elements get introduced all the time. When your website doesn’t keep up, your site becomes a time capsule, and not in a good way. 

You can expect your competitors will stay current with their websites, so if you don’t, you’ll only get further left behind. 

Customers will notice the gap between what you offer versus what your competitors do, and once more, you risk losing out on business. 

To Roll Out a New Product/Service

Companies rarely change their website design for each new product or service they introduce, especially if they have a large roster. However, for the really big ones that should make an impact on a company’s product margin, those are worth a website redesign. 

As Part of a Merger

Has your company recently merged with another? Big changes are underfoot. Your company name may change, or its logo and branding well. This necessitates a website redesign project. 

As Part of a Brand Change

Companies decide all the time to upgrade or move away from an existing brand and go in another direction. With your new brand could come a logo update, a color scheme change, and focusing on different elements of your company story.

You must redesign your website to match your new brand experience.

So how do you approach a website redesign? Here’s a checklist to get you started.

• Decide whether your company needs the redesign
• Determine the extent of the redesign; will you redesign the website from scratch or only make a few updates?
• Hire the appropriate parties for the redesign if you don’t have the staff at your company
• Share your redesign vision with the team
• Receive updates on your website redesign project as they happen
• When pleased, deploy the site, and announce the change 

Why Is UX Design Important?

A UX designer is one of the parties you might hire or work with as part of your website redesign. What exactly is UX design and why does it matter when redesigning a website?

UX stands for user experience. A UX designer or a design team creates a website designed for an optimal customer experience. 

If you have an existing website, a UX designer can also work on that, upscaling and retooling it. 

That alone explains why UX design is so critical to any website redesign project. Without it, your site might not prioritize the most important people: your audience. 

According to software provider 99firms, when customers have a bad experience, 46.7 percent of them will talk to others about it. 

Even with reputation management strategies in place, your company could still sustain damage to your name. The general public might forget, but as for your customers? That’s harder to say. 

7 Points to Consider Before Redesigning a Website

If you’re contemplating redesigning a website, take your time with the choice. You don’t want to make a spur-of-the-moment decision that you may later regret. 

The 7 points we’ll cover in this section will help you gauge whether your website’s current state warrants a redesign. 

1. Are Your Visitors in Target?

What kinds of site visitors does your website attract? Almost none of your audience should be accidental. 

Instead, through your company’s marketing and advertising efforts, you should know what kinds of leads land on your website and roughly where they come from. 

If you’re not getting the targeted visitors you want, it’s best to check your ongoing campaigns first. 

Should you confirm that all your campaigns target the correct audience, then you might decide it’s time to focus on your website.

With a redesign, you can more effectively target your audience. 

2. Is Your Website Competing Well?

Now it’s time to turn your attention to your competitors. Select three to five competitors and review integral information about them.

Where do their sites rank when you search for your services? What website traffic do your competitors attract? 

How does your website compare in these areas? If you’re consistently underperforming, you should plan a website redesign project sooner than later. 

3. Have You Noticed a Drop in Traffic?

Check your traffic stats next. 

Traffic levels fluctuate, so you could have less traffic during certain periods than in others. That’s normal, but if your traffic has dropped and stayed low, it’s time to figure out why.

Does your company have any ongoing marketing and advertising campaigns? If so, those should drive traffic.

Perhaps it’s that your website isn’t optimized for users. You could have bad CTA placement, poor navigability, or a slow loading speed, causing users to bounce. You should hire web designers to fix the site. 

Read more: Website Maintenance

4. Does the Analytical Tool Show Anomalies in User Behavior? 

Speaking of bouncing, that’s one kind of user behavior you want to monitor, but not the only one. 

If your site visitors get to the shopping stage but abandon their cart or display other anomalies collected through your analytical tools, you can’t ignore the anomalies. 

It helps to study them in detail to understand what motivated the customer or lead’s choice. Then you can decide what role if any your website played and opt for a website redesign from there. 

5. Has Your CMS Reported a Bug?

Customer management software can paint such a comprehensive picture of the inner workings of your business. That includes bug reporting.

Of course, it’s not worth stressing over a single bug, but if their numbers begin to grow, you can’t ignore that. It could be time for a team of pros to comb through your website pages for out-of-date code.  

6. Has the Mobile Experience Been Optimized?

HubSpot reports that by the end of 2021, approximately 54.4 percent of website traffic across the globe  came from mobile devices. That number will only continue to grow. Is your website ready?

If not, you have no time to waste! 

7.  Do Users Return to Your Website or Not?

In reviewing customer behavior, you should gauge whether you have repeat site visitors and how many. 

If users don’t come back to your site, that points to a less than exemplary experience. While it’s worth reviewing a lead or customer’s behavior in more detail before making any decisions, a website redesign project shouldn’t be off the table.  

Changing the Look of Your Website – Here’s How It’s Done

Have you determined your company should redesign its website? Let’s go over the steps of the process so you can focus on the right elements. 

1. Redefine Your Colors and Fonts

The first area to start with is easy: the colors and fonts your website uses. 

Both go a long way toward impacting the user experience. We all know the basic psychology of colors and what various hues invoke, but maybe not so much fonts. 

Also, fonts affect readability and can confirm biases site visitors have. 

For example, when you see a font like Comic Sans, many agree it looks unprofessional. That can create a negative impression of your company. 

Brand analysts should study their market and look at what’s working versus what isn’t when it comes to fonts and colors. Use split-testing to select the right font and color scheme for your new website. 

2. Modernize Your Communication

People change, and so does communication. Just think of how we used to talk 10 years ago versus today. People barely want to pick up the phone when they can just send a text message.

Your website is a communication vehicle, and you need to treat it as such. Evaluate your current communication channels on your website. Then look for new ways to communicate.

For example, you might add social content to your website redesign to open more communication channels. 

3. Develop or Install a New Theme 

Website themes can transform the look of your redesigned website in a heartbeat. Services from ThemeForest to Creative Market offer hundreds to thousands of themes. Some cost no money to use while others require you to pay.

If you have the room in the budget, installing a paid theme is more worthwhile. Fewer competitors may pay for a theme, which already gives you an advantage.

Even if your competitors use paid themes, the greater degree of customization allows you to make a completely different theme than theirs.

If you want to ensure your theme is truly unique, you can always develop your own! Web designers and UX designers come in handy for this type of project. 

4. Add/Remove Website Pages

Next, go through your webpages with a fine-toothed comb. 

Prune your content, removing outdated webpages that no longer make sense or aren’t bringing in as much traffic. This will help you optimize your crawl budget so Google crawls only valuable content.

5. Update Old Articles and Content

Do you have a backlog of blog content on your website? As you redesign a website, you’ll have to go through this dearth of content.

Your company should ideally publish evergreen content. Any posts that aren’t evergreen need an update. 

You should also update your most popular content. Maybe the original post was short, and you can expand upon it, or new research has come out since the post was published that would augment it further.

Updating old content allows your articles to rank well all over again. 

6. Improve the User Experience Through Dynamic Elements

To boost the UX of your redesigned website, incorporate more dynamic elements. 

A dynamic element refers to an HTML element made by an Internet browser that only lasts for as long as the user has the website open. 

7. Use High-Quality Images

It’s also worth going back and updating images to higher-quality versions. That said, do make sure you’re compressing the images, or they’ll quickly bloat your website and make it load too slowly! 

8. SEO Audit Your Website

An old website can have many broken external links, errors, and bugs. Fixing them will boost traffic and enhance the user experience. 

What better way to start the process than with an SEO audit? An audit will point you toward what on your website you can fix for a better SEO ranking and a more enhanced user experience. 

Are You Looking for a Website Redesign Agency? 

Do you need a team of web designers to rebuild an existing website? Trust in the website redesign experts at Mediaboom. With our professional services, we’ll build you a website that achieves more of your company’s goals!
Contact us today to learn more or to get started.