4 Ways to Connect With Your Audience Using Visuals
Storytelling can take on many forms. A blog post, a social media announcement, a website, an email blast, a presentation or a book. Whether your purpose is to inform, educate or entertain, adding visual content is core to how you can connect with your audience. People respond more to what they see than any other form of stimulation.
1. Break up text
In this age of “Big Data”, we are literally bombarded with information. Visual assets such as videos, photography, infographics and illustrations cut through all the noise and leave a powerful impact.
Are people just lazy readers?
Many readers will scan through large sections of text, picking out words, here and there, stopping at headlines, and maybe at an image or video that captures interest. It’s not that people are lazy readers or would not find your writing interesting. It’s just that there is such a large volume of available information, they have to move quickly to capture what is relevant to them. A reader will be more willing to read an article when colourful images are used.
2. Be more memorable
Blog posts with images and videos are more engaging to visitors.
- Web pages with more visual content rank better
- Tweets with images receive 18% more clicks and 150% more retweets
With 90% of information transmitted to the brain being visual, and a retention rate at 80%, it only makes sense to use visuals to their advantage.
Using visuals across all the major social platforms—Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest, increases the:
- Number of visitors,
- Level of participation, and the
- Reach of your post.
What makes an effective visual?
A good visual will reach out on an emotional level and leave a long-lasting impression. When you connect with your audience on an emotional level, they associate it with your brand and it nurtures a feeling of trust.
Effective visuals are relatable and sharable. The right infographic can transform a complex or large amount of data into a more manageable format.
3. Set a tone
Sketchy, trendy, artistic, dark or funny—the right image will set the tone or mood for your writing. Open the door and invite your reader in.
A brand’s values and unique personality can be defined by:
- Logos
- Use of colour
- Typography
- Use of icons and relatable imagery
4. Implement a visual content strategy
Keep in mind that competition for your audience’s attention is high. A strong visual content marketing strategy is key to attracting internet users and building brand credibility. Just as important as headlines, and calls to action, visual content deserves more than a second thought.
Remember to:
- Show, don’t tell
- Use testimonial videos
- Share feedback
- Show customer reviews as images
- Drive content production with polls
Engage employees
- Share behind-the-scenes activities
- Encourage sharing of staff picks
- Capture celebrations of your big moments
Increase reach and visibility
- Use social media cover images
- Design your call-to-action
- Offer downloadable white papers, or e-books
- Make your images sharable
- Use a feature box on your blog
Optimize
- Change your visual’s file name
- Add a text transcript of your visuals
- Optimize file size
- Watch your embed code strategy </>
Digital Housekeeping: Keeping Your Website Competitive
Keeping a clean house is one of the first lessons you learn from your parents. Unwanted creatures can invade and take residence, style can become outdated and structural problems can ensue, if you fail to maintain and update your home from time to time. Wait too long, and even your friends won’t want to visit.
A website is not so different. Much of the focus in digital marketing revolves around content creation: consistently generating articles and other materials of relevance to send a consumer to the client’s site. However, it is imperative to also maintain your website structure and update its look and functions as needed to make sure user experience is smooth and enjoyable.
A website is often the first way that a potential customer encounters a company. If it looks disorganized, outdated, or neglected, they will likely move on to a competitor instead. If the user experience suffers in any notable way (e.g. slow page load times or other issues that cause delays), your functions and layout almost certainly need a re-vamp.
Once you have decided that a redesign is in order, here are some things to keep in mind:
Stay Current
Make sure the information you have on your website is up-to-date, applicable, and correct. Customer loyalty manifests itself in confidence, so if you do not have appearance of accuracy and professionalism, the customer will not feel confident you can give them the best service for their money.
Check your content
If you are changing or updating content, be careful of drastic changes in site size. A website that goes from full and informative to skeletal suggests to regular users that there are behind-the-scenes issues.
When making changes to site content, your keyword usage can suffer if you are not careful in your planning. Make sure your edits don’t remove high ranking keywords, as it can impact ranking you have worked hard to earn. That is the equivalent of throwing a grand re-opening party and only sending out a tiny number of invitations.
Test Your Pages
On top of content changes, it is also essential to maintain the back end structure of your website. Have you made sure there are no dead links? Do all your function buttons work properly and within a reasonable amount of time? Google Analytics Experiments is an excellent free tool to check these functions.
Another program to employ is SEO PowerSuite’s Website Auditor, which identifies technical issues that prevent the site from attaining your desired search ranking. Once your changes are completed, SEO PowerSuite also makes sure that your pages are fully available for indexing in search engines.
Your page load time should not increase as a result of any changes. If so, then additional reformatting is required.
Design Scheme
Aesthetic appearance is another facet of your website that can always be updated and experimented with. Keep up with the latest analysis on what sorts of design both attract casual surfers and cause them to continue investigating the site. Create two or three different design approaches and run tests. Ask participants to answer questions as to what did or did not appeal to them, what sorts of colours were inviting, etc. (Curious about what colours are the most effective for attracting an audience? Check out our blog on Colour Psychology.)
Always remember: not all pages are created equal. While each on your website pages deserve attention, your home page is key. If it fails in its mission, then the remaining pages will almost be inconsequential.
Preserve your URLs
Finally, the most important rule of website redesign – never, ever, never, ever change your website URL. URLS are part of your site and company identity. Past customers likely have you bookmarked and use that method to return. Changing your URL will result in dead links, consumer confusion and can lead to a hit to your ranking.
When your redesign is complete, you will likely see an improvement in your standing. SEO PowerSuite includes a Rank Tractor that makes it easy to keep tabs on the status of your numbers. Keep an eye on this tool to see what worked well, and what could still be improved.
Updating or improving a website is just good business sense. If you can accomplish both simultaneously, you are making excellent use of time and resources.
Image: rawpixel / 123RF Stock Photo
Lost in SEO? Local SEO vs. Organic SEO
Different types of SEO work for different people. Some businesses flourish with Organic SEO, while others benefit more from geographically-targeted Local SEO. Search engines are constantly evolving. If you want to keep traffic flowing, your website has to keep up with them.
Google’s search algorithm aims to get users the best results for their searches. Search engine optimization harnesses that algorithm to increase your traffic, provide the best user experience, and make you money. This is a bit of a breakdown to help you figure out which kind of SEO can work best for you.
What is Organic SEO?
You’ve got a great website. Now, you need to get noticed.
That’s where Organic SEO comes in.
Organic SEO boosts your site’s ranking in the organic search engine results. This is done by making it clear to Google what your site is about. When you search for something, you get results based on quality and relevance. The algorithm picks out the highest-quality content relevant to your search terms. Only sites that have valuable, trusted content rank in organic search results.
In other words, to improve your site’s ranking, you have to show Google that your site:
- Is relevant to the keyword.
- Has good content.
Organic SEO optimization makes your site search engine-friendly. Trusted content, high quality links, and on and off-page optimization strategies work together to climb the rankings. When Google knows you’re the real deal, your rank improves. This opens the floodgates for traffic to flow onto your site. And as you build trust with your users, your ranking will last longer.
What is Local SEO?
You know your customers – it’s time for them to get to know you.
Local SEO helps you rise above the local competition.
Local SEO boosts your site’s ranking for geographically-related keywords. A geo-targeted search term is one that includes a location. When someone searches for a geo-targeted term, the results favor sites with trusted locations. In service industries many potential customers will include a location with their search. For example, someone might search “car repair in Toronto.” If you’re in Toronto and Google knows that, you’ll rank higher than a repair shop in Ottawa, and will even rank higher than other Toronto repair shops that Google can’t pin on a map.
To be a trusted location, you have to show Google that your business:
- Is relevant to the keyword.
- Exists at a specific geographical location.
As a trusted location, your site will organically rise to the top and stand out in local search results. Local SEO can make you the number one result for relevant searches in your area, bringing more traffic your site. And more traffic means more business.
Which One Is Right for Me?
Local and Organic SEO techniques both bolster your rank in organic search results so you can reach as many customers as possible. The best choice for you depends on your business and your target customers.
Local SEO gets you ranked in a specific location. It works best for small or local businesses. If you’re targeting customers in a specific area, Local SEO will get you top results.
Organic SEO is all about your website. You don’t need a physical, brick-and-mortar location to use Organic SEO. If getting traffic to your site is your primary goal, Organic SEO is the way to go. And for Internet-only businesses, Organic SEO is essential.
Are you ready to achieve your traffic goals? Drop us a line and start growing your customer base today.
Top 5 reasons that SEO alone might not be right for you
Wait, what?
Yes, you heard correctly. We’re in the business of helping clients with their SEO, gaining organic website traffic, but the reality is that SEO is not always the right answer for every client in every situation. Let me explain.
1. Sometimes your SEO budget is not enough
This is usually the most common reason. SEO projects have a lot of variables to consider including the difficulty of ranking for search terms and other competitive issues.
For some clients, the work required to achieve their goals within a fixed time is simply not realistic inside a tight marketing budget. Unfortunately, some SEO companies will promise results using tactics outside Google’s guidelines, which ultimately causes more harm than good.
2. The timeframe for your objective is too short
The changing nature of SEO rules, as well as the moving marketing strategy of your competition, means that setting a precise timeframe to achieve results is nearly impossible. SEO success is inherently not an overnight strategy and if your objective is to get to page one from page three immediately, you would likely be better served to leverage other methods.
3. Ad competition is too stiff
Recent changes to the way Google displays ads is not making organic SEO any easier. There are now up to four ads displayed at the top of a page and the length of these ads are now even longer. The result? Even if you do rank on the first page it might be “below the fold” meaning users will have to scroll down to see it.
4. You have a new product or service
Sort of like “if a tree falls in the forest…”, you might be offering something totally new and awesome but no one is searching for it. You need to focus on an educational and awareness strategy that might be better served through ads and content.
5. You’re a new business
Similarly, if you are a new business, organic search can take some time to show results. As a result, if you’re looking for immediate results, you should consider a different tactic initially and use SEO to build organic traffic over time.
Summary
Today’s competitive marketplace demands patience and a variety of tactics. Marketers need to have realistic expectations about what can be achieved in a given time frame and within a given budget. An integrated marketing approach consisting of SEO, PPC, social media, and content marketing, is usually the best recipe for long-lasting results.