Arvada, Colorado, May 5, 2023 – EduCyber, a leading web development firm, is proud to announce the launch of a new website for Community Table, a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting hunger in Jefferson County. The new website, which can be found at www.cotable.org, is designed to enhance the organization’s online presence, improve user experience, and increase the community’s involvement in their mission.
The website features a modern design that is easy to navigate and provides visitors with information on how to donate, volunteer, and get involved with Community Table’s initiatives. Visitors can learn about the different programs and initiatives that Community Table has implemented to fight hunger in the community, as well as the impact of their donations and support.
“We are excited to have partnered with Community Table to build a new website that helps them further their mission of fighting hunger in the community,” said Brian DeLaet, CEO of EduCyber. “Our team is proud to have developed a website that will make it easier for people to donate, volunteer, and get involved with their important work.”
Community Table encourages everyone to visit their new website to learn more about how they can get involved and support the fight against hunger in Jefferson County Colorado. For more information, please contact info@cotable.org or 303-424-6685.
About EduCyber: EduCyber is a leading web development firm that has been providing high-quality web design and development services to businesses and non-profit organizations since 1998. The company’s team of experienced developers, designers, and marketers works closely with clients to deliver customized solutions that meet their specific needs. For more information, please visit ww.educyber.com or call 303-268-2245.
OK, that might not be how that saying goes but, unlike the real world where intent and outcome are often very different, in the world of search and in building an excellent website, understanding intent is critical to getting it right.
If, for example, someone searches for “eagles”, Google has to try to determine the intention of the searcher. Are they looking for the football team? Are they looking to place a bet on the team? Have they seen an eagle flying around their neighborhood and are trying to identify it? Are they a student writing an essay on an endangered species? All of these could be the intent of the searcher.
So what does Google do? Well, in this week before football’s biggest game, they serve lots of results around the Philadelphia Eagles. But they also provide other options in case you were searching for “eagles birds” or perhaps the rock band, or the Colorado hockey team (an affiliate of the Avs).
You should think of your website in the same way. When someone gets to your site, what is their intent? Are they trying to find out how to contact you (don’t make it difficult)? Perhaps they were referred to you by a friend or colleague. Is it clear from the outset what you do and what services you offer?
Taking that a step further, lets remember that not everyone comes “through the front door” of your website (the landing page). If someone clicks on a Google search result to get to your site, they may very well have come in through a “side door” to a page within your site. In that case, in addition to providing the information the person wanted, you should have enticements to dig deeper, learn more, engage in the site.
This part becomes more complicated. If the page they landed on gave them the information they wanted, they may be done. But most of us want the visitor to stay on the site, to find it so engaging they just stay and keep clicking – or better yet to call / fill out a form / buy. For this part you need to think more about what all users may want when they come to your site.
And not everyone, unfortunately, comes to your site looking for what you are offering. But that doesn’t mean they might not stick around. What can you do to further engage them? Here are a few things you may want to consider:
Video – a short video that captures the visitor’s attention even before clicking on play
Testimonial – written or video is captivating because it is someone else sharing their experience with you / your company
A button that has some kind of unique offer – that will take them to another page and provide more information
Not sure what might be right for your site? We’d be happy to have a conversation with you. Give us a call
When it comes to digital marketing there are a number of pieces that have to come together all at once for things to really click.
And, if you are missing just one piece of the puzzle, like whoever left this piece in our parking lot, you simply won’t be able to get the full picture.
Digital marketing is a science that is governed by data. You can track your followers, email recipients, website visitors through each step of your path to customer-dom until they either leave or convert to a customer.
Digital marketing is also an art that must be visually engaging and provide a coherent yet elegant framework for your target market to engage with you and then to become a customer.
I usually think of it as the artistic side comes first – you decide the subject, figure out the setting, sketch in the overall picture and then paint in all the parts, overwriting (over-painting?) when necessary to get just the right look.
A part of deciding the subject and figuring out the setting in digital marketing is understanding what the call to action will be, what the path to get there is, and determining what media is needed.
As you begin to “paint” the science part begins to slide in:
What will be tracked?
How will we track it?
Statistically, what media (website, email, social media, content, blog, etc.) best supports the goal?
Where does the target client go digitally? (Where do they “hang out” online?)
And then the art and science can really begin to blend together. What color(s) are your target client most likely to find engaging?
Should the buttons have sharp corners or rounded edges?
What images or videos are going to illustrate your idea / company while also drawing your users in and engaging them in meaningful ways?
And the list of questions could go on and on.
The point is, if you are missing a piece of your digital marketing puzzle, give us a call or text – 303-268-2245. If you call, go to extension 4.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is such a big buzzword. At least twice a month I am approached about doing SEO for an existing or potential client. As we begin to delve into their goals though, it often turns out that what they really want is Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO).
And it turns out that CRO isn’t much of a buzzword even though it is a critical piece of digital marketing. If you want to get more leads through your website, you first have to know if you are getting leads from your website.
If you know how many leads you are getting from your website, we can then look at the number of visitors to your site and, with simple math, calculate your conversion rate:
If you have 100 visitors to your site and get 1 lead, your conversion rate is:
1 (lead) ÷ 100 (visitors) = 0.01 then multiply by 100 for the percentage = 1% (conversion rate)
Sound low? It is. Conversion rates vary widely but if you have a higher than 1% conversion rate, you are doing fantastic.
Now that we have a conversion rate established, we can go about the process of optimizing the conversion rate. There are many things you can test or try. Sometimes it is simply a matter of changing colors on a button or call to action (yes, that might be all it takes). Other things that you can do include:
Removing unnecessary steps (fewer clicks often increases conversion rates)
Creating better / stronger calls to action (CTAs)
Use design to clarify what the next step is
Remove unnecessary CTAs – if they make it to a form page, remove opportunities to click away
Don’t ask for unnecessary information – growing your email list? You don’t need a physical address.
Add urgency to the CTA – “Offer good through Saturday!”
Don’t your CTA lower on the page or even on a different page
Use testimonials – others “tooting your horn” will work better than you doing it yourself
Make sure your page loads quickly – if it is slow to load, people leave
If you have the staff resources to manage it, add a chatbot to your site so you can interact in real time
All of these, and a whole lot more, are ways to increase your conversion rate, increase customer satisfaction and grow your business.
Hitting the target with your digital marketing goals
You need to set goals for digital marketing early in the process – not after you have created campaigns or begun implementing tactics. You should consider what you are trying to accomplish – what is the desired outcome of your digital marketing. Of course, for most folks, that is either more business or more leads.
What are the Benefits to Set Goals for Digital Marketing?
Setting goals is a great way to keep track of your progress towards reaching your business objectives. It helps you stay focused on your overall strategy by giving you something tangible to work towards. You can also use it as an opportunity to evaluate where you stand against your competitors. If you’re not sure if you’re meeting your goals, then setting new ones will help you figure out where you need to improve.
Setting goals allows you to see your progress over time which makes it easier to measure your success. This gives you more confidence in your results and increases your chances of achieving them.
It’s important that you don’t set too many goals at once because this could be overwhelming. The best approach is to break down your big goal into smaller, manageable tasks. For example, if you want to increase sales, start with one small task like increasing your social media following or email list size. Once you’ve completed these smaller tasks, move onto another one.
You’ll also find that setting goals will motivate you to achieve them. When you have a clear objective in mind, it becomes much easier to focus on the things that matter most.
Setting SMART Goals
SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound. These five elements make up a good goal so let’s look at each one in turn:
Specific – Your goal should be specific enough to give you direction but broad enough to allow room for growth.
Measurable – Make sure your goal has a metric attached to it so you know whether or not you’re making progress.
Attainable – Don’t set yourself unattainable goals. Think about what would happen if you didn’t meet your goal. Would you feel disappointed? Or maybe even angry?
Relevant – Be realistic about your goal. Is it really relevant to your business?
Time bound – Make sure your goal isn’t open ended. Give yourself a deadline to hit your target.
If you’re struggling to come up with ideas for your goals, here are some examples of common digital marketing goals:
Increase website traffic (e.g. Facebook likes)
Increase brand awareness (e.g. Google rankings)
Increase conversion rate (e.g. signups)
Improve customer service (e.g. feedback scores)
Increase sales revenue (e.g. number of products sold)
Now that we’ve looked at the benefits of setting goals, let’s take a closer look at how to go about doing it.
Step 1: Define Your Goal
The first step in setting goals is to decide exactly what you want to achieve. Start by thinking about your business objectives and then ask yourself the following questions:
Is my goal attainable?
What do I want to achieve?
How will I know when I’ve achieved it?
What does my ideal future state look like?
Once you’ve answered all three questions, write down your answers. Now you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve, you can move on to the next step.
Step 2: Write Down Your Goals
After deciding on your goal, write it down. If you don’t already have a list of goals, start now! Here are some tips to ensure you make the most of this process:
Start small. It’s tempting to think big, but starting off with smaller goals will help you build momentum.
Break them down into milestones. For example, instead of saying “I’ll increase my social media presence”, say “I’ll post more content on Twitter“.
Add deadlines. Setting deadlines helps you stay focused and motivated.
Once you have your goals and milestones written down and assigned deadlines to them, you’re ready to move on to the next step.
Step 3: Identify Key Performance Indicators
Key performance indicators or KPIs are measurable metrics which show whether your goals are being met. The best way to identify KPIs is to use data analytics tools. These allow you to measure success against specific criteria. Some of the most commonly used KPIs include:
Website Traffic – How many people visit your site per month? What pages get the highest traffic?
Social Media Engagement – Are users engaging with your posts? Do they share your content?
Customer Feedback – How satisfied are customers with your product or service? How much positive and negative feedback do they leave?
Leads / Sales Conversions – How many leads did you generate last week? How many of these went on to become customers?
As you can see, there are lots of different ways to measure success. You may choose to focus on one metric, such as lead generation, or combine several together. Whatever method you choose, be consistent. Once you set out to track key performance indicators, stick to it. Don’t change your strategy mid-stream if you find that one metric isn’t working as well as you thought it would.
Step 4: Measure Progress
You should always keep an eye on your progress towards achieving your goals. This means measuring your success regularly. To do this, you need to assign a percentage value to each KPI.
For example, if you want to increase your website traffic by 10%, you could simply multiply the number of visitors you had last month by 0.1. So if you had 100 visits last month, you’d expect to receive 110 visits this month.
If you’re not sure how to proceed, here are some examples:
Increase Website Traffic by 20%: Multiply the number of visitors you received last month by 1.2. So if you had 1000 visitors last month, you’d receive 1200 in the following month.
Increase Social Media Engagement by 50%: Multiply the total number of likes, comments etc you posted last month by 1.5. So if you had 3000 likes last month, you’d have 5000 in the following month. Remember to take into account any changes in activity over time.
Improve Lead Generation Rate by 25%: Multiply the amount of leads generated last month by 1.25. So if you had 500 leads last month, you’d generate 750 in the following month. Again, remember to take into account any fluctuations in activity over time. If you’re looking to improve your conversion rate, you should use a tool like Google Analytics to monitor your conversions.
Step 5: Adjust Your Strategy
Once you’ve measured your progress, you’ll know what needs to change as you set goals for digital marketing. For instance, if you found that only 1% of your leads converted, then you’d know that you need to work harder at generating more leads.
So now you know exactly where you stand, you can decide whether you need to make adjustments to your marketing plan. Maybe you need to spend less money on advertising or invest more time in social media promotion. Whatever the case, once you’ve decided which areas you need to adjust, you can start implementing them.
Conclusion
Digital Marketing is the process of promoting products and services digitally through online channels. It includes email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, social media marketing, influencer marketing, display advertising, web development, mobile applications, and much more. The ultimate goal of digital marketing is to promote your product or service in some online fashion. To do this well, you need to set goals for digital marketing.
There are a lot of artists out there. They love to create beautiful campaigns that look and feel marvelous. Sometimes you will see a post or part of a campaign that makes you laugh out loud. That too is a good part of the art.
A picture is indeed worth a 1000 words and some of the best pictures make for artistic digital marketing that takes your breath away. And a video? Well if a picture is worth a 1000, a video is worth far more. Some of the most artistic digital marketing campaigns move you to like, share and comment.
And if digital marketing were a popularity contest, that might be enough.
But bringing in a bit of science to help you with your digital marketing campaign can actually help your business grow.
You remember back in science in high school? You create a hypothesis. Then you do a test. Then you measure the results. Then you draw a conclusion based on that and from there you can create a new hypothesis and let the science keep rolling.
How does that work?
Hypothesis:
If I create one blog every two weeks for twelve weeks around a new product that we make, and strategically share that on social media I’ve identified as platforms the target customer uses, I can increase sales 10%
Test:
Create six pieces of content, keeping it short, interesting, and using images that are not stock images. Post one every two weeks to your blog, share on identified social sites, tagging others and using hashtags as appropriate.
Measure / Evaluate:
Well we found that posts where we focused on our clients got the most interaction and we actually generated three leads as a result of those two posts. We’ve already converted one. One is a bit dicey and likely won’t convert but the other is in the funnel and looking good.
Conclusion:
It seemed like the posting frequency was just about right and it really helped to have it all planned out in advance. If we can sustain this program, our sales should increase between 11 and 15% over last year.
That’s one example of how you can conduct a digital marketing campaign with science. What all was used in this example?
Content Marketing – creating unique content and posting it to a blog
Social Media Marketing – posting to social media websites using tags and hashtags to engage others
Conversion Rate Optimization Marketing – determining a conversion rate based on number of interactions that actually turn into business
Other types of digital marketing that should be considered:
Search Engine Optimization
Paid Search Campaign
Email Marketing
Paid Social Media Marketing (similar to paid search campaign)
3rd Party Marketing (placing your ads / links on other websites)
Mobile Marketing (includes many of those above plus texting)
Affiliate Marketing (using influencers to promote your business)
The art of digital marketing is an important component but the science of digital marketing should not be overlooked. Over the last couple of years the phrase “follow the science” has been overused and abused. But integrating science into your digital marketing outreach is important if you want to be successful.
Remember, if you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there. If you take the extra steps beyond the art of digital marketing to get to the science, you will actually be able to measure success as a phase of the campaign ends.
If this all sounds great to you but you aren’t sure where to start, we can help. Call or Fill out our contact form to get started.
Sometime in the first or second week of November, many business people slowly begin to checkout. It’s time for Thanksgiving and then Christmas and then New Years. It’s not time to close new deals or even to push to the finish on existing deals or projects.
But that is really just an excellent way to waste 1/10th of the year.
If it seems like your prospects or projects are beginning to taper off, here are five ways you can bolster your year and finish strong
Review your website. Things change over the course of a year. Are the offerings / services / products displayed all still accurate? Anything new to add? What about personnel?
Review your calls to action. Whether it is for your website or your social media presence or your online ads, are the calls to action generating action? If not, determine if you need more activity or better calls to action (or both).
Check your traffic. If you have an established conversion rate (XX number of visitors generates X number of leads), is your traffic volume headed in the right direction? If you don’t know or don’t have a conversion rate, then you probably need to revisit #2 above. You should be able to measure visitors on your website, interactions on social media and how your brand and keyword phrases perform in search.
Refresh your digital marketing goals. Social media, for example, can be a powerful tool for connecting with prospects but you need to have a clear plan. And remember, social media marketing is not a popularity contest. It isn’t the number of fans or followers but the quality of the connections and the way you interact.
Hire a digital marketing firm to help you out. Sounds like a self-serving step but pause and consider. What are you good at? What do you enjoy doing in your business? If managing your website and your digital marketing is not high on the list, then why not turn to the pros who do enjoy it and are good at it?
Whether you are struggling to hold the line, growing like crazy or somewhere in-between, staying engaged all the way to the end of the year will yield benefits both for 2021 and to launch 2022 off to a strong start.
What is the core of your Digital Marketing Campaign?
The core of digital marketing is your website. It is your website where you have the most control. You can publish content about what you do, what you offer, any special events or sales you have, interact with customers and pretty much whatever else you need it to do.
Other web sites might opt not to share your content or run your ads. Social media sites might change how their advertising works or what you can and cannot post. But you have control over your website.
So that is the starting place. But as you begin to build out a digital marketing campaign, the obvious first step is to set goals for your campaign. And those goals should be clearly defined and measurable.
The following are not goals for a digital marketing campaign:
I want to make my site look better.
It should have more pictures
I want to get more likes*
We will have more followers on Facebook*
I want a lower “bounce rate”*
I want to drive more traffic to my website.*
Can we make the pictures bigger?
We have a new logo
I want to be ranked number 1*
But the ones with asterisks could be turned into defined, measurable goals. What does make a good goal? It needs to be clearly defined so you can actually measure it. Here is an example of a clearly defined, measurable goal:
“We will get three qualified leads each month through our social media marketing campaign.”
Now we have a goal that we can measure and we can begin to lay out HOW we will reach the goal. For social media, you must provide VALUE to the reader / viewer. You want to capture their attention and move them towards a Call to Action. You often seen tantalizing headlines online like “This Simple Trick Will Close the Deal Every Time”. While they are often bordering on the ridiculous, they keep doing them because they work. We’re not suggesting you go the ridiculous route but you can learn from these to make your headlines, images and content highly enticing and clickable.
The following are good goals for a digital marketing campaign:
We will get 10 more likes each week for our corporate presence on LinkedIn which will give us a wider audience each week and from which we will convert three of these into customers each month.
We will have 25 more followers on our Facebook account each month and increase click throughs to our website by 10 each month (this should be teased out a bit further even – . . . to our website by 10 and increase ecommerce sales by three customers)
People aren’t really going experiencing our site. We will lower the bounce rate and increase engagement so that we get more subscribers to our newsletter.
We have a conversion rate of .1% (we get a new customer for every 1000 visitors to our website) so we want to increase our traffic to 10,000 visitors a week so we get 10 new customers each week. We will accomplish this by being ranked in the top 10 for our five best key phrases.
As you can see from all of the good goals, we want to ultimately send visitors to your website and it is from there we need to convert them – whether conversion is making a sale, getting a form filled out, getting another newsletter subscriber or whatever your conversion point is.
So with your website being the center, your first step in digital marketing should be to make sure your site is optimized for conversion and that you are measuring the rate of conversion. With that baseline established, you can then set goals for any other campaigns you create and understand the value they are bringing.
Do you need help setting up your digital marketing? Give EduCyber a call at 303-268-2245 – ask for Brian.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) continues to mature as a discipline and as it does, the things that one must do continue to change. Some of the work of SEO is quite straightforward and in fact the single most important thing you can do to boost your rankings is to have quality content about what you do.
No search engine will send visitors your way if you don’t explicitly tell them what you do using the keyword phrases that people would naturally use in the search bar to look for a company doing what you do or selling what you sell.
But it used to be all about getting a page to rank. Earlier this year, Google rolled out “passage ranking” which is where Google tries to provide the one passage on a web page that answers the question the searcher has. I guess one example of that would be if you searched for “to be or not to be” you wouldn’t want the result to be the script of Hamlet. You want to get straight to Act 3, Scene 1 where Hamlet opens with “To be, or not to be, that is the question . . . “. And those are the passages that Google seeks to show you for specific searches.
Google’s ability to index pages and understand the content well enough to know that, buried deep in the page is a specific answer to someone’s search is powerful (and a tad scary). But what it really points back to is the importance of having quality content.
Another key to both SEO and user engagement is using a mix of content types. Text, yes, we’ve already addressed that. But having images, videos and perhaps infographics to help illuminate your content will help both getting traffic through the search engine AND in engaging the visitor once they get to your page.
Believe it or not, it has been six months since we last connected via email. But all is well in EduCyber land. Yes, both Maki and Brian came down with the virus in the spring so a large part of April we were checked out and focused on healing. But we are back and doing well.
And we are busy. Many existing and new customers are realizing that, should another pandemic occur, it is best to have a strong digital presence to connect with new and potential customers.
If you aren’t one of those whose site we are currently working on and your site is hosted with us, call Brian to schedule your web performance review – he’s at 303-268-2245 ext. 4. We would love to reconnect and to review your website performance.
If you haven’t heard from us in a while, we would love to reconnect. This is a great time, when the weather is good to grab a beer during happy hour or get together for lunch.
Just as we want to reconnect with folks, you can and should be reconnecting with your network in person and online.
What can you do to reconnect digitally?
Send out a nice email inviting your connections / customers / vendors to reconnect.
Schedule an in person event whether it be a workshop, a seminar, a lunch and learn, a happy hour or a party and leverage your web site, your newsletter, and your email contacts to get the word out. This is a good opportunity to partner with others in your network to make the event special.
Make sure you post to your social media AT LEAST once a week and more frequently as you have the bandwidth to do so.
Search for organizations in your area to join – do the online search first. Many membership-based organizations lost members during the pandemic. This is your opportunity to help them out by helping yourself out. Join the right organizations that will help you grow.
Can you think of others? Let us know if you can and we’ll add them (and give you attribution).
In any case, whether it be digitally or in person, take the time to reconnect. You will be pleased to find out that others also want to reconnect and what opportunities arise.
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ssing just one piece of the puzzle, like whoever left this piece in our parking lot, you simply won’t be able to get the full picture.
