What is the personality of your B2B website?
“This website is bland. It has no personality.” Recognize that criticism? You probably have heard it, said it, or at least thought it when visiting a B2B website. Who knows? It might even have been your own company’s site. With all due respect, that comment is simply not true. Every B2B website has a personality. They can be bold or geeky or verbose—some are even a little schizophrenic. In short, lack of personality is never the problem with B2B websites. The trouble starts when the site’s personality doesn’t match the brand you want to project. If that’s the case, your website will be an awkward representative for your company and it won’t speak
How to love your focus keywords and their results
You have a love/hate relationship with focus keywords, don’t you? It’s alright to admit it. Everyone experiences those conflicting feelings, and here’s why. You love the power effective focus keywords bring: web traffic goes up, prospects find your site before the competition, and everyone considers you a strategic savant. Nice. On the other hand, you hate the hassles: finding a solid focus keyword is a timesuck, it seems like everyone else snatched your word first, and it’s nearly impossible to work unwieldy search phrases into your content. Trust me, nobody can make “best industrial strength breaker overload detection device near me” sound conversational. Believe it or not, focus keywords can find their way to your
How to become LinkedIn to an alternate reality
By Randy Mitchell | Creative Director Creative people are different. We gladly accept that. Creatives tend to dress boldly, have quirky habits and embrace our inner uniqueness. But what truly makes us unusual are the unexpected ideas that erupt from the depths of our imaginations. A few years ago, one of those strange ideas seized me during my rambling commute home. I was scrolling around LinkedIn, checking out the latest posts and progress of my network. Then, the weirdness hit me. “What if there was an entire social network that consisted of people who shared my name?” Imagine the possibilities. Where would they live? What would they do for a living? It would be like
Marketing profanity filter: Are these words offensive?
by Randy Mitchell, Creative Director This morning a coworker surprised me with an unexpected remark. “I never hear you swear,” she declared. “Do you ever use profanity?” That started the thought train rolling. I definitely try to have my personal profanity filter on at all times. However, I am guilty of using marketing profanity on a daily basis. What is marketing profanity? That’s simply my name for words that have somehow become offensive. In most cases, these terms were perfectly acceptable five years ago, but now, they have crossed the line into the unspeakable category. I’d like to share a few surprising examples. We’ll even run these words through our state-of-the-art marketing profanity filter