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What Makes Conscious Leaders Different and More Effective?
- January 4, 2021
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Agency Leader Transformation
No CommentsToday’s conscious leaders are smart, self-aware and fully adept at what they do. Perhaps most importantly, they are active participants in the growth of those whom they lead. How does this translate into organizational success — and ‘good business’ in general?
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Prioritizing Play and the Quest for a Freedom-Focused Mindset
- November 17, 2020
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Agency Leader Transformation
Philosophy has been saying it for years, but now science and our health experts also back up the theory about leading a more integrated life: we need to play more as adults. COVID, the light shone on systemic racism and the polarity of the presidential election provided us an opportunity to reevaluate many things in our lives. If we continuously decide and convey our values by what we choose to prioritize, what kind of life are you living?
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The Benefits of Agency Leadership Coaching
- August 25, 2020
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Agency Leader Transformation
Success at work isn’t success at all if your personal life is in shambles. Whether you’re working to navigate a transition, overcome fear of failure/success, or anything in between, coaching can help. Here’s why creative leaders work with coaches and the myriad benefits they derives from doing so.
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Could Your Attachment Style Impact Business Development?
- August 11, 2020
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Agency Leader Transformation, Business Development
Your personal “attachment style” is likely impacting your business, whether you realize it or not. Understanding your style may help you understand why you have a hard time closing a sale or managing your team members—and what you can do about it.
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Agency Leadership and the Danger of Impostor Syndrome
- July 28, 2020
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Agency Leader Transformation
Impostor syndrome can get in the way of how we do business and ultimately stunt our growth. If you’re constantly lowering your prices or cutting deals for clients who complain you’re too expensive, or if you’re avoiding a growth step, like a bigger office, because you feel like the gig’s almost up, you’ll never reach your potential as a leader.
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New Language for Our New World: A Pitch Guide for Agencies
- July 13, 2020
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Business Development
The use of more feminine language and adopting more feminine qualities in all aspects of your agency to create a balanced, inclusive approach to business development is what’s needed in the new now. Here’s a free pitch guide for agencies that goes more in-depth on this topic and serves as a how-to.
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How a Virus Will Infect Us With Trust & Innovation… If We Let It
- March 14, 2020
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Agency Leader Transformation
If you’re struggling to find some sense of silver lining to the current state of affairs amid a Coronavirus pandemic, you’re not alone. But, perhaps the following thoughts on the positive impact on our personal lives, teams and businesses, and the environment will offer some peace of mind and a more productive, inspired direction of focus.
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Healthy Client Relationships Hinge on Two Simple Factors
- February 18, 2020
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Agency Leader Transformation
When you establish freedom and respect in the relationship between agency and client, everything else can flow naturally. The more you embrace these at your agency, the more you’ll attract the clients that value them just as highly as you do.
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How Effective Leaders Embrace Vulnerability
- January 23, 2020
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Agency Leader Transformation
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by tough decisions, obstacles, or difficult choices, getting vulnerable could very well save you from drowning in your own concerns and emotional exhaustion. Here are four tips to help you embrace vulnerability.
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Is Your Fear of Success Holding Your Agency Back?
- January 7, 2020
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Agency Leader Transformation
From threat perception and limiting beliefs to imposter syndrome, fear of success can be an incredibly common barrier for even the most motivated agency leaders, and now is the time for transformation.
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Taking the First Step Toward Fulfillment
- December 3, 2019
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Agency Leader Transformation
As you transform yourself, you’ll find your agency transforming along with you. Working on yourself and your business side-by-side accelerates your growth on both fronts. These compiled resources are a great entrance.
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What Wild Horses Taught Me About Trust and Love
- November 7, 2019
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Agency Leader Transformation
If more of us can begin to show up fully to and for others—by being genuine, by trusting at the onset, by communicating honestly about our fears and our willingness equally—how would the world start to change from an energetic perspective?
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The Oxygen Mask Theory (Not a Theory, But a Fact)
- August 13, 2019
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth
We talk a lot about doing what’s best for the team, and sometimes that means putting yourself first. To become a steward of your people, you need to define and communicate your boundaries, be honest about what you can handle, and set an example. You want to cultivate and mentor a group of people who are eager to come to work and do a good job because they know they’re trusted, respected, and encouraged to have high-quality personal lives as well.
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Why Faking Positivity is No Good for Agency Leaders
- July 18, 2019
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth
We live in an Instagram world, where you can scroll through fake positivity for hours. As creative and tech agency leaders, it’s time to get real again. None of us have it all together all the time. Let’s own our feelings and lead by example, and see if it doesn’t inspire growth, trust, commitment, and genuine optimism within your team.
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How To Become a Steward of Your People
- July 8, 2019
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth
You’re not just leading an agency: you’re leading a team of people. When we get caught up in the financial growth, we may forget we have people under our care. Your team is looking to you to lead the way. Are you the type of leader you’d want to follow? And why is that even important?
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Courageous Business Decisions Can Take Time
- June 20, 2019
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Agency Leader Transformation
Any change carries risk, but in the end you’ll often find that you can accomplish more than you’ve dreamed. Pay attention to the details: whom you serve, what challenges you solve, and why it matters. Then, be prepared to take a stand and codify it for all to see.
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Increase Group Engagement with These 3 Ice Breakers
- June 4, 2019
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth
Even groups of people who’ve known each other for ages and are familiar with each other on an ongoing basis can struggle to break past that initial barrier and begin forming meaningful connections. These exercises are intended to disarm the group and start inciting authentic thoughts and emotions.
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Complete Collar Colors: Understanding Consumer Personas
- May 22, 2019
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth
When we work to create buyer personas for our agencies or our clients, collar colors are a critical piece of the business development puzzle. A consumer’s collar segment gives you insight into their culture, mindset, motivations, questions, what they’re ultimately looking for in a product or service—and the buying experience as a whole.
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Sure, We Can Scale Companies, But What About Human Agency?
- May 7, 2019
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth
When we step back and realize that we, as humans, have agency—that is, to make our own choices—we can create a reality where our companies do not define us, control us, or predict what our future might be.
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Optimizing Your Agency’s Online Presence
- April 29, 2019
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth
When a prospect lands on your agency’s homepage, you want them curious, engaged and eventually converted. However, most of our creative or technology agency websites aren’t doing a good job of this and there are several key reasons for that.
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How is Agency Life & Workload Affecting Your Employees?
- April 23, 2019
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth
Creating a work-life balance within your agency can reduce turnover and burnout. When workload impacts employees negatively, they aren’t relaxed or creative. The mental, emotional and physical wellbeing of our teams is essential to their overall wellness and productivity.
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What Do Agency Leaders Really Want?
- March 5, 2019
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth
Running a creative agency, a business model with so many moving parts, can make it exponentially harder to achieve some of our deeply human desires: purpose, happiness, connection, and love. We know what we really want; the question is what changes must we make in order to live a life without regret?
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Do Communities Exist for Agency Operations Managers?
- March 4, 2019
- Posted by: Marcel Petitpas
- Category: Agency Growth
Marcel Petitpas wanted to combine elements from the groups, training programs and live events he’s attended over the years—and create one amazing community specifically for agency operations people.
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What’s the Right Ratio for Agency Management Fees vs. Ad Spend?
- January 15, 2019
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth
There’s no magic ratio for agency management fees versus ad spend. It all comes down to ROI, so it’s essential to track clicks, sales, phone calls, and more. The more business your clients receive from the advertising, the more willing they will be to create a bigger budget and allow you to take a larger percentage of it.
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What’s Your Agency Tech Stack for Operations and Marketing?
- January 7, 2019
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth
Developing the right operations and marketing tech stack is a crucial part of optimizing your agency’s efficiency and profitability. Identifying the tech stack that works for your specific team is essentially how your agency builds its technical foundation.
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7 Ways to Increase Agency Leads with a Chatbot
- December 18, 2018
- Posted by: Greg Ahern
- Category: Agency Growth, Conversion Optimization
From a business perspective, the goals of a chatbot are to improve conversions, keep users engaged, and reduce support and customer service costs. From a customer perspective, the goal is to create a simple environment where users can research and purchase the service they need quickly and efficiently.
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5-Step Pain Filter: Close Contracts During Discovery
- November 19, 2018
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth
Prospects will tell you how to close them if you listen to their challenges, determine what’s most critical to them on an emotional level, and instill confidence about your agency’s positioning and your track record of success for clients just like them.
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5 Prospecting Hacks for Agency Growth
- November 12, 2018
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth
If you have a great service and a streamlined sales process in place, the hardest part is targeting the right prospects. At the end of the day, your time is best spent nurturing your ideal clients and closing deals. Here’s how.
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Digital Agency Staffing for Long-Term Success
- November 5, 2018
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth
There are so many considerations for traditional PR and marketing communications firms to take into account before expanding into digital services. One of the biggest question marks is how expansion translates into digital agency staffing.
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Drop the Hamburger Menu, Your Pipeline Will Thank You
- October 29, 2018
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Conversion Optimization, User Experience (UX), Website Design
The hamburger menu doesn’t deserve its navigation domination. In fact, that minimalist menu may be turning leads away and frustrating your prospects. Here’s why you should skip the hamburger menu on desktop resolutions and relegate it to mobile devices.
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What’s Your Agency’s Prospect Filtering Protocol?
- October 9, 2018
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth
Creating a pipeline with a balanced mix is where you want to be; But first, develop an internal filtering process that’s sharply focused on the type of client that will bring your agency to the next level of success. With a Prospect Filtering Protocol in place, you’ll be partnering with perfect clients in no time.
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8 Ways to Manage Non-Ideal Clients (Before Firing Them)
- September 5, 2018
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth
While it can be frustrating to feel trapped in a spiraling relationship with a non-ideal client, it’s important to recognize these interactions for the improvement opportunities that they provide. If you want a thriving, innovative agency, pull lessons from these client experiences and adapt your practices.
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Is There a Perfect Pipeline Mix?
- August 13, 2018
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth
Bigger isn’t always better, especially when it comes to optimizing your pipeline for new business opportunities. So, what’s the right pipeline mix and where should you allocate your resources for business development?
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Agency Profitability: Journey or Destination?
- August 1, 2018
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth
Margin can illustrate whether or not your agency is well positioned. If it isn’t—because your value proposition is too broad, unclear, or non-existent—you’ll find that you can only do so much to improve profitability.
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How Agency Positioning Impacts Pricing
- July 2, 2018
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Positioning
When you can clearly explain your unique value proposition—how your deep expertise sets you apart from the pack—it ensures that your customers see you as irreplaceable, and worth every penny you charge. In this way, pricing becomes less of the conversation, and in many cases, no longer a matter of negotiation.
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Why ‘Referral’ Can Be a Bad Word
- June 29, 2018
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Positioning
Word-of-mouth marketing and referrals are great for increasing business without having to pay for the client acquisition or do the work of finding and converting a lead. Unfortunately, not every referral is a good one. In fact, they’re rarely good.
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Multilingual Meta Descriptions: To Translate or Not for SEO?
- May 14, 2018
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Search Engine Optimization, User Experience (UX)
If you’re targeting non-English-speaking users, translate every part of your site, including the multilingual metadata. Pay attention to the quality of your multilingual SEO. Consider localization. The details matter, no matter which language your audience speaks and reads.
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Grow Your Email List with Quiz Marketing
- April 10, 2018
- Posted by: Josh Haynam
- Category: Agency Growth, Conversion Optimization
If the average website converts two percent or fewer visitors into leads, quiz marketing can be incredibly effective in growing your email list—which your business can gradually nurture until recipients are ready to become customers.
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The Homepage Approach That Scores the Most Ideal Clients
- April 6, 2018
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Business Development, Conversion Optimization, Customer Personas, Positioning, Website Design
To bring in more ideal clients, let’s ditch the ‘we/us/our’ language and start demonstrating that we understand the world from our ideal customers’ perspective.
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Google To Flag Your Non-Secure Website
- March 12, 2018
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Conversion Optimization, Search Engine Optimization
Even if you don’t handle financial transactions, make sure your site is secured with HTTPS. Why? With Google’s plans, not doing so will be like hanging a sign above the virtual door that says: “Enter at your own risk.”
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Segmenting Clients by Quality: Poor, Core and More
- February 21, 2018
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Business Development, Customer Personas
Beyond segmenting existing clients by demographic information, geography, or service utilization, consider bucketing your existing client base into three categories of quality—Poor, Core and More—in order to grow revenue.
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What Facebook News Feed Changes Mean For Your Business
- February 19, 2018
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Digital Marketing
It’s time to roll up our sleeves and roll with the punches. While other businesses are floundering, with managers slapping their monitors to Make Facebook Work Again, here are some things you can do to keep your content rising to the top and giving the people what they want.
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Net Neutrality + AMP in 2018
- January 9, 2018
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, User Experience (UX), Web Technology
In the face of a net neutrality repeal, AMP could be the thing that keeps you afloat in an unequal Internet world. Investing in this platform addition to keep your site loading quickly, boost user engagement and satisfaction, and future-proof your web presence no matter what comes next.
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Google Content Guidelines: Different Per Vertical?
- November 29, 2017
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Digital Marketing, Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization and digital content guidelines have expanded to include vertical-specific rules, helping to return relevant content to searchers. Google’s verticals use varying guidelines to rank highly on results pages, whether you are trying to have your content appear in a retail search, a news search, or another specific vertical.
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Why is Project Management Vital to Success?
- November 1, 2017
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Operational Efficiency
Great project management means much more than keeping project management’s iron triangle in check, delivering on time, budget, and scope; it unites clients and teams, creates a vision for success and gets everyone on the same page of what’s needed to stay on track for success. When projects are managed properly, there’s a positive impact that reverberates beyond delivery of ‘the stuff’.
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5 Incredibly Effective Backlink Strategies
- October 12, 2017
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Search Engine Optimization
Improving your backlinks is a powerful way to improve your ranking on search engine results pages. Assessing your backlinks is one of the prime ways that Google determines the quality and usefulness of your site. Here are some strategies you can use to get more, quality inbound links and generate more, targeted traffic.
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Top 5 Customer Persona Generators
- September 18, 2017
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Business Development, Customer Personas
When it comes to ensuring that your business attracts and targets only ideal prospects, you should deeply consider who your clients or customers really are at the human level—especially at the earliest stage of the sales lifecycle. Customer personas are the first step in unlocking a world of insight.
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Drastically Increase Lead Conversion with One Change
- August 16, 2017
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Business Development, Conversion Optimization, Lead Generation, Web Technology
If we shift our perspective to realize that lead capture should simply recreate an in-person dialogue on our contact pages, webinar registration and other landing pages, then we need to provide an interactive experience and the line of questioning must be conversational in nature.
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Pay Attention: Voice Search SEO Is Changing Digital Marketing
- July 14, 2017
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Lead Generation, Search Engine Optimization, User Experience (UX)
The current prediction is that by 2020, 50 percent of all searches will be voice-based. By focusing on mobile—and targeting long-tail keywords and featured snippets—optimizing a website for voice search naturally helps improve overall SEO as well. The key takeaway here is that “voice search SEO” shouldn’t be viewed as a separate initiative, it’s merely an expansion or reprioritization of current SEO best practices.
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Which Unknown Prospects Are On Your Website Right Now?
- June 21, 2017
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Business Development, Lead Generation, Web Technology
Many agencies and businesses utilize marketing automation tools that track the behavior and activities of those already in their CRM, but what about the anonymous potential leads visiting their sites each day? Imagine being able to discover unknown prospects—and have their information sent your inbox daily.
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Is Your SEO Strategy Static or Elastic?
- June 6, 2017
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Search Engine Optimization
One of the most overlooked aspects of search engine optimization (SEO) is the fact that it constantly evolves. If you want your SEO strategy to be effective, it needs to adapt. The changing face of SEO should be exciting rather than a burden: Every day, there are new opportunities to reach your ideal audience and delight them with valuable content for mutually beneficial relationships.
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7 Ways Automation Makes Staff Happier (And Saves Money)
- May 30, 2017
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Operational Efficiency
More and more organizations are automating repetitive tasks to make their workflows more efficient—and they’re noticing significant improvements in morale, productivity, and innovation throughout their workforces. Workflow automation gives employees more control of their time, which has an even more dramatic, positive impact that you might have thought.
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3 Ways to Improve Conversion Rate on Your Landing Pages
- May 2, 2017
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Conversion Optimization, Digital Marketing, User Experience (UX)
Landing pages are the backbone of any inbound marketing campaign. As such, it’s worth spending the time to optimize them, so they produce the maximum number of form-fills (or leads). You don’t just want traffic to your site. You want those visitors to take action.
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Top UX Trends, Web Design in 2017
- April 3, 2017
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, User Experience (UX), Web Technology, Website Design
One of the most comprehensive roundup articles on the top trends we’re seeing this year in user experience (UX) and web design, including descriptions and visual examples.
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Google Site Search Retires, Now What?
- March 27, 2017
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Digital Marketing, User Experience (UX), Web Technology
If you use the paid enterprise version of Google Site Search, you will no longer have that option so you’ll need to find an alternative. If your site currently uses the free version, find an alternate immediately because your competitors’ ads could be appearing on your site as we speak. Here’s what you need to know »
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How To Hire An SEO Consultant
- March 13, 2017
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Search Engine Optimization
Maile Ohye, Developer Programs Tech Lead at Google, shares her advice for hiring an SEO Consultant to improve the searcher experience—from initial query on Google and your website’s ranking to user experience once visitors click through and conversion optimization.
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What is Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)?
- March 6, 2017
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Business Development, Conversion Optimization, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation
Conversion optimization specialists cover a range of skills that all affect conversions. From content management systems and survey tools, to web analytics, user experience and technical project management, CRO practitioners go beyond testing to constantly improve conversion results on an organization’s website.
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Top 4 Ranking Factors in 2017
- February 28, 2017
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation, Search Engine Optimization
Last month, Aleh Barysevich of Search Engine Journal put together a great article on how to optimize your site for top ranking factors, based on studies by SearchMetrics, Backlinko and SEO PowerSuite. The following summary includes priority action items for site owners.
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Email Marketing in 2017
- February 9, 2017
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Digital Marketing, Email Marketing
Understand the basic process, best practices and do’s and don’ts of email marketing, mobile-first email design, top trends for 2017, subscriber segmentation, email and blog automation and some of the email marketing software on the market today.
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Artificial Intelligence and Personalization for B2C
- January 26, 2017
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Conversion Optimization, Customer Personas, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation
Can B2C companies create a seamless and consistent user experience across multiple touch points using AI in order to maximize sales—while keeping consumers comfortable with the fact that their behaviors and preferences are being collected, utilized and presented back to them daily?
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What Is Dynamic Content Personalization?
- January 10, 2017
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Conversion Optimization, Customer Personas, Digital Marketing, Web Technology
How Does Dynamic Content Personalization Work for B2B? Automated, dynamic content creates a more personalized, one-to-one sales experience for each prospect. Through web technology, an organization collects data from prospects through landing pages, forms, and progressive profiling. Advanced algorithms dynamically change the content consumption options, format and placement on a website or blog, and delivery -
Top 3 Google Updates For the New Year
- January 5, 2017
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Digital Marketing, Search Engine Optimization
As we ushered in a new year, Google prepared for its latest updates—ranging from resolute to reactive—all in the name of an improved and safer user experience.
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Google Says No More Mobile Pop-ups in 2017
- December 16, 2016
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Digital Marketing, Email Marketing, Lead Generation, User Experience (UX)
Google announced back in August 2016 that on January 10, 2017 it would begin penalizing sites that use “interstitials”—which applies to pop-ups that users have to dismiss in order to continue navigating on a site, as well as advertisements that cover the top half of the page.
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Google’s New Priority: Mobile Search
- October 30, 2016
- Posted by: Kelly Campbell
- Category: Agency Growth, Search Engine Optimization
In its latest update, Google is splitting its index in order to prioritize mobile search over desktop search. Learn how to get your site in shape before the split.
Are you looking to transform or scale your creative, media or tech agency? Are your thoughts, beliefs and actions as a leader holding the business back? Let’s find a time to talk.