Blog | Arque Creative

Your website is your best tool for making a good impression, so keep it looking sharp

Posted by abigail on Thursday, July 29, 2010 - 13:10

Just as you would for a first date, you want to make a good first impression with your website. Why? Because your website is often an initial point of entry for your customers, so you want to be sure to wow them at the start.

Tips for looking sharp…

Be Branded

Whether you’re making a first impression or relating to loyal customers you need to distinguish yourself. Begin by answering the five W’s: Who What Where When Why. What is it that you’re selling? Who’s it for? Why do we need it? Were can we find it? When is it available?
-an example of one of my favorite sites: Case Foundation

Be Brief

We are all pressed for time. On average you have about 3-5 seconds to hook a visitor (convert) on your site before losing them (bounce rate). While what you say is very important (Content is King!) for all sorts of reasons, stating it as succinctly as possible is equally as important.
-2009 Web Marketing Award Winner, Consulting: Landor Associates

Communicate to Each Audience

Use a strategic array of content to communicate your key messages to each target audience. Strike a balance of words, pictures, video (if you have it) and keep your messages simple – one per customer. Also focus your efforts on your Landing Pages. Try to enlist your audience in a Call-to-Action that keeps them on your site and hopefully leads them to make an inquiry or purchase.
- 2009 Web Marketing Award Winner, Architecture: BHDP

Update Regularly

Search engines like dynamic websites; the more you update your content the greater your chances of prompting a search engine to crawl your site. This is a critical component of your SEO and a basic principal of Inbound Marketing.
- 2009 WMAW, Small Business: Peter's Body Shop

Got Question? Post it on Twitter

Posted by abigail on Tuesday, July 13, 2010 - 14:52

One of my favorite things about the Twitter community is a general willingness to be helpful. The perception that Twitter is an ego-induced, non-stop broadcast stream of inane commentary is, in my experience, totally wrong.

To me, it’s one of the best community tools out there mainly fueled by a great sense of otherness and where ‘paying it forward’ is a standard practice. It can also be a really great research tool for your business.

Tweet Your Questions

Earlier today I was trying to think of some way to promote how content strategy really trumps copywriting in online environments. Now, I regularly monitor the ongoing Twitter conversation about #contentstrategy but haven’t seen anything that directly addresses this topic. So I tweeted my Question to the Twittersphere:

In response, two of my followers tweeted that they too were interested in learning the answers. But no further commentary appeared.

Direct Your Question to an Expert

Sooooo, I called in the experts at Hubspot---leaders in the art of Inbound Marketing---and publically invited them to participate in this conversation:

They rose to the occasion and answered with this post:

Thank All Participants

Finally, I was sure to thank everyone who rallied around this conversational topic in a public tweet.

Using Twitter as a research tool is just one of the many ways to optimize your experience. Don’t be afraid to use Twitter as a platform on which to conduct research, collect opinion, and share valuable information.

Please let us know about your results!

What Is Inbound Marketing and How Can It Help Grow Your Business?

Posted by abigail on Monday, July 12, 2010 - 11:21

In today’s Web 2.0 universe a website is your best business-building tool. In order to compete in this arena and boost your online findability, you now must factor in strategy and tactics that actively promote your online presence.

Recent business trends identify this practice as Inbound Marketing. My favorite software-based marketing agency Hubspot defines the principal of Inbound Marketing as follows:

"Inbound Marketing is marketing focused on getting found by customers vs. traditional marketing by which (outbound marketing) companies focus on finding customers." Read more

(image: courtesy of Hubspot)

Inbound Marketing practices turn traditional marketing on its ears by deploying three main tactics:

1.) Creation of sharable content - create strategic content assets such as a blog, video, photo, or slide presentation that conveys information of value to your visitors and helps to showcase your brand.

2.) Sharing of assets across social media channels – using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr and You Tube, share your content assets to a broad community, which in turn, further builds your base of connections.

3.) Optimization of content for the social web – employ SEO tactics that drive more customers back to your website.

(image: courtesy of Hubspot)

In the world of Inbound Marketing Content Is King
Essentially, Inbound Marketing requires that you make an investment in your content. In practice, you must create something of value for your visitors that they will in turn share with their networks. Eventually the cycle comes full circle when their extended network of friends FINDS YOU. Ultimately, if you drive more traffic to your website you increase your chance of selling more of your offerings to more customers.

Does traditional marketing still play a role? Well yes, but Inbound Marketing practices are inexpensive by comparison only requiring your TIME (or a designated employee’s time) to generate great content that gets you noticed.

So what have you got to lose? Start by blogging today!

Great Copy Starts With A Great Content Strategy

Posted by abigail on Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - 11:42

Clients generally ask me for copywriting services; they try to enlist my help in developing their key messages and copy points for their websites and collateral materials. But I find that often what they really need is Content Strategy.

What is Content Strategy? Wikipedia defines Content Strategy as "the practice of planning for content creation, delivery, and governance"[1] and "a repeatable system that defines the entire editorial content development process for a website development project." [2]

A Content Strategist is someone who achieves “the business goals by maximizing the commercial impact of content[4].”

To me, Content Strategy is how we define and develop content to support business-building goals. Content is not just copy but includes what are referred to as Content Assets---blog, photos, video, testimonials, news feeds, White Papers, etc. Successful content strategy shapes the brand story for each target audience while it also addresses business-building goals. Once the strategy is set, then we drill down on specific copy points.

Finally once the content is generated and copy points made, we optimize it for Search Engines. Going forward you want to be sure to measure your website and see what’s tracking and then make adjustments accordingly. If you see for example that no one’s clicking through your site or that your bounce-rate isn’t decreasing then, you will want to make adjustments to your story.

In general you want to keep your content fresh so be sure to update it regularly. This tips off Search Engines and helps boost your SEO. It also cues your visitors that you are active and thriving.

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Google Wants to Own Your Online Life…and Why They Should

Posted by abigail on Saturday, June 5, 2010 - 10:53

Google has steadily been making inroads into our online worlds. Starting with Search they have they have gone on to introduce some really killer programs: Maps, Gmail, Documents, Calendar, Contacts, Blogger, Buzz and their latest offering Sites!

Google Sites is pretty cool allowing you to create a quickie website in only minutes. Some of the themes have built-in functionality such as a blog or calendar making this almost irresistible as an option.

While I still think it’s best to pony up the funds to build a well designed and branded website, this is a great alternative option for special promotions, events or projects. And it’s free of course. Check it out:

Google apps I use in every day life that I cannot live without:

1) iGoogle – this is where I get my primary news feeds and blogs. Google Reader makes it really easy to customize and organize your news feeds. It’s a no brainer. Make this your Browser Home Page and never miss a beat.

2) Gmail – like the rest of my peers, I’ve migrated my email account onto Gmail. Why? Because its so easy for me to access ALL of my emails AND files, remotely.

3) Documents – shared Docs are the way to go when collaborating on team projects. Google Docs makes collaboration a snap.

4) Search – well duh! To introduce an element of fun I actually don’t Search I “Seawch” because I set my Language Tools (or “Wanguage Toows”) to Elmer Fudd ;-)

5) Search Images – when I need a quickie image for a PPT presentation, I hunt for Google Images first.

6) Google Profile – I set up a Google Profile because a) it boosts your SEO and b) it also gives you one place to publish all of your online URL’s – Facebook, Blog, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. See what I mean here: http://www.google.com/profiles/abigailcfisher

7) Maps – can’t live without ‘em! Google IS my GPS.

What’s Buzz all about? Buzz offers real time integration of your email with your social media like Twitter and also sharability with friends in your Buzz network. I haven’t quite gotten it down yet but more when I do.

So thank you Google for providing a great place for us to conduct our online activities! Tell us, what are you favorite Google tools?

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