Our Quarterly Marketing Newsletter: Don't Miss Out!
Excited to get this one out pre-baby.
Time is running out! Click through to read the entire Quarterly here for a glimpse at some of our Summer Site Launches, new Staff Spotlight feature, and our favorites from the Blog Highlight Reel.
Thank you for another wonderful quarter!
Helpful Checklist for Social Media Managers
Ever wonder what else you could be doing for your social media strategy? This checklist gives a glimpse into what great social media managers are doing on a regular basis to ensure the success of their efforts.
We tell all of our clients that just writing posts is not enough. Believe us now?
Is Your Strategy Ready for Google's Panda 4.2?
Google is doing what they do best and that is playing "hide-the-ball" with how to manipulate their search engine. Their newest iteration of Panda < aka Panda 4.2 > is already wreaking havoc on some of my clients rankings even though it was supposed to have an extremely slow roll out. If you are part of the 2-3% of the folks already penalized by the new Panda then this post is for you!
Like with all good, organic SEO strategy the main way to combat the low rankings is what you are <hopefully> already doing: focusing on creating quality content (“be described by 80%+ of visitors as useful, high quality, & unique.”) consistently over time.
The next quick fix (depending on how guilty you are, of course) is to clean up your keywords. Google looks to be punishing sites that are keyword stuffing. Another way to combat this is by mastering the long-tail keyword integration. Sound like gibberish to you? Just think how specific can you make your keywords - that's the answer. Here's a great article on all these items: http://contently.com/strategist/2015/02/24/seo-isnt-dead-its-just-different/
This article also mentions the importance of title pages, URL, and meta description length (page titles should be under 75 characters, URLs under 90 characters, and meta descriptions under 160 characters). Still focusing on Metadata? It has been pretty dead for years when Google realized people were manipulating it in a spammy way. Try cleaning up these items and make sure to give your site ample time to be re-crawled and a new sample of data to come forward.
Still lost? Become a Client of Houston's A Brand Strategy Consulting today and we can get you the help your business needs: either via hourly coaching, consulting, or custom SEO strategy. Whatever works best for you and your budget.
We Do Affordable Logo Design for Small Businesses
Need a Great Logo?
Many people find it daunting to create a logo that represents their business. That's why you should work with a professional. Above is just a small sample of logos we developed in house for our clients. Unfortunately, many business owners opt for the outsourced route using sites like Fiverr to get the cheapest work available. Sadly, these sites give REAL graphic designers a bad name; plus they give you a ton of work shuffling through the endless options while managing someone halfway around the world in a totally different time zone and native language.
Here's a sample of what one round of logo iterations look like. With your feedback we narrow down the selection and make small changes.
Logo design is extremely personal and specific to your needs.
Houston's A Brand Strategy Consulting does logo design after we get to know you using our Q&A process and reviewing some of your inspiration. Then we work with you to move through as many iterations as you need to find you perfect mark. Once we decide on a final design our team provides you with:
- Final creative file (eps format)
- Favicon file
- Avatar
- Style sheet (important for defining fonts and colors to make all your branding match)
- Final logo in PDF, jpg, and png formats
Few logo designers provide this much creative for the price we offer our clients. That's how we are different. Not in Houston? That does not matter! We are happy to email/text/call/Skype/GoToMeeting with you from wherever you are.