Is there a new website in your New Year marketing plans? Here are the latest web trends for 2020 that you’ll want to be incorporating into your web design.

• Oversized lettering/bold typography. Huge typography is gaining in popularity, as website owners strive to simplify web design. 
• Big solid color blocks. Think of familiar Facebook posts with solid color backgrounds. Use these on your homepage in conjunction with photos. Each block can contain a key message, a testimonial or a call to action.
• Split screen content. Do you have several key messages? Easy. Line these up side by side. Think about adding a call to action in the center to tie the two together.
• Asymmetric layouts. Most websites are based on grids, generally (invisible) columns and rows. Web designs that stand out will display broken grid techniques, with design elements placed chaotically. 
• Background video. Animation instead of static background brings your platform to life. Video contributes to your Google authority, or SEO value.
• Hidden navigation. By tucking your navigation away, you can save a lot of real estate for other components. I struggle with this one. We put a serious amount of thought into the navigation so that it has the maximum SEO value and makes it as easy as possible for users to get where they’re going. Now we’re hiding it?
• Flat design. Flat design lacks shadows and gradients. It’s streamlined, efficient and easy to read, but it may be falling from fashion. Another trend that doesn’t make sense.

An overarching design theme: Large elements surrounded by lots of whitespace

White space remains a key design element to showcase a key image or content. Now that white space is making its way into the online form! Think about it–how many times/week do we fill out online forms—to order something, to generate feedback or to get more information. Forms are important components of web interactions; expanding a form so that it takes up more room on the page, making it more inviting, accessible, easier with which to interact improves the user experience. 

Global web trends

Altered reality. Stores and brands are implementing altered reality (AR) into their websites by allowing customers to virtually “try on” clothes, jewelry, makeup, etc. They’re allowing users to rearrange furniture to see how it would look in their homes or offices.

Microinteractions. Look for more microinteractions that are meant to delight us. They’re tiny automated signposts that you’ll see when you: 

• Upload a file, hit the submit button, and see an upload status bar go from 0% to 100%. That’s a microinteraction. 
• Hover over a Call to Action and the color saturates and the button gets bigger–that’s another microinteraction! 

Data. No matter what industry you’re in, it’s increasingly valuable to be collecting our user information, and more web designs will be based on that data.

If you’re thinking about a new website in 2020, contact Top of Mind Marketing.

We can help organize information, develop content, build the site, manage images and help it show up in search engines. We’re writers and content marketing experts.

Holiday Ads That You’ll Want to See Again

It’s the holidays, and we’re ramping up for another season of excess. I always hate the way the media sets us up for failure this time of year. Remember that not all of us are rushing from gala to gala, our arms loaded with expensive gifts. We’re not all getting cars for Christmas, as the ads suggest. I’m not sitting down to my holiday dinner surrounded by my loving family. My family is dysfunctional, and we haven’t seen each other in years. My holiday, as I expect it is for many, will be rather modest, yet I’ve learned to take pleasure in small things that make this time of year special—I love holiday music and lights and time with those I care about. Here are some holiday ads you’ll want to watch again

And those ads? Here are two companies that are totally nailing this

REI: #OptOutside

Last year, REI did something pretty astonishing—they had the temerity to close the doors at all of their stores on Black Friday, perhaps the biggest shopping day of the year. They invited their community to join their employees, taking Black Friday off to do what they love most: being outside! This year, they’re back big time with their #OptOutside campaign in full force. This is so smart—it’s getting attention from big names, including the National Parks Foundation, which is doing its own spin on this campaign. Let’s not forget that millennials are one demographic that love to support cause-driven brands. 

An ad from a German supermarket, Edeka, that’s restrained and endearing

This ad is a tear-jerker. It reminds us that what really matters around the holidays is spending time with those we love.

In the ad, an elderly man prepares to spend yet another Christmas alone

His kids cancel their planned visits at the last minute. We see his chopping carrots, preparing his solitary meal. The video then cuts to his various grown children—all busy with their careers. Then they receive a letter telling them their father has died. When they arrive home, however, they’re greeted by their very healthy father. He says, “How else could I have brought you all together?” The final scene shows the family laughing and talking around the table, sharing a holiday meal with their father.

Other than the delicious meal they share at the very end, there’s no hint that Edeka is a supermarket or that this is ultimately about food. This video generated 33.5 million views on YouTube within a week of posting. 

Good marketing tells a story, reaching people on an emotional level

It takes a commitment to make this kind of an ad. It doesn’t beat people over the head with special offers, free promos or phone numbers to call. The message is more subtle and needs time to develop. 

But stick with this, and you’ll be rewarded 

This is a powerful holiday message—slow down and be grateful for the things worth celebrating in your own life. Wishing everyone a happy holiday and a wonderful New Year.

Politics and Social Media: Who’s Accountable?

A “disinformation-for-profit machine” is Elizabeth Warren’s description of Facebook. Salesforce’s Marc Benioff said the social network “needs to be held accountable for propaganda on its platform.” Privacy regulators around the world don’t know whether to break Facebook up or clip its power. Politics and social media are inevitably intertwined. Who’s accountable? Apparently no one.

Germany has outlawed Facebook’s ad business. In Europe, the region’s top court ruled that individual countries could order the company to take down posts–not only in their own countries, but elsewhere. Several of Facebook’s partners on a cryptocurrency initiative dropped out after regulators complained. The age discrimination lawsuits, Congressional appearances and data breaches keep piling up. 

Zuckerberg remains unfazed by the responsibilities of his role 

Mark Zuckerberg insists that Facebook was founded on the premise of creating community, of giving people a voice. If this was his mission, he has more than fulfilled it. Social media has given us a platform for sharing every miniscule aspect of our lives. Zuckerberg made this a free speech issue, calling up civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King. “I’m here today because I believe we must continue to stand for free expression.” He assured us that this was not about economics: Political ads are a negligible line item in Facebook’s $55.8 billion annual revenue.

In case you missed it, Facebook’s sweeping new policy states that they will not moderate politicians’ speech or fact-check their political ads because comments by political leaders, even if false, were newsworthy. 

Remember that Facebook played a role in the 2016 election

Let’s not forget that Facebook played an important role in the outcome of the 2016 election. Cambridge Analytica, driven by Russian hackers and God only knows who else used Facebook to deploy an aggressive campaign to derail the Clinton campaign. Given the toxic outcome of the effort, you’d think Facebook would be falling all over itself to make sure they remained clear of political associations in 2020. 

Twitter has apparently taken the high road

Twitter’s position is that they will not be posting any political ads. 

• Foreign nationals are prohibited from targeting political advertisements to the U.S.
• Political campaigning advertisers are prohibited from using foreign payment methods.

Not so fast . . . 

The policy may sound simple, but it involves judgments that expose the company’s politics. Twitter has apparently decided that climate change is a political issue, so get this–they will be banning ads about science. Apparently they will be remaining open to taking money from big oil to promote their climate-polluting brands. 

And it’s pretty hard to get past the fact that our country’s President uses Twitter as his primary communication channel. He uses it to hire and fire people and set policy. He’s now averaging 36 tweets/day and that number likely will escalate as the campaign season heats up. We have every reason to expect that he will continue to use Twitter. All of this leaves me a little skeptical of Twitter’s apolitical policy. While they may not be posting ads, their platform, like Facebook’s, will be influenced by politics.

As the year draws to an end, it’s time to think about new marketing efforts

New websites, new initiatives, new campaigns to reach new audiences. Contact Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and internet marketing specialists. 

A Lot to Love in BERT, Google’s New Algorithm Change

Say hello to BERT, Google’s new algorithm change. It’s based on context, and this time, it’s something we may like. I Google everything, so I’m looking forward to this. 

Here’s how Google’s algorithm change is going to work

Currently, Google’s algorithm treats a search string as a bag of words. Google picks out what it considers to be the important words from that string and delivers the results to you on a search engine results page (SERP). In this question, “Who is a great keynote speaker?” “keynote” and “speaker” are more important than “is” and “a.” But eliminating “is” eliminates context. In this sentence, it’s irrelevant. 

Examples of how the algorithm change affects search results 

• “Parking on a hill with no curb.” The old algorithm discarded “no,” in its search and delivered results that referenced how to park on a hill with curbs. The new algorithm recognizes that  “no” plays a critical role in the meaning of this search and delivers results showing how to park uphill or downhill with no curb.
• “2019 Brazil traveler to USA need a visa.” In the past, Google ignored “to” and returned results on U.S. citizens traveling to Brazil. But “to” clearly matters, and Google picks up the difference, returning results for Brazilian travelers to the U.S.

BERT is short for “bidirectional encoder representations from transformers.” It uses artificial intelligence and a motherload of a dataset to deliver better contextual results. More simply, it better understands what you’re actually looking for when you enter a search query.

BERT: The most positive change in five years

Google cautions us to keep in mind that only some search queries will be affected by the algorithm changes. Determining how the algorithm works is still something of a mystery, even to rockstar SEO pros. According to Pandu Nayak, Google VP of research, “This is the single biggest … most positive change we’ve had in the last five years and perhaps one of the biggest since the beginning.”

You should be watching your website closely for any changes to your search rankings and spend some time analyzing keyword context, especially if you try to rank well for longer-tail keyword strings. If your search traffic remains stable but conversion rates dip, that’s a sign at least portion of the traffic isn’t interested in what you provide.

Keep creating good content and providing value

Finally, if you give up and decide that it’s impossible to truly optimize for BERT, keep creating content for people, not search engines. Keep it crisp and clear. Use short sentences that a fifth-grader can understand. Be smart. Be funny. Provide information that helps people do their jobs.

Kudos to Google

BERT is a step in their effort to understand what people want when they search. The more you deliver what people want, the more likely you are to rank high in search results. And really, isn’t that what we all want? 

Planning a new website or marketing efforts for 2020? 

Contact Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and digital marketing experts. 

A New Website—or Maybe Just a Makeover

Are you tired of your dated website but not up to creating a new one? 

There may be a workaround

If your site was built in WordPress, in many cases we can apply a new design theme to achieve a complete transformation. I’m working on one of these projects now, and it’s a remarkably easy solution that dramatically extends a website’s shelf life. Rather than a new website, maybe just a makeover would be the right solution for you. 

My client is a small CPA firm with some specialties—that are not getting promoted

Their site is nearly eight years old. While the new theme is a significant improvement, there remains the matter of new content, images and improved navigation. In the last few years, new partners with unique specialties have joined the firm and it’s time to promote their expertise.

• Besides being a CPA, “John” has a real estate background, does appraisals and works with industry clients to put financial systems into place. Having been a real estate agent, he knows that financials can be somewhat chaotic for real estate industry professionals. 
• “Sarah” is doing some work as an outsourced CFO. She’s working with several of her clients to take a more strategic role. She works closely with the firms’ bookkeepers for day-to-day accounting, which frees her up to take on a more strategic role. Sarah is doing forecasting, putting financial systems in place, analyzing cash flow and taxes. It’s a win-win for clients and Sarah—tax season is relatively stress-free.
• One of the partners has a Ph.D. in taxation and years of experience. He also teaches a class at UCBerkeley. Time to promote this guy! 

Their old site was not showcasing their skills or expertise

My clients launched their site without a thought to SEO or attracting new clients. Like many of us, they were delighted to have it finished! But they know they’ve been missing opportunities. We: 

• Identified lively new images that are representative of their typical clients, and we updated the homepage slider, adding visual appeal and energy to their site.
• Rewrote their bios to showcase their wide range of experience. One partner works with international clients to keep them in compliance with US tax laws. 
• Developed case studies that showcase how they work with their clients. Working with a CPA can be intimidating. People want to know about timing, the process, what they need to bring to their first meeting. They want to know about confidentiality. 
• Updated the testimonial page so endorsements are fully fleshed out.
• Turned the business name into a logo and tagline with use of a more stylish font. It has more marketing presence now.
• Fleshed out the Yoast plugin on the backend to improve SEO.
• Added calls to action, making it easy for a user to contact them for more information.

A series of incremental changes contributed to an important website makeover

If your site is dated and not generating leads, rather than starting from scratch with a whole new site, think of a makeover. This might be a solution for you. 

Contact us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and internet marketing experts. 

Cornerstone Content As Part Of Your SEO Strategy

The term “cornerstone content” has been popping up in SEO discussions. WordPress users have likely seen this as they fill in their Yoast fields. Cornerstone content is the best articles on your site, the pages or posts you want to rank highest in search engines. Cornerstone content is part of your SEO strategy. These articles should:

• Be fairly long and informative.
• Provide insights from different blog posts covering everything that’s important about a certain topic. 
• Inform—not necessarily sell products. 
• Communicate your mission and describe your business.
• Be well written, updated often and rank for your most competitive keywords.

Cornerstone articles help target key search terms

A cornerstone approach can help you tackle your key search terms. If you write a lot of articles on similar subjects, you need to tell Google which of them is the most important. Otherwise, you’ll be eating into your own market share insearch. Providing an internal linking structure among your posts tells Google which article is the most important.

Cornerstone articles should be easily accessible on your website

Users should be able to click straight from your homepage to your cornerstone articles. All your other posts about similar topics should link back to their corresponding cornerstone article. This internal linking structure will increase the chance of your cornerstone content articles ranking in Google searches.

An example of how to implement a cornerstone strategy

I’m in the process of updating my own website to implement a cornerstone content strategy. I write a lot of posts about content marketing that touch on a range of topics, including SEO, branding, social media, industry information and content delivery. I’m a fairly disciplined writer, and I have more than 300 blogs on my website. 

I’m writing one cornerstone article with an overarching title: SEO and Your Website: Writing Content that Search Engines Love. Whenever I write a new post on SEO and content, I will link this to the cornerstone article. I’m putting this article on my homepage to tell Google that this is the most important article about SEO copywriting on my site. This will increase its chances to rank.

Choosing articles to become part of your cornerstone strategy

If you’ve got a bunch of articles from which to choose for your cornerstone article, look for those that are the most current and informative. Do these target the keywords you most want to rank for? Check for readability—something on which Yoast scores us. Think short sentences and short words. Creating internal links is important, and Yoast also scores us on these. Make your copy easy to read and understand. Break it up with plenty of subheads to make it visually appealing. When you look back at what you’ve written, those subheads should tell your story. 

WordPress’ Yoast is a plugin

For full use of Yoast’s cornerstone functionality, WordPress wants you to upgrade to premium level. If, however, you’re tired of getting nickel and dimed for apps, just follow the guidelines I’ve outlined here. 

Find this confusing? 

Give me a call and let’s create an overarching SEO strategy for your content. Contact Top of Mind Marketing. Writers and content marketers. 

Easy Tips for Optimizing Your Linkedin Company Page

A few weeks ago I wrote about creating a LinkedIn company page—the page that’s about your company rather than you, as an individual. Let’s talk about optimizing that page so that it’s consistent with your brand and overall online presence and that it’s optimized so it contributes to your Google authority. Here are some easy tips for optimizing your LinkedIn company page

1. Provide comprehensive information in your profile fields 

LinkedIn’s profile and page content is searchable by users from both within and outside the LinkedIn platform. That means that users don’t have to be logged into LinkedIn to find you. This dramatically ups the game. You want to make sure you’re not missing opportunities to promote your business. 

Contact information changes and our business focuses evolves

Make sure your website URL and other information are correct. I try to check my company description every six months or so to make sure this is how I want to be positioning myself. In this section, you can identify up to 20 specialties and three hashtags. These specialties are your keywords, so be thoughtful and thorough. These will help direct the right traffic to your page. 

2. Personalize your LinkedIn Page URL 

All company pages and profiles are given a standard-issue LinkedIn URL, but you can create a vanity URL. In the upper righthand corner you’ll see an “Admin Tools” dropdown. Click on this, then “Public URL”. You’ll be presented with a field to fill in your proposed URL. If someone else already has your URL, you’ll have to get a little creative.  

3. Add or update your background image

If you don’t have a background image, it’s time to add one. It provides polish and visual texture. Choose an image that’s reflective of what your company does. Make this a distinctive banner, perhaps including a call to action. Image specs: jpg or png file, 1536 x 768 pixels. 

4. Make every character in your headline count 

Appearing immediately under your company’s name, your page headline is prime real estate when it comes to communicating your brand message. For both personal and company profile pages, your headline needs to grab readers’ attention and make them want to read more. LinkedIn profile headlines have a 120-character limit. Do test this on mobile to see how it looks.

5. Optimize your page content for both humans and search engines

LinkedIn wants you to think of your company page as a central location where people can find out more about your organization. Create both an overview and accompanying page content which tells your business’s story in a compelling way. Frontload your company’s overview, as this is the content that will be visible to users across devices.

6. Be on the lookout for new features

LinkedIn’s on the move, and they’re providing a lot of value. You may want to sign up for their newsletters to leverage some of their tools—many of them completely free. Next up: Showcase pages.

Do you have questions about using social media for your business? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and internet marketing experts.