July 2012 | Epic Marketing

One Website or Multiple?

Posted on July 13, 2012 at 9:48 pm.

Is it better to have one large website or several targeted websites related to individual products or services you offer? Through our experience with clients across the nation in various industries, we have found that many businesses have multiple websites, but often are not maintained or optimized like they should be. As a general rule, it’s almost always more effective to have one authoritative website rather than multiple, small sites. Why? One website is far more productive for your budget and reaching optimal rankings while also creating brand consistency,

Additional websites are typically created as landing pages with keyword-relevant domain names. For example, a business may have a main domain for their brand name (companyname.com) but have other landing page sites for services they offer with a local keyword in the domain (city+serviceoffered.com). Keyword domain names used to be much more of a ranking factor than they are today. Even if your site has a keyword rich domain, your site won’t rank for those keywords unless it’s probably optimized and trusted by search engines. These landing page sites usually have thin content and a limited number of pages–two things search engines don’t like.

Having multiple sites is generally counterproductive for your SEO budget because instead of all of the effort going to helping your main site rank well, it’s divided amongst a variety of small sites that don’t have a lot of potential for ranking well in the first place.

Additionally, having multiple sites doesn’t help to improve your brand consistency, which is an important part of your overall marketing strategy. Multiple sites promote a disjointed brand image and can also detract from your brand credibility, especially if small sites lack design integrity and aren’t maintained.

In short, you will most likely get better results with one great website rather than multiple marginal sites, even if they do have keyword-relevant domains. In the long run, it will save you a lot of time, money, and effort while trying to help your business get the most visibility in search engines. If you have multiple websites but aren’t sure what steps to take next, contact us today to find out what our SEO team can do for you.

Create Urgency in Your Message

Posted on July 9, 2012 at 9:51 pm.

Written by Nick White

There are several things that your advertising should convey in order to maximize its effectiveness. Creating urgency is one of the important ones.

If you are like most good businesses you have a great product or service but struggle getting people to actually pick up the phone and call? You might need some help in creating a little urgency or exclusivity in your advertising message.

Think of somebody you know who makes a purchase just because something is on sale. Or perhaps it was the last one available so they just had to buy it. Maybe you’ve even purchased something just because it was a good deal that you couldn’t pass up.

The fact is that most everyone acts with this behavior at some point. For some, they end up acting on the deal whether they actually need it or not, but for others, it was just what they needed to hear to get them to take action on a product or service they really needed.

The trick is finding the right context and message to generate this type of feeling from a prospective customer. An urgent message on its own isn’t as nearly effective as one that is used in the proper context the clearly shows how your product or service will affect your prospect. It’s important that your message connects emotionally with them and shows the potential benefits or downfalls of responding to or ignoring their challenges – not just an offer you’re trying to get them to act on.

When it comes to using urgent language in your contextual message, this can be done in number of different way. Most messages with a sense of urgency have to do with limited supply or exclusivity qualifications.

Things like:

First 20 people only
While supplies last
Call to see if you qualify
80% off this week only
Call us for this special offer
Only for serious buyers

Our marketing firm specialized in connecting with people in a why that creates emotion and a desire to buy products and services. Keep these tips in mind the next time you are thinking about what you want to say on your next advertisement.

Can all help to add urgency to your message. If your ads could use some help with connecting with prospects while using a sense of urgency, we can help. Contact Epic Marketing today to find out about our ad creation services.