There is a mistake so grievous and yet so simple that it costs businesses of all sizes billions of dollars per year. In advertising budget. In lost sales. In lost customers. No one is immune to the problem – I’ve seen Fortune 500 corporations fall victim to this as often if not more so than […]
One Little Mistake that Costs Businesses Billions Every Year Read More »
Fall is just about here and that means a few things for homeowners. First, you can finally turn down the AC and start saving some money on your electric bill. Second, it’s time to go into maintenance mode and prepare for the upcoming winter. One of the most common fall tasks for homeowners is gutter
One of the most challenging issues for those that are interested in adding content to their website is coming up with ideas. We at Great Leap Studios have years of experience writing hundreds of articles for various clients, but even with all that experience, we know how challenging it can be sometimes to come up
Examples of Carpet Cleaning Content and Blog Post Ideas Read More »
What exactly does it take to trigger someone’s desire to contact you? This is one of the first questions I ask myself when we take on a new client. What one thing can I do that will convince a homeowner with a leaky faucet or a business owner in need of a new accountant to
Three Things Every Website Visitor NEEDS to See Before Contacting You Read More »
When it comes to promoting a business online, building a website, and generating traffic, there are quite literally hundreds of things you can do. But sometimes you find synergy between a handful of things and they work together perfectly. This week, on the GLS Content Marketing Podcast we talk about two such synergistic pairings –
Peanut butter and jelly. Shawn Spencer and Burton Guster. The Seattle Mariners and massive disappointment. There are some duos that make perfect sense – pairs that work extremely well together. In the online marketing world, there is one pair of tactics that also seems like a perfectly complementary duo – ad retargeting and content marketing.
Ad Retargeting and Content Writing – The Perfect Dual Strategy Read More »
Recently I was listening to a radio station on my way to San Francisco that advertised a small business branding workshop in Modesto. It was a bit surprising, because the radio station was kHOP, which is a pop music station that I wouldn’t normally associate with small businesses. Still, anyone can start a business these
A client of ours recently wrote asking for a press release to promote an eBook we developed about six months ago. The eBook was done, she had her ducks in a row and she was ready to push out a press release to get some coverage. But she wanted it overnight. Now we can accommodate
How to Avoid a Costly, $300 Mistake When Writing Your Online Press Releases Read More »
At Great Leap Studios, we often research keywords for our clients, and we tend to know how to find and develop content plans based on those keywords. In general, we’ve been very successful – most of the content we write works exactly as planned, and the keywords we target tend to be profitable. But every
Case Study Story: Keywords You May Not Have Considered Read More »
Becoming a successful content writer is not easy. As tempting as it is as a career (flexible schedule, good pay, fun work), it also requires a level of personal motivation and effort that most people cannot handle without someone looking over their shoulder. That’s why as soon as you start content writing, you should give
Content Writer Tip: The Short, Imaginary Deadline Read More »
Three months ago a close friend of mine asked me for a favor. He needed to get more traffic to his company’s website. They couldn’t afford to hire anyone so he was asking as a friend, just for a bit of friendly advice. “What one thing can we do that will have the biggest impact?”
How to Get a Guest Post on a Major Industry Site Read More »
Our industry is one that seems easy on the surface but is much harder in practice. Many, many people want to become content writers because of the freedom, fun, and simplicity of writing. The vast majority fail miserably, with many quitting within the first month. It’s not that writing is necessarily difficult – although it
One of the best forms of content any company can generate, add to their website, or solicit is a testimonial. In terms of raw value, a single testimonial is worth a thousand articles and yet so few companies have a good system in place to followup with recent or current clients to get those testimonials.
Brand development is an important part of every company. Studies have shown that consumers are far more likely to work purchase products and services from those that are known and familiar, so the more exposure you can get for your company/brand, the more likely these individuals will use your product or service. It’s the reason
Brand Development Tips: Content Marketing and SEO Read More »
The Great Leap Studios Content Marketing Podcast is back. This time around, we talk about a lot, but mostly we talk about how to get the very best ideas on the screen for your blog posts, content pages, FAQs, Facebook posts, etc. Every week we get questions from clients and prospects about how to generate
Web designers, developers, marketing teams, and more all offer important services for their clients. It’s their goal to help their clients gain visibility, using the various skills they offer to assist their clients. Each of these types of companies offers an undoubtedly valuable service. But the more they can offer these clients, the more their
Creating Writing Partnerships for Upsell and Added Service Read More »
Tell me if this sound familiar: Someone told you that Facebook was a MUST for a small business owner. So you created a Page, added a few images, invited all of your friends and employees, and linked to it from your site. Now your Facebook Page just sits there collecting dust and you wonder why
The 10 Minute Solution to Managing Your Company’s Facebook Page Read More »
Google Analytics is an immensely powerful tool. It allows you to see almost exactly who is visiting your website, how they got there, what they are looking at when they are there, and what triggers certain actions – from signing up for an email list to buying your product. But Google, as they are wont
The Three Most Important Numbers in Your Analytics Account Read More »
One of the most common questions I get from new clients is what do I need from them. It varies and we can do quite a bit without client input – research is part of what we do and we’re very good at it. But at the top of the list for suggestions and requests
How to Create a Home Services Specific Content Calendar Read More »
Recently I had a bad experience with Comcast, one of the leading television and phone service providers. It started when a technician hung up on me on purpose when my call was taking a while (terrible acting – actually yelled “Oh shoot, I dropped the…” and then hung up), and continued when I was sent
The Titanic of Incompetence: Comcast Support and Why Customer Service Matters Read More »
One of the most effective ways to generate interest in your company, connect with prospects and build an audience that legitimately trusts you to provide useful, authority information in your niche is to start a company blog. But simply starting a company blog is not the same as running a successful company blog, and as
I have a dog. He is amazing. His intelligence, personality, and temperament are exactly what someone wants in a dog, to the point where at least 3 others that have spent time with him have decided to get dogs of their own. He’s also one of my best coworkers, and while there are a lot
I’m not going to tell you a website is make or break for your business. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. But regardless of how MUCH importance a website has, the simple fact remains that it IS important. It is 2013 and a good sized chunk of your audience is online, researching companies just like
7 Five Minute Tasks That Increase Traffic to Your Website Read More »
There are a lot of companies these days that still don’t have a website. You need one. While so much of the focus on the benefit of websites is the free marketing from showing up in search engines, the truth is that you need a website simply because without one, people can’t search for your
Website hits are not the only part of improving a business. In fact, those hits become much less important if your website is not converting, and while there are some companies that do anything they can to get hits, the reality is that success is based on quality of hits and conversions, not any overall
3 Completely Acceptable SEO Tricks That Work – Sort Of Read More »
Most companies understand the value of a website. These days anywhere from 50 to 80% of your potential customers will look for companies just like yours online, and if you’re not the first companies they find, they’re not going to choose your business. If you don’t have a website, you’re missing out on a lot
Content Never Sleeps: Running a Business When You’re Done With Work Read More »
Google Places is a new-ish feature of the Google search engine that affects search engine placement of local businesses. It’s existed in various forms for a while, but within the past year it has essentially taken over front page results, adding about 10 or so listings in the middle of a search page and pushing
About a half a decade ago, all incoming links were important, and the best way to get incoming links was to buy them or comment on articles. You could generate dozens of links in little time, and you didn’t have to do much for it to work. Then everyone was doing it and Google stopped
Great Leap Studios is based in New York. But we have clients all over the world, and a satellite office in California. It’s from this satellite office that we discovered how badly Fresno is in need of a search engine optimization company to market its businesses to Fresno residents and across California. What is Content
Fresno SEO and Content Marketing – A Forgotten Location Read More »
YP, formerly known as the Yellow Pages, now offers website rentals for small businesses. YP creates a small, five page website for your company and charges close to $100 a month. For companies that don’t have a website, this may seem like a steal. After all, you get an attractive, mobile ready website almost instantly,
When a client contact us to take over their content marketing, we often warn them that it can be slow. We don’t know what’s been done on their website in the past. We don’t know how Google responds to new content on their site yet. We don’t know when Google will reward the content. We’ve
Some content writing is less than glamorous. In some cases, you’ll find yourself writing the same exact piece of content over and over again, each time with new words and a new angle in order to make it seem like it is different content. After the first few, rewriting the content can become challenging. You’ll
3 Strategies to Make Repetitive Content Writing Easier Read More »
My business partner and I are proud to be one of the only content marketing podcasts on iTunes today, and we want an opportunity to hear from you. Our podcast is called “GLS Content Marketing Podcast” because titles of things are clearly our specialty, and it’s available on iTunes and Libsyn for those that are
Are You Listening to Our Content Marketing Podcast? Read More »
Many companies succeed by offering a superior product. Before someone purchases a phone, for example, they weigh the pros and cons on the types of phones available in order to figure out which one they want to use for the next two years. Most phone lovers are unlikely to use a Samsung on a whim
Locksmith Marketing: The Value of SEO for Locksmiths Read More »
In the past, most small businesses paid someone to create their own website, occasionally investing in content writing and marketing to try to help it rank well in search engines. These companies were unfortunately starting from a place of little knowledge in the online marketing industry, so often these websites were fairly barren, rarely received
Sometimes there is value in cleverness. Even if you run a business not usually associated with showing its personality, there can be a usefulness in making sure that something about yourself – or your company – shines through. It’s the reason that social media is considered a big part of any new business. Social media
BREAKING NEWS: Clark Kent Quits Daily Planet. Also, Superman Takes Up Blogging! Read More »
There are a lot of myths out there about content marketing. Seriously, some of these are ridiculous. If you’ve ever been to a forum or blog about SEO or marketing in general, people will toss around all sorts of myths about things like duplicate content, content volume, the length and formatting of that content and
Podcast Episode 5 – Top 5 Content Marketing Myths Read More »
Recently we’ve been exploring businesses and industries that would make a fortune if they had a better online presence. Without any other introduction, let’s talk about tanning salons. The tanning industry is immensely profitable. Yet tanning beds in general tend to be one-size-fits-all. Most choose a tanning salon for one of three reasons: Convenience Price
“Storage Wars” has changed an entire industry. Not only has it drawn attention to storage auctions and the value of storage buying – it has also brought more attention on storage itself, and the ability to rent storage lockers to house your extra belongings. Storage rentals may not seem like a “company” in the traditional
Not all site content is targeted for a keyword, or designed to rank well in search engines. When I write about a Case Study, like I did in the previous post, it’s purpose isn’t to show up for the term “case study” and attract millions of dollars in business. It’s simply a post to build
