Put the Web to Work

What Can You Expect For 2015? There’s no doubt about it: establishing a solid social media presence is a crucial step for a successful business. According to Hubspot (inbound marketing software company), Twitter currently reports 284 million users and Facebook boasts 1.32 billion. Social media for business grew at an explosive rate during 2014, and the growth is expected to continue throughout the coming year. Here is a quick look at some of the social media trends we can expect to see in 2015. Have Great Visual Content – It Will Help With Interactivity! In today’s extremely visual world, having visually engaging social media content is absolutely critical. Visual content continues to lead in interactivity with posts, and videos have seen a significant increase in popularity as well. Businesses who are incorporating videos into their marketing campaigns via social networks such as YouTube, Vine, and Instagram are seeing major increases in consumer interaction. Informal vi...

Having a great web presence is no longer optional!  If you want to see your business grow, you need to be able to be found online. With all the websites out there, many of them your competitors, it's important that you have a quality website with great content. Not only will your customers be judging you based off your online presence, but search engines will as well. Quicksprout  explains 10 key elements you need to create a high quality website: 1. Relevant Content Out with the keywords and in with the content. Google is now moving towards analyzing content and topics as a whole, rather than just looking at keywords. According to SearchMetrics, Google's algorithm recognizes high quality, relevant content and rewards it with higher rankings. Therefore, you should focus on developing content for users, no search engines. 2. Content Length Top ranking sites have 900+ words of content per page, so focus on developing longer content. From an SEO perspective, blog ...

According to the Pinterest for Business blog, nearly 2 million people save product pins to one of their boards every single day.  They don't just dream about having those things though, many of them actually purchase them. Data from Nielsen shows that 93% of shoppers shopped online within the past 6 months.  Wayfair's research showed that pinners spend 50% more on average than other social channels and they'll also spend 20% more than those referred by non-social channels such as search.  So how do you get these pinners' business?  Get your business noticed on Pinterest with these 14 Pinterest marketing tips! 1. Title Boards with Keywords Pinterest is similar to a search engine because people can type in certain keywords to bring up the pins they are interested in.  You can make your boards more finable by using some of your keywords in the board titles.  For example, MSW Interactive Designs has a board labeled Social Media Marketing and another lab...

You keep hearing about businesses blogging, but why are they doing it? You've probably read a blog or two, maybe even without realizing it was a blog.  The idea of business blogging is to get great content out in front of your customers. With the increase in social networking, blogging is vital to your online marketing strategy.  Here are 4 main reasons you need to start a business blog today! 1. Increase Your Search Engine Rankings Fresh content is one of the key factors that Google looks for when ranking websites.  Although updating your website is important, writing a blog gives you the opportunity to put even more great content out there.  Incorporate the keywords that your customers are searching for in your blog content.  Every time you publish a new blog, its one more cue to Google that your website is active and they should be crawling it regularly to see what content they should rank.  Through our client social media marketing here at MSW I...

Veterans Day is a national holiday paying tribute to all American veterans.  It originated as "Armistice Day" on November 11, 1919, the first anniversary of the end of World War I.  In 1926, Congress passed a resolution for an annual observance and November 11 became a national holiday beginning in 1938. Originally the concept of the holiday included parades and public meetings, with a brief suspension of business beginning at 11 am. Today, many of these traditions still take place and many businesses shut down for the day. Thank You to Our Veterans!  The team here at MSW Interactive Designs , would like to thank all of our veterans for everything you've done for our country!  A special thanks goes out to one of our owners, Mike Waggett! Colonel Michael L. Waggett Colonel Michael L. Waggett retired as the Commander, of The I.G. Brown Training and Education Center, McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base, TN in April of 2009.  He entered this position...

If you don't have a website for your business, you're a little bit behind the times.  If you have a website, but it was built 10 years ago, you're probably still behind!  Your website needs fresh, updated content in order for it to work for your business. Google is looking for fresh, relevant content to place at the top of its search results and that's just one of the many reasons you should consider updating your website! 7 Reasons to Update Your Website 1. Search Engine Rankings - Are you showing up on page 1 of Google for the terms people are searching for to find your business?  If not, you need to consider those keywords people are searching for and update your content to include those.  If you're a website design company at the Lake of the Ozarks , you want to be on that first page when someone types "web design Lake of the Ozarks" into their Google search box.  When 75% of users aren't clicking past the first page of search results, you ...

Allow us to brag a little!  Each week, we try to offer great tips for improving your web presence via a great website, robust social media activity, mobile websites, as well as great search engine optimization tips.  This month however, we’d like to do a little bragging about our team. We have been members of the Lake Area Chamber of Commerce for 6 years and during the annual dinner a couple weeks ago, we were honored to be selected as the Small Business of the Year 2014! How did we do it?  We believe MSW Interactive Designs achieved this award through the efforts of ALL of our outstanding team members: Owners, Mike (Sales Dude)  & Sandy (Web Chick)  Waggett;  Web Chick (& Secret Weapon), Sherrie Thompson; Social Media Aficionados, Erin Burdette, Bailey Campanini, & Kate Wright; and our Accounting/AR team, Duane & Jane Grierson.  We have been fortunate to hire true superstars who have helped our clients achieve great succe...

The first step in setting up a Facebook business page is to choose which type of business page you'll need.  Facebook offers a wide range of business page types and each one is setup a little differently. Choosing the category that best suits your business will result in a greater chance of success for your Social Media Marketing campaign.  Check out each of the 6 types of Facebook page types below to decide which one is best for your business! Local Business or Place  If you have a physical storefront and you want people to come visit you at your location, you should select "Local Business or Place" as your page type. This is probably the most common page type. From there, you will be able to choose which category best matches your business. If none of the categories work for you, you can simply choose "Local Business." Now you can start entering in your business information.  With the "Local Business or Place" page type, you will have extra o...

Did you know that roughly 90% of consumers claim that positive online reviews influence their buying decision and 86% say negative reviews influence them?  In today's digital world, where many decisions are made online before even stepping foot in your place of business, online reviews are of the utmost importance.  People everywhere are sharing their opinions online through Social Media and everything they say does have an impact.  While many businesses focus on what to do about a couple bad reviews, the best thing to do is combat them with more positive reviews.  Here are a few tips to gain more reviews from your best customers: 1. Just ask your customers for a review.  The best way to get reviews is to simply ask for them.  As long as your customers are happy with your product or service, presenting them with an opportunity to give you a review is a great idea. Many customers may be extremely happy, but writing a review just doesn't cross their m...

A few years ago having a website for your business was a new thing, but today having one is crucial! You need to be where your customers are and they are spending a lot of time online.  Whether on their phone or on a desktop, people are searching the web for businesses constantly.  The average person spends over 2 hours per day online!  If that doesn't convince you that you need a business website , here are 4 more reasons: 1. Competition.  Chances are your competition has a website.  If they're properly marketing that website, this give them a huge advantage over you.  For example, if someone just moved to the area, they might be looking for a local doctor.  When they search for "doctor at the Lake of the Ozarks," your competitions website comes up and you don't have one.  That person is more likely to call that doctor than you.  In today's day and age, the internet is often the first place people go to find what they're looking for. ...

Social Media has become a crucial part of marketing strategy for many businesses.  Many businesses are on Facebook and even Twitter, but should you be doing more?  Of course you should!  Google+ has worked its into the top 5 social networking sites.  If you're looking for more website traffic and to build your brand's awareness, Google+ is the place to be!  What is Google+?   Most people know what Facebook is by now and many of you know that Twitter only lets you post 140 characters at a time...but what exactly is Google+? Although its kind of like all these other platforms wrapped into one, Google+ is a completely different experience.  When it comes to businesses, Google+ allows you to create pages and develop tighter relationships with your prospects and customers. Individual users can add your brand to one of their circles, share your business page with their network and interact with the content you've posted. Reasons Your Business Needs...

Most people know the importance of having a website in today's day and age. However, many of you haven't come to realize the importance of social media and how it can help your business. Not only will social media marketing help you build relationships with your customers, but it will also help that awesome website you have rank better!  Here are few social media marketing questions that we get asked on a regular basis: 1. Why should I do social media marketing for my business? As the technology world has grown and changed, Social Media is now critical for businesses.  Not only is it another way to be found, but you can engage your prospective customers.  By interacting with your customers through Social Media, you build relationships.  In addition to engagement, Social Media has a large impact on your search engine rankings.  The more social signals you have pointing back to your website, the more Google is going to see it as a website with relevant con...