People always ask if we develop websites. We do, but for us, developing a beautiful website is more of a means to an end than the ultimate end goal. You have to have a website that makes sense for your business, looks great, and works before we can start driving traffic to it that eventually turns into sales. There are many tools out there that have made building a great looking website fast, cheap, and fairly easy. Mopro is a great resource for small business owners looking to modernize their look quickly, and they even have some added support. Plus, it only costs $199/mo. They can add stock images that move around the homepage or video for an added flare. Otherwise, yes, we can build you a custom website if it’s a good fit or refer you to a company that specializes in what you're after, depending on your needs.

Coming up with a good keyword strategy is difficult, especially in this day and age when everyone knows the benefit of having their site search engine optimized. With every site on the Internet trying to lay claim to their own little space on the search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) it becomes incredibly important to know how you can get yourself near the top of the results pages. With that in mind, here are six important tips to take into account for your search engine optimization.

Intriguing offers that are relevant to your personas' interests and pain points are a crucial second step in the inbound methodology: convert. On average, Hubspot customers following best practices convert 2% of website visitors into leads and 6% of those leads into customers. So for every 1,000 visits, you should be converting one new customer. Again, that's an average, so it can vary by industry and company, but overall I'd say it holds true. That being said, if your offers aren't performing well and your website is converting less than the average 2% of website visitors, you're probably not getting very many leads per month, even if your traffic is pretty solid. By adding a few more enticing offers to your website, you can solve that problem. Here are some ideas:

Possibly the most important thing you will need if you are planning on selling anything is a buyer persona. A persona represents the ideal customer looking to buy your product, service, or concept. Without one, you will be stuck trying to find your way in the dark. That is why they are so important; they help illuminate what prospects you want to attract, where those prospects will be searching for information, what content you want to create, and why you are making your content beyond a need for profits. A good way to look at the process of creating a persona is to think of the five Ws and the H as your questions—Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How—as a guide for making the right persona.

The thought maybe running through your head is, "How can inbound help me with my marketing?” It’s a fair question, but the real one should be, “How can’t inbound help me with my marketing?”

The original angle I had for this blog was about my 10 favorite barbecue recipes because well, it's summer in Texas and grilling outside is one of the best parts about it. Anything grilled or smoked with barbeque sauce is always amazing. Plus, I got a new cookbook a few months ago in the Texas Hill Country on a wine tour, and every recipe I've made from it has been better than the last. I also wanted to write about it because I'm a big believer in digital marketing being human and real, and not just for robots that don't have feelings or do things without computers. :) Believe it or not, all of us geeky marketers do actually still do many "normal" activities that don't involve computers like eating, cooking, and entertaining. Good food is something everyone can appreciate (although some of us do probably Google more recipes than others...or use apps like AllRecipes' dinner spinner to find ideas).

Search. This is something that has not only seemed like a vague, mysterious world for anyone outside of marketing but also to many marketers for many years. I know many who have, dare I say, pretty much abandoned search engine optimization (SEO) strategies because they don't really trust what anyone is saying out there about what really works. They believe they're just going to end up going into a rabbit hole and never getting that time back in their life.

They say the only constant in life is change. This couldn't feel more accurate than at this point in my life and is probably truthful for most people reading this post. I remember recently telling someone I'm so used to change that it actually doesn't even phase me anymore. When I log into different systems and it all looks different from the day before, it's more expected than a surprise. I just simply have to quickly figure the changes out and move on.

Whew! That’s all I can say after revisiting my notes from creating DMD’s recent webinar series and reflecting on all that went into it to reach the goal of one new client.