Ann Siegle

There are so many wonderful open source tools that help clients do a better job on their own marketing: from collaboration (Google Drive, custom calendars shared with clients on Google Calendar) and project management to content management on web sites, to photo creation and editing, to communication and sharing that help you do more of your own marketing. First, let’s define open source: open source derived from a concept that the source code was available for developers to modify. Some…

What is content marketing success? It’s creating great content that inspires, educates and motivates your customers to take action. Whether you’d like them to try a new product, learn how to use the products they have already purchased, or be inspired to use them, content marketing is the way by which customers find – and come to love – your business. Create your content marketing mission statement with the following elements: Produce content around your unique niche in your industry…

A blog should provide the right answers to buyer’s questions. Pictures and videos are a great way to visually express what you are writing about. When deciding on what pictures or videos to use in your blog, the most important thing is to keep it simple but unique. You want people visiting your page to be able to relate and easily grasp the content but also eager to come back and read more. Standing out from others can be difficult, that’s why having…

Lead generation is arguably one of the most important, and frustrating, components of an e-commerce business.  You know the target audience is there, but how do you reach them? Where are they looking for your product or service? And how do you better reach them to develop lifelong, loyal relationships with your customers?  There are so many ways you can generate leads for your e-commerce business, but below are the top 5 stepping stones to optimizing your lead generation strategies. You need…

WordPress is one of the most accessible web site development platforms out there. And it has some impressive credentials – it powers more than 25% of the sites on the internet. That’s truly amazing! Even software development companies use WordPress for their own web sites (and they’re software development firms!) Why? Because it puts the power of a great web platform in the hands of the marketing teams, and gets it out of the busy development and IT departments. WordPress…

SEO is an integral strategy for a successful website, and by following certain guidelines when optimizing your web pages for search, you can make your web page more easily findable to those who are looking for solutions your business offers. Although SEO is just one factor contributing to website (and business) success, by carefully and properly optimizing your web pages, you can make your site more visible to your target audience. A lot of different things go into optimizing web pages,…

Search Engine Optimization.  It’s the daunting three words you see splashed across every blog post promising to drive more traffic to your page and magically create a larger, more organic consumer base. While the potential to reach more people and consequently sell more products is certainly enticing, you might have found yourself wondering what SEO can really do for your business, how much time you’ll have to invest in it, and whether or not you’ll see a positive return on investment.  If…

Over the last decade, social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram have been one of the fastest growing forms of media and communication in the new digital era. For businesses, using social media for lead generation has become a very effective way to market and advertise their products and companies, and also communicate with customers and other companies in a widespread way. If your are in a company which focuses on developing sales leads and nurturing relationships with…

The other day, during a blogging boot camp session with a client, we were working with some top web tools for small e-commerce businesses when first her phone, and then my phone both erupted with ‘cha-ching!’ noises. After the third ‘cha-ching!’ we both laughed and our discussion turned to top web tools for small e-commerce businesses that make that whole ‘cha-ching’ thing work. Our client was utilizing SquareSpace.com for her commerce web site, and upon notification of both a sale from SquareSpace…