Ann Siegle

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…

Designing Your Life (Bill Burnett and Dave Evans) is focused on applying design thinking to build a well-lived, joyful life. Since so much of our work life is a part of our whole life, it makes sense to apply this to our entrepreneurial pursuits as well. What is design thinking? Design thinking encompasses four basic tenets: Curiosity Bias to action Reframing Radical collaboration Let’s explore how you can apply design thinking to your small business (and in turn, your life.) First, the theory…

How do successful associations convert visitors to prospective members to members? A good follow-up e-mail is key for converting a prospective member to a paying member. Once you’ve gotten your prospective member to opt in / sign up on your marketing list – whether by an offer conversion, a subscription conversion or some other method – you should work on converting them to a member, whether paid or unpaid, depending upon your structure.) What goes into an e-mail that converts…

What’s preventing small businesses from getting social media marketing done (right)?  Entrepreneurs are tight on time and are usually in the practice of whatever their business is, not marketing. They know social media marketing is an important tool in their marketing toolbox, but they’re just not getting their social media marketing done. If this sounds like a familiar scenario, you’ll be happy to know there are really only three big things that hold entrepreneurs back from achieving social media success…

Taking photos for your new or upgraded web site or social media marketing sites is one of the most common questions clients ask us. Where do we get photos? Stock photos seem so, well, stock. Our business is not very photogenic. No one wants to be shown in the photos, we’d have to get model releases signed. These are all common objections to leaving a web site devoid of life. If your site doesn’t have photos, it’s not lively. And if…

You’ve been charged with (or determined on your own) to manage your organization’s social media strategy. Seems simple right? Set up a few accounts, start posting, see results. But that’s precisely what will derail your company’s social media success right from the start. As with any good marketing, you need a plan. And once you have a plan,  and learn to follow it,  you’ll be able to see results and modify them for greater social success. Let’s explore what goes…

Let’s explore how to evaluate and change a WordPress theme If you have worked with WordPress even a little, you know that each site can look dramatically different by just a switch of themes. In fact, there are so many great themes out there (and some crappy ones) that switching themes should be a breeze! Evaluating and switching WordPress themes should come with some cautionary statements: “warning: changing themes could mess up your entire site….or make it truly amazing!” If…