Red Kite Creative

call to action

Weekly Links Roundup – Old Redirects, Nonprofit Sites, Calls to Action, Hacked Sites

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The top website and online marketing links of the week.

When is it safe to remove old redirects within your site? The answer may surprise you – it could be ‘never.’ Learn how to judge if it’s okay to remove that old redirect or not.

Do you have a nonprofit website? If you do, this post is for you! Read about the 10 features every nonprofit site should have, including:

  • Ways to donate or become a supporting member
  • Members-only content
  • Clear calls-to-action to get people to join or donate
  • If you recruit volunteers, easy access to volunteer info

Check out the linked post for more ideas for your nonprofit site.

And speaking of calls-to-action, how do you know if yours are as effective as they can be? Read this guide to the best calls-to-action for your target audience.

If your WordPress website got hacked, how would you know? This infographic shows you 7 key signs of a hacked site. If you need help keeping your site secure, please get in touch! Prevention is almost always less expensive than recovering from a hack.

Did you find this information useful? Please share with your friends and colleagues! And comment below with questions or observations.

Weekly Links Roundup – Non-profit Newsletters, Testimonials, Improving Conversions, Calls-to-action Best Practices

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The top website and marketing links of the week.

If your business (in any industry) has an email newsletter, you might find yourself hard-pressed to find something interesting to write about every month (or week, or whatever your timetable is). Here’s a guide to developing newsletter content for non-profits that will help readers better understand and connect with you.

I always encourage clients to display testimonials on their websites – they can be a powerful persuader for potential new customers. Research shows that 70% of consumers will trust an online opinion of even someone they don’t know personally. But – there are good and bad ways to handle testimonials that impact their effectiveness. Learn how to manage testimonials.

One good way to improve conversions on your site is to make it a journey, not a set of pages with no guidance. Use a call-to-action to take your visitor where you want them to go, and use internal links to bring them deeper into your site. Get more tips on improving conversions.

And since we’re talking calls-to-action, here’s a post detailing CTA examples and best practices. See how seven other sites do it, and do it well.

 

Friday Link Wrapup – Resigns and SEO, Calls to Action, Email Templates

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The top website and marketing links for this week.

Your site may be outdated.  It may no longer provide a great experience for users or you may have noticed conversions are decreasing. If you’re at the point where you’re seriously considering a website redesign, you probably already know that the risk of wiping out some of your SEO efforts is a real possibility. Learn how to do that redesign without damaging your SEO.

Speaking of redesigns… they provide an excellent opportunity to reconsider – or beef up – your calls-to-action. Here’s a nice collection of 30 good call-to-action examples for inspiration.

Let’s just continue with this theme… if you have an email newsletter for your business, when’s the last time you took a look at it from the perspective of your readers? Here are some simple ideas to update your email design to make it more interesting and engaging.

And finally, one more from Constant Contact… a quick guide to adding some variety to your usual email template for holidays, special sales, or other notable departures from your typical newsletter.

Friday Link Wrapup – Ideal Customers, Missions, Conversions

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The top website and marketing links for this week.

Creating user personas is something done often when designing a website, but it can also be very useful for business owners. Here are 6 steps to identifying and targeting your ideal customer that walk you through it.

Considering a redesign of your site? Before you do it, clarify the mission of your site to help you focus on what’s most important. Make it crystal-clear what you offer and what you want people to do on your site.

And finally – need more conversions on your site (who doesn’t)? Here are 4 quick tips on design and content changes that can help you do just that. The one thing I see very often in sites is missing calls-to-action – buttons or very obvious text links that help the user do exactly what you want them to do, like buy a product, sign up for a mailing list, or request a quote.

Friday Link Wrapup – Google Analytics, Mind Mapping, Getting More Clients

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The top website and marketing links for this week.

Here is a very, very basic overview of Google Analytics reports for beginners. This doesn’t go into detail – just provides a nice intro on three key default reports. And here’s a chart for learning your way around the features and controls in a report.

Learn how including some kind of penalty (limited time or supply) can increase clicks of your call-to-action buttons.

A few weeks ago I found this great, very simple to use mind-mapping app from Google. It’s called Coggle, and it’s a great way to diagram complex information for yourself or for a team.

Finally, a short article about turning prospects into paying clients by offering possible solutions of varying cost and effectiveness. It’s all about understanding their problems, not pitching your services willy-nilly.