Why are reviews important?

According to Nielsen, 92% of consumers trust suggestions from friends and family more than advertising. Also, 88% of consumers trust online reviews from complete strangers as much as recommendations from people they know. Researching a business and its products is very easy to do, and so most people will take the time to vet a company before making a purchase. Simply put, positive reviews can drive sales.

This is the first installment in a 2-part blog series explaining best practices to design an effective landing page.

Promoted pins from Pinterest rolled out to the public on January 1^st to help small and large businesses connect to the folks that might be interested in their products and messages.  Previous to 2015 Pinterest had tested this feature for a couple years and only a handful of large companies were able to access it, but those companies have noted large spikes in site referrals and web traffic from Pinterest during the course of those campaigns.  So should brands start to utilize promoted pins?  Absolutely, Pinterest is one of the top referral traffic generating websites, so raising brand awareness through promoted pins would be a particularly smart move for many brands.

As we celebrate the holidays, spending time with family and friends and enjoying all the great holiday food, we can’t help but think of those that may not be so fortunate. Everyday in South Jersey, more than 200,000 people are not sure where their next meal will come from. Of that number 35% are children who after eating at school may come home to an empty plate,  and 12% are seniors that are making the difficult choice of whether to eat or pay for medicine. The rest are working families that don’t have enough to pay bills and keep three meals per day on the table.

Ebay has stopped utilizing Google AdWords for mobile devices and instead started to use Microsoft’s Bing Ads.  Prior to that, in a financial call with investors over this past summer, Ebay disclosed that Google penalties had cost the company an estimated $200 Million.   There is some speculation that Ebay’s decision is a direct result of the penalties, though Google has not admitted to taking any manual action against Ebay.  I sat down with WebiMax CEO and Digital Marketing expert Ken Wisnefski to try and decode this whole situation and what it means for all parties involved.

Mobile technology has given people the tools to reach into their pocket and get all the pertinent info they need to make a smart purchase whether a product is on the shelf in front of them, or they are planning a trip and looking to book a room.   The rise of mobile has yielded smarter consumers who do research before they buy and who read online reviews from other consumers.  In fact, an overwhelming 90% of customers claim that reading positive online reviews influenced their purchasing decisions, according to a survey conducted by Dimensional Research.

As online marketing has steadily moved from being an afterthought to the forefront, we here at WebiMax have noticed a gap developing in business owner’s understanding of how to successfully manage the ever-evolving world of online marketing and their ability to support that with more traditional advertising or offline techniques.   We see companies struggling to figure out where they should focus their efforts as well as their budget and time.   We decided to do something about it, which is why last Wednesday, we launched Marketing.com.

The internet along with search engines like Google have made finding great businesses, products and services  as simple as typing in a few keywords into a search bar.  But when users type those keywords in, how do you make sure it’s your business they find and your website they visit? The answer to driving more traffic to your website and ultimately generating more leads, more conversions and more sales for your company is Search Engine Optimization or SEO. In the infographic below are some key facts and ideas to help you better understand the power of SEO and how you can develop a winning strategy to move your online business to the fore of its industry.