Portland Oregon SEO, Web Design & More

Selecting a branding agency for your company can be overwhelming, as this is one of the first steps towards growing your business. A great way to start is by asking questions! Outline your branding goals, ideas, and challenges, and ask the candidate agency to describe their plan for your company. Ask about past branding projects that are similar to yours, and always ask why they feel they are the best fit for your company.

Branding is extremely important for your business to thrive. Not only does it help consumers to remember your company, but it allows potential customers to better understand what your company offers, as well as your company values. Without branding, there is no way for the consumer to distinguish you from your competitors; even if you are the best choice for their business.

In the simplest terms possible, a branding strategy is just a step-by-step plan to connect your brand with your dream customers by establishing the deepest connection possible at every touchpoint. It will have an impact on every part of your business, with the purpose of supporting specific, predetermined goals as defined by your overall marketing strategy. When designed well and executed correctly, a branding strategy has the capacity to improve your customer experience, competitiveness in the marketplace, and financial performance. Through a successful branding strategy, the evolution of your brand will help to define your company’s character and make it memorable to the consumer.

In short, a personal brand is built around you. It revolves around your personality, what you do for a living, your interests, and potentially many more things that make you unique. Generally this means you brand your business with your name. A corporate brand is built around a completely new identity that you create for your company. In both cases, a brand is built to represent a business, but in the case of personal branding, the business is the individual.

A branding guide is a document that summarizes your brand, establishes consistency for your brand, and helps communicate what your company stands for. At their core, they offer clear-cut rules for how logos, images, colors, fonts, messaging, and other aspects of your branding are used in advertising. They can also include things like simple greetings to be used by your sales team, the company purpose, or even its core values.

Marketing and branding, while different, are actually very co-dependent. Branding defines who you are as a company, and is used to express what your company believes in, why it exists, and helps to shape how the consumer feels about you. Marketing is simply a set of tools and strategies used to get your brand in front of the consumer in an effective manner. A brand is made much more valuable through effective marketing -- and vice versa!

With consumers being bombarded by advertisements every day online, it’s important that you find a way to foster a meaningful connection with them via your online presence. This means tailoring your websites, apps, social media pages, online videos, and more, to your potential consumer. It’s all about establishing your presence, and telling your story to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

One of the first things to consider as you plan to hire a web designer or web design company is the specific skill set, experience, and personality of the person or team you are engaging. Some designers are very talented, but might not be the right fit for your company. If you are a lifestyle brand, hiring a developer who specializes in technical projects probably won’t deliver the experience you want your customers to feel on your site. Additionally, understanding the personality and values of the individual or team you partner with goes a long way to ensure the project is fun and enjoyable while also being successful.

While some businesses are more comfortable with working with a local company in their hometown, the world of digital marketing has evolved considerably and there are many better ways to select the right web design company for your project. If you think about it, locality really doesn’t define a good fit unless your business relies heavily on a deep understanding of your local culture. Instead, find a company that you feel you can have honest and productive conversations with, has experience building the type of site you need, and understands how to build it in a way that aligns with your goals.

The cost of professional web design may catch some companies off guard; however, there are a few things you can do to avoid being shocked when the proposal arrives. First, make sure your proposal outlines a detailed plan of your site specifications--design, content, and functionality--this will help you and your design agency make adjustments if needed. Second, consider getting multiple proposals to get a better idea of the variety in prices and approaches. Always plan for some unexpected costs if you come up with new ideas along the way, and be sure to leave room in your monthly budget for future maintenance and updates to your website.

While a small business can have a very effective website on a tight budget, the differences between design and development when compared to a large corporation are drastic. Between legal considerations based on protecting consumer data, CRM (customer relationship management) and lead tracking integrations, user experience considerations, and SEO (search engine optimization) research, the cost and scale of a corporation's needs will often vastly outweigh that of a small business.

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A full redesign of a website can be very expensive, so it’s important to assess whether you really need one or not. Common reasons to redesign your website vary, but the most common include rebranding your business, increasing website traffic, generating more leads, or adding functionality to improve user experience. If you are simply readjusting your marketing goals or messaging, a minor overhaul may be all you need. Be sure to check that your site is still aligned with your newest marketing plans on an annual basis!

If a web design company doesn’t have experience running marketing campaigns as well, you may end up with a nice website that isn’t actually built to drive traffic, leads and sales. Don’t forget to consider this in your hiring process. A good web designer should understand that design and functionality are important, but understanding the psychological foundations of marketing and communication are key too. Additionally, having an understanding of your business’ profit margins, customer LTV (lifetime value), average deal size, and other metrics will help you and a competent marketing agency determine what type of website and budget make the most sense to help you reach your goals.

Adding to that, working with a web design crew that also has experience with SEO, Facebook Ads, email marketing and social media strategies can be a big win to help your business leverage its new website. Unfortunately, “if you build it, they will come” rarely applies to new websites, especially if you don’t have a large audience to start. Make sure you ask this question up front if a big reason you are building a new website is to directly generate more new business through its presence.

While it is a worst case scenario, you want to make sure you understand what’s at stake if the project does go sideways. Having a clear understanding of terms, billing, and dispute process is a must before starting any project. Even if you feel great about the designer or agency you are working with, asking these tough questions up front will ensure clarity and execution of your project. Be wary if you receive a proposal that doesn’t outline the legalities and scope of the collaboration.

A sales funnel is basically the step-by-step journey that your prospects go through to become a customer. Each stage of the funnel takes your potential customer one step closer to making a purchase or signing up for a service. For example, at the very top, a prospective customer sees an advertisement on their Instagram feed and clicks it. They have gone to the next step of the funnel, to the landing page of a website. They enter their email address and name (for example) and move onto the next step of the funnel. From there, the prospect can be nurtured with an email sequence, which can be customized even more based on their behavior and interaction with the emails. The email campaign may offer a special promotion for new customers as the prospect goes deeper and deeper into the funnel. Eventually, a prospect will either buy, leave the funnel, or transition into a dormant lead to be contacted periodically.

Like many aspects of a marketing plan, it’s hard to button down an average price for setting up a sales funnel. It all depends upon the complexity of the process and the skills/experience of the person setting it up. For a basic acquisition funnel that includes a lead magnet, main offer page, upsell, and a follow-up sequence, you can expect to pay anywhere from $2,000-$10,000. On the other hand, for very complex funnels the price can be upwards of $100,000!

A standard sales funnel walks buyers through the four steps of the buyer’s journey: Awareness, Consideration, Decision, and Delight. The awareness stage is where a prospective client first becomes aware of your product or service. For example, maybe they clicked an ad or found your website via a Google search. The consideration phase is where a prospect evaluates your brand against the alternatives and decides whether or not you are offering is aligned with their needs.. The decision phase is the most important as it represents the stage where a prospect finally makes a decision. Last but not least, the delight phase is designed to turn customers into brand advocates by meeting and exceeding their expectations. Through powerful lead magnets, attractive landing pages, effective automated email sequences, and gentle upselling, the sales funnel is where a prospect can be made into a customer for life without requiring nearly as much intensive work from your marketing, sales and customer service teams.

A lead magnet is a marketing tool used for the express purpose of gathering contact details in order to expand your business. In many cases this can be a free item or service that is given away, such as trial subscriptions, samples, gifts, newsletters, and free consultations. When a customer sees your advertisement offering a 1-week trial and clicks, it will take them to your landing page where they must enter their information for access. This is informally understood to be a “trade” of contact information for something desirable the prospect is willing to trade their information to receive.

We set up and send detailed monthly reports tracking all KPIs (key performance indicators) to ensure all sales funnel data and performance is monitored, understood, and applied. As your sales funnel builders, our primary function is to make sure you are getting the most out of your funnels and lead generation strategy, from the top of the funnel all the way down to the sale.

When choosing a social media marketing company to work with, there are a lot of things you can look for to be sure you are choosing the best fit for your business. Check out what clients the company has worked with in the past, and ask about strategies they employed with those companies that led to long term growth. Flashy promotions and big-hit ideas seem great, but a strategic approach to your business’s social media growth is much more important in the long run. Reputable agencies should also be able to offer you a case study of a brand they have worked with in the past. This is a great way to compare different agencies.

Social media is more than just a platform for kids to share memes and chat on. It is an essential piece of your modern business marketing strategy. Social media platforms not only help to elevate your business, but they also help you to connect with current and potential customers, boost brand awareness, and increase your leads and sales through creative and effective campaigns. It is also an incredible way to perform customer service. Many people are on social media today, so communicating with customers via these platforms greatly increases the ease at which customers can provide insights and feedback. Just remember to “be a person” on social media more than a business, as the nature of social media is informal and fun!

As a business, it can be overwhelming to dive into the world of social media, but there are a few social media platforms that most brands should definitely consider. These are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, Reddit, Pinterest, and Quora. However, not every business needs to be on all of these networks, and some businesses should consider networks not mentioned here. In the end, a reputable social media partner will help you understand not only which social media platforms you should be on, but how you should engage that audience.

Maintaining an active social media presence is vital for the growth of any business, small or large. Many studies agree that the optimal number of posts for a business to make per day is one, with a maximum of two posts per day. You don’t want to overpost and drive the consumer crazy. At a minimum you should post 3-5 times per week. Keep in mind though that every business is unique, and certain campaigns like a giveaway or big promotion may warrant dozens of posts across a week. It really depends on understanding your audience on each network and curating engaging content for them as often as possible without overdoing it.

A copywriter is skilled at word placement. They can string specific words together in a precise way to entice a consumer to buy your product or hire your company. Not only can they generate traffic for your business, but the manner in which they write can help all aspects of your unique brand to feel cohesive. Your brand wants to target a specific audience, and a copywriter can talk directly to them. Additionally, many small businesses are too busy to produce their own high-quality copy, so working with the professionals is often the best way to build this asset base.

It’s difficult to nail down an average price for copywriting, as there is a very broad price range. For example, the average cost has been estimated at $25 to $25,000 per page! The reason for this stems from several important factors including but not limited to page content, page length, and even the skill of the copywriter or copywriting agency. Our rates here generally fall in the $100-$200 an hour range, depending on the nature of the project.

There are many types of copywriting in today’s world. These include SEO, Creative/Brand, Social Media, Marketing, Public Relations, Technical, Thought Leadership, and Direct-Response copywriting. While some writers can turn their hand to multiple different styles and approaches, it’s very rare to find somebody who is versed in the whole range. Hiring a company ensures that you get matched with the right copywriter for your business.

SEO Copywriting is the practice of writing to maximize SEO opportunity by using search engine optimization tools and strategies to help boost a website’s search engine ranking. SEO Copywriters consider many things when writing copy for your website. These include, but are not limited to, keyword density, tone, style, and readability. All together, the goal is to organically increase your websites ranking in everyday search engine results.

At the beginning of any campaign, we will have a kick-off workshop as well as a series of phone calls to learn as much as we can about you, your industry, your customer, and everything else necessary to help you grow as a business. We’ll alsol be sure to assign a writer to you that we feel is perfectly suited to your needs based on their voice, skills, and experience. There will always be a small learning curve at the beginning of any business relationship, but we strive to make it as easy and painless as possible.

We will never outsource our copywriting services. We have an incredible team of dedicated writers right here in-house. Every one of our writers will help to elevate your website with their unique style, experience, and individual marketing specialties. Not only do we have a great team for you to choose from, we will be sure to pair you with the perfect writer for your unique needs.

There are many good reasons to hire an online advertising company, especially if you aren’t sure where to start, or aren’t confident your current efforts to advertise online are working. An online advertising company can get your campaigns up and running almost immediately without you having to navigate the learning curve, or train your own team. Considering the “money pit” that online advertising can be if done incorrectly, it’s highly recommended you work with a good online advertising company if you know you need online visibility but don’t have the experience needed in-house to confidently run winning ad campaigns.

There really is no easy answer to how much you need to budget to engage an internet advertising company.. For many small and midsize businesses, costs can range from $500 to $5,000+ per month depending on your niche, advertising platforms, number of campaigns, conversion path, and of course your business’ short- and long-term goals. Keep in mind this just reflects the management fee, and does not include the cost of the ads themselves, which can range from $1,000 to $20,000+ per month. The important thing to remember about internet advertising is that while it may be expensive, it has the possibility to generate immediate profitability when done right. The concept of “spending $1 to make $2” often applies more directly than other forms of online marketing, so make sure you are on the same page with any internet advertising company you hire regarding the KPIs (leads, sales, etc.) you need to achieve with your advertising campaign to make it sustainable and lucrative for your business.

We offer a variety of online advertising services, and will help you to decide what is the best fit for your business. These include but are not limited to Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Display Advertising, Pinterest Ads, and other social media advertising, like TikTok advertising. We always want to make sure that we are advertising anywhere potential customers may be browsing, and have the ability to serve a specific need (like auditing a campaign) or build and manage a full start-to-finish, done-for-you advertising strategy.

We review performance with extremely detailed monthly reports tracking all KPIs (key performance indicators) to ensure that your advertising budget is delivering the best results possible. Our primary function as a company is to make sure you are seeing the kind of growth that you need to see with your budget, and measure results by analyzing everything from initial CTR (click-through rates - how engaging your ads are to viewers) to bottom-of-funnel metrics like cost-per-lead and cost-per-sale. The most important thing you can bring as a business is to have defined targets for your bottom-of-funnel numbers, like understanding your ideal CAC (customer acquisition cost), customer LTV (lifetime value), etc. and we can work together to reverse engineer a winning online advertising strategy!

The great news with paid advertising is that you will start to see results within weeks after your campaign is up and running. Through optimization over time, we will be able to ensure that the results only get better. We will track all KPIs, and analyze them to help us understand what is working best, and what may not be working at all. This will allow us to strategize and improve our results consistently.

That’s OK! We are experts, and we will be sure to explain everything in detail as we develop your advertising plan. We will get campaigns up and running for you within weeks, and help you to see improvement in your businesses performance within months. Working with an online advertising company ensures that you can focus on running your business while we focus on growing it.

Absolutely! Not only can we help with SEO, but we usually recommend running an SEO campaign alongside an advertising campaign to maximize growth. It allows you to combine the two campaigns to drive more prospective clients to your website through different advertising techniques. Not only will your advertisements pop up on different social media platforms, but you’ll be able to bid on less common, more specific keywords to guarantee the best possible search engine results.

Email marketing is vital for building relationships with prospective customers, clients, and even past customers. It enables you as a business to speak directly to them, but at a time that is convenient for them. Your email audience already knows who you are, so it’s easier to build and nurture business relationships, drive leads/sales, and maximize the profitability of your marketing overall as you already “own” your email audience and don’t have to pay extra to reach them. Email marketing has remained “old faithful” for decades, and hiring an email marketing company ensures that an expert will be overseeing this aspect of your marketing plan, leaving you free to continue building your business!

For most small and midsize businesses, the cost could range from around $250 per month for a monthly newsletter, all the way up to $1000+ per month for frequent emails sent to different, segmented audiences. We will discuss your specific needs and learn about your company as we develop a marketing plan specifically tailored for you. Once the campaign begins it is just a matter of analyzing the performance and making any necessary changes to ensure the best possible outcome.

When it comes to picking topics, it is simply a matter of sitting down with you and talking in detail about your company and what your goals and focuses are each week, month, quarter and year. Once we have an idea of your vision and your company’s “calendar,” we will develop a detailed plan and begin executing your email campaigns using industry best practices like A/B testing subject lines and send times to improve performance over time.

We set up and send detailed monthly reports tracking all KPIs (key performance indicators) to ensure all email campaign performance is monitored, understood, and applied. As your email marketing team, our primary function is to make sure you are getting the most out of your audiences by tracking everything from open rates to click-through rates, unsubscribe rates to social share rates, and of course leads and sales generated from your email campaigns.

Email marketing is a vital part of just about every business's marketing strategy. Email enables you as a company to speak directly to a prospective client or customer right in their inbox, as an audience you already “own” that trusts your business to at least some degree (assuming you aren’t sending spam). As new marketing mediums pop up every few months, email has become a timeless and trusted source ROI-positive marketing investment when done properly, often only outperformed by direct referrals as a marketing channel.

Just because you are sending emails to customers and clients doesn’t mean that you always have to be selling something. Keeping customers engaged through content that they will look forward to seeing is a great way to foster trust and build relationships. This can include newsletters, fun videos, freebies, and all kinds of other things. We will also keep track of spam complaints and adjust as necessary throughout our partnership to ensure that your business’ emails are received with enthusiasm and excitement.

Before you can start sending emails, you need to have a list to send them to! If you don’t have a list already (or even if you do), you will want to make a plan to generate new email contacts (like a sales funnel), or comb through your company data for email addresses before getting started. It is suggested that most businesses have at least 100 contacts before any kind of email marketing makes sense. Remember, since the same email can be sent to an audience segment with 100 or 10,000 contacts for essentially the same cost, businesses that prioritize growing and engaging their email list will see exponentially better ROI on their email campaigns over time!

On average, SEO costs within the United States range anywhere from $100-$250 per hour, or $1500-$10,000 per month for corporate retainers. When hiring an SEO expert, be aware that you are paying for their experience and expertise. Any SEO consultant who charges less than $100 per hour is likely not worth your time.

One way to make sure you are picking a great SEO company is by checking their ability to rank a website. Ask the company you are considering for samples of client results for a period of 6 months or more. You can also ask them for examples of keywords they have targeted and successfully ranked on page one of Google. Don’t be ashamed of asking lots of questions!

While it’s true that some businesses may want to work locally for various reasons, it’s really not a necessity anymore. The world of digital marketing has changed a lot, and there are many great ways for your business to select the perfect SEO company for your project.. In just about every case, your goal should be to try and find a company that feels like a great fit, has honest and productive conversations with you, and has experience working with the type of business you strive to be.

Before considering how much you want to spend on SEO, first you need to determine your overall digital marketing budget. Once you have an idea of your overall budget, you must decide what percentage of that should be used on SEO. This percentage varies greatly by company, and depends on a variety of factors, ranging from monetary limits to your company’s long-term goals. A smaller business may spend 60% of their marketing budget on SEO, while a large company may only spend 15%. This is a great question to ask your SEO company, just to answer some of their questions about your business goals, marketing budget, and overall business revenues.

The biggest way to tell the difference between amateur and expert SEO services is by the way a company or individual approaches SEO. SEO takes time and hard work, and true pros will explain that with confidence, even if that costs them the sale. Of course, you’ll still want to ask for examples of keywords that they have successfully targeted and ranked on page one of Google and check out their reviews. Lastly, ask about some of the SEO tools and project management systems they use to ensure that your campaign will not only be a winner, but that you’ll understand and feel good about the way it’s happening.

There are a handful of different types of SEO needed for a well-rounded organic search strategy. Local SEO, technical SEO, on-page SEO, and off-page SEO are types of SEO services. Technical SEO is the analysis of a website’s technical factors that impact its ratings, including code efficiency, mobile response, and website speed. On-page SEO is the optimization of visible page elements, such as the page title, headers, or the meta description--all SEO elements included on the website itself. Off-page SEO is the implementation of optimization elements not on the page itself, including social media and backlinks. Local SEO focuses on building your businesses visibility in local markets via your GMB page. While many SEO campaigns include most if not all of these elements, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach by business or industry. As long as you can explain how your business generates cashflow and finds new customers, a good SEO team will understand which SEO services are best suited for your business.

While SEO isn’t the way you are going to make a “quick buck,” it is a great long-term investment strategy to grow your business into your vision. It is one of the most potently effective digital marketing strategies available today. Just be aware that while a great SEO agency will boost your traffic, a poor one could tank it. As long as you hire a reputable agency, it is 100% worth the investment, especially if you have visions of 10x’ing your business’ growth over the next 5-10 years.

On-page SEO relates to all of the visible elements on the page that affect page ranking, such as page titles, headers, meta descriptions, and even the HTML code itself. Off-page SEO relates to all of the page ranking factors off of your website. These include everything from your social media presence to backlinks from other sites. Both are very important parts of a well-rounded organic search strategy.