I'm sure not everyone is as excited about our new site launch as ...]]> I know you have all been waiting for this day to come and you will soon have to wait no longer!! The new Growth Spark website is being prepped for launch and will be at your fingertips in only a matter of days.

I'm sure not everyone is as excited about our new site launch as we are at Growth Spark but you should be. The reasons for excitement are obvious:

1. We get to showcase our new site design created by our talented head designer Andy Thayer
2. We have a new interactive portfolio thats fun to play with (don't believe me, take it for a spin once its ready)
3. We have a new support system! This makes it incredibly easy for us to help our clients maintain and update their websites or answer and online related questions they may have.
4. New streamlined service offering.  Our expertise is in WordPress and Shopify design and development so that is what we are going to sell.  In order to more easily improve the ROI of our clients websites we strongly recommend our affordable on-going support program.  We do have a referral or partner program for related services outside our service offering as well!

Gears are turning and things are changing for the better here at Growth Spark.  We appreciate all of you who have taken interested in Growth Spark and our continued growth.  Growth Spark was developed to help spark the growth of our clients businesses online which means providing online solutions, support and always being available to answer and online related questions anyone may have. Growth Spark is an online resource and we are always happy to help.

The focus of the talk was addressing how businesses and organizations can use tools and ...]]> This past Wednesday we gave a presentation on Conversion-Optimized Design at Harvard University. The presentation was made possible thanks to the Harvard Web Working Group, a loose association of designers and developers working within the various organizations and facilities of Harvard.

The focus of the talk was addressing how businesses and organizations can use tools and techniques to understand their online audience and their motives. The talk also covered broad considerations necessary for organizations intending to implement a conversion-optimizing system into their workflow.

We began with an overview of conversion, defining it as an action. While it's true that, for many of our clients here at Growth Spark, a conversion is best represented by a sale or the acquisition of a lead, a conversion online can be defined as any action taken by a visitor on a website. We offered the following examples: clicking a link, subscribing to a newsletter, engaging with social media, watching a video, exploring a website's navigation, etc.

Following this, we talked a bit about discovery and the value in understanding your website visitors. Who is it that currently visits your site, and what are they looking for, and how technically savvy are they? What successful methods have similar organizations used to engage their visitors? By thinking through these questions, organizations can plan their conversion strategy around what they know about their audience, and their audience's preferences or limitations.

We stressed the importance of setting conversion goals, and referenced our own SEEK Conversion Methodology as a way to help explain the process. As part of a conversion strategy, it's best to determine the intended action to be taken by website visitors. Usually this is done prior to building out the design for a website, but in the case of a pre-existing website, this can be done by prioritizing the conversion goal(s) over other opportunities for conversion on the site.

We then stressed the importance of sticking to these conversion goals, and performing optimization techniques to determine which method of presenting these goals is most effective. These techniques included A/B split testing, usability testing, visitor analytics and behavioral analytics, among others.

By continually repositioning conversion elements on a website, or asking users for their feedback about how effective these approaches are, a business or organization can optimize the effectiveness of their conversion goals according to this newfound knowledge.

The remainder of the talk was spent discussing considerations an organization would have to take with choosing to implement a conversion optimization strategy. Clearly, with such an undertaking, many factors need to be evaluated, such as technical resources, allotment of staff, time allocation, data management and budget. An organization also has to determine how large of an operation they want this to be: Do they have one conversion goal, and do they only want preliminary data to inform their next-steps, or do they want to perform a full website audit and potentially restructure their approach altogether?

The talk went well, and our audience was receptive with questions. It was a good opportunity for us to present on this subject, especially as we continue to build these processes into our own workflow as part of the value clients get with our services.

The story is a familiar one. A small business owner is looking for that one thing that will make his business pop. He's got a ...]]> This following is a guest post written by Mark Pedersen. Mark is a Boston-based digital marketing strategist and blogger who shares his insight about how small businesses can strategically use Groupon.

The story is a familiar one. A small business owner is looking for that one thing that will make his business pop. He's got a great service business that people love once he can get them to try it. His digital marketing strategy is working - but that takes time.

Enter the almighty Groupon. This deal-of-the-day site has been making major waves recently. Businesses large and small are hopping on the Groupon bandwagon - with hopes that it will be their personal stimulus package.

And the truth is - it can be! Or, maybe not so much. You see, Groupon is a double-edged sword - one that can empower you, or impale you.

I recently managed the Groupon process with a local business I work with. It was a major success for the Somerville auto repair shop - they sold 1,705 Groupons! And talk about increasing brand awareness - the company's Web site traffic increased 640% (yes, you read that correctly) in the one-week period following the Groupon!

What's more, the lure of the Groupon held true - almost all of the people who purchased the Groupon have been new customers. There is no other way to get nearly a couple thousand new people through your door to try your business. And Groupon isn't talking smack about the demographics of its subscriber base either. Sure, there's been some bottom-feeders - the guy with nearly no oil in his truck and the guy who's car was underwater. But there have been plenty of new customers that have been ready and willing to buy. Some are even requesting additional services while scheduling their initial Groupon appointment - now that's the crowd you want!

But like I said, Groupon isn't all a fairy tale. In fact, one new customer who purchased our Groupon told us that her company participated in one too - and it put her out of business!

How is that possible? Didn't she get a slew of new customers? Yes, she did - that was the problem - too many newly-minted, demanding customers that she couldn't keep up with. And a Groupon offer that while great for purchasers, financially bankrupted her.

There are a few things you need to know before taking the Groupon leap:

1. You are going to lose money on the initial Groupon offer. Groupon requires the deal to be at least 50% off your standard price (and they require proof of that).

2. You are going to lose even more money on that initial Groupon offer. After you heavily discount your product or service and practically give it away, Groupon takes half of that amount as its fee! So, for a $100 service discounted to $50 - you would end up with a mere $25. Oh, and there's another small service fee for each transaction, but many times Groupon will waive that if you insist - what swell folks!

3. It's not mentioned often by Groupon, but you can institute a cap on the offer. Just like Groupon sets a required minimum amount to be sold for the deal to be valid, you can set a maximum amount to be sold.

By now you can probably see how this whole thing could put someone out of business in a real hurry.

The key is to be honest with yourself about what your business can handle - both financially and operationally. The thought of gaining a couple thousand new customers overnight may prompt a feeling of euphoria, but remember, the idea is to actually still exist in order to serve these people well into the future. And don't forget - a couple thousand new unhappy customers isn't growth - it's a disaster!

After reading this post you've done your homework - you know what to expect. Armed with that knowledge, you can move forward and take advantage of Groupon. As long as you're in control - why not? There's nothing that compares - a triple digit traffic spike, hundreds to thousands of new customers - fully willing to buy additional services from you - need I say more?

So, start putting your deal together today. Logon to Groupon and get the wheels turning. Stay true to your business and you will be fine. Then sit back and watch the crowd pour in!

Got any Groupon questions? Maybe a story of your own? Shoot me a tweet - I'd love to hear them!

Growth Spark recently gave a presentation at the Boston Design Center on their SEEK Conversion Methodology. SEEK ...]]> This post was written by Alex Ramirez, one of our two summer marketing interns. With no prior experience in web marketing, Alex utilized Growth Spark's SEEK Conversion Methodology to generate organic traffic for his now popular techno dance website.

Growth Spark recently gave a presentation at the Boston Design Center on their SEEK Conversion Methodology. SEEK (Sourcing, Engagement, Enactment, Knowledge) is Growth Spark's conversion strategy designed to help business owners reach out to their target audience, engage them with authoritative content, encourage them to fulfill conversion goals and analyze their online behavior. Using this same method, I started and operated a website as part of my internship.

The website I maintained was a challenge between the interns at Growth Spark. We were given a list of keyword domain names, each of them fairly unique and obscure, such as "WorldMapMurals.com" and "RaftingNewEngland.com." The domain I chose was "HowToDanceTechno.com." Even though I didn't know anything about Techno before starting the website, I thought I could have some fun with this and make it something I could be proud of. The goal of this project was to build a site around the keyword, "how to dance techno," and use the SEEK method to generate organic, unpaid traffic.

Here's a screenshot of HowToDanceTechno.com

I first had to focus on Sourcing. The concept of sourcing involves planning ways to increase traffic, and who to target to get more traffic. There are three types of traffic you can generate: search, paid, and community.

Search traffic is made up of visitors that found your website through search engines like Google. One of the best ways to generate this type of traffic is through keyword research. Google's Keyword Tool is very helpful in researching keywords, showing some of the best words to use, how often they are searched for, and the competition for searches for those words. The best keywords are usually those with many monthly searches but low competition, otherwise known as long tail keywords.

A long tail keyword is a very specific keyword phrase. By using long tail keywords, you can have an easier time reaching target audiences. For example, let's say you're an interior designer in Boston; you wouldn't want to rely on a "short tail" keyword like "designer." It would bring up a variety of results, from designers in California to designers in New York. Your website would never show up if you relied on such a general term. You’ll want to be more specific in your content. The long tail keyword "interior designer in boston" is a much better option. There's less competition for such a specific term, it's easier for Google to find you using this term, and it's the keyword potential customers in Boston would be typing when looking for an interior designer. Fortunately for me, "how to dance techno" was a fairly long tail keyword (more specific than just "dance" or "techno") and was also a commonly searched term with low competition.

A few long tail keywords with low competition

Making a list of keywords I found using the Keyword Tool, I was able to decide what type of content and articles to write for my website. When I looked up the results for "how to dance techno," I noticed that a couple specific songs were recommended in the list. They had high searches and low competition, so I decided to write a review on one of them. It resulted in a few more visits to my site, which slowly began to creep to the top of the search results on Google.

Paid traffic is the traffic you generate from pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, advertisements, and other sponsored campaigns. There wasn’t a PPC campaign for How to Dance Techno, but I still managed to attract visitors through community traffic.

Community traffic is the traffic generated through social media, guest blogging, and article marketing. Using social media, especially Twitter, was very useful in generating traffic to my site. While I gained visits through the Facebook page, "Tweeting" proved to be more useful. With my Tweets showing up under trending topics like "The LXD," I was able to reach out to those who weren’t followers of my account and gain more visits.

The next step in SEEK is Engagement. Engagement involves writing search engine-friendly content, writing interesting content, and wisely using keywords that help generate views. You have two types of traffic to attract when writing content: human traffic and search engine traffic.

To increase human traffic, your writing needs to convey authority, understanding, and trustworthiness. It needs to be the type of writing that keeps people coming back, and encourages them to recommend people to your site. The second type of traffic is generated from search engines. To reach people through search engines, you need unique content (no copying and pasting from other sites!) rich with keywords and well-structured coding. Do not keyword stuff!

Keyword stuffing is what happens when you try to fit as many keywords into an article as possible, often ending up with incoherent or poorly written content. Google penalizes keyword stuffing, so avoid it with well-written content. It may take time out figure out a balance for reaching these two audiences, but it's often best to focus on one keyword at a time. Only include related keywords in the same article, don’t try to force very different and irrelevant keywords into the same article. If you want a tool to help analyze your content, Growth Spark recommends Scribe SEO.

As for the coding structure, if you have a WordPress site, many widgets and plug-ins can help organize codes (like those for Analytics) for you.

The next step is Enactment. Enactment involves actually getting conversions to accomplish your goals, whether it's to get your visitors to buy something or visit a certain page. My main conversion goal was to get people to visit my Contact page, although it wasn't something I put too much effort into (simply a few links to it every few articles or so), since it's not something I'm reliant on. Of course, if you run a business, you want people to reach your goal (whether it's a contact page or order form). To get them there, you will want to include more calls to action that encourage and lead people to conversions. Encouraging more navigation through your site also helps; the more people see of your site, the better. After I added a page of video tutorials, more people stayed on my site and explored it (whether to the tutorials from the homepage, or article to tutorials, etc.), which helps to keep visitors on your site longer and to increase interest. If getting visitors to fill out a specific form is your conversion goal, Growth Spark recommends generating one through Wufoo.

The final step in SEEK is Knowledge. In this step, you analyze the data you’ve gathered, like traffic sources, the number of visitors, bounce rates, and other statistics you can get from Google Analytics. Using Analytics, I was able to see where my traffic was coming from (for my site, 50% of traffic comes from search engines), who or what sent them there (soulclap.blog.us, thelxd.com), and what terms they used to find my site ("how to dance techno," "tecktonik," "Melbourne shuffle"). This information allowed me to better understand my visitors, and made it easier to predict what content would yield the best results. If you have a Google Adwords campaign, Analytics will also track its progress.

These are keywords people used to find my site

You can also use tools like Social Mention to see if people are blogging or Tweeting about you, your site, or any keywords you're interested in. This can even create opportunities for direct interaction between you and any potential customers or readers.

During Growth Spark's workshop on SEEK at the Boston Design Center, I couldn't help but smile at the fact that I knew from experience what they were talking about. Using SEEK, my website became the top result in Google for "how to dance techno." Since starting my site in late June, it now has 550 page views, 480 of those from unique visitors. While it's still a relatively small operation, HowToDancetechno.com shows that SEEK works - it just takes some time and effort.

On Wednesday, August 18th, Growth Spark will be giving a one hour presentation at the Boston Design Center, covering online marketing tactics for the design industry. This will be our third talk this year, following our previous two at Babson and Roomscapes.

The focus of the talk will be ...]]>

Inside the Boston Design Center Dream Home

On Wednesday, August 18th, Growth Spark will be giving a one hour presentation at the Boston Design Center, covering online marketing tactics for the design industry. This will be our third talk this year, following our previous two at Babson and Roomscapes.

The focus of the talk will be our SEEK Conversion Methodology, which we use to educate business owners about the importance of Sourcing traffic, Engaging visitors, Enacting conversion goals and gaining Knowledge through visitor tracking and reporting. As with every presentation, we'll cover both best practices as well as easily actionable next-steps so that we're not just talking the talk, but breaking down high-level concepts and empowering the audience to take the initiative with their own web marketing efforts.

Tickets for the event are $20 and are being sold through Eventbrite. The presentation is scheduled for 11am - 1pm and includes lunch. As always, we make time for and wholly encourage questions so that we can further break down and explain any process which needs clarification.

If you or someone you know would like to attend the event, visit our Eventbrite page and get a ticket while they're still available!

For me, branding is, an identity of a product, service, ...]]> After being chosen to become part of Growth Spark’s team, I was invited to a business dinner where we would talk about branding and future company goals. We all brainstormed sat around, ate Thai and talked about what the word brand meant to all of us.

For me, branding is, an identity of a product, service, or business.

First, gathering the fuel from our brainstorming the question we have to ask ourselves is, what is the problem and how should we solve it. The information we explored, we concluded that the next phase of our research and development clearly understands what branding means. Branding establishes a common ground or goal within the company. Building a product or service is important to a business in the marketplace. It will create value that differentiates who you are as a company. Bringing our brand personality to the surface we channel a “we” attitude rather than the “I”. This is a team working together continuing to develop an innovative internal company as well as external. Internally changing the brand making it unique. Externally providing businesses a marketing service. The main goals being tackled head on are changing themes, font consistency to the brand, and colors that will lead you wanting more. All these internal points of interest are important to a brand because you do not want to create confusion. By creating confusion in consumer’s minds the message wont be clearly conveyed.

It is crucial that your product stands out through other various media types. A well-branded product or service determines its company’s position in the market place. The image has to be professional and different so unique it stands out among the rest. Having a USP, Unique Selling Proposition will communicate a brand promise, an identity that incorporates logo, and brand identity. While inspiring creative thought in a work environment, the USP of Growth Spark gives new growth providing a marketing service to businesses that are looking to grow online. Promising to build and channel innovative strategies, Growth Spark will value an easy profitable and fun business. Through that online medium it successfully heightens the level of awareness and delivers a clear concise message.

Branding is the most important word to understand in the marketplace. If you do not have a brand you have nothing. Being clear and concise is the key. Less is more. Create a message that allows your brand to stay unique and be ahead of the times. This will create brand loyalty within your target market. Staying true to your brand will not create doubt.  Primarily, branding and what it means to us understanding growth. Growth Spark will continue to question the brand only to maintain a high level of presence online. This will keep the brand fresh and inviting to its consumers, which in the end create brand loyalty among their target.

Amber Goldberg is an Advertising student at The New England Institute of Art. She graduates in August, 2010. As an intern, she assists in industry research, competitive analysis, press release drafting, and implementing client-facing marketing strategies.