Kind of a weird time in the world these days, huh?! Some of the crazy from this month: Threads was born. I haven’t dabbled yet. Meta was out, but then people liked Meta’s Threads and hated Twitter, and now Twitter is X and definitely out?! Plus lots of conversations about AI, heat waves, and which marketing effort will make the difference amidst inflation and recession fears.
How I’m combatting feeling a little off-kilter: getting back into my morning walk routine, petting my dog, and thinking about the Barbie movie. This strange month also held sweet fam time with my new nephew, picking blueberries at my parents’, and getting into the wilderness with people I love, so plenty of good too!
This Month’s Observation: A good website is like a really nice car wrap.
I was on a highway earlier this month and saw a Canteen van. The van had a really nice look to it. I thought surely this isn’t a small local business, it has to be a national company to look this nice. But there’s no reason a small business can’t look this nice.
I’ve been thinking about the brand ever since. Their website had the same beautiful look and brand as the van wrap. Their Instagram and Facebook page gave the same brand feeling. But the van wrap caught my eye and started the story.
So two thoughts:
1. If you invest in a really nice van/car wrap but have a crappy website, that’s going to be jarring to people. People may think wow this business looks good, but they go online to contact you and can’t find how, or the brand/website just looks dated and janky. Their impression of you drops.
2. Like a car wrap, your website might be someone’s first impression of your business. If someone is Googling cleaning companies and yours comes up, your website needs to look good and work well or you risk losing that potential customer. Just as a poorly-wrapped car might deter someone from working with a brand like Canteen, a poorly-designed website might send that person elsewhere.
Website & SEO Updates from Around the Web
On-page SEO checklist: optimize content for search
A pretty comprehensive guide to getting your on-page SEO in good shape.
Lessons learned from studying the brand Liquid Death
An interesting brand story!
How to deal with PDFs and accessibility
“The first rule of PDF accessibility is don’t use PDFs.” But if you must, read through this post.
This case study from the Astra theme website shows how heatmaps can be used to make website decisions. This data is most helpful on sites with a lot of traffic, but I like using heatmaps in certain cases for small websites too.
7 top tips to become a GA4 pro (even if you’re a beginner)
A helpful overview of GA4 if you’re feeling stuck or confused by it.
Oregon passed a new privacy law effective July 2024
Termageddon sent out a notice of a new privacy law in Oregon and published a compliance guide. Seems like every couple months there’s a new state passing privacy laws. If you don’t have Termageddon set up yet, now’s the time! Save 10% with my affiliate link*.
From My Blog: Why Your Business Needs a Blog & How to Set One Up
How this conversation normally goes:
Me: “Have you thought about blogging?”
Client: “Absolutely not.” 🥴
Me: “Here are some things it could be doing for you.”
A few months later:
Client: “How can I rank higher in search?”
Me: “Have you thought about blogging?”
Client: “Please no.”
But sometimes the stars align and it’s just the right-feeling time to set up a blog. My biggest pitch: no one has to read it, you don’t have to share it, but it will likely help your SEO. So why not give it a shot. 🙂 Read the post.
