SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization.” Defined as the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results. To better elaborate on the definition, let’s define quantity and quality. 

Quality of traffic results from completing the necessary research and acting upon it to pinpoint what areas and content to focus on to show up before your competitor’s search results. You could have 1 million visitors to your site per month, but if they come from search results with nothing to do with your product or service, it won’t produce many leads, patients, sales, etc. 

Competing in competitive industries will require link building. Acquiring links from high authority websites, e.g., you create an article on a specific industry topic, a highly credible website references your article and creates a hyperlink back to your website. This process is link building and is an essential piece of the SEO formula. Building your website credibility and authority gives you the benefit of being an expert in your industry. 

Quantity of traffic is the process of driving increased amounts of traffic to your site after you have successfully defined and ranked for the search terms relevant to your business. The act of continually improving your SEO will increase the quality and quantity of traffic to your website. In return, this means a significant increase in business for you! 

By the way, there aren’t any shortcuts to SEO. It takes a lot of consistent effort and time. Think of your website as a body. There really aren’t any shortcuts to get in shape. You have to do the work of eating right and exercising to see any real results. Sorry! (but hey, IronGate can be your personal trainer).

Think of a landing page as a single-page website with one purpose in mind. The entire purpose of a landing page is to gather information about your visitor. This page doesn’t replace your web presence. The landing page takes one issue, topic, or problem that your business can solve and offers a chance at a valuable peek into that solution. It offers that valuable peek in exchange for their email address and perhaps a name. This is hopefully the beginning of the journey of turning a visitor into a customer. This is a perfect segue into the sales funnel!

A sales funnel is the term used to describe the cycle of a sale and the customer’s journey. The top of this funnel is the first touch or experience a potential customer may have with your brand. As the prospect engagement increases with your brand, they learn more about your product or service and move further down the funnel towards being an actual customer.

This funnel is at work in your organization whether you know it or not. IronGate can give you some level of control over the sales funnel so you can understand what is working and what might need to be changed. The more control you have over the sales funnel, the more in-tune you become with your potential customers. This is a great segue to the tools used to manage the customer’s journey. Learn more about CRMs here!

A customer relationship management (CRM) system is a software tool that helps you manage your business and organize your data. It specifically deals with your marketing, sales, and customer service. If you don’t already have a true CRM, you’re probably using tools like Excel, Google Sheets, or FileMaker. While those tools are adequate for organizing and saving data, a more robust CRM can help you manage your marketing campaigns, track the progress of sales leads and their position in the sales funnel, and automate tasks that help you stay engaged with those prospects. IronGate is a HubSpot partner that can help you get started with your own solution!

It’s important to make sure your photos look professional in both print and digital. We can go deep on this topic, but the quickest way to check is to simply open your photo up in your favorite desktop app and then zoom in. If your photo starts to lose detail and looks fuzzy after one or two clicks on the magnifier, your photo may not have enough pixels to print clearly. If your photo still looks pretty good, then it will most likely be good for digital use. Either way, we’re here to help and you can just pass your photos along to us for review.

Hosting is the space your site “rents” on the web. IronGate offers state-of-the-art hosting with premium WordPress performance, security, and stability. Your annual hosting plan includes WP upgrades, migrations, caching, top-notch WordPress security and malware protection, SSL certificates, fast load times, daily backups, and dedicated SSD servers. Your hosting plan also includes routine monthly updates to your site’s plugins. So, in a nutshell, all of this means you can stop worrying about; servers, hosting, performance and hackers. Instead, spend that time running your business. No stress there, right?

Moving your website over to IronGate’s hosting is easy! First, we’ll need you to provide IronGate with admin-level access to your current live WordPress site, as we will update all themes and plugins first in order to ensure the migration is as successful as possible. We’ll also need the ability to install plugins for the most efficient migration method.

Once your site is migrated, we will need to compare the live site with the freshly copied site on our servers and ensure everything looks great! Once the freshly copied site is approved, it’s time to take the site live and point your DNS to IronGate’s servers. 

When getting started with a new host, figuring out how to move your existing site to your new hosting platform can sometimes feel like a frightening process. Luckily, IronGate can help make sure your site transition is smooth like butter! Learn more about the process here.

You don’t. But what if you’re not doing as well as you could? What if your full potential is not being realized due to confusion or misunderstandings in your market? Without a good understanding of your brand, your product or service runs the risk of becoming a commodity in a very competitive business climate. Branding done well helps you clarify your message in order to build trust and increase profits. In fact, the best time to consider your brand is when you have the time and resources to commit to understanding and improving it.

Videos are a great way to reach potential customers. Videos aren’t just a marketing tactic anymore, they’ve become a business strategy. To maximize the chance of them being seen, you should utilize several different platforms. Creating your own YouTube channel is the best way to give your videos a home. They can then be embedded on your website and shared on Facebook and all of your other social media channels. Blog posts and landing pages are other great ways to leverage your videos and compliment your marketing efforts. IronGate can help you create videos that will resonate with your audience, build awareness and drive traffic to your site. Once your videos are created, we can develop a strategy that utilizes those into a cohesive marketing strategy.

Color psychology is a fascinating topic that we could spend hours discussing, but we know you probably don’t have time for that. So to put it simply, yes – the colors you use do matter! Certain colors affect people differently. Understanding how colors impact moods and affect people overall and how they perceive your brand is vital to the process of building a visual identity. We help our clients choose colors and supporting palettes with their audience in mind.

It’s important to make a good impression — even if you’re not meeting in person. We could go into detail on 4 of the most important factors to consider in your next video conference, but this video about audio, lighting, tripods and the importance of angles will drastically improve your next online meeting. You might still put on some pants.

The mother of all questions. We wish there was a simple answer. There are so many variables in site size and functionality that it makes it very difficult to predict. With that variable, coupled with all the stages involved in building a site — it’s virtually impossible to give an accurate timeframe. That said, we have discovered the best way to plan out the timing is to first determine the desired date of completion. Knowing when it needs to be done will help us back out the timing and set deadlines for each stage of the process. This method offers transparency and accountability for all parties involved and gives us the best chance of hitting the launch date. We want your site launched as bad as you do!

Your social media channels should provide something of value to your users. This content can be anything from helpful information, tips, and updates to your business.

Social media is also a great way to humanize your brand. Growing a relationship with your audience comes more naturally when they see you as a human too. You can start by sharing information about your staff, showing how your business helps and interacts with the community, and more.

The ultimate goal of your social media channel is to provide value so visitors return and remember your brand.