Market House insights on websites, design, marketing, & business

In case you didn't notice, we've rebranded Market House. It's been nearly 2 months since we launched our new brand and we're truly excited to see what the rest of 2023 has in store for our mighty little company. Read our story here. Storytelling through your brand For the edification of those new to branding and rebranding, it's not simply the update of a logo and color scheme. Branding is everything: design + business voice + mission + goals + customer interactions (and so much more). For us at Market House, our rebrand was a time to tell the story ...

When it comes to branding, it's not just about updating your logo or changing the colors on your website. Rebranding involves going back to the very beginning of the creative process to establish a brand identity and voice that truly reflects your business. If you're not sure whether it's time to rebrand, here are seven signs to look out for:   You're losing relevance. If your brand no longer resonates with your target audience or industry, it's time to consider a rebrand. This could be due to changes in consumer preferences, technological advancements, or shifts in your industry.  Your target ...

At Market House, we understand the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) and the impact it can have on your business. That's why we offer Managed SEO services to help businesses like yours improve their search engine rankings and drive more traffic to their website. With Google's recent announcement about reducing the frequency of its refresh crawls, it's more important than ever to have a partner like Market House managing your website and SEO. Google refresh crawls might be reducing soon Google crawl rate refers to the frequency at which Google's bots crawl a website to gather information and update ...

As a business owner, you're aware that marketing is critical to attract and retain customers, but have you considered the significance of branding in your marketing efforts?   Your brand goes beyond just your logo and color scheme; it's the overall image and perception of your business, including your messaging, tone of voice, and core values. When developed effectively, your brand creates customer recognition and sets you apart as a leader in your industry.   One of the primary benefits of having a strong brand is gaining a competitive advantage. Customers are more likely to choose a business they recognize ...

Have you ever scrolled through an online marketplace and come across an advertisement for a bargain logo design, promising professional results for a mere $50 or less? While the low price tag may seem alluring, it's important to recognize that in the world of logo design, quality comes at a cost. A truly exceptional logo requires much more than a hasty, inexpensive design.   A great logo design is timeless and can stand the test of time. It must remain relevant and effective for years to come, which demands a great deal of forethought, research, and skill from the designer. ...

Meet Danae Smalley, our new Sales Director at Market House! We're thrilled to have her on board and we're excited to introduce you to the woman who's known for more than just her impressive sales experience. Here are some things you should know about Danae. Danae, the Globetrotter First and foremost, Danae has a talent for finding herself in unique travel emergencies. From being stranded in Seattle with a baby and no wallet, to getting street-poop on her hand in NYC (ew!), to even being jumped on by a lion in South Africa, her travel mishaps make for some of ...

When it comes to website building platforms, the choice between WordPress and Squarespace is a common dilemma faced by businesses and individuals alike. While both platforms have their merits and drawbacks, our extensive experience has led us to conclude that WordPress is the superior choice. Here are some unique reasons why:   Limitless Customization: WordPress offers an unparalleled level of customization, allowing users to completely tailor the look and feel of their site to their needs. With an extensive range of themes and plugins available, the possibilities for creativity and originality are endless. Squarespace, on the other hand, is more ...

In today's digital age, establishing a strong online presence is essential for any business. However, with so many options available, deciding whether to hire separate designers and developers or a company that can handle both can be overwhelming. At Market House, we firmly believe that working with a company that can manage both design and development in-house is the best decision you can make for your business. Here's why:   Holistic Approach: A company that specializes in both design and development will offer a more holistic approach to your project. They will consider both the visual and functional aspects of ...

As a business owner, you face a multitude of tasks on a daily basis, from managing finances to ensuring customer satisfaction. While these tasks take priority, it's crucial not to overlook the importance of branding. A strong brand identity can impact your business success just as much, if not more, than the day-to-day operations. So, what is branding? It's not just about creating a logo or tagline, but encompasses the experience and emotions that your customers associate with your business. It is the unique identity that sets your business apart from the competition and creates a memorable connection with customers. ...

It’s 2023 and this year marks the 10th year of Market House. So, as we celebrate this milestone, we are also pleased to showcase the next evolution of our brand. We'll go through the steps we took to arrive at our new brand, explain the thought process behind the rebrand, and then breakdown the results. Rebranding Market House: Why it's time to change One of the major reasons for our own rebrand is a similar story to many others we work with: it's time. And time is the key motivator for so many brands like ours. Maybe your brand isn't ...

Small businesses don’t require the same marketing strategies as major corporations nor can they afford to. It’s not like everyone has the budget for a giant ad on a skyscraper in Times Square. Don’t tell the companies that buy those expensive giant ads, but there are cheaper, more effective ways to market to your target audience. Down below are only 30 out of many low-budget marketing ideas. Create a professional website In this day and age, if you don’t have a website, you don’t have a business. It shouldn’t have to be said, but just in case: make a professional ...

Web design might seem intimidating. Perhaps you feel that it’s in the realm of wizardry and computer genius. Maybe you’ve been more focused on getting the content onto the website than how it really looks or acts. The thing is that some simple web design considerations can make a really big difference when it comes to your site - and converting visitors into customers. With that in mind, we’ve got seven tips for designing a professional website. Make the site easy to use. The design of the website has to promote the purpose of making the site easy to use. If the ...

Once a business or a brand is off the ground, it’s time to get the word out through effective marketing. However, a marketing strategy will not be effective unless you are aware of your target market. Chances are you know what a target market, also known as a target audience, is but just in case let’s define it. A target market/target audience is the specific group of people your product or service is aimed for. It’s who your marketing strategy is targeting. A target market can feel very broad at first. This is why it’s important to define and streamline it. ...

The recent pandemic has caused the classroom to look a lot different than what teachers (and students) are used to. Rather than seeing the (hopefully) smiling faces of their students in person every day, teachers have had to adapt to using online platforms, which means trying to teach through a computer screen. Teaching is a challenging enough profession as it is, and one that deserves a lot of respect. A lot! If you’re trying to make distance learning work for you and your students, here are a few tips to help. Keep your students engaged. Okay, so you’re not in ...

These past few months have been very difficult for everyone. With the struggles that the world is facing, it leaves many business owners wondering how they can give back or make a difference towards the causes that they’re passionate about. (For example, maybe you want to raise money for COVID-19 relief or research. Or perhaps you want to raise funds for Black Lives Matter or natural disaster relief.) Wherever your passion and your heart are, you can use your website as a way to raise money to give back to the causes that matter. You can do that by personalizing your ...

Most people, have a clear mental and physical separation between work and home life. For those that work from home, it can be difficult to find balance when an office becomes a home. There are chores, conference calls, children screaming, reports to write, and the temptation of Netflix that are no longer separated by a physical barrier. The first couple of weeks of adjusting are tough but using these tips will make balancing between professional and personal life easier. Create a schedule One of the more important tips is to create a schedule with specific work hours. Working from home ...

When COVID – 19 first came into the U.S. and shelter-in-places took effect to limit the spreading of the disease, no one thought we’d be in quarantine for months. Businesses assumed they’d close for a week or two before reopening. As time goes on, it becomes clear this is not a matter of waiting, it's a matter of adapting for businesses to survive. It’s hard to keep up to date these days as information about the disease and the status of the reopening of individual states change within a couple of hours. Businesses need to be able to communicate changes ...

If you’ve got a website and you’re trying to make it SEO-friendly, you probably already know who you’re trying to please. Starts with a “G”, ends with an “-oogle”... There’s good reason for that. Google is the big kid on the block when it comes to search engines, naturally. When managing a website, if you’re doing well on Google, you’re doing well. Period. But the thing is that Google likes to keep us on our toes. They frequently release updates to their super-secret algorithm, so how can you make sure you’re ready to weather the next one? Here are 7 ...

First and foremost, CTA stands for call-to-action. It is an image or text that entices visitors, leads, and customers to take action. While the most commonly seen CTA is “click here” it does not work in all situations nor should it. Every audience/group visiting a site will want to interact with a site in different ways. No matter how they are interacting with the site, it’s crucial to get visitors to become leads, which will become customers. Ideally, the customers will enjoy the products/services enough to become promoters and free advertisers for the business. A way to ensure this happens ...

Website Personalization is the act of creating customized tailored experiences for visitors based on their reason for visiting a website. According to OneSpot “87% of customers say that personally relevant branded content positively shapes their opinion of a brand.” Think of the website like an in-person store, not every customer walks in wanting the same thing therefore they won’t want the same sales pitch. They want to feel special. Through website personalization visitors of the site immediately feel the brand is a right fit for them. While website personalization sounds like a dauntingly difficult task, it’s now easier than ever ...

Your business’s website is a key part of your marketing strategy, but nowadays a website doesn’t just live on a desktop computer. People are on the go, using their phones to run searches or grabbing a tablet instead of sitting at a desk. And that means your website needs to be responsive. What’s a responsive website and why does it matter? We’ll explain. What is a responsive website? A responsive website is one that can adjust to being viewed on different devices. Whether a potential customer is on their desktop (unlikely), their phone (more likely), or their tablet (also likely), the ...

A year ago, I wrote about how in order to be successful on Facebook, a business has to pay to play. No change there. I also mentioned that with even a minimal spend, a business can make a difference. Thankfully, this is still the case.  However, the organic reach of Facebook business pages has continued to drop, making it now vital to promote your content on Facebook to receive any visibility. In fact, your Facebook Business page is receiving just 2% organic reach (and declining). What does this mean for your business? You've been building your Facebook Business page for ...

If you’ve got a website for your business, you might be looking for a few ways to spruce up your site. It’s time for a new look - nothing dramatic, perhaps, but a few things to give your website a little breath of life. Here are 20 tips you can use to update your site. 1. Change the width of the screen.  To give yourself a little more breathing room for your site, change your screen width from 960 pixels to 1200 pixels if your screen isn’t already set to 1200. 2. Switch up the font. Certain fonts have a ...

As we are all very aware, COVID-19 (Coronavirus) is a massive global pandemic affecting everyone across the world. Countries all over are responding differently to the virus. Some aren’t shutting things down and others are locking everything down to the point you have to have passed just to be out of your house. Meanwhile, here in America, everything is in what some are calling the “Great Pause.” Time has slowed down. Businesses are scrambling to get employees to work from home. Other businesses are on the verge of shutting down altogether. These current events are like nothing that the world ...

I recently stumbled across an incredible website called Internet Live Sites. If you love numbers and data, this site will fascinate you. The site shows the number of active Internet users worldwide, the number of websites, the number of emails sent, the number of Google searches, photos uploaded to Instagram, Tweets sent, and active Facebook users. They even show you how much electricity is being used by the Internet alone. Pretty cool!    While all these numbers are impressive, it also puts into perspective just how big the Internet is. As of writing this blog post, there are currently 1.7 billion ...

“Our awesome website platform is easy to use. No coding is involved. Just pick a template and start dropping in your content. Before you know it, you have a new shiny website and you did it yourself!” Does that message sound familiar? This is the rhetoric that is spewing from most, if not all, DIY website companies (that shall remain nameless *cough, cough*). The problem with this is that their “easy-to-use platform” is easy for them. You aren’t a coder. You don’t necessarily have that eye for design or what's on trend. And even if you did, you are trying ...

It's time for your website to grow up Like many many companies out there, you probably have a website that should've been updated long ago. You know it. Your employees know it. Your customers know it. And, like many websites sitting on long-established domains, it was most likely created by someone with a fleeting interest in web design. So much has changed & evolved with how we interact with information online, which means that what worked for a website 5-10 years ago, doesn't work for a website now. As a business owner or decision-maker in your company, you need to ask ...

This afternoon, I took my son for a walk through our subdivision. After only about half a mile, I noticed a trend: there were an alarming number of houses that still had newspapers sitting in their driveways. It was nearly 6 pm and out of the 107 houses in our subdivision, 17 had newspapers that had not been picked up. That's nearly 16% of houses in my subdivision that had a Sunday newspaper in their driveway at the end of the day. I have no idea what the Sunday edition circulation is for my neighborhood, but I pulled some data on ...

The 89th Academy Awards, or the Oscars, air this evening, which means we’ll soon know who The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science voted for top categories like Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Picture, and so on. The Oscars, which had an estimated 65+ million viewers worldwide last year, can surely teach us a little something about marketing - especially when you consider that ABC, who airs the awards show, was charging as much as $2.2 million for a 30-second commercial in 2016. Even though most marketing companies don’t work with brands ready to spend millions for less than ...

Sample scenario: Bob runs a company. Bob is used to cutting corners on "unnecessary" expenses. Bob needs a new website, so he just decides to do it himself. Bob made the right call, right? Wrong. When it comes to looking for ways to save money and cut expenses with your business, the last place you should look is your website. If you haven't read my previous article on treating your website like an employee, then I definitely recommend taking a few minutes to read that post - it'll change how you think about your website. As a web designer for over ...

If you're reading this article, then it's likely that you're looking to know the answer to the question, "how much does a professional website cost?" That's a loaded question if there ever was one. And, chances are, no 2 people will give you the same response. Whether you're asking a colleague for a recommendation or getting a quote from a company like Market House, there's no real easy way to answer that question. With that said, I'll answer the question with a suggestion on how you should shift your thinking when it comes to your company website. Most people still consider their ...

If you spend time each day using your business Facebook page, then you've probably noticed Facebook's new page layout. If not, then you should know that Facebook Pages now have a new look that seems a bit more organized and structured for better future growth. While the new design feels a little cold and utilitarian, I'm sure that was completely on purpose. Since Facebook is pay-to-play for businesses, it makes total sense that they make the layout more practical. Our Facebook page header used to look like this: Notice the overlay of the profile picture and the tabs beneath the ...

Did you know that there are currently 4.1 billion email accounts worldwide? That’s a staggering number. What’s even more staggering is that the number is growing with no end in sight. Email rules the Internet. 92% of people using the Internet are sending and receiving emails on a regular basis. With numbers like that, you had better believe companies have their email game on point (or on fleek if you are a millennial reading this). I wish I could say that was true. The fact is that 78% of email is marked as SPAM. There are 94 BILLION SPAM messages per ...

Initially released 2 weeks ago on July 6, Pokémon GO is one of those viral hits that captivates far more than a small demographic. This augmented reality game has captured children, teens, adults, parents & grandparents alike. While still in its infancy as a game & plagued by frequent server issues, it's well worth the trouble. At the time of this article, the game has 10 million downloads from Google Play alone. The Game Pokémon GO is an augmented reality (AR) game that takes players out of their living rooms and *GASP* out into the world. Long gone are the popup screens from ...

Congratulations to Jason Marlowe, one of our Partners here at Market House. With a mixture of wit, coding, and class, he snagged himself a ticket to The Email Design Conference in Boston hosted by Emma & Litmus. We wish him the best & safe travels. Check out Jason's submission & the other 2 winners to Litmus TEDC: http://content.myemma.com/h/i/273358368-congrats-to-our-litmus-tedc-ticket-giveaway-winners

Okay, by show of hands, how many of you are checking your analytics on a daily basis? Go ahead. Don’t be ashamed. Lift it high and be proud because you are one of the few! Chances are if you are reading this, you have no idea what I am talking about. “Analytics...what?? I was just looking for you to make me a new shiny website and stumbled upon this blog post.” I know some of you are thinking about it. Don’t lie. You know who you are. It’s okay. However, what you don’t know is that the proper understanding of ...

I recently ran a survey to test how much social media connects with people, what channels they use the most, and how often they are active. The results you see below are not analyzed based on individual respondents, but I will go into that data in a later article to compare social media usage with age, the preferred method of communication, etc. Essentially, I was hoping to confirm some ideas about social media that I had assumed and was looking for any insight that might provide useful data for social media marketing campaigns for our customers here at Market House. Facebook ...

When you see a marketing campaign that clicks with you, you know it just works. Even with direct mail pieces that overload your mailbox, when you see one that catches your attention and holds your focus long enough to NOT be tossed into the garbage, that's effective marketing. All the others that end up in the trash? Ineffective. Their boring & tired mailers with little or no thought put into the design and message. For years, direct mail companies and businesses have been trying to create better content by bridging the gap between mass communication through direct mail and the ...

Regardless of the type of business you have, your customers want to consume your website content without effort. Making the process difficult means you've created a higher barrier to entry. Ultimately, you've lost them. Customers are lazy and fickle. Our world of instant digital information and connections has created a consumer persona that closely resembles an unmotivated child. We want content and we want it now. Don't be fooled into thinking that your customer is any different. Sure they may be more informed, but consumers consume and if the content on your website is hard to find, difficult to access, or poorly organized, ...

As each second passes and even as I write this article, Google is learning and growing. Since the addition of RankBrain in late 2015, Google wants, even more, to think like humans and deliver more intuitive search results. RankBrain is the machine learning AI integrated with Google search that helps to deliver content from across the web that is more beneficial to users. Google considers RankBrain to be their 3rd most important ranking factor when it comes to their 200+ ranking factors for search. So what does this mean? Essentially, RankBrain is helping to deliver the content that we want ...

With the Digital Summit conference coming up next week, my marketing brain begins to work overtime while I explore the synopsis of pre-conference talks, the keynote presentation, and all the awesome sessions in between. In light of this overload, I've written 7 different, tweet-centric marketing truths that I've found to be true. These 7 truths are a collection of recent tweets from my personal Twitter account. I attend this conference with Zack every year because we both believe that continuing education is vitally important to delivering the best service to our clients. Below you'll find my 7 marketing truths that everyone, ...

UPDATE We've doubled this list on the LunchBreak Marketing podcast. Listen to the podcast episode now. Have you ever been working on a project and just hit a wall? Or, what about sitting down to start a project where you need to create 6-8 different, unique business cards that the world has never seen and you have NO idea where to begin? This happens to EVERYONE. If you haven’t experienced it… you will. If you say you haven’t experienced it, then you’re a liar. Yup, I just called you out. It happens to both the newbie and the seasoned veteran ...

I haven’t always wanted to be a designer. Like most kids, I wanted to be a firefighter, a police officer, a cowboy, an astronaut, a professional athlete (more specifically an NBA player and this is funny if you know me because I rarely watch basketball), you know, the usual. The graphic designer never made that list. In fact, I was never super talented at drawing. Sure I doodled, but nothing ever magnificent. I was always more focused on other things as a child besides being creative. However, I am creative and always have been. Music was always a huge part of ...

Whether you’re a business owner who has hired a freelance designer, hired a staff designer to join your team, or are working with Market House as an extended marketing team, the fact is you want your designer to produce great work for you. Designers are essential all the same and here are a few tips on how you can get the best work out of your designer. This may not be true for some designers, but all the ones I know, including myself, would probably agree that these things would help tremendously in helping them get the work done. 1. Know what ...

If your company deals with people, then a responsive website is vital to your business. Yeah, that sounds silly, but people are mobile now and are only a swipe and a tap away from information, a purchase, an app install, or more. As a result, responsive web design focuses on delivering the best user experience possible regardless of the device. This approach should essentially remove the need for users to pinch & zoom to see images or read text, as well as easily accessible navigation, etc. Responsive web design focuses on delivering the best user experience possible regardless of the device. Over ...

Marketing really comes down to a few key pieces with regard to customers: finding new customers and keeping old customers. While it might be easier to work with an old lead, it's vital to continue the search for potential customers to keep the business fresh. Closing the marketing loop allows us to keep communication open with our old leads while bringing new leads into the fold and placing them in our loop. If you aren't following, here's a ridiculous, but pertinent analogy: 2 kayakers enter a lake from a small river. As an owner of that lake, you have chosen ...

One of the most beneficial items in your marketing toolkit is A/B testing. For me personally, A/B testing is actually one of my favorite parts of marketing as a whole because it allows for greater insight into your audience and their behavior. What is A/B Testing? A/B testing is the process of comparing 2 items, such as marketing messages, photos, landing pages, etc. to see which performs better. Although the phrase A/B testing refers specifically to a comparison of 2 items, by no means does your testing need to remain with such a small set. I quite prefer to think ...

While I am not in the habit of promoting specific services that aid in social media marketing, I have recently had the chance to work with a local company rocking social acquisition called Insightpool. Their niche is in the Twitterverse, but they utilize data from other services, such as Klout. Again, while I'm not usually a proponent of third-party services to manage social media, Insightpool offers the ability to actively engage with potential customers and current Twitter followers alike. As a real-world example, if Insightpool were a person, it would be the interesting guy at parties who has an anecdote ...

The most obvious assessment of when to post on social media and get the best results is: to post when your fans are active. There's been quite a lot of research in this area where analysts have poured over data in order to find the very precise times/days to gather the most clicks, shares, and overall engagement. And rightly so; it's important. But it's also important to know YOUR fans and learn their behaviors. The best times to post on social media vary from channel to channel and will change slightly based on the audience. However, with the built-in Insights tools ...

Over the last year or so, Facebook Business Pages have become the quintessential example of having to pay to play. When Facebook first released its Offers feature in 2012, they did an amazing thing that forever hooked me on the POWER OF FACEBOOK: they offered the service for free. Yes, that’s right. Facebook let us pull back the curtain a little to see the power of their platform. One of our current customers, an independent resort property, received a reach of nearly 1 million unique Facebook users with an offer. With the power of Facebook Ads, the ability to reach any audience is simply ...