While marketers spend a lot of time looking at how page layout, button design and font size on a landing page influence conversions, they may be inadvertently ignoring one of the biggest factors that influences consumers — landing page copy. If you've tried everything and are still not meeting conversion goals, it may be time to go back to the basics and take a hard look at your copy. Keep an eye out for these three common mistakes.

The services they provide are much different than your typical organization, but just like those businesses, health care companies need to make their offerings known to the public.

If you're in the industry, you know that marketing is a critical component of your business' long-term success — but the keys to success are much different for you than they are for, say, a retail company or a restaurant chain. You're tasked with promoting your services while establishing your expertise and building considerable trust among your potential patients. There's plenty to balance in terms of professional ethics, sensitivity to patient needs, and the duty to provide the highest standard of care possible.

So how can you reflect these core values through your marketing? Here are some tips.

In a world where almost anything can be bought on Amazon or eBay for a rock-bottom price, many business owners have been dismayed not only by decreased foot traffic, but also the practice of "showrooming," where consumers use brick-and-mortars merely as comparison shopping venues, to then purchase an item online, later. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have been fighting back in recent years, though, with some proven tactics that are helping to stem what can feel like an overwhelmingly negative tide.

Almost every commercial brand looks forward to certain holidays with great anticipation. Taking advantage of these seasonal spikes in business can occupy the better part of a marketing department's calendar year, and for good reason: Some industries see the bulk of their annual sales generated in a single month leading up to some of the most sales-heavy holidays.

With digital and traditional channels to choose from, you have a lot of options at your disposal to create a successful seasonal campaign. That means making the right choices while avoiding costly mistakes. Here's a primer on how to build a local strategy that accomplishes both goals.

Brand awareness should be a focal point of any marketing campaign. This tough-to-pin-down metric is a general reflection of how well a given audience recognizes and knows a particular brand. For companies trying to earn recognition, patronage and sustained loyalty from a base of dedicated consumers, developing a brand awareness strategy is the place to start.

Awareness isn't easy to come by: It takes a combination of time, money, resources and creativity to build it among an audience large enough to sustain a company. For a business like Coca-Cola, it's a decades-long work in progress, and one of its best drivers of sales. Few companies today, if any, have the luxury of planning out that far ahead, but there's a simple, universal lesson from Coca-Cola's example: When executed properly, brand awareness strategies can pay dividends for years to come.

Understanding your customer is the critical starting point when it comes to generating leads and increasing conversion rates. Your customers' needs drive company growth, which means you must recognize those needs before crafting or adjusting strategies. Capturing these needs, however, isn't always easy. Fortunately, there are many customer insight tools available to help you out.

Data Management

Facebook Business offers insights and tools you can use to understand the market in general, compile data on people who like your page, track conversions (e.g., content consumption and sign-ups) and more. Facebook's Custom Audiences tool can also generate a Lookalike Audience based on a customer list or data from your site. This way, you can identify new customers with behaviors and demographic characteristics similar to your existing customers. With almost 1.6 billion users (as Tech Crunch points out), this data management platform (or DMP) is robust.

Call-to-action phrases (CTAs) can make all the difference when it comes to return on investment. While you want to write compelling copy to engage customers, you also need to figure out how to take that engagement one step further and drive traffic to your site and product pages, which is where CTAs step in.

Check out these five effective call-to-action phrases, and learn why they work and how to write your own. These CTAs don't necessarily have to be the button copy, but they should make your customer want to click.

Election season is here, and while marketers may feel it's harder to cut through the noise of the various local, state and federal elections happening during this busy time, the 2016 election season is actually revealing a number of interesting insights about consumer behavior.

In fact, Google recently published a voter behavior report containing the following three insights:

Seasonal advertising is a necessary strategy for many local businesses. It makes sense for plumbers to advertise heavily in the winter when pipes are apt to freeze and burst, and for air-conditioning repairmen to switch up their marketing during the busy summer months.

However, a simplistic approach to seasonal advertising may not be the best option, nor is marketing your business only during high-interest periods. Here's what you need to know to successfully execute seasonal marketing for your local business.

When Google tweaked its algorithm last year, causing online retailer Wayfair to move from a top-five position in keyword search rankings to number one across a number of categories, the company discovered a stunning data bump. By moving higher up on the first page of results, the company saw an incredible 34 percent increase in conversions, according to Search Engine Land.

The conclusion is simple: Search rankings are critical to any business, and with Google offering local search results along with traditional search content, local SEO is more important than ever. Climbing the ladder in these rankings takes time, especially as you climb closer to the top where competition is most fierce. Improvements are entirely possible, as long as you know the right steps to take.

With local search optimization, there are several ways you can take action to make a difference early. Here are a few to build a strong, localized search foundation.