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hasOptimization is proud to announce the launch of a new site for Peterborough, NH chocolatier Ava Marie Chocolates. Ava Marie Chocolates came to us with a simple request: they wanted to have a new look and feel for their website that was something a little more graceful, and they needed it fast before the crunch of holiday orders started to come in. Determined to lighten up their website to fall more in line with their brand, we set to work. With a tightened timeline, we did everything we could to oblige their request. As we built, we also restructured the Ava Marie Chocolates menu, which will help future customers find their orders faster. Additionally, we removed a slew of duplicate products, incorrectly priced products, cleaned out plugins, and a variety of other things including loading great top level SEO to help this chocolatier rank better in the SERP. Their new website is beautiful, serves information on the front page (which is better for users and crawlers alike) about the business, and places the important information at the top, along with helping guide customers to where they need to be to purchase. Be sure to check out their new website on your own, and snag some delicious handmade chocolates in the process!

Did you know that a 5-star rating on Google My Business is not actually the best star rating for your business? It’s something we’ve been saying for a long time, but this time we’ve got a report to prove it! A study conducted by Uberall determined that businesses who had 5-star ratings on Google My Business suffered from less conversions than businesses with less than a 5-star average. For this study, Uberall compared data from 64,000 third-party managed business listings for the first half of 2018 with the first half of 2019. The Sweet Spot While we can understand why businesses would strive for a perfect 5-star review score, the sweet spot for Google My Business reviews seems to lie between 3.7 stars and 4.9 stars. Many businesses “freak out” when a bad review comes in, but as long as the business is not actively being review bombed, those business owners should take the lower rating in stride. One bad review, or some lower rated reviews, can actually be good for increasing business. What is this phenomenon? Why is the jump so signifcant? Perhaps consumers view anything below a 3.7-star rating as untrustworthy, which would position a 3.7-star rating as the moment where consumers decide that a brand may be worth the risk. Regardless of the reason, the fact remains that a 3.7 rating should be the minimum benchmark that all business locations strive for. Uberall There’s no telling exactly why this phenomenon occurs, but we can take an educated…

We want you to love our clients as much as we do. That’s why this segment is so important to hasOptimization. Client Spotlights are a feature where we focus on a single client and talk about what they do and the work we’ve done together.  Bernstein & Mello P.L.L.C. is a full service law firm focused on the needs of clients. They understand that when one needs to retain the services of a lawyer, they’re already upset and stressed. Adam Bernstein Esq. and Raymond Mello Esq. work toward easing the pain and fear associated with legal troubles and get them the best outcome possible. With a strong emphasis on respect, fairness, confidentiality and professionalism, Bernstein & Mello is the law practice you want in your corner. 

I “rebranded” myself in August of this year, announcing my name change (it’s Logan now!) to my family, staff and clients. And the world, of course! It went better/smoother than I’d expected, and the brand stakeholder (that’s me!) is delighted with the results, all of which is pretty much the best you can say of any rebranding effort. Now, two months out from the announcement, I’m reflecting on that rebranding as I watch my friend and colleague Amanda rebrand her business. Rebranding a business is, as I said in my original post, very much like rebranding yourself. You must identify what your new brand will be. You must prepare and lay the ground work for the transition. You must decide what that transition will look like (Is it a surprise? Do you ‘tease’ the announcement?). And you must make a plan for ensuring a smooth transition to the new branding, everywhere that people have become accustomed to seeing the old brand.

If you manage a single page or a small handful of pages on Facebook, you may have noticed something has gone missing the past few weeks. We’re here to help solve the mystery of the missing post scheduler on Facebook.

The short answer: YES! Ready for the long answer and the proof? While browsing a Facebook group the other day, I was surprised to hear that a poster commented saying something along the lines of “no one wants to read a blog”. This shocked me, but at its essence, it told me that this poster (and everyone agreeing with them) had convinced themselves that blogs have no value, and therefore give no value, which means that people shouldn’t spend time on them. This comment couldn’t be further from the truth.

hasOptimization is proud to announce the launch of a new website for Gonic, NH historically accurate period tent fabricator Tentsmiths. Alena and Stephen Shellenbean recently bought out Tentsmiths, and wanted to give the noticeably dated and confusing old website a total revamp, allowing for a more streamlined ability to not only take orders from customers, but to also answer customer questions and allow for more clarity with items, images, and pricing.

We love our clients, and we think you should too! That’s why we’re restarting out client profiles category, now called client spotlight. Every now and again we’ll highlight one of our fantastic clients, tell you how we help them best, and why you should check them out. In this post, we’re highlight long-time client j. ellen Design, LLC. Interior Design in Manchester, NH J. ellen Design, LLC, is an interior design studio located in the historic millyard of Manchester, NH. Owned and operated by June Trisciani, j. Ellen Design, LLC has been with hasOptimization ever since we were but a wee tiny marketing company  with barely a handful of clients, all the way back in 2013. June is also deeply rooted in the Manchester, NH community and participates in a variety of community related events, including ArtFront. June is a fantastic business owner who is always open to suggestions and change, making her incredibly easy to work with both as a client and a designer. J. ellen Design’s Core Services We’ve done just about everything in the book for j. Ellen Design! We created June’s first site, as well as her subsequent page refresh earlier this year (along with the site and Facebook page for ArtFront too!). Our partner BECreative created June’s logo. We also manage social media for June, create and manage her ads, manage June’s email marketing, ghostwrite blog content for her on a consistent basis, and lots of in between, including search engine optimization that has had…

At hasOptimization, we intend to apply optimization to all facets of work that we do. If we see something that can be done better somehow, we’ll at least make a point to suggest an easier, more optimized solution to that process. One of the constant sources of audit, especially for new clients, is their hosting packages. Time and again we find that clients are happily paying for services they don’t need, never use, or can be purchased cheaper elsewhere. This often means we can make a lot of cost-cutting suggestions to our clients that can sometimes save them hundreds or even thousands of dollars in the long run. In this post, we’ll go over how you can conduct your own hosting audit and give you the information and tools needed to decide what services you should be paying for – and what services you shouldn’t.

You know how sometimes everything is just a bit…much? Yeah, well, that happens to us here at hasOptimization, too. But we like to ensure that our little company hasOptimization just as much as our clients do, so we did something about it! We hired an Awesome Assistant! It’s been almost a year since Morgan Blake joined the team, and it’s been a whirlwind year of change and growth. We’re now super excited to welcome our Awesome Assistant (yes, that’s really her title!), for all the times when we just have a little bit more on our plates than we have time for. So drumroll please, and welcome Cassandra Clarke! Cass is our farthest-flung staff member, hailing from Colorado. She has decades of industry experience in writing, editing, photography and other various and sundry talents. She’s worked in project management, customer service, and even game design. In her free time, Cassandra reads, writes, plays video games, and hikes with her dog (It’s apparent that all hasOptimization employees must love dogs!). Cassandra’s role may become more client-facing over time, but in the short term she’s going to be mostly behind the scenes, helping us become more organized, efficient, and effective. You know…Optimized! We look forward to doing more good work with the help of our slightly larger Highly Optimized Staff. Want to know more about our small but savvy staff? Check out our staff page for more on our Highly Optimized Staff and Awesome Associates.