As internet adoption and stock market investments in tech and online companies surged, this new lingo became a household term overnight as millions of people all over the world typed these four characters into browsers everyday.

For the everyday person, it’s a way of discovering information. But for companies, digital marketing agencies and developers, top-level domains (TLD) mean business.

The history of top-level domains (TLDs)

It was simple in the beginning. People adopted the habit of entering .com at the end of everything. We quickly got used to seeing domain extensions that help classify the institutions behind sites, such as .edu, .gov, .org and .mil, and country code top-level domains such as .eu, .mx, .ca and .ua.

Fast forward four decades and there are well over 1,500 top-level domains governed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). (Who knew!?) If you’re curious like I was, here’s the full list of TLDs used on the internet today.

The most popular TLD worldwide is .com, and the majority of the most popular domains on the internet are still .com. But we all know that because things are how they’ve always been doesn’t mean that’s how it will always be. Should companies pay attention to the evolution of the letters tacked on to the end of their well-thought out web domain?

Here are 5 things about the future of top-level domains companies should know:

1. Alternative top-level domains can set your company apart

Hard to think of the internet as crowded, but in the digital era we live in, the use of .com has become as congested as the 405 in LA. When a business isn’t using .com for its main site domain, it’s often because the .com version was already taken.

Variations in TLDs create the opportunity for distinction and classification of a website’s affiliation and content, (ie: .edu for education entities, .store for shopping), and with greater immediacy can more closely align with a consumer’s expectation of a site’s purpose and their UX once on site.

“This is already happening,” notes Brandon Caballero, Hennessey Digital’s Director of Analytics and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). “Some single-serving sites (SSS) already use the .io name, and .app is often used for mobile apps. My personal favorite is  https://httpstatus.io/.”

At Hennessey Digital, we’re seeing this shift in the music and entertainment industry. In our work together with Radix, world’s second-largest domain portfolio registry, musicians, artists, YouTubers, companies, e-commerce sites and others are migrating to specialized TLDs such as .press, .store, .fun, .tech and more that more closely associate with their brand or product.

2. Top-level domains can affect your SEO

One of the most common questions we receive is whether or not it matters which TLD you use for your website. Marketers and company owners pour hours into deciding the right URL for websites and microsites. The decision should never be made in a silo and should include discussion with your SEO and web analytics experts. Choosing your top-level domain is an important decision especially when it comes to digital marketing, search engine optimization, and attracting traffic.

Explanation of how Google ranks new top-level domains states the search engine doesn’t treat gTLDs differently than more popular ones such as .com and .org. However, there are variables companies should consider when it comes to their website’s search engine rankings and TLDs.

“We know many factors are involved in determining how well a particular domain performs, including the quality of the content, link profile, and other criteria,” said Hennessey Digital VP of SEO Steve Guberman. “There are three types of TLDs – generic top-level domains, sponsored top-level domains, and country code top-level domains, and one thing is certain: the type of TLD used does affect your overall performance. There is a clear correlation between the popularity of different TLDs and their ability to rank highly in organic search results.”

This doesn’t mean don’t venture into new TLD territory, it just means when using a less familiar top level domain, be patient as results accrue – and ensure you have a stellar SEO strategy for your site.

3. New TLDs can make a brand more memorable, but need time for adoption

Something .com websites have in their favor is that typing .com at the end of everything in a browser is a habit we all have. “Straightforward use of your company name or brand in your domain will get traffic as many people assume it might work in some capacity by just typing it in,” said Caballero.

But different TLDs have the potential to make a brand more memorable and recognizable. Companies and brands successfully using alternate domain extensions include the interactive, live streaming service Twitch (twitch.tv) and the Dude Perfect merch store (dudeperfect.store).

Hennessey Digital’s President & COO Scott Shrum notes other smart uses by online powerhouses. “A popular use for some of the newer TLDs (ones like .me) seem to be for URL shorteners for popular sites and services. For instance, Google uses goo.gl, Twitter uses t.co, and Whatsapp uses wa.me. These are good uses for these less common TLDs.”

Old habits are hard to break, and when coupled with phishing, spam and other online risks, new TLDs face challenges that can hinder adoption and trust from consumers when websites have a domain extension they don’t recognize.

Brilliant marketing and frequent impressions will create the behavior shift and website traffic you seek, but our head of analytics cautions not to put all the weight behind your URL while ignoring your company’s brand value.

“If your business or brand isn’t memorable, then a domain won’t help. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

4. Watch out for trendy top-level domains that are money makers for domain registries

In early 2022, Google Registry was behind the launch of a new TLD: .day

Intended to be a secure domain to bring awareness to any day, the potential for .day connected with the emotions and eye for opportunity of marketers and individuals as much as it did with the bank accounts of Google and its registry partners.

The .day domain was initially made available to brands and copyright owners, before going on the block to the open market for pre-sale with dynamic pricing – and prices over $12,000 per domain. The closer to launch day, the price of unsold inventory dropped before settling at a more familiar and reasonable two-digit price once the .day domain officially launched. (I jumped on the bandwagon and that’s when I grabbed mine.)

Eight months later I haven’t come across any .day websites or marketing for one in my life as a growth strategist, marketer, online surfer or soccer mom. But I’m holding out faith that one day I will come across one that brightens my .day as much as my click does for the person on the other end.

A more mainstream trend is the clever, successful use of TLDs where country codes are baked into the names such as Musical.ly (TikTok, Libya) and flic.kr (flickr, South Korea).

TDLs are a marketplace as much as they are an identifier for a website, so choose wisely. Jumping on a trend can be fruitful when strategically implemented, but can be costly and forgettably fade into the next trend. To be successful with an alternative top-level domain, be sure to choose something that is relevant to your business, and flex your new domain every chance you get.

“ICANN and the domain registrars need to make money somehow,” said Shrum. “Creating new TLDs is like developing new land that can then be sold to homesteaders. More options is not a bad thing, but the number of registered domains drops off quickly after you get past the original TLDs (.com, .net, and .org) and country code top-level domains (ccTLDs). Unfortunately, some of the newer ones are already pretty strongly associated with spam and phishing, in which case they may be permanently ruined in the eyes of consumers and search engines alike.”

5. .com is here to stay and you need it for your business

The proof is in the data: with billions of .com websites live today, companies with .com domain names tend to be more successful when it comes to traffic and conversions.

“The die has been cast, and .com is the default top-level domain that consumers expect,” notes Shrum.

Studies by Moz found that sites with a .com domain are more likely to convert, and that .com domains receive about 20 times more traffic than .org domains.

There are many different extensions out there beyond the standard .com, some of them are even free. So what do you choose and what matters? When choosing a top-level domain other than .com, it’s a good idea to expand your digital footprint and have a .com site as a safety net, whether it’s a redirect or relevant microsite for your business.

“This isn’t because of some magic spell. It’s simply because the .com extension is associated with success by consumers and by the world’s largest search engine,” said Guberman.

We’re living in the future of top-level domains

When choosing your top-level domain, go with what your research, strategy and brand vision tell you. If there’s ever been an era where creativity and standing out are accepted, the opportunity is now.

Still ahead for the future of web domains, expect to see Web3 become a bigger part of the conversation. In very simple terms, Web3 is a vision for the future of the internet and incorporates decentralization and blockchain technologies. It’s far too early to say that Web3 is disrupting the internet, but the innovation, investors and audience are there, and the internet could look and function quite differently in 40 years than how it has in its first 40.

“Looking ahead to Web3 and its impact on top-level domains, .io is well-suited for tech services and SaaS-type offerings, and .tv has some obvious appeal. I won’t be surprised if .eth domains stick, but it’s still early and a lot of dust needs to settle in that realm,” predicts Shrum.

The post The Future Of Web Domains: 5 Things Companies Should Know appeared first on Hennessey Digital.

We’re serious about our guiding principles at Hennessey Digital. Honesty and transparency underlie everything we do, and our Engineering team takes this to heart.

With this in mind, the Engineering team at Hennessey Digital has multiple projects happening concurrently. Here are examples of transparency and efficiency-driven projects we currently have going in our department and why they’re important, for us and for our clients.

Prioritizing client requests

As Engineering Team Lead of Hennessey Digital’s Client Success squad, I’m in charge of delegating tasks and client requests that come in. These tasks can be anything from creating a new page on a client’s website for an upcoming event to integrating form submissions to a new system behind the scenes.

When client requests come to our email support inbox, we use Zendesk and Asana to assign tasks to our team members according to the skill and urgency required to complete them.

Our dedicated support inbox is a big advantage for our clients. With a direct line of communication to our Engineering support team, clients can make quick changes to their sites. For example, for a client in the legal industry, if an attorney leaves the firm and needs to be removed from the website, or if there were developments to an important case that needed to be shown on the website, my team and I handle these urgent requests.

Recently, the Client Success branch of our Engineering team changed CRM platforms. The previous solution we were using fulfilled the basic features, but it didn’t allow for more complex needs we have.

We wanted a clear birds-eye view into our team’s entire scope of work that didn’t automatically silo work into separate areas, and we needed a scalable solution to handle a high volume as we continue to grow. Our new CRM does a much better job providing a broad view of our clients daily needs and requests.

Additionally, the new CRM we use has integration capabilities with our project management software that our previous CRM didn’t. Significantly, it allows us to assign and relate tasks with more complexity beyond the restrictive “one request, one task” 1:1 relationship our old CRM used. Sometimes a single request is best broken down into multiple components of work or even multiple projects, and our new CRM allows for this.

Our CRM also integrates with Slack, our internal messaging platform. When a client submits a request, it automatically creates a message to the Engineering team. These alerts add transparency and efficiency to this process with full visibility into each client request.

Making HD Platform enhancements

Speaking of integrations, our proprietary HD Platform is now integrated with Google Data Studio, giving more transparency and customization to our clients.

We’ve also integrated Hennessey Digital’s chat solution, HD Live Chat, into the HD Platform as well. Clients who use HD Live Chat on their websites can see chat transcripts and lead information in the HD Platform. This way, clients can attribute leads coming from all sources—phone calls, lead forms, chats, and paid media campaigns—in one place, and in real time.

Our Systems team is also working on integrating our new CRM with the HD Platform so clients can make requests directly from there. This creates efficiencies for both us and the client, with the HD Platform acting as the single point of contact for our clients’ websites.

Using version control for code

We use version control for all of our code. In the world of web development, it’s important to use a cloud-based code repository (Github and Bitbucket are common ones) to provide a record of all changes made, because if anything needs to be changed back, you’re not working blind or starting from scratch.

If your Engineering team is working directly with files on a server, you cannot see which changes have been made to code. This creates issues with accountability as there’s no way of knowing who made a change if something breaks.

With version control, we can see who made each change to the code and when it was made. It also allows teams to work together to make changes to websites in collaborative, responsible ways that merge changes together without causing errors.

Accountability and transparency matter, and this philosophy of version control with code also extends to our website deployment process with Local HD, a localhost tool we developed in-house that prevents errors and rework when making updates to clients’ live sites.

Building proprietary solutions

Many of the tools and processes we create are as a result of mistakes we’ve made. Our founder and CEO Jason Hennessey reminds us to always “fail forward” and incorporate our learnings into new digital marketing technology that turns past mistakes into opportunities.

Our team has built tools such as HD Robot, which automatically crawls clients’ websites to detect and fix broken links, make batch updates on multiple pages at the same time, and validates rules and SEO best practices before allowing a page to be published.

HD Robot also has a security feature that allows us to control logins to our clients’ websites without sharing passwords. Data security and integrity is our top priority, and everything else flows from there.

We’ve also created a plug-in that auto-generates video schema for YouTube videos to include on pages. Basically, if there’s a tool we use (proprietary or from a third party) and can find ways to make it more efficient, we will improve it or build our own version of it.

The future of engineering at Hennessey Digital

In addition to transparency and efficiency, innovation also drives our decision making, particularly in the Engineering team. We stay nimble and constantly look for ways to improve on our work.

We’re not afraid to own our mistakes, admit when we’re wrong, and build solutions when issues arise. Our Chief Technology Officer Blin Kazazi and I have worked together for years (prior to Hennessey Digital, even!) and we have the right leadership and a talented global team of developers that can tackle any challenge.

What’s to come in engineering at Hennessey Digital? Stay tuned, because our Vivid Vision has big things lined up for our team—and for our clients.

The post How Transparency and Efficiency Drive Our Decision Making appeared first on Hennessey Digital.

Rebuilding a website doesn’t necessarily mean that we redesign the entire website top to bottom. There are cases when we keep the same visual website design and we rework the code structure and update the site architecture so the website can perform and rank better from an SEO perspective.

With this in mind, here are the steps we take at Hennessey Digital to rebuild a website while ensuring that nothing gets lost in this process.

Why Build Websites in WordPress?

Hennessey Digital uses WordPress to build and rebuild sites because it’s easy to use, create new content, and manage existing content. In addition, WordPress is updated frequently and comes with a vast amount of support from its user community.

WordPress also has several add-ons and features for developers to make it easy for anyone to simply install a plugin and build new website features.

(And as an aside, we discovered in our newly released 2022 State of Law Firm Website Rankings study that 65% of law firms use WordPress for their websites!)

Our Custom WordPress Framework

When it comes to code structure and code quality, our Senior Engineers work on updating our own WordPress framework which we developed as a child theme of Genesis and use on every website that we build. Our team continually updates this framework and introduces new features to ensure that everything works as efficiently as possible.

Hennessey Digital developed this WordPress framework primarily with SEO and page speed in mind. Our framework has enhanced internal linking capabilities along with good code practices and content filtering and management.

Along with improved technical capabilities, our WordPress framework also makes it easy for developers because the code structure is up to the highest standards and latest methodologies. At Hennessey Digital, our developers use BEM, the most popular methodology for SCSS available.

Website Development Stage

First, we start by assigning the website rebuild to one of our developers. The assigned developer only works on one website at a time so they can fully focus on the client’s site rebuild without distractions.

Next, our full team—Engineering, SEO, Analytics, and Creative—starts by analyzing the client’s current website and determining what needs to be improved throughout the development process. This could be technical problems, design issues, or user experience/user interface enhancements (UI/UX).

After a thorough analysis, we create a detailed development plan with a list of changes that need to be implemented during the rebuild. With the client’s approval, these changes are developed into the rebuilt site.

After the website development work is finished, a Senior Engineer reviews the code and the functionality of the website. A thorough UI and UX review then goes to the Creative Director, whose primary goal is to make sure that everything looks and feels smooth for the user on all devices, be it mobile phones, tablets or desktop computers.

SEO and Quality Assurance

After all development work is completed and approved by a Senior Engineer, the SEO team begins its work on the website. This team reviews all title tags, meta descriptions, page structure (e.g. breadcrumbs), internal links, sitemaps, indexing, link structure, redirects, and existing content.

The SEO team also optimizes user experience on the website by structuring the architecture of the pages. This means that each user visiting a specific page can easily navigate through the site by finding more relevant content through properly structured internal links.

Our SEO team also manages the sitemap of the website. Even though most users will never visit the sitemap, a website’s sitemap is crucial because it’s the default way for Google bots to find and index each page on a site. You have to give the Google algorithm what it wants!

Website Approval and Go-Live

Once we wrap everything up, we then submit the website to the client for approval. As this happens, our internal team double-checks each technical and design aspect of the site to ensure everything is up to our standards.

When the website is approved to go live by a Senior Engineer, the Creative team, the SEO team, and the client, we do our final checks before deploying the website to a live environment. The first thing we check is making sure the content between the client’s existing website and our rebuilt site matches. Using a tool we developed in-house, we compare the content between the production website and the rebuild to make sure everything is in sync and we are not overwriting any changes.

After this step, we compare all links between the existing and rebuilt sites to make sure there are no discrepancies and no missing links. When both of the tests pass, we proceed with deploying the website to a live environment. Once the site is live, we re-check the lead forms and internal links to ensure the deployment was done correctly.

What Happens After a Rebuild

After a website rebuild is complete, we proceed with adding caching plugins so the page speed of the site increases. Concurrently, our SEO team does their work on the website, continuing to make improvements.

Likewise, our Engineering team continues work to improve both the technical performance of the website and user experience as well. Our developers fulfill requests ranging from simple information updates to introducing new features, or a completely new look for specific pages or parts of the website.

One very important aspect of digital marketing for our law firm clients is leads generated from the website. With this as top of mind, Hennessey Digital made the client review process smooth so they are notified about new leads as soon as they come in through our HD Platform. With the client’s permission, we integrate this feature after the rebuild is deployed so that our clients have full transparency into the lead generation process.

Our Analytics team also tracks client website data before and after a rebuild is deployed to measure the impact the rebuild had on the website’s performance on Google. This data is imperative for both our clients and our team as we pave the way for improving website performance and rankings even more.

With over 50 website rebuilds completed and deployed in 2021 alone, this is a prime example of our SEO and Engineering teams working to continuously deliver excellence to our clients.

The post Why We Rebuild Clients’ Websites appeared first on Hennessey Digital.

This is why I developed Local HD, a localhost tool our Engineering team uses at Hennessey Digital.

What is localhost?

In simple terms, “localhost” is a full copy of a website that is hosted on our own computers instead of the server. We write code and make changes on our own (“local”) computers, then we push that code out to the live site we’re working on.

For web development, this process makes sense when multiple developers work on a project together. And for our team at Hennessey Digital, a “project” refers to a client’s website.

When many individuals are accessing and changing the same code on a live website, we could make conflicting changes or even delete each other’s changes. Local HD prevents this issue.

Local HD use

In full transparency, Local HD was created because of errors we made. We like to be open about our mistakes and what we learned to help others from having the same issues.

With this new proprietary tool, our developers can make a local copy of any website to make any tweaks and changes to the code on their own computer before moving the changes over to the live site.

Local HD is a version of what others have built and use now. The technology isn’t new, but developing an in-house solution has many advantages. For example, we can use this tool to build more automated tests to run on our clients’ websites, which frees up our developers to focus on more advanced tasks.

It makes it possible for our developers to work with Docker without having any experience with virtual environments. Our infrastructure team sets up clients’ servers, and then our developers can use LocalHD to easily and quickly copy the configuration from the server to their own computer.

Developing Local HD

Local HD makes it easy to build and test changes to our clients’ websites.

I developed this tool using Electron and JavaScript over a period of 6 months. The tool is a set of scripts that execute one after the next to complete these steps:

1. Prepare a local environment. Create docker containers for local web server (apache), database (mysql), and install fresh WordPress under it. Assign a local fake “domain” to the local website.
2. Prepare an external database. Create a dump of the external database of the live site and install it on the local environment.
3. Connect to Git repository, then download all the necessary files and assets from the remote website.
4. Start the Docker containers and voilá – you have a local copy of the remote website. Just open the editor and start writing code!

This process saves developers a ton of time. Using Local HD, it takes anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes (based on website size) to clone a single website, while the manual process can take 1.5 to 2 hours or more, and this does not take into account the required training.

Local HD and automated testing

When we can prevent errors on clients’ websites with automated, repeatable tests, it saves developers time from having to manually test things.

Using technology created for the Local HD tool, we can now leverage localhost to automate and run tests for clients’ websites. The team also uses a 2-step review process before making changes to a client’s live website.

To illustrate this 2-step process, here’s how we added a video to our own Careers page:

First, the developer does a technical review on their local machine. After the review, they open a “Pull Request” which allows other team members to test features and review the code. Only after two other team members have reviewed and approved the Pull Request can the developer deploy to the staging server.

Next, we run API, Integration, and Selenium tests on the server and then move it from staging to production.

Finally, the pull request triggers an automated deploy which bundles all the website’s code together and pushes it to the receiver endpoint. It’s then deployed to production and seen on the live site.

Advantages of Local HD

• Fewer website errors. Our in-house localhost solution makes it possible for developers to update multiple features of a website simultaneously.
• Increased team efficiency. Tight deadlines can only be met with a tool like this. Local HD is saving our team thousands of hours and frees up our developers for creative problem-solving that leads to projects like the HD Platform
• Cross-functional technology. The Hennessey Digital SEO team can use this tool for local staging and production environments on their machines. Duplicating our Engineering team’s process creates more time for innovating and making things more efficient across multiple areas of the organization.

Hennessey Digital’s technology solutions

From technology to our internal processes, we continually evaluate and update the solutions our team builds.

As Google Partners, our HD Platform leverages hard-to-access technology that many of our competitors don’t have.

My team and I are also rebuilding the top WordPress theme for attorneys (acquired earlier this year) on a continual basis. We are digital marketing technology enthusiasts who love creating new solutions to old problems, and ingenuity isn’t limited to the Engineering department.

It’s why we call ourselves “the digital marketing agency you wish you’d hired first!”

The post How a Custom-Built Docker Management Tool Benefits Our Clients appeared first on Hennessey Digital.

While we love what we do, we’re not perfect. And we recently made an error that left us embarrassed and apologizing to a client.

On a page of content we published, we accidentally omitted a digit from the client’s phone number. Because of this, visitors saw the wrong contact information and the client missed out on potential leads from that page. The client was understandably upset and we quickly corrected the error. And we also wanted to make sure it didn’t happen again.

Here’s how we recovered from our mistake, what we learned, and the solutions we built to prevent and resolve human errors using technology.

Prevent errors with repeatable tests

Once we corrected this error, we sprang into action. Our in-house engineering team identified where the discrepancy occurred and implemented a solution to not only identify content errors, but also alert the team automatically when a problem is detected.

We now use automated selenium testing to continually test clients’ websites for errors. These selenium tests use real automated browsers to crawl clients’ websites and make sure all elements are working properly.

In selenium tests, automated users load menus, submit lead forms, and take screenshots to test “expected versus actual” appearances on each page. If something looks different from what’s expected, one of our engineers is alerted to look into it further.

Automated testing frees up our team’s resources so our developers can focus on issues that require human intervention. We’ve also learned to find patterns in clients’ websites. When we find an issue that’s a repeat offender, we create tests to check these things to be more efficient and help our clients be successful.

Detect and resolve errors using automation

We now run multiple automated tests on a daily basis to catch and fix errors on clients’ websites. Some tests run multiple times in a day.

When we find tools we like that already exist, we integrate them into our technology toolbox and find ways to improve on them. For example, we use an inspection tool to detect a checklist of errors on clients’ sites including canonical status, server response time, and many more items. Our engineering team then creates and runs scripts to crawl sites and notify us when a fix is needed.

Testing lead forms can be done without submitting an actual lead form to clients. It’s crucial to not disrupt our clients’ businesses, so we use development environments and time any updates to eliminate downtime on their websites.

These existing tools can be run on our own servers, and we check desktop, mobile, and tablet configurations on all sites. The Home and Contact pages are ones we focus on, but all website pages are checked for errors.

We use tools that survey site speed and page load times, check h1s and meta descriptions, and monitor server response times. If a site goes down, instant alerts go to our developers through Slack and text message. Any downtime means lost revenue for our clients, so we’re diligent about responding fast to site issues.

Digital marketing technology improves chat experience

Automated chats are a form of existing technology that many of our law firm clients use to capture leads. The problem with chat is that it can sometimes cause user experience (UX) issues. Chat windows covering up the navigation or crucial information like a phone number can frustrate users and make them click away from your site.

The problem is with most chat providers, we cannot control the placement or appearance of chat windows on our clients’ websites.

Chat providers are incentivized to get users to engage in a chat, so they will often change how and where chat windows pop up on clients’ websites. This can cause errors and lead to poor user experience, causing visitors to click away from the site.

Hennessey Digital is currently working on a solution to the chat issue. With the right chat partner and digital marketing technology like selenium testing, we can control how and where chat windows appear on our clients’ websites.

This way, chat functionality works with the UX of a website and not against it. Visitors have a better experience with the website and conversion rate improves.

Enhance security with proprietary solutions

To prevent duplicate content problems, we modify WordPress in a way that prevents team members from publishing pages with a URL that already exists. Taking the WordPress improvements a step further, we also enhance the WordPress default settings by developing proprietary extensions in addition to Yoast and MapRanks.

We’ve changed permissions in WordPress so that team members can only access what they are authorized to. We use homegrown single sign-on (SSO) technology for WordPress with custom roles and permissions depending on our team members’ level.

Hennessey Digital team members never get the passwords to our clients’ sites. In addition, we use Okta to manage user access with a universal directory to the vendors we use for our clients. Because we have a virtual work environment, we’re happy to help clients manage their passwords and teach them how to secure their digital assets with a remote workforce.

We take security seriously, and protecting clients’ data is always top of mind for our team.

What we learned from our mistake

Technology is amazing, but it can sometimes exacerbate problems. We have to balance automation and technology solutions with human intervention.

Hennessey Digital is a marketing agency, but we also see ourselves as a digital marketing technology company. We work hard to build a culture of learning, innovation, and transparency. Each of our team members is empowered to make decisions and own solutions to problems.

SEO and web development require a high level of technical skill to get right. We truly believe that our team is our best asset, and the tools our team develops are what separates us from our competitors.

“These technical innovations are classic examples of how we’ve built our agency over the last six years. The only way that you get better is to fail, learn the lessons, and change how we systemize our processes so that we fail forward,” shares Jason Hennessey, our founder and CEO.

“The failures we made three years ago have a big impact on the clients that sign up with us today. We invest a lot in research and development and in our technology to prevent these mistakes in the future. This sets us apart as an agency. Failure actually makes us better digital partners.”

A digital marketing technology advantage

While other agencies only make recommendations, we take over the client’s entire website. We educate clients on what we’re doing and we do the work through the digital marketing services we offer.

Vulnerability is important. If we mess up, we own it. We take issues that we find to the client instead of covering them up. “Be honest and transparent” is our first guiding principle and we believe that owning errors is a big part of this.

If we find a problem, we do the research and develop a tool to solve it. Last week, we launched the Hennessey Digital Platform to bring radical transparency to digital marketing ROI. The Platform will continue to evolve with additional features coming from client feedback.

At the end of the day, we’re all human. When we use technology to fix human problems, it makes our work and our people even better. We look forward to continuing to fail because it helps us innovate. If we don’t fail, we never succeed.

When we fail, our clients win!

The post What a Human Failure Taught Us About Technology appeared first on Hennessey Digital.