 [business website] A creative web design is an important investment. The internet is an important medium of communication. This explains why local businesses are thriving to have in place a properly designed website. Many of the businesses are striving to have in place an online presence through efficient business website design. Furthermore, businesses that are planning to start their operations consider a website as part and parcel of their business strategy. The reasons for considering a creative website design include:
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 The phrase 'search presents a unique opportunity for businesses' has become a cliché. You will hear everybody talking about it, but no one will ever tell you how you can leverage on those opportunities to see actual gains that can drive the growth of your business.
Leveraging a search engine can be harder for small companies which other than their lack of finances, they may also harbor misconceptions. However, this should not be the case. Startups can wrestle with fortune 500 companies for a piece of the cake. All they need to do is take steps to employ some top SEO strategies, and they will stand a chance. So what are these strategies? 1. Reviews of your content Content is the driver of SEO. You have probably heard this before, but I believe stressing it is key. Search engine algorithms mainly prioritize relevance and content hence content forms the backbone of your performance on SEO. Great pieces of content often perform better on search engines. So how do you have great content? You have to employ multimedia. This is usually in the form of images, texts, and video. Purely text websites are often dull for visitors. These visitors often leave the site within a brief period hence go the website with a high bounce rate which results in it being ranked lowly by search engine algorithms. However, you can try and have your content in the multimedia form to counter this. This will break the monotony and keep your sites interesting enough such that visitors often stay in them for more extended periods. Subsequently, search engines will rank them highly. Your content should also have a call to action. It can be in the form of convincing customers to pay or even to leave a review. You should encourage reviews to boost your SEO. Many people often want to find out how past clients rated your business before spending on it. Excellent business reviews often translate to reliability and authority. When people find these excellent reviews, then they are likely to spend on you. Similarly, search engines usually rate sites with excellent reviews highly as this is seen as a show of authority and your social proof. You should continuously seek to improve yourself based on the reviews. Your content should also reflect what I like to call the four pillars of high material. It should be convincing, informative, educational and entertaining. Once you ensure that your content meets these, then you can say you have started your journey to SEO success. 2. Know your audience Several SEO campaigns often struggle due to the absence of this. Unless you have a clear understanding of who you are targeting, you will employ general strategies which may not be as effective as customized strategies. Not knowing who your audience is will likely make your efforts futile or not as useful. Thankfully, today there are so many tools out there that can help you identify who your target audience is. You should seek to find one that works for you. For example, try the Google Search Console to help you know what your customers are looking for and Bing's Keyword Research tool to help you understand the words in their search queries. 3. Do great web design It is essential that you focus on this. The way you design your websites can have a significant say on whether you will be successful or you will struggle in search engines. Effectively developing your site can lead you to success. Here are simple strategies you can adopt in your web design to help you be successful on search.
4. Use analytics and tools Analytics plays a key role in measuring the effectiveness of any campaign. For this reason, the metrics and information they provide offer a key indicator of what is working and what needs changing. Similarly, tools can be a great asset to you and your website. They can help you respond to customers within a short period, manage your sites and even schedule posts among other. Leveraging insights provided by analytics and employing the various tools available is likely to lead to success on a search engine. 5. Promote your content It is significant that once you are up and running on a search engine, you promote your content. This can be done in the form of advertising your sites in other platforms like social media platforms. This will help push your site's traffic. Link your websites to your social media platforms, and you will be surprised by the truck originating from your social media. Search engines can be a great avenue to generate leads. While these strategies can work for some, for others it might take time and require a little twitching. All you have to do is be patient and try new things until you find what works for you.  The success of business mostly depends on its ability to provide excellent customer service. In today’s competitive world, the way you treat your clients dictates how much activity you will have. Many companies have had trouble in the customer service sector, but thankfully technology is making things easier. Here are five ways technology is changing customer service:
Giving control to the client Technology has enabled companies to empower clients. Nowadays, clients have expectations about how they should be treated. Customers have become more demanding, but technology has allowed companies to meet their expectations by all means. In the past, customers did not have a choice when they got poor customer service. The incorporation of technology has enabled clients to access a global marketplace. The moment one company offers poor customer service, the clients switch to the competitors. Since competition has become stiff, other companies are going the extra mile to provide social media customer service. Client-centric modeling A few years ago, many companies used to get away with poor customer service only because they offer superior products or services. Nowadays, clients have become wise because they can get excellent customer service and at the same time great product or service. Today, when you are running a business, offering a great customer experience is a must. Technology is encouraging key performance indicators, which is essential in creating a client-centric approach. With the help of big data and analytic information gotten from different applications, companies can quickly gain access to key performance indicators. Such knowledge helps the company to hold everybody in all positions accountable in case any client does not get superior customer service. The opening of different communication channels Now that businesses have so many ways of communicating with their clients, there is no excuse for poor communication. The good thing about having different forms of technology is that you can interact with all your clients using their preferred methods of communication. For example, the older generation prefers communicating using email and SMS. However, the young people prefer active connection using social media platforms like Whatsapp, Facebook, and Twitter, and since many clients prefer live chats, technology has also made that possible. Additionally, creating a blog for your website can help you to connect with your customers and answer common questions before they even know how to ask it. Availability Operating with a 9 to 5 customer service will make your business fall behind. Nowadays, businesses can be online for 24 hours. Therefore, if you want your business to stand out, you need to utilize this service. Companies can also be available for their clients anywhere and anytime by making use of all communication channels. Give your clients the opportunity to talk to you any time of the day. Few businesses give their customers such freedom. An excellent example of a service you can offer your clients is guest printing. As long as your client has a gadget that can connect to the internet, he or she can be able to print whatever they want from the comfort of their homes. Empathy Most clients get frustrated with the customer service they receive from most companies because they feel like the representatives do not understand their needs. The truth of the matter is that the representatives are doing their job. Fortunately, due to technology, companies can change their policies to offer their clients the empathy they need. To be able to have the edge over your competitors, try and incorporate technology into your customer service campaign.  Introduction
Launching a website is vital for any business. It’s the first step you take in making a successful site. It’s an achievement that should be celebrated. However, it’s not the time to relax. You will need to update your site for it to grow and get traffic. Consistently develop the website to improve the user’s experience. Few people launch their site as it takes up a lot of time and energy. Do not reach that far and fail. Follow the tips in this article to come up with a management plan. 1. Clean Up After Launching A website launch is an energy-sapping and time-consuming activity. Your chances of making errors are high. Take time to fix the mistakes made on your website as soon as possible. Check your site’s speed and improve the user’s experience. Enhanced speed will rank your website higher on search engines. Use GTMetrix to check your site’s current performance. You will get insights and recommendations on areas to work on. Create scheduled checks to maintain consistency in your site’s performance. Check all the images for any errors. Look at their sizes and ensure there is no duplication. Use image optimizer to compress the images before uploading them. It will increase the site’s speed. Consider the various screen sizes of your users as well. Ensure that the site will work well in all the sizes. Create XML sitemaps to enable web crawlers to check your website’s structure. A sitemap will list all the links you want to be ranked in search engines. It plays an essential role in sustaining and improving SEO. Run through the content to ensure it is optimized for search engines. A website crawler such as the Screaming Frog's SEO Spider will analyze your entire website at once. Screaming Frog crawls the whole website and interprets the results to give you useful insights. It also highlights the SEO challenges your site is facing. 2. Come Up With Marketing Strategies Just as a business needs to increase demand to succeed, so does a website need to increase traffic. You need to sustain the traffic you created from the launch. There are several marketing methods available to aid in increasing traffic. Find out where your audience hangs out and select the ways that will suit them. Create a big following on social media and direct them to your website. Come up with value-adding content, get a professional bio, use hashtags, engage with other users and ensure your content is shareable. These tips will increase your social media followers. It may take time to build a following, but it is useful for marketing. You can also get your visitor’s email address and use the platform to sell your products and services. Use keywords related to your business to optimize on search engines. When potential customers search for solutions that your company provides, they will be directed to your website. Maximize on these keywords to ensure your website ranks higher in search engines. Make your site as visible as possible to increase traffic. You can also set up ads on other online platforms to direct traffic to your site whenever a user clicks on the ad. However, improve your website before using this method so that you can maximize on the traffic you receive. 3. Maintenance and Protection A maintenance plan is vital in minimizing the risk of breakdown and hacking. Get a plan and stick to it to stay at the top of your game. For instance, get a secure location to backup your content. Backing up will depend on the number of times you update your site. Update your themes and plugins to avoid being vulnerable. Your database is like a library. After some time, it will be disorganized. Run a database sweep to keep it organized. Use security measures to ensure your data is always safe. A complex password will make it hard for hackers to access your site. Reset your password on a regular basis to increase your site’s safety. You may also consider using a firewall. It will protect your site from hackers and malicious attacks. Use it to protect the login and administration areas of your site. Consider installing plugins to limit the number of login attempts. Conclusion A management plan will help you track and take control of your website’s growth. Use the tips above and enjoy the journey to success. References: Convince & Convert | 6 Simple Steps to Improve User Experience Big Leap | The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Using Screaming Frog Smart Passive Income | How to Launch a Brand New Website (With a Bang!)  Whether you are a professional marketer or an entrepreneur, you must use the best strategies to succeed in marketing. If you run a small business, proper marketing of your goods or services will create awareness and boost sales. Apart from creating an attractive website for your business, you need to use modern marketing tools to connect your business with the right audience. Using the right advertising tools will help you create a positive corporate image. Once your company gains an excellent reputation, customers will become loyal to your brand. The achievement will assist you to outshine your competitors in the business world. This article provides 5 essential marketing tools that you need to consider for your business.
1. Buzzsumo Founders: Henley Wing, James Blackwell Buzzsumo is a supportive online marketing tool used by thousands of small and mid-sized businesses in the world. You can use the app to grow your business and find the right influencers. Additionally, it will evaluate your competition and help you study social media trends, which will enable you to use the right marketing strategies to outperform your competitors. Using Buzzsumo, you can easily share your content with the right audience and view what your competitors are posting on social media and other sites. 2. Hootsuite Founders: Dario Meli, David Tedman, Ryan Holmes This is a perfect marketing tool that will allow you to schedule posts on various sites, including social media platforms. You can use the tool to schedule as many posts as you can, which will boost your marketing campaigns. 3. Womply Founders: Jeremy Richardson, Toby Scammell As a businessperson, engaging your customers online is an essential thing that you need to consider. Womply is the best software that will connect your business with your online customers. You will be able to answer their queries in real-time, which will boost customer loyalty and sales. 4. Biteable Founders: James MacGregor, Simon Westlake, Tommy Fotak Biteable will assist you to create and post exciting videos about your products or services on your social media accounts. For instance, you can use it to post an informative video demonstrating how to use a particular product. Visuals are engaging and attractive to customers. They will influence their buying decisions. 5. Trello Founders: Joel Spolsky, Michael Pryor Trello is a fantastic tool that will help you and your team to manage your marketing projects efficiently. For instance, before posting any advert on your social media accounts, you should post it on Trello for your team to see. The team will review the post and highlight critical areas that require changes. This process will save you time and strengthen your posts before posting them on social media. Additionally, your customers will trust you because of sharing informative posts regularly. As a marketer or businessperson, you should utilize the above marketing tools to improve your business. They will save you time and connect your business with loyal customers from home and abroad. Need more customers? We help businesses generate more leads and sales with internet marketing!  One of the best ways to grow your following, extend your reach, generate sales, and acquire customers is to run a giveaway on Instagram. Running Instagram giveaways can help your brand and business growth. However, it's vital that you know how to create a winning campaign. Without proper implementation, you'll be wasting your precious time and money with the giveaway. Here's our quick guide to creating a winning Instagram giveaway.
Step 1: Start with the Goal Before you do anything else, you want first to define the goal of your giveaway campaign. Are you looking to grow your followers? Do you want to promote your products or services? Perhaps you're looking to generate brand awareness and extend your reach. Your goal will define how your campaign will be designed. For example, it makes sense to highlight the main feature of your product and offer a discount code if the goal of the campaign to generate sales. Step 2: Choose the Audience and Appropriate Prize The next step is to think about the target audience. You have to be clear on who you're trying to reach. For example, a beauty company may want to target women that are young adults. This audience should play a part in choosing the prizes. One of the reasons why some contests and giveaways fail is because the award isn't enticing enough to the audience. Make sure that the giveaway prize is something that people actually want to win. Step 3: Decide the Entry Criteria The entry criteria for your giveaway should be aligned with your goals. For example, if you're looking to grow your audience, you'll want to get people to repost your content and tag their friends. If you want to improve your brand, a good idea for entering the giveaway is to get people to submit their own content. Many brands have used this user-generated content approach with excellent results. Finally, decide on how long the giveaway will run for. Note: Also make sure you follow Instagram's promotion guidelines. Step 4: Create a Marketing Plan and Strategy The most important part of your contest or giveaway will be the marketing. You can't expect your campaign to take off on its own. You have had a solid plan and strategy to promote the giveaway. The prominent place to start is to leverage your existing audience and traffic your website or blog receives. Here are some other ideas you can use:
This quick guide should help you create a solid Instagram giveaway campaign. Just make sure that you cover every step accurately so that you don't make mistakes when the actual campaign is launched. If you want to find out more ways to improve your social media marketing, check out our articles on social media marketing!  The internet is useful for a variety of reasons, from tracking down information to managing your finances. As you may expect, it also has a number of dangers hidden beneath the surface. The following is just a handful of some of the internet's biggest dangers.
Fraud As technology has grown in complexity, thieves have found a myriad of ways to take unsuspecting individuals and even businesses for a ride. From identity theft to phishing emails, the internet is rife with fraud. There are even websites that masquerade as legitimate ones for the purpose of obtaining customers' login information. Depending on how many of your customers' accounts are affected, this could potentially mean millions in losses from fraudulent charges and customer refunds. Doxxing One disturbing type of cyberbullying is called doxxing. When someone doxxes someone else, it means that they find and publish sensitive information about them, including personal phone number and home address. This information potentially allows others to masquerade as the victim online to receive credit cards, obtain loans, open bank accounts and more in the victim's name. If your company lends money to customers, you could potentially lose out on interest payments if the victim did not actually apply for those credit cards or loans. Businesses can be victims of doxing as well. Some famous examples of corporate doxing include the Ashley Madison breach and the film thefts carried out against Sony Pictures. If your company's sensitive information is stolen and leaked to the public, it could potentially cut into sales, lead to class-action lawsuits, loss of customers due to lack of trust and much more. Depending on the industry, it could even lead to the business closing entirely. Hacking and Viruses This is more what people think of when they think of online dangers. It's a bit of a classic at this point: someone takes control of your computer, and you have no control over it. These days, it isn't enough to just be careful what websites you visit. Antivirus software is also a must, including at the corporate level. What separates these two things is how they work. Hacking is a result of people finding flaws in existing, legitimate programs or company mainframes, which you use every day to conduct business. Viruses, on the other hand, are programs explicitly written to harm your computer system, and they take on many forms. They can even impersonate or "hide" within legitimate programs. Ransomware Ransomware is a specific kind of program that locks access to a computer and deletes all the files within it unless the victim pays a ransom, often in some form of cryptocurrency. It can be removed, but it is paralyzing if it somehow gets on your system. This is not a common occurrence, but ransomware's appearance has been steadily increasing. If ransomware were to spread to computers with sensitive information, it could grind your business to a complete halt. For example, how would you correspond with a supplier if you have a store chain? Without that contact information or internet access, it would be next to impossible. The Internet of Things The Internet of Things is not a threat on its own. In fact, your business might offer or use a product that falls in this category. Think internet-enabled televisions, fax machines, printers, cameras, smart watches, and similar equipment, and that is essentially the Internet of Things. Why is it dangerous? Because, according to the FTC, 25 billion such devices are online worldwide, with the number growing daily. These devices, which record a variety of sensitive information, can be hacked and the information stolen. This could be a disaster for a business of any size because customer data, correspondence, and contact information are just a few of the things that could potentially be jeopardized. How Do I Protect My Business? Protecting your business from these online threats is equal parts awareness and scrutiny. Educate your employees about the practices thieves employ, such as impersonating technical support and asking for a password. Also, tell your employees to scrutinize - or, even better, delete - anything unfamiliar in terms of communication. If it comes from outside the company somehow, and it doesn't look like it belongs in your correspondence, it may be a scam. Also, take the time to invest in skilled IT personnel that can counter and eliminate these threats as they arise. Penetration testers are one example of personnel you should have on hand because they seek out flaws in your company's network. This allows the appropriate staff to address the problem sooner rather than later. Sources:  Digital Media And Your Website
When designing your website, you want content that will catch the attention of your viewers. It's always in the best interest of your website to operate smoothly, whether you are writing captivating articles, promoting a product, selling professional services, or building traffic for affiliate marketing companies. Search engine optimization and effective keywords play the important role of bringing customers to your content, but you likewise need a polished design to engage viewers. Adding digital media in the form of images or videos can be a great stepping-stone for your business. Let's go over a few easy steps to ensure that your high-quality traffic is greeted with an equally high-quality page layout. Find out ways you can get a better conversion rate with an efficiency-oriented approach. How To Use Images There are three primary sources through which website designers acquire most images. The first and easiest is by going through a copyright-free online source. There are millions of images available online that are copyright free, and most of those images don't require any citations or credits to the photographers. Secondly, you have paid images which you can purchase the rights to, either per-use or permanently. These images are typically of a higher quality than the free-to-use media. Lastly, you can hire a professional photographer directly which will give the advantage of very specific or personalized images. Directly hiring a photographer works well when building a brand specific domain. Usually, depending on your host and software, images can be integrated with HTML coding through a third-party host address, or uploaded directly to your site and encoded into your postings. Keep in mind that you should ensure links are never altered to reduce broken links and dead pages. When uploading pictures directly on your domain, include relevant keywords in the image descriptions and include a similar alternate description to increase your SEO scores. When incorporating images into your postings, you should always include a clickable hyperlink in the embedded images to relevant pages within your site. How To Incorporate Video Similar to images, videos can be obtained through third-party companies or made directly through contracting with a video editor. Several media companies have easy-to-use web integration built into their players, which can make creating your own content extremely low-cost. You can upload video directly to your domain or allow a third-party hosting site to host your video for you. In order to reduce data usage for your domain, you should always consider outsourcing your hosting. Be vigilant with your outsourcing. A broken or removed video can go unnoticed if an error occurs, or if it is removed from the host site. Also, keep in mind that different video players a host may utilize can have various load time efficiencies. Occasionally test your pages in order to provide the reliable content your customers expect. The last thing you want is a great landing page with unplayable video content. Avoid looking unprofessional with diligent page reviews. How To Improve Load Time And Reduce Data Usage Search engines base their ranking scores on several factors, including cross-links, keyword density, readability, and load time. If your page takes more than a second or two to load, consider optimizing your pages. This can be achieved by reducing the size of photos and videos. If you find your page falling short of fantastic efficiency, consider reducing the frequency of which your media content appears on a single page, or decreasing the file sizes. Images and textures tend to be the main issue with page optimization. Avoid high-resolution, full-scale images in your content while keeping a tasteful tone to your website. Most web design software comes with built-in preview features for multiple platforms including tablets, internet browsers, and mobile browsers. Be sure to check the efficiency of each one to safeguard an overall smooth speed across devices. As a rule of thumb, upload images and videos at around 60 percent quality level in regards to the original content size, because optimized images lower load time. Keep thumbnails at a low resolution to avoid browser lag. Use a high speed third-party hosting site with automatic resolution settings for viewer-friendly video performance. Meet your Traffic With Quality However you decide to use these guidelines to build your website, the presentation is the key. Whether it's through content, eye-catching photos, enticing videos, or a smooth loading experience, your prospective followers should be greeted with a professional ambiance. All of the features of your pages work together to generate conversion from traffic, towards profit. Using your skills and creativity you can accomplish your goals, and achieve the atmosphere you need to win the attention of your target audience. For more information on how a well-designed website can improve the rankings and search engine optimization of your website, please contact Crawford Designs! References: Forbes | 4 Tips To Ensure Your Website Design & SEO Is Done Right Cortez Visual | 6 Keys to Better SEO Business 2 Community | 7 Tricks to Make Your Web Design SEO Friendly  Your organization's logo identifies who you are. It indicates how the public should perceive your product or service. Developing a brand identity, then, should be a well thought-out process, not just something done on a whim. A logo is the cornerstone of defining the look and feel of your brand, which needs to be consistent across your online and offline presence. Here are a few tips to guide you in developing the best logo possible.
Examine the Competition The first step in developing a brand identity is examining what your competition is doing. Look at brand marks from companies who sell products or services similar to yours. Consider the primary elements of your competitor's design and the implications it has on how you or others perceive what they do or sell. Font What typography does the competitor use? Does the font relate to the what the company is trying to sale? Is the font easy to read, too small or too large, or distracting? Typography should be both functional (i.e., name the company) and technical (i.e., help to tell their overall brand story). In developing your brand identity, you'll want to choose fonts and typography that not only tells who you are but also shows how your product or service will impact the customer. Color What adjective would you use to describe the colors used in the symbol? What mood or feeling does it give? Color plays a unique role in brand design, and often creates certain psychological responses based on how it's used. You'll want to select colors that elicit a positive response from your audience. Imagery What types of imagery does the competitor's symbol use? Does the imagery match the brand's function? Imagery can be either concrete or abstract, but it must always convey a sense of what it is you're offering. If you choose to add imagery to your brand identity, be sure it advances your overall story in an intuitive way. Don't Go It Alone Branded design requires a careful, disciplined approach. Luckily, there are people who build careers around helping businesses and individuals develop an artistic representation of what they do. Reach out to a trained, professional graphic designer who can help you bring your vision to life. Look for a designer who:
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 You have been brainstorming some ways to beef up your advertising efforts to better reach your target market. What you need here are digital advertisements that are both appealing and convincing to your audience. There are a few tried and true techniques that will help you to get more out of your digital ads and increase your MLM sales. Here are five tips that can change the way you approach digital advertising for the better.
1. Tighten up Your Wording Long ads are a big turn off to today's online marketplace. Most people online do not like being advertised to as it is, so smart advertisers need to think short and sweet when constructing digital ad copy. The idea of less is more is what online ads should be modeled around for reaching consumers with a broader appeal. 2. Catchy Is Golden Not only should your ad copy be short and sweet, but it should also be catchy. Think of one line ads that you get in your head, and they resonate all day. That is what good ad copy should do to your visiting traffic. This is why advertisers often think in terms of jingles. 3. Know Your Market Every ad is aimed at a specific segment of the market: your particular audience. To target the right market, you have to have a mental picture of who the ideal customer is that you are trying to reach. If you do not have this mental image, you are writing ad copy that is at best stabbing in the dark. When you can picture in your mind who your ideal customer is, then you will be able to write to that segment of the consumer base that would be the right fit for your products. 4. Pictures Are Powerful They say a picture paints a thousand words, but a powerfully taken picture means even more. Make your product look larger than life in the image, and it will give the impression that your customer is getting a lot for their money. Make your product look distant and small, and your digital ad will provide the opposite reaction. 5. Videos Bring Life to Your Products Your site should contain videos of people using your products and be having loads of fun doing so. Seeing other people using your products is a high selling point because it gives the products a bit of rapport with the viewing audience. Seeing people having the time of their life using your products, well that puts the entire advertising appeal on steroids. Most consumers want to have fun, and if they have to pay for a product to have this kind of fun, they will. Conclusion To breathe new life into your ad copy and digital ads, you will need to try out some of the tips mentioned above. The less annoying and more attractive your online digital ads are to the segment of the consumer base you are marketing to, the easier it will be to convince people to try your products. You have a lot of marketing tools at your disposal, and you should not be afraid to use them to obtain the marketing success you desire. Sources |
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