When I first started in business most businesses had one phone and a person to answer it. Somehow you seemed to always be able to reach someone and talk to them.
Technology and population have advanced since those old days. Everyone seems to have an office number, a fax number a cell phone number, and an email address.
Though our technology has made us more connected, it seems that it conversely made us harder to reach.
It’s not surprising that mobile devices are becoming more and more popular. People use them for everything and the number of things they can do is only increasing. As a business, it is very critical to make sure your website is functional on a mobile device. Approximately 66% of mobile users who searched for a business ended up visiting their online or physical store. If people can’t find your website you are missing out on all of those potential customers. If you need help with your website including design, mobile functionality, increased rankings, or anything else please visit us at cimettadesign.com so we can help. Check out this infographic we found below from fastcocreate.com to see the statistics on mobile usage. Click the image for an easier to read, larger view.
click here to see full infographic
If you have a website for your business, it can become such a headache if it gets hacked into. It not only makes you paranoid, but it puts your website out of business for awhile until you can get the site back up and running. The thing is, when your site is hacked, Google flags it as a potential threat and anyone who visits it will get a warning message. This not only looks bad to your customers, but it can be a hassle to get the issue fixed. It may be impossible to fully protect your computer from hackers, but there are a few things you can do to slow them down. To prevent hackers from working their way onto your website, here are some tips to follow.
1. Change Passwords Frequently
One mistake people make is that they use the same password for twenty years and they use it for everything. It is understandable that people do this, because who really wants to memorize 20 different passwords only to change them all and remember it all over again? The issue is that if someone hacks into one of your accounts, let’s say e-mail, they can hack into any other account that uses that same password. If you use that password for every account you have, you could be in serious trouble. It also takes hackers quite some time to finally get your password. They use a program that will come up with hundreds of combinations and once they find the right one, they can gain access. So, if you change your password every few months, once they finally guess the right one, you will have changed it already. When you do pick a password make it as difficult as possible to guess. Using your name and birthday is probably not the best idea. Ideally you should use a combination of letters, numbers and special characters. If you have trouble remembering your password make sure you write it down and keep it in a safe place that only you can find.
Responsive web design is all about programming your website to adapt to any device any given visitor views it on. In other words, your website will format itself to fit the needs of a cell phone, desktop computer,tablet or any other device used to view a website. This improves loading time and creates a better user experience. Responsive web design is very critical, especially now, when there are all different ways to connect to the internet. It allows you to cover all your bases and cater to every visitor, no matter how they access your site. I found an infographic from instantshift.com explaining what responsive web design is and why it is important, check it out below. (more…)
Increasing ROI is a goal every business owner has, and in order to accomplish this shared goal, there are several strategies to use. The main one I want to focus on with this article is a change that can be made to your website. Most of the time companies direct their audience to their homepage. There is no problem with doing this in general terms, but sending everyone directly to your homepage (including those viewing your ads, social media and e-mail) can be a huge mistake. That is when landing pages come into play. According to Hubspot, “a landing page is a website page that allows you to capture a visitor’s information through a lead form.” It may be easier to understand through an example. If you send an e-mail about a shoe sale you are having on your website, you would want to add a link to access the sale. You wouldn’t want to put a link to your homepage because people would have to figure out where the sale items were. Instead, you would design a specific landing page just for this purpose to point customers in the right direction. Landing pages can be used for many other reasons besides a sale, and can be a great way to turn visitors into customers.
The reason that landing pages are so critical is because they prompt the visitor to act. When someone goes to your homepage, there are numerous things to click on and an endless combination of things they could do, but a landing page is more direct. If I click on an ad offering half-price kitchenware at Target, I don’t want to be sent to the main page of Target’s website, I want to be directed specifically to the kitchenware section. That way I easily find what I want and can purchase the item I was looking for. There is nothing more frustrating than clicking a link and not being able to find what you wanted. No one wants to be frustrated and that is why so many visitors end up leaving a page instead of making a purchase.
There are some things to keep in mind when designing effective landing pages. Review these tips below.
Be Direct
Don’t clutter your landing pages, put as little as possible to accomplish your goal. Get rid of unnecessary links and eliminate the extensive navigation you would have on your homepage. Make it as short as possible while still including all the important information. The point of a landing page is to target someone to carry out a specific action, so don’t distract them. The same goes for your text. Get straight to the point when stating your call-to-action. Leave the long paragraphs for story time and keep it simple.
Be Enticing
Promoting a special offer lures people in and makes them more willing to share their contact information. If the offer isn’t valuable enough to viewers it isn’t going to be effective. Demonstrate through your landing page how enticing this deal really is and people will act. Images and great design can also captivate your audience. An attractive landing page makes a better statement than a boring or ugly landing page does.
Be Share-worthy
Add social media buttons and ways for people to share this content. Many times people want to send offers to their friends or print information. Make these buttons available to increase your success rate.
Be Analytic
Test your landing pages periodically. Make changes to see how your results vary. This can include changing images, call-to-actions, text, and overall design. You could set up two different landing pages for the same purpose and test to see which one performs better. There is always ways to improve and the only way to find out how is to test.
Below is an example of a good and bad landing page
The infographic above this article has some great guidelines to follow. Hopefully this article and the resources we have included will help you create successful landing pages. If you would like us to design a landing page or anything else for your website we would love to help. Visit Cimettadesign.com for more information.
click here to see full infographic
Marketing has many levels and involves a variety of different tasks, and in order to create a successful process, you need an organized marketing funnel. As we all know, a funnel is wide at the top and gets narrower as it goes down, and so should your marketing plan. A marketing funnel is about taking incremental steps one by one until you turn people into customers and eventually build a loyal following. So in order to create a funnel, you must understand its make-up. Below is an outline to give you an example of what a funnel should consist of.
1. Generate Leads (SEO)
In order to get more visitors to your site or attract new customers to your store, you need ways to lure them in. This can be done in multiple ways including but not limited to, writing blogs, creating advertisements, staying active on social media, or offering sales and promotions. Gather information from those who visit your site or those who come to your store so you can keep in touch with them and establish a relationship. If you have a list of e-mail addresses you can send promotions and company news and encourage people to come back again. You may also want to consider rewarding your best customers with a coupon or free gift in order to create loyalty and a possible good referral. Other forms of lead generation can include direct mail, events, guest blog posting, and video marketing.
2. Convert Visitors to Customers
Once you gain the attention of your audience, you need to convert them into customers. Make sure to add a call to action on your website in order to encourage customers to take the next step. This can be anything from placing an add to cart button on your website to creating a link for people to click for more information. People need to be given the opportunity to make a purchase or take further action or they may not do it on their own. Creating landing pages are vital to increasing your conversion rate. Whenever you create a call to action there should be a button or link to allow your visitors to take that action. This link should lead them to a specific landing page related to their goal instead of directing them to your homepage. If you successfully design and implement specific landing pages, your leads will quickly turn into buying customers. It may sound simple, but you should always include your phone number somewhere on your homepage. This allows people to easily contact you without visiting a separate page. Making your website user friendly and well organized can also help your conversion rates. If the first thing people see when they visit your website is a huge mess of words with no real direction of what to do, people are just going to leave. If people can easily find what they are looking for they will not only be more willing to purchase right then and there, but may even come back in the future.
3. Evaluate Analytics
Once you have gone through all the motions of gaining loyal customers, you need to take a look at your analytics to see what you can improve upon. This includes not only the amount of people visiting your site, but how long they stay there and which pages they visit the most. If you notice that most people that visit your site end up leaving in 2 seconds, you definitely have a problem. Check to see how people access your site (did they click an ad, find you through a Google search, etc.). If the only people who leave right away have found you from an ad, maybe you need to redesign your ad to make it more relevant. If you are attracting a massive amount of visitors, but no one is purchasing anything, maybe you need to check the navigation of your site or if your shopping cart is working properly. The main way to improve the success of your website is by evaluating your analytics and making the necessary adjustments. If you want to measure how effective your social media efforts are, sign up for Klout and it will give you a score with details of your influence. There are multiple resources that can be used to gather this information, but no matter what type of analytic software or service you use, it is important to analyze the results on a regular basis.
Marketing can be tricky to master and requires a lot of trial and error, but formulating a marketing funnel helps to break down the process. The steps your business takes will most likely be much different from that of another, but they all serve the same purpose. We all aim to be successful and create a business that will last, and a carefully crafted marketing funnel can aid in this success. If you ever need assistance in creating a more effective website, designing landing pages, or other marketing needs, Cimetta Design is always here to help.
Did you know that small businesses spend more time on social media than large companies? Below is an infographic from visual.ly that shows more information about inbound marketing. And if you want to read more you can check out our post on inbound marketing here.
Click here to see full infographic
Marketing can consist of things like TV commercials, internet ads, or mail inserts. All of these can be effective, but they all rely on the company’s ability to grab the attention of their audience and lead them to take action. The problem with this technique is that many people are reached who have no intention on using your product/service. It is also very costly to strictly advertise through TV ads or other outbound mechanisms. Technology is getting better each day and consumers have access to so much information from several different outlets. The way people get information is changing and that means the way we advertise must change with it.
Inbound marketing is basically advertising in reverse. Instead of reaching out to your audience, your audience reaches out to you. This type of marketing is more beneficial because it eliminates the time put into contacting the wrong people and is a lot less expensive. Inbound marketing can be done in several ways, but the key is to focus on your content. Make sure you are supplying content that lures people in and captures their attention. This can be done through blogs, videos, social media posts, webinars and Ebooks.
The only problem with inbound marketing is that getting a regular audience can take awhile, especially for smaller businesses. Creating intriguing content can also be difficult and time consuming. But the investment put into this type of marketing is very little compared to the results you get from it. For example, you could spend a massive amount of money on magazine ads and get very little return out of it. On the contrary, blogs are generally easy to create and social media websites are free for everyone to access. Millions of people access the web each day, so the more places you place your business the more likely people will find you.
So what options do you have for generating new content? Well, the best place to start may be social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Establish a company page and add content regularly. Blogging would be the next step to increase your customer base. Blogs can be added to your company website and can showcase recent company events, related articles, photos or anything else pertaining to your business. If people like your blog or social media page they will most likely share the link with their friends and your business can grow by word of mouth. This can then lead to people wanting to know more about your business and ultimately increase traffic to your website.
information used from newmediacampaigns.com
