Tag Archives: website

Mar16

Getting The Basics Right With Your Business Website

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Getting The Basics Right With Your Business Website

When you’re trying to make a startup work, few elements of the process are as important as running a functional website. It’s close to impossible to have a fully offline startup these days and it’s hard to know why anyone would want to. However, if you don’t manage the website properly, you’ll be pretty close to invisible online so it’s important to devote time and effort to your digital presence.

Of course, it won’t be a shock to anyone that the website is important. There’s a wealth of tools out there that can be used to make your website stand out more, to display information about your global reach, and to showcase your business down to the finest detail. It’s easy to get bogged down in all the little tricks and gimmicks that take your website up a level. What a lot of startup entrepreneurs seem to forget is that all of this counts for very little if you don’t get the basics right. Follow the tips below to understand better what the way forward is:

Get the domain name right:

Sometimes, you can navigate to a business website without even looking it up – because you know what it’s going to be. That’s the power of having a unique name and owning the domain that attaches to it. It’s no exaggeration to suggest that it’s worth changing your business name (after all, it’s a startup) if that’s what it will take to get an appropriate URL. Bear in mind that the domain should be memorable, succinct, and clear. If it’s a really long name or there are hyphens in it, people are liable to leave it alone and look for something else.

See the value of the right hosting:

Your website is your shopfront on the internet so it’s important to make sure it is in working order, that it looks right, and that downtime is kept to a minimum. Managed hosting from the likes of www.nestify.io is a worthwhile investment, because they will ensure that your site is functioning as it should, warning you of any cyberattacks, and keeping the site online. Proactive hosting like this will identify and remedy issues before you (or worse, a customer) have even noticed there’s a problem. Knowing that the hosting is handled allows you to focus on what you’re best at.

Set out your mission statement front and center:

It’s not uncommon to see websites that feature flashy graphics, dynamic text, and all sorts of tricks. These sites can be visually impressive. Indeed, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of wizardry, but bear in mind that you need to be setting out what the website and your business is all about. A strong mission statement should be among the first things your potential customers see. It’s also a handy place to put some of your SEO features and keywords, which will help the search engines find you – which is what you need to grow your business.

While the basics of running a successful website may seem boring, it is the best place to start. Having a strong base will provide you with opportunities for bigger and better things to come!

Featured Image By: Pixabay

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Oct7

3 Signs Your Business Website Needs A Makeover

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3 Signs Your Business Website Needs A Makeover

If you’re a business owner, you will understand the importance of your website. This is your virtual storefront where new and existing customers can find out what you’re offering. If it looks good and provides all of the right information, you will make an excellent first impression.

But if your website falls down in any way… That first impression might not be a very good one! It might even get in the way of your chances of business success. Sometimes, your page might just need routine website updates to keep things looking fresh and modern. In other cases, your website might need a full overhaul to reach its optimum potential.

In this post, we will list a few signs that indicate it’s time to give your website a makeover. Be it through your own efforts or the efforts of website designers and other professionals, you may make your business dreams come true. Let’s get to it:

Your images are low-quality:

By low-quality, we are talking about the photos you may have taken yourself. If you don’t have a good eye for composition, it might be that your photos aren’t showing your products in the best light (literally in some cases). Because of this, your website and products will lose the wow factor that is needed to attract customer attention.

Issues might also arise if you use a lot of stock images. If they do little to make your website stand out or if they are have been overused on other sites, they could be doing you no favors.

The answer? Well, invest in better photography. You could take a photography course and learn more about backlight photography, object framing, perspectives, and other useful photo skills. Or you could hire a professional to take photos for you. Whichever route you take, you will improve your website if you have better quality photos.

Your website doesn’t rank highly on Google:

When you type words related to your business on Google, your website will hopefully show up. Ideally, it will be on page one or two. When your website ranks highly, you will have a better chance of beating your nearest business rivals, as customers will see your website first. But if your website doesn’t appear on the first couple of pages, it’s probably because it hasn’t been optimized for SEO (search engine optimization). This means your competitors will have the upper hand, as potential new customers will get to see what they have to offer first.

You can improve matters by making a few tweaks to your website content and design. Check out this beginner’s guide to SEO for a lot of useful information and do what you can to make changes yourself. Of course, if it all feels overly complicated, there are people who can help. Look online for marketing professionals and web designers who are well versed in SEO and invest in their services. A post on social media looking for help or services of web design in Bristol can also be helpful. There may be an expense but once your site starts ranking higher on Google, you will profit your business through more customers. 

^^^ Unsplash Image

It’s clearly broken:

We aren’t saying that your website crashes after loading (although it might) but there could be other issues that indicate there are serious faults. These faults will deter your customers from using your business because they might associate your products with your rickety old website!

So, what are the signs that your website is broken? If web pages take a long time to load, it is clear that there is something wrong somewhere. If your links no longer lead your customers to the right pages (or to any page), then you will confuse and frustrate them. And if your website doesn’t display pages properly on mobile devices, then you are going to alienate most of your potential customers.

If such problems exist on your website, you will affect your SEO. Going back to our last point, this means it won’t show up highly on Google. Your website will suffer from a high bounce rate too, as potential customers won’t stay for very long. This will also affect your SEO.

The answer? Do what you can to fix any issues yourself. There are lots of helpful articles online, including this one on fixing broken links. Alternatively, call in a professional web designer as they will fix any problems for you. When your website has been improved, you should get more people using your business.

These aren’t the only reasons why your website might need a makeover. If it no longer reflects the colors and design styles you use for your brand, you should make changes for the sake of consistency. And if the information on your website is outdated, you clearly need to update your content. Look at other websites for examples of good practice and then consider the other changes you might need to make.

Featured Image By: Unsplash

Aug5

Leverage Photography To Elevate Your Marketing Strategy

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Leverage Photography To Elevate Your Marketing Strategy

We humans adore visuals. Our brains are wired for visual perception and we desire it. Images appeal to us because we spend more of our brain’s processing capacity to vision than any other sense or skill. Images are more natural to our eyes than words. Content with pictures regularly attracts more clicks while scrolling through infinite search results. The absence of pictures in your online material frequently means that it will be disregarded. Shoppers are sixty times more likely to contact a brand with a picture in search results than without. Let’s dive into the impact of imagery and photography on your marketing campaign:

Leverage Intuition:

Humans like looking at pictures and instinctively comprehending them. We can analyze a photo in less than a tenth of a second, which is quicker than reading text. When marketing your business online, always include images that assist visitors in understanding what you’re promoting. Material with pictures receives up to 94% more views than posts without images. Search engines prefer visual information and prioritize results with large image files. A well-received appearance may compensate for poor content and enhance the viewer’s overall impression of the product.

The Impact on Emotions:

Images may trigger emotions in us more than any other kind of material. These feelings are more intense than those elicited by reading a story, and individuals make strong connections between the two. When selecting pictures to accompany your web material, use images that evoke emotion. A spectacular landscape can be captivating, but one with a happy home can be moving. The image must convey the information, but it also has to fit in with the general design of your website. Your web material will be more memorable if you include images that convey emotions of love, contentedness, or liberation.

The Images Are Part of Your Assets:

Images are a vital component of the business arsenal and should be treated as such. Good pictures will help you attract consumers and help you negotiate with other products and businesses. For example, to generate inbound connections, invite social media influencers and writers to use your pictures for free in return for link traffic to a website.

Investing in your views allows you to reach across many platforms such as social media, news stories, your website, your company profile, print advertising, and more. A picture may significantly impact a news story. Many PR agencies utilize pictures as marketing material; providing great images is typical for getting companies noticed in the news.

Pictures Drive Engagement:

Pictures, in addition to capturing our attention, eliciting emotional responses, and leaving a lasting impression, possess another ability. Visuals, as every marketer is well aware, enhance engagement. People don’t only want to look at photos; they also want to share them and then see more. Material that includes images gets up to 40 percent more shares than content without pictures.

You can also use digital tools to do things like incorporate your logo into images. Do some research to determine how to make pictures transparent on photoshop, this way you can start using it for improved branding. By incorporating your logo into designs in a professional way, your audience will be more likely to see you as a trustworthy brand that cares about reputation.

In recent years, we have learned that part of the judgment call process takes place in one’s visual cortex, which means that the minute consumers see your material, they are already thinking about what they will do next, whether that is sharing it on social media or responding to a Call to Action.

Availability of Tools:

Images are becoming more important to marketers and academics alike, and everyone wants a piece of the action. Even technology firms are attempting to capitalize on this emerging trend by developing image-based products. The emergence of visual search engines, such as those provided by platforms like Google and Pinterest has been a significant development in recent years. The sheer increase in visual searches on Pinterest alone (from 250 million in 2017 to 600 million in 2018) demonstrates the scale of the shift that can be anticipated in the following years.

Images matter to various industries, especially those that deal with jewelry and accessories. Reliable jewelry photo retouching services are something your company can benefit from. It’s not easy to match your text with the appropriate image, but there are specific recommendations to follow to increase clicks. Remember that today’s customers are adept at evaluating ideas. These skills have been developed by assessing picture quality and distinguishing stock photos from unique brand assets resulting from their internet experience.

An image that is high-quality, uplifting, and emotional is a beautiful start, but what’s in the picture is just as essential. The image should reflect your business, purpose, and values to best enhance your customer’s experience.

May17

InboxDollars Update

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InboxDollars Update

Hello! I have been visiting the website, InboxDollars, daily for years now and since posting about earning a thirty dollar Amazon gift card in mid January, I am already so close to receiving another ten dollar gift card. On InboxDollars, you can complete surveys, watch videos, play games, clip coupons, answer trivia questions, and more and it all earns you money. And who doesn’t like free money?

Although it can take a while to get started on the website, it is so easy once you get the hang of it and when you reach the ten dollar mark, you can select a gift card as your reward. The website also always seems to be updating to add new ways to earn some extra pocket cash through special offers and making searches online.

While survey websites are, usually, not a viable source of income, it sure is nice to be able to save some money with your gift card rewards! I spent my thirty dollar Amazon gift card when I buffed up my skin care hoard and got my moisturizer and eye cream FO FREE. And literally all I did to get my free product was open emails and answer trivia questions which takes about two minutes per day. Hey, I’ll take it!

Whether you are looking to kill time or make some extra spending money on Amazon, InboxDollars is a terrific little site to check in daily with. Just be sure to refer yours truly so we both get rewarded! 😀

What is your favorite survey website? How do you like to spend your free time online? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

Apr29

6 Tools To Create Visual Marketing Materials

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6 Tools To Create Visual Marketing Materials

Digital marketing comes in many different forms, from SEO to video marketing and social media. To promote your company online, it’s useful to use plenty of visual marketing materials. You might not have great graphic design skills or a huge budget, but with the help of these tools, you can create some excellent marketing materials:

iTonic:

iTonic Digital Marketing Agency helps create effective digital marketing campaigns for your business. This can include SEO, social media, as well as ads on other websites. iTonic does the hard work for you so your content can reach a larger audience. This is a great service to use to save you time and boost your sales.

Infogram:

Infogram is a great tool for marketers and entrepreneurs. The app allows you to create engaging visuals, using your data. The tool includes design templates, icons and images, and interactive charts. There’s also a drag and a drop interface, hundreds of maps, and reports. With the help of Infogram, you can create stunning infographics to use as marketing materials. You can use the software to publish content, customize the theme, import data, and export code.

Design Wizard:

Design Wizard is a type of image and video editing software, the app features plenty of pre-made templates, to make life easier. You can use Design Wizard to make blog images, marketing videos, or social media posts. With the help of Design Wizard, you can upload logos, fonts, and make customized color palettes. The app features a huge library of graphics, illustrations, and videos to choose from. Whether you’re looking to make content for YouTube or printed marketing materials, there are a lot of options.

Behance:

Behance is an online library where you can access illustrations and graphic designs. You can use the search function to find whichever types of images you need. Photography is great for many types of marketing materials, but if you want to shake things up a bit, illustrated images are perfect. Remember, you’ll want to stand out from the crowd. Some niche and cool-looking illustrations are the way to go!

Canva:

Canva is a fantastic design platform where you can create beautiful designs with zero experience. The app provides millions of fonts, photographs, and graphics, which you can use for marketing materials. You can use Canva to create social media posts, blog images, and more. Once you get into the swing of using Canva you’ll wonder how you lived without it!

Visme:

Visme is a tool to help you create social media posts, short videos, infographics, and more. As well as content generation features there are tools to help you publish your content. It’s simple to share Visme content on websites and social platforms. With so many options to create beautiful visuals, you’ll soon improve your marketing materials.

Depending on the type of business you run, you’ll need different visual marketing materials to suit your needs. Real estate companies might use floor plans to present properties to prospective tenants. Restaurants might use creative Instagram posts to draw in new customers. Whichever kind of business you run it’s important to establish your objectives and set marketing goals to further improve your online presence.

Featured Image By: Pexels

Jan16

Bored At Home? Try InboxDollars!

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Bored At Home? Try InboxDollars!

Hey! I don’t know about any of you, but there was a point in my life when I would do online surveys like it was my job. I tried a multitude of different websites but when I found InboxDollars, I stuck with it and have been using it for years. In fact, I just got myself a thirty dollar Amazon gift card from my earnings and was able to purchase all of my skin care for the next few months for a song.

If you are bored at home and looking to make an extra buck, then I can’t recommend InboxDollars enough. The best part about this website is that it isn’t just endless surveys. You can answer trivia questions, open paid emails, play games, clip coupons, online shop, and watch videos to get you closer to your ten dollar cash out goal. Once you have enough earnings, you can collect cash or gift cards to restaurants and online retailers.

InboxDollars is a great way to kill some time and I go on it once daily to at least open some paid emails and answer their daily trivia question. You can spend as little or as much time on it as you’d like and not only is it an easy site to maneuver but it’s fun, too! If you are interested in signing up for InboxDollars, please use my referral code and I can help show you the ropes. 🙂

https://www.inboxdollars.com?rb=78080190&ref_src=link

Which online survey sites do you use? What are your thoughts on InboxDollars if you have used it? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

Jan14

Want To Improve Your Blog? Try The Following!

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Want To Improve Your Blog? Try The Following!

No one ever said that blogging was easy and writing throughout a pandemic is even more difficult when there is a huge lack of activities to write about. If you find that the stats for your blog are steadily declining as the days go by, the following tips might help to put you back on track. Let’s discuss:

Communication is key:

Like social media, the blogosphere is amazing because it puts you in touch with friends old and new. Your faithful readers want to communicate with you and it is important to be prompt when replying back to comments and getting a dialogue started on your page. Showing support to your fellow bloggers by liking and commenting on their blogs is also a great way to get yourself out there.

If you are still finding that views on your page are lacking, it might be worth checking out blogging or marketing experts to help improve your page’s position on search engines for better results.

Writing more frequently:

Writing during a pandemic is insanely hard and can sometimes feel impossible. But, as a writer, it is still essential to come up with content as often as you can. Your readers want to hear what you have to say, even if it is just a short and sweet post. It lets your viewers know that you are dedicated to your craft and entertaining them and it will make them even more eager to return to your page knowing that there is fresh content available.

Remember the joy of writing:

People blog because they love to write and, even though it’s hard, you have to remember the joy of writing every time you sit down at your keyboard. Writing is something that you found fun enough to dedicate an entire web page to and you can’t forget that! Blogging shouldn’t stress you out, so take a deep breath and get to work. Putting a lot of pressure on yourself can lead to even more writer’s block and that’s the last thing you need!

Take notes:

I am constantly writing down notes of potential blog posts throughout the day and I recommend to anyone to do the same. No matter how many times I tell myself I will remember what I want to write about, I rarely ever do (lol) which is why my notes are so handy. Inspiration can come from anything and as soon as you have an “aha!” idea, take note of it. You will find that you have a lot more to write about than you think. 🙂

Keeping up with your blog during the pandemic is a sure fire way to not only keep your mental health in check but keep your page running smoothly. Happy writing!

Aug29

lifewithlilred Domain Renewal!

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lifewithlilred Domain Renewal!

Hello!!! On August 21st, lifewithlilred’s domain of http://www.lifewithlilred.com has been renewed for its seventh year online. It feels like just yesterday when I started my blog and it’s hard to believe that it has already been going on for the better part of a decade. lifewithlilred originally started out as more of an online journal and ode to fashion and from such simple beginnings, I now have readers and friends in over one hundred and ninety different countries. Wow!

Since lifewithlilred’s conception, I have been writing every day. I get up early before work to get my blogging done and I can’t believe I still have stuff to talk about after all of this time! No one ever said blogging was easy and that is the truth – it takes a lot of dedication and perseverance to write Every. Single. Day. Luckily for me, such amazing friends tuning in makes this task a joy instead of a burden.

I want to thank literally everyone who has viewed lifewithlilred because all of you serve as my motivation to continue on with this blogging journey. So thank you all from the bottom of my heart and here’s to another lucky seven more years of lifewithlilred!! ❤

And, as a reminder, my blog is a safe place for everyone and if you are ever interested in guest blogging for me, then shoot me an email at: sarah.mush6794@gmail.com 🙂

Jul2

Basic Traffic Boosting Strategies For Startups

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Basic Traffic Boosting Strategies For Startups

In the past, we’ve talked about merging traditional marketing with digital technology to boost your business’ online presence. While SEO is one of the most effective ways to get people to your site, it’s not the only way. In fact, there are other ways of boosting organic traffic, you just have to know what to do! Here, we list some basic Traffic Boosting strategies that aren’t too difficult to pull off:

Long-Tail Keywords:

With almost 50% of search engine queries coming from voice search, Google is starting to shift its focus towards long-tail keywords. Simply put, long-tail keywords are more like key phrases: they contain more words than traditional keywords and are usually much more specific.

For example, instead of typing down “best BBQ Texas”, users will more likely use their voice search and ask, in plain English, “What’s the best BBQ restaurant in Texas”. Because of advances in voice-recognition software over the past couple of years, Google and other search engines will be prioritizing the use of full sentences rather than chunky keywords.

This is good news for everybody: online companies will have to write more organic sounding content (which is always better than contrived pieces), and search engines are able to provide more accurate, more localized results (and even improve their Machine Learning algorithms in the process!).

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Wokandapix on Pixabay

Internal Links:

Basically, internal links are when you create content that has links to a different webpage within your webpage. Why is this important? Well, it all boils down to two things: bounce rate and page rank.

Bounce rate refers to the percentage of website visitors who navigate away from the website they’re visiting. A high bounce rate is bad news; it means your website is boring, it doesn’t add value to your readers, or it’s confusing, among other things. A low bounce rate, on the other hand, is good news: it means your website is interesting, easy to use, adds value, and a lot of other things that people will want to stay for.

Page rank is pretty self-explanatory: it’s the rank your website occupies in the search results of Google. The higher the rank, the higher the chances of your website garnering traffic, the higher your chances of converting leads. There are dozens of data signals Google uses to determine page rank, and one of them is, you guessed it, bounce rate.

So what do they have to do with internal links? Well, internal links drastically reduces your bounce rate, especially if the links you provide go to a page in your site that offers even more information (or value) to your visitors. This creates a positive feedback loop that reduces your bounce rate and increases the time people spend on your website which, in turn, gets you higher up the page ranks which, in turn again, drives traffic to your website.

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Edho Pratama on Unsplash

Involving the Community:

Now that you have your internal links and keywords sorted out, it’s time to start reaching out to your community. Social media management is an important aspect of traffic-driving and, if done right, can mean a drastic uptick in website visits.

Managing a social media community is all about engagement, transparency, and prompt addressing of issues. This means talking to your customers through social media, whether it’s by commenting on their posts, replying to tags, or through instant messenger. For the latter, bots exist to address the most common concerns, but it’s always good to be on hand for any questions that you might not have programmed your chatbots to answer.

But, don’t limit yourself to social media! Find out which online forums your community hangs out in and start cultivating a positive image of yourself by posting value-adding content that isn’t spammy or kitschy. Just stick to forum guidelines and you should be okay.

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William Iven on Unsplash

Build Those Links:

Speaking of community, it’s a good idea to start link building. Basically, link building is getting an external website (usually blogs) to host your content on their site with a hyperlink that can direct visitors back to your website. Simple, right? Well, yes and no.

Link building is a very effective way of driving traffic, if you do it properly. What is proper link building? It’s creating great, organic content that other website owners will have no problem hosting. What’s important is that this happens naturally, with no exchange of any kind of resources, whether monetary, favors, or even the website owner’s links. This is because Google hates it when you try to manipulate your page ranks in a non-organic way.

But not to worry: there are plenty of legitimate link building service providers who can help you build your links in a natural way for maximum traffic driving.

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DiggityMarketing on Pixabay

Boost your traffic with the tips above and watch your website begin to blossom!

Featured Image By: Carlos Muza at Unsplash

Dec20

Giving Your Customers Faith In Your Online Business

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Giving Your Customers Faith In Your Online Business

What’s a business worth if it’s not trusted by its customers? Nothing!

These days, online businesses are everywhere and you’ll find everything being sold. From crazy unique clothing pieces to hand-crafted wooden miniatures, you can purchase virtually anything from the internet and there are so many small businesses that you probably won’t be able to remember all of them. Because of this, it’s actually very difficult to build a brand that customers will come back to time and time again.

Thankfully, there are a couple of solid strategies that can help you improve your reputation and build your customer’s faith in your business. In this article, we’re going to discuss three of those methods so that you can get a better understanding of how to appeal to your audience and get their trust:

Make sure your website meets all the security regulations and standards:

Online security is a huge issue now, especially with hackers running rampant and leaking everything from credit card information to selling private celebrity photographs on the dark web. As a result, it’s vital that you get protection for your business from Jumio and other specialist firms that can help you design a safe and secured online website. In addition, you should always rely on eCommerce platforms with a good reputation so that if you ever come across a fraudulent transaction, you can deal with it immediately and effectively so that it doesn’t ruin your business or cause it to collapse.

As long as you follow all of the relevant regulations and standards, you’ll find that your customers will trust you more because you’ve gone the extra mile to ensure that they can feel safe when giving you their bank card information to make purchases.

Focus on offering good customer support to each and every customer without exception:

We’ve probably all experienced the “joys” of poor customer support. Whether it’s outsourced to another country or if we get put in touch with a clueless operative on the other end, it’s never a pleasant experience to be subjected to terrible customer support.

Every business should focus on having a solid customer support structure so that they can better serve their customers. Make sure you have several points of contact such as social media handles, emails, and phone numbers, and make sure they’re manned so that if your customers do want to get in touch, they can.

Be truthful about any errors or problems that you encounter:

Although your customers expect you to deliver their products and services on time, there’s undoubtedly going to be a couple of situations in which you can’t deliver on your promises. During situations like this, it’s vital that you speak to your customers and tell them the truth so that you don’t lie to them and create suspicion that you could be abusing their trust in you.

Aim to deal with the situation as quickly as possible. It could be a late delivery because you forgot to post an item or it could be a problem caused by miscommunication by one of your sales representatives. Whatever the situation is, be truthful about it to the customer if they ask and do whatever you can to compensate them.

Running an online business requires the smarts and customer service skills, combine the two and your customers will always have faith in your enterprise.