Want to Run a More Digitally Savvy Business? Here’s How to Make That Transition

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Your business is not going to carry on being successful if it gets stuck in a rut. These days more than ever, businesses are expected to be up to date and to move with the times. Right now, that means running companies in more digitally savvy ways. Is that something that you’re going to be able to do? And if not, what future does your business even have? These issues need to be given your thought.

Making the transition to a more digitally savvy approach to business doesn’t have to mean stepping out into the dark, though. It’s perfect possible for your company to make that transition smoothly and swiftly. If you want to make that happen, you just need to take these steps.

Set Up Profiles on the Most Relevant Social Media Platforms

If your business does not currently have profiles on all of the relevant social media website, this is something that has to change fast. But what makes a platform relevant to your company? Well, it all depends on who your target customers are and who you want to engage with. If you want to connect with young people, then sites like Tumblr could be really useful. And it tends to be the case that older people are more likely to use Facebook over all other social media platforms as well.

Market Through Content

Good content is a really important factor that your business should be making the most of if it isn’t already. It’s not just a way of offering something to your customers, it’s also about marketing your company. Content marketing is a big deal right now. You can outsource this to an external company if you want to, or you can do it alone. It covers everything from setting up a blog on your business’s website to guest blogging and making contact with important industry influencers in the blogosphere.

Track the Metrics That Matter

Metrics are important when it comes to measuring and assessing the effectiveness of your website. If you want your website to do well, it needs to be easy for people to use. If that’s not the case, if it’s hard to use or hard to find what people want, your metrics should let you see that. When you have that information at hand, you can then have changes made to your website, so that it will be easier for future visitors to make use of your website in the way that you want them to.


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Make Use of Mobile

Everyone has a mobile phone, and your business should make use of that if you want to make sure that your business is operating in this century. The mobile-friendly website is an essential asset. If your business does not have one, you could be alienating a large part of your audience. As many as 50% of people now use their phones as the primary way to browse the internet, and that means your website too. You could also make use of an app if you want to make it easy for people to buy from you. It will then be possible to send out push notifications too.

Understand the Role of Search Engines

Search engines are massive these days, and you can’t afford to ignore them if you want to run your business in a way that is digitally savvy. For most people, search engines are the conduit through which all new websites that they use and buy from are found. This is the norm now, and it means that you are going to have to be able to use search engines to your advantage. When you have a website, you want it to be found, so use SEO techniques to make that possible. Your ranking will steadily rise, and so will your traffic.

Develop Your Online Audience

Your audience is out there using the internet, whether you engage with them or not. So, it makes sense to jump on this and start engaging with them as much as you possibly can. If your business doesn’t do this, there will always be another business out there that’s willing to make those connections and to help people if you’re not able to. You don’t want to open the door to other companies. Your business should be the one out there that captures people’s imaginations. You should use influencers to engage with your audience and to develop it too.

Start Making Use of Automation

Automation is one of those things that can seem scary and daunting. It’s often only talking about in negative terms, but that doesn’t need to be the case. Automation can actually open up a world of possibilities for your business, and you shouldn’t forget that. If you automate many of the things that your business does, you will be able to offer people a services that is faster and more efficient. It can even make it easier to manage your office and take care of the small but time-consuming duties that everyone hates so much.

Know Where Customers Head to When They Want What You Offer

If you want to succeed in a digital landscape, you need to be aware of where to find your customers. There are plenty of ways in which people use the internet to find the services that they are looking for each and every day. There are websites where companies can list their services for people to browse. As well as that, Google allows businesses to list their services. If you make the most of this, people will be able to find what you offer via Google Maps. That’s a pretty big deal, and it can really increase the amount of customers you get.


Photo courtesy of Pixabay

These days, it’s only the most digitally savvy businesses that find success and do well in the market. If you can’t get up to date and run your business in a properly modern way, you probably won’t do very well, so take the tips above seriously and put them to use.

Improving Your Website For Business Purposes

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Many websites all over the internet start off as hobbies, and thousands if not millions of people around the world have turned their website into very successful businesses. This is a guide on how you can turn your site(s) into a business. The most common way of doing this is through blogging, but in this article, there are going to be ideas for those of us that run different kinds of websites.

The first thing you need to think about is what your site offers your visitors. It’s unlikely that you will be getting many visitors if they’re not coming to you for a particular reason. If you’re not entirely sure on what you’ve got to offer, then you need to sit down and think about what it is that you can offer people, and ultimately, what you’re going to make profit from. Once you know this, you can concentrate on constantly improving the content that you’re providing to your audience.


Photo courtesy of Pixabay

If your site hasn’t been particularly successful so far, there is always a way of changing it around. For example, websites like UNILAD offer comedic videos and pictures for it’s viewers. It started off on a rocky road, and was actually shut down in 2012 due to explicit content that was offensive to many people. The site then thought through what they wanted to offer their audience and relaunched in 2014 as a site where people can submit funny videos, pictures, stories and even heartwarming stories too. Unilad offers its viewers to 15 minutes of fame by displaying user submitted content. It is now the top online video channel in the world.

Some websites offer their audiences products that they have produced that will help with many complaints and ailments around the world. If this is what your website is about, it’s likely that you’re using ecommerce to sell your products on your website. If you’re a blogger that uses the platform WordPress, it’s likely you’ve got the plugin called Woocommerce. Although it is a free plugin, it’s not completely customisable on the free plan. There are in fact many other different ways of selling your products, and here you can read up on the best 5 alternatives to woocommerce.


Photo courtesy of Pixabay

Using social media for your website will be one of the most powerful things you can do to promote your website. Use as many social networking platforms as possible to get your website out there. Many successful business have grown and gotten themselves in the spotlight thanks to social media. Remember to be consistent with how much you post for your audience, and keep it relevant to your website. Running giveaways are also a brilliant way of getting your audience engaged. Another way of gaining money from your website, is through adverts.

To summarize, as soon as you know what you’re going to be offering your audience, you can concentrate on providing consistent content. Remember, the money making isn’t going to happen overnight. Good luck with your business adventure.

Creating a Buzz Around Your Brand: Targeting as Many Potential Customers as Possible

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Generating sales and profit is a challenge for any newly established brand. People are unaware of your existence or wary of your products and services. You haven’t had the opportunity to gain their trust and loyalty yet and competitors are reluctant to let them test the waters with your newly posed competition. So, how do you go about encouraging consumers to take a risk and purchase your products? It’s time to make a name for your company. Here’s how to create a buzz around your brand, drawing the attention of as many potential customers as possible.


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Corporate PR

Corporate PR forges the potential for relationships to develop between your brand and your customers. It opens up a conversation, then leaves you to make sales and prove your worth. A good corporate PR agency will ensure that your company appears in all the right places. It will land you reviews in widely read and influential publications and interviews with widely watched television programs. These agencies place you in the spotlight and give you the chance to really showcase what you’re about. Perfect! The more visible your company is and the more consistently it appears in the public eye for positive reasons, the more familiar consumers will feel with your image and the more likely they are to trust you with their purchases.


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SEO

SEO, or search engine optimization, is a business technique that helps to direct as many people to your website as possible. Every single day, millions of internet users employ the help of search engines to find the pages that they’re looking for. If they want to find the answer to a question, they’ll use a search engine to find a site that will provide them with the relevant information. If they want to know what time a certain store opens, they will use search engines to direct them to the company’s site, preferably directly to the page detailing their store details. If they want a certain product, they will use a search engine to find the brands that supply it. It’s not surprising then, that to turn over the maximum profits possible, you want to be featured high in the search engine’s results. The closer you are to the top of the list, the more likely people are going to click on your link and the more traffic directed to your site. Once consumers are on your page, the products will sell themselves. So, how do you go about directing the maximum volume of traffic to your web page? The answer? By educating yourself. Take the SEO class online to gain a full comprehension of SEO. There are so many more factors that will help you to excel in the field than you could imagine: marketing personas, marketing funnel, search fundamentals, searcher intent, search framework, channel selection, branded searches, document relevancy, URL optimization, link neighborhoods. The list goes on and on. So, it’s time to start swotting up!

Customer Reviews

With increasing numbers of people gaining their information online comes another issue that your company needs to prioritize: online customer reviews. Nowadays, individual, non-professional reviews can have a more beneficial or negative effect on your sales than ever before. The internet has given everyday people a platform to express their love or disdain for a product, service or brand that can reach a worldwide audience. So focus on gaining positive feedback. If you offer high-quality produce and impeccable service, you can’t really go wrong. However, if you do receive a complaint or negative feedback, contact the individual who has made it. Discuss the problem with them. Question what they dislike about your service and how things could be improved. Chances are, you can easily rectify the situation by offering a refund, exchange or other means of compensation. This will ensure that you maintain a good relationship with this individual consumer (they will recognize your company as going above and beyond their call of duty) and encourage them to alter their review. Hundreds of thousands of people will have access to this and trust it, so it’s essential that you put wrongs to right. You can also use the situation to ensure that you don’t make the same mistake again. You will be able to constantly improve, ensuring that you don’t receive negative complaints in the future.

If you follow all of these steps, it won’t be long until your brand is part of the public consciousness. People will feel familiar with your company and place their trust in you to provide them with everything that they expect from their transaction. This means you will have more happy and loyal customers and the increasing profit that comes hand in hand with them.

3 Major Benefits of Effective Web Design

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Web design is about so much more than creating a pretty looking store space. Of course, every brand needs an aesthetically pleasing web page. But there are several key aspects of web design that can make the difference between your online business excelling and prospering or it falling flat on its face in the first year of operation. Remember, the success of any E-commerce company relies heavily on the brand’s visual presentation: this forms the majority of what potential consumers know about you. So make it effective. Here are five benefits of well-managed web design.

Creation of a Consistent Brand Identity

Brand identity is essential to create the impression of a consistent, reliable company. Most people are prone to mulling over the appearance of one aspect of their business at a time. First a logo. Then perhaps a font. Then a color scheme. This is likely to form a rather mish mash aesthetic when all of the different aspects are put together. Professional web designers such as Ignite Digital, however, look at the bigger picture from the start of their projects. They will have an idea of how absolutely every part of your business is going to fit into their design scheme, whether it’s web pages, affiliated blogs, business cards or advertising. Always bear in mind that one, stable and reliable image is bound to make a much more positive and lasting impression in consumers’ minds than five different images that appear as though they could appear to five different companies.

Drawn Out Pageviews

Yes, you want to bring plenty of traffic to your site, so clicks are important. But you don’t make any profit from individuals who click your homepage and leave straight away. You need to keep people on your page, browsing different areas and perusing different collections and products to see your traffic convert into sales and profit. In a world saturated with web pages and web vendors, it will take something pretty impressive to encourage an audience to stay on your page for longer than a few seconds. So collaborate with experienced designers to create an eye catching and engaging homepage.

Content Form and Structure

You need to ensure that your products and collections are presented to internet users in their best light. You want your customer to feel confident enough in the product to invest their hard earned cash in it. Effective web design can help with this. Options such as zoom or rotation on product images, links to sizing information, delivery options and terms and conditions and well-placed product descriptions in an easy to read font all go down a storm with consumers. You also want products displayed on individual pages, allowing customers to focus on the item they’ve clicked separately to all of your other stock. The key to a successful site is simple navigation and minimalism.

These are just three of the benefits that effective web design can bring to your brand. Needless to say, there are plenty more. So get started on creating a brilliant business web page.

Start Spreading The Word: How To Get A New Product Noticed

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If you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve probably noticed that putting your business on the map is no mean feat. There’s so much competition out there, and in a world when 90% of startups fail, it can be difficult to forge a path and get yourself noticed. If you have a new product and you’re desperate to shout about it from the rooftops, here are some tips to help you spread the word.

Your online presence

Many businesses nowadays rely on an online marketing campaign to sell their products and services. In the US, around 70% of small businesses have a website, but over 90% of those that don’t have a site plan to have one up and running by 2018. According to a study by LinkedIn, over 80% of companies use social media in a marketing capacity. If you have a new product, using the Internet is an effective way to both market and sell your product. The first thing to do is set up a brilliant website, which gives people information about the company, the product and the difference it will make to their lives. Ensure the website looks great, it works properly, and it enables a customer to do everything they want to do. If you’re offering the chance to place an order, this should be a seamless, swift process.

You can promote your website by running a blog and using social media. Using sites like Guest Post Tracker enables you to connect with bloggers and increase your number of subscribers, and you can also form relationships, which are mutually beneficial using features like backlinks and sponsored posts. Keep the blog fresh and link your content to your social media profiles. You can boost your number of followers and friends by investing in advertising and by running competitions and offering flash discounts and sales for those who subscribe or like your page.

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Launch events and trade shows

If you’re hoping that your new product will be the next big thing, you need to show it off in all its glory. Planning a launch event and attending trade shows can really help to get your product out there and cause people to take notice. If you are planning a launch, put your guest list together carefully and think about how you can use the exposure in the best possible way. Prepare some demos, check that everything is working properly, and get to grips with your pitch. Show off what you’re selling, invite people to have a look, and be ready to answer questions. If you’re going to a trade show, focus on the visual appeal of your stall, and try and make the experience interactive for your customers. Take advantage of networking opportunities and work on your negotiation skills.

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When you’ve spent time and invested money in a new product, the last thing you want is it to fall flat because nobody knows what it is or how they can get hold of it. If you’re keen to get your new product noticed, hopefully, these tips will prove useful.