Creating A Website For Selling

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Website design experts offer the ability to have the perfect shop front for your business. It is so important in this day and age for your business to be found online, regardless of your trade.

If you’re new to the trading world and looking to be a success, then Internet shopping is the way forward and you’ll soon find that you will need an ecommerce site. Building an online shop is not easy for the average business person though; so seeking a digital agency will ensure your site is amongst the best and is going to work for you and your business.

In this blog post, we are going to take a look at creating a website for the purpose of selling in further detail. We hope this gives you the assistance and inspiration you need for your own e-store.

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article | Creating A Website For Selling

Some advice and recommendations for new businesses

You have a new business and you have the stock you need, now you just need a multitude of customers. Simple, right? But, where can you find these customers, or more importantly, how can your customers find you? It’s all very well relying on word of mouth, or passers-by if you have a shop front, but why limit yourself when you could reach a worldwide audience? With the use of the Internet, the sky is the limit when it comes to attracting an audience, meaning more potential sales for you, resulting in more revenue. Sounds good? The difficult bit is knowing where to start.

Thankfully, there are professional website design experts who are also eCommerce experts. These experts can build you a bespoke ecommerce site, meaning you can instantly start to benefit from this growing market. If you do it right, ecommerce is the way to go, attracting both men and women of all ages. It’s a great time to be a start-up business in the ecommerce world.

Another advantage of using a website design company to build your ecommerce site is that they are also likely to be professionals in SEO. This means they can ensure that your shop will be found more easily by people searching for your products. They can also maintain your site, ensuring you remain higher on those search engine results. A good SEO agency will have a number of different techniques and tools at their disposal to make your website more visible online. After all, you can have the most amazing website visually, but if no one views it, you’re not going to make any sales, are you?

Have you considered using Shopify?

There are many options for ecommerce sites available, so what makes Shopify the perfect choice? Firstly, the cost. Shopify is one of the more affordable shopping sites to run, with low monthly costs but a reliable website. Businessmen know the key to a successful start-up is keeping outgoings as low as possible, but still keeping the quality high.

Companies specialising in Shopify can ensure this happens. Shopify offers reports on your click-throughs, and even includes features that can improve your SEO. The reporting system can inform you of which search terms have brought the most visitors to your site.

Other tools available on Shopify include discount codes and gift cards, integration of social networking sites, and email marketing options. All of these can improve the success of your site, when used properly. There are more advanced packages available if you are looking for something else specific, such as pop-ups or similar.

Design and imagery can be a big part of a purchase. The layout of Shopify is simple and eye-catching, making it easy for the user to navigate and therefore resulting in a purchase is more likely. Teamed with website designers, your online shop will soon be turning heads. If you’re looking to purely run your business and sell your products, without the hassle of website hosting, payment gateways and software maintenance, then Shopify is for you.

All things considered, there is no denying that there is a lot to think about when you are selling products online. However, we hope that this blog post will help you on your journey by outlining some of the things that you are going to need to do in order to get started.

A Business Blog Should Be 20% Of Your Marketing Strategy

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article | A Business Blog Should Be 20% Of Your Marketing Strategy | Business Blog

If you aren’t interesting as a business you’re not an entity that is going to hold the attention of the masses. They want businesses and business leaders that speak to them, share ideas they feel passionate about too and also, just be fun to be around and interact with. Businesses have got to stop being so rigid and focuses on their corporate images. But how do you do this day in and day out? What is the outlet which can give you this space? Your own business website of course. Your business blog is where your personality has to shine through. In the content you must be able to explain your ideas well but also use it as a platform to build links, create new followers and be able to spread your word around the search engines that people use. Just how big a proportion do blogs take up when it comes to marketing?

Make the news before the news

Social media is like a forest sometimes. It’s so full of content, videos, links and viral adverts that you can be intimidated. However, know that the media companies of the world are dying to hear about you. To become viral you don’t need their own platforms and say so. Your business can make the news before the news even knows. This is why business blogs are so powerful. You can release exclusive information on your blog and watch the media report on it in a heartbeat. But you give your customers and interested potential consumers vital information about an update, a patch, a new product a totally new and improved service etc. The blog is therefore used as a news website for customers to come visit and read what you have to say. It’s a phenomenal tool to communicate with the world in this way.

Almost a quarter

Perhaps the best reason for a business blog to exist is that it’s almost one quarter of the SEO world for businesses. Content and a blog for a business amounts to around 19% of the overall SEO duties and marketing strategy aspects. That is huge. It’s about 1/5 of your overall SEO management requirements. The other aspects are link building, Google plus, social media, on page and off page links, keywords, Google AdWords, YouTube etc. A blog is worth so much to a business because it’s the space where all other marketing aspects can exist together. You can add a YouTube video to your blog, create off page links whereby you use evidence by another media or well respect news company to back up your claims.

Active and fresh

A business that doesn’t publish blogs can seem kind of dormant. Unless someone is actually following your business on social media, they won’t be seeing you anywhere else other than the search engine results page. Your blog can appear in the search results with great SEO techniques employed so you cover that base as well.

Content isn’t just about getting material out there, it’s about sharing your personality as a business with the consumer. It’s also a great way to make news before the news reports on you.

5 Mistakes With Your Business Website

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Business Website|5 Mistakes With Your Business WebsiteIt’s not easy running a business website. The competition can be tough, the demands of your website visitors are more strenuous than ever, and it’s a game that doesn’t allow you to sit still for too long. Still, this is the game that you sign up to play when you enter the online world. Despite the fact that there are plenty of external forces that can harm your website (such as competition and so on), in actual fact, most of the harm stems from the business operator. They make mistakes that harm the quality and trustworthiness of their website, and ultimately harms their profits. Below, we take a look at five common mistakes. Make sure you’re not making any of them!

Low-Quality Media

Your products and services might be outstanding, but if someone is stopping by your website for the first time, how are they to know that? You only have a few seconds to establish your credibility to someone who doesn’t know anything about that. Alas, many companies fail this first test almost instantly, simply by using inadequate photos and videos. If yours are of a low standard, then it’ll be obvious to an experienced internet user, which, at this stage, is just about everyone.

Insufficient Usability

You’re in the business of whatever it is that you sell or the service that you provide. You’re not in the business of website design and usability. Sometimes companies get away with this, but at other times it shows. They have a website that pushes the customer away, or is simply too complicated to make sense of. If you’re going to have a site that works for everyone, then you need to have an eye on the user experience. If you think yours somewhat lacks in this department, then get help from UX 4Sight. They’ll help to ensure that customers understand what your website is all about.

Too Salesy

It’s always important to understand that the customers you’re trying to reach are marketed to all the time. As such, they’ve become pretty aware of when something is far too salesy. If your web copy is full of jargon, and never uses a simple phrase when there’s a much wordier and more complicated option available, then they’ll see through it. If you have to use complicated language to get people to buy, then it’s perhaps time to rethink what you offer!

Annoying Aspects

It doesn’t matter how good your products and services might be: if you’re annoying your website visitors, then they won’t stick around long enough to discover it for themselves. Things like too many pop-ups, notification and newsletter sign up requests, and — especially — autoplay videos all frustrate web users. When the success of your business website hangs in the balance, don’t make it more difficult by annoying your visitors!

Failing to Progress

Finally, make sure you’re progressing and keeping up with the latest internet practices, designs, security, and so on. Your site might look great now, but it won’t be long before it seems outdated!

How To Ensure Your Website Exceeds Expectations

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Website Design|How To Ensure Your Website Exceeds ExpectationsWhen you come up with an idea for an amazing website, it may seem impossible to convert the concept into the real thing. Especially if you lack experience in the field, building and maintaining your own site can appear to be a humongous task that’s daunting to even start. Hopefully these helpful tips can get you set in the right direction to exceed your expectations and become the most successful website you could ever have imagined.

Choose The Right Name

When coming up with the right name for your website, many different ideas will pop into your head (some much better than others). It should be a fairly simple process, so try not to over complicate things by spending too much time thinking of something unique and outlandish. Stick to a couple of keywords and keep it short so it’s easy for users to remember, and less likely for them to misspell when searching in their browser. Make sure that you search beforehand to check whether the name has already been registered by another owner, and claim it as soon possible if it is available as they generally sell very quickly.

Make It Accessible

Ensuring your website is accessible is a vital aspect of the process, as you must make steps to be inclusive of every type of user. There are a few simple ways that you can make your site usable by every person with any type of disability or impairment, whether this be hearing, vision or motor skills related. When you add any images to your website, attach alt text that explains whatever is happening inside the picture so that anyone with a visual impairment can listen to a description instead. Remember to keep text dark in colour, preferably black or dark blue, and allow it to stand out from the background by opting for a lighter shade such as cream or white to enable it to be easily read. If you can, add the option of resizing the text so each user can alter the page to their own personal preference.

The Perfect Design

There are a few key principles that constitute to an excellently designed website. You have to put yourself in the shoes of the user, and think solely about what they might want or expect from your site. Each of your pages should have a specific purpose, and the design should reflect this. Keep the same colour palette throughout the site, alternating between different shades to make it sophisticated and aesthetically pleasing. Use bright colours exclusively for buttons or small areas, as they can be garish and overpowering when used too heavy handedly. The size of headings and body text should be notably different, and navigation menus should be clear and very easy to use to ensure there’s no unnecessary over complications. Ensure that any design features are translated efficiently when loaded in a mobile browser, as a large amount of your users will be visiting your site from their smartphone or tablet.

Image To Text Ratio

Anyone will admit that scrolling through a site that’s all text and no pictures is a dull and boring experience. Equally however, page after page of photos without any meaningful information can be uninteresting after only a couple of clicks. Finding the right balance between text and images is hard to master, but it will ultimately depend on the purpose of your website when it comes to deciding on which ratio is best. Stick to a few high quality images that depict what you really want to show people, and pair these with some really useful blocks of text that sum up your main points without rambling on for too long.

Add Loyalty Options

A user that visits your site once is a massive plus, but it’s better if you’re aiming to convert each person into a loyal and regular visitor. To do this, you should build a feature into your site that allows users to enter and submit their email address. However, it’s not just as simple as adding a box with the text ‘sign up via email’, as you need to give a lot more in order for your visitors to be able to trust you with their personal data and actually want to receive updates and information. Make it a focal point of the home page, and include it in a smaller size on each of the individual pages on your website. Don’t be too bland with the text, allow your users a little taste of what they will be getting by explaining briefly, such as ‘sign up to receive our weekly newsletter, updates, and more..’. This way you can catch their attention and be informative and convincing in just a short piece of text.

The Importance Of White Space

White space can help to emphasize different aspects of your site, and also add a feel of sleek and modern design to each page. By having a white background behind text, you can allow the user to focus their attention on the words themselves and help to keep information clear and accessible. Trying to fill your page from corner to corner with moving gifs, colourful text and a ton of photos will not only make for an immature design, but will make the user lose trust in the credibility of your website and information. Stick to what you need and keep it classy by emphasizing each section with negative space and restore some peace and harmony within your colour palette. Though it may appear minimalist, it still won’t have the opportunity to feel basic as you can then allow your main assets to catch the visitors attention and shine.

Test It

When you think you have your website close to its final stages, now is the time to consider doing some kind of testing. You should carry out several different experiments across your site to see how easy it is to navigate around, and whether all of the different sections and buttons operate properly. Your website has to fits its intended purpose with its content whilst still providing something extra through its layout and design, so bare both of these aspects in mind when doing any kind of testing. Be sure to include other users in your tests, whether this be colleagues or family and friends, as you need to be able to gain a different viewpoint and perspective that only another human with their own thoughts and feelings can offer.

Generating Traffic

Even if you have the most beautifully designed website that provides the user with the perfect experience, you simply will not get any visitors unless you generate traffic. Becoming a popular site takes a fair amount of time, but optimization is achievable if you think logically. If you can’t figure it all out yourself, does an SEO agency make sense for you? They have the means to force you to work your way up search results in the web to have a much better chance of being noticed and visited. Use some specific keywords in order to be included in the relevant pages, and ensure that none of your links or pages are broken. By being towards the top of a users search engine, you are more likely to be seen as not many people go further than the 2nd or 3rd page of results when online.

Measure Success And React Accordingly

When you release your website onto the internet, you have to put measures in place in order to track visitor statistics. It will be helpful to find out how many users view your page each day, and what those users look at on your website. Being able to monitor how each visitor interacts with your website will allow you to assess whether each page is serving its purpose, and whether there’s anything you might be able to do to improve their experience. When you have gathered this data over a period of a few weeks or months, analyze the positive and negatives and decide upon some changes you will make to allow your website to perform better. By regularly checking your visitor statistics, you can stay always up to date with the changing wants and needs of the user, and help you stay on top of your game.

Hopefully the information above can help you create the most amazing website, that succeeds in every way possible. Consider every aspect of the users wants and needs at each stage of the design and implementation process, as they should be your main focus throughout. Be ready to put in the work and stay on top of maintaining the site after its completion by carrying out regular rigorous testing, and you can ensure that your site makes it to the top and stays there for as long as possible. Most importantly, don’t forget to enjoy yourself. The web is an amazing place to network with other like minded individuals and show off your skills, so switch on your laptop and get creating.

The Right and Wrong Way to Grow Your Digital Presence

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Digital Presence|The Right and Wrong Way to Grow Your Digital PresenceFocusing on your digital presence is a sure-fire way to grow your business, but there are a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings surrounding it. For instance, many people read outdated articles about how important advertising is, but the reality is that as the internet evolves the strategies we need to use have to change as well. So in order to demystify these problems and give you a better chance at growing your business, here are some tips on the right and wrong way to grow your digital presence.

Wrong: Focusing solely on advertising

Advertising is a great way to improve your digital presence, but there’s a single problem that makes it a terrible idea for most startups and SMEs; competition. While you could probably advertise on a similar level to larger companies, they’ll ultimately have a lot more money to spend, a larger marketing budget and ultimately more power than you. You simply don’t win when it comes down to who has more marketing power.

Right: Changing the approach depending on your budget

That’s why it’s incredibly important to change your approach depending on your budget. Smaller companies with less capital can focus on social media-based approaches. This involves joining communities, getting to know your audience and paying more attention to their needs as you try to meet them.

Wrong: Doing everything yourself to save money

There are far too many entrepreneurs and SMEs that would rather use their employees or even their own skills to try and grow their digital presence. This could include learning to design your own website, trying to use free SEO tools to get noticed on Google or even trying to manage your social media accounts alone. This is a poor approach because it takes a lot of your time and you simply don’t have the knowledge or skills required.

Right: Investing into services wisely

That’s why it’s important to partner yourself with an SEO agency, web design company or even a community manager. The idea is to always rely on specialists when possible because they’ll be capable of handling the tasks you’ve set while you can focus on striking more deals, developing new products and ultimately scaling your company. You can leave the design and technical work to specialists instead.

Wrong: Automating everything that you can

There are far too many services and tools that can help you automate tasks that really shouldn’t be automated. For instance, there are tools that will automatically update your social media pages with random bits of content, there are email templates and services that will spam emails to various accounts and there are tools to automate lead followup. This might work for larger businesses, but if you value customer interaction then there’s another option.

Right: Personalizing your content

Personalizing all of your content makes you more human and thus approachable. If you’re going to grow your digital presence then you absolutely need to write and send your own emails, curate content that you wish to display to the public and follow up on leads in person.