The Critical Importance of Website Maintenance and Updates

May 30, 2018 by admin

The Importance of Website Maintenance and Updates

No matter how gorgeous your website may be, it must be maintained to stay safe and functional. Learn about why website maintenance and updates are important.

Are you wondering why your company’s website isn’t bringing in more leads and customers?

While most small businesses have a website, having a bad website can be worse than having no website at all!

Read on to learn our top 5 reasons why website maintenance and updates are critical to success!

1. The Central Hub For Your Business

Whether you’re networking for your business in-person or online, your website is often the first place potential customers will learn about your business.

When people want to check out your products, services, and contact your business, your website acts as a central hub.

You want this digital centerpiece to look great and be updated so that visitors know your company is trustworthy.

2. SEO

Speaking of bringing in business, if you want your website to actually have traffic that converts into customers it needs to be visible!

Keeping your website updated with new content that is properly optimized will help with SEO.

An SEO strategy ensures that your website will be shown on the first page of results when someone searches for particular keywords in a search engine.

3. Security

Hacking is on the rise in 2018.

If customers are entering personal information like phone numbers, credit cards, and addresses on your website, cybersecurity should be a chief concern.

Be sure to keep your website updated with the latest bug fixes and security patches.

This will keep your company, your customers, and your data safe from hackers, viruses, and malware.

4. Give Customers a Reason To Visit

There’s a long-standing truth in business that repeat customers are the best customers. It’s easier to keep an existing customer than it is to find new ones!

Since your website is the central hub of your business and an important part of your sales funnel, it’s important to keep it updated so that customers have a reason to visit!

For example, you could host a blog with weekly content that helps to solve your customers’ problems, educate them, and position yourself as an industry expert.

Alternatively, you could offer special deals and discounts through your website that are rotated and updated regularly so that customers will visit again and again.

5. Stay on Top of Technology

Last but not least, keeping your website updated and maintained will help you stay current with evolving tech trends.

Whether you’re a local business, an e-commerce startup, or a service provider, new website integrations pop up all the time to help make your customer’s journey more personal.

Consider integration tools like social media sharing functions and automated chatbots from developers like Manychat as two website maintenance examples that keep you up to date with current technology!

Are You Up on Your Website Maintenance?

If you haven’t been keeping your website updated and maintained, these five reasons are just the tip of the iceberg to why you should start!

Talk with your team about the importance of website upkeep so that you can bring new customers to your business.

Not sure where to start when it comes to website maintenance and marketing your business? Contact us and we’ll be happy to answer your questions!

How to Create an Effective PPC Marketing Campaign

March 24, 2018 by admin

How to Create an Effective PPC Marketing Campaign

Not sure how to put together a successful pay-per-click strategy? Read on for a guide to creating an effective PPC marketing campaign for your business.

Think you don’t need PPC marketing to pull ahead in the search ranking game?

Think again. As a matter of fact, 64.6% of consumers click on Google ads while shopping online.

Don’t let your website and company fall behind because you’re not utilizing the tools available. Keep reading for four key tips on how to pull ahead in pay-per-click marketing.

Use Keyword Tools to Find In-Demand Keywords

When it comes to search engines, there’s no getting around it. You need keywords.

Specifically, you need keywords that are in high-demand with your target audience so that you can optimize them and said target audience can find your content.

How do you find those magical keywords?

A keyword research tool, obviously. Google Adwords Keyword Planner is a great free tool to get you heading in the right direction.

The key first step here is to be very specific in your audience persona. You need to know exactly who you’re marketing to so you can optimize the right keywords for them.

From there, you can use Google’s Keyword Planner to figure out what keywords are in high demand and what you’re competing for.

Structure and Organize Your Keywords

Don’t get sloppy with your keywords, either.

Once you have your keywords in mind, you have to break them down into lists of targeted keyword groups related to each other.

For example, a good way to break it down is brand terms, competitive terms, generic terms and related terms. Long-tail keywords (also known as multiple-word phrases) are your friend here.

This will also give you a chance to make sure you’re using negative keywords too, which can help you streamline around the edges for a few extra views you might not get otherwise.

Strong CTA

Also known as your call to action, the thing which gets your viewers to take a certain action in response to your PPC marketing push.

As a rule, your CTAs should be simple and actionable, something that will push the viewer towards immediate action.

Essential words include, but are not limited to: now, get, save, best, free, and you.

Keep it short, sweet and to the point.

Spy on Your Competitors

Fun fact: you can spy on your competitors’ campaigns and use that information to your advantage.

It’s not black hat SEO either. It’s just a tool called SpyFu that allows you to research what keywords your competitors are using and figure out how they’re creating successful ad campaigns from that information.

The Tools to Succeed in PPC Marketing

You need PPC to get ahead. Which also means that you need someone who knows their way around PPC. We can help with that.

Check out our blog for tips on e-commerce, SEO and more, like this post on five great Twitter marketing tools.

But if you need an on-the-ground specialist to help with your next PPC marketing campaign, you’ve come to the right place. We’re a boutique web consulting firm specializing in areas including e-commerce, social media, web development and more.

To get started, head to our contact page.

5 Questions to Ask Before Hiring an eCommerce Consultant

January 20, 2018 by admin

5 Questions to Ask Before Hiring an eCommerce Consultant

Questions to Ask Before Hiring an eCommerce Consultant

Are you looking to hire an eCommerce consultant for your business, but not sure how to choose one? Read this article to learn how to find the right match.

E-commerce is projected to grow by the billions every year from 2014-2021. With all this growth comes new competition and new technology.

An ecommerce consultant can give your business that competitive edge it needs to keep up with this growth. But the hiring process can seem like uncharted territory. Especially if you’ve never had experience with consulting before.

That’s why we’ve decided to help you out in the process! Read on for 5 questions to ask before hiring one for your business:

How Professional Is The Ecommerce Consultant?

A consultant will help develop your online presence and increase business’ traffic. When looking for an ecommerce consultant make sure they can do that for themselves as well.

We recommend looking at the consultant’s website and ranking in search engine results. Use this as examples of their work. Ask for a portfolio of their previous work as well.

What Is Their Reputation?

Look up the consultant’s reviews online to see if they can deliver on what they promise. If the consultant can provide a list of former clients contact them to find out how their work was.

Talk with other people in your industry. Ask them for their recommendations for an ecommerce consultant. When you finally find one ask for references to contact that can confirm their skills.

What Are Your Problems?

There are many services that a consultant can use to help make your business more effective. Try to come to the table with a list of goals for your company or specific problems to be dealt with.

This will help the consultant provide results on exactly what you’re looking for. Here are some common e-commerce problems:

Web Page Development Or Design
Website Security
Search Engine Optimization
Product Pages

Ask a consultant to troubleshoot your business if you don’t know where to start.

What Is Your Budget?

Decide on a budget you are likely to spend on the services you need. This can help you chose the kind of consultant you will work with.

Freelance

We find that sometimes freelancers are cheaper than firms. When deciding on working with one know that they are known for juggling multiple clients at once. And remember that this is one person who will be handling your company’s request.

Firm

Firms are usually more expensive to work with. But understand that you are getting a lot for your money. If your company has complex goals a firm likely has the technology and expertise to solve them.

How Involved Do You Want To Be?

Think about how often you want to meet to talk to your consultant during the duration of projects. Okay with giving the ecommerce consultant total control over the projects? Explain that.

If you will need weekly meetings to talk through progress then tell candidates that. They will then determine if they have that time. Set the expectation for communication during the hiring process.

Contact Us

Now that we have armed you with the tools you need. Looking for e-commerce help should be a breeze!

But if you still have questions don’t worry! That just means you’re trying to make educated decisions. Don’t hesitate to contact us for more help.