Categories
Business

Here’s Why Your Business Needs a Website

Do you run a small, medium or large business? Does your business have a website? It is 2023, an era of everything online and if your business still lacks visibility in the internet world, you’ve got some serious worries. Among various reasonable and crucial things in a business, there comes the requirement of a website. The first thing that a potential customer does is head straight to the internet and look for your business website online. It doesn’t matter if your business is small or large, visibility and credibility are two of the most important things for any business.

Many business owners might be unaware of the fact that today almost 80% of consumers look for a product online before they actually go to buy it. And if your website has been optimized well for the search engines, that customer might end up buying that particular product from you. Now imagine if you weren’t up on the internet, you would have lost that customer.

The traditional sales and marketing techniques may get you a good number of customers but having a professional website will generate even more sales. Many people rely upon the usual business operations and having a website is the last thing on their mind. But what most of them don’t realize is that a website is an inexpensive and effective sales and communication tool.

How does a website benefit your business?

Let’s talk about the benefits that a website brings to the table.

  1. Your presence at all times isn’t requiredA website is a tool for your business to be able to communicate with the customers. You might not be available at some odd hours but your website is always up there to answer every query that the customer has. This means that your business is always running even if you’re not. Say, you have a physical store that sells cupcakes to the customers. Your store is abuzz with customers visiting your store to buy the delicious cupcakes you make and sell. However, a physical store has its own limitations. There are limitations of store opening and closing time, workers and helpers on a leave and what not. Heads up! You’re losing your customers. Imagine, you put the same business online and decide to sell cupcakes online. Customers can visit your online store and place an order for your delicious cupcakes anytime and anywhere, be it midnight or a national holiday. Your store is now always open and accepting orders. You saved bunch of lost customers and often adding new to your list. See the difference!
  2. Creates an online presenceSure you have a presence in the physical world but is it fair for your business to not have a brand image online? People associated with your business such as customers, partners and investors should have an easy access to your business. The only way for them to reach out to you online is through your business website. Thus, you create an online existence of your business and let it proliferate.
  3. A website covers every aspect of marketing for your businessIt is also adequate to say that a website helps your business gain an easy and a higher ROI than any other form of advertisement. It is the most effective way of marketing and is also the best way to have an online identity or presence. The impact of visualized content is far more than any other content because pictures serve as a proof of your business. Your business website can readily offer brochures, catalogues and other information about your products and services. All this information can be certainly updated as soon as a change is derived in the business, establishing a dynamic business.
  4. Increased reach of marketHaving a website gives you the opportunity to create a wider impact on the market. As many people visit your website, there’s a rise in the sales and thus, your reach in the market also expands. In addition to it, the chances of extending your services to the global market also increases. Also, in case of products and services, recommendations & referrals work well for your online business. If planned well, your website can be effectively used to convey authority and trust to potential customers.This helps the customers to have a better vision of your business, boosting the chances of them converting into a successful lead. Your website is like a star-employee for your business who works 24×7 without demanding a paycheck, whatsoever.
  5. Let your competitors see the face of the earthIf your competitor has a website and you don’t, there’s no question that your customers will go to your competitor because they are likely to find them more trustworthy. The presence of your website makes it possible for the customers to have faith in your business and they would always know where to come back if something falls apart. You put your products and services on your website and let your customers choose if they’d like to do business with you and this creates a trusted customer base. Talk about authority, your website holds it firm for your business.

Getting Started with building a business website

To start with, it may feel a little more daunting to an end-user, as to how to get your website up and running. It is rather easy to get started. You can do it yourself if you know the how-to or to keep costs down, you can ask a friend to help, or you can hire a professional Web developer to do it for you at a modest cost.

If you have a basic knowledge of how things work behind the scenes with web development and want to kick start with your website, you would rather want to consider using a Content Management System. This will also help you control the costs and also handles the major load for you. If you’re just starting out, or if you value ease of use, customization and performance, then WordPress is for you. WordPress is continually evolving and powers most of the websites on the internet today. Click here to read why you should build your Website with WordPress as your CMS.

Today when almost every individual is already using a smartphone, a laptop and is present on at least one of the many social media platforms, it is a bane for your business to not have a website. The rate of growth in terms of sales, money and customers is predicted to crawl when you refrain from having a website and escalate rapidly when you have one. A website is not a luxury item for your business, it is rather a requirement to achieve tremendous growth and success.

Categories
Business Search Engine Optimization

Mobile Friendly Website: One Business Necessity You May Have Been Ignoring

The genesis of small ideas reinforce big businesses.

Sadly, today big businesses stand on a staggered bridge if their online strategies are not up to the mark.

Earlier, every business owner was content with how his product was perceived as there was no virtual audience to encourage or criticize the product. The reception of a product’s feedback was close to zero due to limited traditional marketing tools & techniques. But today it’s a shame if you fail to create your visibility in the online market. Probably that’s how e-Commerce came into picture.

With online marketing measurement tools like online surveys, feedback pop-ups, reviews on social media pages, YouTube ads and various others; it has become easier now to measure or assess the impact of your efforts.

A website is a critical and inexpensive element of your business and never ever than before must you have felt the need to have a mobile friendly website.

The audience has evolved and by all means, they are now looking for everything on their mobile devices. And we all know how smartphones have taken over. But,

What happens when you don’t have a mobile friendly website?

Recently, a friend bought some clothes that are in vogue from an e-Commerce website, which she stumbled upon and recommended to me. When I decided to check it out on my phone, it took forever to load. Since it was a friend’s recommendation, I decided to have some patience and waited long enough for the website to load. Once it loaded, the fonts were poor and so tiny that I could hardly find anything. Menu and product filters were hidden somewhere and gave me a difficult time. Eventually, I abandoned it. The point is that I waited long enough only because of my friend’s recommendation, but that barely happens.

Heard of Google’s Mobile First Index?

The reason I talk about Google as a reference point for SERP performance in this blog is solely based on a belief (and it is strictly personal) that Google is the most-preferred search engine today. There are other (probably better) search engines too that do commendable job, but when it comes to a wider audience reach, Google tops the list and hence, the preference.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, the talk of the internet world is Google’s Mobile First Index. With a growing number of mobile users, Google now prioritizes websites that perform equally well or better on mobile screen sizes.

The criterion to decide what pages rank have changed and the focus has shifted to how adaptable is your website on mobile, tablets and other handheld devices. It simply transpires to this:

If you have a website designed for mobile phone and desktop, the search engine will prefer websites that perform well on mobile. And if you don’t have a mobile site yet, the ranking will be based on your regular desktop website.

However, even if you have a responsive site, mobile-first indexing will hardly affect you.

The point is that Google will prioritize mobile over desktop, encouraging people to either have an optimized mobile website along with desktop version or at least resort to a responsive site.

So, why should you have a mobile friendly website?

Because:

Google wants you to..

The fact is that Google now favors websites which are mobile friendly enough and quickly digs out those websites every time a user performs a search. These websites would lead in SERPs because they provide better user experience. When Google rolled out this update, many big names already anticipated these changes and were ready before others could fathom it.

Your business clients want you to..

For B2B sales, today it has become a trend and a necessity to have a smooth functioning mobile friendly website for business credibility. There’s a fair possibility of you never acquiring a chunk of business clients because processes like mobile friendly websites are critical to them. And trust me you’re already losing a big chunk.

And everyone else wants you to..

The whole world is using their mobile devices now. From baby boomers to millennials to everybody else (if there is) are using mobile phones to make small & big purchases. The fact that we’d rather visit a website using a mobile device is very high than using a desktop. A huge number of population is drifting towards mobile phones, here have a look at how the rate of mobile phone users has increased.

Furthermore, whenever a user tries to open your website on a mobile device and if it is slow or not responsive, the chances of him ever coming back to your website is highly unlikely. There goes your precious customer!

That’s all about everyone associated with your business. But,

What are the ultimate goals of having a mobile friendly website?

  • Well, to name a few, we have – ever growing customer reach, increased web traffic, a rise in customer engagement and a boost in sales. Eventually, you showcase your business anywhere and everywhere, allowing an easier and immediate access to customers.
  • A super rich user experience through site speed, appealing design, discreet fonts, structured & prudent content and compelling CTAs. All in all, a wonderful experience for users to consider their time spent wisely, resulting in recommendations and a better ROI.
  • A mobile user has a particularly different mindset than a desktop user. Their thought process is quicker; if things take a while, they are no good to them. In the experience mentioned above in this blog; I, as a mobile user, decided to abandon an e-Commerce website upon noticing its poor functioning. Imagine how many customers you’ve been losing! The goal is to make your website so compelling and mobile friendly that users remain engaged throughout.

The future is mobile and for a business to thrive, it should be their utmost priority to keep up with such evolving processes as they say ‘Change is the only constant.’

Is your website ‘mobile-friendly’? Check now.

Categories
Business

5 Reasons to Employ Email Marketing Today

Have you been looking for ways to incorporate digital marketing strategies lately? Or do you just want to explore the world of online marketing? Email marketing could be the answer in either scenarios!

In this mayhem of corporate world, every company is battling with their competitors to acquire more and more conversions. There are numerous ways to generate leads and revenues and every business has their marketing strategies aligned right as per the books.
But do they know how things keep evolving as we go and how businesses take an unpleasant turn even if a single marketing strategy goes wrong. Apparently not! Experts know that marketing is paramount and this is why they pay maximum heed to it.

A marketing team finds the most valuable data to create enlarged constructive content such as blogs, infographics, videos and many more. In 1988, Nike launched a marketing campaign called ‘Just do it’ to promote sales. The campaign was so successful that today ‘Just do it’ has become Nike’s trademark. Need we say more about marketing?

With so many kinds of marketing strategies such as social media advertising, influencer marketing, content marketing, purpose driven marketing why do we want to talk about email marketing? Emails have been around the corner ever since the internet was introduced and almost everybody checks their emails today. Many would say that email marketing is obsolete today. We say NO as we see many top notch companies leveraging email marketing strategies to get a large number of leads.

So what exactly are these benefits that we keep talking about?

  1. Stronger and Loyal Customer Base – Having a strong email list means having a loyal customer following. Your social media followers might miss out on your recent content but your email list customers will take over as they signed up for your products in particular. When a customer signs up for your email list, they feel entitled to receive updates such as newsletters, new product or campaign launches.
  2. Brand Awareness – Email marketing techniques such as sending recommendations after a customer bought a product or sending customized emails when a new product/ campaign is launched, etc. are sublime ways to acquaint more customers with your business. Typically marketing experts add a ‘call to action’ button in their emails with a captivating one liner to encourage the customer to click. These tactics are proven methods, which eventually increases brand awareness and click-through-rates.
  3. ROI – It has been observed that emails are 40% more effective than any other social media platform. As per Constant Contact, when a business spends $1 on email marketing, they receive a revenue of $38. Many marketing opportunists are already aware of this fact and have achieved laudable goals such as highest conversion rates, wider audience reach, increased click-through-rate (CTR) on their website and an increased ROI out of their online business.
  4. Cost Effective – If you have a budget set aside for marketing purposes, you may want to consider email marketing. Since the customer following is usually dynamic, it is rather easier to recreate, redesign, and re-purpose your content with an allocated budget.
  5. Direct Reach – Receiving an email with “Hello” or “Hello Dave”, which sounds better? The one with your name, right? Such email tactics ensure that the customer feels valued enough. Email marketing is a tried and tested method, which allows you to segment your customers as per demographic trends. And this works brilliantly in reaching out to a targeted audience.

Having a business with great revenue is excellent but building a valuable relationship with your customers is even better. If you have not been able to utilize email marketing yet, the time is now because ‘better late than never’.

Categories
Beginner WordPress

WordPress: An Introduction To The Easiest & Most Powerful Content Management System

WordPress, the most popular and versatile Content Management System today, was initially released with one purpose of blogging. As soon as it arrived, users couldn’t stop gushing praise about it, which eventually created a fad among the users. Today, WordPress enables bloggers to create an entire website for themselves, which can easily be updated and modified.

There are over 1 billion websites on the internet and the giant platform covers ~31% of the internet today. That number is incredible. It has evolved from a publishing platform to a user-friendly CMS.

WordPress is easier for every individual, even for a layman because of its short learning curve, which has led WordPress to become the most distinguished and widely used CMS today. While the world is using WordPress, others are pining for it and the rest of them are just oblivious to its abilities. It would be unfair to say if WordPress entirely vanquished Joomla and Drupal as they are two of the most used CMSs. But every developer would concede that WordPress is the easiest CMS out there.

The best way to learn WordPress is to use it and get used to it, so let’s get to know WordPress a little more.

WordPress.Com v/s WordPress.Org?

TBH, WordPress.Com & WordPress.Org, both are a bit daunting for new users. Simply put, WordPress.Org is self-hosted and WordPress.Com is a service managed by Automattic (the company behind WordPress). WordPress is like any other software that can be downloaded and installed on your internet server. However, setting up an internet server itself, is a hectic job for a naïve user. That is where WordPress.Com helps you!

It is hypothesized that WordPress.Org & WordPress.Com are same entities. However, they are significantly different.

With WordPress.com, you sign up, set-up your profile, choose a theme and start blogging. Voila! That’s easy! A major plus point is that Automattic is managing all the “other-things” for the user. Things like hosting the site, performing backups & maintenance, security, spam control and performance optimization, etc. will all be a part of their job and not yours. All these tasks can be pretty much burdensome when you’re busy running a business or creating content.

This brings us to WordPress.Org, where all the things listed above will solely be your part to play. You will have to find a host and do a bang-up job of finding and setting-up a server, hosting the website, security, themes, plugins and backups and the rest of the stuff, for there’s no one else to pay heed to it, giving you more power, control and authority over your website. With WordPress.Org, it is more like taming your own animal which has rather more potential and you have the control to unleash that. You can always choose between thousands and thousands of themes, plugins, structure your website as and when you want and even scale-up your WordPress installation based on your performance requirements.

Themes & Plugins

WordPress has ever-growing number of themes and plugins which makes your website look pleasing and adds special features to it. Our developer explains “Your WordPress website is an HTML skeleton until you put some skin and clothes to it using themes and plugins“. That’s a good perspective, though. Using a theme, everything from background color to font could be extensively customized which changes the website’s appearance.

The best part about it is that there are free as well as premium (paid) themes. The only difference between a free and a premium theme is that the latter provides more features and functionality plus support than a free theme. Free themes are built to cater to a specific purpose and are meant to be installed, activated and use them as is, typically with some kind of limitation. This is one reason why developers prefer premium themes over free themes.

A plugin, generally helps to fulfill the need of an added functionality to a website. In WordPress fashion, there are various plugins to help you add a plethora of features to your website. For instance, to make sure your website stays safe from potential spam, malware and other attacks, you may want to install a security plugin on your website. A website may require a name-your-fantasy feature, or a pop-up that’s when those plugins come to your rescue.

Power of WordPress

WordPress is multilingual and is available in more than 70 languages. Its one-click installation and upgrade is worth it. WordPress has an enthusiastic and open community where developers from around the world collaborate and enjoy discussions on its features. It’s an easy task to customize and change the appearance of your site using themes and plugins. The extensibility of WordPress has a vast horizon because of the various plugins available.

WordPress offers you the flexibility to create any kind of  website not limited to blogging, photography or a personal website but a full-fledged website such as an eCommerce store, news or government website.

Publishing a post and creating a page are two tasks which can be performed effortlessly. WordPress provides the facility to create posts and schedule them, protect them with a password (if required) and what not. It lets you make your content public or private. When the website grows, there may be a need for multiple users to collaborate and manage it, in such a case, you can add and assign roles to users such as administrators, authors, editors, etc.

These are just the basics of WordPress and there is so much more to WordPress. Today, WordPress is not only a blogging tool, it has evolved into a platform which can help you power your business online and establish your online presence. And there is enough room for limitless opportunities when it comes to developing with WordPress.

Besides this, most of the brands like Time Inc., The New Yorker, LinkedIn, Sony Music, Forbes, etc. are already using WordPress to build and grow their businesses.

Are you using WordPress yet? If not, you’re missing out on something big. And for the ones who are into WordPress, your game is up and strong.

Happy Blogging!