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barbaraboatright · 5 years

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Online Reputation Management Strategies - Online Review Management Services For your personalized online review management services and analysis of your own business to review your existing reviews contact us today http://bit.ly/2H13YU0 Online reviews and reputation management are a key decision for consumers and essential component of an online marketing strategy and to be successful online. The internet and on social media is where small businesses spend a lot of time and money to build their brands. It’s also the place where customers increasingly share their opinions and feedback about their experiences with a product, service or brand. Unfortunately, most customer feedback and complaints about products, services or brands are ignored or overlooked on social media. This is a missed opportunity. Online review management services are the best solution for building a great online reputation or to regain it in a prompt manner if you have received some bad comments or reviews. This is why your business needs online review management services. What is reputation management and why you should use online review management services? An online review management service or online reputation marketing strategy can help both businesses and individuals: Online reputation marketing will help build and maintain you a positive web presence, in order that the first thing a potential customer sees online is a good representation of your product, service or brand. Help your small business improve and speed up your market feedback, competitive research and customer service activities by establishing online review management services to capture these positive events and manage also the lesser events more effectively. Identify weak signals, positive or negative sentiment regarding content or keywords to target your audience through social media marketing. Your online reputation is formed by what people say about you. It can be said that your online reputation management strategy will also be shaped by reviews, opinions and comments of people about your brand. Reading reviews is the most common method to do research on a brand therefore you need to take positive action with reputation management services, to ensure your reputation online is maintained and being monitored. We are a a firm of reputation management consultants and our company is able to utilize very specialised licensed reputation management tools and software and our agency will do all the hard work for you so you don't have to worry about this as a business, brand or as an individuals. Thank you for watching our Online Reputation Management Strategies - Online Review Management Services video http://bit.ly/2Ikl2rE https://youtu.be/M9zQc3Qz-b8 Don't forget to like and share Don't forget to subscribe to this channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_KSy9C7F9EDIFhAhZfyi2g For your personalized online review management services and analysis of your own business to review your existing reviews contact us today http://bit.ly/2H13YU0

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barbaraboatright · 5 years

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How to Respond to Negative Reviews on Google Yelp Facebook - How To Respond To A Bad Review Example For your personalized Reputation Management Services audit report on your own for business contact us today - http://bit.ly/2H13YU0 The best way we recommend on how to respond to a bad review example is to meet it head on and try to address the issue straightaway. Customers who have a grievance generally want to be heard and don't want to complain in public unless they had previous issues raising an issue that was not addressed correctly. Our system ensures as we ask for a review straight away that we can intercept these issues early on, how to respond to negative reviews on Google and nip them in the bud before they become a public issue. As anyone in public relations will tell you it is difficult to put a lid on it once the cat is out of the bag so best way how to respond to a bad review online is to address it early before it escalates and it becomes a major pr issue. Our system looks to capture any bad reviews before they go public and then prioritise them for the best resolution for the customer. Ultimately this is the most effective way how to respond to a bad review example. Thank you for watching our How to Respond to Negative Reviews on Google Yelp Facebook - How To Respond To A Bad Review Example video Don't forget to like and share http://bit.ly/2XcvDsi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKanpOBNPqI Don't forget to subscribe to this channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_KSy9C7F9EDIFhAhZfyi2g For your personalized Reputation Management Services audit report on your own for business contact us today - http://bit.ly/2H13YU0

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barbaraboatright · 5 years

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Reputation Marketing Strategy Online - Reputation Management Services for Small Business For your personalized Reputation Management Services audit report on your own for small business contact us today - http://bit.ly/2H13YU0 Reputation management services for small business are an essential component of an online marketing strategy and to be successful online. The internet and on social media is where small businesses spend a lot of time and money to build their brands. It’s also the place where customers increasingly share their opinions and feedback about their experiences with a product, service or brand. Unfortunately, most customer feedback and complaints about products, services or brands are ignored or overlooked on social media. This is a missed opportunity. Online reputation management services for for small business are the best solution for building a great online reputation or to regain it in a prompt manner if you have received some bad comments or reviews. Why should you use reputation management services for small business? Online reputation marketing or a reputation marketing strategy online can help both businesses and individuals: Online reputation marketing will help build and maintain you a positive web presence, in order that the first thing a potential customer sees online is a good representation of your product, service or brand. Help your small business improve and speed up your market feedback, competitive research and customer service activities. Identify weak signals, positive or negative sentiment regarding content or keywords to target your audience through social media marketing. Your online reputation is formed by what people say about you. It can be said that your online reputation is shaped by reviews, opinions and comments of people about your brand. Reading reviews is the most common method to do research on a brand therefore you need to take positive action to ensure your reputation online is maintained. Thank you for watching our Reputation Marketing Strategy Online - Reputation Management Services for Small Business video http://bit.ly/2GlV1Gd Don't forget to subscribe to this channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_KSy9C7F9EDIFhAhZfyi2g For your free Reputation Management Services for Small Business report on your own business - http://bit.ly/2H13YU0 For your personalized Reputation Management Services audit report on your own for small business contact us today - http://bit.ly/2H13YU0

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barbaraboatright · 7 years

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How to Use Google Analytics to Ensure Digital Marketing Success in 2018

It’s hard to believe that we’re nearing the end of 2017 already. With the business of the holidays looming just around the corner, it’s important to start putting plans in place to set your business up for success in 2018. One way to do that is to make sure you’re using Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is a vital tool for digital marketers, SEO analysts and webmasters alike. For the ability to really understand how effective a digital website campaign has been, to review SEO performance, or to find out how well users are interacting with your new website, Google Analytics (GA) is the go-to tool.

However, you can easily get lost within GA if you don’t know what you are looking for. With so much data available at your fingertips, it can be pretty difficult to know where to look to find the most important metrics.

Without being able to analyse your website traffic, how will you be able to effectively assess your current marketing strategy and know how to move forward? Through using Google Analytics, you can uncover massive amounts of data about your website and your users, gaining valuable insights that can be used to enhance your marketing strategies.

In this article, I’ll fill you in on key steps to using Google Analytics to make sure your 2018 digital marketing plan is successful.

WHAT MATTERS MOST

You need to know how to choose the best marketing metrics right from the start. Below I’ll be reviewing some core components of Google Analytics, such as Traffic Channels, Site Content, User Behaviour and Audience Demographics.

Traffic Channels

One of the most insightful aspects of digital marketing is the ability to understand exactly how customers are finding you. This vital element of Google Analytics allows you to determine which marketing efforts are working and what needs to be revised. Google Analytics allows you to hone in on the performance of different marketing channels to evaluate everything from SEO performance to email marketing.

Here are the different channels you can review in GA:

Direct: These are visits in which users have navigated directly to the URL by:

Typing in the domain directly to the URL bar

Clicking on a bookmark

Clicking on a link in an email which isn’t tagged using tracking parameters

Clicking on a link in a mobile messaging app

Organic Search: These are visits from organic (unpaid) search results. Month-on-month and year-on-year increases to organic traffic represents a strong SEO strategy. The results of this report are determined by the medium of organic traffic such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo.

Social: Visits from social platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.)

Email: Traffic from tagged links clicked in email messages, whether mass email marketing or individual messages. You can add a tracking link to the URLs in your emails by using Google’s URL Builder tool. You can further segment this traffic by ‘campaign’ if you have tagged your links. This way you can see which email campaign(s) were the most successful over a period of time

Referral: Traffic coming from users clicking a link from another site, excluding major search engines.

Paid Search: Traffic from PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns such as Google AdWords. You can also link your AdWords campaign to Analytics for more efficient reporting within Analytics, under Acquisition.

Other Traffic: Google defines “other traffic” as traffic coming from online advertising outside of search and display, such as cost-per-view video advertising. Occasionally you will have undefined traffic in this report which GA will eventually filter out to the appropriate channel.

Display: Indicates traffic from display advertising, such as Google AdWords remarketing campaigns.

Site Content

Within the site content section of Google Analytics, there are four really insightful sub-sections to look at: All Pages, Landing Pages, Content Drilldown and Exit Pages.

With All Pages you will find a list of all the pages on your site that have been viewed during a date range that you specify. If any of your pages are missing, they either haven’t been viewed in the specified date range, or the tracking code isn’t installed properly on that page.

You can break the data down by the page, pageviews, unique page views, time-on-page, bounce rate, exit rate, entrances or page value. Let’s go into a bit more detail on these metrics here:

Pageviews are how many times the page was viewed; this can be the same user multiple times in one session.

Unique Pageviews show how many unique sessions there have been for a page.

Average Time on Page is the average time spent on the page over a chosen date range.

Entrances calculates how many times a page was the entrance page to the website, meaning the first page that the user viewed.

Bounce Rate is a percentage calculated by the number of visits in which a person leaves your website from the landing page without browsing through other pages.

% Exit is the percentage of pageviews that were the final page before a user left the website.

Page Value is calculated using ecommerce, dividing the total ($) value by the number of pageviews for the page, so you can disregard this if you do not run an online store.

In Content Drilldown we see the same data as in the All Pages report (with the same user metrics mentioned above), but this time it is broken down by sub-folders.

This section will show how well-organised your site is, and how well people are interacting with your content when navigating through your site. You can see the folder images next to the page path to determine whether this is a page or subfolder. As you can see below, the homepage ( / ) is the main folder, with the icons underneath representing subfolders of the homepage. By clicking on the links you will reach a more detailed breakdown about the corresponding pages within the folder selected.

This report is particularly useful as it can also show under-performing or low value content or content that may be appealing to visitors that you were not of originally aware of. Here’s a screenshot from the Content Drilldown report:

Landing pages are the only pages in the content reports that show you a conversion rate. This is because multiple pages can be viewed within single visits before a conversion happens, but there will only be one page that a visitor lands on. So, if someone landed on your services page prior to navigating through your sub-service pages, before completing a conversion, the services page will count as the page which generated the conversion.

You can segment this data by adding a secondary dimension such as the ‘Source or Medium’ on the Landing Page report. This will allow you to gain a better understanding of the pages which perform well through mediums such as organic traffic, referral traffic or paid advertising, or specific sources such as Google, Yelp or Google AdWords. Being able to recognize which pages are gathering the most conversions is vital when analysing marketing performance.

Exit pages are the final pages viewed within a visit. Usually, you tend to see your contact or checkout pages high up this list, which is ideally where you would like to see the ‘user journey’ finish.

Monitoring this report is key to understanding which pages could use improvement in order to keep users on your website and drive them towards completing a conversion. This will always be a highly beneficial analysis when considering your digital marketing plan. Keep an eye out for pages high up the list which may have error messages such as ‘404 Page Not Found’; fixing these are ways to quickly improve the user journey and overall website performance.

AUDIENCE

Be aware of who your audience is. It’s one of the key rules to getting better conversions.

The audience section in GA is a very important section to take note of. It is here where you can really dig deep into user statistics for your site, and therefore gain a deeper understanding of the type of people who really engage with your content, buy your products, or inquire for your services.

The broad overview of the audience tab helps you gain an initial understanding of users’ behaviour so you can form the hypotheses to help your conversion optimisation strategy. Then you can start to dig deeper, mining the different reports for more audience insight.

Within the audience section, you can answer questions such as:

Do Bounce Rates vary significantly between desktop and mobile visits?

If you have a much higher bounce rate for mobile visits than desktop, despite having a similar visit count for both, you should consider revising the mobile experience for users.

Which segments account for the highest Goal Conversion Rates?

Are female New Yorkers aged 25 – 34 buying most of your products? You can use this kind of data to help target your audience through digital advertising more efficiently.

In general, once you’re able to better identify the demographic and device segments that demonstrate a high conversion rate on the site, then you can target that specific audience via AdWords / Bing Ads or social media advertising campaigns.

Below is an example of segmenting data of mobile users. Here we have added in the age dimension and sorted the list in order of bounce rate. You can see that users aged 18-24 have the highest bounce rate percentage, meaning they are most impatient when visiting this particular website on their mobile device.

CONCLUSION

Better measurement is the key to making the most of any marketing strategy. The Google Analytics tool should be highly valued, and used in many ways on a day-to-day basis for managing SEO, AdWords and Email Marketing campaigns. Using Google Analytics will move you away from a guessing game and help you to understand who is coming to your website, and the ways in which you can make data-driven improvements to your digital marketing strategy.

By Elliot Allan

This article first appeared in MainStreetROI. | Image credits: Pixabay/ Unsplash

The post How to Use Google Analytics to Ensure Digital Marketing Success in 2018 appeared first on Akimi Technologies.

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barbaraboatright · 7 years

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How to Boost Your WooCommerce Store Sales

According to a recent report by eMarketer, global retail e-commerce sales are expected to reach $4 trillion by 2020. These trillions explain how online shopping is ready to take over the traditional retail stores.

There are a number of e-commerce platforms and WooCommerce tops this race with a market share of over 40%. Part of the reason lies in the simple fact that WooCommerce is so customisable, ideal for small to large online businesses and startups. As I write this, WooCommerce has been downloaded 45K to 50K times per day, and has more than a million active users.

It seems that the internet is flooded with tricks for boosting your WooCommerce store. Here is my selection of WooCommerce tips to help you stay on top of the fierce online shopping game.

Use an eye-catching WooCommerce theme

The first impression is often the last impression and the first thing that a visitor sees on your online store is the theme and the layout. Based on the theme, the visitor makes a snap decision about whether to continue with the purchase or close the tab!

Web visitors expect an eye-catching store with a very intuitive UI/UX. My advice is that the design should be visually appealing yet simple, so that the widest range of users can interact with the store without thinking twice.

For WooCommerce store owners, themes fall into three options: Free, Paid and Custom. Pick the option that suits your pocket but keep one thing in mind; the theme should be attractive enough to make sure that the visitor enters the sales funnel!

A friendly user-experience

According to many experts, a friendly experience is the key to more sales and popularity of the store. Visitors should feel at ease while shopping at your store. Navigation plays a huge role in providing a precise and relaxed environment for your visitors.

Visitors always need to know three important pages: the one they were on, the one they are on and the one that they will go to after clicking a particular link on your store. This can be achieved via breadcrumb links and intuitive navigation menus.

An important plugin to use for your store is WooCommerce Product Table. This plugin presents your product descriptions in separate boxes on the store, along with other information such as product name, price, reviews, attributes, variations and even add to cart buttons. This really helps the shoppers get instant information about the products so they can make quicker buying decisions.

A fuelled-up web store

Any e-commerce business depends upon reliability and speed. Most customers will not wait around for slow loading online stores. Thus it is vital that you continuously monitor the load time of the store to ensure a high speed website.

Picking the right WooCommerce hosting is the best way of ensuring the speed of the store. When shopping for a host for your store, you should look for reliable and persistent performance and availability of (free and paid) plugins and themes that help in making your web store blazing fast.

P.S. You should always keep an eye on plugins and themes that could slow down your web store.

Security above all

Security is the ultimate requirement for any web store. An insecure web store simply means no sales.

Online stores are a goldmine of customer information including personal information and credit card numbers. Even the rumour of a breach could permanently destroy the reputation of an online store!

You have to make sure that your WooCommerce store is secured with an SSL certificate. Other ways to secure your store include setting up a complex password for the site’s administrator account, updating the WooCommerce store to the latest version and regular backups of the store.

Engaging and clear product descriptions

Visitors can be converted into customers through clear and engaging product descriptions. The product description is a selling pitch, so it should be unique and attractive.

Another important thing to remember is that you should never mislead your visitors about a product. This is because they will not visit your store again after a bad experience. In fact, this could often result in a vicious social media campaign.

To avoi this situation, your product descriptions should perfectly reflect the products. Research the popular trends and check out your competitors’ product descriptions for inspiration. Remember that SEO-based descriptions help in getting your product rank higher in Google.

Impressive product images

The right picture gives customers the right vibe about a product.

Customers do not buy products after reading the engaging product descriptions. Rather, they look at the images to check out the quality of the products. Therefore, your product images should be of top quality and should attempt to capture all details of the product.

Your images should show different aspects of your product. The good thing about WooCommerce is that it supports 360-degree images which offers a very detailed visual description of the product.

Create product videos

Today, the Internet is all about videos. Product videos are the latest trend in the e-commerce industry.

Potential customers always check out product videos because a one-minute video can provide the information that hundreds of pictures simply can’t.

The good thing about product videos is that you can produce a video once and then promote it on several platforms such as Youtube, Snapchat, and WhatsApp.

Focus on store SEO

Optimising your WooCommerce store for search engines is one of the most effective practices of generating more traffic and sales. Always make sure your online store integrates the latest trending keywords to get your pages and products listed on the very first page of Google.

Your store’s interlinking structure should be stable as Google looks for the authority of your store. A sitemap is an essential aspect of the SEO strategy for a WooCommerce store. Each page should be optimised individually. Similarly, using keywords in product descriptions is good.

However, remember that excess of everything is bad. Google penalises web stores filled with keywords.

Live chat

The customer is the king, and customer support is the key to success for any web store. You should provide your customers prompt pre- and after sales services and work toward resolving their queries promptly. If your customers feel valued, they are more likely to return for more shopping and recommend you to others.

Live Chat is a premium WooCommerce plugin that helps in improving customer experience. It saves customers’ time because they can contact your store immediately without much waiting. There are also several other plugins that integrate live chat capability straight into your WooCommerce store to make your web store more reachable.

Sell to existing customers!

It’s all well and good trying to attract new customers. But it’s well documented that your efforts will get the best value for money by focussing on getting repeat business from existing customers. Users Insights have written a good article about how to increase your WooCommerce sales from returning customers.

Refund policy and/or money-back guarantee

This tip relates to all e-commerce stores in general, as well as WooCommerce shops. A well-defined refund policy means that customers at your store can feel easy about their purchases. If they do not like the product, they can easily return the product without any issues.

Similarly, if you feel confident enough, you could offer a money-back guarantee at your store. This is the ultimate offer you could make, but remember that you have follow through and be good for your words.

Final thoughts

WooCommerce is a wonderful platform for e-commerce stores. If you implement the above WooCommerce tips and tactics in your store, you can see a significant increase in revenues and customer base.

By Jamil, SEO specialist from CloudWays.

This article first appeared in Barn2.uk. | Image credit: Pixabay

The post How to Boost Your WooCommerce Store Sales appeared first on Akimi Technologies.

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barbaraboatright · 7 years

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Giving your product a soul

After a few years of designing products for clients, I began to feel fatigued. I wondered why. Turns out, I’d been chasing metric after metric. “Increase those page views!” “Help people spend more time in the app!” And it kept coming. Still, something was missing. I knew that meeting goals was part of what a designer does, but I could see how my work could easily become commoditized and less fulfilling unless something changed.

I thought of how bored I’d be if I kept on that path. I needed to build some guiding principles that would help me find my place in design. These principles would help grow and would shape my career in a way that fits me best.

What I’d like to share here is how I found my principles and regained a sense of fulfilment. I’ll also discuss one of them and hopefully convince you that it’s worth considering when we design products. Speaking of convincing, I’d also like to help you convince your boss that these things are important.

One small string that began to tie it together was watching Bret Victor’s talk “Inventing on Principle.” The first half is mostly a code demo; then, he gets philosophical and talks about how goals and principles help you. I believe that living by principles can lead you to some really interesting places — for me, they’ve helped me to find the right ways (and places) to work and the right projects to take on (like designing a typeface), and they’ve helped me to identify which areas of my life need to be nurtured so I don’t burn out.

Advocate For Design Having A Soul Link

I’ve worked on projects whose goals varied from increasing email signups by 10% to boosting ad impressions by 30%. It was honest work, to be sure. It’s important that our designs meet the needs of the product owners and our clients — this isn’t art school, and there are real constraints and requirements we need to address.

However, it’s not enough to do metrics-based design. That in itself is a bit too clinical and detached, and where’s the fun in that? We need more.

Validating and then meeting a project’s requirements should be the minimum of what we set out to do. Once we set those metrics as our baseline, we’re allowed to be more impactful and thoughtful as we get to the root of a design problem.

What we need to shoot for is to help people fall in love with our products. That means pushing to give our designs a soul.

Here’s what “emotionally connecting” means: It means you’ve created a product that stands out in someone’s heart. The product becomes what people reach for because it’s the most helpful. People might not be able to understand what you’ve done, but they’ll perceive that it’s better. This is one way to make a product that’s indescribably good.

I usually ask these two questions, which get at part of what helps people fall in love with a product:

What’s going to help someone really find this useful?

What’s going to make them care about it?

For years, we’ve focused on making our websites and products be functional, reliable and usable. These qualities are the bedrock of any good product, but it’s when we add a soul to a product that it really comes alive.

My first hint of a design having soul came back in 2005 when I logged into Flickr for the first time. Sure, Flickr has undergone many, many changes since then, but I’d like to explain how it helped me, as someone who hadn’t shared much online before. I wasn’t sure how to share something, but I noticed right away that the website greeted me with a friendly “Hello.” The website helped me breeze through the process, and the friendly tone was really assuring.

My Flickr experience was like a pal gently leading me through the process, making it easy to succeed. It was a warm experience that made me want to return. Incidentally, I can say “hello” in a lot more languages now, thanks to what Flickr taught me.

Moving forward to newer examples, we can also consider Slack, its competitors and email. All of these options help people communicate, but Slack has a personality that helps you feel more connected with it. Slackbot helps you get started by asking you questions in a conversation, much like a real human would when you meet them for the first time. The makers of Slack eschewed the standard idea of filling in a registration form in favour of something more conversational — this makes other services feel stale and unfriendly by comparison. Slack has soulful flourishes everywhere: from smooth animations to a cute little emoji that is shown when you’ve scrolled all the way to the newest message in your group.

To be fair, Slack and Flickr (which, by the way, share co-founders) weren’t the first to try for something more human — that desire has spanned centuries. Lovers of typographic history may recall that Gutenberg wanted the movable type he created to mimic the look of handwriting. He used blackletter-style letters, which were similar to the bible manuscripts that monks illuminated.

These examples makes a strong case for design having a soul. The personality that develops from having one is what wins someone’s heart and makes competitors feel like poor (or, at best, passable) copies. Consider this statement by John Medina in “Brain Rules“:

Emotionally arousing events tend to do better remembered than neutral events… Emotionally charged events persist much longer in our memories and are recalled with greater accuracy than neutral memories.

In other words, we’re wired to remember products with a soul. Let’s use that to our advantage.

Next, let’s get a little more specific and see how that can play out.

FIDDLE FACTORS

One example of a way to give a product a soul is by adding a “fiddle factor.” A fiddle factor is a playful part of a product that imparts a sense of joy or playfulness when used. I first heard this term in Jony Ive’s unofficial biography, Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products. Ive had a new take on, of all things, a pen. Noticing that people tend to fiddle with their pens when not writing, he added something to his pen design to give people something to play with when they were idle. Of course, Ive started by making the best possible pen, then added the fiddle factor.

According to Clive Grinyer, Ive’s once-boss:

This was a new idea back then, to put something on a pen that was purely there to fiddle with. He was really thinking differently. The pen’s design was not just about shape, but also there was an emotional side to it.

Fiddle factors invite people to idly toy with them and form a deeper connection with what you’ve made. They become that warm little blanket that wraps a product around your heart and makes you want it more.

I’ve described one already with Slack and its emoji use, but here are a few more digital fiddle factors:

That pull-to-refresh spinner with the really cool spinning animation? A fiddle factor.

That fun animation you click to like something on Twitter? Fiddle factor.

In MailChimp, when you find out that Freddy’s arm can extend almost forever when you’re testing an email’s responsive breakpoints? That’s a fiddle factor (albeit a cruel one).

ONE WAY TO ADD A LITTLE SOUL TO YOUR PROJECT

To give a project a soul is to cultivate a relationship with it. You need to know what it needs and understand its nature. In this sense, this relationship is the same as a potter with clay or an architect with wood and steel. Once you understand the nature of your materials, you will know what it can become and what its limits are. This will help you to mould a soul in the right ways. Not doing this will ultimately cause your project to feel inauthentic and fail.

Let’s say you’ve built a playful iOS app. It’s meant to send short, fun replies to friends. In the app, you’ve got an overview page showing the latest emails, and the user can go into a detail view to read a particular message. You could go the standard route of sliding in the email from the right — it’s a simple thing to do, and it’s built right into iOS.

The drawback with built-in transitions is well covered: Anyone can use them. Sure, there are definite benefits to them (namely, that they’re cheaper and faster to implement), but it’s difficult to build something that’s soulful if you only use stock components and animation.

Instead, consider an alternative kind of transition. Think about it like this: Consider the personality you think the app should have. Think about the people who will use this app. I use this chart to help me determine the tone of a project:

Back to our email app. Let’s say it’s a fun email client. In this chart, it shows most strongly in the casual, energetic and easy-going categories. If we think about the animations we’ll use here, it makes sense to be more playful.

So, let’s animate the email message to come up from the bottom of the screen with a little spring in its step. When you’re finished with it, you can swipe it away or pull it back down.

Let’s take that even further, based on the chart and animation:

Maybe the animation could be the basis for how you approach other animations in the app. Your other animations could be similarly fun (but don’t overdo it).

Maybe it will affect which typefaces you choose.

What’s important here is to avoid forcing something in where it doesn’t belong. Don’t be different just for the sake of being different, and don’t overdo it. If we saw the President of the United States deliver the State of the Union address in a Hawaiian shirt, we’d probably feel like something’s amiss and might not take him as seriously as we should. Same here — what we do has to feel natural.

OTHER IDEAS

Any interaction, be it with a button or a scroll, is a perfect place to explore adding a fiddle factor. Explore what might happen when the user scrolls to the bottom of the content. Or perhaps you could come up with something unexpected when the user hovers over a photo for a long time. Maybe you could make a neat hover or focus animation.

Adding soul isn’t limited to animation, either. It goes much deeper!

How does it sound? Each person’s voice is totally unique, and your product’s should be, too.

How does it look? We need to stand out and be ourselves; so do the things we make.

How does it act? Could your product know the user on a deeper level and anticipate their needs? That would be deeply soulful.

Convincing Your Boss And Team

It’s all well and good for designers to talk about giving their products a soul, but here’s where it gets real: You have a deadline, and a budget. Your boss might not want to go for it, and your engineers might be resistant because it would take them extra time. Let’s talk about a framework for those conversations.

The framework I use to have these discussions centres on the effort required to implement an idea and the idea’s impact on the customer and the business.

While there will inevitably be high-impact, high-effort items in a project, the sweet spot is low-effort, high-impact ideas. These types of ideas help the user in meaningful ways, without significantly affecting your timeline and budget.

This way of looking at ideas also helps me to let go of ideas that might be a little too egocentric. Those usually have low levels of impact and high levels of effort. Mapping them out in this way helps me to focus on what matters most.

I’ve found this approach effective because it enables us to differentiate our products, while making the most of our time.

Let’s go back to custom animations for a moment. If we’re talking about adding fiddle factors and animation to our email app, we can’t build something great by assembling it entirely from off-the-shelf components. If we use only basic components and built-in animations, the product wouldn’t be memorable enough to matter to people. Plus, it will make it difficult for us to fall in love with what we’re building and to give the product a soul.

One additional framework to keep in mind is the Kano model, which was developed in the 1980s by Noriaki Kano.

There is a great explanation video, but, in short, this model covers three areas:

basic needs (Does the product work?),

performance needs (How efficient is it?),

attractive needs (What makes me love it?).

The soul of a product lives in the attractive needs. The Kano model invites us to think of one or two features that set the product apart from its competition. Framing your high-impact, low-effort ideas with this model will help you make a strong case for soul.

At our core, we’re people who care about our craft. We want to build great products, and the products need to have those nice touches. Being able to fully ply our trade also helps with employee retention. We’re happier when we’re able to do our best work. If we’re able to fully stretch ourselves to make something great, we’re going to keep giving our best in future. Conversely, if we’re prevented from doing our best work, we’ll become disconnected and disinterested, motivating us to go elsewhere when the opportunity presents itself.

If your boss or company doesn’t give you this freedom and you think it’s important, it might be time to plan your next transition.

Wrapping Up

It’s not enough to simply design something and meet a goal. This is a surefire way to burnout and boring products. We’ve got to do more for ourselves, our products and our industry. Finding our principles will help us find the right place to work and to do our best work.

Giving our products a soul will make them better, more engaging products. The next time you’re designing, ask yourself what would make someone find your product useful, and what would make them care about it more than another product? Once you do that, you’ll be well on your way to cultivating a healthy relationship with your products and building things that people really love.

Also, it’s not enough for us to have these ideas; convincing our team members and bosses to come along with us is important. Once we test and articulate the value of what we do, we’ll have a much easier and more rewarding time.

By Joshua Mauldin.

This article first appeared in Smashing Magazine. | Image credit: Pixabay

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barbaraboatright · 7 years

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The Difference Between Art and Design

Thanks to the digital era, a brand’s reputation has never been more important. Today, consumers have the luxury of choice in unprecedented ways, from countless food delivery and ridesharing apps, to social media platforms and mobile devices. In this environment, brands’ core values play an ever-greater role in deciding whether a customer completes their purchase and returns in future.

For example, imagine a brand that offers fantastic products and brilliant service, but pays its staff below the minimum wage. Or a store that sells wonderful clothes –made in sweatshops that exploit their staff. Or a YouTube video showing less-than-stellar customer service getting far greater reach than any ad campaign. These cases have become surprisingly common, frequently hitting news headlines and publicly damaging reputations, value and success.

A question of business ethics Business ethics increasingly top the list of reasons consumers choose to spend their money or time with a brand. Why? Because ever since the early 2000’s, consumer trust has taken a turn for the worse and appears to be continuing its downward spiral. The annual Edelman Trust Barometer shows that public trust has fallen off a cliff. And it’s not just brands, the Government, media, public figures, politicians and CEOs are have also seen a loss of public faith.

That’s hardly a surprise given today’s political and media climate, where fake news and false promises are heard more often than the truth. The dishonest behavior of trusted companies or individuals led to the 2007 financial crisis, Volkswagen emissions scandal, the PPI scam and the latest tax avoidance scandals seen in The Panama Papers. Starbucks and Amazon have even seen a dent in their brand reputation thanks to their inability to pay the right amount of corporate tax.

Brands need to work harder than ever to convince consumers that they are worthy of their time and money. Given the abundance of choice, customers aren’t afraid to switch. Research from Accenture found that 54% of customers switched service providers in the past year, citing frustrating customer service as the top reason (64%).

The Difference Between Art and Design The subject of what separates art and design is convoluted and has been debated for a long time. Artists and designers both create visual compositions using a shared knowledge base, but their reasons for doing so are entirely different.

Some designers consider themselves artists, but few artists consider themselves designers.

So what exactly is the difference between art and design? In this post, we’ll examine and compare some of the core principles of each craft.

This is a subject that people have strong opinions about, and I’m looking forward to reading the various points of view in the comments.

This post isn’t a definitive guide, but rather the starting point for a conversation, so let’s be open-minded!

GOOD ART INSPIRES. GOOD DESIGN MOTIVATES.

Perhaps the most fundamental difference between art and design that we can all agree on is their purposes.

Typically, the process of creating a work of art starts with nothing, a blank canvas. A work of art stems from a view or opinion or feeling that the artist holds within him or herself.

They create the art to share that feeling with others, to allow the viewers to relate to it, learn from it or be inspired by it.

The most renowned (and successful) works of art today are those that establish the strongest emotional bond between the artist and their audience.

By contrast, when a designer sets out to create a new piece, they almost always have a fixed starting point, whether a message, an image, an idea or an action.

The designer’s job isn’t to invent something new, but to communicate something that already exists, for a purpose.

That purpose is almost always to motivate the audience to do something: buy a product, use a service, visit a location, learn certain information. The most successful designs are those that most effectively communicate their message and motivate their consumers to carry out a task.

GOOD ART IS INTERPRETED. GOOD DESIGN IS UNDERSTOOD.

Another difference between art and design is how the messages of each are interpreted by their respective audiences.

Although an artist sets out to convey a viewpoint or emotion, that is not to say that the viewpoint or emotion has a single meaning.

Art connects with people in different ways, because it’s interpreted differently.

Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa has been interpreted and discussed for many years. Just why is she smiling? Scientists say it’s an illusion created by your peripheral vision. Romantics say she is in love. Skeptics say there is no reason. None of them are wrong.

Design is the very opposite. Many will say that if a design can be “interpreted” at all, it has failed in its purpose.

The fundamental purpose of design is to communicate a message and motivate the viewer to do something.

If your design communicates a message other than the one you intended, and your viewer goes and does something based on that other message, then it has not met its requirement. With a good piece of design, the designer’s exact message is understood by the viewer.

GOOD ART IS A TASTE. GOOD DESIGN IS AN OPINION.

Art is judged by opinion, and opinion is governed by taste.

To a forward-thinking modern art enthusiast, Tracey Emin’s piece “My Bed”, which was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1999, may be the height of artistic expression.

To a follower of more traditional art, it may be an insult to the medium. This goes back to our point about interpretation, but taste is more about people’s particular likes and dislikes rather than the message they take away from a piece.

Design has an element of taste, but the difference between good and bad design is largely a matter of opinion.

A good piece of design can still be successful without being to your taste. If it accomplishes its objective of being understood and motivates people to do something, then whether it’s good or not is a matter of opinion.

We could go on discussing this particular point, but hopefully the underlying principle is clear.

GOOD ART IS A TALENT. GOOD DESIGN IS A SKILL.

What about the creator’s abilities?

More often than not, an artist has natural ability. Of course, from a young age, the artist grows up drawing, painting, sculpting and developing their abilities.

But the true value of an artist is in the talent (or natural ability) they are born with. There is some overlap here: good artists certainly have skill, but artistic skill without talent is, arguably, worthless.

Design, though, is really a skill that is taught and learned. You do not have to be a great artist to be a great designer; you just have to be able to achieve the objectives of design.

Some of the most respected designers in the world are best known for their minimalist styles. They don’t use much colour or texture, but they pay great attention to size, positioning, and spacing, all of which can be learned without innate talent.

GOOD ART SENDS A DIFFERENT MESSAGE TO EVERYONE. GOOD DESIGN SENDS THE SAME MESSAGE TO EVERYONE.

This really falls under the second point about interpretation and understanding. But if you take only one thing away from this article, take this point.

Many designers consider themselves artists because they create something visually attractive, something they would be proud for people to hang on a wall and admire.

But a visual composition intended to accomplish a specific task or communicate a particular message, no matter how beautiful, is not art. It is a form of communication, simply a window to the message it contains.

Few artists call themselves designers because they seem to better understand the difference. Artists do not create their work to sell a product or promote a service. They create it solely as a means of self-expression, so that it can be viewed and appreciated by others. The message, if we can even call it that, is not a fact but a feeling.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Depending on how you look at it, the difference between art and design can be clear-cut or hazy. The two certainly overlap, but art is more personal, evoking strong reactions in those who connect with the subject.

By: John O’Nolan

This article first appeared in Web Designer Depot. | Image credit: Pixabay

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barbaraboatright · 7 years

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Start-up Marketing Strategy: How a Shark Tank Entrepreneur Builds an Ecommerce Powerhouse

Over the last eight seasons, ABC’s reality show “Shark Tank” has dealt with all the ins and outs of the start-up business strategy. But what about their websites? Online start-up marketing strategy can be an important factor for who sinks or swims on the show.

There’s usually not time on a primetime TV show for a thorough discussion of content management systems, e-commerce SEO, AdWords marketing or Facebook marketing — but there’s plenty of time for that here. Here’s how the pros build an e-commerce powerhouse and marketing strategy that Shark Tank would buy.

1. Start With a Great CMS The right pick of content management system (CMS) for your business website can set you up for success right from the start. WP Engine looked at the websites of 222 businesses that have appeared on the show.

The overwhelming choice of CMS platform for Shark Tank contestants was WordPress, with 84 businesses (38%) opting for a WP website. Another 26% went with Shopify, 10% for Magento, 5% for BigCommerce.

So why WordPress? Search engines love this platform because e-commerce SEO is easy to set up correctly. Designers and site owners love it, too. Web designs are flexible, and businesses can tweak or update their site easily with a browser-based management.

2. Add the Right Ecommerce Solution After your CMS, the most important choice for your site is your e-commerce solution. The right online store software ensures you customers can easily and efficiently buy your products. It also makes sure online transactions are secured with the latest encryption.

For a long time, industry titans like Magento were the top choice for startup businesses. But Magento’s competitors are catching up.

WooCommerce is now the top choice, which makes sense since this platform integrates very easily with WordPress as a plugin app. WooCommerce can do quite a bit more than put products in a shopping cart. One Shark Tank alum, Villy Customs, created a WooCommerce shop that lets customers build a custom bike with visualizations along the way.

3. Secure Your Site With Premium SSL With money changing hands, you want to protect your customers with the latest Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption. This type of security is not just for your payment details page. It’s also beneficial on your homepage where customers have their first impression, enter their email address for newsletter signup, or fill out personal information for quotes or membership info.

Premium SSL encryption offers the highest level of protection today. But even first-generation SSL encryption will make data transfer between servers more secure, elevate customer trust, and bring you higher conversion rates.

Still, not everyone is on board yet with SSL encryption. About half the web is missing out on the benefits (and being penalized in their SERPs by Google’s algorithm). Many Shark Tank alums missed the mark here, too. Only 39 out of 302 sites (13%) reviewed by WP Engine were using SSL.

4. Get People With the Right Expertise Shark Tank’s investor “sharks” know a good business opportunity when they see one. But they also know how to share their expertise so that their business investments produce the best possible results. WP Engine’s review of the batting average of sharks like Mark Cuban and Barbara Corcoran showed that only a few of their funded ventures have websites that went dark. Most were still up and running.

If you want your start-up website to do well, it’s well worth it to have the right folks advising you on e-commerce and CMS options, SEO, AdWords marketing and Facebook marketing, and so on. Whether that comes from their VC investor or whether they spend their funds on hiring experts, it’s crucial for start-ups looking for funding to get the right advice so they can build a business even Shark Tank would buy.

By David Quilty.

This article first appeared in Kaleidico.com. | Image credit: Jakob Owens on Unsplash & Raydar

Editor’s note: Read our client testimonies and visit the websites of our clients at http://ift.tt/1bQtMOH to confirm that Akimi Technologies is the best choice you can make. Better still, start a conversation with us at [email protected].

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barbaraboatright · 7 years

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6 Habits of Highly Effective AdWords Advertisers

By Jeff Haden

Millions of small businesses leverage paid search advertising as an important source for leads and sales; the most popular paid search platform is Google AdWords. Yet most of these businesses aren’t doing the work required to succeed, according to new research (and a cool infographic) that analyzes the performance of 500 small business Google AdWords accounts conducted by the search marketing company WordStream.

According to WordStream, the average small business spends $1,200 a month on AdWords. Unfortunately those advertisers waste an average of 25 percent of their budget, primarily because they fail in a few key areas. Some throw money at irrelevant keywords or are penalized for low ad click-through rates, while others ignore mobile traffic or direct visitors to under-optimized landing pages. There are a number of reasons PPC marketing can under-perform, but poor results can usually be blamed on five common bad habits. “We’ve identified a number of things that overachievers in small business PPC do regularly and really well,” says WordStream founder (and fellow Inc.com columnist) Larry Kim. “These 5 habits of successful AdWords PPC marketers help them avoid wasting advertising dollars by spending less on worthless clicks and capitalizing on opportunities their competitors miss.”

Want to get more return from your AdWords spending? According to Larry, here are six key ways:

1. Be Active Get in the game: if you’re not actually logging into AdWords on a regular basis and making changes to your campaigns your results will naturally suffer. Still, only 1 percent of small business advertisers tweaked their AdWords accounts at least once a week in the last quarter.

Amazingly, over half (53 percent) optimize their ad campaigns only once per quarter. PPC marketing is highly measurable and by not reviewing and acting on campaign data you miss out on making data-driven changes that can make this marketing channel so effective.

Start by spending at least a few minutes each week reviewing and tweaking your campaigns.

2. Be Specific Long-tail keywords typically have less competition and therefore cost less per click. However, one in four small business advertisers rely exclusively on very broad keywords like “insurance.” Making matters worse, one in five don’t use a single negative keyword, an important tool that prevents your ads from showing up on irrelevant searches.

“Advertisers need to do their research to find those specific keywords that can help reduce cost while tapping into more targeted markets, yet we’re not seeing small businesses achieve this in great numbers,” says Kim. “And without also using negative keywords you’re going to waste a lot of your budget on clicks that don’t convert.”

3. Be Relevant Quality Score (QS) is Google’s grade of the relevancy of your ad campaigns, largely based on the click-through rates of your keywords and ads. (When a higher percentage of people that see your ads click through to your site it’s an indication that your message is resonating with your audience.) Quality Score has a major impact on PPC campaign performance–marketers who nail relevance and achieve top Quality Scores see savings of up to 50 percent on cost per click plus an 80 percent lower cost per conversion when compared to an average QS of 5.

Targeting the right keywords and writing unique ads worth clicking on are the keys to improving your Quality Score.

4. Be Creative Why pay for an ad click to send traffic to a page that is not optimized for conversion? Oddly enough, 25 percent of small business advertisers send all of their campaign traffic to a single page, while 20 percent send their clicks straight to the homepage. There’s no way a single page can address the needs of all the different visitors you will bring in with Google ads.

Not only do many small businesses fall short on conversion optimization, less than 50 percent have conversion tracking installed. “You can’t have an accurate picture of your campaigns and whether or not they’re effective if you’re not tracking conversions,” Kim says.

“Marketers need to get creative and make sure their landing page iterations are designed to answer the needs of ad traffic. Then they absolutely need to measure the performance of those pages to continuously make improvements.”

5. Be Mobile-Friendly Follow mobile PPC best practices: ad extensions, in particular, are an underutilized opportunity that only extraordinary small business advertisers appear to be tapping into. The click-to-call extension can increase click-through-rates by 10 percent, yet only one in 20 advertisers have that feature set up on all campaigns.

Mobile-preferred ads take precedence over regular ad creative in campaigns where a mobile impression is an option because it allows advertisers to serve up highly targeted content that addresses the needs of their viewers on mobile devices.

For example, mobile users are much more likely to convert by calling your business with a question or request than a desktop user. However, less than 20 percent of small business advertisers are using mobile-preferred ads.

6. Start Small… and Don’t Stop The effort required to optimize AdWords campaigns on an ongoing basis doesn’t have to be intimidating, says Kim. “It’s really just a matter of practicing these good habits regularly, which could take as little as a few minutes a week,” he says.

“The key is in identifying those areas that could be opportunities and taking the time to test, tweak, and test some more.”

This article first appeared in inc.com

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barbaraboatright · 7 years

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6 Google AdWords Hacks to Optimize Your Pay-Per-Click Campaigns

Written by: Melissa Thompson

If you don’t have the time and money to invest into search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising provides the opportunity to drive highly targeted traffic to your offers instantly. The competition is intense, so any opportunity to lower your overall cost-per-click should be welcomed with open arms.

Some keywords related to competitive industries have an extremely high cost-per-click (CPC), and if your campaigns aren’t properly optimized it will result in reckless over-spending. When you are able to drive your average CPC down, it translates to a lower cost-per-acquisition, allowing you to drive more business at a lower price.

To help you lower your costs and increase the performance of your PPC campaigns, here are six Google AdWords hacks for improved optimization. They are universal and work for campaigns of all sizes.

1. Focus on creating relevant ads When you start with a large campaign, with several ads, each focusing on one keyword each, it allows you to really trim the fat and create a lean campaign, with a lower overall cost-per-click. A lot of people don’t think beyond the ad, but relevant landing page copy and an offer that is directly tied to the ad that brought the visitor is just as important. Many people are lazy, and just group large amounts of keywords into ad sets, and hope for the best. Take your time building out a very fine-tuned campaign. While it requires more initial hands-on work, the cost-savings and overall performance benefits are well worth your time.

2. Lower your keyword bids manually One of the benefits of improving your campaign’s quality score (QS) is lowered costs, but don’t assume Google is going to automatically lower your costs. If you leave your bids alone, there is a good chance you will continue to pay the same CPC, even with an improved quality score. Manually decrease your bids, a little at a time, to see if you can lower your cost-per-click while still attracting the same amount of click volume. Even achieving a CPC that’s just ten cents lower can equal tremendous savings across your campaign.

3. Consistently implement new ads to test against your current best-performers Never stop testing new ads, even if you achieve the highest possible quality score. There is always room to improve your click-through rate and conversion rate when you constantly test new ads. Create multiple ad variations and test them against your best performing ads. A small change can be responsible for real improvements to your performance. Even the smallest click-through rate (CTR) improvement makes a big difference.

4. Include negative keywords in your campaigns If you aren’t including negative keywords in your AdWords campaigns, you are wasting a tremendous amount of money on clicks that have no intention of buying whatever it is that you are selling. Take the time to review the search query report in your AdWords account. It shows you each search query that triggered your ads to be shown. This shows how your potential customers are searching for what you are selling and allows you to identify keywords that you don’t want to pay for.

Imagine if you ran a travel company and you dove into the search query report only to discover that you have been paying for clicks triggered by the keyword “Bora Bora pictures.” These are people that have absolutely no interest in booking a vacation, so you would want to add that to your negative keyword list immediately.

5. Improve your quality score Improving your quality score should be your main focus in order to lower your click costs. Creating targeted ads matched with targeted keywords, your quality score improves, along with your click-through rate. Because of this, your ad rank improves and your campaign will see lower click costs.

The quality score is based on a 1 to 10 score, and it’s an estimate of the overall quality of your campaign. It factors in your keywords, ad copy and landing pages. Lowering your quality score requires constant tweaking and testing.

6. Create a better landing page experience for your visitors Your ads could have high click-through rates and send a lot of visitors to your website, but if you are sending your traffic to poorly-optimized landing pages your campaign will suffer, for several reasons. First, it will kill your quality score, and second, if the landing page isn’t relevant to your ad or offers a poor mobile viewing experience, your traffic won’t convert. Build your landing pages specific to the ad you are sending traffic to. This ensures proper optimization and will benefit your quality score and conversion rate.

This article was first seen in inc.com. Photo credit: pixabay, Raydar & rawpixel.com on Unsplash.

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barbaraboatright · 7 years

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How Brands can Tap Into the Internet of Things to Maximize Opportunities

Written by: Bernadette Coleman

Most marketers today are aware of the Internet of Things (IoT) and know that it’s important, but many don’t fully understand IoT – how it works, its impact on consumers, and how its influence has changed over time – nor how it continues to change on an almost daily basis.

Businesses struggling with the nitty-gritty of the Internet of Things, shrugging their shoulders and pushing it farther down their marketing to-do lists, should consider the following advice.

The Internet of Things: A Two-Sentence Definition

In the most essential terms, the Internet of Things refers to physical (non-computer) objects – from cars to refrigerators and medical devices – connected to the internet. These goods are equipped with electronics and network connectivity hardware that enables them to tap into the internet and communicate with computers and other internet-linked devices.

This is still a relatively new addition to mainstream technology, but the list of IoT devices is rapidly expanding. In fact, the growth of such devices is likely to skyrocket over the next year or so with potentially huge business and marketing implications.

The Evolution of the Internet of Things

The idea of the Internet of Things is older than you might expect. Peter Lewis first coined the term in 1985 when speaking at an FCC-supported wireless session of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. At that time he referred to IoT as “the integration of people, processes, and technology with connectable devices and sensors.”

Although Lewis’s term didn’t take off immediately, the Internet of Things became a more popular concept starting in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Technology innovators envisioned IoT transforming daily life for users, enabling devices to respond instantly and remotely to users’ needs and demands. The technologyhas gained more steam over the last few years, particularly with the increased prevalence of wearable technology and smart devices, including the light and door home sensors we’re all becoming familiar with.

The Internet of Things has only continued to grow and gain popularity among tech companies and innovators. Gartner recently predicted that internet-connected cars (those “smart cars”) will account for a quarter billion of the vehicles on the road by 2020. Overall predictions for the growth of IoT devices in general estimate that the number in use will explode from 4.9 billion in 2015 to 25 billion by 2020. That’s some seriously fast growth, even by tech industry standards.

Consumers Are IOT Dependent

I’m betting you’ve noticed this trend: There’s no question that the Internet of Things and increasingly smart devices have made the everyday consumer more dependent on technology.

From fitness wearables that monitor and transmit health stats to mobile device apps and the once-mythical self-driving car, IoT devices are here to stay. In fact, they’re already changing daily life for consumers. Since the advent of smartphones nearly everyone carries a miniature computer in his or her pocket – and IoT technology manufacturers are increasingly tapping into this market.

How SMBs Are Incorporating IOT Into Their Business

The question is: With big corporations and manufacturers already tapping into the marketing potential of the Internet of Things, how can local small-to-medium businesses leverage this technology?

While the answer may be complicated, IoT technology is already so prevalent and pervasive that not taking advantage of it means almost certain failure. Fortunately, there are ways small businesses can incorporate IoT technology into their business plans at a relatively low cost.

Valarm, for example, is a small start-up specializing in monitoring systems. Valarm has found several ways to incorporate inexpensive internet-connected sensors into its products. One innovative method was recycling old smartphones, which came with negligible up-front costs, and transforming them into mobile sensors.

Valarm’s innovations help companies take advantage of IoT technology on a small, low-cost scale, from microbreweries that need help controlling ventilation to keep CO2 levels down to delivery services in need of tracking devices to verify, in real-time, when products are received or dropped off.

The Internet of Things Means Increased Insights, More Reaching Out and Greater Customer Satisfaction

Clearly, the future of marketing will rely heavily on the Internet of Things and connected devices. In the coming years, it will become increasingly important for marketers to have a keen understanding of how IoT technology works and its implications for reaching consumers.

The Internet of Things will critically influence marketing by:

Providing increased insights into consumer behavior, including buying patterns and likes and dislikes. Why are consumers buying certain products and not others? The Internet of Things will quickly reveal the answer.

Offering marketers a deeper and more enhanced understanding of what motivates customers to buy. IoT devices will show where potential customers are in the decision-making process. With such detailed information, marketers will be better equipped to serve customers and close transactions.

Making the customer experience more personal and enjoyable. For example, marketers will communicate with potential customers via smartphones to provide personalized assistance with product selection.

Allowing marketers to tap into social media to meet customers where they are, drawing in more business. Marketers will take advantage of trends by creating specific campaigns for social platforms, reaching a far wider demographic.

Ensuring that SEO-optimized content will reach more customers. Marketers will create content, such as press releases, product promotions, or blogs, and optimize it to target prospective customers. Comfortable with keywords on search engines? Fear not, as keywords will continue to be a fast, cost-effective way for a local business to expand its consumer base. Adding product demo videos and photos will also be tech-savvy ways to draw attention.

Connecting small business marketing to a wider, internet-based marketing ecosystem. Business ventures and consumers once beyond the reach of a start-up or small business will become more accessible.

The Internet of Things is here to stay. How local SMBs and marketers respond and adapt will make all the difference in their future success and sustainability.

This article first appeared in Social Media Today. Photo credit: Alex Knight & William Iven on Unsplash

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barbaraboatright · 7 years

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Negative Customer Review? Turn It Into a Positive Opportunity

Written by: Nicole Fallon

It’s never encouraging to receive negative reviews from customers, but they’re not necessarily going to doom your business. It all depends on how you handle the reviews you receive.

“Answering negative reviews builds [consumer] confidence in your business and your brand,” said Phil Penton, CEO of Xcite Advertising. “When you answer a negative review and address the upset customer, you are also speaking to the hundreds of other consumers that want to know how you conduct your business. Consumers understand that mistakes happen, so when they see a business trying to do the right thing, it builds trust.”

Research confirms this: A survey by Capterra found that 52 percent of online buyers say a few negative reviews of a product actually makes them trust a product more. Only 18 percent of buyers reported that negative reviews made a product seem less trustworthy.

But it’s not enough to simply acknowledge an unsatisfied customer. The trick is to respond in such a way that they will want to give your business another chance, thereby proving to other potential buyers that your business has top-notch customer service. Here’s what you need to know about properly handling and responding to negative reviews.

Answer quickly with a personalized response

In an age of smartphones and constant communication, customers have come to expect instant gratification in many aspects of their lives, including their interactions with brands. Responding to a negative review as soon as possible after it’s posted will show that customer and others that you’re listening and care about customer satisfaction, said Jan Vels Jensen, former chief marketing officer at customer review platform Trustpilot.

Penton noted that it’s important to give each reviewer a customized response that cites specific details from their complaint. A generic stock response will make your brand appear impersonal and drive the customer further away.

It takes time to read and thoughtfully respond to every negative comment, but doing this will boost your customer retention rates in the long run. According to a report on e-Strategy Trends, after a company responded to a negative review, about a third of customers deleted or replaced their negative review, and a fifth of negative reviewers made another purchase from that company and went on to become loyal customers.

Corey Kossack, CEO of Frederick, recommends having an in-house person dedicated to watching for negative reviews on social platforms where your company has a presence and on forms like Google and Yelp. Setting up alerts and using all-in-one social media management tools can help you quickly locate and respond to comments across all platforms.

Apologize and empathize

Customers may not always be right, but if you tell them they’re wrong, you will definitely lose their business. When responding to a bad review, a brand needs to express understanding and empathy without blaming the customer, and be apologetic about the less-than-ideal experience.

“Let the customer know that you empathize with his or her situation,” Vels Jensen told Business News Daily. “Make up for the mistake, even if it’s not your fault. By making amends, you’re much more likely to get the customer’s business again.”

Kossack recommends addressing the problem in the same forum where you find the review.

“All issues should initially be acknowledged in the same forum as often as possible,” Kossack said. “The company does not need to address the details of the situation in this forum, but responding in the same forum first is important because it shows other customers who come across the review that you are acknowledging the issue in question and taking steps to find a solution.”

The next step in resolving a complaint can be done more privately over the phone or email, said Kossack.

“Customers want to feel heard and understood, so it’s important to find out what your customers want and how you can provide value,” he added.

Ask for a second chance

Asking customers how you can improve their experience with your brand in the future is the key to retaining their business. Vels Jensen said that brands should listen and learn from negative feedback. Customer complaints contain valuable information that can help improve both your overall customer service and the trust consumers place in your brand.

Offering a coupon, voucher or replacement product after a negative experience can also help you earn a second chance, Penton said. While free products or services shouldn’t be your default response (customers catch on quickly and may give negative reviews solely to receive a free product), this can be a great tactic if there is a problem resolving the customer’s original issue. If you choose this route, be sure to encourage the customer to update their review if the second experience yields better results.

“If a company receives a complaint from a customer because of a faulty product, it’s usually most appropriate to [replace] the product for free,” Kossack said. “If a customer has a bad experience with a specific service or employee, it’s important to fully understand the reason for dissatisfaction to determine the best resolution.”

Encourage more reviews

It’s not easy to take criticism, especially from the people who matter most to your business. But using negative reviews to improve your customer service will give your brand staying power and provide a track record that shows you’re truly committed to your customers. Encourage your customers to leave reviews so you can take full advantage of this branding opportunity.

For brick-and-mortar businesses, Penton recommended placing signs, table toppers or window clings in your store for review sites that you would like to promote. You can also add a note to your invoices or receipts to leave a review on certain platforms. These reminders can increase the chance that consumers will share their experiences.

“Empowering your customers to comment on your company and taking the time to respond to them makes customers feel valued and wanted,” Vels Jensen said. “Reviews are a great way to show that you are listening and responding to all feedback, and that you truly value your customers’ business.”

This article first appeared on Business News Daily. Photo credit: Raydar and Juliette Leufke, Lina Trochez & Nik MacMillan on Unsplash

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barbaraboatright · 7 years

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32 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Ecommerce

by Mark Hayes

Performance should inform business decisions and KPIs should drive actions.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are like milestones on the road to online retail success. Monitoring them will help ecommerce entrepreneurs identify progress toward sales, marketing, and customer service goals.

A performance indicator is simply a quantifiable measurement or data point used to gauge performance relative to some goal. As an example, it may be a goal for some online retailers to increase site traffic 50 % in the next year. Relative to this goal, a performance indicator might be the number of unique visitors the site receives daily or which traffic sources send visitors (pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimization, brand or display advertising, or a YouTube video).

For some goals there could be many performance indicators — often too many — so often people narrow it down to just two or three impactful data points known as key performance indicators. KPIs are those measurements that most accurately and succinctly show whether or not a business in progressing toward its goal.

Setting Goals and Identifiying KPIs

Selecting KPIs begins with clearly stating goals and understanding what areas of business impact those goals. Of course, KPIs can and should differ for each of an online retailer’s goals, whether those are related to boosting sales, streamlining marketing, or improving customer service.

Here are a few examples of goals and associated KPIs:

GOAL 1 — Boost sales 10% in the next quarter. KPIs include daily sales, conversion rate, site traffic.

GOAL 2 — Increase conversion rate 2% in the next year. KPIs include conversion rate, shopping cart abandonment rate, associated shipping rate trends, competitive price trends.

GOAL 3 — Grow site traffic 20 percent in the next year. KPIs include site traffic, traffic sources, promotional click-through rates, social shares, bounce rates.

GOAL 4 — Reduce customer service calls by half in the next 6 months. KPIs include service call classification, identify of page visited immediately before the call, event that lead to the call.

It should be easy to see that there are many performance indicators, and the value of those indicators is directly tied to the goal progress measured. Monitoring which page someone visited before initiating a customer service call makes sense as a KPI for GOAL 4 since it could help identify areas of confusion that when corrected would reduce customer service calls, but that same performance indicator would be almost useless for GOAL 3.

With the idea that KPIs should differ based on the goal being measured, it’s possible to consider a set of common performance indicators for ecommerce. Here are 32 common ecommerce key performance indicators. Just remember that the performance indicators listed below is in no way exhaustive.

32 Key Performance Indicators

Sales Key Performance Indicators:

Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual sales

Average order size (sometimes called average market basket)

Average margin

Conversion rate

Shopping cart abandonment rate

New customer orders versus returning customer sales

Cost of goods sold

Total available market relative to a retailer’s share of market

Product affinity (which products are purchased together)

Product relationship (which products are viewed consecutively)

Inventory levels

Competitive pricing

Marketing Key Performance Indicators:

Site traffic

Unique visitors versus returning visitors

Time on site

Page views per visit

Traffic source

Day part monitoring (when site visitors come)

Newsletter subscribers

Texting subscribers

Chat sessions initiated

Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest followers or fans

Pay-per-click traffic volume

Blog traffic

Number and quality of product reviews

Brand or display advertising click-through rates

Affiliate performance rates

Customer Service Key Performance Indicators:

Customer service email count

Customer service phone call count

Customer service chat count

Average resolution time

Concern classification

Once you have set goals and selected KPIs, monitoring those indicators should become an everyday exercise. And most importantly: Performance should inform business decisions, and you should use KPIs to drive actions.

This article first appeared in Shopify. Photo credit: Jeff Sheldon & Niklas Tidbury on Unsplash/ Raydar

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barbaraboatright · 7 years

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How to find the Right Software Development Team for your Business

Contributed by Appkodes

While getting on a venture with an outsourced software development organization, it’s imperative to realize that your team is committed, well-qualified to do their job, and obviously – prepared to move rapidly and take care of business. In principle, it appears glaringly evident; by and by – it isn’t so much that simple to settle on the right decision, particularly when you don’t have the experience yet. Of course, there are numerous manuals out there on the most proficient method to pick the best outsourcing organization to work with and what to focus on. Most of them are amazingly helpful! Be that as it may, their usefulness ends… when you settle on the decision and begin working with the chosen organization.

Here are few questions to enable you to ensure that you’ve settled on a good choice and that the development of your application is in great hands!

Do they know the latest trends and technologies?

Computer technologies are developing exponentially and not to fall behind. So as to convey you the product that will meet your (and your customers’) desires, individuals at your group require needing not only know the most recent software development trends yet, in addition, comprehend them and intend to receive them in their work. Staying up with the latest technology is crucial to having the capacity to encourage you and to decide the best innovation for your product. Are the people you work with open to tech discussions? Do they recommend you some new solutions or just follow the rules?

Are they fast-accelerating? Something that influenced you to outsource as opposed to developing the in-house group was the need to begin as fast as could be expected under the circumstances. In the event that you could spend awhile on the enrolling and contracting process, making a working space and condition, waiting for the group to know each other and so forth, you would most likely field and in-house group. If you needed your venture to take off quick, you anticipate that they will be prepared to work appropriate from the beginning and to give the effective dispatch – once the prerequisites are gathered and every one of the assertions is agreed upon. To what extent did it take your group to begin dealing with the task?

Is their knowledge comprehensive? Do they utilize Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment? Is it accurate to say that they know about lean considering, nimble techniques or DevOps? By the idea of their occupation, software development organizations have a tendency to have a superior understanding into the assortment of ideas of the field than the organizations who deal with a single product for quite a while. The more applications they build up, the more enterprises they get into, the better they progress toward becoming. As it was at that point stated, software development is never again about composing a code itself. It is the code, it is the comprehension of your business needs yet these are likewise every one of the issues identified with product administration, security guidelines, procedures, and techniques. The way that you picked them as opposed to growing an in-house group ought to present to you a reasonable esteem. Isn’t that right?

Do they focus on understanding your business needs? Software development is never again about writing a code itself. Truly, I question the off chance that it at any point was. The organization you worked with ought to be capable not exclusively to convey an incredible bit of code yet, in addition, to help you on the business side. So as to do as such, at that point need to perceive what truly matters to your product and what favorable position will it convey to its users. Is it safe to say that you are happy with their approach?

Are they honest with you? Do they ask questions? When you chose to outsource your product development, you were searching for an organization who wasn’t only a group of coders, however, a solid reliable partner. Furthermore, as a reliable partner, they ought to speak the truth about the position level of their assets yet additionally about the task itself – including any conceivable issues or postponements. To ensure that they convey what you expect that they will, they ought not to be reluctant to make inquiries and demand a few clarifications. Are they backed by their in-house teams?

The benefit of working with a software development organization is that they are supported by their CTO and senior partners. On the off chance that you can’t bear the cost of a senior engineer, you won’t have this sort of help in your in-house group. Likewise, the greater groups are more secure if we consider the consistency of work. If somebody drops off, anybody from their team can replace him. Also, if your request develops – it will be simpler to scale your collaborate. You’ll never miss a due date as a result because of lack of people!

This article first appeared in Appkodes. | Photo credit: Raydar

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barbaraboatright · 7 years

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How to Make Money With an Online Business

By Brian Edmondson

While the online business space is dominated by major players like Amazon and eBay, there are still plenty of opportunities for solo internet entrepreneurs to start up a profitable online business.

Whatever your niche, whatever your product, whatever your industry, there’s a place for you in the marketplace. And thanks to a bevy of tools, services, and proven strategies available to online entrepreneurs, it’s never been easier to start an online business make a hefty profit. The opportunity — and the potential to profit — is only getting better in the online marketplace.There are several factors at play here, thanks to some very positive online business trends.

• More people than ever are shopping online. According to industry watcher Mintel, 69% of Americans do so regularly. • The software and online tools available make it possible for anyone to build and manage an e-commerce website. And you can do it for well under $100. • Marketing online is cheap and easy – again, anybody can do it. And with social media platforms like Facebook, there are ever-increasing ways to reach your customers.

But how do you get started? How do you go from where you are now, to a massive passive income that allows you to quit your day job and enjoy ultimate time and financial freedom?

Like anything in life, you start from the beginning. Here are the steps to creating your online business, proven methods used by thousands of successful online business entrepreneurs.

Pick a Profitable Market This is where you have to set aside your own ego for a minute.

You may have had a “dream business” in mind for years. You just know in your heart that a certain niche is profitable, or that a certain product will sell like gangbusters. But until you do the actual market research you won’t really know. And it’s not worth investing your startup capital — time and money — until you know for sure a particular market is worth pursuing.

Basically, you have to start with the market first. You have to identify what niches are popular right now, and what types of products are hot. But be careful not to pick something that is a flash in the pan. (Remember those wheeled “hoverboards” that were all the rage a couple of years back?

Where are they now?) Instead, you want something with staying power. Such stable markets include: • Pet care • Exercise programs and weight loss • Nutritional supplements and natural cures • Travel • Photography • Video games

Some ways to identify a hot market are to look at online retailers like Amazon.com — what are the top sellers? Keep an eye on the news, too: Pick up magazines and see what’s advertised or written about. And see what people talking about (or what’s being advertised) on Facebook. All of these provide clues for finding a potentially profitable market.

It may seem counterintuitive, but you want to see a lot of competition in your market. It’s actually best, at least for a small-scale entrepreneur like yourself, not to be a pioneer that is first to market. You want to go where there’s already a large group of people ready to buy. What’s left is matching one of these proven profitable niche markets with something you’re interested in. With so many potential markets out there, you’re sure to find some way to match your passion with profits.

The Easiest Way to Start an Online Business: Affiliate Marketing Once you’ve picked your hot market with profit potential, it’s time to figure what to sell them. Fortunately, you don’t have to develop, produce, or even source your own products! There’s an easy way to leverage existing products with a proven track record for profitability. It’s called affiliate marketing.

With affiliate marketing, the products are proven to sell, and you won’t have to worry about delivery, storage, managing orders, customer service, refunds, or any of the other traditional aspects of retailing.

In an affiliate marketing business, you do the marketing and promotion of products through your e-commerce site, but the online reatiler (or the company that created the product) handles the rest. And, as an affiliate, you get a commission (from 5% and up, depending on the product) every time somebody buys. This is a great way to get started with your business.

Amazon has a good affiliate program, with a huge variety of products.

Clickbank.com specializes in information products, although they have physical products too. You’ll also find big-name retailers on CJ Affiliate by Conversant (formerly called Commission Junction). But just about every niche and industry has an affiliate program. Do some online digging if these don’t fit your market or business.

Other Sources of Profitable Products Affiliate marketing is the perfect way to dip your toe into an online business. And it might be your only source of products – that model has the potential to be very profitable, and can be scaled up easily. But there are other sources of products out there, and you don’t have to commit a big financial investment to use them.

Drop shipping is very similar to affiliate marketing. In this model, you also sell other companies’ products. You market the products on your website. But this time you process the orders. When they come in you send them on to your drop shipping partner, which is usually a manufacturer or wholesaler. You pay them, and then they send the product directly to your customer.

You make money on the markup from what you pay the drop shipper and what you charge your customers.

With white label products, you partner with another company that has an established product. You simply put your name and branding on it. Often, this online business model is combined with drop shipping. Supplements, cures, and other health-related products are a very hot niche for white labeling.

Of course, if you’re ready to create your own products, you could do that, too. But creating a physical product requires a big upfront investment with no guaranteed return.

A lower risk way to sell your own products would be to create information products, including ebooks, membership websites, videos, and audio programs. For example, if you were in the organic gardening niche you could have an ebook special report on growing organic watermelons, or a video showcasing the best techniques for pest control without pesticides.

If it’s electronic, it can be easily stored in the cloud or on your hard drive, and delivered over the internet. That makes it extremely low cost and low-effort. The only thing you spend to develop these products is your time and expertise.

Set Up Your Website So You Have Total Control

You have your market, and you have your product. Now it’s time to set up your online storefront, which is where you’ll market and sell your products.

You don’t have to be a tech genius to set up your own website for your online business, and you don’t have to hire an expensive web designer, either. With the software and online programs and services available today, anybody can create a professional-looking website that includes a shopping cart, list building capabilities, blogging, and everything else you need for your thriving online business. And the best part of all is that it’s either free, or at least very low cost. Programs like WordPress or Squarespace they offer ready-to-go templates. Creating your site is as easy as filling up boxes with your sales pages and email sign-up boxes, filling in your products in your shopping cart, and creating other relevant content. If you can send an email, you can set up a website. Plus, you can update and change your site’s look and content without needing any web development experience.

These are robust platforms, with plenty of apps and plug-ins for search engine optimization, marketing efforts, analytics to track visitors to your site and much more. As far as getting web hosting and picking a domain name, you can often handle that through the same service you used to build the website, or go with a specialized service like GoDaddy. It’s up to you.

Of course, you could hire a professional to build your website, but this approach carries significant downsides. They’re expensive, for one. They often take a long time, especially if you hire one with a backlog of clients. You have to contact them (and pay them) whenever you want to make changes. And they charge by the hour, which isn’t good when you’re on a start-up budget.

But with the providers I’ve mentioned, you don’t have to worry about any of that. You’ll be in charge of your website and can make changes 24/7 — and that puts you in total control of your online business.

Create a List and Promote Products with Email Marketing When you have a business, you need customers to survive. That’s a no-brainer. But how do you find prospects — people interested in your product — and turn them into buyers?

For a startup, small-scale online business, it’s best to seek out your target market, ask for their email, and then market to that list. You can build your email list in a variety of ways. Once you have your list of subscribers, you have to start marketing to them. But it’s not about sending sales offers day after day. People will soon unsubscribe or even report you as spam.

Of course, while you may be a nice person, you’re not in this to simply be a humanitarian. You want to make money with your online business. So you also have to mix in sales offers alongside your content.

It pays to have finesse here. You can’t just send them an order form: You have to show them the benefits of the product. You have to paint a picture (figuratively) that shows them how their life will be better if they use your product. You have to provide proof that it works. And finally, you have to give them a push to buy the product — a special offer they can’t refuse. People are naturally resistant to buying something new, so you have to create excitement and desire for your product.

You do that with effective sales copy. It’s the art of using words to tap into consumer psychology. And you must use these principles in just about every communication with customers, whether it’s on your website, your email, your social media posts, or your paid ads. If you plan to write your own copy it’s important to study copywriting and marketing techniques, concentrating on direct-response marketing. And there is a ton of free information out there, from groups like American Writers and Artists Inc. and Copyblogger.com. You can also hire copywriters through sites like Upwork.

4 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Online Business The cheapest — but most time-consuming method — to drive traffic to your online business is to slowly but surely add valuable content (written or video) about your niche to your website and/or blog. This will attract the attention of search engines like Google. These search engine optimization (SEO) efforts will pay off in increasing traffic to your website by those people searching for information on your topic. A percentage of those people will sign up for your email list as well. That’s why it’s best to have a sign-up box, usually asking for a first name and email address, prominently on your homepage.

But for this to work, you do have to be consistent. You must add fresh, relevant content several times a week, if not daily. Say you have a yoga-focused business. You could write about trends, review yoga DVDs, comment on yoga-related new stories, and comment on yoga styles. Start a conversation with your prospects and offer valuable information and insight, and do it in a way that will appeal to potential customers searching for information on the topic.

Social media is another low-cost way to drive traffic to your website and build your list. With Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms, you can set up a free account and post content related to your business. As with blogging or web content, it should be a mix of useful and actionable content, as well as direct invitations to visit your site and sign up for the list (or even buy products).

Again, post regularly and be consistent with your messages.

One of the most important traffic drivers out there is YouTube. In many ways, it’s one of the world’s top search engines: If people have a question about a topic, they often go to YouTube to find the answer. To take advantage of that, you can post explainer videos, talking head videos where you explain a topic related to your niche, and how-to videos. Just provide useful content – and a link back to your website. Of course, there are also paid advertising methods to drive traffic as well, including banner ads, insert ads, pay-per-click ads, and more. But this can get expensive. So I recommend focusing on free ways of driving traffic at the beginning. Get your website just how you want it to be, get your product mix right, fine-tune your online business overall, start making some sales. Then, once you have a little revenue you can sink back in your business, you can explore paid ads.

Putting It All Together This has been a crash course in starting your own online business from scratch. It may seem like an intimidating process. It doesn’t have to be.

But it will take some time and effort, and you’ll have to make some tough choices along the way. The trick is to do a little bit each day, and go in order: Find your market, then your product, then build your site and start marketing. Do this, and you’ll build a solid foundation for a business that will last and bring in income for years to come.

This article first appeared in The Balance. Photo credit: Raydar & Igor Miske/ Todd Cravens/ Uroš Jovičić on Unsplash

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barbaraboatright · 7 years

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How to Drive Traffic to Your Business Website

By Susan Ward

Promoting your business website used to be a very easy process. You made sure your page had some keywords and that the keywords were in the right places for the search engines to find. That was it.

But in the early days, the “worldwide web” very much resembled the science classroom model of the solar system – a few planets circling the sun.

It’s very different now when keywords don’t even matter and your website is competing against an entire Milky Way full of websites, blogs, and forums.

So what can you do to make your site stick out like the North Star? Use the list below to find ways to drive potential customers to your business website.

Content First

1) Content isn’t just king; it’s the whole court. Give your customers a reason to visit by ensuring that there’s something there for them – the product(s) or information that they’re looking for.

2) Have a call to action on every page. Make it clear to your visitors what it is you want them to do, whether it’s signing up for a newsletter or purchasing a product.

3) Make your content easy to share. Include prominent sharing buttons on your content to make it easy for people to share your content on Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, Google+, Pinterest, etc.

4) If possible, write and post some quizzes on your site. When BuzzSumo analyzed the social share counts of over 100 million articles of an 8 month period they found that 8 of the top 10 most shared articles were quizzes.

5) Quizzes don’t work? Create some infographics. They’re very shareable too!

6) Consider guest posting on other websites that also serve your target market. The link back from such a site with a large following can be a real traffic driver.

7) Use metrics such as Google Analytics to analyze how your site visitors are interacting with your content and figuring out how you can tweak your content to increase your conversion rate.

8) Produce a regular email newsletter – and provide an opportunity for your website visitors to sign up for it on all your business website pages.

9) Offer added values on your website that relate to your business and will appeal to your target market. These may include affiliate programs, books, and recommended links.

10) More ideas for offering added value: Offer a free e-book or white paper on your site. Its size doesn’t matter if you’re providing it for free. Make sure it’s specifically written for your ideal client – and make sure that you let website visitors know that they can forward the e-book or white paper to others.

Sit Pretty in the SERPs

11) Search engines still provide the majority of visitors to many websites so make sure your site is search engine friendly.

12) Make sure every page of your business website is properly optimized for search. Need help? Check out Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.

13) Pay special attention to crafting your meta description tag. It’s the description of your web page that will usually show in search engine results. The more well-written it is, the more likely that your page will win the click.

14) Use rich snippets on your pages, if appropriate.

Rich snippets give your potential website visitors detailed information about your content in Google’s search results – information that may cause them to click on your page rather than someone else’s.

15) Update your website regularly. Search engines love fresh content (and it gives you something to promote in social media too.)

16) Check your business web site’s links regularly to make sure they all work. Use a free link checker such as Xenu’s Link Sleuth or Online Broken Link Checker.

Make Visitors Comfortable Enough to Recommend You to Others

17) Make your business website trustworthy. Make sure you have a privacy policy and full business contact information posted and use business and privacy seals to verify this information to your website visitors. If you are payment processing, obtain an SSL Certificate and use a secure connection and make sure that potential customers know that your connection is secure.

18) Answer potential customers’ questions in advance by having visible and fully developed policies regarding customer service and the collection and use of customer data.

19) Make sure your website uses responsive web design so that everyone can comfortably see and use your website no matter what device they’re using – desktop, smartphone, tablet, etc.

20) If you are selling anything online, use a shopping cart and a secure payment method for credit cards. (Turnkey e-commerce packages make this really easy; see 8 Easy Ways to Get Your Small Business Into Ecommerce.)

Spread the Word

21) Place your business website address on all your printed literature including all your business cards, brochures, newsletters, letterhead, and ads.

22) Make the name and URL of your website part of your email signature.

23) Don’t forget to mention your website when you’re networking locally.

24) Use social media to promote your site. Set up a Facebook page, Google+page, Twitter or Pinterest account for your business – or all of them and use them regularly to engage with your target market and send them to your site. Get started with How to Create a Social Media Plan and then read more articles about using social media on this site.

25) Don’t forget to use whatever special tools each social media platform provides, such as Google Hangouts or LinkedIn groups to build relationships and community.

26) Place ads on the social media of your choice to drive traffic to your site.

27) Participate in online forums and groups as an expert. You can include your business name and website URL in your three or four-line signature.

28) Get some free publicity for your website by becoming a valued source for writers. Sign up for HARO and the reporters will come to you.

29) Use press releases when you have something to announce, such as a new e-book that you’ve written or a business milestone you’ve achieved. Email them to the media, your clients, friends, and associates.

This article first appeared in The Balance. Photo credit: Raydar

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