Eureka! Since the upsurge and continued enhancement of content management systems like Joomla! and WordPress, individuals and businesses are now more than ever in a position to create and maintain their own websites. This is great news for small and medium size business owners who can gain access to the important tools of the online marketplace to enhance their business without the need for specialized coders or programmers. But hold onto your chair for just a minute before you decide to jump in without the assistance of a web design company! Maintaining your own website is often a lot more complicated and time consuming than most people initially assume.
Let’s face it, in this day and age, in order for your business to have a successful online presence you must be engaged in multiple social media channels. But managing all of your social media accounts for your business can be daunting as well as time consuming. Who has time to log into Facebook, Twitter, Google +, LinkedIn, etc. multiple times a day to interact and engage with your followers while creating posts for all of these accounts? You can’t be online 24/7!
Before you start pulling hair out or pull all-nighters, enter the world of social media dashboards.
Google has recently announced significant changes to its search algorithm for the ranking of mobile search results. This change will take effect on April 21, 2015. Whether your website has certain mobile friendly elements will now hold more weight in Google’s search engine algorithm. How much will mobile rankings be impacted?
During a March 2015 Search Marketing Expo in Munich Google said that this 4/21/15 change will be bigger than the Panda and Penguin updates (1). As the number of people using mobile devices to access the internet continues to grow, this update is designed to help users discover more mobile-friendly content.
As a business owner, keeping your website investment and online data safe is a top priority. However, this can sometimes prove to be a difficult task. One does not have to look too far in order to see examples of devastating security breaches (eg. the Heartbleed bug, Target credit card data leak). In fact, according to the online security firm Sophos Labs1, approximately 30,000 new websites per day are identified as distributing spam or malicious code. Most of these are small business websites that have been hacked and turned into malware distribution zombies. But fear not as there are some basic steps all website owners can take in order to keep their site and online data safe and help prevent becoming a hacking statistic.
For most businesses having a smooth running website that performs well in search engines is imperative. A well running website not only helps current customers find you but will generate new business and often sets the first impression a potential client will get of your business. Your business website is a directory, information resource, advertising department and sales team wrapped up in one and is available to current and prospective customers 24/7/365. Here are 5 simple things you can do to keep your all-important website running smoothly.
How often should you contact your clients to remind them of your goods or services? This is debatable but Oscar Wilde summed it up the best when he said...
“The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”
Today, email marketing and email newsletters provide one of the best and least expensive means of staying in touch with your current and potential clients.
As a small business owner you know that your website is an important tool for communicating with your current and potential clients and that is why you have invested in making sure your website looks great, is functional and easy to use. This is a great first step in maximizing your use of the web to help your small business grow BUT there is a very important next step that is often times overlooked by small business owners.
In the first blog segment on generating content for your website we offered a few simple tips for written content. In this segment we will discuss getting great visual content.
Websites are a visual medium and a picture truly does say a thousand words. Whether those are good words that actually say what you want to say about your business is another story!
You have just made the decision to take a digital leap and bring your business online, but how do you represent your product or service clearly and effectively within a website?
In the next two blogs we will offer a few tips on how to generate website content for your new or existing business.
