Benefits of SEO for Small Businesses

No comments

SEO stands for search engine optimization. When optimizing a website for search engines, there’s a focus on attracting relevant traffic. But what does SEO entail and what are the benefits of SEO for small businesses? A lot of business owners mistakenly believe that SEO is irrelevant to their marketing. However, a well-optimized website can deliver excellent results for businesses.

Can SEO Help Your Business?

The short answer is yes, definitely.

SEO is all about helping your website rank on search engines like Google. So, if your website is optimized for search, it will show up on the first pages of search engines whenever people search for your product or service.

There are various SEO tactics that digital marketing companies use to help improve website SEO, these include:

  • The use of relevant keywords throughout your website copy
  • Relevant link building tactics to improve your website’s domain authority
  • Skilled SEO web development
  • Regularly updating your website with new content

If your website is properly optimized for SEO, you’ll be able to attract traffic from relevant internet searches.

For instance, if your business is in the construction industry, your website SEO will be focused on attracting traffic from search queries related to building and construction. Better yet, your SEO can focus on attracting traffic from search queries from people looking for construction in your area.

This is the basic principle of how SEO can help your business. But there’s more to SEO than meets the eye. Aside from increased search engine traffic, an SEO website can offer more advantages.

Benefits of SEO for Small Business

Many small business owners view SEO as an advanced marketing technique that requires a big budget. But SEO isn’t a marketing strategy that’s reserved for fortune 500 companies. Small businesses can also benefit from relevant SEO marketing. These some of the benefits of SEO for small businesses.

Increase Organic Website Traffic

If someone visits your website by clicking a non-sponsored listing directly from their search engine, this person is supplying organic traffic to your website. In other words, your website can get organic traffic for free if it’s optimized for search.

Other forms of traffic to your website can include:

  • Paid traffic: This is when someone visits your website by clicking a sponsored listing on Google, or an ad on social media. Basically, any traffic you get through paid online advertising is paid traffic.
  • Social traffic: If you promote your website on social media (i.e. your Facebook page, business Twitter account or Pinterest) and people click your social links to arrive at your website, this is called social traffic.
  • Referral traffic: This is traffic from sources that aren’t search engines or social media sites. If your business is on local business directory and people click a link to your website from the directory, that’s a source of referral traffic.
  • Email traffic: If your business has an email marketing newsletter with links that refer people to your website, that’s a source of email traffic.

Some other traffic sources to your site can also be direct (where people paste your website URL directly into their browsers) or unknown.

Of all the different kinds of web traffic you can get, organic traffic is the best. That’s because organic traffic is free and you won’t need to constantly promote your website on social media or in email newsletters to keep a consistent amount of traffic coming in.

SEO is the only way to improve your website’s indexability in search engines.

User-friendly Websites

An important aspect of a website that’s optimized for search is that it must be user friendly. Search engine crawlers look at critical data such as website loading times when selecting what websites to display in top search results.

A website that’s too slow to load will turn many people off, so it’s important that your business website is optimized for quick loading times.

Another thing to consider is how responsive your website is. Nowadays, so many people are using mobile devices like phones and tablets to browse the internet. Search engines try to give users the best possible experience by only listing websites that display well across all different devices.

Getting a user-friendly website that’s developed specially for search engines is one area where getting professional SEO help is most necessary. Your website’s functionality is at the core of all your other SEO efforts.

SEO Can Be Local or Global

Your website SEO can be focused around attracting traffic from your local area. So if your business operates locally, your SEO can focus on attracting local people who are potential customers to your website.

There are some great options available, like Google My Business and Bing Local to help local businesses even more in attracting customers that are situated in the area.

On the other hand, many businesses can benefit from attracting traffic from all over the world. Hotels, travel companies and software providers don’t need to stick to local SEO because their customers could be anywhere in the world. In such an instance, these businesses can benefit from an SEO strategy that’s will attract relevant traffic from all over the world.

SEO Builds Trust

Any business can have a website or Facebook page, but not any business can rank on the first pages of search engines for industry-specific searches.

This is one of the major benefits of SEO for small businesses. Even small businesses can rank high for popular search terms. Once your website becomes a known source of information for your industry, customers will trust your brand.

SEO Only Gets Better

As mentioned, a lot of marketing tactics to attract website traffic are temporary. You might see a spike in web traffic after sending out a marketing email, or publishing a Facebook post, but the results won’t last.

Long-term SEO strategies such as content marketing, deliver results for longer. In many cases, the traffic you get to your best blog posts will only grow over time, not diminish. The great thing about this is that you still only pay once, but can reap the benefits of a good content piece for years to come.

Similarly, a website that’s designed with SEO and user-friendliness in mind, won’t stop delivering results right after it goes live. On the contrary, your business website should grow over time as a marketing asset for your company.

SEO Is Affordable

Of all the benefits of SEO for small business, this is one you might not have expected. But SEO is a cheaper form of marketing compared to many alternatives.

When you take into consideration that your business can keep enjoying the benefits of SEO long after your first investment, your initial input costs become so much less.

If you compare SEO to placing advertisements in local newspapers, or running ad campaigns on radio or television, SEO delivers a much better ROI.

Another benefit is that an SEO website opens up more marketing opportunities. You can use your website as a hub to direct your social media followers to your sales pages, or to get email subscribers and grow your marketing reach.

How to Do SEO for Your Business

When starting out with SEO for your business, having a website that’s well-optimized should be your first priority. There are various ways to go about getting a website. Some businesses opt for a website builder such as Squarespace. However, building your own website on this kind of platform usually isn’t a good long-term choice.

The best, most reliable platform to build a website is a self-hosted WordPress site. The good thing about WordPress is that it’s reasonably easy to use, even for beginners. There are some premium themes available that allow business owners to build their own websites quite easily at a low cost.

The problem is that even on an easy-to-use website builder, it takes skill to craft a great SEO website. You want your website to look good and be highly functional. Doing everything yourself will require a lot of skills such as graphics design, web design and more.

The easiest way to get a great SEO website is to hire an experienced web design company to handle the project for you.

The great thing about WordPress is that you can start off with a budget website you built yourself, and save for a more sophisticated SEO site while you already have your website up. You won’t need to migrate your website from one platform to another once you’re ready to invest in web development services.

Rozanne WildsBenefits of SEO for Small Businesses
read more

Four Ways to Make Your Website More Emotionally Engaging

No comments

These days, getting a website up and running isn’t rocket science. Virtually every small business on the planet has a website. However, there is one thing most websites lack. It’s user engagement. In particular, emotional user engagement is especially lacking. If you’re not able to make that kind of connection with visitors, you can forget about converting them into paying customers. With that in mind, below are a few different ways you can make your website more emotionally engaging.

Speak Directly to the User

One way to spark meaningful emotional engagement with a customer is to make them feel like they are being directly spoken to. One way to do this is with website content that is fine tuned directly to the needs and preferences of a target audience. However, the content should not come off as a sales pitch. Instead, the content should cover things that research has shown the target demo cares about in ways that are engaging but not pushy. For example, a Miami online marketing agency can produce news articles relevant to the Miami area that tie in with the products being marketed. This will hook in users and helpfully produce conversions.

Another strategy is to take speaking directly to the user more literally. One excellent way to sell products through a website is to have actual human beings on hand that can chat with visitors in real time through an instant messaging application that is launched through the site. Lawyers, for example, commonly use this method to obtain new clients. It, however, can be applied to nearly any industry.

Offer Exclusive Content

If there’s one thing that’s true about the human psyche, it’s that everyone needs to receive individual attention to feel good. You can address this emotional need through the content provided on your website. Most websites have things that can be found nearly anywhere online. Few, however, offer exclusive content that can be found nowhere else. If you want customers to visit your website and keep coming back, offer them something they won’t find somewhere else.

For many companies, this may come in the way of offers exclusive to the website. For other sites, they may offer exclusive downloads, videos and images. One good choice is offering computer games that must be loaded exclusively through the website. These games can tie in with your products or services and act as a powerful marketing opportunity. Overall, visitors must feel like they actually receive value from your site.

An Inviting Website Design Philosophy

In the past, the trends for web design all revolved around creating sleek looking aerodynamic designs. While these websites may have been impressive on a purely aesthetic level, this kind of web design tends to create a muted emotional response at best. Similarly, while many subway stations have sound architectural designs, they tend to leave people feeling cold or uneasy.

If you want emotional engagement, this is not what you should be aiming for. Instead, you should aim for something that puts users at ease. A website can indeed have a warm and cozy feel to it. You can accomplish this by using a warmer color palette and avoiding the more muted grays, whites and blacks many websites are known for. Design the interface in a way that is inviting and intuitive as opposed to intimidating. Overall, the website should invoke a sense of cheerfulness, positivity, warmth or nostalgia. It shouldn’t invoke the aesthetic of soulless streamlined technology.

Use Humor

While the trend has been towards websites that are rather humorless and completely business like in approach, this doesn’t really invoke an emotional response. While business like aesthetics produce a generic sense of professionalism, this is not the same as having an emotional connection. With that in mind, adding some humor and whimsy to your website can go a long way to humanizing your brand and company. The ability to laugh together is always one way to break the ice in a relationship. This indeed extends all the way to a website and its user base.

However, implementing humor on a website tactfully is a balancing act. If you go overboard, it can seem unprofessional. If your sense of humor is too on the nose, it can be cringe inducing. In some cases, you may offend some of your audience. So try to keep it simple. Use jokes that will likely go over well with your intended audience. Also design some whimsy into your website’s design elements. One example is using your corporate mascot in amusing ways throughout your website’s content.

Victor GonzalezFour Ways to Make Your Website More Emotionally Engaging
read more

Questions That’ll Help You Decide if You Should Redesign Your Website

No comments

Your website is an invaluable marketing tool that can generate high-quality leads while lowering your costs of getting new customers. However, while generating leads, and reducing your costs of customer acquisition, are definite selling points, the biggest selling point includes increasing customer retention; keeping more customers is far less expensive than searching for new ones.

None of these aforementioned benefits occur if your website is outdated. In fact, an out-of-date website can cost your company customer relationships and valuable market share. So, to help, here are some questions to ask yourself about whether or not your website needs a redesign.

Is Your Website Mobile-Friendly?

Your marketing message needs to reach your customers no matter where they are or what they’re doing. This means having a website that adjusts to any screen size. Having a mobile-friendly website means users can navigate your website up and down or side-to-side on their smartphones using only their thumbs.

It means having right-sized video and images so that users aren’t frustrated because they have to pinch and zoom to see your content. Finally, it means having a design that increases the time your customers spend on your website while on their mobile devices.

Is Your Website Easily Navigated?

Customers must find your website easy-to-use and easy-to-navigate. That means having clearly defined links and paths that encourage and incentivize customers to move from one webpage to the next. If your website has a high bounce rate, one where customers are quickly coming in, and leaving just as quickly, then it’s a possible sign that your website isn’t properly laid out. Optimizing that layout means customers will stay longer and respond to your call-to-action.

Does Your Website Have the Right Social Media Strategy?

Today’s customers use social media to share what they like about your company and its products and services. However, it’s not enough just to be on social media or have a “presence”. Your website must incorporate the right social media strategy, one that’s tailored to the kind of customers you sell to and one that simplifies how they share your content.

Do You Consider Your Website Up-To-Date?

There are 4.8 billion webpages. Either your website is up-to-date, or your PageRank will suffer and your customers will go elsewhere. If your website looks tired, or otherwise looks like it needs a refresher, then it’s time to move forward on a redesign. There are several Miami website design firms to work with who can give your website that refresher it desperately needs.

A redesign is an important part of any rebranding effort. If you’re looking to make a lasting impression with customers, one that provides them with engaging content and gives them a reason to become a customer, then a Miami online marketing agency can help you do all of that and more.

Victor GonzalezQuestions That’ll Help You Decide if You Should Redesign Your Website
read more

7 Reasons Your Website Redesign Should be Responsive

No comments

The rise of powerful mobile devices and smartphones has increased the need for responsive design. This allows a website to adapt to nearly any device so that it can be clearly seen and used. Unfortunately, not all sites are embracing responsive design. There are seven reasons your website redesign should be responsive.

Mobile Commerce Is Growing Fast

The first and most important reason is that mobile commerce is growing fast. Consumers today are now using mobile devices to buy items and services quickly. If your website is not accessible through a mobile device, then you will lose out completely on that market segment of consumers. You need a new website with a responsive design so that consumers anywhere using any type of device will be able to buy products from you.

Improved User Experience

The reality is that a website with a static design or one that uses absolute positioning is not going to be very user-friendly. Anyone without a very specific resolution might have to scroll around just to see an entire page. A user with a high-resolution screen might have images and text so small that it is uncomfortable to look at. A bad user experience means that people are likely to leave your site and go elsewhere fast. Responsive design allows you to improve the user experience. The design makes it possible for all the necessary components and images to be seen at once regardless of the screen size.

Making Changes Is Easier

Trying to create a complex layout without using responsive design practices can be a real mess. You might be left with a website filled with overly complicated formatting and pages of indecipherable scripting. This means changing even the smallest things on the website will become a monumental task. Allowing a Miami digital marketing agency to redesign your website so that it is responsive will make changing things much easier. You can insert new text or change pictures simply without breaking the entire layout. The fluid layout will just adapt to the changes in most cases.

Professional Appearance

You want your business website to be taken seriously by consumers, vendors and partners. If you are not using responsive design by this point, then it could hurt your image and brand. Your site might be seen as behind the times or ineffective. If you have a responsive website, then you are taking advantage of the latest technology to create an attractive and functional online presence. This can greatly improve the professionalism and brand of your business.

Search Engines Want It

How search engines see your website can directly contribute to the popularity or anonymity of your business. A low search engine ranking means that your site will be invisible to anyone casually searching for what you are selling. An important factor about responsive design is that search engines want it. A skilled Miami web design firm can create an optimized and responsive site that could easily outperform and outrank lesser sites. This can help to drive more traffic to your website.

Increased Conversions

Something interesting is that the ability to access a website through a mobile device appears to increase conversions. Mobile devices are becoming an integral part of the purchasing process. They help people to make decisions about what to buy. Moving to a responsive design means that you could start to see a larger number of conversion at a faster rate. This can potentially improve your revenue each year.

Be Prepared For the Future

A final reason your website redesign should be responsive is so that you are prepared for the future. New devices and technologies are appearing every year. If you have a professionally designed responsive website, then there is every chance that you will be able to take advantage of those new devices with few to no changes. This will keep your company competitive even as things change.

Victor Gonzalez7 Reasons Your Website Redesign Should be Responsive
read more

Elements Your Website Must Have

No comments

Coming up with a website might seem like a piece of cake. Because our lives revolve around the Internet, a website’s layout seems like something we could design in our sleep. We all have a sense of what’s aesthetically pleasing and is also functional. However, some businesses miss these two essential aspects. In the past or maybe even just earlier today, you might have forgotten about the websites you quickly exited out of – the ones where you couldn’t find what you were looking for, the ones that took too long to load, and the ones that just hurt your eyes to look at.

A basic website design needs a few elements to ensure it successfully conveys your business to customers and keeps their clicks (and money!) coming in.

What your business does.
Have you ever gone to a website in hopes of finding out answers and only left with more questions? Ensure your website provides clear information, easy-to-understand content, and error-free copy to create an enjoyable, informational experience for customers. A good way to answer the question “What does your business do?” is an About Us page. Providing simple and accurate product and service descriptions, including pricing, measurements, and features, avoids customers from plaguing your inbox with easily avoidable questions.

Contact Information.
It sounds like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how hard it can be to get in touch with a business. Your website should feature easy-to-find contact information on every page to avoid angering customers who may already be frustrated. A reputable web design agency will know to incorporate a “Contact Us” link into the footer of your website so an obvious go-to spot to reach you will be on every page of your site without interrupting each page’s content.

Quick load time.
We’re going to bet that you’ve exited a website because it took so much time to load, and we’re also going to bet that you can’t remember every single website you’ve exited because of this problem. In today’s fast-paced society, your business’s site needs to load quickly to make a great first impression. Talk to your design agency’s developers to ensure that customers won’t be watching the clock tick away the seconds while they wait to see what products or services you offer.

Responsive design.
There are few things more annoying than having to screen-pinch a website in the hopes of resizing it to fit your phone’s display. With so many different ways to get online, you need to be assured by your development agency that your site will always be presented in the best possible format, no matter what the technology it’s pulled up on. Luckily, web designers and developers are now able to program your site to be responsive for any screen size, so you’ll be able to show off your business no matter if it’s being viewed on a smartphone, tablet, or compute

NSchoultzElements Your Website Must Have
read more

The Importance of Establishing a Web Presence

No comments

As today’s businesses are able to significantly strive toward attaining more leads through online marketing/advertising, they are provided with an opportunity to market themselves without much effort or cost. Past generations of businesses were required to invest in advertisement placements through newspapers, radio ads, television ads, magazines, brochures, fliers, and simply “word of mouth”. Today’s generation is provided with a platform of marketing that requires minimal expenditures in the advertising department. The world wide web has certainly made a difference in regards to how businesses can expose their products and services for the entire world to see. Why should they resort to anything else when they can simply reach out to millions of people worldwide from their very own location?

The minimal effort that is required for marketing through online platforms is truly remarkable. If businesses were to reach out to millions of people worldwide in the past, they would have to set up appointments to actually travel to those areas or much more. Now, a company can simply set up a website for the whole world to see.

Although businesses are provided with a platform that enables them to reach out to millions of people, there are still some challenges and obstacles for them to overcome. There is quite a bit of competition among businesses on the web. Therefore, it is an imperative necessity for a business to implement the best strategies of advertising in their operations.

A Miami web design specialist can create a set of webpages that truly exemplify perfection for a company. A proficient web developer is really all a company needs to have their company come out on top. As there are a multitude of routes a company can take in regards to their marketing strategies, a digital marketing agency that has a good grasp on knowledge in the field of web development can assist a company towards outshining their competitors.

NSchoultzThe Importance of Establishing a Web Presence
read more

2015 Website Design Trends

No comments
This year is playing host to some huge changes in web design. If you are trying to choose a Miami digital marketing agency, you should pick the company that can perform all of the following things for you.Big Card Backgrounds
Massive background images will serve as the backdrop for many of your favorite websites in 2015, along with subtle parallax effects (made popular by an iPhone software update) and rich topography. This technique has already been used by Google Nexus and Apple, who are definitely tastemakers in the field.

Card-based Design
With a continued shift to the mobile platform, a web developer must understand how to make content fit on different types and sizes of screens. Card-based design is a proven way to make content look good on a laptop screen, as well as on a smartphone and a tablet.

Scaled Logos
Because many companies will be adopting a digital first branding strategy, logos will need to be more responsive to fit mobile platforms. This will result in scaled logo sizes, so expect to see some fluctuating in your favorite brand’s sizing as they figure out what works best.Responsive Design
This may seem like a no-brainer based upon the changes above, but responsive design’s impact goes deeper than you may think. Many of the top designers in the world believe that the website design industry will move toward a structure that is fully customized for different devices, so a simpler layout that fits on all platforms is necessary for any site.

Increased Privacy
In 2015, websites will be designed to maintain the privacy of its user base. Expect to see changes from its policy and terms of service to the way that these crucial legalities are presented to an audience.

Adaptive Design
Adaptive design takes responsive design one step further. Adaptive design gives the user the ability to create an on-demand look for a web design by uploading preferences to a web designer’s layout and receiving those preferences back in real time. Essentially, adaptive design helps take out the middleman when it comes to updating a website.

NSchoultz2015 Website Design Trends
read more