Having a website has become a true necessity nowadays. Here you will find all the required website resources in one place – 24/7 web hosting services complemented with FREE bonuses such as popular php scripts, marketing tools and a website builder, among others.
Having a website of your own equals entering into an invaluable communication environment. There are at least 7 reasons why it is highly advisable for you to be present online:Represents your personal profile
A website can be your virtual portrait, showing off your personal self to the world on a 24/7 basis. Among the most popular ways of presenting your personality online is keeping a webblog (otherwise known as online diary) or a photo gallery, where your friends can stay up-to-date with your daily living.
Spreads your voice across the world
A website can be your global “tribune” where you are able to share your knowledge, experience and enthusiasm with people who have common interests, but with whom you might not otherwise have crossed paths. A very popular idea-voicing tool is the discussion board, better known as “forum”. You can also have a guestbook on your site, where people can discuss your postings.
Lets you be in touch with people at a distance
A website can be a meeting place for making new acquaintances with people of different religion, nationality and age, as well as for keeping in touch with friends who may be on the other side of the world. Thanks to the almost unlimited online communication possibilities you can conduct one-to-one conversations with many different people directly from your website.
Broadens disabled people’s interaction with the world
A website empowers people with limited access, due to handicap or illness, to broaden their communication with others. A website can be a physically disabled person’s door to the dynamic world, allowing him/her to bridge over the difficulties
of having a “different” everyday life. It can even be their office, where they can present and deliver certain home-made products/services directly from their living room.
Creates a web skill development environment
A website can introduce you to the secrets of www. The contemporary web design technologies have brought the art of creating a website just a few clicks away from the inexperienced user. Thanks to the popular WYSWYG (what you see is what you get) web design tools, absolutely everyone (irrespective of age or education degree) can build their own web page without any previous experience.
Makes extra profit for you with minimum investment on your part
A website can make residual profit for you, while you are sleeping or enjoying your free time. Thanks to the up-to-date techniques for bringing traffic to your website, you can earn easy money by simply having visitors click on certain product/service promos or links that are relevant to your site content pages without any initial investment.
Makes you a member of the biggest community of the world
A website is a must-have personal attribute nowadays, just like mobile phones and computers are. The fast developing technologies have converted having a website from a whim into a modern necessity. As of today, almost everyone has a web site, whereas twice as many people are expected to be having their own personal space in the global World Wide Web cosmos in the near future. Be forward-thinking, join this trend now.
Having a website of your own provides your business with invaluable advantages over the traditional advertising channels. There are at least 7 reasons why you should present your business online:
Increased customers’ convenience:
Searching for businesses and products over the Internet is much easier and quicker than leafing through the Yellow Pages. Anytime a potential or existing customer wants to find out more about your business, they can easily do that, especially if you have an “F&Q” section added. Your customers can be always in touch with you, all they need to know is the address of your website.
Greater accessibility to your business profile:
Your business profile will be accessible from EVERYWHERE. No other ad channel provides such global coverage. You will not depend any more on restricted presentations based on phone book entries. What is more important, more and more customers nowadays resort to the Internet when searching for products, services and businesses.
Greater opportunities for promoting your business portfolio:
People can`t buy your products or services if they don`t know that they actually exist. Through a WEBSITE you can tell your potential audience much more than you could possibly do via any print advertisements, Yellow Pages listings, or TV/radio commercials. There are no limitations with regard to space and time, nationality and residency. You can say as many things as you want, to as many people as wish. And your business representation can be as resourceful as is the Internet.
Low-cost efficient advertising:
Practically, what happens is – your website runs a NON-STOP PROMOTION of your business! Your customers are always able to obtain up-to-date and thorough information about your services or products. Instead of having to rely on randomly aired TV or radio commercials, they can simply browse through your website whenever they have time or need to.
Around-the-clock availability:
A website is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. It will be your hardest-working employee, never getting sick, or taking holiday. And you can always rest assured that your website is there for you – to answer to your customers` questions, or to collect their feedback instead of you.
It saves time:
With a website, prospective customers can learn about you and your business at any time of the day or night without you having to be all the time pre-occupied with the process. The time you would otherwise spend on answering or re-directing of your customers` questions can be now saved and invested in further activities to increase your profits, in other words – in further expansion of your business.
It saves money:
You can save a lot of money spent otherwise on print and postage costs for brochures, coupons, flyers, specials, newsletters, and other mailings. Furthermore, while regular renewals of printed materials can be quite expensive and also time consuming, updating information on your website is always handy, fast and most important – amazingly efficient. As we all know, nothing is more valued in a business than optimal productivity for minimal input costs.
It seems every day there is more evidence to show that your website is an incredible tool for creating interest in your company, enhancing your business reputation, and generating more leads. But just because the tool is valuable doesn’t mean that businesses are using it correctly and truly taking advantage of the great marketing tool a website could be.
If you are not getting the expected results out of your website, maybe is time to evaluate it. Maybe your visitors are not falling in love with your website and consequently with your products or services. Consider asking yourself if your website is really fulfilling your customers’ expectations. The following 5 tips could make a difference on how your customers and visitors see and perceive your business website.
Have Useful Information: We are in the information era. As consumers, we are constantly looking for information, the internet and other technologies help us find it fast and easy. Your customers and target market are, no different. They are using the internet to find information. Having that in mind, then the next step for you is to think about what information is useful for your target market and more importantly for your customers. People get overwhelmed with so much information, therefore, your goal is to offer relevant information to your customers. Aim to stand out by providing reliable and useful information that is going to make difference for your target market. A good place to start could be to think about the typical questions you get from your prospects and customers. Use these questions as a beginning point to have useful information.
Be Clear and To the Point: You have probably come across websites that are not clear on what they offer and what they can do for you. Think about it for a second, ask yourself how interested were you in those companies? Probably, not much. Do not make that mistake on your website, make it easier for your website visitors to know what is it that you have to offer and what you can do for them. Be clear, tell them the benefit of using your company and how they can get started. Or how they can place an order, buy your products, etc.
Give Them a Reason to Come Back: In the world today, information gets obsolete very fast. Therefore, it is very important to frequently add new information to your website. Whether it is new products, new services or simply, something interesting to your customers. Give your customers and website visitors a reason to come back. When you have the habit of having new information on your website, creates the expectation of new information, tips, products, services, etc. your audience would be more likely to come back. Additionally, search engines, such as, Google like websites that with fresh and new information. It gives the impression that the company cares about its website and more importantly about its customers. For example, we change our website every month, for February we have hearts falling and we talk about Valentine’s Day, in for the Super Bowl we decorate it with football ball falling. In short, we have some kind of theme on our website to make it more appealing and create expectations to our visitors. Giving them a reason to come back.
Be Visually Engaging: Having a website that is visually appealing and engaging can really make a difference. Take into account this statistic: 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000X faster in the brain than text. This makes you really think about having enough relevant images to keep your website audience engage and interested. It is not just the images, it is also how professional and appealing your website is to the eyes of your website visitors and customers. Remember, we, as consumers, make fast assumptions about a company solely based on their website.
Think like a customer: What is in it for them: When creating or writing your website, think about your customers. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes and ask yourself, if I were a customer, would I love this website? Would I purchase from this company? would I hire them? Think about your answers from a customer’s point of view. The way your information is organized and portrayed on your website makes a huge difference on how visitors perceive your business. The tone you use in your text, the images, the distribution of the information, all these aspects are key. Provide a friendly tone that would make your prospect feel welcome and more importantly use a tone that would show them that you understand their needs. Whether it is the perfect shoes for that special occasion, the system that is going to save time to their employees or a lead generator service that is going to bring them more customers. Whatever it is that you are offering, show them that you recognized, know, understand their needs and pains and more importantly that you have what they need.
Personalized Experience: In this time of automated answering systems, generic emails, etc. consumers are giving more a more value to a personalized experience. Make your website visitors feel right at home when they visit your website. For example, for first time visitors, have a welcome video telling them about your business. Let them know what you have what they need when they needed. Let’s take for example, Amazon.com, they know what have you searched for before, what your preferences are, etc. these gives their customers a comfortable feeling that Amazon understands them and knows what they need. But how can you do that? Let’s say you are local store and you want to invite in local residents, as soon as the visitor arrives to your website, your website recognizes where this visitor is located, based on the location it gives them the special invitation you have for people in that area. Or if you have a restaurant, for example, you wouldn’t want to show a dinner menu to someone looking for lunch, or vice versa. These apparently small personalized experiences, could make a difference between just a visitor or getting a new customer.
The next step is to take the time to go your website and look at each one of these tips. Review which ones you are not really following or that you need to improve on. If you are applying all of them, congratulations! However, if you feel that you can implement or improve in some areas by applying some or all of these tips. Do not panic, start small. Jump to the one you believe is the most important and make the necessary changes on that one. Then go to the next and so on. Do not get overwhelmed with the right tools and the right people you can achieve it. If you need help hire an expert. It is worthwhile.
See how we decorated our website this month!
A website is becoming more and more important for businesses. Believe it or not it is your company’s sales rep on the online world. Therefore, it must have certain characteristics to make it more attractive and give a good impression of your business. In some cases it might be the only information a prospect have about your business. The following are 5 items every website MUST have:
- Easy to find contact information. This is one of the most important things to take into account to have on your website. Make it very easy for customers to know how to contact you. In most cases the whole purpose of the website is to bring leads or to have your prospects become your customers. So one of the keys to make it successful is make it very easy for them to contact you. This is one of the simplest thing to have on your website and yet the most important. So make sure your contact information is visible, it is proving to be very effective when you make it easier for your customer/prospect to find you.
- Look professional. Keep in mind that your website is not only on the presentation. More importantly it is your sales rep on the online world. So just like any member company, it has to look professional. In many cases, it’s probably the first thing that your prospect sees about the company. Your website must cause a good impression. Its proven that a internet user takes between 3 to 7 seconds to decide if they should stay or leave the website. In many cases your website would be the only information they have about your company. Depending on the impression and the experience they have during their visit to your website would determine if they should or should not contact your company. Making good impression is very important, Make sure your website looks professional and it is giving a good impression to your prospects.
- Talk to your clients about their need. Not just talk about your business. Talk about how you can benefit your customers. In many cases, companies allow their ego to fill the information on their website. Some companies talk too much about themselves and too little about their customers and how they can help them. Do not fall into that tramp. Many businesses tend to forget that it is ALL about their clients. Remember that your customers are looking for you as a company to solve a problem or fulfilled a need. So keep your clients in mind when you are writing the content for your website. Remember, the website is created for them, for your customers, make sure they realized that its all about them. Your website is there to inform them about what you do and what you can do for them.
- Mix images and text. Having good content is important but also. Having an informative website with detailed information about your products and services is very important. But keep in mind,that making your content entertaining and visual is very important to get your message across.Having a website with only text and very few images is not a good practice. Not everybody sees things to the same way. Some people are more visual and expect images. Videos are also another very interesting way to explain and talk about products and services. In many cases it is actually the best way to describe a product or service. So make sure you have a nice balance of images, text and even videos if possible.
- Social media links. Social media has becoming more and more effective way to do marketing for many companies. It is an excellent way to stay connected With your customers and stay in touch with them in a personal level. It gives your customers the opportunity to talk & share information about your company with their friends. Therefor, it is very important to have your social media icons on your website. Not only this would let your visitors know that you are in social media; but it would also help increase your social media audience. Let your customers know that you are in social media and invite them to like your Facebook page follow you on Twitter and so on.
