Inbound Marketing: Providing Value is Key

Posted on by Ken Granger

Have you ever been annoyed by marketing, advertising, or sales pitches? Some of the tactics that marketers use can be obnoxious, while others can seem downright deceptive. In today’s world, marketing has taken on a new identity that’s all about providing value to potential customers, rather than harassing them to buy your product. Read on to learn more about what inbound marketing is and how it can be a great strategy for your business.

What is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing is a strategy that focuses on bringing customers to you by providing them with the content that they are looking for. Valuable, helpful, informative content will draw in potential customers without bombarding them with sales messages. When you use inbound marketing techniques, you can employ strategies like social media marketing, search engine optimization, email marketing. Inbound marketing allows customers to naturally find your business as they research solutions to their problems, as you will be there to provide them with the information they’re looking for.

If you make a serious effort to craft a deep well of relevant, engaging content that meets the needs of the customers you want, it will allow you the opportunity to build credibility in your industry, and bring in traffic and leads. In traditional marketing and advertising, the goal is to initiate the conversation with potential customers, while with inbound marketing, you focus on creating content to bring the customers directly to you.

How Inbound Marketing Can Bring You Results

To employ inbound marketing strategies, you need to start by thinking of your audience. What do they need and want? Where are they looking to find answers? What can you do to provide the answers they’re looking for? I always refer back to my favorite book “The Go Giver” by Bob Burg.  (It’s a required read at BrandCo. and you may want to require it at your organization too.)

  1. The Law of Value Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment. Be a resource to your potential customers. Offer them in-depth information, testimonials, tutorials, videos, interviews, and content without expecting anything in return. If the information you offer is valuable, people will trust you and turn to you when they’re in need. It’s all about creating value and showing customers that you’re a trustworthy industry leader.
  2. The Law of Compensation Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them. Reach out to potential customers on plenty of channels. Create a blog, a website, social media profiles, and an email list, and use each of these channels as an opportunity to inform, communicate, and answer questions. The more people you help and teach, the more you’ll get in return.
  3. The Law of Influence Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first. Inbound marketing is all about putting others’ interests first. If you think carefully about the needs and desires of your customers, you’ll be able to create content that is exactly what they’re looking for. They’ll find you when they need you the most – you won’t have to seek them out and annoy them with sales messages.
  4. The Law of Authenticity The most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself. Be real. Be yourself. Potential customers can spot frauds a mile away, and if you’re untruthful, it will only cause damage in the long run. Trust is a major factor in inbound marketing, so work hard to gain potential customers’ trust well before you make a sales pitch.
  5. The Law of Receptivity The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving. Don’t ignore feedback, whether it’s positive or negative. Feedback is a way to constantly improve, and prove to customers that you’re willing to take their suggestions to heart. Use it as an opportunity to speak to customers and learn more about their needs and wants, and then seek to get better.

When you provide your potential customers with valuable, exclusive information, you’ll see how much of a difference inbound marketing can make. In today’s world, customer-centered marketing techniques are rewarded with more leads, sales, and lifelong fans.

Three Reasons Your Small Busines Needs a CRM

Posted on by Ken Granger

As your business has grown, you’ve probably had to upgrade everything from your payroll system to your IT infrastructure. But have you considered your marketing and customer management tools? If you still rely on spreadsheets to track sales opportunities, or hunt through countless emails to find customer contact information, then you’re missing out on the valuable opportunities and time savings that a CRM system can offer.

At its core, a CRM system provides your business with a turn-key customer relationship management toolset. Sales and marketing efforts are integrated into the system, which makes planning and scheduling business development activities a breeze. Many CRMs offer additional components such as social media integration, online reporting tools, and email marketing and event management. The bottom line is that your company can take advantage of a unified, customer-centric platform that will drive business development and eliminate wasted time and effort. Here are three ways your business can benefit from using a CRM.

Centralized contact management

Forget about emailing outdated lists of contacts back and forth between coworkers; now your team can store all of their important business contacts in one centralized location. Instead of running into stale contact information or bounced email addresses, everyone on your team will benefit from having instant access to the most up-to-date and relevant contact information. And best of all, online or mobile access to the CRM puts more power directly in the hands of your team members.

Business development reminders and reports

If you’ve been relying on calendar reminders to touch base with your customers, then you’ll love the extensive business development capabilities provided by a CRM. You can schedule and track upcoming client touch points, and you can even see the same information recorded by your team members. Instead of wondering who is on deck to meet with a customer, the information is at your fingertips. Then, take your business development efforts to the next level by looking at CRM reports of past and upcoming customer activities so you can form a smarter growth strategy.

An ongoing record of customer communications

Without a CRM, important customer communications can get buried in your team members’ email inboxes and phones. No one knows which meetings, phone calls, or communications took place. But today’s CRMs integrate with Outlook and other email systems to seamlessly track and manage customer communications. With a single click, your team will be able to instantly track meetings, conversations, or any other key information for a given contact.

The CRM industry is constantly adapting to meet the needs of businesses both large and small. While Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365 are two of the biggest enterprise CRM systems, there are plenty of free and low cost CRMs that are specifically designed to address small business needs. For example, CRM systems like Nutshell and Insightly offer full CRM capabilities and additional product integrations for less than $100 per month. HubSpot offers a free, simple CRM that is extremely popular with small businesses and very easy to integrate into existing workflows. And of course, businesses can always choose from industry specific CRMs. Within the real estate industry, popular CRMs like LionDesk and Top Producer provide sales and marketing techniques that are targeted at bringing real and potential leads to a successful closing and future repeat business.

No matter which CRM you choose, you will only see the benefits when everyone begins to use it. Otherwise, it will become just another black hole of forgotten data. When you adopt a CRM, be prepared to champion its use throughout your company. You’ll soon reap the rewards of this incredibly powerful tool. To learn more about choosing the right CRM for your small business, contact us today.

Why It Pays to Keep Business Cards Handy – Even in the Unlikeliest Places!

Posted on by Ken Granger

Even in today’s digital world, business cards are as relevant and as important as ever. There’s no simpler way to introduce your business to others or cement a new connection. But are you really making the best use of your business cards? If you keep them in a box on your desk and just bring a few cards with you to parties or social events, then you’re definitely missing out on networking opportunities. Here are five unusual scenarios where it pays to have business cards on hand.

1. You meet someone at a church or school function.

Even when you’re focused on your kids or family, there’s always the possibility of connecting with someone who wants to know more about you or your business. This is exactly the scenario where keeping several business cards in your wallet or handbag will pay off. If you want someone to follow up with you or connect with you online later on, there’s no better reminder than a physical business card that you place in their hand.

2. You run into an old coworker at the gym.

It’s always nice to catch up with someone you know from a previous job, and the conversation might even turn into a chance to socialize or network further. But what to do if you don’t have your wallet or handbag handy? The simple solution is to keep extra business cards in your gym bag! Just store a few business cards in a Ziploc bag to keep out moisture, and drop them in a pocket of your workout bag so you always have them handy at the gym.

3. The server at the drive-through window turns out to be a potential customer.

You’re juggling your money and your fast food when you start to realize that the person you’ve been chatting with is looking more and more like a potential customer. Don’t just scribble your email address on a napkin that could get lost. Instead, always keep some business cards in your glovebox where you can easily reach them. This works great for any situation where you’re in or near your car, and want to quickly grab a business card.

4. You’re shopping one minute, and networking the next.

Whether you’re strolling through the mall, shopping for groceries, or even buying a new car, you never know when you could find yourself in a networking situation. You should be prepared to take advantage of the moment, and always have a supply of business cards at hand. If you carry a pouch of coupons when you shop, why not slip a few business cards in as well? And if your salesperson hands you a business card as you’re shopping, it’s the perfect reason to hand him or her one of yours.

5. You run out of business cards at an event, but luckily your spouse has your back.

If you run out of business cards at a dinner or an event, your spouse can be a helpful backup. Ask your spouse to carry a few of your business cards in their handbag or wallet, and then offer to do the same for him or her. That way, you won’t be caught in the lurch if your own supply starts to run low.

Business cards are an incredibly easy and low-cost way to advertise yourself and your business. But if you don’t carry them with you or keep them nearby, then you’re not using them to your full advantage. Once you get in the habit of keeping your busy cards handy, you’ll find yourself ready and willing to network wherever you go.

4 Reasons Your Website Needs SSL (Today)

Posted on by Ken Granger

So, you own a small business, and by all accounts, you’re doing reasonably well.  You’re getting a steady stream of new customers, and your current customers seem to like both the products you sell and the customer service you provide.  You’re on a roll, in other words.  Then, one morning, all that changes.

You get a call from one of your loyal customers, but he’s not asking about your latest sale or whether your store is open on Sundays.  He’s asking about your website.  He wants to know why he just pulled it up on Google Chrome and got this message in the URL bar (in big, scary red type, no less): “Not secure.”  Making matters worse, that message comes with a warning, one that says he shouldn’t enter any “sensitive information” (like credit card numbers or passwords) on your website. So, what do you do?

Hopefully, the first thing you do is reassure him that you’ll look into the problem.  The second thing you need to do is find out why this message is appearing, and how you can make sure it doesn’t appear again in the future.

What Is SSL, and Why Does Your Website Need It?

SSL stands for “secure socket layer.”  Having SSL means that your website is protected against potential hackers with a special method of encryption.  It’s a way to show your customers you care about the security of their sensitive financial and personal data, and to avoid potentially costly problems down the road.

Here’s how GoDaddy defines SSL:

“[SSL is] a mechanism that works between a user’s browser and the website the user is connecting to. In its software, the website has an SSL certificate issued by a trustworthy authority. Web browsers (i.e. Internet Explorer®, Firefox® and Chrome™) recognize these certificates. When confidential info needs to be exchanged, SSL is used to encrypt the information before it is sent, and then to decrypt it at the other end, when it has been received.”

What Are the Main Benefits of SSL?

Let’s begin with a caveat:  SSL isn’t a security panacea.  Hackers are smart, and some could find a way around your SSL protection, especially if you don’t take other measures to protect your customer’s sensitive data (for example, implementing a two-factor authentication process).  SSL will, however, make your site a lot safer than it is now—and communicate that added level of security to every site visitor.  That said, here are 4 important benefits of having SSL for your website:

  1. You’ll build trust in your business:  nothing will destroy trust in your business quicker than the message that it’s not safe for your customers to use.  When, on the other hand, customers and prospective customers see that “HTTPS” at the front of your site URL, they’ll know that you cared enough about them and the safety of their personal information to make your site secure.  That makes acquiring SSL a sound investment for the future of your business.
  2. You’ll be more attractive to web browsers:  although website browsers don’t currently require websites to have SSL, most are moving closer to that position.  Google Chrome, as noted above, now marks any sites that don’t have SSL with that off-putting “not secure” warning, and other browsers are rapidly moving in the same direction.  Said differently, the writing is on the wall.  It’s only a matter of time before all browsers will either require SSL, or substantially penalize sites that don’t have it.
  3. You’ll boost online sales:  why would a prospective customer for your online store risk his credit card or other sensitive information on an unsecured website?  Think about this:  according to Shopify, customer concerns about site security are one of the top 4 reasons online shoppers abandon shopping carts.  Not have SSL means you’ll be turning off a substantial portion of potential buyers, driving down sales and hurting your-long term profits.
  4. You’ll rank higher in organic searches:  research shows that sites with SSL do better in organic searches than those without it.  According to Web Ascender, for example, Google rewards sites that have SSL with higher search engine rankings.  It’s important to do everything possible to enhance your site’s search engine optimization (SEO)—having SSL is one smart way to do that.

Conclusion

You’ve worked hard to build your business and gain your customers’ loyalty and trust.  Why would you do anything which could negatively impact all that hard work?  Said differently, when it comes to the relationship you have with your customers and the viability of your business, why would you take chances?  Ensuring you have SSL on your site will reassure your customers that you care about their business and substantially enhance the odds that your business will continue to thrive and grow.

All BrandCo. hosting accounts are eligible for a FREE SSL.  Please contact your account manager today about getting your website secure with SSL.

Is your WordPress Website Secure?

Posted on by Ken Granger

If you have a WordPress website and it was hacked, you know how it can stop your business in its tracks.  It means site traffic will slow to a crawl, that critical functionalities won’t be available to you, and that you risk losing business.  You should also know that you’re not alone.  In 2012, for example, more than 170,000 WordPress sites worldwide were hacked, and that number has increased in subsequent years.

I Have a Small Business, So I’m Safe, Right?

Wrong.  Hackers don’t care about what you do, or who your customers are, or how big or small your business is.  They only care about one thing:  is your site vulnerable to hacking?

If it is, they’ll go after it, and typically through an automated attack.  Like search engines, hackers rely on bots which crawl the internet to identify vulnerable sites.  When you think about it, this approach makes sense from the hacker’s point of view:  automating the process allows them to check out multiple sites simultaneously, and in this way, increase their odds of success.

Why Would Hackers Go After My WordPress Site?

There are many reasons hackers might be interested in your website.  Perhaps you process customer financial information, like credit card numbers.  In some cases, hackers will use your site as an entrée to your customers’ computers and gain access to their personal information.  Finally, hackers might want to use the hardware on your server to send out spam emails or perform “denial of service” attacks.

How Do Hackers Gain Access to WordPress Sites?

The most common means of gaining access to a WordPress site is through the hosting platform. According to WP Template, more than 40% of all WordPress hacks occur in this way.  Another 29% of hacking attacks happen as a result of insecure WordPress themes, while 22% occur through plugins, and another 8% because of weak passwords.

What Can You Do to Keep Your WordPress Site Safe from Hackers?

Fortunately, there are some simple, proactive steps you can take to protect your WordPress website:

1.  Choose A Reliable Host

As noted above, the most frequent cause of hacking is the hosting provider.  You should choose a reliable host which prioritizes the security of its client sites, supports the most recent versions of PHP and MySQL, and performs periodic security scans and backups.

It’s also important to choose a host with experience hosting WordPress sites.  They’re more likely to be cognizant of the hacking issues specific to WordPress, and to effectively guard against them.

2.  Back Up Your Data—Regularly

Even if you’re careful and perform all the due diligence to prevent a hack, there’s no guarantee you’ll be spared.  For this reason, you need to regularly back up critical information on your WordPress site.  The best hosts will usually do this for you, but it’s always a good idea to use a good backup program on your own.  Some of the best are also free, including Duplicator, UpdraftPlus and WordPress Backup to Dropbox.

3.  Strengthen Your Login Information

Many WordPress hacks occur due to inadequate login information, like weak passwords.  This is especially true for attacks in which hackers run automated, random usernames and passwords until the hit on the right ones.

To protect your site, avoid obvious passwords, like “123456,” “password” and “login.”  You should also change your passwords from time to time, stay away from your admin username, and store your login information in a secure location (like LastPass).

4.  Use WordPress Security Plugins

WordPress offers a range of plugins which will help make your blog secure from known threats, and it’s in your interest to make use of them.  Some of the best include WordFence, BulletProof Security, Sucuri Security, iThemes Security, and 6Scan Security.

Conclusion

These are just a sampling of the steps you should take (now!) to keep your WordPress site safe.  Others include making sure your WordPress site is up to date, hiding your WordPress version number, using only those themes and plugins which are absolutely necessary, setting correct file permissions, and disabling the plugin and theme editor.  You’ve spent a lot of time and energy getting your WordPress site up to speed.  You owe it to yourself—and your business—to take the proactive steps necessary to ensure its safety and security.

Building Your Website: DIY or Hire a Pro?

Posted on by Ken Granger

A website is a must for a company of any size today. While some web presence is better than none, a high-quality, useful website can help to bring in clients and customers and grow your business. There are tons of tools available to build your own website, but it can be time-consuming, especially if you don’t know where to start. Read on to learn more about the pros and cons of creating your own website.

What You Need To Create A Great Site

Your website can serve as the face of your company. It may be the way that people discover you, so you want to create a great impression from the beginning. You want your website to be informative, intuitive, and well thought out. Even if you have great content to offer, you have to display it in a way that is attractive and easy to navigate.

Today, you can have a website up and running in under a day with online creation tools. They seem to offer simplicity, customization, and cost-effectiveness, which can be great if you simply want to have an online presence. But when it comes down to it, there is so much involved in building a successful website. You may have a great grasp on what your customers want and need, but translating that into web content can be tough.

To create a great site, you’ll need a strategy, a goal, and some expertise in a few areas. It’s important to have at least a basic grasp of graphic design, search engine optimization, digital content creation, marketing, and user experience. If you don’t have much knowledge in these areas, creating your own site can end up costing you more time, energy and frustration than you were originally prepared for.

Why Hire A Pro?

You have a great story to tell with your website, so hiring a professional web designer is a good idea if you want:

  • Strategy – a professional web designer can take your vision and turn it into reality. Maybe you have great content and images, but just don’t know how to translate that into a stunning website. A good designer will work closely with you to map out a strategy that will take your ideas into consideration.
  • Smart Design – a designer will help to customize every aspect of your site, from font to color to layout, so it looks perfect and functions smoothly. They will make sure the site displays well on mobile (more than half of users say they won’t recommend a business with a poorly-designed mobile site,) and will enhance your site’s user experience.
  • Search Engine Optimization – When you put time and effort into building a website, you want to make sure people find it! SEO isn’t just about using the right terms in your content. If you want to acquire more traffic through search engines, you’ll need to make sure that your website doesn’t have broken links or poorly coded pages. If looking at HTML makes your head spin, a professional designer can help to make sense of it, and make sure that your site ranks high on Google.
  • Professionalism – a well-designed website will help people remember your brand, while a poorly designed site may make people not want to come back! If you want your site to do its job well, it has to look nice and function properly. A professionally designed site simply looks better than one you put together yourself.

When it comes down to it, hiring a professional web designer can save you time and frustration, and deliver a beautiful and effective finished product. If you’re looking for a pro to design your website from scratch, contact us for more information!

4 Startup Branding Must Haves

Posted on by Ken Granger

Branding your start-up may appear overwhelming at first, especially if you don’t have a strong marketing background. Learning what to prioritize is helpful in reducing stress and in developing a plan. Building brand recognition doesn’t happen overnight, yet no strong brand has ever stopped improving their brand messaging. Here are four important branding requirements for your start-up:

A Solid Domain Name

A domain name serves as your business identity and as such, requires careful thought. While a catchy name may appear fun to you, it isn’t going to help people identify with what services you provide. Research has found that URLs that tell what they do receive more clicks than URLs with random names.

Most start-ups are starting out with limited budgets. When relying on word-of-mouth as your premier marketing tool, it’s important to create a domain name that is easy to pronounce and meaningful. Not only is a domain name essential to your marketing plan, it is a top-of-list item in developing your start-up. People create and secure domain names at rapid speeds in today’s fast-paced business world. To get started, search for your domain name today.

A Branded Email Address 

Using a branded email address promotes your start-up by reinforcing your brand name and not Gmail’s brand name. An impressive 86 percent of professionals name email as their favorite mode of communication. As a start-up, having a branded email address as credibility and trust—recipients are less likely to think of the email as a scam if it arrives from a branded address. Creating a branded email is relatively inexpensive, easy, and sometimes even free, depending upon your domain name provider or web hosting company. At BrandCo. we recommend using G-Suite: a powerful tool of Google products that includes a custom and branded email address.

A Professional Website

According to a survey conducted by the research firm Clutch, 46 percent of U.S. small businesses still don’t have a website for their company. Research results determined that not having a website is more costly than creating a site. Think of your website as your branding foundation. What does your business card, social media, brochures, and advertising all point to as your call-to-action? That’s right—your website. Creating a website can be as simple as a one-page site. A good site doesn’t have to have bells and whistles but it does need updates, brand consistency with the accompanying marketing tools, and most importantly, it must be mobile friendly.

A Solid Business Card

Business cards still provide relevance in today’s networking world. Online networking hasn’t completely replaced the face-to-face networking power that remains a strong force for business development. While handing out a small, paper card may seem old-fashioned, it is still the fastest and easiest way to share your business information. In designing a business card for your start-up, keep the following two tips in mind:

  • Avoid covering the entire card—only include the most important information. This leaves some white space in case the potential client wants to add a note about you to your card.
  • Get it professionally printed—saving money by printing them yourself with your home printer may seem like a great idea but it’s a cheap way to make a first impression. Spend the money to have them professionally printed shows you care about your brand and the quality it represents.

Continue Building Your Brand

Once you’ve completed the four tasks above, you can start thinking about your logo. Secure your domain name, set up an associated email address, create a website, and print business cards. Do these steps first and build upon them as your start-up grows. For more information about how BrandCo. helps small businesses, contact us today.

Why WordPress & WooCommerce Are the Best Tools for an e-Commerce Site

Posted on by Ken Granger

You know you need an online presence for your business. The question is, how should you go about building a website? There are so many different options and services and software applications that all the choices available can be dizzying. Particularly to a small, service-based business owner or local merchant whose hands are quite full already.

You need is a web platform that is effortlessly turnkey, so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel when building your new website. What you need is WordPress, which now powers 30% of the sites across the web. WordPress was created originally in 2003 as a blogging tool but has evolved into a complete content management system with e-commerce functionality.

That’s where WordPress and WooCommerce come in. Combined, these two tools are all you need to succeed online, whether your main goal is to sell products or services (which you can do with WooCommerce), or generate leads (which you can do with a WordPress contact form), or retain customers (which you can do by creating great content to post on your blog).

Wonders of WordPress

WordPress is a content management system or CMS built on open-source software, which means it can attract more collaborators (i.e., web developers who are willing to work for free) than it would if it were a paid platform.

So, web developers from all over the world can create WordPress compatible themes, plugins, shortcodes and more – all of which you can leverage for your site. Its open-source platform is one reason why WordPress is the most popular CMS today.

WordPress offers quick installation, built-in security, more than 11,000 themes, which are customizable website layouts, and over 54,000 plugins such as WordPress SEO by Yoast, so you can get noticed by Google and your website will be returned in users’ Google search results.

WordPress makes it easy to build a site by simply selecting a design or theme, choosing a few widgets or plugins to add functionality and special features, and by adding your content as a subject matter expert. WordPress also offers a community forum, where you can interact with WordPress users at large, bounce an idea off someone else or see if it’s already been done.

Why WooCommerce

If you want to add e-commerce functionality to your WordPress site, WooCommerce is a great choice because it was built on the WordPress platform. Thus, WooCommerce seamlessly integrates with e-commerce with content in a highly compatible interface.

WooCommerce is also highly customizable, which means you can use it to sell anything – from clothes to can openers and other physical products to digital downloads and subscriptions. You can even use it to book appointments and consultations.

As a WordPress compatible plugin, WooCommerce is free and open-source, making it a popular choice for small to large-sized businesses who want to sell products or services online. Trends indicated that WooCommerce runs on 30% of e-commerce sites and millions of active installs.

Additionally, WooCommerce offers a number of popular extensions such as WooCommerce Bookings, which allows users to sell blocks of time as appointments, and WooCommerce Memberships, which you can use to restrict access to certain parts of your website or sell access to certain parts of your website.

A Dynamic Duo

When you combine WordPress with WooCommerce, you have a dynamic duo of tools at your disposal. Together, they can help you build your brand and online presence, which will bring you more business in the long and short run.

As a service-based business owner such as a real estate agent, or a mom-and-pop shop, we at BrandCo. understand that your No. 1 goal is to grow your business. That’s why we’re here! Contact BrandCo. today to get started.

6 Ways to Lower Your Website’s Bounce Rate

Posted on by Ken Granger

When brands are building and maintaining a website, the focus tends to lie on design and content. While those are definitely important aspects of a website, the reality of a successful website is a bit more nuanced than the two. Great content and design might attract users, but it is more important to keep them engaged and keep them from leaving your website.

In a nutshell, that is what bounce rates comprise of. It is the rate and speed at which users leave your website, and having a high bounce rate can be extremely telling. It usually means that your site is able to attract users (great!) but is not succeeding in keeping their attention (not so great!)

So how do you keep your bounce rate down? There are some tips you can start incorporating into your overall digital and website strategy now to keep that rate as low as possible:

1) Strong website design

The first step in keeping your audience on your site? Designing a strong website. It sounds easier said than done, but the truth is, it is easier to accomplish than you might think. The first mistake that many people make with website design is sticking to cookie-cutter formats in an effort to be safe.

However, that ends up boring the end user and ultimately is not good enough to really keep any engagement. These users are on your site to learn about what makes you unique, so use your website to showcase these qualities and keep their interest. Work with professionals who understand best practices in website design in order to mitigate this.

2) Catering to your audience

Use your unique qualities as the starting point when thinking about website design. Professionally designed websites are able to give users exactly what they want and keep their attention. Before embarking on that process, think about what it is that users seek out. Is it your content, or specific information, or a combination thereof?

Use that as a guiding principle in working with a team in constructing a design that allows users to engage with your brand the way they want but also keeps their interest as they peruse the site.

3) Creating visible call-to-action graphics

The next few tips are all geared towards creating different ways for users to engage with your content. One way to accomplish this is to create visible call-to-action graphics that garner interest and are conveniently located throughout the site.

Heavy text on a website might be tempting when conveying information, but it does not encourage users to stay throughout. Having graphics will break up text in a natural way while still capturing their attention and thereby lowering the bounce rate.

4) Asking for small commitments from the users

One of the challenges for many websites is to keep users engaged and keep them moving down the funnel. The best way to do this? Ask for small commitments from the users. This might come in the form of the aforementioned graphics, or simply providing snippets of content and ending with a ‘read more.’

This will not only keep users engaged with your content, thereby lowering your bounce rates but it will also provide greater insight into what content seems to resonate most with your users. This is incredibly important as it will also allow you to further refine your digital strategy and continue to lower the bounce rate.

5) Call to actions throughout your website

Not all users are created equal, which means that not every user will land on your homepage. They might find your content elsewhere, or be searching for a term that leads them to an interior page rather than the main one.

To keep those users from bouncing, ensure that there are visible calls-to-actions throughout the interior pages (either in the form of text, or graphics or a combination). Make them easy to find, and this will help them navigate your site even if they are not on the main page.

6) Multiple ways to engage with content

Finally, provide users with ample ways to get deeper into the website in order to keep them from bouncing. Whether it is text links, images, buttons – these are all ways to keep users engaged with your content and your website. Having these elements will make it easy to navigate, while still giving users the opportunity to learn more about you and what makes your business unique.

4 Ways Your Small Business Can Make a Lasting Impression

Posted on by Ken Granger

Small Businesses rely on those moments when potential customers connect your charisma and personality with the image of your company. When they touch your business card for the first time and run a finger over the logo, they are mentally noting that they want to find you again and actually close a deal with you.

Every moment of this encounter matters, and there are at least four excellent ways to ensure that your potential clients not only recognize you, but start spreading the word about you themselves. Pave the way for them with these smart moves to make a lasting impression.

Create a Professional Logo

Branding experts have a great feel for what design elements make a company look young, edgy, traditional, trustworthy, and so many other elements. When a design professional sits down to talk to you about logo design or re-design, you’ll know instantly that they understand exactly what will draw in the clientele your small business wants to attract.

Strong logo designers know that your input is vital to the final choices in the branding process, so they will deliver options for you to help choose which design fits your needs best before they add final touches to the chosen logo. When you choose a professional logo designer, you can be confident that the work is guaranteed and backed by experience, and people who see it will unconsciously trust your brand more every time they encounter the logo.

Quality Business Cards

Your logo combines with paper quality and vital information to become a physical object when you order business cards. Quality paper, color and unique design all contribute to the impression you make when you hand over a card. Working with a business card designer rather than just typing up some details on card stock gives you an edge over fledgling businesses and makes you stand out as professional and prepared.

A Strong, Clear Online Presence

While most small businesses have some form of social media or website, these sites are actually the first impression that many potential clients will receive. It’s a shame when someone who is ready to buy cannot find a phone number to call or the hours of business because of poor website layout.

Web designers understand where people’s eyes are drawn on a computer screen, and they can bring their expertise to bear on design elements of a website, especially by making vital information easy to find while using beautiful typography and layout. The construction of a customized and beautiful website will also convey quality to those who visit the site; customers may come to you ready to work with you simply because they like and trust what they see online.

Getting Found: Search Engines and Social Reviews

While some people may find your website because of your business card, others will simply go to Google or Bing and type in the services they want in a particular location. A branding agency can help make sure that your website has the content needed to be found by search engines, so that the person looking for your business without remembering the name will still find you first.

At the same time, people look to social media and review websites to get the real story, so working with a branding professional can be a great way to get to know which reviews exist of your business already and how you can encourage current satisfied customers to review you online. The same content that helps people find your website can also help them find reviews; you want the web visitors to discover more about you while also discovering just how well-loved your business is!