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14 REASONS TO KEEP YOUR WEBSITE UPDATED

There is no better or more cost-effective way to advertise your business than on the World Wide Web. The trick, though, isn’t just having a website, it’s developing the website to ensure it’s driving business growth.

There could be many decisions that go into updating your website and best website development services in Mumbai have broken down our 14 key reasons into the following categories:

 Design

 Marketing

 Usability

 Time

DESIGN

1. Visual Appeal

When people visit your site, they see it as a reflection of your organisation. If your site looks professional and is loaded with useful information readers will see you as an authority and expert. Likewise, if the site looks poorly designed and structured and/or out-of-date they’ll make the same assumptions about your company. The website should highlight your product and/or service and the layout should look harmonious and consistent.

Has your content got dates on it – blog posts, events, and similar? It makes sense to remove or update out of date content. As websites mature and grow, it often becomes apparent that certain parts just aren’t working well anymore and are becoming outdated. An obvious example of this is the use of flash.

2. Responsive & Mobile Friendly

We’re spending two hours online on our smartphones every day; twice as long as laptops and PCs. If you factor that with the upcoming mobile-first indexing update from Google, ignoring the mobile market is a very risky business. It’s now considered the common practice to make a website mobile-friendly (responsive design). In conclusion, if you haven’t updated your website in a while the chances are that you may be driving mobile users and potential customers away.

3. Technique & Coding

Is your website browser compatible? Is your source code valid (HTML and CSS)? Does your website meet the basic web standards? Is the technique and/or (version) programming language outdated?

An important factor you should consider is the increase in usability in web design. Every year web standards change radically and techniques to build websites become more advanced to comply with the latest standards. If your site was developed several years ago, it probably has a lot of unnecessary HTML code and may be slowing down your website loads speeds – which may, in turn, impact your ranking in the Google search results.

4. Stock photos

When building your website, it’s important to only select components that will positively impact the objectives of the website. One aspect of a website where this is especially true is in photography.  Does the use of images on your website accurately reflect the business message you are trying to present?

If you are going to include images on your site, ensure they are correctly optimised for the web so as not to impact your site speed. Also, ensure any photos used are sourced from reputable stock sites or are the legal property of your company.

MARKETING

5.      Effective use of calls to actions

Many dated websites lack effective calls to actions that convert users to customers. Is your USP and call to action highlighted clearly on every landing page? Are they interesting enough to persuade your visitor to complete the desired action?

6.  Measuring Effectiveness

An old website may not be equipped with the necessary tools that will help you measure how effective your online presence is. Examples of this include heat mapping, conversion tracking & user recordings. Nowadays, there is an assortment of online tools you can invest in to help you measure what works and what doesn’t on your website, right down to the minutest detail. However, to use those, you will need a modern website.

7. Content

The first impression of your website would be the overall layout, but the reader is visiting your website because they are looking for useful information. The content of a website should be considered to be the most important thing, as it helps in determining how effective a website is. Fresh and unique website content is a very important factor in encouraging people to revisit your site more often.

8. SEO & Website Update

Just like a website your digital marketing and SEO could need a refresh. If you don’t update your website it’s sure to fall in the search engine rankings. Search engines regard websites with the most recent content as the most relevant to web users. Your content might be gold but if it’s the same content as it was 5 years ago then search engine crawlers might not think it is as relevant anymore.

The redesign also gives you a chance to rethink your keyword targeting and the overall conversion rate of your website. The way people search and how they search has changed dramatically over the last few years, even truer with the explosion of smartphone devices now in use.

USABILITY

9. Provide easy navigation.

When we talk about user experience (UX), we are referring to the totality of visitors’ experience with your site—more than just how it looks. UX includes how easy your site is to use, how fast it is, how easy it is to find information, and how little friction there is when visitors try to complete whatever action it is they’re trying to complete. Your website navigation should focus on nudging the right visitor toward the must-have experience.

10. Is your bounce rate favourable?

The definition of bounce rate is the percentage of people who arrive on your site and leave without visiting a second page.  Are your visitors just leaving as soon as they land on your site? How does your website compare to estimated industry standards? 

You can monitor the bounce rate on your website through Google Analytics. Either as a  website whole or on a page by page basis. Look at the bounce rate in th e following areas: 1) location; 2)  device; 3)  new vs returning visitor; 4) medium  through which users come to your website. If an alarming amount of users bounce you may need to rethink your website, seo, or digital marketing strategy.

11. Website Speed

Your website’s loading time is a major factor in people either staying or leaving the site and never returning. 

TIME

12. Easier to update the website

You should be able to update your website yourself. An up-to-date website based on a content management system such as WordPress makes it easy to administer, avoids any messy code, you simply write in what you want in an organized fashion. The Web design industry is constantly working to improve itself. This includes keeping layout designs fresh, updating blogs, refreshing imagery, and pushing out timely promotions and advertisements.

13. You’ll reduce your risk of getting hacked.

Stories of websites and social media feeds getting hacked are becoming more and more frequent. Security flaws can rear their ugly heads on any website, new or old, but the likelihood of security flaws affecting an older website is much greater as it relies on older less secure coding and technology.

14. Website Integration

For the vast majority of businesses, integrated websites are essential for delivering the requisite service levels. Your customers will expect access to a blog, contact form, support form and if applicable, shopping functionality, all on one easy to use website. They will require a single login and rapid access to accurate and timely information at all times. Integrating your site with your back-office order fulfilment, tracking, billing and CRM systems such as Sage, MS Dynamics, or Salesforce reduce the likelihood of mistakes and confusion. A website refresh is a perfect time to find ways to save admin time and improve customer service.

CONCLUSION

In summary, the above information highlights the most important and most common signs to look out for when you want to know if your site is becoming “old hat”. Although there may be other signals that you need a website update, there should be enough here to guide you on the right path.

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Is New Breed Of Low Code Or No Code The Fututre Of Application Development?

Even though most organizations have been digitizing their business processes for decades, when COVID-19 sent millions of office workers home it exposed just how hands-on many businesses actually are. With people working from home for the foreseeable future, leaning over to ask a colleague for input on a project or to find out what happened to a proposal—even with all of the instant digital communications tools at their disposal—isn't practical, quick, or efficient. To counter this problem, many businesses have turned to low-code and no-code development platforms. Using drag-and-drop interfaces, these platforms give non-programmers the power to develop business workflow applications and then integrate them into larger business processes.

Thinking carefully about this robust and popular platform , top IT Consulting Companies in Mumbai calls into question how business applications will be developed, with so much coding capability now available to so many new business users . Specifically, if low-code/no-code is the future of programming.

Adaptation of low-code or no-code tools

Low-code or no-code platforms began even earlier before the rapid application development (RAD) tools like Excel, Lotus Notes, and Microsoft Access, which put excellent development-like abilities into the hands of business users, that is, non-IT professionals. Still, those tools wanted the users to learn the business applications thoroughly and their development conditions to develop their abilities. In detail, with low-code and no-code methods’ drag-and-drop features, users require minimal or nill knowledge of the tools or development in general.

Besides, development using the RAD tools usually provides the abilities employed by the individual who built the functions or by a limited number of users connected to the creator. Applications built on low-code or no-code platforms are strong enough to be used across businesses and by outsiders such as customers and their business associates.

 Benefits of low-code or no-code development platforms are:

Low-code and no-code platforms can be used to produce applications for various business or technical uses. The apps will have no complicated programming requirements and would require no customization.

Moreover, these programs can be applied in order to create business applications used both by workers and by business partners; they can also be useful to develop client engagement applications. It is also used to improvise legacy systems, wherein supporting institutions promote their digital modifications and move their migration to the cloud or keep using newer innovative techs such as IoT and AI.

Content platforms like WordPress have long supported writers who publish online without the knowledge of any HTML coding language. And nowadays, platforms that enable anyone to develop, publish and manage applications without understanding computer coding language are gaining traction. Web development platforms with the WYSWYG (what you see is what you get) editors, such as Wix and came next, allows anyone to build and publish a full-fledged website. Platforms that are specific to use cases, such as Shopify, which allows anyone to develop an e-commerce platform, have also become crucial. The development of this place and its abilities will unleash and will also have some consequences for web developers, tech firms, and anyone who wishes to publish an application.

Low-code or no-code apps to empower Indian IT services.

Indian IT service providers have seen an enhanced adhesion for low-code, no-code tech solutions. They let non-technical professionals, or even citizen developers, to swiftly develop apps through a simple drag and drop feature and several user-friendly layouts.

Industry experts state that the pandemic has spiked interest in low-code and no-code technology as firms created digital applications for clients. Businesses have started using such tech as non-technical executives, or it is used by citizen developers to develop applications when the complete workforce has shifted to a remote working model.

Mr Salil Parekh, chief executive of Infosys, stated at a Nasscom conference last week that, We see increased automation, machine learning, and AI. These tech components will impact the business model because the way they communicate with clients will be automated and will be developed by AI”.

 Tata Consultancy Services chief operating officer Mr Ganapathy Subramaniam stated that such technology has been helpful when there is a need for “rapid prototyping” in order to demonstrate an app to a customer before deploying that app across an institution.

“To briefly show something to the client, you could always use the low-code or no-code technology to quickly put together an app to show that this is the way the particular platform could work. One can then refine it, run it and then see whether it can scale,” he added.

While such solutions are predominantly given by tech leaders such as Microsoft, Amazon, Pega, Appian, and ServiceNow, Indian companies like Infosys, HCL, and Tech Mahindra are also building their low-code and no-code tech.

 Mr Mrinal Rai, a chief analyst at tech consulting firm ISG, said, “Indian managed service providers regularly partner with pure-play low-code and no-code platform merchants and also with the hyper-scalers that now offer this ability. They leverage the existing solution platforms to amplify their domain-specific abilities”.

“There are a few exceptions, though. Infosys has developed low-code abilities that specifically target the banking sector. Tech Mahindra offers their own Phenom solution for low code. HCL launched Domino Volt, a low-code ability solution,” Mr Rai said.

 Mr Muzammil Patel, Global Head Strategy & Corporate Finance, Acies, stated, Despite financial institutions growing more extensively, they have been looking at the prospect of disaggregation. The latest players, including fintech and neo banks, are chipping away all these traditional institutions.

Maintaining or upgrading legacy tech still consumes approximately 75-80 per cent of their tech budgets. This restricts the quantum of spend on the adoption of new and cheaper tech and impairs their capability to compete effectively with the new entrants. No-code platforms allow these financial institutions to break out of this vicious cycle and move ahead to a path of optimized innovation.

Future of low-code and no-code apps

According to Gartner’s forecast, low-code will be responsible for over 65 per cent of application development activity by 2024. Low-code and no-code use are likely to progress among the LOB workers, while a few more professional developers will also adopt it to aid them with more ordinary programming tasks.

As per Forrester, the top cities for low-code use are business process or workflow apps, web and mobile front ends, and also customer-facing apps. But low-code has expeditiously become a standard practice for faster application development, as shown by adaptation to the pandemic-owing scenarios such as employee contract tracing applications. Experts predict that eventually, low-code will expand into broader sectors such as reengineering tech stacks and ecosystems.

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CONTENT MARKETING VS. DIGITAL MARKETING WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE

Today, to grow and sustain, a business must have a digital presence. The internet revolution, along with social media, has changed the traditional marketing game. There are multiple marketing methods available such as digital marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, and search engine marketing. Most of the time, marketers use them interchangeably to promote their business. 

But the fact remains that all of them are different and have individual benefits. Content marketing and digital marketing are two of the most commonly used forms of marketing. Hence in this article, Top Data Analytics Company In Mumbai will decode content marketing vs. digital marketing. We will try to understand the advantages and disadvantages of content and digital marketing. This will give you a comprehensive idea of how these marketing strategies function. Hence, you can select the one which suits your requirement and boost your online presence. 

What is Content Marketing? 

Let’s first understand content marketing in this journey of content marketing vs. digital marketing. Most of us think content is limited to write-ups, blogs, and articles but contrary to this popular belief, content marketing also deals with visuals, video scripts, podcasts, graphics, and social media posts. 

Content marketing strategy is a more audience-based marketing strategy. In simple words, the content marketer needs to be very specific about the target audience. For example, what might work for adults won’t appeal to children. Hence, knowing your target audience is essential. Moreover, you have to be very specific about how your content can apply to your audience. 

Hence, to address what is content marketing, it can be said that content marketing targets the expectations and needs of the target audience. 

  Advantages of Content Marketing Strategy 

Even though content marketing is more complicated than other marketing practices, it still stands out to be one of the most preferred forms of marketing strategy. 

Let’s find out why?

·         Better engagement – Compared to other marketing forms, the audience responds to content marketing campaigns more positively. Content marketing gives a clear understanding of how they benefit from it. This leads to better engagement, builds trust, and develops brand value. 

·         Affordable – Along with being one of the most successful marketing strategies, content marketing is also affordable. Hence, whether you’re a small business or a large one, you can promote your business through content marketing strategies. 

Disadvantages of Content Marketing Strategy 

·         Experience and expertise – We broadly discussed how content marketing is target-specific. It will give excellent results only when the research is comprehensive and the audience is appropriately targeted. Hence, you will require a content marketing expert. 

·         Takes time – Unlike other marketing forms, it will take a while before you can build your audience base with your regular content. But yes, once you have established your base, the results will be fruitful. 

What is Digital Marketing? 

Now, let’s come to the second section in our journey of content marketing vs. digital marketing. Let’s understand digital marketing strategy through a statement – “We live in the digital era!” You must be thinking, ‘we all know this, but how does this explain digital marketing?’ 

In simple words, any marketing, advertisement, or promotion that uses an online or digital channel, comes under a cloud of digital marketing. This is why so many popular forms of marketing are included as a part of digital marketing. 

·         Social Media Marketing (SMM)

·         Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

·         Email Marketing

·         Guest Blogging

·         Video Marketing

·         Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)

All these popular forms of marketing are a part of digital marketing. Even content marketing comes under digital marketing. It’s the specific targets and expertise which make it so different from the other marketing strategy. 

Advantages of Digital Marketing Strategy 

To understand, what is digital marketing, let’s go through the advantages –

·         Choices – The most significant advantage digital marketing has over other strategies is the vast choices it offers. This gives you the freedom to experiment with your strategies. Once you have analyzed what works for you, boost it and reduce investment in others. Hence, the adaptability which digital marketing offers is a big plus. 

·         Fast and Effective – Unlike content marketing, mixed strategies used in digital marketing can result in business’s fast growth. This is because you are not restricted to one single strategy. Hence, if your SEO is not performing, you can always switch to SMM. 

Disadvantages of Digital Marketing Strategy 

·         No guarantee – While digital marketing campaigns can show you early results, there is no guarantee of how long they will last. Moreover, most of the digital marketing strategies are based on other platforms. For example, suppose you are promoting your digital marketing campaign through Instagram. Tomorrow, if Instagram brings some new updates, it can severely affect your growth. Similarly, Google updates, ad blockers, and spam lists in email marketing can suddenly halt your reach and growth. 

·         Targeting audience – The most vital advantage of content marketing turns out to be one of the most notable drawbacks of digital marketing. The explosive growth of digital marketing attracts massive competition among the business. Due to this outburst of information, people have become numb to data that doesn’t appeal to them. Hence, grabbing the attention of your audience is a challenging task. 

The Difference – Content Marketing vs. Digital Marketing

By now, we have established that even though content marketing and digital marketing are pretty similar, they cannot be used conversely. 

Let’s note down the key differences between content and digital marketing – 

·         Digital marketing attracts fast growth, whereas content marketing is a long-term investment. The latter requires patience and expertise to succeed. 

·         Content Marketing is crafted for a specific audience, whereas digital marketing is preferred for a broad consumer. 

·         Content marketing aims to build trust with the audience, but digital marketing strategies like PPC are action-based and direct. 

·         Content marketing is one method of promoting your business online, whereas digital marketing is usually used as a combination of multiple strategies. 

Conclusion 

While these differences are very prominent, we can’t ignore that content marketing should be based on your digital marketing strategy. 

Let me elaborate – Imagine you post a blog about your product promotion. If the audience likes what they see, there are chances they will check your website or social media. If they don’t find the product being promoted there, then, alas! Your content marketing won’t succeed. The vice-versa is also true. For an effective result, you will have to ensure that your digital marketing is in sync with your content marketing plan. 

Now, you’re aware of the critical differences between the two prominent marketing strategies. Choose the one that meets your specification and invest accordingly.

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HOW DATA ANALYTICS IS HELPING MARKETERS?

Big data and analytics can help a business predict consumer behavior, improve decision-making across the board and determine the ROI of its marketing efforts. By addressing these aspects adequately, the business would not only be able to protect its market share, but also expand into new territories. Best Business Analytics Agencies in Mumbai presents below  a detailed look at this topic. “The companies that are going to win are the ones who are using data, not guessing,” said Hoyne, who spoke along with other industry and academic experts during a Nov. 17 virtual symposium, “The Use of Analytics and AI in a Post-pandemic World.”

THE GROWING POPULARITY OF DIGITAL MARKETING

As of 2015, the global digital-advertising industry was worth a whopping $154 billion. What’s more, experts expect the industry to hit $260 billion by 2020, translating to a 69 percent growth during that period. In the US alone, digital advertising revenue stood at $50.5 billion in 2015. Additionally, American companies, on average, spent 6.5 percent of their marketing dollars on digital marketing in 2016. It is worth noting that digital marketing comprises mobile internet, display internet, paid-search internet and classified internet. With that in mind, more and more businesses across America are embracing the role of big data in business. In fact, a recent study done in the US shows that 38 percent of organizations place big data among the top five business issues, 26 percent say it is an important challenge and 21 percent believe it is probably the single most effective way to gain a competitive advantage. Additionally, 72 percent of the marketers who took part in this study said digital media skills are vital, whereas 78 percent said such skills have a direct impact in their line of work. All the marketers who took part in the study anticipate that the role of big data in marketing will grow even bigger in the future.

LEVERAGING BIG DATA TO GROW SALES AND REVENUES

Chief marketing officers (CMOs) across the country are increasingly incorporating big data into their decision-making process. For instance, a recent study has revealed that 42 percent of CMOs make marketing decisions based on customer-acquisition numbers, 40.5 percent based on customer insight, 39.1 percent prioritize digital marketing when making such decisions, 35 percent place greater emphasis on customer retention, and 34.5 percent make marketing decisions based on branding. It is worth noting that 46 percent of the polled marketers said that they would use various analytics strategies to gain consumer insight in 2017. Examples of such strategies include location-based targeting, personalization, and an increase in mobile and real-time reporting.

SOURCES OF BUSINESS DATA

Internal and external sources generate 54 percent and 25 percent of business data respectively. The remaining 21 percent of data comes from a combination of the first two sources. The top four ways business leaders source business data are sales and financial transactions (56 percent), leads and sales contacts from customer databases (21 percent), email correspondence (39 percent), and productivity applications (39 percent). Overall, big data boosts a business’s performance, improves customer segmentation and enhances the decision-making process. More specifically, 29 percent of marketers in the US say that marketing analytics has helped them grow their organization’s sales revenues by as much as 26 percent. Additionally, 54 percent of companies using customer analytics have seen their profits grow considerably.

THE THREE LEVELS OF ANALYTICS

The three levels of analytics, according to tech authority Gartner, are descriptive analytics, predictive analytics and prescriptive analytics. Descriptive analysis entails examining data and content manually with the aim of understanding what happened. Some of the techniques that a business can employ to do this include business intelligence and visualizations. Predictive analysis, on the other hand, attempts to predict the outcome by employing techniques such as regression analysis, forecasting and predictive modeling. Finally, prescriptive analysis is an advanced form of analytics that aims to find suitable solutions to the problems identified in the first and second levels of analytics. Some of the techniques employed in predictive analytics include complex event processing, simulation and recommendation engines.

 THE PROS AND CONS OF UTILIZING MARKET ANALYTICS

CONS

One of the main challenges of using market analytics revolves around integrating complex interfaces for accessing data. In fact, only 26 percent of the polled marketers believe that their systems are properly set up to work seamlessly together. The second key challenge revolves around a user’s ability to employ analytics data effectively. On this front, only 28 percent of the polled marketers said they were able to do this. The third key challenge has to do with data verification and validation. In particularly, outdated, inconsistent and irrelevant data poses a big problem to 59 percent of the businesses interviewed.

BENEFITS

According to polled US executives, American companies that invest in big-data initiatives enjoy enhanced decision-making, improved collaboration and sharing of information, as well as greater customer satisfaction and retention. This is particularly important because 72 percent of the polled executives reported increased competition for customers. Market analytics gives businesses an edge over their competitors that have failed to invest in big-data initiatives.

CONCLUSION

The global digital advertising space was worth $154 billion in 2015. By 2020, the industry will be worth over $250 billion, largely driven by big-data initiatives including mobile internet, display internet, paid-search internet and classified internet. For this reason, more and more chief marketing officers are allocating more money to market analytics, with the average American business allocating 6.5 percent of its marketing budget to analytics. Additionally, analytics are increasingly driving marketing decisions. When making such decisions, 40.5 percent of CMOs consider consumer insight, 42 percent consider customer acquisition and 35 percent consider customer retention. Some of the techniques marketers use to gain consumer insight include location-based targeting, customization, and an increase in mobile and real-time reporting. The sources of business data include internal, external and a combination of the two sources. There are three levels of data analytics: descriptive analysis, predictive analysis and prescriptive analysis. The pros of big-data initiatives include better insight and decision-making, greater customer satisfaction and retention, and enhanced collection and dissemination of information. The cons of big-data initiatives include technological challenges, data verification and validation challenges, and the ability of users to interpret and utilize big data effectively.

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WHY SHOULD YOU INVEST IN YOUR WEBSITE

There’s no question about it. To compete in today’s uber competitive market you need a strong online presence. We are not just talking about a DIY-website and a Face book page. Best Website Development services in Mumbai emphasizes upon the need to have a well thought out, optimized marketing strategy that includes online, social and mobile components because this is where 90% of your consumers are searching. In fact, the average consumer will consult 10.4 sources before making a purchase. And for the first time ever, digital ad spend will surpass traditional marketing efforts.

If you run a local business, regardless of your geographic target area, you’d better be thinking online, social and mobile. The first component – and perhaps the most essential – of this strategy is your company website. Here are 7 signs you need to invest in a website that accomplishes your marketing goals:

1.  YOUR WEBSITE IS THE PERFECT PLACE TO SHOWCASE YOUR INDUSTRY AUTHORITY

While you don’t want to change with every new trend or piece of technology that comes along, you need to stay authoritative in your industry and relevant to your market. Your website is the perfect place to showcase that authority. If done well, you can earn the trust of potential customers, show your long-term value to existing clients, and become a valuable resource to your stakeholders.

You may be asking yourself, how can my small business website showcase authority in a way that’s good for the organization, but doesn’t come across as boastful? Here are a few straightforward tips.

 Use high quality images. Stock images are okay, but quality, authentic photos of your business are even better.

 Ensure everything works. Your website may be in need of some TLC. Often, we work with clients who don’t realize areas of their website aren’t functioning properly. Broken links, images that don’t load, and forms which don’t function are big deterrents to establishing authority.

 Case studies and awards. Showcasing honest results, awards, and testimonials from real clients and customers of your business goes a long way in building trust and establishing authority.

 Create content. This will not just help with optimizing your site for search engines, but will also serve as a useful resource to those in the buying process for your industry. When you share honest and customer-centric content, you can quickly establish your business as an authority for the industry.

 2.  YOUR CUSTOMERS EXPECT YOU TO HAVE A WEBSITE

Year by year, technology and our lives become increasingly intertwined. Watches, phones, tablets, laptops. Computers are everywhere and your customers are using them to become more informed than past generations of consumers.

You want to be where your customers are, right? 87% of shoppers begin their purchase process with online research, a trend that continues to grow. If you don’t have a website, or if your current site is out of date or has functional problems, you’re going to have a hard time bringing in new business or even keeping past customers coming back.

 3.  YOUR COMPETITORS HAVE WEBSITES

This is simple. Your business is competing for the attention of the market and you know people search online before buying. If your competitors have websites, but you don’t, you’re losing business to them simply because you’re not visible.

 Curious as to why “ABC Attorneys” down the street always end up getting the client? It’s because they’ve established authority and trust through their website and they show up on Google.

4.  YOU OWN YOUR WEBSITE

Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google My Business. These are important digital channels for your business, but don’t be fooled. You don’t own those profiles. At any moment in time, all the work you’ve put into your Instagram profile and posts could disappear should something happen to these organizations. 

 You need a well-rounded plan for how to market your business in the digital world, and while multiple channels are often needed, the only one you fully own and control is your website. 

 Why wouldn’t you invest the most into the only online presence you fully control?

5.  WEBSITES HELP ATTRACT NEW LOCAL LEADS

Your website, coupled with some basic SEO planning and implementation, is a powerful way to attract new leads for your local market. 

Are you a restaurant operator unsure if spending $6,000+ this year on a website will pay off? Assuming you find a web design company that builds with SEO at the forefront of the process, you’ll have invested that money, not wasted it. You’ll be able to start ranking highly across local online searches, and recouping the cost of your website with new customer sales.

 This seems like a good place to add a quick disclaimer: No amount of money you spend on marketing (i.e., website, Google Ads, social media, billboards etc.) will help grow your business if you have a bad product, service, or experience for your customers. You may be able to bring that new sale in, but ensuring a customer has an amazing interaction with your business once they’re in the door is more important than any of these marketing channels.

 6.  WEBSITES HELP YOUR SMALL BUSINESS ACCESS NEW AUDIENCES

In addition to helping your business grow by earning more trust among local communities, your website can open the door to new cities and customers. Those handcrafted products may sell very well in your city or among your target market, but why not leverage a website to introduce your products to buyers located farther away or in previously inaccessible markets?

 Not sure how to do that?

 The first and most important step is to create content on your website that features products worth sharing and talking about.

After that, a good content marketing plan and PPC advertising on Google, Facebook, Amazon etc. will help get you in front of the customers you’re targeting.

 7.   YOUR WEBSITE IS THE HUB FROM WHICH ALL YOUR MARKETING FLOWS

Your website should be central in your strategy to attract, educate, convert, and retain your customers. You don’t just want to get someone to your site one time and hope they convert to a customer. Create a website that is a hub from which all your marketing efforts flow, both online and offline (think live events, relevant conferences, sales promotions, and other limited time engagements).

  Conclusion

Investing in a quality website can increase your business, while cutting costs and going for the cheaper option can hurt you more than it can help you. Always remember, you're in control of what your business does, but the consumer is in control of whether they're going to do business with you!