Small business websites aren’t nearly as plentiful as small businesses, but websites are a crucial part of running any business.

Whether it’s just you or you have a dozen employees, your business needs a website. It’s not optional anymore if you want to stay competitive.

Think of a website as a partner that helps you to build and grow your business. When you look at it that way, it’s easy to see that investing in a website is a smart business move.

1. Works For You 24/7

Is your business open 24/7? Do you stay up 24/7? Of course not! Small business websites are open 24/7 and they continue to drive business to your door even while you’re sleeping or spending time with your family and friends. You never know when someone might be searching for the products you’re selling at three in the morning. If you have a website, they may see you as a result, check out your products and be waiting at the door when you open the next day.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a tool that works for your all the time? You could even sell your products online as well and make money while you sleep.

2. Aids With Branding

Every business needs a brand, including small businesses. Your brand is your reputation and a strong brand helps build customer loyalty. Part of branding means having a website. It gives you a platform to tell your customers and potential customers more about what your business is all about. You’re able to share your own unique message and create a voice that’s uniquely yours.

3. Helps Customers Research You

More and more customers are choosing to do a little research online before making a purchase in a physical store. They could even be inside your store, but prefer to research you a little more before buying. Customers love webrooming now, which means they check out your products or your business before making a purchase. If they can’t find you online, they might not see you as a reputable business. With 69% of customers webrooming, you need an online presence to help customers find you and choose you to make their final purchase.

4. Works As A Marketing Tool

You might see your website as just a few pages of contact information, details on the company and pictures of your products. Take a deeper look and you’ll see that small business websites are powerful marketing tools. For instance, word-of-mouth advertising is valuable, but once that advertising goes online, it spreads further and faster.

A website gives your customers something to share with others. If they loved the experience, they might share a link to your site with all their friends. If you’re blogging, a post could be shared among thousands of people, leading to new customers. All of this is because you have a website.

5. Stand Out From Competitors

Is there any business out there that doesn’t want to stand out from the competition? No. The question is – how? Small business websites not only set you apart, but they help you look like a bigger business. A study by GoDaddy shows that 60% of UK micro-businesses (5 employees or less) didn’t have a website. Of those businesses, 54% were afraid of experiencing no growth within the next 3-5 years.

If the majority of your competition isn’t online then that’s where you need to be. The same study found that 60% of small businesses with a website were expecting as much as a 50% increase in revenue. The growth is even better if you sell at least some of your products online or offer special discounts or promotions for services.

6. Stay In Contact

Even when you have customers, it’s sometimes hard to keep them coming back. Don’t always be so quick to blame yourself. Outside of bad service, one of the top reasons customers don’t come back is they just forget to. For instance,  a hair salon might remind customers to come back in for a trim every 6-8 weeks. With a website, customers can sign up for reminders, special offers or a weekly/monthly newsletter. Better engagement with your customers helps keep your business on their mind.

Small business websites also allow you to stay in contact by providing contact details. Providing a contact form, an address and phone number makes it easy for customers to ask questions or find out more about when you’re open.

Small Business Websites Help You Grow

Small businesses websites help your business grow. By having a website and updating it regularly, you’re showing the world you’re just as important as the big businesses out there. Go ahead and get online, build your brand and boost revenue.

Are you ready to introduce your small business to the world? Contact Darren today to get started. 

Image: Rob Sarmiento

Many businesses spend the majority of their marketing budgets on innovative marketing strategies that don’t yield favorable results.

The problem is an app’s target audience likely still prefers more traditional strategies. Of course, it helps to put a unique twist on the old, but older methods still work quite well.

When it comes to marketing your new app, look to the methods that have worked for years. They’re effective for a reason. Mobile users are used to these methods and connect better with them.

1. Social Media

Social media might not seem traditional, but social media marketing has been around for over a decade. Targeted ads, promoted posts and social only discounts allow you to market an app to millions. Think of it as the digital version of placing an ad in a newspaper. Come up with creative looking ads and headlines to make this strategy more effective.

2. Ask For Reviews

Mobile users are more likely to trust a new app if they see an unbiased review for it. It’s difficult to gain reviews in an app marketplace if no one knows about your app yet. Many high authority sites focus on reviewing the latest mobile devices and apps. Some focus on strictly Android or iOS. Ask the site owners if they’ll review your app. Try to schedule a review as early as possible to build buzz about your app.

Alternately, offer a free download of your app to a set number of users on social media. Ask for an honest review in exchange for the app.

3. Television Ads

Television ads are still a highly effective way to market your new app. While many apps haven’t tried this approach yet, the ones who have are seeing a higher number of initial installs and an increased number of sessions per user. For instance, Ucool’s Heroes Charge boosted their install numbers by over 4% right after their ad. Though the number of active users dropped not long after, the number of sessions per user increased by 69%.

Some apps have taken a slightly different approach by paying to have their app mentioned in a TV show. The key is to make sure the app mention fits into the show itself without seeming like a blatant product placement.

An alternative to standard TV ads is to place ads on YouTube videos. This is one way to make sure your ad is seen and not skipped over or ignored while your audience gets up during commercial breaks.

4. Offer Coupons

Old fashioned coupons and discounts are yet to lose steam when it comes to marketing. For instance, an app for locating restaurants might offer a 50% off coupon to specific restaurants for all new users. If the app allows the user to shop, a loyalty program for purchasing within the app or entering details about the purchase also works.

Starbucks uses the loyalty method to increase how many users pay via the app. Thanks to the rewards program, the mobile payment app accounts for over 16% of the company’s weekly sales.

5. Market At Events

Large mobile conferences across the world give app developers a chance to promote themselves in front of potential users and reviewers. It does require a more traditional approach of actually meeting with users face to face. For apps targeting a wider audience, especially games or innovative news, weather or shopping apps, might find this strategy more effective than smaller, more targeted apps, such as a local news app.

6. Print Ads

Despite what you might read online, print isn’t dead. Print magazines and newspapers are still read by millions, especially the generations that grew up with print media as their main source of information. Placing ads in highly circulated magazines and newspapers boosts awareness of your app. Offering a way for users to enter a code to get a discounted download or in-app purchase could further boost your number of downloads.

7. Partner With Other Apps

Businesses have been partnering with other businesses for centuries. The same strategy is still useful today for app marketing. Games are one of the more prominent examples of this approach. For instance, a developer with a new game might partner with another developer to advertise their app. When users click on the ad, they receive a special offer such as free in-app currency or exclusive features.

For other types of apps, simply advertising within other apps works well. Another strategy is to exchange recommendations with complimentary apps. By recommending each other, both apps benefit.

Conclusion

App marketing doesn’t have to be overly complicated. Putting your own unique spin on traditional marketing is all you really need to do. Focus on creating a more traditional marketing strategy as your app is being developed. Then, you’re ready to tell the world about it as soon as it’s released.

Want to make sure you have a high quality app to market? Contact StuartMedia for professional app development that your audience will love.

Image: Jason Howie

Landing pages are must for many websites, yet they’re still not used as often as they should be.

Adding a landing page to your WordPress site could help increase conversions for a new product or increase newsletter signups. With the right design and content, it could become one of your best marketing tools.

Once you understand how to use a landing page, it’s not hard to incorporate it into your site. Use one or use multiple pages to really drive sales to all your products.

Landing Pages Explained

A landing page is designed to make a visitor take some form of action. It could be to visit a specific page, buy a specific product or share content with friends. Whatever the purpose is, the page is basically one large call to action. They’re designed to help encourage your traffic to take action.

The perfect page is a combination of design and content. While you can take care of the content portion, you may prefer to hire a developer or use a special WordPress plugin to help create the page itself. It may only be a single page, but with the right content, a strong call to action and the right design, it can be the most effective page on your site.

Takeaway: If you want to increase email signups, get more subscribers to a membership program or sell more of your latest product, ensure you have a landing page. For best results, hire a developer to take care of the page itself. It’ll look more professional and all you have to do is fill in the content.

Keep It Simple

Many landing pages fail because they push too much at visitors. Pages should be simple. Content is important, but it should be limited to just the essentials. If a page is full of videos, images and paragraphs, visitors will likely move on. Too much clutter and you’ll drive visitors away. Plenty of white space with a few vital elements and you’ve got a winner. The most important aspects to include are:

• Catchy, but descriptive headline – Think promotional
• Two to four short paragraphs explaining the product or offer – These can also be bullet points
• One or more images or a video – Use a slideshow for multiple images and keep videos short
• Testimonials if possible
• Bulleted list summarizing the entire page – Keep it to quick, short sentences
• Sign up or purchase form – Make this obvious so visitors take action

Overall, this is the perfect formula for a landing page. Simple always works best over cluttered.

Takeaway: Keep your content short and to the point. Work with your developer to leave plenty of white space between elements and ensure your message stands out to visitors.

Creating A Landing Page

You have four main options for adding a landing page to your site. You could build it yourself if you know how to build advanced WordPress pages. If you’re not completely comfortable doing it on your own, you could also install a free plugin. The two most popular and easiest to use include WordPress Landing Pages and Parallax Gravity.

The other two options will cost you, but help you build more effective landing pages. Free plugins and tools are useful, but premium tools give you more features and control over the layout. You’ll still need some design knowledge to get the most from these. The final option is to hire someone to do it. Professional developers already know exactly how to design landing pages you’ll be proud to showcase on your site.

Takeaway: Free options are great for designing very basic landing pages. For the best and most effective page, hire someone who understands what visitors want most from a page so you’ll get more conversions as a result.

Placing The Page

How you place the page determines how well visitors respond to it. Consider the following before adding the page to your site:

• Do you want it separate from your main site? You could remove navigation so visitors only see that page or have a separate domain or sub-domain.
• How do you link to it from your site? Many place a banner or link on their homepage or sidebar. The link should be noticeable to be effective.
• How should you target visitors? Some sites use a pop-up on the first page a visitor sees while others only show pop-ups on certain pages or through ads on other sites.

Takeaway: Plan how you want to use the page in advance. Depending on the methods you choose, you may need a developer to implement the page for you.

Conclusion

If you’re not thrilled with your current conversions, adding landing pages could be the solution you’re looking for. Work alongside a developer to plan the best possible page design and strategy for targeting your visitors. Start with just one page to test and you will notice a difference.

Ready to start using a landing page on your WordPress site? Contact StuartMedia today to get started. 

Image: Rob Enslin

Microsites are a great way to keep a visitor focused on one specific topic, theme or product.

The key to creating a good microsite is ensuring all the essential elements are included while providing the visitor with an eye catching experience.

With the right elements, this type of site is a highly effective marketing technique for products, causes, events and more.

Purpose Of A Microsite

One common mistake in microsite design is trying to cram too much into the site. Microsites have an extremely narrow focus and are often only a few pages. The purpose is to draw attention to one thing without any distractions. Think of it as a single product page out of an entire ecommerce site.

Takeaway: Keep the focus as narrow as possible. Professional designers are highly recommended as they understand the purpose of microsites and know how to create stunning without any clutter.

Using Interactive Content

The stand out element of a great microsite is interactive content. These sites aren’t like a normal website. They’re designed specifically to engage the user and encourage them to interact with the elements on the screen. For instance, a microsite for an album release might have a CD cover the user clicks to open. They might then be able to play samples of the songs on a CD background.

When creating a microsite, think more in terms of an app versus a normal site. Include elements for the user to click, slide, press or move around. The more users can interact, the longer they’ll stay on the site and absorb the information. There’s no end to how interactive a microsite can be. The more creative it is, the more likely the site is to be shared. The idea is to make the site come alive and feel almost tangible versus a simple page on a screen.

Many microsites use advanced JavaScript and CSS3 for a more interactive experiences. This enables things like simple page to page transitions to in-depth experiences that make a user feel like they’re part of the site, every microsite needs interactive elements.

Takeaway: Add at least one interactive feature per page. All interactive elements should seem natural and work well with the site’s purpose. To ensure optimal interactivity without slowing down the site or making it appear cluttered, hire a professional developer for smooth interactions visitors will love.

Adding Social Elements

The object of a microsite is to market something. Social media buttons are crucial. This allows visitors to quickly share the microsite with their friends and family. Make the buttons stand out, but design them so they fit with the microsite’s theme. This makes the entire site look more uniform.

Takeaway: Add social share buttons to the microsite. For a custom design, hire an expert developer for buttons that truly stand out.

Engaging Design

Microsites by nature are visually stimulating. They use design elements that draw in a user quickly and keep them on the site to further explore. For a good microsite, it’s important to focus on four main design elements – images, videos, fonts and navigation. All of these should remain consistent throughout the site for a more professional look.

Images, specifically large background or large center images, grab a visitor’s attention immediately. Pictures of products and events are often used. With video, it’s about making content more engaging while saving space. Since the site is small, a video explains far more in less space than a long article. Plus, it’s quick and easy for visitors to digest.

To make the site easy to read and navigate, use large fonts that stand out on the screen. Keep navigation simple and straight forward with buttons, large links, scrolling guides or clickable images (helps with interactivity).

Takeaway: Design is important with microsites. Use eye catching images, entertaining videos, large fonts and simple navigation to make the site beautiful and easy to use.

Conclusion

When a microsite contains all of these elements, it’s more professional looking and more likely to be shared. These sites are great extensions to main websites to market anything a business does or sells. Overall, keep them simple, visually stimulating and uniform throughout.

Need a microsite that immediately attracts attention and increases sales? Contact Stuartmedia today for the microsite expertise your business needs.

Image: Felipe Skroski