September 2021 - Small Business Marketing Stragtegies

How to Create My Own Website for Business, if you’re asking yourself that question join the crowd. Covid 19 has everyone scrambling to get in position. However, the jury was in before the pandemic, which is that Business websites are a must. When engaging with a business, over 63% of customers use a company’s official website Now since that's established, we’ll show you how you can easily build your own website for business, in a few hours. In fact, not just any small business website, rather a site that will boost sales, showcase your products and services, and assist your site to show up on Google. (Higher ranking takes time) Tips on Creating a Website for a Business As data begin to drizzle in, it indicates that those businesses that quickly pivot from brick and mortar to click and brick, because of the pandemic, not only survived the crisis but thrived. In fact, 30% of today’s customers don’t even consider you as a legitimate business unless you have a company website. Further, in 2018, 50% of small businesses had a website, that number rose to 71% in 2021. In essence, the word is out, creating a website for your business is no longer an option, it’s mandatory. Over 30% of customers don’t even consider a business if it doesn’t have any website. Within this post we'll discuss, one of the best website builders for small business beginners, website design ideas for business owners, and website content ideas for beginners. We will also break down one of the most overlooked areas of website development, which is strategic planning. Stick and stay because once you're finished reading this you'll be ready for Freddy. The truth is, building your website isn't as difficult as you may think, rather yet, on the other hand, it’s more critical than you can imagine! Let’s dive into the meat and potatoes of how you can build an effective website for your small business. All things considered, your newly designed website will act as a lead magnet, boost sales, drive engagement, build your brand, and continuously advertise your business all while you're Sleeping! We’ll cover: How to Create Your Own Website for Business Website Design Ideas of Beginners Website Content Ideas for Beginners Website SEO Optimization for Beginners How to Optimize your Website for Mobile Devices How to Optimize your Website for Google Search Staggering Stats 38% of website visitors judge your website by its aesthetics 40% of visitors will click off a slow loading website 50% of your visitors will not tolerate a poor user experience 50% of all eCommerce revenue is generated from a mobile device 70% of traffic is directed t through Google and is the most relevant How to Create My Own Website for Business First things first, let’s start at the planning phase. When starting any endeavor, we should start with the end in mind. Building your small business website lacking long-term thinking will have you back to the drawing within another few years. Here we’ll begin by discussing the two more popular types of websites: drag and drop out-the-box Ie. Wix or DIY like WordPress. To emphasize, a well throughout plan should include your website design, content marketing, SEO optimization, and mobile-friendly features. As a matter of fact, not considering those elements is like building your dream house too small or without your desired features. Let’s get started, listed are 9 steps to building your site: Choose a domain name Select an email address Pick website builder Select a template Add content Incorporate needed apps SEO optimized Confirm mobile-friendly Publish, monitor, and update #1 Choose a Domain Name Unsurprisingly, choosing your domain is the first critical element to building your business website. Your domain name should be unique to differentiate your business from your competitors. If you are branding yourself or a company name, then your process is easy. Conversely, choosing the wrong domain can make or break your business. Importantly, your URL (domain name) is the first impression of your business. It should be SEO optimized and, it should be a “.com” extension. Listed are a Few Other Advantages: Keep it Short and Memorable Steer Clear of Numbers and Hyphens Make it Simple and Easy to Pronounce Make Sure It’s Easy to Type Opt for “Niche” Keywords That Reflect Your Website #2 Choose an Email Address Your email selection is very similar to picking your domain. The best email addresses are descriptive, easy to remember, and relevant. If you are branding yourself, rearranging your name or choosing a nickname would work. As an example: Info@PYTalkBiz.com the bottom line is to remember KISS, keep it silly simple. #3 Pick a Website Builder or DIY Fortunately, building a website is not as difficult as it once was. More compelling, we don’t have to know how to write code or any of the other complicated things that were once required. After all, if you choose to use a site builder, they are simple and easy to use. Conversely, they’re not as customizable. Plus, those platforms have addons. Therefore, you will have to watch carefully because those addons can add up quickly. Listed are a few drag and drop website builders: Wix Web.com BigCommerce Alternatively, you can try a WordPress website which makes up 38% of all sites on the internet. As a matter of fact, Fortune 500 companies and news channels such as CNN Digital, Time, Enterprise, Vogue, NASA, Jay-Z, and others, all use WordPress. Why, WordPress is very Intrusive, Scalable, Customizable, and Easy to Use. #4 Select a Template Your next step to build your site is to choose a template or theme. If you are confused, no worries, I used to be as well. Similarly, choosing a theme is like selecting a floor plan when building a house. It’s a rendering of what your site will look like once built. Equally so, website builders and WordPress have plenty of templates to choose from. Notably, the templates/themes are customizable, which allows you to change almost every component or element. The photo below are examples of templates. #5 Add Content Asking what do I need to put on my website? ....Content. Note: you aren’t just writing anything. Rather, your content should be strategic. Explicitly, the content marketing strategy should have been discussed during your business planning stage. In brief, your content will serve a few purposes. Undoubtedly, you are writing to add value to your visitors, display products, or services, or provide helpful resources. Additionally, you’re writing to please Mr. Google. I know, Google thinks they run the world. We all know girls run this Mother #$%^&!!!!...LOL!!! Listed are a few websites content tips: Plan what content you’ll cover Talk specifically to your demographic Know your target market pain points Establish your CTA (call-to-action) #6 Incorporate required apps Similarly, to phone apps, websites have apps and plugins. Although WordPress popularized plugins, they’re universal and there's one for everything. Equally important, plugins help to update, modernize, assist, or protect your website. I usually use WordPress because of this reason. These plugins are easily updated via the admin section and email notifications. Reading from the same book but on a different page, speaking of plugins, Yoast is the #1 Most popular plugin. It’s designed to help you learn SEO. Within its’ unique marketing strategy, it instructs what's needed to SEO optimize your site. Although plugins are massively helpful, most are also free. Nevertheless, there are a few that cost but are worth the money, especially if you‘re an SEO or site builder newbie! Yoast has a free and paid version, great for beginners. A few of the Most Common Plugins and Apps Yoast plugin SEO Squirrly SEO Optimized Image Redirection WPTouch Mobile Plugin WP Rocket AddToAnyShareButtons Local Search SEO Contact Page iThemes Security Amelia Booking Google Analytics #7 SEO Optimized Search engine optimization (SEO) is critical if you are interested in generating organic traffic. Sincerely, who doesn’t want to show up at the top of the SERPs (search engine ranking page)? This means that your website is displayed when your visitor types in their request. Not to confuse this with them typing in your specific URL and your site shows up. Surely, your site will show up if you type in your URL because it’s unique to you. On another note: Keyword research is vital at this point as well, finding your target market's exact keywords will improve your SEO. There are keyword research tools free and paid available. As an illustration: There’s a big difference in search terms for pre-owned vs. pre-certified cars. Performing proper keyword research will help you to choose which term is easier to rank for. Another example, let’s say you sell refrigerator gaskets, your potential customer types in Google’s search bar, “where is the best place to buy refrigerator gaskets in Raleigh, NC”? When this happens, you want your business to show up… Right? The Gasket Guy website is #3. Now you understand why organic traffic is the highest converting traffic source. Those visitors have a need and aren’t just kicking tires, or looky-loos. They’re looking for a specific product at a particular location. YOU CAN'T beat organic traffic, that’s why SEO is vital. ***Note, SEO is also the slowest traffic generating source to get moving. Depending on your target market and keywords, it can take from 6 months – 2yrs or longer before reaching the first page of google. For this reason, is why businesses spend thousands of dollars on SEO marketing services. However, there are a few ways around emptying out your wallet or vacation account. Naturally, if you’re a DIY’er or have time, you can learn SEO, as I did back in 2009, it took a minute but it’s not that hard, it just takes patience. To learn more about how to improve “SEO” <- Click here. Luckily, today there are many more resources available, you can improve your skills with plugins, courses, and online resources. SEO is worth it’s weighed in GOLD! Two other popular alternatives are paid ads and social media marketing, which you can incorporate while waiting for SEO rankings to kick in. #8 Confirm Mobile-friendly Times are changing and mobile search is leading the way. More of our customers are searching using their mobile devices than ever before. 50% of all eCommerce sales originate from a mobile device. Hmmm. What does that tell us, eye-opening, that our websites have to be mobile-friendly? Since knowing that our website must be mobile-friendly, one of the simplest ways is via a responsive design theme. A responsive theme will automatically adjust the height, width, and resolution to fit various screen sizes. Keep in mind with a responsive design your content remains the same just the webpage adjusts to the mobile device. Couple that decision with choosing a top-notch hosting company and you’re cooking with grease. Listed are a few website design tips for beginners or pros to enable a mobile-friendly website. Don’t Use Flash Although Adobe stopped supporting flash over a year ago, some site owners still use it. None of our major search engines supports it, I.e., Chrome, Google, Safari, Mozilla, or Firefox. Responsive Design Responsive sites have better SEO quality, this allows Google to easily index, explore or manage your content more efficiently, regardless of the device type. Enable Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Wondering what AMP pages are, this is a technique that seeks to speed up your mobile site load page time. The framework decreases certain HTML and other languages to smaller data, which speeds up the page load times. Choose Top-notch Web Hosting Selecting first-rate web hosting is one of the little big things you can do. Unfortunately, the uninitiated site builders who are trying to save money will opt for shared hosting because of the price. Yes, it’s cheaper but it’s shared. Likened shared hosting to living in some apartment complexes, if your neighbors have bugs eventually, you will too. You may want to spend a little extra to ensure you get the best hosting possible. (Maybe another 20 bucks) Reduce images Sizing your images is paramount, for desktop and especially for mobile devices. Not only that but Google will punish/penalize you for large images. Using an image resizer is a plugin that EVERY website needs. Too large images 100% slows down your page speed on any platform. Lastly, large images' slow page speed, slow loading pages, hurts your SEO! Over 37% of all the websites on the Internet use WordPress, so your small business website will be in good company. Before moving on I think now is the perfect time to offer some recommendations based on my personal experience. Of the suggested products, I’m an affiliate of some of these but I think there're superb products and great prices including FREE! All in all, I think you’ll find them helpful and efficient. We all agree that building a business website is one of the most critical components of your marketing channel. Additionally, your site instantly differentiates your business from your competitors. Getting this right could dwarf your competition. On the other hand, messing up can put a chokehold on your profits. To point out, if you lack the time to build your own website, you may want to consider a website builder or hire a web designer. Equally worth mentioning, throwing thousands of dollars to a web designer isn’t the answer either. To demonstrate, view digital marketing Garyvee or Neil Patel’s websites. Did you know they get close to a million views per month, with an average aesthetic website? Yes, they are superstar marketers now, but they started the way we all start, from the bottom. A website is one of the most critical components of your marketing channel. Google algorithm is the same for everyone. You should be able to build or purchase a responsive, SEO-optimized website with all the bells and whistles for $1000-$1500, depending on your niche, maybe less. This includes your email autoresponder, apps for appointment booking, plugins, forms, and content creation. OK… recommendations: Webflow Empowers designers to build professional, custom websites in a completely visual canvas with no code; start for FREE… Yoast SEO - Absolute must-have, the free or paid version Short-Pixel - This cost only a few dollars but an ABSOLUTE MUST-HAVE! SEMrush – Wanting to know Everything about your competitors? Here’s what the big-time marketers are using. Superb for identifying your keywords. Email Marketing Automation - Automate your follow-up messages, events, and sales and promotion. Premier Web Host: Top-notch web hosting with minimum down-time Google Analytics - Most marketers use this one (it’s FREE), furthermore most apps and management software tools have analytics software. built-in. As the saying goes if you’re not online you’re not in business to paraphrase Bill Gates. Publish, monitor and update Finally, you can publish your site, remember you can schedule your content release. Google loves order and consistency. So, if you have a goal to write one new piece of content a week, 4 per month you can pre-schedule your post. Remember Google is systemized and wants us to be also. Also schedule a time to monitor your site for comments, questions, yearly updates, events, holidays, and when content is dated and no longer relevant. Revenue from mobile commerce sales in 2021 should pass $3.5 trillion, 3.5 times more than in 2016. Website Design Ideas of Beginners Again, you don’t have to be a web-designer pro to build a website. On the flip side, you can be a website designer beginner and succeed. Notedly, by using the ideas in this post you can build a site that grabs Google and your customer’s attention. Simply stated, the prettiest website doesn’t always win. There are some butt-ugly sites that gain millions of site views per month. The easiest way to design your site especially for beginners, color-blind people, or those who are less coordinated is to use a template or theme. As a matter of fact, you can look through 100’s of themes to get a general idea of what it's like. All in All, take into consideration your end goal. What is the main purpose of your website? Success Is Sweet For Lammes Candies After Bringing 135-Year-Old Business Online Website Content Ideas for Beginners Being new to anything requires help. If you’re looking for content for your website, one of the first things you’ll need to revisit is your business plan. Viewing your plans will offer a clear, concise path to what type of content to add to your site. Secondly, check your competitors, this will help with identifying the target market so will SEMrush. Thirdly, add your basic pages. About me- visitors always want to know why they should listen to you Contact page – makes it easy for visitors to contact you Reviews and testimonials – social proof, this tells what others are saying about you. Home page – this tells the purpose and set the tone of your website Privacy Page- this is a brief write up about how you will protect your visitor’s privacy Disclaimer Page – any disclaimer needed such as an ad or affiliate links should be mentioned. Website SEO Optimization for Beginners The hardest part about search engine optimization is that it seems mysterious, difficult, and has a different twist for many marketers. We talked a lot about SEO optimization earlier, but here are a few more tips to better optimize your website. Search engine optimization starts with on-page and off-page optimization. Here are the most important elements to properly set up your website. On-page optimization: What is on-page SEO, well the term “on-page” is a hint. On-page SEO is a systematic process of setting up the internal elements of your web page. On-page optimization includes: Meta Tags URL Images Page speed High Relevant Website Content Meta Tags: Consist of the title tag, description details, and keywords. Although many SEO experts are touting that keywords don’t play a huge role in the metadata. Get full details here to improve SEO Off-page optimization Off-page optimizations are the tactics or link-building strategies performed off-page. Basically, this is where you intentionally solicit the approval of others. Google doesn’t care how much you say you’re great, they only listen when others say you’re great. The key is to connect with higher authority websites. Just like in the real world, once a non-celebrity connects or has been seen with a celebrity, that gives them instant credibility. The first five results that show up on Google get 67% of all clicks. 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic search. (BrightEdge) 92.96% of global traffic comes from Google search, Google Images, and Google Maps. (Sparktoro) SEO drives 1000%+ more traffic than organic social media. (BrightEdge) 69.7% of search queries contain four words or more. (Ahrefs) How to Optimize your Website for Mobile Devices Mobile traffic is increasing year after year to the tune of 3;1. There are 3 billion smartphones and 1.3 billion who own a computer. Experts expect smartphones to supersede desktops and tablets in the very near future. As we are known and love, our smartphones are versatile, convenient, and are getting smarter and cheaper, which will make them even more accessible. That being said if your website isn’t mobile-optimized, you’re missing out! Equally more devastating, if your website is not mobile-friendly, Google will rank it lower on its SERP, which may cause significant traffic loss. Go here to test your site: website is mobile-friendly. Here are a few simple steps to ensure a mobile-friendly website. 7 Website Optimization Strategies for Mobile Devices 1) Choose a Responsive Template or Theme 2) Increase your page Speed Loading Time 3) Select a First-Class minimally Down-Time Web Host 4) Build a Mobile App 5) Add (Amp’s) Accelerated Mobile Pages 6) Revamp and or Decrease Your Pop-Ups for Mobile Devices 7) Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Tool to Test your Site How to Optimize your Website for Google Search We talked about this earlier as well. Following the on-page optimization strategies will start the optimization process for Google Search. If your website is properly set up, Google will eventually send bots to check it out. Google’s web crawlers would find your site especially if you followed the on-page SEO basic tips. As a reminder reading the article on how to improve SEO you'll get specific details regarding how to write your meta tags and descriptions. Once Google crawls your site if you interlink your internal pages, that makes it easier for the bots to find the other pages on your site. Lastly, you can check Google Console to see if your website has been indexed in Google. “In the post-Covid world, having a digital presence for your business is arguably more important than having a physical presence, at least in the case of some industries. And one of the simplest ways to have an online presence is by building a website. It is inexpensive yet so effective.” Madhav Goenka , CMO at FrazileMedia, Top 7 Reasons Why it’s critical to have a Business Website in 2021 A Business Website Can Boost Sales Easily Increase Expansion Extend Business Hours to 24/7 Provides Instant Credibility and Trust Can Strategically Target your Ideal Client Offers the Quickest Way to Display Products and Services Assist with Local Online Search and SEO Conclusion: Building a business doesn’t have to be hard or money-grubbing. However, there are some must-haves, including the fact that business websites are the new business norm. If you're committed to having a complete marketing mix then setting up your website according to our basic best practices, and following the website design tips for beginners, will indeed place your company in front of hundreds of raving fans. There weren't any secrets within this post, we just provide specific steps that will without a doubt help you to build your own business website, get indexed, and ranked in Google. Now that we’ve made it clear why it’s necessary to build your business website and expressed how imperative it is to make it mobile-friendly, it’s time for you to act. Recap: Choose your URL- Short and Simple Select Drag and Drop or WordPress Website Builder Perform Keyword Research Pick a Responsive Template or Theme Add Content SEO Optimized for Desktop and Mobile Device Choose an Email Autoresponder Incorporate Google Analytics Frankly, it’s easy to create your own website. Get excited because a perfectly executed well- planned site can put your business on Google maps and beyond with quickness. If we missed key pointers, please comment. Enjoy the article? Please Tweet here @pytalkbiz To Your Success! P.Y.

Month: September 2021

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)