Your development choices are about much more than functionality, it’s about the experience potential customers will have when interacting with your business online. From your choice of colour palette to your page layout, development elements work together to provide a consistent experience across your website and digital marketing efforts.

Below are six ways that web development directly impacts your digital marketing efforts.

1. Choice of colour

Choosing the right colour is crucial to building a strong brand identity. It’s essential to understand who your target audience is and how your brand will be perceived through the colour palette you choose for your website and marketing. Colours can evoke emotions and subconscious feelings. What are the feelings you want people to associate with your brand? For example, green can connote a sense of nature and health, while black has serious connotations and is associated with luxury.

It’s essential to define a set colour palette and tone for your website, chopping and changing on each page can cause inconsistency that damages the reputation of your brand. Be consistent across your website and marketing to create a unified and consistent image of your brand. Your choice of colour will define the personality and core values of your brand.

2. Trust

What are the goals of your marketing efforts? Most businesses would say that increasing sales, revenue, and the loyalty of your customers are desired outcomes. While social media, paid ads, and email campaigns can all help to achieve these goals, having a trustworthy website is crucial. The trustworthiness of your website is based on two factors: security and reputation.

Security is about ensuring your website is safe to use, your payment methods are secure, and your user’s data is protected. You might know that your website is secure, but don’t assume that visitors will think the same without seeing some proof:

• Make sure your website is HTTPS secured.
• Include a GDPR opt-in form.
• Show the logos of your trusted payment options – PayPal, Mastercard, Visa.

Reputation is about ensuring your visitors that you are a reputable business and that you stand by your products and services. You can achieve this through:

• Simplifying your development.
• Offering money back guarantees.
• Testimonials from your happy customers.
• Increasing the speed and usability of your website.

3. Consistency

Magicdust, experienced in web development Sydney wide, states that “successful brands are built on consistency”. You should be consistent with your messaging, advertising, and your web development. Maintain uniformity and familiarity by using a similar colour palette, graphics, page layout, and formatting across your whole website.

Not only will this improve the consistency of how your brand appears, but it will also improve how your website performs. Reusing graphics will make your website faster to load, while a consistent navigation and page layout enhances the usability of your site.

4. Conversion

Building a website that converts your visitors into paying customers needs more than just following best practices. It requires testing and optimization. If your website fails to convert visitors, the rest of your digital marketing efforts will be squandered. There are two different types of conversion:

Prospect to lead:

If you’re selling a service or high-price product, you’ll need to turn your visitors into leads before making a sale. By providing a regular newsletter or quality gated content, you can give something of value to your visitors in exchange for them signing up to your email list. When a user signs up – that’s a conversion.

Lead to customer:

The next step is to convert that new lead into a paying customer. The user might have signed up to your email list, read your blog posts, or responded to your paid ads, and when they finally decide to make a purchase – that’s a conversion.

The following elements all contribute to your conversion rate:

• Additional costs – be clear and upfront about fees and shipping costs.
• Complicated checkout – make your checkout pages as smooth and easy to use as possible.
• Trust – if people don’t trust you, they won’t buy from you. Make use of testimonials and reviews to provide social proof.
• Website errors – a clunky development or website crash will cause users to question the credibility of your business.
• Landing pages – make sure your landing pages are distraction-free and laser-focused on getting the user to convert.

5. Web development and SEO

People use search engines to research products and services before they make a purchasing decision. Your business needs a robust online presence to increase your brand visibility. Simply having a website isn’t enough in the digital age, you need to be appearing in search results to gain any serious momentum with your digital marketing. The first page of search results get 88% of clicks, with the top 3 results attracting a whopping 55.2% of all clicks.

This is where SEO comes into play. You need to know what terms your potential customers are searching for, and use that information to inform and target your web copy to rank for those terms. But SEO goes much further than keywords. There are a lot of factors but some of the main ones are:

• Page speed is a critical factor in search ranking.
• Inbound links – publishing high-quality content increases the chances of other web pages linking to your website..
• Sitemap – making sure search engines can easily crawl and index your website.
• Mobile friendly – your website’s ranking is based on the mobile version of your website, even if the majority of your traffic is desktop based.

6. Differentiation

In an increasingly competitive online marketplace, standing out from your competition is crucial. You’ll struggle to achieve your marketing goals if you can’t differentiate your business from your competitors. The cornerstone of your brand’s online presence is your website. As the online hub for your customers, your website presents an excellent opportunity to set yourself apart from your competitors.

• Your development choices and web copy set the tone for your brand. Are you aiming to present yourself as energetic and youthful or experienced and luxurious?
• Users will associate the experience of your website with your brand – make your navigation easy to use and intuitive, not frustrating and impenetrable.
• Focus on improving user experience and meeting the needs of your customers with live chat and simple contact forms.
• Put a human face to your business by including a detailed “About Us” page. Take it one step further by adding a “Meet The Team” page that shows customers exactly who they will be working with if they choose to do business with you.

Conclusion

It’s essential to understand the impact of web development on your marketing efforts. You need to understand the essentials of successful website development and realise it’s not a case of preference or inconsequential development choices. From the consistency of your brand to converting visitors into customers, web development plays a significant role in differentiating your brand and how potential customers perceive your business.

The post 6 Ways That Web development Influences Your Marketing Strategy appeared first on Think Big Online Marketing Company.

Here are the 10 factors you should consider when working with your web design team on your new website.

1. Analyze Your Existing Web Design

The first step is to analyze your existing website and determine what works and what needs to be improved.

• Which pages are not getting viewed?
• Which CTAs are not being clicked?
• Which pages are causing visitors to leave?

You can use Google Analytics and heatmap tools to find out which parts of your website engage your visitors and get the most traffic. These insights can help you align your new website design and content with your customers’ needs. The pages that don’t get views need to be improved or removed from your website.

2. Define Your Target Audience

A great website design is much more than aesthetics. Over 65% of customers want companies to understand their needs and expectations.

Before you can write compelling copy and create a user experience tailored to the needs of your audience, you need to know who they are.

Who are your ideal customers?
What are they trying to achieve on your website?

Creating buyer personas can help you get a clear idea of your audiences’ preferences and motivations. Every web design decision needs to be made with your target audience in mind.

3. Set Your Goals

With a clear idea of who your target audience is, the next step of the website design process is to define your goals and key performance indicators (KPIs).

What do you want your new web design to achieve, and how will you measure success or failure?

Your goals will depend on your business. An e-commerce website wants to sell more products, while a B2B business may want to attract more leads that can be passed on to the sales team. When you have defined your goal, you can align your web design elements and website structure to nudge visitors towards a conversion.

4. Streamline the Path to Conversion

When visitors land on your website, they want to find the information they are looking for or complete a task as quickly as possible.

Your website needs to make it as easy as possible for visitors to accomplish the goals they are trying to achieve. For example, let’s say you provide a carpet cleaning service. A visitor will want to see:

• Examples of your work
• Locations you cover
• Contact information
• Social proof (testimonials)
• Pricing

Your new web design needs to make it easy for people to find this information quickly. The easier it is, the more likely they are to convert and contact your business or make an online booking.

5. Review Your Content Strategy

A website design refresh is an excellent opportunity to review and improve your content marketing strategy. You can use the insights gained from Google Analytics to review your content marketing assets.

How well are you meeting the needs of your audience and answering any questions they have about your product or service?

• Identify out of date content that needs to be updated
• Review your keyword strategy
• Replicate high-performing content formats and topics to increase your reach
• Analyze your competitors’ content strategy

By auditing your content marketing assets and analyzing your competitors, you can identify keyword opportunities to increase your share of the SERP for search queries related to your products and services.

6. Revamp Your Calls to Action (CTAs)

Magicdust, an agency that does web design Sydney wide, makes the key point that CTAs are the most important web design elements. Your redesign is an opportunity to increase the effectiveness of your CTAs and boost your conversion rates. Make sure your CTA buttons stand out from the rest of your web design elements and tell your visitors exactly what to do next.

If you offer a downloadable white paper as a lead magnet, use an action-packed CTA on your landing page form. An active CTA like “Get Your Free Whitepaper” is much more compelling than a standard “Submit.”

You can create a shortlist of CTAs and use A/B testing when your new web design goes live to see which resonates best with your audience.

7. Make SEO Part of the Website Design Process

A website redesign can be a disaster for your SEO if you don’t take precautions to protect your ranking.

On-page optimization should take place on your staging domain before your new website design goes live to avoid damaging your ranking.

For off-page SEO, you should keep URLs the same for your important pages and the pages with a significant number of backlinks pointing to them. Losing a page with a significant number of inbound links can result in a drop in domain authority.

8. Set Up Redirects for Deleted URLs

You may find some pages don’t contribute to your website design goals or offer much value to your audience. But deleting these pages can cause problems as users that click on legacy links will land on a 404 error page.

Use a crawling tool like Screaming Frog to map out all of your existing web pages and URLs. For every page you delete, set up a 301 redirect to send users to your homepage or a relevant page on your website.

9. Focus on Mobile Users

Over 50% of all internet traffic now takes place on mobile devices. Creating a mobile-friendly website design is crucial for conversions and SEO performance.

The easiest way to offer a great user experience to mobile visitors is to choose a responsive theme that will automatically adapt to the visitor’s screen size.

If you’re creating a custom website, make sure your web design team uses HTML and CSS to automatically resize, adjust, and hide page elements so that your new website will look great and perform well on all devices.

10. Test Your New website Pre-Launch

Once your new web design is complete, conduct an in-depth review on the staging domain to ensure everything is working and ready for launch. Your pre-launch checklist should include:

• Checking all pages render correctly
• Viewing your website on multiple devices
• Looking for broken links
• Checking all redirects
• Verifying contact information
• Reviewing page titles and meta descriptions
• Ensuring web design consistency across all pages

Performing a pre-launch review will save you the headache and stress of rushing to fix issues post-launch.

Conclusion

When you’re refreshing your website design, you need to focus on more than aesthetics. The redesign process should encompass user experience, SEO, and functionality as well as looks.

Be clear about the goals you want to achieve, and make sure that your visitors are always at the forefront of your decision-making. With a successful redesign, your website can be a powerful revenue engine for your business.

The post 10 Vital Web Design Factors to Consider When Redesigning Your Website in 2021 appeared first on Think Big Online Marketing Company.

Whether you’re a freelancer or a business owner, you’ll be very familiar with the idea that time is money. This is never truer than when you’re on the internet. As such, maximising your productivity should be a conscious priority at all times. It may seem like a bumpy road ahead, but the simple changes can make the biggest difference in the bid for a smoother journey. 

Remove Distractions 

The internet is a wonderful thing, but it can also be a huge productivity killer. Social media, YouTube, and flash games can all pose significant obstacles. Remove those distractions by stopping cookies, removing shortcuts, and using the two-minute rule. When less time is wasted on those activities, more time can be spent on productive ideas. Moreover, once you start to see the rewards, it’ll provide the motivation to keep up the good work. Once it become a habit, you’ll never look back. 

Multitask 

Computers are more than capable of handling multiple tasks. However, most users struggle to do this due to the challenges of switching between tasks. Split-screening is an ideal solution. You can visit https://setapp.com/how-to/split-screen-on-mac-for-extra-productivity to learn more. When you are actively able to complete several tasks at once, you’ll naturally get more done. One of the best options is to keep spreadsheets, analysis, or research on the background screen. Meanwhile, you’ll be able to complete the associated tasks in the main screen. 

Remove The Guess Work 

It’s the oldest mantras in the book but learning to work smarter rather than harder is vital. Putting in the extra effort during your preparations will make subsequent tasks far easier. For example, embracing the best writing tips before setting out to produce PPC ads will ensure you get better results. In turn, you will save serious amounts of time and money to spearhead greater success. The marketing arena is just one area where the winning strategy will allow you to achieve more by cutting out the wast. Be sure to embrace it. 

Get Support 

It’s easy to adopt the mindset of “me versus the world”. In reality, though, acquiring the support of others can be the key to long-term success and efficiency. Tutors can teach you how to improve your weaknesses, and the faster learning curve can only have positive impacts. Meanwhile, you can hire people to take care of simple admin tasks. Visit htttps://callruby.com to learn more about virtual receptionists. When you have more time available or the tasks that actively generate revenue, the outcomes will amaze you. 

Update Your Equipment 

A slow computer or tablet will harm productivity. Consequently, then, updating the operating systems should be considered essential. Every day in which you persist with outdated items is another form of waste. Meanwhile, you should delete unnecessary files to free up storage space. When you do, the facilities will run smoother and faster, particularly on complex tasks. For the sake of your sanity as well as the projects, this is a crucial step to remember. Otherwise, you will continue to struggle. 

The post Accomplishing more from your online endeavours appeared first on Think Big Online Marketing Company.

• Trustworthiness
• Expertise
• Attractiveness

There are several techniques and web design elements you can use to establish these three factors. Increasing your website credibility translates into more customers, increased sales, and higher revenue for your business.

1. Professional Web Design 

People judge your business based on your website design. If you create your website yourself, and have no web design experience, you’re going to end up with poor end product. It only takes 5 seconds for a visitor to form an opinion of your website, and decide if they will leave or sick around.

Research shows that 38% of people will stop engaging with a web page if the layout is unattractive. If your website is going to inspire credibility and encourage users to explore your products and services, you need a professional and attractive web design.

2. Remove All Errors 

You might think that no one really cares about the odd spelling error or poor use of grammar, but you couldn’t be more wrong. When a visitor spots an error on your website, they make one of two judgements.

You haven’t noticed the mistake, which means you lack attention to detail, or you have seen the error, but you haven’t bothered to correct it. One makes you look unprofessional, and the other that you don’t take any pride in your work – both damage your credibility.

Aside from text errors, broken links are another common web design issue. Whether an internal link or an external link to another website, if a user clicks a dead link, it damages your credibility. Conduct regular audits of your website links – repairing internal links and replacing external links, or deleting them entirely.

3. Clear Contact Information

Providing users a clear means of contacting you indicates there’s a real company behind the website, and it also makes it easier for potential customers to interact with your business. Anything you can do to encourage people to engage with you and take a step closer to becoming a customer should be a priority – 44% of users will abandon a website due to a lack of contact information.

More and more people use their smartphones to access websites and research businesses. That’s why a mobile-friendly web design is so important. Including a button so that users can call you with a single tap can be a great way to improve mobile user experience and encourage users to contact you.

4. Fresh Content

Keeping your content up-to-date shows visitors that you’re an active and vibrant company. If you post high-quality content, you can even position your company as an authority in your niche.

Fresh content doesn’t mean you have to rewrite your entire website every two weeks. It could mean updating product reviews and testimonials, curating relevant industry news, or posting articles on your own company blog.

Whichever way you choose to keep your website content fresh, make sure you do it regularly. Internet users place more trust in sites that regularly update their content.

5. Staff Photos

Internet users are wary of anonymous websites. They want to see the people behind your business and may think that you are trying to hide something. If you don’t show your photo, people will assume you don’t stand by your website, and that you might not stand by your products and services either.

6. Reviews And Testimonials 

People look for validation in what other people think when they make purchasing decisions, with 93% of online consumers reading product reviews. Social proof is the term that describes this psychological trait. Amazon has become the biggest online retailer in the world by harnessing product reviews and social proof in their web design- 63% of people are more likely to purchase from a website with user reviews.

Enabling users to leave reviews on your website allows potential customers to read unbiased opinions and increases the trust they place in your website – even negative reviews aren’t fatal and can actually improve your credibility and authenticity.

The modern consumer wants to make informed purchasing decisions. Never underestimate website visitors, and never put up fake reviews or testimonials. When a user gets suspicious about the authenticity of a review, the whole credibility of your business is in question.

7. Comprehensive Product Information

If you sell products directly from your website, you need to to provide detailed information for every product that you offer. This information can include:

• Multiple product pictures
• Product video
• Sizes
• Colours
• Dimensions
• Weight

You should aim to make it as easy as possible for your customers to make a purchasing decision. If you force visitors to seek out external resources to find out about your products, you damage your credibility and expertise.

8. Guarantees

Offering customer guarantees increase the credibility of your website. Why?

Because it takes away the risk involved for the customer, establishing trust. A money-back guarantee reassures customers by highlighting your confidence in your products and services. Your products must be of acceptable quality if your willing to stand by them.

While warranties and guarantees may vary on each product, you should make your refund policy absolutely clear to potential customers.

9. Lazy Stock Photos

Authenticity is crucial for establishing trust and credibility through web design. Internet users are increasingly more adept at spotting generic stock photos – they damage your credibility and scream “fake” to your website visitors. Research from Nielson Norman Group reveals that people find detailed photos far more attractive than standard stock photos.

Those cheesy stock photos of a smiling handshake will damage the authenticity of your website. If user questions your authenticity, they will question your credibility.

10. Don’t Go Overboard

According to Magicdust, experienced web developers Sydney, it’s essential to balance the credibility elements used in you web page design. Cramming in too much can have the opposite effect on users. If your web design is screaming “I’m legit! Trust me with your cash!”, your visitors are going to be suspicious of your motives.

Moderation is key. Identify the credibility elements that your visitors find most appealing, and give those elements priority in your web page design.

Conclusion

A professional, error-free, and attractive website design is crucial for establishing credibility. Not only does it help instill a sense of trust, but it also does a great job of showcasing your products and services to your potential customers. While these web design techniques are tried and tested best practices, some may not be relevant to your particular industry and business objectives.

Your website is part of your online marketing strategy. As with all marketing activities, testing is crucial. Experiment with different credibility web design elements, making changes one at a time. Track and measure your web page metrics to optimise the credibility of your website and present your business in the best possible light.

The post 10 Steps to improve your web design credibility and attract new customers appeared first on Think Big Online Marketing Company.

The web design choices you make can help to establish trust and encourage people to interact with your business or cause them to question your credibility and leave forever.

According to a study by Stanford, 75% of a person’s judgement of a company is based on the company’s website design.

Getting your visitors to trust you is crucial. You can have the most sophisticated sales funnels and Facebook Ad campaigns, but if they lead to a website that doesn’t inspire trust, then your chances of convincing people to purchase your product or service are slim.

Designing and optimising your website to gain the trust of your audience can be hugely beneficial for your business.

Below are 10 techniques to build trust through your website design.

1. Social Proof

Social proof is everywhere these days and is crucial for establishing your credibility.

For example, let’s say you are walking down a street and come across two restaurants, one on either side of the road. The restaurant on the left is filled with people enjoying their food, while the restaurant on the right has only a handful of diners that don’t look like they are thrilled with their meal.

Which restaurant serves better food?

The restaurant on the left of course. Why else would so many people be there and look like they are enjoying their meal?

This is social proof in action. You can increase your credibility by incorporating social proof into your website design through the following:

• Case studies.
• Data – show how many clients you’ve served to date.
• Social media influencer endorsements.
• Allow customers to leave product reviews.

2. Testimonials

One of the best techniques to showcase social proof and increase trust is the use of testimonials.

According to a research from BrightLocal, 86% of consumers read reviews for local businesses and 91% of people trust online reviews as much as they trust a personal recommendation.

Displaying real people that are willing to endorse your business goes a long way to proving the quality of your product or service.

By showcasing your ability to solve the problems of your previous clients, you encourage people to trust your business to solve those same problems for them.

3. Visually Appealing Web Design

An intuitive and appealing web design can make visitors stay for longer and increase the chances of conversion. A poorly designed and hard to navigate website can achieve the opposite, causing visitors to question your credibility and bounce.

Make your website simple and easy to navigate with visually appealing use of colours, attractive graphics, and suitable use of white space.

In addition to user-focused navigation and design, your content should be well written, error-free, and helpful to your users.

Nobody plans to make a bad website. All the additions and changes you make over the years can lead to your website becoming over complicated and congested. Scheduling a regular website review is a great way to keep your content fresh, ensure all links are working, and make your site user-friendly and appealing.

4. Badges

Do you offer a money back guarantee or warranty for your products? If you do, you can include badges in your website design highlighting that you stand by the quality of your product.

A well-placed warranty badge on a sales page can provide the reassurance customers need to trust your business and make a purchase. Consider placing guarantee and warranty badges near to your “Buy Now” CTAs to help convince customers of the quality of your product.

5. Client Logos

Your track record and work history are integral to establishing credibility with your customers. Prove your track record of contributing quality work by displaying the company logos of previous satisfied customers. Establishing your experience and encouraging visitors to trust you to deliver a product they will be happy with.

The more established the client, the better. When a person sees that you’ve helped a recognized business achieve success, they want you and your expertise to help them achieve the same success.

6. Payment Verification

People are rightly wary of being the victim of identity theft or credit card fraud online. Allay their fears by including recognised payment options with the logos they have come to know and trust.

• Pay Pal
• Visa
• Master card
• Skrill

Include payment logos on the checkout page of your site to reassure customers before they commit to a purchase.

7. A Strong “About Us” Page

A substantial “About” page not only helps to build trust with new customers, but also helps to differentiate you from your competitors.

People like to know who they are doing business with, and don’t like communicating and buying from a faceless company. A well crafted “About Us” page helps to establish an identity for your company, making you more approachable to visitors.

If your company is made up of a team of employees, create a page with a picture of each team member and a description of their role and skills. You can showcase the expertise of your team and give future clients an idea of who they will be working with on their project.

8. Show Who You Are

Adding a photo of yourself reassures your customers they are dealing with a real person and a real company. People want to know who they are doing business with and are more willing to trust you if you show your face.

A faceless website might cause visitors to question the credibility of your website and the message you are trying to communicate to them.

Choose a professional, recent, and respectable photo that shows that you stand by your website and your business.

9. Develop A Consistent Brand Voice

Developing a consistent voice for your website and marketing is vital in forging a bond of trust with your audience.

It can be jarring for visitors if they arrive on your site from an Ad or marketing email, only to be confronted by a completely different tone of voice throughout your website copy.

Magicdust, a web design agency in Sydney, emphasises the importance of creating a style guide to ensure that your voice and look matches your brand personality, your business values, and is consistent across your website, social media, and marketing.

10. Content Marketing

Content marketing is known for its lead generating benefits, but it can also help to establish trust with your potential customers. By publishing information that is relevant and useful to your audience, you position yourself as an expert in your industry and encourage users to be open to the offers and services you provide.

Building trust and establishing your knowledge in your field go hand in hand. Providing useful relevant content shows that you’re not looking just to make a quick sale, reassuring customers that you’re in business to build lasting relationships.

Conclusion

Building trust with your customers is a process that starts long before you come into contact with them. People judge a business on their website, and they do it fast.

You need your website to establish your credibility or you risk visitors bouncing back to the search engine results and losing them forever.

Consult with your web designer to implement the above tips when you build and optimise your website. By boosting your company’s credibility, your potential customers will feel safer interacting with you and be more receptive to your products and services. For a related article check out the 11 Essentials of a Successful Website

The post 10 Techniques to build trust through your website design appeared first on Think Big Online Marketing Company.

The good news? You don’t need a huge budget, just good content marketing.

Up until just a few years ago, Internet marketing used tools like newsletters and magazines. Now, it is as ubiquitous as the air we breathe, ranging from blogs to white papers, videos or infographics.

So how can you specifically use content marketing to build a better brand image and increase your sales? Everything starts with a successful internet marketing strategy, and that includes content. In short, you will have to think of ways that your content will influence the brand that you’re trying to create.

Your brand’s style

Unlike real life where non-verbal communication allows you to adjust your tone and speaking style as you go, content marketing requires of you to plan for this in advance. If you don’t have a unitary style, you’ll sound inconsistent. And, an inconsistent brand feels untrustworthy. So, don’t start writing content just for the sake of increasing your number of blog entries.

Think of your brand as a person. Every person has his/her own style, right? This person can be anybody real or invented, you just have to think of a list of characteristics that define them.

Say you represent a vet’s clinic… In this case you will want to show that they have expertise, they’re good at problem-solving and that they care about the environment. That’s why you have to write with authority, explain every medical term as clearly as possible, and use informal language at times.

Choosing the writers

One of the key components of a successful content marketing strategy is to choose experienced writers that have a background in marketing, someone who’s experienced in your niche and who can adapt to your brand’s style. It’s wise to ask for sample blog posts to evaluate their copy first.

Organise your team

Some companies have one person that does everything from research to writing, editing and publishing content. While this strategy might be more cost-effective, it’s wiser to have a team of different people for the job.

This brings in more perspectives and helps you tackle a project with out-of-the-box thinking. Plus, it’s easier to catch possible errors.

However, this depends on the project. If you need to put together an e-book, you need about five people for the job. If you only want to send direct emails to clients, one or two people are enough.

Simplicity

Good content is easy to understand. So, don’t try to impress your readers with complicated words that just sound showy. Even if you need to use technical terms, you can explain them in simple words and short sentences that are easy to read.

Point of view

If you want to be relevant and seem interesting to your readers, you need to take a stand about something. You can’t please everyone! So, find an ideology that defines your brand and make your opinions plain to everyone reading.

The logic is this: if you and your online readers agree about certain problems, these people are more likely to agree with you on other topics about which they don’t have a strong opinion.

Be relevant

Your products need to be relevant to your consumers, help solve their needs and make their lives easier. And so does your content!

In short, each time you write an article, you have to help your readers solve a specific problem. You can help them to learn how to use one of your products, teach them how to do certain things by themselves or offer a buyer’s guide.

Advice

If people are on your page, they want to know details about your specific products and services, not about the whole industry in general. Start with advice and answers that will actually help people, not fluff. Therefore, instead of focusing on abstract issues, think about practical tips you can offer to your readers.

Bring original content to the table

A lot of brands publish unoriginal, copied content, which is a great advantage for you. If you come up with a new way of looking at things, you become more relevant to your audience.

Your content doesn’t have to be about something completely new, but you can gather scattered information about a topic that hasn’t been discussed in its entirety. This melting pot of info can be quite useful for someone who wants to have a complete picture on a certain topic.

Another idea is to use a different format for subjects that have already been discussed. Instead of writing another article about massage chairs, how about an infographic, a video of you testing one, or a table?

The good news is that you can focus on things you find interesting and research them further so that you can multiply your opportunities of disseminating relevant content to your users. If you’re out of ideas, ask your social media followers what they would like to read.

Company studies are great starting points too. Look at which studies have been conducted by your brand and try to uncover a hidden gem. Who knows which interesting things your company’s archive holds? The best thing is that this requires no budget, and you can turn the material you find into actual news, with a bit of luck.

The seduction

Your content has to be captivating and show some personality. Stories and heroes always lure readers in, making them come back for more. This will help you to rank higher on Google searches and bring in more conversions.

Storytelling

Stories have always been a great way of connecting the members of the same community. There are various articles on how storytelling can build user experience, considering this is a basic form of human interaction.

Basically, telling stories and sharing the same legends will help your brand look more human and more engaging. It also helps you to become a relevant authority figure and your brand will seem more personal.

It’s a good idea to write about your difficult moments too, not just about your successes. If you found it difficult to raise capital for your business, if you came up with a new idea for a patent but someone else already did it, it’s a good idea to talk about it.

Your brand needs a story with heroes who deal with conflicts. The story needs suspense and intrigue to captivate readers and make them come back.

Ikea is a good example of a brand who uses the power of storytelling to the max. Ikea has always taken pride in its Swedish origin and has associated the brand’s image with concepts like “natural”, “organic” and “authentic”. This helps users to become invested in the company and agree with its vision, so they end up becoming loyal customers.

Another idea is to use case studies to tell stories. This works because it’s an effective way to harness the power of Internet marketing. Case studies show readers everything about the problem you had to deal with, your competitors, your way of thinking, the solutions you considered, the ones you tried and the ones you discarded. It also helps people to understand the effects of your decisions and how you have evaluated your results.

Storytelling uses a lot of tools, from anecdotes to blog writing, or using social media to build a narrative. Just follow the same rules we have talked about earlier: keep the language simple and the information straight to the point. You might need to repeat some details, but don’t forget to be consistent.

And, keep in mind that storytelling isn’t just about seeming interesting to your readers. It’s also about being useful and presenting relevant information so that your audience doesn’t feel like they’re not getting anything out of reading your content.

The real heroes

It’s important to make readers, consumers and potential customers feel like they’re part of your brand’s family. So, let them in by posting pictures and videos of your employees. Tell people how your employees work, which problems they face, how they spend their free time and so forth.

This way, you’ll build a loyal brand community that feels like your brand is truly part of their lives. While Internet users ignore generic images, they engage with images that present real, genuine people.

Conversely, Internet users prefer brands that can be personified, so they can build actual connections. Just be careful not to introduce all your employees at once, but rather one at a time, as in any good story.

Summary

It’s important for your brand to have a personality and a compelling style. Therefore, choose the best writers. Your content should be informative, relevant and tell stories that convert into legends. Your brand and employees should be the central heroes of those stories so that you can build a close-knit, loyal brand community.

This article was contributed by Magicdust, one of Australia’s leading web design agencies.

The post Internet marketing secrets: how to write good content appeared first on Think Big Online Marketing Company.

In short, you need to structure your messages to harness the power of this psychological construct. Learn to address your potential or current customers in a way that encourages them to take action better than with any common call-to-action prompt.

The secret is this: people would gladly jump at an opportunity to buy a product if they feel they would be otherwise losing something hugely important, but they’re not as likely to buy a product with definite advantages. That’s because we prefer to invest more energy and resources into avoiding risk rather than following a sure gain.

Therefore, you will need to make your product or service look like a great opportunity people can miss if they’re not careful. For instance, let’s say someone is looking to buy a robotic vacuum cleaner. They’ve done their homework, know what they would like and their estimated budget, but they postpone actually purchasing one.

This is where the fear of missing out comes in: a social media ad strategically placed that announces a huge promotion. Even if they haven’t committed to buying a robotic vacuum yet, now this fear is telling them that they risk spending more money if they don’t decide on the spot.

A viral campaign is another important tool for online marketing. If all your friends are buying robotic vacuums, chances are you’ll want one too. Otherwise, you risk being left out – which, let’s face it, is one of people’s biggest fears since kindergarten. However, to know which type of post will go viral, you’ll need to understand your target audience which is is after all one of the components that all successful online marketing strategies need.

So, to help you launch a successful online marketing campaign, here are 10 awesome techniques you can use in order to attract more buyers. What’s more, the possibilities of combining them for your online marketing campaign are endless!

Time limits are money

Setting time limits conditions people. We’ve learned from toddlerhood that deadlines exist, so we need to get things according to a certain time frame.

Placing a time limit acts like the Pavlovian bell: each time we see it, we feel the impulse of acting. In the world of online marketing, a ticking clock brings in more conversions.

However, remember to be honest. Even if you think you’ll bring in more customers by extending that time limit, don’t do it, at least not more than once. Customers will feel betrayed, and you’ll lose reputation points.

Lead magnets

An effective lead magnet can be a limited edition, in other words your audience can get them only if they do so before a certain deadline. For instance, you can create a detailed video or infographic about how to use a certain product, but make it available only for a limited time.

In this case, you’re not using fear to sell more products, but instead to get more leads. If people subscribe because of fear in order to get their hands on a useful tutorial, you can use their contact info for future online marketing campaigns.

Fame rubs off on you

This means you can use any celebrity figure talking about your brand, services or your products in the context of your online marketing campaign. Your target audience will be afraid that, if they’re not using your brand, they won’t be as glamorous as that star.

You can also use influencers as well, even if they’re not celebrities per se. In this case, you’re tapping into the fear of people missing out on being part of a group or an “in thing”.

In the future the role that influencers can play in online marketing will become more significant.  So, don’t be afraid to quote influencers anywhere you can, from your landing page and social media profile to your sales pages or even in direct emails.

User-generated content

If people are talking about your brand, they can influence their friends and family. As a matter of fact, user-generated content from peers can produce more fear than celebrity endorsements.

People already know that they’ll never be as popular as movie stars or lead the same glamorous lifestyles, but they want to at least have the same stuff as their friends and families. The fear that you could be missing out is bigger if your friends have something that you don’t have.

You can make people talk about your brand in the context of a contest, so they create the content for you which you can then later use for your online marketing campaign.

Channels

It’s a good idea to use more online channels to boost sales or to build your brand’s reputation.

However, if you’re seeing more activity on one channel than the others, you can use your online marketing campaign to get more people there. For instance, if you don’t have a lot of Facebook activity, but there are lots of people following you on Twitter, you can tweet the time and date for a live Facebook video. Remind people that they’ll only be able to see that video on Facebook and that you won’t record it for later. In short, with this technique, you’re building brand recognition as well as a very loyal online community.

Testimonials show quality

The technique of using testimonials in your online marketing campaign is almost as old as advertising itself, but you need to choose the right moment to use your testimonials. Think about it for a moment… Why are some venues always booked while others are always struggling to get enough patrons? It’s because of the fear of missing out.

People never want to miss out on a great meal, show, or a chance to be seen mingling with high society, and that’s why they’ll always make reservations for the restaurant where everyone’s going.

In the world of online marketing, you can publish all sorts of testimonials on the sales page or on your different social media pages, along with photos of happy customers or maybe even videos.

If your potential customers see how many happy customers your business already boasts, they’ll think, “Hey, I want a piece of that pie.” In short, potential customers will fear losing out on the benefits other people are getting.

Special offers

While discounts are one sort of special offer, you can always give your potential customers other perks too, such as free returns during March or a bonus gift during December.

When opting to make use of a special offer, don’t forget to establish a timeline and stick to it. The special offer will go away when the time expires, so potential customers will be scared that they’ll be missing out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Bundles

Most companies offer discounts if you buy more products from them. For instance, if you use the same provider for your cable, phone and Internet, you pay less than you would, were you to use different providers. Some online retailers offer free shipping if you purchase products that cost a minimum amount established by them. By instilling a fear that they’ll miss out on something great, you can harness the true power of these techniques. So, be sure to offer huge bundle discounts within a certain time frame from time to time.

Messages

The right words can make people fear that they need to act fast before losing an awesome offer which they’ll never get back. Some examples are: “don’t miss this great opportunity” or “we have a limited amount of…”, but you can be even more creative than that! So, take the time to find the perfect words which will enable you to instil the fear of potential regret. To make it even more effective, you’ll also need to adopt your target’s jargon when making the irresistible offer.

The exit deal

When people want to close your page, you can use a popup notification which offers them a last-chance opportunity for a discount or a special offer. To make it effective, use persuasive language and images to emphasise this amazing deal which they’ll get if they don’t close the tab and stay on your page.

Final thoughts

The fear of possibly missing out is a real thing. So, why not use it to your own advantage? Create a context in which your online visitors have to act fast to get their hands on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity so that you can get more leads and conversions.

It’s important to make the right offer, though. People on a budget want discounts, but your target might prefer buying high-end, expensive products. In short, you need to offer different chances to different people. For instance, your Insta followers might get something else than the people on your email list.

This article was contributed by Magicdust, one of Australia’s leading web design agencies.

The post Put some fear into your online marketing appeared first on Think Big Online Marketing Company.

There are several aspects to consider in SEO but one of the most important areas of focus is On-Page SEO. On-Site optimisation is essential in every SEO campaign. You need to optimise internal elements of your website pages to make them more search engine friendly and to help search engines understand your website better.

You might also like: The 11 Common On-site SEO Issues you need to put right (Infographic)

It is very important to optimize your On-Page SEO if you want to have targeted visitors to browse and stay on your website.

Check out these key points of our On-Page SEO Guide:

• Leverage SEO-friendly permalinks
• Optimise your title
• Multimedia
• Use outbound links
• Keyword in first 100 words
• Headings
• Page Loading Speed
• Rich content
• Use LSI Keywords

These are the On-Page SEO techniques that you can use and apply right now to optimize your web pages for better ranking in search results.

I will leave you with this infographic below, the list of 12 On-Page SEO factors and techniques. Don’t forget to share it with your friends or you may also sign up on our SEO Webinar to keep up-to-date with the latest trends in the Digital World. Lastly, please subscribe to our blog if you find it helpful and informative.

Infographics by backlinko.com.

The post 12 On page SEO factors that you love – an on page SEO guide (infographic) appeared first on Think Big Online Marketing Company.

Here is the eCommerce Design infographic developed by Magneto IT Solutions:

Why design matters?

If we look at the recent surveys and their outcomes on the web, we can say the design of ecommerce store has a pivotal role to make the online business viable. The statistics also reveal that what works and what not. Let’s see it.

• Within 10 seconds nearly 66% of ecommerce visitors leave the store if they found ecommerce design layout ugly or dull.
• 91% of mobile users expect ecommerce with responsive web design because 68% of online shoppers are coming from mobile devices, which is a big volume of overall traffic.
• 78% of ecommerce shoppers opined that ecommerce conversion rate could boost up to 17% if the right combination of color and font styles applied.
• 84% of customers expressed their desires that it proves convenient for them when they find things on expected places on ecommerce websites. It means they are looking for standard web design conventions to follow by ecommerce web designers.

Must-have features for ecommerce website

To make ecommerce design a success, a design team has to consider the best user experiences, usability, and performance like several factors. These all come with following advanced ecommerce design practices.

There are some must-have ecommerce design features. If we place those basic and advanced features on the right location of a web page layout, particularly, on homepage design, we can attain our goals of traffic and conversion easily. Let’s see that list of features in brief.

• Logo
• Search box
• Shopping cart, contact number, login, and wish-list icons
• Call to action (CTA)
• Key selling points
• Featured product
• Recommended products
• Shop by category
• Shop by occasions
• Rating & Reviews
• Textual Content
• Blogs
• Newsletter sign up
• One section in footer containing links to the following significant pages:
  • Terms & conditions
  • Returns
  • FAQ
• The second section in the footershould consist of:
  • Privacy policy
  • Shipping policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Intellectual property rights
• The third section in the footer:
  • Company
  • Testimonials
  • Sitemap
  • Contact us
• Contact info with a physical address, email address, phone number, and social media logos

Ecommerce design trends

Recently, the advent of mobile & Internet technologies has enabled ecommerce designers to design complex and advanced online business websites with intense customization and personalization by following some peculiar design trends.

Conversational UI:

Dynamic UI design using AJAX-like asynchronous technologies.

Unified design:

Unified pages with a consistent design provide seamless user experiences.

Experimental layouts:

Experiments on designing to implement various ideas make ecommerce design unique and innovative.

Material design & gradients:

Google has brought advanced design concept by offering Material Design platform with adequate design elements and code snippets in the libraries. Thus, ecommerce designer can design a highly advanced ecommerce store using Material Design components and gradients.

Mobile-first:

90% of all shoppers prefer responsive web design because 70% of online shoppers are shopping using mobile devices. Therefore, the mobile-first approach is only the way to meet their expectations and provide the excellent user experiences.

Personalization:

Personal approaches win more conversations than the general attitude. The same marketing truth is applicable for online business and ecommerce web designers have to include more personalization using the latest technologies and designing practices.

Conclusion:
These are tips of the iceberg hidden under the water. If you are going to design your online storefront, come in contact with a powerful and experienced ecommerce designing team at Magneto IT Solutions. You will get perfect guidance and the opportunity to hire an impeccable ecommerce design team.

Guest post author bio:

Ronak Meghani is a co-founder of Magento IT Solution Pvt Ltd, A Leading eCommerce Development  Company in USA and India. He is closely working with e-Commerce ventures since 2009 and he has helped 200+ brands for building / improving their online ventures. You can follow him at Quora or Linkedin.

The post eCommerce design facts & statistics of 2018 appeared first on Think Big Online Marketing Company.

SEO friendly URL is the most basic SEO technique to help the indexation process of your website but there are proper ways to do it. There are plenty of websites that use suboptimal and incorrect URLs.

You might also like: The 11 Common On-site SEO Issues you need to put right (Infographic)

URL Optimisation is a basic task you need to deal with regards to website redesigning process or creating a new website.

Check out this quick view of what you need to do after you’ve decided to redesign your website and if you are planning to create a new website:

• Add target keywords in your URLs
• Use 301 Redirects
• Use canonical URLs
• Block bad URLs with Robots.txt
• Always use hyphens in URLs
• Use readable URLs

I will leave you with this infographic below about proper URL Optimisation. Don’t forget to subscribe to our blog if you find it helpful and informative.  You may also share it to your friends or you may also sign up on our SEO Webinar to develop your skill set keep up-to-date with the latest trends in the Digital World.

Infographics by MySiteAuditor.

The post What is an SEO friendly URL – 10 tips for proper URL optimisation (infographic) appeared first on Think Big Online Marketing Company.