Professional Web Design Insights for Startup Companies on a Budget

A good website not only boosts your startup business’s visibility but also its credibility. For this reason, it makes sense to pay attention to the latest web design news and tips. With the right combination of smarts and creativity, you can build a website that works even when you’re on a tight budget.

3 Ways to Do It Cheap

1. Strike a deal. Do you have a skill set that you could trade for website design services? If you’re in marketing, for instance, you can provide content writing or broadcast email services to a design company that will build your website in exchange.

2. Interns are free. By outsourcing some web design tasks to a skilled intern, you can save a lot more money. In return, the intern is able to further hone his web design skills and grow his portfolio. It’s a win-win situation for you both.

3. Do it yourself. Some design companies sell templates that you can customize yourself. You can start with something simple but functional and wait until you have saved enough money for a more professional build. Or you may find yourself getting fond of it and ultimately take some web design courses. Be sure though to find a good hosting service provider, though, with a robust tech support team that responds to technical glitches right away.

4 Basic Elements of a Website

Now that you have an idea how to build a website for less, see to it that your website has at least these four of these basic elements that ensure marketing effectiveness.

1. User-friendly navigation. There’s nothing more off putting than a disorganized website cluttered with a cobweb of menus that lead to nowhere. Keep your navigation menu clear and simple. Steer clear of jargon or fancy-sounding titles in an attempt to impress.

2. A well-thought out main page. Never underestimate the importance of a finely crafted “About Us” page. Too often, companies give a vague description of their background and core business when they are supposed to highlight their credentials in this section.

3. Accessible contact information. Create a separate contact page or insert the details in every single page on your website. Give readers a complete list of your touch points, e.g. email, fax and postal addresses, phone numbers, homepage URL, and social media accounts.

4. Quality blog. Static websites don’t attract as many visitors as those with routinely updated blogs. People will appreciate your website better if you can share helpful information regarding your industry. If they need help more than what your posts can offer, they may even consider hiring you.

Want more web design insights? Check out top online sources like Marketing Digest.

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Content Marketing News Present Insights for Using Videos Effectively

Providing substantial and relevant content to your audience is a major part of building a strong online presence. You’ll find several ways to present information in content marketing news and one of the most effective is video. That’s probably not surprising. A picture is worth a thousand words and video expands on that exponentially. A few minutes of video can impart information equivalent to an hour of reading. Besides, video is more immersive as it engages both the eyes and ears.

The Power of YouTube

When it comes to video marketing, YouTube is today’s biggest scene. Next to Google, YouTube is the most searched site and its videos also appear on Google’s search results. This system helps greatly with SEO. The YouTube platform is also easy to use and versatile – you can direct viewers to your customized channel or embed videos right on your website.

Considerations in Using YouTube

Using YouTube does not guarantee successful video marketing – you need to use it properly. Animoto presents some questions to ask yourself as you venture into the platform.

One of the first considerations is the schedule of videos. How often and when should you upload a video? Uploading only when you feel like it is a bad idea. With regularly scheduled content, the existing audience know when to come back for new content. It’s also a good way to attract new audience.

You should also consider what the videos will be about. It should be relevant to your business and be useful to your audience. You can put up some promotional videos occasionally as long as they don’t overwhelm your educational ones.

You should likewise think about how you will stand out from the competition. Your competitors are probably already on YouTube, so it’s important to give people a reason to prefer your videos over the others.

Tactics to Use

After planning what to include in your videos, it’s important to know how to carry out your overall video marketing strategy. Content Marketing Institute (@CMIContent) lists four tactics for effective use of YouTube.

1. Produce lots of content. It is found that the top YouTube marketers have more videos than those at the bottom.

2. Integrate YouTube video with web content. This tactic allows better branding consistency, improves usability, and supports SEO.

3. Engage with the audience. Respond to comments, answer questions, and use feedback to plan future content.

4. Embrace YouTube advertising. The TrueView ads of YouTube, when done right, can reach the right audience and have great ROI.

For more content marketing insights, keep updated with resources, such as Marketing Digest.

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Improving Conversion Rates with Insights from Ecommerce Marketing News

Conversion. Now that’s a word of great significance to any business. That’s the target in marketing efforts after all – to convert someone who learned of the business into a customer. Of course, online businesses are no exception and they can use information from e-commerce marketing news to improve their conversion rates.

An article from Marketing Profs (@MarketingProfs)and another one from KissMetrics (@Kissmetrics) discuss a particular aspect of e-commerce sites: pricing pages. Many owners of online shops pay great attention to the landing page, which is important but should not be too much, that other parts of the site are forgotten. The structure of pricing pages influences how many visitors become customers, i.e. conversion. With the information from these articles, the optimization of pricing pages can be broken down as follows:

The Headline

For every web page, the headline is the one that draws the visitor’s eye. The pricing page has a clear purpose and the headline should match that along with its specific call to action. Some site owners or webmasters may be tempted to go for simple headlines, such as “Prices” and “Our Plans”. In such cases, the headlines serve only as a reminder where the visitor is. Headers should be more than that. They should be more engaging in order to reflect the visitors’ expectations and grab their attention right from the start.

The Number of Plans

The recommended number of pricing plans to present is 2-4. The minimum is not one because a single price option can lower conversion rates. In order to decide, people compare several options, and giving people only one makes it difficult for them to see why it’s a good choice. The maximum is four because people can easily scan and remember 3-4 items.

Highlighting One Option

Different pricing plans have different profitability. It’s important to highlight the most profitable option as this improves the click-through rates by serving as a guide for visitors to make a choice. Ideally, the highlighted option should be neither too cheap nor too expensive, with a statement that shows why it has the best value for money.

Included Information

To help the visitor compare plans, plans should be arranged in a comparison matrix that details the differences between each. It’s also good to support the page with testimonials and FAQs.

Of course, constant testing must be done to see what works best. The above are just guidelines, not solid rules. Get more e-commerce marketing insights from information resources, like Marketing Digest.

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Online Marketing News: Why Email Marketing is not Dead and How-To Tips

Much like rumors of SEO being dead, email marketing also gets the death scare from time to time, but hard facts and statistics from reputable online marketing sources thankfully refute these notions. According to survey from the Radicatti Group, there are currently over 4.1 billion email accounts today. That figure is expected to reach 5.2 billion by 2018, which only proves that email is still alive and kicking. MarketingSherpa also found that 72 percent of consumers consider email as their main conduit of communication with companies. Marketers need to stop underestimating email and learn to use it to their advantage instead. Here are some useful tips:

Update Your Strategy

Perhaps the biggest reason people keep saying that email is dead is that it has changed drastically through the years. It’s no longer the same because like any other technology, it evolves. For instance, the rising numbers of mobile device users call for a mobile-optimized email campaign. An article from ExactTarget.com (@marketingcloud) titled “10 Tips to a Powerful Email Marketing Strategy” noted that users immediately delete emails if they can’t properly view it on their devices. Email marketing may change every year, which is why you should always remain in the know of the latest online marketing insights from sources like Marketing Digest.

Ask for Permission

Users will only treat your efforts as spam or junk mail if you don’t ask for their permission first. Seek approval before you send them marketing messages by letting interested users sign up. This will also give you the opportunity to gather more information about particular consumers so you can improve your products or services accordingly.

Personalize Campaigns

People appreciate brands that show interest in what they like. In that case, personalized emails for people who subscribe to can really improve the results of your email marketing. One good idea from a Forbes (@Forbes) article titled “Email Marketing Strategies You Can Borrow From Billion-Dollar E-Commerce Giants” is to personalize your offerings whenever you can by taking into account recommendations based on your visitor’s first purchase or lead source.

Promote Deals on Email

Nothing brings customers to your door faster than mentions of discounts, sales, and bargains. If you are only promoting your deals on social media, you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities. Moreover, most people would actually prefer getting information about deals through email rather than scrolling through thousands of posts on their News Feed for your offers.

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Create a Positive Online Presence with these Reputation Marketing Tips

Some entrepreneurs mistakenly regard a lack of online reputation as a good thing, and a number of entrepreneurs who do monitor their reputations online fail to do so on a personal level. Marketers will need to step up their game and start taking action on protecting their brands’ online reputation with the following steps.

Vital Elements of a Reputation Marketing Strategy

To prevent negative reviews or mentions from destroying a brand’s reputation, marketers will need to help the company or business define an online identity early on, according to Martin Zwilling. In his article for Entrepreneur (@Entrepreneur) titled “6 Keys to a Positive Online Presence and Reputation“, Zwilling listed down the keys in creating a positive online presence and reputation for brands. For one, marketers will have to help brands claim their identity on social media before someone else does and use it against them, since identity theft is as devastating to a business as it is for an individual.

Fresh and relevant blog posts should always be added on their websites on a regular basis. As Zwilling explains, blogging is the best way of helping brands establish themselves as an influencer. Marketers will also need to constantly monitor the web for any negative comments directed to a brand, and do what’s best to address them proactively and directly.

Ways on Building a Positive Reputation

Now that the vital elements have been introduced, what marketers need to do next is to follow these actionable reputation marketing tips from Peter Gasca. In his article for Entrepreneur titled “Take Control of Your Personal Reputation Online With These 6 Tips“, getting control of a brand’s reputation has now become a necessity, and is something that can be done with a few simple steps.

First, marketers will need to ensure that brands have a unique yet consistent username and a personal URL across the web. This username should be secured on as many platforms as possible, be it on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, to ensure better SEO. Once the basics have been covered, marketers will then need to help brands set up a basic profile on each of their sites, including their name, location, and a consistent description of their business.

Gasca explains that, after all these have been accomplished, the next thing marketers will need to do is to create new profiles as new services and platforms come up, along with monitoring the brand’s name and reputation online. More importantly, marketers will need to keep up with the latest reputation marketing news from sources like Marketing Digest.

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Experts Share Social Marketing Insights on Ways to Drive Engagement

As marketing experts will suggest, achieving engagement with a target audience, or even with a single customer, should be all about establishing a meaningful interaction with them. Following the simplest rules of starting a conversation with consumers, engagement is achieved by opening and maintaining conversations and listening to what they have to say. With this in mind, marketers can utilize social media in interacting and engaging with a brand’s audience.

Questions Marketers Need to Ask Themselves

The biggest question marketers would undoubtedly have is: how can we build long-term relationships with customers using social media? Danyl Bosomworth, in his article for Smart Insights (@SmartInsights) titled “7 BIG questions to drive customer engagement“, says that there are other questions marketers will have to answer first.

First, do marketers have insights on a brand’s customers and their needs from online services? Businesses will undoubtedly have an existing group of loyal customers, but gaining new followers and turning them into buyers isn’t the end of a marketing strategy. Marketers will then need to learn how these people perceive a particular brand, and use these insights to do a better job in generating more sales.

Second, do marketers have the right tools and technologies to engage customers while improving their experience? Bosomworth suggests that, to achieve this, marketers should start building social objects and a sense of community to reaffirm the relevance of a brand. Not only will marketers deepen and improve customer experience, but they can also help consumers connect with others.

Engaging Customers on Social Media

Once the key questions are answered, marketers will then need to start implementing changes and tweaks on a brand’s existing social media marketing strategy. Ann Tran, in her article for Entrepreneur (@Entrepreneur) titled “The Rules of Engagement: 5 Ways to Connect on Social Media“, shared meaningful social marketing insights and the best ways on using social media to connect with people.

For one, marketers can acknowledge comments, positive feedback, and retweets from consumers on Twitter by clicking the “favorite” button to make a connection with other people. Start engaging with consumers on Facebook by leaving meaningful or humorous comments on their posts, and see if they have responded.

More importantly, Tran suggests that, after establishing a connection with consumers online, brands should then maintain these connections offline. This can be done in several ways, be it through an event or a simple talk over coffee. Social media, after all, is not a one-way conversation, and it entails brands to join the discussion to truly drive audience engagement. Marketers can learn from these insights along with the latest social marketing news from trusted sources like Marketing Digest.

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Mobile Marketing Insights and More: Basic Tips for Startup Businesses

Small business owners have a lot of challenges to overcome. Trying to make a profit in a crowded market can be difficult, but one of the ways to make a business more competitive is to raise its visibility. This is where marketing campaigns enter the picture. The trouble with this is that it can be difficult to do your marketing properly on your own; there are many mistakes that you might make along the way. Thankfully, with the rise of the Internet and marketing companies, the task of promoting your business has become a lot easier.

Small Business Marketing Basics

Mobile marketing news sites like Marketing Digest have articles that can be helpful to you. For example, an article on Business2Community (@B2Community) describes exactly what any budding business owner needs when they are planning to start marketing their business online. Here are a few of the suggestions stated in the article.

First, you should claim your online profiles. Major business directories like Google and Yelp can raise your visibility with local search engines. Second, business owners should encourage reviews. One of the best ways to get the attention of the public is via word-of-mouth. This is mostly because it is more trustworthy and gives people an idea of what to expect from you. The next step to establish your online presence is to create a social media profile and your own website. These provide a point of contact for your customers and give you a venue for spreading information about your company. Finally, an e-mail campaign can help you directly connect with your customer base. Offer special coupons or distribute information via e-mail to ensure that people know about your company.

Further Tips

Additional mobile marketing insights can be gleaned from other articles. An article on Mashable (@mashable) gives some tips on how to develop the base that you built up. For example, the article advises that you focus on your target customer. Businesses usually have a particular demographic that they aim for. This is a much better approach than hoping to attract any potential customer; this gives you a chance to focus your resources and have a better idea on how your marketing campaign should go. Another tip that the article gives is to leverage your social media connections. Constant updates with interesting content ensures that potential customers would be able to relate and engage with you.

Raise Your Brand’s Visibility

Small businesses thrive when people know about them. Ensure your marketing campaign is a success by knowing what to do and being aware of any emerging marketing trends.

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PPC Insights: Learn the Basics and Importance of Keyword Optimization

One of the key pieces in an effective online marketing campaign is having the right keywords. The trouble is that it can be difficult to do so when you’re starting out. It can be easy to make mistakes when your campaign is at its early stages. This can affect various parts of your marketing since keywords are used for optimizing your websites and advertisements. Fortunately, there are ways to improve your keyword knowledge.

The Basics

The first thing you should do is learn more about keywords. PPC news sites like Marketing Digest have articles that can help explain the basics to you. An article on the WordStream (@WordStream) blog provides the basic facts on how keywords are used and optimized. The article states several terms you have to remember when dealing with keywords.

First, there’s match-type. This describes how your keywords are matched to searches. Broad match is the most general as it allows for misspellings and synonyms. Modified broad is more specific, but still allows variation. The next match type is phrase match that allows keyword phrases in different positions. The final match type is the most accurate; exact matches require the keyword to have no variations. Knowing which match-type to use for your ads is important in reaching your audience. The other term to keep in mind is your keyword’s quality score. Keywords are rated from one to ten on how effective they are. A good rule of thumb when using keywords is to use those that have a rating of five and above.

Optimize Your Keywords

It doesn’t stop when you’re done with your initial keywords. You’ll need to develop them further so that they can perform better. Another article on the WordStream blog provides further PPC insights about optimizing keywords. The article gives several pieces of advice on how to ensure you’re getting the most out of your keywords. For one, you’ll need to stop using low-performing keywords and replace them. Using online tools to find more keywords to use is another step. Finally, you should increase bids on keywords that hold potential for your business.

Enhance Your Campaign’s Performance

If you want your marketing campaign to really take off, you’ll need to start with the basics and go on learning from there. Become knowledgeable in keyword usage by frequently reading informative articles posted on online marketing news sites.

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Content Marketing News Highlight Tools for Effective Content Marketing

In establishing an online presence, content marketing is an important component. It’s essential for building relationships and gaining customers. Many companies recognize this, in line with what content marketing news show. According to the report by Curata (@curata), 76 percent of companies are allotting more investment to content marketing.

Content marketing can be considered an activity or a process. Either way, simply doing it does not guarantee success. To carry it out effectively, one needs the right tools and tactics. Entrepreneur (@Entrepreneur) lists down strategies and recommended tools for content marketing.

Defining the Needs and Overall Strategy

The foundation of a content marketing strategy depends on the particular content needs of the company. Based on this, the exact tasks can be planned and assigned accordingly. For this part, ProofHub, Kapost, and Marketing.ai are examples of tools where the team can collaborate for the planning and other phases of the strategy.

Creation and Curation of Content

Creating new content or curating existing ones will definitely be a part of content marketing. For this, essential tools include Storify, Curata CCS, and Contently. The first two enable finding relevant content and the third one allows tapping into freelance writers for creating original content.

Spreading the Word

Having great content is important but it doesn’t stop at that. Content simply doesn’t sell itself, so promotion and sharing are necessary for success. With the right tools, these aren’t that hard to pull off. Content Marketer taps into word-of-mouth marketing, allowing connections with influencers for a boost in traffic and shares. Buffer allows management of social media sharing with post scheduling for multiple platforms. PixxFly provides automation that saves both time and money with content sharing, news releases, etc. Narrow focuses on Twitter and uses keywords and hashtags to find viable audience to interact with.

Analytics

Simply sharing is not enough. It’s important to track what works and what doesn’t, and this is where analytics come in. After all, what isn’t measured cannot be improved. Tools for this need to be accurate and focused on relevant data. Parse.ly uses predictive analytics to determine why audience respond to content. SumAll tracks social media data to see how campaigns are doing. Raven Tools allow benchmarking results against competitors, gathering results data from SEO to PPC.

These are just a few examples of tools. To learn more strategies and tools, it’s important to be updated on content marketing tips from resources, such as Marketing Digest.

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E-commerce Marketing Tips for Optimizing Stages of the Buying Cycle

People who want to have a successful online business will learn a lot from e-commerce marketing news. Take this article from Entrepreneur (@Entrepreneur) explaining the buying cycle and how it can be used as a guide to optimize an e-commerce site. It’s a good idea to read the full article but here’s a summary.

The Buying Cycle

Every customer goes through the buying cycle when purchasing an item. The cycle goes like this: awareness of needs, assessment of alternatives, alleviation of risk, decision, achievement of results, and then back at the beginning. A person who visits an online shop and ends up not buying appears to have left the cycle while on one of the stages. By studying what happens in every stage, the business owner can understand customer behavior and optimize the site accordingly.

Four Tips for a Successful Online Business

An ecommerce site can be adjusted in many ways to have the best chance of success. A business owner can use e-commerce marketing tips to enhance the success rate of the site. Another article from Entrepreneur presents four tips to make a profitable online business.

Maintaining a list. An email list is a valuable asset for any online business owner but doesn’t get a lot of attention. Building and maintaining a list are activities that should not be forgotten. The good thing is that many tools are accessible to make this not only easy to do but also easy to integrate into online shopping mechanisms, such as Mail Chimp and Infusionsoft.

Don’t set aside SEO. Search engine optimization help drive traffic to the site and this means more potential customers. When people are searching for products over the internet, they are well into the needs awareness stage. As the results come in, they are now assessing alternatives and those at the top of the results are more likely to be checked out.

Testing. Testing allows a business owner to know what works and what doesn’t, what to enhance and what to let go. Through continuous testing, the overall marketing strategy can be adjusted and refined over time.

Make the site usable. A confusing site will drive away potential consumers. The buying process must be clear and easy. Many online businesses lose customers at the checkout. People already presented an intent to buy but left because the process isn’t streamlined enough.

Following the above tips will improve the chances for success of an online business. Keeping updated with the latest insights from information resources, like Marketing Digest, also help.

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