Tag: web development

10 Mistakes to Avoid When Building Your Brand

There are many mistakes people make that eventually ruin their business. Knowing what these mistakes are is a great way to keep your businesses running. This is a list of the 10 most common mistakes when building your brand:

1. Not Having a Clear Vision

If you don’t have a clear vision for your company, that can negatively affect your ability to make your business successful. Your vision is our goal for your business. You need to know where you want to take your business in the years to come.

2. Lack of Websites

Your website is the first place clients, and potential clients go to learn about your company. Having a confusing, or unfinished website will scare away any visitor. Their first impression of your business is from your website, and when your business doesn’t match your website, that will affect your ability to be successful. Don’t leave your website for last. There are people than can help with that. Take a look at our portfolio page to see some of our clients that came to us to build their website.

3. Not Conveying a Clear Message

People need to figure out what your company is about from your content. If they don’t know what they are looking at, they wont be able to understand what your business truly does. It’s important that you don’t have any typos, or grammatical errors as this could lead to potential clients thinking that your intern work is as sloppy as your site. You may only get one impression with that customer. You want to present yourself, and your company as professional as possible. Proofread before publishing!

4. Not Googling Yourself

75% of people don’t go beyond the first page. If your name or company is not coming up on the top of the list, that’s business your losing. Know what people see when they google you. Make sure your organization is shown in the best light. You can use SEO and PPC to help you with ranking higher on the search chain. Not sure what SEO and PPC is? That’s okay, check out our SEO and PPC site to learn more.

5. Can’t Explain What You Do

Remember the elevator pitch. Can you convey what you do and who you are in 30 seconds or less? People don’t have time to waste. Get to the point, be engaging, and have a listening ear. It’s not just about the business, it’s also about building relationships.

6. Not Thinking Outside the Box

Be open minded. Think of new ways to get more traffic. Your competition might also be thinking of how to get ahead, beat them to the punch. A little bit of creativity goes a long way.

7. Not Paying Attention to Marketing

You don’t have to have a massive budget. Having an online presence that represents you is the key to success. Explore different marketing options. If you need help, hire people who know how to minimize the risk. A good tip is engaging your social media followers when they like or comment any of your posts. This helps give your business a sense that you care about your followers and will make them more likely to share and recommend your site.

8. Failing to Analyze Data

Everything is based on data. Numbers never lie. Pay attention to objective data. Website traffic is what is used to make impactful decisions. Don’t ignore it. There are people that can help with that.

9. Never Learning

Keeping up with everything is important. Stay up to date with the newest technology and newest trends is important to keep your business up to date. Realizing that the world is changing around you can help your business stay ahead of the curve.

10. Not Having a Sense of Urgency

Never wait until later. Delaying some of these issues can impede your business from growing. Handle tasks when they first arise. Leaving it for later can negatively impact your business, and your profits. If you leave clients waiting around they might go and find another person who will get their needs met in a timely manner.

6 Ways Your Website Is Driving Visitors Away

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Your website launched and has been up and running for a while now. When checking your website stats, you realize people leave your site just as quickly as they arrive. What’s the problem? Below are six rhyming reasons (to help serve your memory) why your site may be driving visitors away.

Unresponsive sites bite. 

People are accessing the internet on their mobile devices more than they are on their laptops and desktops. It’s important to have a responsive website that resizes itself on other devices such as smartphones and tablets. Otherwise your website will appear tiny on smartphones, and visitors won’t go to the trouble of resizing your site to a readable size to view your content.

If the design is bad, visitors will get mad. 

Large blocks of text are difficult to read and exhaust eye muscles. Break them down into smaller paragraphs, include images when appropriate and be aware of the word choice you use to describe your business and the services you provide to customers. You want to use understandable terminology instead of complex jargon. If you use a large color palette on your website, especially artificial bright ones or colors that make the text hard to read, reconsider your choice since it can be unpleasing to the eye.

Bad navigation equals abdication.

Make sure to create a path or process you want visitors to take when they make their way around your website. If visitors don’t know where to go when looking for your products or services, they will most likely hit the close button instead of the contact button. Categorizing your products and services into groups will help users find what they are looking for and having CTAs under them will direct users to make a purchase.

If your site is slow, it’s a blow. 

You’ve probably heard of the three second rule in regards to sports or dropped food, right? The same rule applies to website loading times. If your website doesn’t load in less than three seconds, studies have shown visitors are more likely to leave your site. Too many images, rich content (like videos) or sites that aren’t optimized for performance can add to slow loading times.

Broken links simply stink. 

If your site doesn’t function properly and includes outdated content, it will drive visitors away. Test every link on your website to make sure they work and are connected to related information and sites. And make sure the related content is current.

If contact info is hard to find, you’re in a bind. 

Contact information should be easily accessible and found frequently throughout your site. If visitors are finding it difficult to get in touch with you, they’ll simply go onto the next website. Include a phone number, email address and location to build up your business’s credibility with visitors and to show you want them to reach out to you for any questions or concerns.

There are several other website aspects that can drive visitors away such as loud automated music, unsecure pages, pop-up windows or flashing banners and a lack of social media presence, but the above six are the ones we find most irritating and least user-friendly. Although your website is about your business, the purpose of your site is to educate visitors about your business. The goal of any website should be to provide visitors with the best user experience and least amount of disruptions. By avoiding these website mistakes, you’re on your way to having a more visited and user-friendly site.

Web Builder vs Web Designer/Developer

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If you’re looking to create a website for your personal or professional life, you know there are several options out there to build your site. But building websites usually comes down to two categories: working with web builders or working with web designers and developers. But what’s the difference between two?

Web builders, or online content management systems, are inexpensive tools that build websites without having to edit any coding manually. Users don’t need to have any special programming skills and can use these tools to build their sites themselves. Web builders have several different types of templates, drag and drop features to load content and editing capabilities to change colors, images and text. The advantages of web builders include not having to purchase, install or update any type of software on your computer, having both web building and hosting services offered by the same provider, and being able to work on your site from anywhere without knowing how to code. Sound too good to be true? It is. Although the advantages can cover the basics (and at a cheap price), there is truth to the saying, “You get what you pay for.”

For starters, lots of other businesses and competitors could be using the same template you’re using which means your site won’t stand out as much. On the same note, you’re very limited in how much you can customize your site with cookie cutter templates so your brand might not be reflected as well as it could be. Other issues more on the technical side include some templates not being search engine friendly or not working on all browsers, which can be bad for business. Although it may be a cheaper option than working with web designers and developers, what you see with web builders is what you get. No more, no less.

On the other hand, web designers and developers create the visual layout and functions of a website on a customized level. Designers focus on the artistic side of the site (visual) and developers focus on the way the site works (functionality). It’s essentially two jobs that are usually performed by two different people, but there are some individuals who have both skillsets. Although working with web designers and developers can be time consuming and pricey, you get what you pay for (but this time in a good way).

Designers and developers are able to create unique designs and features that accurately represent your company’s brand and are hard to come by in web builder templates. When working with web designers and developers, the sky is the limit with whatever specifications or requirements customers have about the look and operation of their site. Web developers build customized sites to achieve the best user experience possible, to be search engine friendly and work across all browser types. In essence, you get a functional website that looks like no other. You aren’t limited in flexibility, structure and changes to your site. If you ever need web support for any issues you may come across, the designers and developers you worked with are real people who will be there for you.

Although web builders may sound like a good option because they serve basic website needs at a cheap price, a custom designed website is the better option in the long run because they create established brands. Customized sites guarantee user friendliness, search engine optimization and most importantly align online and offline branding needs, which makes for a good overall website and branding experience.

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