I recently visited a website for a potential client who was taking advantage of our website review. She's a dentist who wants to get leads from her site but has not had one call over the last 5 years. It took me less than 5 minutes to figure out her main problem...no call to action.
Problem: Want More Leads from Your Website? Many websites do not make it easy to do anything more than read. There's usually plenty of text and maybe some pictures but then what? Why should I stick around? How do I get started? Ask yourself these questions when looking at your business' website (specifically your home page) and then think about what kind of elements would make your customer "click." You don't want people to just "hang out" and look at your site. You want people to engage with your business which requires an effective call to action.
Solution: Add Compelling Calls to Action A call to action is a feature on your website that demands a response from the visitor. It can be a button, linked text or a special graphic that is enticing. In a less-than-subtle way, it says "look at me" and in an equally overt manner it says "click here." Calls to action should not be hidden - they must stand out and grab attention in less than 5 seconds (that's usually how much time you get to make a web visitor take action.
Need Help Getting Leads? Every website we design includes a custom lead "magnet" designed to make your website effective. We can also work to create a lead magnet for your current website. See how it works > Visit Qlixite.com for Social Media Management, Website Design and Marketing
Welcome to Qlixite answers where we ask the box to go beyond it. We take common questions that business owners have and give you easy, straightforward answers you can actually use! Today’s we’re asking the box an internet question about Search Engine Optimization.
So exactly, what is SEO?Search engine optimization (often termed SEO) refers to the techniques you can use to get your site found on internet search engines. Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing are independent sites so in order to get that page-one ranking that we all aspire to, we need to understand what they want.
Essentially – there are two parts to optimizing your site – Off page and on page.
What is off page optimization? This is often referred to as link building. Search engines look at what other websites link to you to gauge your validity. If you can get affiliates, vendors, membership groups and listings to put a link on their website that leads to you – it helps your rank! You can also link back to them so you both win. Social Media business profiles are a great way to get more links as well.
What is on page optimization? On page optimization involves creating a website with structure and content that is search engine friendly. Search engines gather information through spiders, which are automated programs that randomly visit websites and report back to the search engine. Anything that can be done to make it easy for the spiders to find all of your site’s relevant information is part of on page optimization.
What makes a website search engine friendly?Search engines examine several parts of your site including… Meta Data – this can be complicated and confusing but essentially, search engines want each page to have a unique title, description and keywords. These are built into the structure (html code) of your website so seek help from a SEO professional if you’re unsure how to make changes.
They also look at the Quantity and Age of Content on your site. Search engines look at the text on your page – not the graphics or cool design. They give a higher ranking to quality content that is current or updated regularly.
Search engine spiders look at tons of websites so it will help them recognize all of the good stuff on your site if you have a site map. This is simply a hierarchal list of your pages but it is invaluable for increasing your SEO.
Looks like the spider is back to point out that when creating a search engine friendly site you want to minimize your use of javascript and flash. While flash websites can look great and show fancy animation, most search engines cannot read the information embedded in the flash file.
As always, lets end with our high five review... if search engines designed the perfect site it would include 1. Links from reputable websites 2. A Title, meta description and keywords unique to every page 3. Quality content that is current or updated regularly 4. A complete sitemap 5. Limited flash javascript
We hope this video helps you to better understand search engine optimization and how it can help grow your business.
It is accepted that every business must have at least a one page website to compete in today's market but the critical question is - what is your one website or many page website saying? In seconds, a prospective customer can see everything they need to know about whether or not to do business with you. What is written and how it is written on your website sends a subtle message about you and how knowledgeable and serious you are about your business and your services and products. Too many websites are written like a resume for the business rather than a problem solving option for the customer. The website is all about the business and not about the customer and his needs. Meeting the clients' needs should be the most important point. Customers really don't care how long you have been in business as long as you can perform. Keep the resume and list of services for the 'About Us' page. A brand is the entire experience a prospect or customer has with your company. From websites to how the receptionist answers the phone, For our purpose here we will discuss the website. So how do I create a brand, you ask? Step one, identify the problems or issues that your products or services solve - then focus on the top three. What is your message? To simplify the process - pose a descriptive question that creates emotion or allows the customer to relate? An example would be "Are you tired of high heating bills?" Who isn't tired of this but the client is prompted to read further for information which may help him with a solution. Offer the solution and position yourself and your business site as the "go to" place for answers. This is the start to building your brand and who you are. The next blog will discuss the importance of the images conveyed and how colors and design play a role in your brand. Visit us at www.Qlixite.com for hints and help in creating your brand.
Are you thinking about mobile marketing? Wondering how you can use mobile marketing to connect with customers? The good news is that mobile marketing is not too complex. Here are five things you can do to get started in mobile marketing. Once you’ve mastered the steps below, you’ll see that mobile marketing is a great way to open up new revenue streams for your business. Ready to get started?
#1: Set up your mobile website This is actually easier than you might think. One option is to use the automated systems offered by many companies. Essentially, they take your existing website content and auto-format it for a mobile screen. WordPress has some plugins that do a pretty good job of this and ThisIsMyDomainUSA has an automated system that does it, too when you buy a .mobi domain. But for the best user experience, I recommend you focus on one of the options outlined below.
Your mobile home page should have a clean and simple design. On the left is the standard 60 Second Marketer home page seen on a smart phone. On the right is the mobile version of the site.
Option number two is to use one of the many plug-and-play platforms offered online. These companies actually create a separate mobile website that is completely independent from your regular website. Just Google “How to set up a mobile website” and you’ll find a number of companies doing this. There are some good organizations offering these plug-and-play systems, but there are also some real losers, so do your research before you choose a company to work with. Mobicanvas.com, GetGoMobi.com and Onswipe.com all seem to have good solid platforms to work from.
You can build and manage your website quickly and easily! A third option is to add a simple line of code onto your existing home page that “sniffs out” the screen size of the person visiting your site. If the person visiting your site has a screen that’s more than 600 pixels wide, they’re probably coming from a PC and are directed to your regular site. If the screen is smaller than 600 pixels, they’re probably coming from a mobile device and will be redirected to pages designed for a smartphone screen. Out of these three options, the third option is the best approach. Just ask your web designer to do a search for “mobile website redirect code” and they’ll find plenty of options like this one on CSS-Tricks.com.
Redirects are a critical step in ensuring your website is search-engine friendly.
#2: Claim your business on location-based platforms You should claim your business on location-based platforms like Foursquare,Gowalla and Facebook Places, especially if you have a brick-and-mortar location. Claiming your business just means that you’re raising your hand to these services and saying, “I’m an official representative of XYZ business and want to be listed on your platform.” Claiming your business is similar to calling up the phone company to get a free listing in the Yellow Pages, only now you’re reaching out to these location-based services instead of Ma Bell. Once you’ve claimed your business, you can start using these platforms to run mobile promotions. For example, Chili’s ran a promotion where everyone who “checked in” to their locations using Foursquare got free cheese dip. Better still, Chili’s improved on the promotion by making it so that anybody who checked in at another store within 200 yards of Chili’s got the same offer. Yup, you heard right—if you checked in at the florist next door, you got a digital coupon for free cheese dip at the Chili’s a few steps away. Brilliant! Users can unlock the free appetizer coupon at participating restaurants by checking in at Chili's through Foursquare.
#3: Immerse yourself You can’t fully understand mobile marketing until you use mobile marketing. So when you get through reading this article, grab your smartphone and mess around with it—check in on Foursquare, buy some shoes using the Zappos app, do a voice search using Google Voice Search—just get comfortable with all your smartphone’s nooks and crannies.
The Google Voice Search App lets you speak your queries without pushing any buttons, and also lets you do local searches without specifying your location. Faster web search with fewer keystrokes. When you’re ready to take a deeper dive into your smartphone, download theStarbucks mobile payment app and use it to pay for your next cup of coffee. That way, you can look even cooler than the guy who ordered the “double whipped mocha Frappuccino with a twist of whatever to go.”
You can pay for your Starbucks drink using the Starbucks Card Mobile app! The more you use mobile media, the more you’ll see that it’s really not all that complex. It’s just the newest marketing channel in a long line of marketing channels introduced throughout the last several decades. Tip: For smartphone overachievers: 1) Download LinkedIn to your smartphone, 2) enable your Bluetooth function and 3) open up the LinkedIn application. In the LinkedIn app, you’ll notice an icon with two people shaking hands called “In Person.” Find someone in your office who has LinkedIn installed on their smartphone, then “bump” your phones together. Ding! You’ve just used Bluetooth to exchange your LinkedIn profile without having to type a word. LinkedIn's app allows you to bump smartphones to exchange information.
#4: Run a mobile ad campaign. A mobile ad campaign is great for all kinds of companies, but particularly good for companies that have brick-and-mortar locations. After all, if you own a restaurant, wouldn’t you want to have an ad pop up when someone searches for “restaurants near my house”? Mobile ad campaigns can be bought on a cost-per-click basis, a cost-per-thousand basis or a cost-per-acquisition basis. Sound confusing? Don’t worry—just visit any of the most popular mobile advertising platforms (like Millennial Media, iAd from Apple or AdMob from Google) and they’ll walk you through the distinctions and how to use the services. AdMob provides innovative solutions for brand and performance advertisers, effective distribution for app developers and revenue opportunities for mobile site owners.
Qlixite's QR Code
#5: Scan a QR Code. QR Codes are those little barcode-like squares that are popping up all over the place. For an in-depth introduction to QR Codes, you can check out How QR Codes Can Grow Your Business. QR Codes (or their closely related cousins EZ Codes, Microsoft Tags, SPARQCodes, etc.) can be scanned by smartphones. Once scanned, they drive you through to mobile web pages that offer discount coupons, bonus content, special offers or some other additional content. How to download a QR Code reader to your smartphone: Turn on your smartphone and open your web browser. Visit BeeTagg.com or Sparq.it and click the link that says “Download QR Code Reader”. Launch the app and hold your phone’s camera up to a QR Code. The app will automatically scan the code.
Bottom Line By now, you’re probably realizing that mobile media really isn’t that complex. It’s just like social media or email marketing or organic search, the only difference is that the delivery mechanism is a smartphone or a tablet computer instead of a PC. These are just five of the ways you can kickstart your use of mobile marketing. There are probably dozens more. What are your thoughts? What mobile marketing tools have you tried out that you’d like to share with our readers? Leave your comments in the box below.
In the modern world of the Internet, where people automatically turn to the Web for information, your domain name needs to be unique to you to actively lead people to your business. Customers have short memories; they will not memorize an unrelated URL. Keep it simple for your customers and visitors and uniquely related to your business. Here are some useful answers...
What is a Domain Name?
Just to make sure we're all on the same page here, a domain name is the web address that leads people to your web site. Just the same as your home address, web browsers will direct people to your site via your domain name which ususally starts with 'www.' and ends with .com, .net, .co, .biz, .org etc.
Should My Domain Name Match My Business Name? In most cases....yes! Example: If my business name is Bloomin Flowers then my website domain name might be http://www.bloominflowers.com/ or http://www.bloomin-flowers.com/. This makes it easy for people to find my website just by searching for my business by name. You want your site to be easy to find and easy to get to. Many new businesses search for and secure their domain name before officially naming their business for this reason.
Not every domain name matches the business name, surprising but true.Suppose those domain names for Bloomin Flowers are taken already. So instead I get http://www.bf.com/ which is my initials but rather obscure since it doesn't delinate what my business is. What happens when my customers type in Bloomin Flowers in a search engine. My competitors' sites will show up first and if I haven't actively made my website search engine friendly, my site might not show up or be recognizable.
What if I can't Match my Domain Name to My Business Name? Your domain name choice may be already bought and could be a lot of time and money to get ownership of it. You have to determine how important the one you want is and how much you may be willing to spend to buy it from the party that already owns it. Check up the "whois" information for the domain, and contact that person listed to see if they're willing to sell it.
On the other hand, if you're just starting out, you might prefer the cheaper alternative of trying to obtain a domain name first, and then naming your website (or business) after the domain that you've acquired. This may seems a bit like putting the cart before the horse, but that's the reality if you don't want to lose out on the Internet.
Sometimes adjusting the domain name slightly will allow you to get a domain name that matches your business without having to pay extra. Here are some factors to consider... Abreviations versus Keywords Domain names can be of any length up to 67 characters. Some argue that shorter domain names are easier to remember, easier to type and far less susceptible to mistakes. Plus if you work with your initials alot you can incorporate this into your marketing. Example: www. RCDbyJohn.com for a business called Really Cool Designs by John. It's increasingly difficult to get short meaningful domain names because most have been sold already. If you manage to get a short domain name though, the key is to make sure it's a meaningful combination of characters and not hard to type and remember
Others argue that a longer domain name is usually easier on the human memory - for example, "www.gaepw.com" is a sequence of unrelated letters that is difficult to remember and type correctly, whereas if we expand it to its long form, "GetAnEconomicallyPricedWebsite.com", we are more likely to remember the domain name. If you have a tagline that you use often, it can be positive to use that as a domain name. Long domain names that have your site keywords in them also have an advantage in that they seach better in the search engines. This is the key to being found on the internet, can the search engines find your company. Try to avoid extremely long names verging on 67 characters. Aside from the obvious problem that people might not be able to remember such a long name, it would also be a chore typing it and trying to fit it as a title on your web page.
Hyphenated Domain Names
• Cons
1. Hphens are easy to forget when typing a name. Many users are used to typing things like freecomputertools.com but not free-computer-tools.com. They'll probably leave out the hyphens and end up at your competitor's site.
2. When people recommend your site verbally, having hyphens in your domain name leads to more potential errors.
• Pros
1. Search engines can distinguish your keywords better and thus return your site more prominently in search results for those keywords occurring in your domain name.
2. The non-hyphenated form may no longer be available. At least this way, you still get the domain name you want.
Different forms of Domains with plurals: the and my Very often, if you can't get the domain name you want, the domain name registrar will suggest alternate forms of the name you typed. For example, if you wanted website.com, and it was taken (of course it is), it might suggest forms like:
thewebsite.com
mywebsite.com
websites.com
and the like, if they were not already taken as well. The question is, should you go with one of these options?
If you take the "the..." and "my..." forms of the domain name, you must remember to promote your site with the full form of the name. Otherwise, people are likely to forget to affix the necessary "the" or "my".
On the other hand, do not take the plural form of the domain name (eg, websites.com) if you cannot also get "website.com", since the chance of the visitor failing to type the "s" in the name is very great.
Domain Name Endings or Extensions What if you cannot get the “.com” domain but the “.net” or “.org” or others are available. Are these others ok for domain addresses? The answer is not as simple as you might think and should fit your business needs based on some of the features covered below.
.com - the most popular and widely recognized domain extension in the world. It usually pops up first in search results and people are more likely to type it over any other ending. May be registered by anyone. Get it if you can!
.net - used frequently when the .com version of your domain name has been taken. Widely used for internet infrastructure as well.
.info - associated with websites that provide information as opposed to sales. This can be useful for businesses who publish articles and is recognized world wide.
.co - this is a new extension that provides people options if their domains are taken in other widely recognized domain extensions. International recognition and easy to remember.
.biz - made specifically for business and ecommerce sites such as online stores.
.org - popular extension for non-profit and non-commercial organizations as well as highlighting a business or companies charitable features.
.mobi - can be easily viewed on a mobile device such as a smart phone or tablet.
.me - usually reserved for blogs, online resumes or portfolios of an individual
There are other domain extensions that relate to specific countries as well as one's that must be a qualified group to obtain (Example: only an official school can get a .edu extension or government agency use .gov etc)
Can I Have More Than One Domain Name? Absolutely! Multiple domain names can point to the same website. In fact if you are a new business it's best to secure your domain name with multiple extensions to protect it from a competitor. You can create other search word filled domain names to point to your website but it's a good idea to make sure the domain names are relevant to your content so as not to draw negative attention from search engines.
The best idea is to get your domain name first....before you even make your business offcial! If you're already in business, follow the above hints or seek help from a marketing strategist who understands search engine optimization and establishing a professional web presence.
