Why Your Website’s Design Is Too Important To Be Left To Web Designers

 

Your company website looks outdated, whereas rival websites are looking fantastic. So you hire a designer or a designing agency to give your company’s website a new start.

But does a believable, compelling website design really matter?

Yes, it does. But, the important thing is that it should not be just good looking. It should also be user and search engine friendly. Your best bet is a digital marketing agency, unless you yourself are a digital marketing expert.

The following is a list of 5 key components, which an online marketing agency keeps in mind while designing a website:

Navigation

The navigation of a website is very important as it can make or break a website. It is especially true for websites with several pages. Website navigation normally includes a list of labels or navigation bar which organizes its pages for easy access. Web designers sometimes get carried away with fancy typefaces and designs while designing navigation. Good navigation must be simple to find and understand, making for quick and easy travel through the entire website.

Read Also: Design 2015: Changing Trends In Web Design

Brand Consistency

If your firm has a logo which is being used often in print materials (i.e. Pamphlets, business cards, letterheads, etc.), the logo/brand colors, logo, brand messaging and imagery utilized in print should be carried over into the website design.

It is significant for your clients to be capable enough to identify your brand in all forms of communication so that they can associate your promise and brand position with your business.

When the visual communication gets changed to a brand, it can make the clientele feel uncomfortable, which leads them to make a negative association with your firm. At the same time, a smart digital marketing agency will be able to enhance your relationship with the customer through clever usage of branding elements.

Reading Patterns and SEO

Many folks are comfortable in reading the whole website the same way they read a book. Web designers keep this in mind while designing a website. Most of the designers make sure to place the vital info on the upper left-hand column. This will aid you to get the message worldwide more efficient from the visitors who could be potential or current clientele.

Recommended Read: 6 Benefits of Digital Marketing for Small Businesses

Content

The content in your website is essential. Mainly because it communicates your company’s brand promise and brand position directly to your customers. There are other very essential elements which are taken into consideration when a copywriter writes the content and the designer designs the corresponding visual environment related to the content.

Trust

Making and maintaining trust amid your clientele is really essential, but it will not happen till you really get to know about them and their values. Marketing methods can help you find more about your probable customer’s requires.

Website design is much more than a fancy, eye-candy layout. It is an ideal way to make a user-friendly environment where folks come for necessary tips. A properly designed and managed website can see clients continuously returning to your website and doing business with your firm.

6 Benefits of Digital Marketing for Small Businesses

 

Today’s competitive world demands digital marketing for growth and establishment. Digital marketing agencies elevate communication and association of your brand with targeted clients to a higher level. Through social networking sites, instant messaging and mobile applications, it escorts your business to the next level. If you are a business holder, deciding on a marketing strategy can be confusing. Most companies lack in resources to deal with the diverse digital channels that are available today. Digital marketing agencies can rescue you during such situations and help prioritize the channels to be focused.

Recommended Read: 6 Essential Steps to a Successful Blog Post

Already excited over the idea of opening a digital marketing plan? Here are 6 benefits of Digital Marketing:

Digital Marketing Connects you with Online Customers

Gone are the days when people explore pages and pages for information. 80% of consumers now utilize internet for better and handy access of information. Business owners can achieve targeted customers and connect to them easily with online marketing.

Save Money with Online Marketing

Companies with very limited resources can generate desirable outcomes with minimum expense. It’s significant for any small business owner to lay down reasonable goals. But, keep in mind that the more attempts you make to attract social followers, the better your results would be.

Higher Conversion Rates Possible through Digital Marketing

Digital marketing opens the doorway to success by helping you reach out to more targeted customers. It enables to converse directly with the customers. Choose at least three social media sites and start discussing with them. Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus are good options to start with. You can get suggestions from customers and execute them in a way that giant companies can’t.

Recommended Read: 10 E-mail Marketing Hacks That Every Marketer Should Know

Enable Real-Time Customer Service

Online marketing offers great impact on the success of your business by providing a one to one chat with customers. Business owners instantly get to know customer response and experience can increase sales through personalised offers. It also helps in maintaining and creating new, contented, customers.

Generate Higher Revenues

Usage of minimal cost and greater savings helps to reap the benefits of generating higher revenues. Big companies may be capable of spending a great deal on multimedia but your profit as a small business is having an individual touch to your endeavours. This moreover enables an opportunity to locate yourself as part of your community.

Digital Marketing Keeps You at Par with Competitors

With persistent transformations and fast-paced competition, how do you make sure your small business remains at par with already established ones? Being unique is the key here. Exceptional service quality and products permit you to position yourself along with bigger marketing giants.

So, do you think there are other benefits? If you do, please share with us in the comment section.

Video Content Marketing Trends 2015

Human are visual creatures. We believe what we see. To sell any idea, marketers should get consumers to visualize an idea. That’s where video content marketing comes to the scene. Imagine the effect movies, music videos and TV ads have on our psyche. Now, redirect that effect to your business. A digital marketing agency can finish the intimidating task of making videos with ease.

The Emotional Quotient

The video of a silly dog running around a laughing infant has million views in YouTube. Why? The video has no logic or purpose, but it strikes an emotional chord with the viewer. The audience find the video amusing to watch. That’s the strategy. Any valuable product sold with an emotional touch will make all the difference in the revenue.

The videos need not be all about the product. The focus should be on gaining customer loyalty. Make videos of your work culture, the non profit organisations you work with, the brand’s values, team events, etc. When it gets emotional, it gets personal.

Keep It Short

The videos should not lag. The shorter a video, the greater it’s reception. That’s why TV ads are more powerful than full length movies. The tiny-videos put the spotlight on its message before the audience gets distracted. It is the little things that a digital marketing agency does that matters.

Create short Q&A sessions with customer queries as videos for your online site. It will show the customers that you care. Ask your buyers to share their picture with your products and create small montage videos with that.

Entertainment

Video content marketing should never be boring. The visuals should be attractive, well shot and funny. People never forget a famous movie dialogue or a catchy song chorus. It’s because of their entertainment values. Anything wrapped in humour will bring positivity all around. Customers will feel at ease when they see the glamorous or goofy side of your business.

Make funny videos with your workers or share funny stories. Film highlights of the year or show your audience the perks of using your products. Add some catchy tunes to it. There you go! These are some simple equations to videos which one cannot forget.

Information

Boost the value of your products with video content marketing. Watching a video makes a person understand better than reading a book. A digital marketing agency’s videos provide much information about the products in short amounts of time. It’s creative, effortless and efficient.

Make instructional manuals in video formats and upload those to your site. It helps your customers to get the most out of your products. Give a virtual tour of your site to enhance the user interface. Document how your products are made and show them to your customers.

Visual Attraction

The huge advantage of video content marketing over others is that it’s attractive. But, a shabby video will backfire. It’s important to put in efforts to make catchy videos. The length, visual aesthetics, the concept and everything matters. A digital marketing agency can help you with a dedicated video team.

Every single thing that comes on screen is essential and must be given attention. When there are millions of options available, a customer will never waste time on a bad video.

Do follow your competitors’ activities to stay updated with your video content marketing. You learn more by watching videos than reading about videos. It also avoids the same videos being made again.

With many advantages to its side, Video content marketing is a powerful digital marketing tool. By focusing on making quality videos, you help, entertain and guide your customers. When made to feel included, your targets always stay loyal!

5 SEO Factors That Are More Important Than Keywords

Keywords are gradually losing its position as the top SEO factor that determines search engine rankings of sites.

Days were gone, where keywords were the top SEO strategy to achieve better rankings. All websites had to do use relevant keywords in their content and URLs to be rewarded and ranked.Though keyword selection still plays a major part in the SEO process, search engines algorithms and guidelines have changed. So what are the other factors that dominate keywords?

Content still matters: Incredible content that people will want to share can earn links and improve web traffic. Make sure to create content that not only answers a reader’s questions, but is informative.  Include blogs, and web pages that get deeper into the topic and present the reader with information that they may not already know. Images and infographics can also enrich the viewing experience. Social sharing buttons on each page of the site will make it easier for users to share your content throughout social networks, which is sure to influence your site’s SEO. Professional digital marketing agencies will provide services from skilled content writers experienced in writing all types of content.

Responsive designs: Google reports that in the USA, 94% of people with smartphones search for local information on their phones.With Google’s latest “mobile-friendly” algorithm, responsive web designs are becoming mandatory for any website. Following Google, Bing has also recently announced its launch of a mobile-friendly algorithm in the coming months.Digital marketing agencies are also focusing on providing their clients with quality responsive designs that help them rank them better for search engines.

Site structure and navigation: Easily navigable sites are what users prefer. Ensure that your site’s navigation is cleanly organized. The better navigation your site has, the better are its chances to rank higher on SERPs (search engine result pages).  The site should include sub-menus and a sitemap, as well as traditional standby pages like Contact, About Us, and Services pages.

Focus on loading time and security: Site speed and security are important factors that search engines notice with increasing competition.Users will not be patient enough to wait till your site load. Remembers they have diverse option to leave your site and choose one of your competitors. Both Google and Bing use page loading speed as a ranking factor. By implementing a clean caching system, you can maximize the site loading speed. Also reduce the image size and remove unnecessary clutter in your back end. Site security can be improved with SSL encryption. For instance, while using ecommerce sites, user should feel sure to enter their credit card number or to enter other banking details.

Semantic search: Released as part of the Hummingbird update back in 2013, semantic search is now indispensable feature for any user trying to find an answer to a specific question. With semantic search, users need not have to provide the exact search terms to get the information they search for. Rather this search delivers results based on a range of factors including context, location, what the user is really trying to find, and why they are trying to find it. This advanced search option can take account of synonyms, related concepts and whether the query is specialized or generalized. It also allows users to search for information or content using natural language. Bing and Google are also developing capabilities where users can type a question in their own language, and get back relevant, personalized and accurate answers to that question.

For instance, imagine you are searching for “cheap car washing service in NY”. Instead of looking for any site with the words like “cheap”, “NY” and “car washing” ,semantic search interprets the meaning behind the search query that the user is likely looking for an inexpensive car washing service in New York and then searches for companies that might fit that description.

In their busy schedule, most online businesses will not be able to optimize their website with the latest algorithms. Choosing a reliable digital marketing agency is the right option for them. Such agencies will provide their team with quality training on how to use the latest algorithmic updates.

Online Video: The Future of Content Marketing

 

We live in a world of instant gratification. With people not even having time for their breakfast, nobody likes to sit and read page long stories and marketing content. They much prefer to see it rather than read it. They say one must have be futuristic to run successful online business. When that's the case, online video content marketing is the future that spreads like wildfire in the present.

Accessibility

With our hands permanently glued to our mobile phones, we at least see one video per day. We can't say the same for written media. All the consumer has to do is click the link and see your idea. It saves lot of time for people on both sides. There are lot of YouTube channels that regularly drive million views within a matter of hours. People prefer seeing people rather than reading blogs.

Attractive

The main advantage of video marketing by a digital marketing agency over other marketing strategies is it's very attractive. When we add human touch to the content, it engages the viewer. Emotional strategy is always better than intellectual strategy. Say you are selling a dog food product. You write a blog about it with a healthy and playful dog photo. You also release a video ad for the product on Youtube, showing the dog eating your food and playing around in a ground. Which you think would have attracted the customers?

Size

You can make the customer understand your idea better with a twenty second video instead of writing a five page long article. It avoids any confusion the customers may have about your product as they see it in a real situation. It provides transparency between a business designed by a digital marketing agency and its target.

Budget-friendly

There is a false notion that making a video for business is expensive. But, it is not. You yourself can make a simple video with an amateur camera. Idea is money, not the gadget. If we take YouTube, most of the videos there are shot at home with personal cameras. Still they work. Why? The content. A six-second vine by a digital marketing agency can sell idea.

Curiosity

With small teasers before your product release, you can entice the audience. The more curious they are, that much likely they are to buy your products. Once you deliver your products, trust is built with your customers. This can never be possible with any other marketing.

Instant

The most important feature of online video marketing is that it’s instant. You can shoot a video and upload it instantly. The customers can see it and give the feedback instantly. Once you know the reaction, you can improvise the product if necessary. This creates transparency and cuts down the cost drastically.

Variety

The promotional videos by a digital marketing agency need not be boring. With the types of video formats available, you can do anything with online video marketing. You can release

  • video testimonials of your customers to build confidence,
  • show product demos in real time,
  • instructional videos about how to use your products,
  • interviews with the business heads,
  • Q&A sessions,
  • Pop culture stars endorsing your products, etc.

When you are conceptualising your idea, make sure it’s relevant to your customer. Subtle placement of your product in a brilliant video is more effective than exaggerating. Do not hint on any stereotypes or insults on a particular group of people.

With million dollar businesses happening every second through little screens, it’s obvious who’s the youngest online marketing superstar is. Online videos, of course!

5 SEO Best Practices Trending in 2015

“Content is king. But marketing is queen and runs the household”– Gary Vaynerchuk

Jay has just started learning about the scopes of digital marketing and following the advice of one of his friends, had spend money on creating a business website and writing blog posts, making videos and images and all content of the sort for the website. He waited for few weeks after creating a beautiful website to boost his business but, nothing happened! He was worried and of course, frustrated thinking what could have gone wrong?

What really happened?

May be due to his lack of knowledge or in the hurry to achieve a result, Jay forgot to add a main ingredient to his digital marketing strategy-SEO!

No matter how good the content of your website is, your marketing skills are of no use until your business grabs attention among customers. You need to have all elements to pull customers towards your brand and therefore, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays a significant role.

“The best place to hide a dead body is page 2 of Google search results”

Google is the most used search engine in the Internet. Internet users are always impatient and while searching online, they tend to check only the websites in the first page of the search results. Therefore, it is important for your business website to be there in the first page of search results for customers to find out about it.

SEO helps in improving your page ranking and in increasing web traffic through various techniques. Therefore, for every business, it is necessary to have a SEO specialist. If you don’t have one, you can go for a SEO specialist or hire a digital marketing agency like Jointviews that can satisfy all your marketing needs.

The SEO techniques applied vary over years and they are still in the path of evolution. If you are into marketing your business online, it is necessary for you to be up to date with the latest trends in SEO.

Here are 5 SEO best practices that are trending in 2015 that you can utilize to improve your page ranking and to help your business reach the right audience in the coming months:

1. Content is king

Content has great value in digital marketing. A good quality and informative content has the power to influence people and convert them into permanent customers.  Any content that you add to your website must be related to your business and should contain relevant keywords. This trend seems to continue even in 2015.

2. Conversations given more priority than keywords

Before, a matching keyword would have brought your website to the first page of search results. But now, things have changed. Search engine looks specifically for the meaning, context and intent of the word typed in the search query.  Therefore, you should focus on putting efforts towards a key word phrase in order to engage in a conversation with your customers.

3. Visual-based SEO

2014 was the year of visual content when websites that topped search engine results had high quality videos and images as content. The trend remains the same in 2015. The Search Engine Results Pages are choosing websites with text and visual elements in them over those websites with just text as content.  Also, video marketing in YouTube can help you build website traffic by sharing the video in social media sites.

4. Mobile-friendly SEO

No one bothers to carry a laptop around these days. Internet is easily available in mobile phones and that is what the people prefer. According to the statistics, mobile Internet usage has surpassed desktop Internet. According to the estimates, there will be at least 50 billion local searches via mobile Internet and therefore, mobile-friendly SEO is the need of the hour.

5. Online security is a priority in rankings

If your website deals with online transactions and contains sensitive information, make sure that you are using proper security measures to guard the information.  Online security certificates and use of https instead of http is going to decide your website rankings in 2015.