Using Social Media to Improve Your Local Search Results

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There is a lingering question as to whether social media can influence search engine ranking, as well as local search results. Whenever this is studied by a reliable source, there appears to be a connection – but not formally confirmed by Google or Bing. Whether someone makes a statement or not, it cannot be denied that social media is indeed powerful. It gives an opportunity for businesses to connect with consumers and find out what they need. Those who are willing to pay attention to what consumers have to say will be able to come up with new ideas for products and services.

Consumers in the US use up about 19% of their digital time on social networks, which means you can get in touch with them there. Three reasons to add social media to your local search strategy are as follows:

Connect with a New Audience

Your message can reach a multitude of potential customers through social media. Nobody can deny the power of social media as a place where people come together. Millions of Facebook users have offered lots of psychographic data to the network, leaving a digital trail all through the ads, pages plus other links they have clicked. FB is capable of targeting users based on demographic data, as well as their interests.

Drive Traffic

Though social media lets you meet and engage audiences, businesses also need consumers to visit their sites.

  • Whether live or prerecorded, a video can always be helpful in educating viewers. Consumers will want to come back for more each time, building loyalty and raising awareness.
  • Another effective method for the site to get more clicks is to create custom graphics, featuring stats, tips plus bits and pieces of data, as well as include links to the site to know more about the topic.
  • When special offers are revealed first and also exclusively on social media, this builds a fan base that will make consumers keep coming back, taking notice and buying again and again.

The ultimate goal is to drive traffic to the website, which reveals a lot about the business, as well as the products and services they provide – all this to make it easy for consumers to decide or purchase.

Monitor the Metrics

Many major social platforms come with free metrics to monitor your posts’ popularity and reach. Buffer and Hootsuite are third-party apps that let you view, update and keep lots of social media accounts as well as compare their effectiveness.

In addition, it is critical to know the length of time they stay after clicking on the website, the other things they click on, and if they convert to being a customer. Incorporating Google Analytics will let you monitor where the consumer goes the moment they get to the site. You need to manage the time and money invested in different social media sites in order to maximize your investment.

As you can see, you can no longer afford to ignore social media marketing. You should also worry about your mobile website design if you want more traffic and conversions from mobile traffic.

Tips to Design a Quality Mobile-Friendly Website

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Mobile-friendly websites as well as responsive designs are the current trend. For this reason, your company and clients may want to follow suit and go mobile.

When you construct a mobile-friendly website, this means you need to rethink the design process for it to look good on a wide range of screens of different mobile platforms. Your full website may be clear when viewed on tablets, but since the screens of smartphones are a lot smaller, your job is to give owners a pleasurable user experience.

To accomplish that, you need to go through various steps – a number of basic guidelines that appear to apply to nearly all projects about design for mobile devices.  Here are a number of helpful tips:

Remain Simple

Always remember that simplicity is best for mobile-friendly websites. More often than not, content overload is not good even for a desktop. A mobile site that is heavy is not friendly at all. It is actually a lot easier to make a mobile website over complicated.

Be Straight to the Point

What does the design of a mobile website or mobile app aim to do? It is to get users to what they need soonest, with fewer taps, swipes and needed attention. If an unwanted screen appears, skip it. This means that your mobile website should not have more than what it needs.

Give Access

In order for visitors to start navigating your site, they need to enter it. The server recognizes mobile devices, so you need to ensure that mobile visitors are automatically brought to the mobile page.

Make It Short

Don’t let users input a lot of text. This can be a problem for tablets, more so for smartphones, where it can hurt when you type something beyond a message, comment or tweet. In case you require a form to be filled -such as a signup – make it short. It could be a password, login or email. An added field lessens user satisfaction.

Brand it

Your website should certainly show your brand with its logo, style and colors to make it easy to recognize. You could always find a way to include them in the design without affecting usability.

Avoid Overcrowding

Avoid placing a lot of information on a single screen page. This will crowd the interface and make it hard to navigate. Visitors should be able to easily go through your web pages, without feeling pressured.

Designed for the Screen

Your designer will ask your advice before making decisions on how you like your mobile site to look. Such rules include the right size of buttons and proper space between them (to avoid pressing the wrong button). Avoid filling pages with too many images or allowing intrusive popups. These and more suggestions will create a more attractive website, because being convenient to use is attractive.

Test for Compatibility

Test your website properly in a wide range of devices, different operating system versions as well as screen resolutions. However, development companies lack in supply of mobile devices for testing therefore you can only choose a few.

When you follow some of these guidelines if not all, the design for mobile will be much appealing for your visitors.

Need more advice on mobile website design? Or perhaps you’re more interested in social media marketing. Either way, check our services section and contact us to schedule an appointment.

 

What are the advantages of eCommerce for your business?

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Observe the Buying Habits of Consumers

Perhaps the best thing about e-commerce businesses is that they can constantly observe the habits of consumers, as well as their interests. This way, they can offer goods that would best suit their needs. When these retailers continue to satisfy the needs of consumers, they can improve and establish good customer relations.

Competence

E-commerce is a reliable and efficient method for successful business transactions. It is less costly to set up, as compared to having a physical store.  In addition, it only requires a number of permits and licenses to start an online business than a brick and mortar store. Furthermore, you can have more savings by employing a few people to bill customers and manage the inventory, among other operations.

Let Contented Clients Sell Your Products

Include customer’s reviews as well as product ratings to boost your sales, especially when new customers discover that your goods are reliable and effective.  Always mention the reviews, testimonials and product ratings of your clients. This way, new customers will be encouraged to buy your products/services.

Sell Your Products across the Globe

When you have a physical store, your customers will only be limited. Only those nearby will be able to buy from you. On the other hand, when you have an e-commerce site, you are able to sell your products/services worldwide.  There are no geographical limits when selling your entire list of products since the whole world is at your hands. Furthermore, the other limitation of geography has been eradicated by mCommerce, which is known as mobile commerce.

Your Store is Open 24/7, the Whole Year Round

Perhaps the best advantage of an eCommerce store to its merchants is the convenience of buying. They can go through e-commerce sites any time of the day and at their own comfort. This is a way to boost sales by increasing the quantity of orders. No matter where they are or what time it is, they can purchase the products and services they need.

Increase Brand Visibility and Awareness

Aside from helping B2B organizations in getting new clients, e-commerce businesses can increase their brand visibility and awareness in the market. Creating pages that search engine crawlers can index is one of the most effective ways to improve your site’s search engine optimization and to draw target audience to your site.

Reduce Costs

One of the benefits given by eCommerce is the fact that it allows you to reduce your business costs. The following are a number of costs that can be reduced by choosing eCommerce:

Promotion and Marketing

If you decide on eCommerce, you can save on the costs of promoting and marketing.  Nevertheless, you can rely on cost-efficient ways such as the pay-per-click method, organic search engine traffic and social media traffic.

Staff

You can reduce the operational costs involved by getting only a few employees that will take care of billing and inventory management.

Remove Travel Costs

Since eCommerce allows customers from over the world to buy from your online store any time of the day, they do not have to spend to travel long distances. They can make a purchase with just a few clicks of the mouse and enjoy their shopping experience.