10 Website Marketing Strategies to Help Your Business Grow

10 Website Strategies to Help Your Business Grow

Your business website is, by far, the most valuable tool in your marketing arsenal. Not only does it establish an online presence for your business, but it also serves as the basis around which all your other marketing takes place. Your website allows you to communicate your brand, culture, and – perhaps, most importantly – your story to existing and prospective customers.

As a website is often the first point of contact with a business for many potential customers, you want to ensure that yours makes a great first impression. Based on the layout, content, and ease of navigation of your website, prospective customers will decide if they want to interact with your company further – whether by opting in to receive regular content from your brand, picking up the phone and calling you, or making a purchase.

In today’s highly competitive online market, any business that wants to succeed must have a clearly defined website marketing strategy. If your site isn’t generating enough traffic – either because it’s unappealing or it’s difficult to find in search engine results pages (SERPs) – or it isn’t succeeding at attracting new leads or keeping existing customers engaged, it’s time to take a new approach to your marketing strategy.

 

What Is Website Marketing?

Simply put, website marketing is the strategic process of promoting a business’s website on the internet. The primary goal of website marketing is to drive more qualified traffic (visitors who may be interested in your products or services) and increase your site’s rankings in SERPs by applying search engine optimization (SEO) tactics and other digital marketing techniques.

In this article, we’ll look at 10 essential strategies that you can use to generate leads, increase conversions, boost sales, and grow your business through website marketing.

 

 

Perform a Review of Your Website Design

Take the time to thoroughly evaluate your website design. You want to make sure that your site not only looks attractive but is user-friendly and fully functional. Several aspects come into play when it comes to effective website design:

  1. Visual Elements:  Keep design styles and shapes simple. Font sizes and colors should be easy to read. Flashy elements not related to your message or the end user’s experience should be kept at a minimum.

  2. Ease of Navigation:  Having a clear navigation structure will keep users moving effortlessly through your web pages. Ideally, every page on your website should be accessible from the homepage in three clicks or less. An easy-to-navigate sitemap helps Google crawl and index your site more easily, discover new pages faster, and determine which pages to prioritize.

  3. User Experience (UX):  Evaluate your website’s user-friendliness and eliminate any design elements that add complexity or aren’t needed. Make sure your web pages are well-organized and that the site layout isn’t overly complicated. If visitors can’t quickly and easily find what they’re looking for, most will simply give up and leave.

  4. Mobile Responsiveness:  These days, most consumers use mobile devices to access the internet. So, you need to ensure that your site provides the best possible experience for mobile users. A mobile-responsive website will automatically adapt the content on your pages to display properly on a smartphone or tablet – meaning that visitors can spend less time squinting or sighing and more time clicking and buying. Optimizing your site for mobile devices results in higher rankings in search engine results and faster page loading times, both of which contribute positively to your SEO efforts.

  5. Clear Communication:  The second a visitor arrives on your website, they should be able to recognize who you are and what makes your brand different. Your content should clearly communicate how buying your products or enlisting your services can make customers’ lives easier or more pleasurable. Ensure that all the pertinent information on your site – such as your business address, phone number, and product pricing – is always up to date. Regularly update your site with valuable content like customer testimonials, company news, upcoming events, and engaging videos.

  6. Security and Trustworthiness:  Visitors want to feel as secure on your website as if they were buying something from a well-known physical store. They need to know whether there are return policies in place if a product doesn’t perform as it should and that their data will be protected. If consumers don’t feel that you’re trustworthy, it’s unlikely that they’ll sign up for your mailing list, purchase your products, or enlist your services.

  7. Calls to Action (CTAs):  A call to action is a prompt on a web page that encourages visitors to take a desired action, such as signing up for an email newsletter, calling to request a consultation, or purchasing a product. To increase clicks and conversions, make sure your CTAs are prominently placed on each page of your website, and that they’re presented as direct commands or action phrases (such as “Sign Up,” “Buy Now,” “Contact Us,” “Call Today,” or “Learn More), and that you offer something of value in return for users surrendering their personal information.

 

Implement Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Most visitors will initially arrive at your website via Google and other search engines. Having a well-defined SEO strategy is essential to ensuring that your site is easily discoverable by search engines and potential customers alike. By increasing online visibility and improving your rankings in organic search results, SEO helps drive a steady flow of relevant traffic to your website. SEO is a long-term, often complicated process involving several key techniques:

  • Technical SEO:  Checking your site for errors or issues that may prevent search engines from “crawling” and indexing your site.

  • On-Page SEO:  Making your content easy to read for both users and search engines.

  • Off-Page SEO:  Building backlinks (links from other websites that point back to your site) from well-known websites within or directly related to your niche or industry.

  • Keyword Research:  Accumulating a list of words and phrases that your target audience searches for most frequently.

  • Content Optimization:  Incorporating your target keywords into various elements of your content such as titles, subheadings, paragraphs, meta tags, meta descriptions, and URLs. Including links to other pages on your website and other reputable sites in your field.

  • Image Optimization:  Adding alt text and descriptions containing your target keywords to every image (or video) on your site.

  • Local SEO:  Optimizing your site for location-based searches to increase both website visits and foot traffic to brick-and-mortar stores.

 

Create a Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing involves creating engaging, highly readable, and well-structured content that directly addresses the needs of your target audience and shows how your products or services can solve their problems. Effective content marketing can help establish your business as an authority in your niche or industry, build trust and relationships with your target audience, and inform and educate potential customers about your products, services, and other industry-related topics.

 

With content marketing, you can generate continuous traffic to your business website –  whether you’re sending an email, posting on social media, or creating a YouTube video, always include a link back to your website. If you’re publishing a blog on your website, promote it on your other marketing channels and include a link that points back to your blog.

 

In developing your content marketing strategy, you must first identify which keywords to target with your content by performing keyword research. Conduct a competitor analysis to find out what’s working (or isn’t) for your competitors. Evaluate Google search results to determine what type of content Google wants for your target keywords. Promote the content you create across all marketing channels (social media, email, online communities, etc.).

 

In addition to regularly publishing new content, you should also periodically review your existing content to see if anything has changed. Pinpoint any pages with outdated information, “thin” content, low search rankings, no backlinks, or very little traffic. Determine whether to update or republish these pages, remove them from your site, redirect the URL to other related pages, or combine them with other web pages.

 

Promote Your Website on Social Media

Publishing high-quality, engaging content – such as blog articles, short videos, creative images, memes, or polls – to your social media pages regularly is an excellent way to interact with your target audience directly, build relationships with current and prospective customers, increase traffic to your website, generate new leads, improve conversion rates, build brand awareness and customer loyalty, and get instant feedback about your business, products, or services from actual consumers.

 

Before marketing your website on social media, you need to determine which social networks make the most sense for your business. Create a business page on each platform your target audience uses regularly so you can interact with them easily. Use your company logo as your profile photo and create accounts with the same username (consisting of your brand name or your website) across all your social media profiles. Keeping your brand identity consistent helps improve brand recognition for your business.

 

Fill out all the relevant information on your profile or bio, including your physical address (if you have one), email address, phone number, website URL, and store hours (if applicable). Your “About” section should effectively communicate your brand’s value proposition while establishing your overall tone and style. Include a call to action with a link to your homepage or a dedicated landing page. Having a distinct and memorable bio increases the chances that you’ll capture your target audience’s attention and that your message will resonate with them.

 

Social media users are more than willing to share your content to their news feeds if they believe their friends, family, and colleagues will enjoy it, too. Provide links to all your social media profiles in prominent locations on your website – such as your homepage or blog – and include “Share” buttons on any web page with content visitors might want to share. On each of your social media profiles or bios, include your website’s URL so users can easily navigate to your site to learn more about your business, book an appointment, or make a purchase.

 

Target Your Ideal Customers with Paid Advertising

Improving your search rankings using SEO tactics and gaining a decent number of social media followers organically can take time. For faster results, paid advertising is a great alternative. Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) and social media ads are among the most popular types of paid advertising.

 

PPC advertising platforms like Google Ads allow you to create and run ads centered around the words and phrases you’ve identified through keyword research to get your website to appear at or near the top of search results when users search for businesses like yours. Pay-per-click ads can be a cost-effective way to drive targeted traffic to your website quickly, increase brand awareness, and generate fresh interest in your products or services. With PPC ads, your business only pays when someone clicks on your ad. Each ad links to a landing page that’s customized to your specific offer.

 

Paid social media advertising platforms such as Facebook Ads let you target the users that best match your customer personas. Through highly sophisticated and advanced targeting methods, paid social media helps generate the right kind of traffic to your site – in other words, the people who are most likely to buy your products or enlist your services. When users click on the link in your ad, they’re taken to a dedicated landing page where they have the opportunity to take a variety of specific actions, such as learning more about your business, subscribing to your email newsletter, reaching out to a sales representative, or making a purchase.

 

Keep Your Audience Engaged with Email Marketing

With an average return rate of $44 for every $1 spent, email marketing remains a powerful, cost-effective way to communicate directly with existing and potential customers and keep them up to date about your business, products, services, special promotions, company news, and more. Since email list subscribers have already demonstrated an interest in your business, regularly dropping engaging content into their email inboxes will keep you on their radar. Provide links to your website or blog at multiple points throughout your email communications (including in your call to action) to keep subscribers returning to your site.

 

Of course, before you can start sending out emails, you have to build a solid contact list. While the list-building process can be difficult and time-consuming, coming up with new and innovative ways to encourage visitors to give you their email addresses can help fast-track the process. Depending on your specific business and its audience, there are several different tactics you can use to incentivize people to surrender their contact information, such as:

Make it easy for users to subscribe to your email list by adding signup forms in highly conspicuous places throughout your website. Once you’ve gained new subscribers, continually send them great content to keep them engaged and dissuade them from unsubscribing. Encourage subscribers to return to your website frequently by showing them what they might have missed since their last visit – new product launches, recent blog posts, videos, or other interactive content.

 

Encourage Returning Website Visitors Using Remarketing & Retargeting

There’s an old marketing rule, known as the “Rule of 7,” which states that a potential customer must see or hear an advertisement or marketing message at least seven times before deciding to buy a product or service. Internet marketing is no different. Most people will need to revisit your website several times before taking the next step in the path to purchase.

 

That’s where remarketing and retargeting come in. While the two techniques are similar, there are also a few distinct differences. Both involve reaching out to consumers who have already expressed an interest in your business, products, or services – whether by visiting your website, clicking on one of your ads, searching for your business on Google, or following you on social media – and encouraging them to reconnect with you and take a specific action (such as signing up for email updates, booking a consultation, or making a purchase).

 

Remarketing is focused on engaging current or previous customers via email in order to recapture their attention and encourage them to return to your website when they’re ready to buy. Retargeting involves serving targeted ads to prospective customers who have previously visited your website or a specific web page and have (or have not) taken a specific action. With retargeting, cookies (text files containing small pieces of data) are used in conjunction with certain advertising platforms like Google Ads or Facebook to track your website visitors’ actions after they leave your site and continue browsing the internet. The ads are displayed on subsequent websites the user visits, reminding them to return to your site.

 

Implementing one or both of these techniques will help drive more targeted traffic to your website, boost brand awareness, improve engagement, reduce shopping cart abandonment, increase conversions and sales, and lower advertising costs.

 

Measure and Analyze User Activity & Website Traffic

With traditional marketing methods, results can be difficult to accurately monitor and analyze. Do you really know how many people took the time to read your flyer, and how many simply threw it away? But with digital marketing – and your website, in particular – everything is measurable and can be analyzed. Along with providing a better understanding of who your ideal customers are, so you can effectively market to them, web analytics platforms can also help:

Since most of the data you need can be obtained from Google Analytics, installing this valuable tool on your website and ensuring that it’s properly configured is critical. Tags – small pieces of code inserted into a page’s source code – are used to facilitate the collection and sharing of data between your website and Google Analytics. Using tags the right way – and in the right places – helps you identify what’s working and what isn’t so that you can improve your website content and drive even more potential customers to your site.

 

Collecting and interpreting the metrics you wish to track and adjusting your marketing strategy accordingly can help elevate your business to the next level of success. Your website will only generate the desired results you want if you’re analyzing it routinely.

 

Launch Contests & Giveaways to Drive Traffic to Your Website

People love getting free stuff, especially if it’s relevant or useful to them. So, why not use this to your advantage? When you offer something of value to existing or potential customers, it makes them more likely to purchase from your company in the future. It also makes people more willing to share your content with their friends, especially on social media. Getting something for nothing from a brand they love and respect inspires loyalty in your customers.

 

While contests and giveaways are sometimes regarded as tacky marketing techniques, they’re actually quite effective at driving high-volume traffic to your website, generating interest in your products and services, building rapport with your customers, and even making connections within your industry.

 

Create a compelling contest or giveaway on the social media platforms where your target audience is most active, and your followers will flock to your website. Develop a dedicated landing page and post a direct link to it on your social media pages. The lure of “free stuff” will be irresistible to participants. From the landing page, you can easily direct visitors to your full website.

 

Generating useful content centered around your brand, products, or services, and then offering visitors free access to that content is another great way to keep your company top of mind with consumers when they’re ready to purchase something that you offer. If you sell products on your website, offer a free e-book detailing key features that potential customers should look out for. If your business is primarily service-based, create a checklist of action items that prospects can take prior to reaching out to you. When you focus on adding value for your audience, it’s a win-win.

 

List Your Business in Online Directories

Online business directories are the modern-day version of phone books. In previous decades, printed directories like the Yellow Pages featured comprehensive listings of local businesses, organized by categories like business type or location. Now that searching for products and services has primarily shifted to the internet, today’s businesses must make their presence known in online directories in much the same way as they would have done in printed books in the past.

 

Online directories help point users to the specific organizations they’re looking for and enable them to click through to a business’s website directly from the listing. Most listings provide basic information about the business such as the website’s URL, a brief description, hours of operation, contact details, products/services provided, customer reviews, etc. Listing your business in online directories gives customers the chance to post reviews of your business, products, and services, and allows you to respond to these reviews personally and publicly.

 

Given that 88% of users will call or visit a business within 24 hours of their initial search, it’s essential that your business be listed in the most popular and relevant online directories – otherwise, you could be missing out on a lot of potential customers. Adding your business listing to online directories helps drive targeted traffic to your website and through your business’s doors, makes your site more easily discoverable in search engine results, and creates high-quality backlinks (which, in turn, helps improve your SEO rankings).

 

Creating or claiming your Google Business Profile is a great place to start. Setting up your profile is fairly straightforward (and free). Ensuring that your profile is fully optimized makes it eligible to show up in Google’s Local 3-Pack (a set of three business listings appearing prominently on SERPs when users conduct searches for local businesses), as well as on Google Maps.

 

For over a century, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) has been helping customers connect with local businesses. Today, the BBB is not only an expansive online directory – it’s also a trusted resource for consumers seeking to discover more about an organization’s credibility, ethics, and business practices. Getting accredited by the BBB and being able to reference that accreditation on your own website remains a major trust signal to modern consumers.

 

Once serving as the premier offline business directory, the Yellow Pages has been able to successfully and smoothly transition into the digital age. Over 70 million people annually use the Yellow Pages website and app to find local businesses.

 

Listing your business on Yelp, a trusted online directory for everything local is an easy way to get your name in the public eye, especially for food and retail establishments.

 

Angi (formerly Angie’s List) is a popular local business directory that consumers can use to find residential services like plumbers, lawn care companies, and roofers.

 

In addition to these popular sites, there are hundreds of industry-specific online directories in which to list your business. Adding your listing is free, in most cases, but many platforms also offer paid advertising options to make it even easier to reach your target audience.

 

Final Thoughts

More than just digital signage for your brand or a virtual storefront for your company, your website is your online home base – and as such, it should be at the center of your digital marketing strategy. Whether you’re sending a tweet, publishing a blog post, running a newspaper ad, or adding a link at the bottom of your business card, the ultimate goal of all your marketing efforts – online and offline – should be to drive traffic back to your website.

 

The success or failure of your overall marketing strategy hinges on the design, effectiveness, and intuitiveness of the website you’re drawing people towards. If you aren’t utilizing your website as the valuable marketing tool it is, you may be missing out on a lot of potential business. If you don’t make a concentrated effort to meet your customers where they are, you can bet that your competitors will reach them before you do.

 

By heeding the recommendations outlined above and incorporating them into your marketing strategy, you’ll be well on your way to achieving positive results for your business!

 

If you need help developing your website marketing strategy, or if you’re looking to update your existing website or build a new one from scratch, HighClick Media can help! Call us today at 252.814.2150 or drop us a line here!

Improve Your Website & Drive Sales Despite Uncertain Economic Times

Improve Your Website & Drive Sales Despite Uncertain Economic Times

The current economy is unpredictable, and savvy business owners are looking for ways to stay afloat and sustain their success. One way you can do this is by taking a close look at your business website and making some updates.

If you’re looking to drive sales amidst an uncertain economic climate, consider these strategies for improving your website:

Improve Website Navigation

Improve Website Navigation

A well-designed navigation menu makes it easy for customers to find what they need quickly. As a result, visitors are likely to remain on your site longer to discover more information about your company.

When evaluating your navigation menu, be sure that all links are clearly labeled, organized logically, and easily navigable. If people can’t find what they’re looking for on your website, they will likely leave without making a purchase or taking any further action.

Add Testimonial Pages to Your Website

Add Testimonial Pages

Testimonials demonstrate to potential customers that you have satisfied customers who have had positive, successful experiences with your company. This helps build consumer trust and encourages more people to buy from your business. 

You can include testimonials on your homepage or on product pages; you can even create an entire page dedicated to showcasing customer reviews and feedback.

SSH Secure Shell Protocol

Enhance Website Security with PDFs & Encryption

In precarious economic times such as these, it’s particularly critical to make sure your website is secure. One way to enhance website security is through the use of PDFs and encryption. Here’s how it works…

By combining PDF technology with secure encryption algorithms and a secure shell (SSH) protocol, you can safeguard the data stored on your website from online fraud or theft. Furthermore, you can use a secure connection such as SSH when sharing large files and rotating PDFs, regardless of size or format.

Providing a secure portal for visitors to upload, share, and save their sensitive data on your website is an innovative way to keep your customers’ information safe and secure.

Search Engine Optimization - SEO

Implement SEO Best Practices

Search engine optimization (SEO) is vital for increasing your business’s online visibility and driving traffic to your website. The higher up your site appears in search engine results, the more likely people will be to see – and hopefully purchase – your products and services.

Using keywords effectively throughout your content, optimizing title tags and meta descriptions, linking internally between relevant pages of content, and creating high-quality backlinks are all crucial tactics to implement if you want to boost your website’s rankings.

Keep Content Fresh and Improve Page Speed

Keep Content Fresh & Improve Page Speed

It’s important to update your website content regularly so that visitors know they’re getting current information from a reliable source whenever they visit your site.

Additionally, focus on improving page-loading speed by optimizing your images and partnering with a dependable hosting provider. Many visitors won’t hesitate to leave your site if they have to wait too long for pages to load.

Make Sure Your Website Is Mobile-Friendly

Make Sure Your Website Is Mobile-Friendly

Finally, since the overwhelming majority of internet users now access websites exclusively through their phones or tablets, it’s absolutely essential that your site is designed to be mobile-friendly. Users expect websites to look and function just as well on their mobile devices as they do on a laptop or desktop.

Final Thoughts on Improving Your Website to Drive Sales in Uncertain Economic Times

Final Thoughts

While making key improvements to keep your website up to date might sound like an insurmountable task, it doesn’t have to be! The web design and digital marketing professionals at HighClick Media can help! 

Whether you need to freshen up your current website or you’re looking to build your business website from scratch, we’re ready, willing, and able to partner with you to help your business succeed in the digital age, even in uncertain economic conditions.

Call 252.814.2150 today or email us at yeswecandothat@highclickmedia.com to see how we can help elevate your brand!

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This article was written and contributed by guest blogger Poppy Williams of TechBizGuide.com.

16 Critical Elements of Great Website Design

16 Critical Elements of Great Website Design

16 Critical Elements of Great Website Design

Thanks to advanced technology, building a website today can be extremely simple. However, a website design that pairs impeccable functionality with stunning visuals is still challenging. It goes without saying that websites are now a fundamental part of a business’s online identity.

No business can hope to survive, let alone thrive, in today’s cutthroat market without an attractive, easy-to-navigate website. Far too many businesses fail at building a substantial online presence for their brand due to subpar website design.

So, why do some websites fail to attract and hold traffic where others succeed?

Certain elements of website design contribute the most to building visitors’ interest in a site. Including these elements on your website gives it a beautiful visual appeal along with flawless functionality and authority. These are also the components that are most often botched during development.

Let’s take a closer look at 16 critical elements for building a great website:

 

Color Schemes

The color scheme of a website is seldom paid attention to when developing a website. However, you should know how important a role it plays in influencing a visitor’s behavior. Therefore, it’s important to use a color scheme that will best appeal to your visitors while also representing your brand well.

For instance, if you visit the fast-food giant McDonald’s website, you’ll be greeted with a color scheme that combines red, white, and yellow. These colors have been synonymous with the brand for ages.

We suggest first choosing the dominant color that best represents your brand. You can then choose an analogous color scheme that complements your dominant color choice to highlight certain sections of your site, like call-to-action (CTA) buttons.

 

White Space

Open any website today and you’ll find that a majority of these websites possess white space that divides certain sections of the web pages. These spaces lend an immaculate and accessible design to your site. They make the content or CTA buttons on your site easy to identify and read for visitors.

Some websites also use white space to give certain aspects of the site more emphasis than others. For instance, white space can be used to make certain “special deals” the focal point of a page.

Make sure you’re consistent in spacing the gaps between sections of your site. We recommend beginning with the navigation and then moving your attention to the content of your site. A grid-based layout can help you design a clean interface that maintains consistency across the entire page.

 

Easy Navigation

Sites that make it complicated for their visitors to navigate normally experience higher bounce rates.

As such, it’s imperative to facilitate simple navigation by giving users an easy-to-use and intuitive website. The website should offer users simple routes to navigate to certain fundamental aspects of a site, and recommended pages, along with a way back to the original page.

We suggest using parallax scrolling as a navigation system, which includes arrows that make a website’s user interface (UI) easy to interact with. Therefore, you must place a strong emphasis on simple navigation if you want visitors to spend more time on your site.

 

Distinct Typography

Using unique typography to present content on your site is an ideal way to distinguish yourself from other similar sites online. The fonts you ultimately choose should complement your brand while communicating its message to visitors. It’s also important to consider a font that makes your site look professional without appearing bland.

We suggest using a font size of at least 16 pixels to make your site’s content readable on mobile and desktop devices. You can use different but complementary fonts to highlight the headings and subheadings on the site. Finally, use contrasting color schemes to match your text with the background perfectly. Pairing darker tones with lighter colors will do the trick just fine.

 

Outstanding Visuals

This goes without saying, but certain visual cues on your site will give any website a distinct edge over similar websites online. Populating a webpage with high-resolution images and beautiful illustrations can make your site more compelling to visitors.

Of course, you can’t use just any random visuals on your site. They should align with what your brand stands for.

Use stunning banner images. You can populate your page with custom-made images, which can also be used to highlight certain key focal points of your site. Try to avoid using too many stock photos on your pages.

 

Site Usability

Aside from beautiful design, you also need to create a site that provides users with a satisfying user experience (UX). Most developers make the critical mistake of compromising a site’s usability in favor of its overall visual design. It’s imperative to optimize a site in order to facilitate smooth interaction between the site’s elements and visitors. A subpar UX design could result in your website’s bounce rate blowing through the roof.

You can enhance the user experience by using animations, readable and engaging content, simple navigation, and more interactive elements.

 

High-Quality Content

Having high-quality content is integral to optimizing search engine rankings for your site and thus generating more traffic to your site. It’s also absolutely essential to populate your site with quality content in order to keep your visitors engaged. Top-notch content that’s relevant to your brand can persuade visitors to spend more time on your site, explore other areas, or make a purchase.

We recommend dividing your content based on its relevance. Always keep relevant information about your website, product, or service at the top. Follow it up with content that explains your services or highlights features that set you apart from competitors.

Finally, use an FAQ section to answer questions that a visitor may have about your service.

 

Compelling Calls to Action

A website exists to persuade a visitor to take certain actions on it. CTA buttons on a site trigger this response from visitors.

As such, you need to place CTA buttons strategically throughout your site to persuade visitors to perform desirable actions on the webpage.

The call-to-action messages themselves must be persuasive. They should explain what you want visitors to do in a few words.

“Buy Now,” “Sign up Free,” “Contact Us,” etc. are all examples of CTA buttons commonly used by most websites.

Make sure your landing page leads users to all the CTA buttons present on the page. You can utilize contrasting color schemes, content, and white spaces to highlight a CTA button.

If you have a variety of CTA buttons on your page, determine which type is more important and use it more prominently.

 

Mobile-Friendly Design

It is a well-known fact that the majority of websites receive most of their traffic from mobile users. With over 7 billion active smartphone users around the world today, not optimizing your site for mobile devices means losing out on such a massive audience. Suffice it to say, mobile optimization is one of the first things you need to do when building a website.

You need to utilize a custom web design that responds and adapts to various mobile screen sizes automatically.

We recommend using Google Search Console or other free tools like Pingdom or BrowserStack to check whether your site is mobile-friendly.

 

SEO-Friendly Elements

As you may know by now, search engines like Google take many aspects of a site’s user experience into consideration when ranking a site. As such, a developer needs to consider search engine optimization from the very beginning of a website’s design process. Elements like simple navigation, scannable text, loading speed, and mobile friendliness contribute to the overall user experience.

A problem with any of the above elements will result in a user having a poor experience with your site, eventually increasing its bounce rate. Google will take this high bounce as a sign of bad UX and ultimately plummet your site in search engine rankings.

It’s important to consider how each element will contribute to your site’s SEO. We suggest working with an SEO expert, who will monitor and assess all crucial elements of your site while it is in development.

 

Right Usage of Ads

You’ll find many websites online that have successfully monetized their websites by displaying ads on them. If used appropriately, display ads can be a great way to earn some revenue from your website. However, such advertisements – if used incorrectly – can aggravate your visitor’s user experience. In short, advertisements have the power to make or break your site.

As such, we discourage using too many ads on websites as it can harm the user experience. You don’t want your website to look unprofessional, which is exactly what will happen if your webpage is littered with ads.

The most effective way to advertise on a site, in our opinion, would be combining banner ads with affiliate marketing. Make sure your ads integrate organically with your site. They shouldn’t feel out of place and interfere with the content on your site.

 

Website Security

Online security should be an integral part of any website. Security and privacy have often been major causes of concern for individuals surfing the web. Security alerts popping up when someone tries to open your site is a surefire way of turning potential website visitors away forever.

Internet security should be given as much focus as the design and overall functionality of your site. It should be mandatory for your website to implement an HTTPS protocol. This will help protect a user’s information, lend some much-needed credibility, and build trust among prospects. 

We suggest buying SSL certificates from reliable hosting service providers. These are cheap to acquire and can be integrated seamlessly with your site.

 

Integrating Social Media

Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have billions of active users from all around the world. So it only makes sense to integrate social media into your site’s design plan. You should have social media buttons that instantly redirect your users to your site’s official social media channel. You can also have buttons that allow users to directly share certain content or products from your website on their private channels. 

Having social media buttons strategically placed on your website is a great way of indirectly marketing your site, opening doors for people to leap directly onto your site from their respective social media profiles online.

 

Adding Internal & External Links

A proper link-building strategy can prove to be a great way of enhancing the brand authority of your website. It is important to learn how to build internal and external links to help boost your website’s performance. For instance, you can direct users to certain content on your site and improve its SEO performance by using appropriate internal links.

Proper link-building research requires a good strategy. We suggest finding out how your competitor’s websites are employing their link-building strategy. Draw inspiration for sites that are using the strategy with productive results.

 

Comments Section

We’ve already stressed how important it is to make your site as interactive and engaging as possible. Aside from content, you can add a comments section to your site, which allows users to leave their two cents below a particular content or product information. This can be a great way to receive feedback, which can be used to improve your service.

If you’re running an ecommerce store, we recommend adding a review section similar to what is found on sites like Amazon and eBay. A dedicated comments and review section will make your site more interactive and improve brand loyalty.

 

Achievements & Endorsements

This is perhaps the most effective and widely adopted way of building trust among customers. It is in your business’s best interest to flaunt your past achievements on your website for all to see. Displaying your achievements can go a long way toward building a solid reputation for your business and brand.

We recommend having a dedicated section for testimonials, displaying positive comments from at least 4 to 5 past clients.

We also suggest highlighting the names of all the popular brands you’ve served. If you’ve received endorsements from authoritative brands, add them to your site as well.

Final Thoughts

While these 16 elements can seem a bit overwhelming, they’re essential to building a website that not only looks fantastic but functions flawlessly as well.

Are you ready for the good news? You don’t have to do it on your own!

HighClick Media is a full-service digital marketing agency that specializes in professional website design. Our talented web designers will craft your business website with lots of TLC and plenty of technical prowess! We can build you a brand new website from scratch or spruce up your existing site.

Interested? Reach out to HighClick Media at 252.814.2150 or drop us a line today to see how we can help elevate your brand with a world-class website for your business.

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Guest blogger Joseph Schneider is the Director of Marketing at Haitna, a digital marketing firm based in Texas.

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9 Reasons to Use WordPress for Your Website Redesign

9 Reasons to Use WordPress for Your Website Redesign

For some business owners, even entertaining the thought of a website redesign can be headache-inducing. Between concerns that the project will be overly time-consuming and the possibility that it may cost more than you’re willing to pay, it can be a lot. Add to that the challenge of trying to decide which website-building platform to choose among the many on the market today.

We get it! That’s why we’ve put together this comprehensive guide to help you along in the process. First, let’s consider why you might want to have your website redesigned in the first place.

7 Signs It’s Time for a Website Redesign

  1. Your site hasn’t been updated in a while. While there’s no hard-and-fast rule, most professionals agree that business websites should undergo a redesign every two to three years. As web design trends are constantly changing, what was considered attractive and aesthetically pleasing just a few years ago probably isn’t today. As rapidly as technology is advancing, any business website that hasn’t been upgraded in three years is unlikely to provide the best user experience to customers and potential clients. On top of that, when your site is regularly updated with valuable content Google takes notice – and that’s never a bad thing!
  2. Your site isn’t mobile-friendly. For most businesses, the majority of their website traffic comes from mobile users. Therefore, you need to make sure that your site performs as well on mobile devices as it does on desktops. A fully responsive website is simple to navigate on a smartphone, thanks to a mobile-friendly menu, easy-to-click buttons, and text that can be effortlessly read without having to zoom in. Not to mention the fact that Google gives preference to mobile-friendly websites in search results.
  3. You’re not getting enough traffic to your site. If your website isn’t generating traffic, something needs to change. Perhaps your content isn’t optimized for Google searches, or you’ve failed to address broken features or duplicate content – neither of which Google is very fond of. Search engine optimization (SEO) is an ongoing battle between Google and your website. Google wants to provide searchers with the most relevant results high up on the first page. If it’s been years since your website was last updated and your competitor’s site is updated often, Google will likely rank the competitor’s site ahead of yours.
  4. Your site isn’t converting visitors into paying customers. Are people visiting your website and leaving without taking any action? Are they spending scarcely any time on your pages before “bouncing“? If so, it’s obvious that while your site is easy to find in searches you aren’t delivering what visitors are looking for. Using tools like Google Analytics, you can monitor how customers are responding to your website’s current design. Low conversion rates could be a result of a site layout that isn’t compelling enough to persuade visitors to stick around. This is a clear indication that your site needs a makeover – and quickly!
  5. Your site looks and feels old. People like attractive things; it’s as simple as that. If your site layout is chaotic, cluttered, or just plain ugly, that’s not going to cut it with today’s consumers. An unappealing website can (and will) negatively affect how potential customers perceive your business. Is your website riddled with recurring “technical difficulties” that need to be addressed? Are there new features you want to introduce or outmoded functions (such as traffic counters or flashing banners) that need to be eliminated? If so, a website redesign is certainly warranted. Redesigning your site allows you to modernize its look and feel; you might choose to modify your brand colors and fonts, revamp your logo, or update the images and written content – the possibilities are endless!
  6. Your site isn’t performing well. If visitors encounter a bunch of broken (or “dead”) links, pages or images load slowly, users can’t easily access the information they’re looking for, the website is constantly crashing, or (as previously mentioned) it isn’t mobile-friendly, then it’s time for a website redesign. In short, if any part of your website isn’t functioning properly, consumers will quickly move on to another company offering similar services. A poor user experience can create an unfavorable impression of your business and can even negatively affect your search rankings. By contrast, a positive user experience will result in visitors spending more time on your site, increasing your potential to generate leads, engage with your market, and solidify your brand.
  7. Your site doesn’t clearly or accurately reflect your business in its current state. Your website is the digital face of your company – so, you’ll want to be sure it makes a good impression. After all, the first interaction that the majority of customers will have with your business is through your website. Accordingly, you’ll want to ensure that your site accurately represents the business as well as the products and services you offer. Over time, your business model, messaging, offerings, or priorities may have changed. Naturally, your website should be updated to reflect these changes. If you aren’t regularly refreshing the content on your site, people may incorrectly assume that you’re no longer in business or that you don’t value your online presence – in which case they’ll probably look elsewhere for a company to do business with.

 

What Is WordPress?

Since its humble beginnings as a blogging tool in 2003, WordPress has evolved into a robust content management system (CMS) and website-building platform. It’s the most popular CMS on the market today – in fact, over 43% of all websites worldwide are powered by WordPress!

In technical terms, WordPress is free and open-source software that uses the PHP scripting language to send and retrieve information from a MySQL database. In layman’s terms, WordPress is a web platform offering tons of features and functionalities without requiring a high level of expertise in web programming after the site is developed. 

Aside from the basic WordPress code itself, there are three major components to every WordPress installation: themes, plugins, and widgets.

A theme is a collection of files – specifically HTML and CSS files – that serve as a design template for your website. Themes define what the pages will look like without altering the content within those pages. You can choose to use a pre-built framework or have a theme custom-designed to suit your specific needs.

Similar to an app, a plugin is an extra bit of code that can be used to add customized functionality to your website depending on how you want it to work. Plugins allow you to expand the capabilities of your site beyond the features included with the basic WordPress installation. With the right mix of plugins, your site can run faster, look more attractive, and be more user-friendly than ever before.

Widgets are small blocks of content that you can drag and drop into the sidebar, header, footer, or other enabled areas of your site (depending on the theme you choose). Similar to plugins, widgets are used to add specific features or functions to your website without having to write any additional code. Common examples of widgets include recent blog articles you’ve posted, embedded social media feeds, fillable forms, calendars, and banner ads.

 

Why Should You Use WordPress for Your Website Redesign?

From startup website builders to more established CMS platforms, there are many options to choose from when you’re considering a website redesign. So, are there any clear advantages to using WordPress over any other platform on the market?

In this article, we’ll explore some of the top benefits of WordPress and offer 9 compelling reasons why this platform is perfect for your website redesign project.

 

WordPress Is Easy to Use, Update, & Manage

Initially, it may take some time to familiarize yourself with the ins and outs of the WordPress platform. But once you get the hang of it, you’ll find that the user-friendly Dashboard interface makes it easy to add, remove, or modify content – such as text, images, videos, and effects – to web pages and blog posts. You can update and optimize your website structure, add navigation menus, and even customize your colors, fonts, and other design elements.

One of the greatest advantages of WordPress is that you don’t have to possess any prior knowledge of HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, or any other programming language to effectively use WordPress – nor is it necessary to have any formal training or professional experience as a web designer or developer. 

As flexible and powerful a program as WordPress is, virtually anyone in your organization (who is authorized to do so) should be able to maintain your website quite easily. Assuming you have an internet connection and a web browser, you already have everything you need. If you’re familiar with any of the most popular word-processing programs, editing a page within WordPress will look very familiar to you.

WordPress’s visual editor – known as Gutenberg – allows you to add or modify content without ever seeing your site’s code. The simple interface features a toolbar with text editors, formatting tools, and the ability to upload media files in various formats. When you’re done making changes in Gutenberg, WordPress automatically updates the code on your website to reflect those changes.

 

A Word About Website Structure

Website structure refers to how your content is organized, interconnected, and presented to visitors across the various posts and pages of your site.

Having a good website structure can improve the user experience of your site by providing visitors with the information they need while making it easy for them to navigate to other relevant pages. Creating an orderly site structure also makes it easier to keep track of the various pages on your site.

Website structure is also a major factor that Google considers when assigning a rank to a site. When Google detects that visitors can quickly find the information they’re seeking on a website, Google is more likely to recommend the site as useful by ranking it higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). WordPress’s user-friendly interface allows you to create a clean, simple-to-navigate website structure that’s designed to appease users and search engines alike.

 

WordPress Sites Are Fully Customizable

With a wide selection of free and premium WordPress themes and plugins on the market, it’s entirely possible to build a fully customized website that caters to the specific needs of your business.

Currently, there are over 31,000 WordPress themes – more than 9,000 of which are free – that you can choose from to create a basic layout and structure for your website. Themes range in price from being completely free to $299, with the average cost being around $40. Even if you do end up having to pay for a theme, the cost will still be considerably less than if you were to hire someone to custom-develop your theme.

While many of these themes can be found on WordPress.org, several third-party websites also offer plenty of great options. As there are themes available for every industry imaginable, the real challenge isn’t finding what you need – it’s choosing the one you like the best.

Keep in mind that not every off-the-shelf theme has to match the design you have in mind. While it’s highly likely that the theme you end up choosing will be one that other businesses have previously used, that doesn’t mean your site is going to look exactly like someone else’s.

While some free or low-cost themes have only minor customization options and are generally intended to be used “as is,” the more robust off-the-shelf themes can be configured and customized as much as you want and still give you the website you need – at a tiny fraction of the cost of custom development.

Take the time to scour through the myriad off-the-shelf themes available and find one that’s high-quality, well-reviewed, and comes as close as possible to what you want by default. You’ll thank yourself later.

Plugins serve many important functions on your website, both on the front end in terms of user experience and on the back end for overall site performance. Like themes, WordPress also offers a wide range of plugins that you can add to your site. Some plugins are offered for free, some at a cost, and some have both options (these are often referred to as “freemium” plugins).

There are currently over 59,000 WordPress plugins to choose from on the WordPress.org website. If you can’t find a suitable solution from WordPress’s database, you can comb through the directories of third-party providers and independent developers to find what you’re looking for.

Imagine any task a typical website may need to complete, any problem it may need to solve, and any feature it may need to offer, and there’s probably a plugin for it. Of course, having thousands of plugins to choose from can be overwhelming. That said, there are certain essential WordPress plugins we recommended adding to every website:

  • Contact Form: This gives your website visitors a way to reach out to you and allows you to get back in touch with them as well.
  • Analytics: This allows you to see how many visitors your site is getting, how much time they’re spending on the site, and what actions they might be taking.
  • SEO: This allows you to optimize the content on your site to attract more traffic from Google searches.

Depending on the specific needs of your business, you might want to add plugins that enable advanced features such as foreign language translation, online payments, appointment bookings, multi-factor authentication, and social media integration.

 

WordPress Is Versatile & Scalable

In the beginning, WordPress was largely regarded as nothing more than a blogging platform. But over the years, it has progressed to become a powerful platform that you can use to produce virtually any type of website

Whether you’re looking to build a full-service website, you simply want to create or blog, or you want to incorporate a blog component into your existing site, WordPress is up to the task. You can construct a static homepage with static pages behind it or dynamic pages with drop-down menus. You can create customized landing pages to sell your products or easily add image galleries and social media links to encourage user engagement. The possibilities are endless!

In addition, given that WordPress is highly compatible with many other website builders, the platform is perfect for redesign projects. The flexibility of WordPress makes redesigning an existing website simple, convenient, and affordable.

Scalability is another important advantage of WordPress. As your business grows and changes, your website needs to be able to grow and change along with it. Fortunately, WordPress makes that process easy.

The WordPress platform is cleanly coded and well-equipped to handle massive amounts of traffic. If you should encounter a performance bottleneck, there are plenty of plugins you can install to help with scaling by performing tasks such as caching, compression, resource minification, and image optimization. Once installed, these plugins allow your site to accommodate more traffic without buckling under pressure.

 

WordPress Is Mobile-Responsive

These days, people spend more time surfing the web on their mobile devices than they do on desktop computers. Websites that aren’t optimized for mobile devices won’t perform well for visitors trying to access them with smartphones, tablets, or other mobile devices. Users may struggle to read text, view images, or click links on your site.

Most people won’t think twice about ditching a website that doesn’t load properly or function as it should on their mobile devices. With millions of results available in every Google search, it’s all too easy to simply look elsewhere to find the information they’re seeking.

Over the last few years, Google has placed greater emphasis on websites’ mobile responsiveness. In 2018, Google officially announced that it would be taking a “mobile-first” approach to search rankings. This means that the search engine now primarily uses the mobile version of a website’s content for indexing and ranking. While it isn’t required to have a mobile version of your for your content to be included in Google’s search results, it is strongly recommended.

Fortunately, WordPress makes it easy to create a mobile-responsive site that loads smoothly on all devices. Most WordPress themes are designed to be mobile-friendly by default, so you don’t need to worry about your site being inaccessible to mobile users.

Moreover, when you update your theme for desktop, the mobile version of the theme is automatically updated as well. So, you can rest assured that your website will look equally as good on smartphones as it does on desktops.

Another great perk about WordPress? Since the Dashboard is also designed to be mobile-friendly, you can easily manage and update your website anywhere, whether you’re on your phone, tablet, or desktop computer.

 

WordPress Is SEO-Friendly

SEO involves lots of keyword research and search metric analysis – and it’s an essential component of any high-performing website. That said, the technical SEO process can be extremely complicated, especially if you aren’t familiar with the terminology and tools involved.

While WordPress won’t automatically optimize your site for search engines, the platform does come uniquely equipped to assist you in your SEO efforts.

Here are just a few reasons why WordPress is great for SEO:

For these reasons alone, it’s no wonder that WordPress websites are much more likely to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) than sites built with other platforms. Better ranking means more visitors to your site, and having more visitors greatly increases your chances of boosting profits.

While some SEO-enhancing aspects are built into the framework of WordPress, still others can be implemented by adding plugins specifically designed for search engine optimization

These plugins can be used to help optimize the content on web pages by providing instant audits of your on-page optimization efforts as well as managing key SEO data such as H1 titles, meta descriptions, meta titles, keyword embedding, and schema markup. In short, SEO plugins are designed to do everything possible to ensure that your site appears more often and higher up in SERPs.

Yoast SEO, one of the most popular WordPress SEO plugins, gives step-by-step information on how well (or not so well) your content will rank and provides clear guides for how to improve your site’s readability for search engines and users.

All-In-One SEO is another great SEO plugin that’s easy to use but incredibly powerful; we can recommend this plugin with confidence, as we use it on our company’s websites.

 

WordPress Is Safe & Secure

Having a secure website is central to maintaining a business’s good reputation. If your website is an easy target for hackers, your visitors may be confronted with inappropriate content or even be exposed to dangerous viruses and malware. If you have an ecommerce site, security is even more critical. After all, your customers are relying on you to provide a secure interface for entering and storing their personal information and credit card numbers.

While WordPress sites aren’t impervious to cyberattacks, they’re generally better protected against unauthorized access than sites built with other CMS platforms. When a WordPress website does get hacked, it’s usually because the site is utilizing questionable themes and/or plugins, is hosted by unreliable providers, or has been compromised due to a paucity of basic password literacy. In short, the problem doesn’t lie with the platform itself. Considering that WordPress powers well over 40% of all websites globally, it’s merely a statistical coincidence that WordPress-based sites appear to be targeted more often than non-WordPress websites.

That said, you still need to have a strategy in place to make sure that your website is continuously monitored and backed up frequently in the event of a catastrophe. Aside from enlisting the services of a reliable managed IT services provider (we can recommend a really good one!), you can also install security-focused WordPress plugins to further safeguard your website against hackers, malware, and other threats. These plugins can be used to implement features like multi-factor authentication (MFA), limiting failed login attempts, and scanning your site for vulnerabilities.

At HighClick Media, we highly recommend adding the Sucuri plugin to your WordPress site. Sucuri creates multiple layers of security to help protect your website from hackers, malware, DDoS attacks, and blacklists; provides continuous website monitoring and site scanning; plugs any security leaks or loopholes it may detect; and can even make your website faster in terms of speed and performance.

WordPress developers are constantly making improvements to the platform to ensure that it runs smoothly. Security updates are rolled out regularly as new cyberthreats arise, addressing and promptly correcting any possible gaps detected in the platform’s defenses.

Users are informed whenever security updates are required, and these updates are easy for users to make. By updating to the latest version of the WordPress core, you’re decreasing the chances of your website falling victim to cyberattacks and ensuring that everything continues to work properly.

 

WordPress Benefits from a Thriving Developer & Support Community

Because WordPress is open-source software and has been adopted by so many individuals and organizations around the world, the platform enjoys a sizable and active community of contributors

This highly engaged community – comprising thousands of users, developers, designers, and business owners – has created a vast array of plugins, help sites, and forums for discussing issues surrounding WordPress and suggesting solutions to common (and uncommon) problems.

Since community members are more than willing to share their knowledge and experience with others, you’ll never be at a loss for invaluable resources that offer the support you need to manage and update your WordPress website.

On the official WordPress website, you’ll find a wealth of reference materials, training courses, how-to video tutorials, and support forums to help you take full advantage of the platform’s potential. Offsite, there are numerous independent forums and Facebook groups to further help get your questions answered.

The WordPress community also engages in lots of outreach to users, hosting WordPress camps around the world and supporting the growth of local WordPress user groups.

 

WordPress Is Cost-Effective

Whether you’re just getting started or your business is already well-established, you’re probably looking to keep expenses as low as possible. Choosing WordPress for your website redesign project is one way to save money.

Nearly all DIY website builders such as Wix and Squarespace place commercial restrictions and limitations on what you can and can’t do with their programs. Not so with WordPress. That’s because WordPress is open-source software, which means that it’s free to download, install, use, and modify in any way you choose.

Keep in mind that while the software itself is free, you’ll still have to acquire a domain name (which can be free but usually comes at a minimal cost) and pay for web hosting; and you’ll most likely have to spend some money on themes and plugins as well.

A domain name is the internet equivalent of a website’s physical address. It’s the text that users type into a browser’s search bar to directly access your website.

If the domain name is the address of your house, then web hosting is the actual house that the address points to. Web hosting is where all your website files are housed, served, and maintained, and it’s what makes your website content accessible to other users on the internet.

 

WordPress Is Time-Tested & Trusted By Many

Website builders come and go – even the big names can fade from view (remember GeoCities?). WordPress, however, is far more likely to stick around for the long haul. This is because open-source software like WordPress isn’t maintained by a single person or business entity. Even if WordPress were to cease to exist (which is extremely unlikely), any competent developer could simply copy its source code and launch “new” software with a different name in a matter of minutes (a maneuver known as “forking.”)

In the 19 years since its original release, WordPress has been tested, fine-tuned, expanded, and optimized time and time again. Throughout its evolution, WordPress has become a first-class web publishing platform that’s well-suited to meet virtually any website’s needs. Millions of users worldwide benefit from WordPress; it’s available in over 53 languages and propels thousands of multilingual websites as well.

It isn’t just small- and medium-sized businesses that are using the platform, either. According to data from BuiltWith, WordPress powers over 36% of the top 1 million websites (based on site traffic). Many leading brands and organizations in a variety of business sectors rely on WordPress to power their websites and blogs. 

Chances are, you will have heard of a few of these companies:

Final Thoughts

For many business owners, the choice between having a website custom-developed versus going with a more ready-made solution such as WordPress is not an easy task. We hope this guide has been helpful in assisting you with that decision.

As we’ve detailed here, WordPress is designed to be easy for everyone to use (not just web developers), allows you to create any type of website you need (whether it’s an ecommerce store, online forum, marketplace, membership site, or just about anything else you can think of), and provides a wide range of tools and options for customizing the site you’re creating. The platform allows you to create a site that looks and performs equally well on mobile devices as it does on desktops, scales easily if you need to add more pages or features as your business grows, and positively contributes to your overall SEO efforts

WordPress sites are uniquely positioned to withstand some of the most common cyberattacks and can be bolstered further through the use of security plugins. Thanks to a passionate support community, WordPress users have ready access to the information they need whenever they need it. A WordPress site is relatively inexpensive to create, requiring only minimal investments towards domain name acquisition, web hosting, and plugins/themes. Finally, WordPress is a tried-and-tested solution for creating any and every type of website.

In short, choosing WordPress for your website redesign project is one of the smartest decisions you can make as a business owner.

Redesigning a website can be a complicated process, especially when you have a site with a lot of moving parts. While WordPress positions itself as a platform that anyone can use to build a website – and to a certain extent, this is true – creating a site that’s both fully functional and professionally designed often requires an expert touch.

Just because you can build a site on your own, thanks to WordPress’s impressive arsenal of tools, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be a good site. After all, you want to make sure everything works flawlessly and that the user experience is configured in such a way that the website will contribute to – not hamper – the performance of your business.

If you need more advanced functionality or a custom-developed theme to help you further stand out from the crowd, partnering with a professional WordPress web design and development company might be the way to go.

Once the redesign project is complete and your site is up and running, your web development partner will train you and all other authorized users on how to access the backend of WordPress so that you’re better prepared to make future updates to the site on your own.

If you’re thinking about redesigning your website (or even building a brand-new site from scratch), HighClick Media wholeheartedly recommends using WordPress as your preferred platform – and we can help make your design project happen, too!

When you partner with HighClick Media, we’ll work with you to determine how best to approach your website project to maximize your online presence and #elevateyourbrand! Call us today at 252.814.2150 or drop us a line to schedule a website design consultation!

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7 Benefits of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

7 Benefits of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

7 Benefits of SEO
If you’re a business owner, you should definitely invest in search engine optimization (SEO), the process of optimizing your website to maximize organic traffic from search engines such as Google, Bing, YouTube, etc.
 
Search engine optimization is an essential component of any successful digital marketing strategy.
 
The benefits of SEO are far more valuable than many realize, and for those of you that don’t have an effective SEO strategy, you are making a mistake, and I am very disappointed in you…
 

Kidding, of course! You don’t know what you don’t know, but that’s where we come in!

Without further ado, we present 7 benefits of search engine optimization:

 

1. Customers Use Search Engines Daily

Over 3 billion people are using the Internet daily, and 93% of online activities begin on a search engine. There are TONS of search engines out there. Like most people, Google is one of my go-to’s. According to live statistics, Google alone processes over 40,000 searches every second. That is more than a trillion searches per year worldwide. The opportunities for your business to be discovered on search engines are never-ending!

 

2. SEO Attracts Quality Traffic

Search engine traffic is the best traffic you could ask for. Why? Because people are searching for the problem you solve.

“People don’t care about your business. They care about their problems. Be the solution they’re looking for.”

With this particular component of digital marketing, you don’t have to persuade people to buy or hound them with advertisements. When they type something into a search engine, they are already interested in what you have to offer. The SEO industry is worth $65 billion for a reason, am I right?

 

3. SEO Strengthens Your Reputation

In Google we trust. Seriously, people use it every day to find what they’re looking for. Having a high search engine ranking builds trust and credibility with your audience. On the first page alone, the first five organic results account for nearly 70% of all search engine clicks. The numbers do not lie.

 

4. SEO Increases Brand Awareness

There is no such thing as too much exposure. Search engine optimization will help people become aware of your brand. Even if your website visitor isn’t ready to make a purchase, by being aware of your offerings, they’re more likely to do business with you in the future.

 

5. SEO Is Measurable

SEO allows you to measure your conversions and the source of your conversions. Not only that, but you can also measure the progression of your website rankings and organic traffic. With the right setup (or the right agency), measuring which search keywords are the most beneficial is a piece of cake!

 

6. SEO Is Mobile

Mobile is the future. Over 50% of internet users are searching from their smartphones, and that number is going nowhere but up. By optimizing your website for SEO, you are thinking ahead and considering the next generation of marketing. Search engines will favor your website when it is optimized for mobile.

 

7. SEO Helps Attract the Appropriate Talent

Google is the starting point for someone searching for a job. You can optimize your website for a high Google ranking for the positions you are hiring for. Investing in an SEO strategy could help you avoid recruiting fees.

 

Final Thoughts

These are simply a tiny handful of SEO benefits. We could go on for hours, but long story short, it’s the smartest marketing investment you can make. It’s a long-term asset that generates traffic, leads, and sales.

Your customers are using a search engine right now, and one of your competitors is growing significantly from it. Don’t fall behind. HighClick can help you with an SEO campaign today!

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Creating an Effective SEO Strategy That Will Get You Noticed

Creating an Effective SEO Strategy That Will Get You Noticed

Creating an Effective SEO Strategy That Will Get You Noticed

As brands increasingly focus their efforts on securing an expanded customer base in social media and search engines, they find themselves contending more and more with companies outside their usual network. The added competitive pressure has made getting seen online more essential than ever, especially for understaffed small businesses that are now faced with challenging much larger companies.

If you’re overseeing a small business, your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy is a crucial factor in how you attract attention and appear online. While the best course of action is to consult an expert to help boost your page rankings, limited budgets, and revenue might inhibit your ability to do so. Undertaking some tasks on your own, such as the ones listed below, can help you reduce costs without hurting your business.

 

Consistently Create Compelling & Relevant Content

While not groundbreaking advice, this remains the most significant, ongoing action you can take to advance your SEO efforts. The highest-ranking sites in search results are the ones that have helpful, timely information. This information should be geared toward addressing users’ questions while simultaneously marketing your business and promoting its value to customers.

It can be difficult to know what search engine users are searching for. But fortunately, there are several useful tools that offer valuable insight into what’s trending on certain search engines. Google Trends, for example, is a simple yet effective tool that allows you to “explore what the world is searching for.” There you can identify which search terms are currently trending, and even pinpoint regional variations in search terms. This can help you specifically determine what’s most important to your prospective customers.

Bing’s Keyword Research tool allows registered users to compile a considerable amount of useful data. “All query volumes and keyword suggestions are based on organic search, not on paid search or search advertising data, giving you the most natural ideas and accurate numbers,” the service explains.

Integrating popular keywords into your website may be as effortless as posting a blog or statement that outlines your company’s COVID-19 cleaning guidelines or reopening procedures, for example. Staying informed about popular searches can help you spruce up your website and take advantage of users’ current interests.

 

Think Outside the Google Box

Google has become so omnipresent that we often use the brand itself when we mean “search online.” But Google isn’t the whole internet! Some search sites actually have considerably better conversion rates than Google.

While you may have more users on Google, you might have more buyers on other search engines, such as Bing, Yahoo!, or DuckDuckGo.

Taking into account the particulars of individual search engines other than Google can be beneficial. Google carries a lot of weight, of course, but worshiping at the altar of a solitary search engine can translate into missed opportunities.

Search for your business and appropriate keywords on several different search engines. If you’re not happy with the results you’re seeing, it’s time to get to work!

 

Accurately Determine Your Keywords, Meta Tags, Links, & Hyperlocal Information

When Google changed its algorithm to exclude meta descriptions in page ranking, you may have decided to ignore those descriptions going forward. But you can’t afford to do so if you care about other search engine results.

Certain search engines factor meta tags in their results, so ensuring that they’re complete and accurate does make a difference. Similarly, keywords and high-quality links are factored in for some search engines, but each search algorithm may function a bit differently.

With the vast number of searches being performed on mobile devices, paired with Google’s immensely potent ability to collect user data, your website might appear in local searches on Google even if you don’t employ locally focused keywords. On other search engines, not so much.

Ultimately, spending a little extra time deciphering what affects search results from a variety of search engines can enhance your overall visibility, even in an ever-changing climate.

 

Don’t Fixate Only on Mobile Searches

The temperamental atmosphere created by COVID-19 has altered the way we’re connecting to and consuming internet content. That may mean that you need to revamp your web content a bit.

A recent study by The New York Times reported that the rapid, pre-pandemic increase in mobile searches has shifted back toward computer-based searches since the widespread outbreak of the virus. This means all the attention that you (or your IT team) spent optimizing your site for mobile users and focusing on data that helps your site rank high in mobile-based searches may actually affect the way users find your business on the internet.

It’s been particularly difficult for many small businesses to keep generating revenue while the world tries to make sense of “the new normal.” But the fundamental significance of your company’s website simply can’t be overstated.

You wouldn’t neglect cleaning your storefront windows, would you? In the same fashion, your website should be filled with practical, pertinent, and prudent information and optimized to deliver online searchers to your virtual door.

 

When to Contact the Professionals

Developing and managing an SEO strategy on your own can be a daunting task. But when done right, it can pay serious dividends to your business. If you find that it’s more than you can handle, don’t give up! The digital marketing experts at HighClick Media can create a powerful SEO strategy that will elevate the growth of your business while keeping down the costs of advertising. Call us today at 252.814.2150 or drop us a line here!

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Essential SEO Strategies for Small Business Owners

Essential SEO Strategies for Small Business Owners

Essential SEO Strategies for Small Business Owners

 

Search engine optimization, or SEO, can be massively beneficial for businesses of all sizes when it comes to marketing. Whether you’re looking to expand your customer base or gain an edge over your competition, there are several simple, cost-effective ways to utilize SEO. When partnered with creative brand design and social media usage, SEO can help your business gain credibility and get a foothold in your field.

In this article, we’ll take a look at a few key strategies to help boost your company’s search rankings online in order to get new customers to come to you.

 

Get Help with Your SEO

Get Help from SEO Professionals

In this age of technology, it’s essential for even the smallest businesses to have solid search rankings on Google. As more and more consumers rely on their phones for everything from driving directions to shopping, you’ll want to ensure they can easily find your business, get in touch with you, and buy products with the push of a button.

Enlisting the services of SEO professionals to help optimize your rankings in Google searches as well as on Google Maps can go a long way. The more mobile-friendly your business is, the better chance you’ll have of finding – and keeping – a larger customer base.

 

Website Accessibility

Make Sure Your Website Is Accessible

Not only is it important to give your customers lots of options when it comes to your business, but it’s also equally crucial to make your website as accessible as possible and to load it up with high-quality content. You can utilize several types of media on your site to make your business more visible in searches, from multiple links to videos. Just don’t forget to make sure all of your customers can benefit from them. Using captions, alt text (a written description of an image), and font options will help differently-abled customers easily interact with your products and marketing, among other tactics.

 

Keep Your Content Fresh with Frequent Updates

Keep Web Content Fresh with Frequent Updates

Whether you have videos, written blog posts, or photos on your site, you’ll want to ensure that your content is updated frequently. The more you refresh your content, the more traffic you’ll drive to the site – and increased traffic has a direct effect on your search engine rankings.

Every time you post something new, keep possible keywords in mind that are relevant to your customers. What would they type into Google when looking for your specific products or services? Try to keep these keywords as unique as possible on your website pages to prevent disruptions to Google’s algorithm. You can use online resources to figure out the best keywords and placement on your site, as well as tools that demonstrate how to write good content.

One important way to keep existing customers engaged with your content – and potentially convert leads into customers – is to make use of email marketing. An effective email campaign will help boost sales, keep your business in regular contact with its target audience, and directly promote your products and services. Connecting with your audience via email on a weekly basis helps balance your need to keep them engaged against the desire not to be overbearing.

 

Take Advantage of Google's SEO Tools

Take Advantage of Google’s SEO Tools

One essential online resource for small businesses is Google Analytics, which helps you track the performance of your website pages and provides lots of information about your customers, such as which social media platforms they used to find your business. Not only that, it can give you valuable insights about your competitors that could prove advantageous throughout the year. You can use these metrics as a guideline for taking your business to the next level or to learn where you could benefit from changing things up.

Becoming proficient with Google Analytics can be a daunting task for new users. Fortunately, there are many guides available online to introduce its tools to new users in order to facilitate a productive learning experience. A good guide will walk you through setting up your account, analyzing your SEO performance, and evaluating reports.

 

Final Thoughts About Essential SEO Strategies for Small Business Owners

Final Thoughts

SEO is an invaluable tool for businesses of any size, and there are many ways to utilize these tactics. Do some research on the best ways to integrate search engine optimization into your standard practices, and get help from professionals like the folks at HighClick Media who can assist you in making the most of your website, social media accounts, and overall marketing strategy.

If you need help with any of these aspects of your digital marketing, we’re happy to help you out! Drop us a line here or call us at 252.814.2150 to see how we can help #elevateyourbrand!

 

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Guest blogger Cody McBride’s love for computers stems from high school when he built his own computer. Today he is a trained IT technician and knows how the inner workings of computers can be confusing to most. He is the creator of TechDeck.info where he offers easy-to-understand, tech-related advice, and troubleshooting tips.

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