web design

Prepare For The Hurricane That Is Success

/ nancyrubin

The dream for any business is to explode like a fireworks finale above some capital city on Old Year’s Night and, if you work hard enough, you’ll find the chances of this happening are in your favor. The dream is an exponential rise, the kind that will be written in the folklore of Forbes Magazine.

However, the dream is very different to the reality because, if you don’t prepare your business for this level of success, you’ll see it fall by the wayside thanks to good old instability. Yup, seizing the opportunity to grow requires having everything in place to rock n’ roll with the momentum you’ve earned.

That’s why we’ve pulled together a lost of ways you can effectively grow your business and ride out any and all the brisk changes that crop up on the way up:

  1. No Weak Links

The thing that makes growth possible is a sudden charge of customers running toward your gates. However, if things aren’t absolutely watertight at your end, you’ll find they turn around just as quickly as they came, taking everyone with them. That’s why you need to have everything in check. You need to make sure you are presentable from every direction, have a great online presence and that all your operations are able to run smoothly no matter how many people cue up. Think of this growth as a hurricane; the only thing that will help you survive is a strong foundation.

  1. Have The Resources

This is the balancing act that you need to master in order to make growth possible. You need to have all the resources ready without having any unnecessary overheads. Our advice: utilize technology and make the most of outsourcing. Call ATB Technologies and ask them about their cloud storage solutions so that your IT can withstand the growth, build a pool of trusted freelancers you can call on during peak times so that you don’t put your business or brand at risk of onboarding problems and have automation processes in place so that human error isn’t a burden when the pressure builds.

  1. Hire The Best Talent

Growth is not possible without having the right team around you, which is why you need to make this a priority. These people are a crucial part of your success and will either help big time or hinder you massively. Don’t just pick the person with the best qualifications though. Think about their soft skills, how they will fit in with your culture, the context they have applied their experience in so far, heir ambitions and everything else that makes up their professional personality. Yes, their experience is key, but you want them to be able to roll with the punches and fight for the same goals as you. Dedication and commitment – those are the two defining traits you are after.

  1. Perfect Your Procedures

We’ll keep this one short: you need to have the proper procedures, processes and strategies in place if you are going to seize the opportunity to grow. That means having the right systems, tech, software, workflows and everything else of that ilk. It won’t be possible to succeed without them.

The three most common SEO mistakes marketers tend to make

/ nancyrubin

In the world of SEO, almost everyone claims to be an expert on the matter. However, that is not the case for even half the people who make that claim. SEO is much more complicated and multi-faceted that most people realise at first, plus there is also the fact that things tend to change in the realm of SEO every couple of months. Google Algorithms are the main reason for these changes.

Due to this problem, even if mistakes are made, you will not get to know about it right away. If one is not careful, there can be many instances where the marketer will not realise the SEO mistakes he/she is making until it is too late to do anything. For most newcomers, this is how things initially go at first. It can be quite frustrating at times, but then again, no newcomer enters the market rightfully claiming to be an SEO expert. Most people make mistakes and learn from them. It is as simple as that.

However, even though it can be quite hard to tell at first, there are certain mistakes and SEO pitfalls that one should be extremely careful not to fall into. That is a fact. Even if you hire an seo agency in manchester for instance or the best SEO service that you know, you need to keep these mistakes in mind at all times.

On that very note, let us take a good look at the three most common SEO mistakes:

  • Spammy links: This used to work in the past. Not anymore. Now the emphasis is firmly on quality rather than quantity. Now, Google will be able to tell in an instant the moment you try and game the system by generating spammy links. Not only is it not going to work, but your rankings will take a severe hit in the bargain.

  • Stuffing of keywords: Most of the time, it is the newcomers who end up making this particular mistake. Plus it is anything but easy to write content that is of good quality and at the same time, devoid of a high keyword density.

    Non-repetition of keywords needs to be practiced so that you can hone the art of controlling the number of keywords you use over time. When you maintain the balance of staying on topic without compromising on the required keywords, that is the aspect that will give you an edge over your peers in the market.

  • Duplicate or poor content: Not only does this kind of content rank badly, but there is also the fact that the overall relevance of the content takes a hit as well. Many services attempt this to take the easy way out of not going through the effort of creating quality content, but in most cases, this move ends up backfiring.

    Focus on making your content long, focused and in-depth with plenty of links and details. Not too long, but still. That way, you will be able to cover the entire scope of your particular topic with as many external links as possible in order to make it easier to comprehend as well.

Just remember that you need to do whatever it takes to enhance the overall performance of your site to the best of your ability. That is the bottom line. And most importantly, take all the time that you need. It is imperative that you don’t get carried away and try to finish things in a rushed and hurried manner. Doing this will be a lot more damaging to your SEO campaign than you think.

Never forget that ultimately, the smallest enhancements to your website will make all the difference in the long run. And most of all, the aspect of meaningful and quality content. The creation of the best content that you are capable of should be your number one priority at all times.

Author Bio : Steve works as a Managing Director at Gluhub, a Manchester-based branding and digital marketing agency that helps businesses improve their bottom line and profits.

 

Essential Advice When Setting Up A Website for First-Timers

/ nancyrubin

Essential Advice When Setting Up A Website for First-Timers

If you’re one of those people who thinks that designing a website from scratch is a difficult thing to do that requires coding and design skills, then think again. Content management systems (CMS) have created user friendly website-building that can be accessible to everyone, even when you don’t have the technical knowledge. There are many tips to make your business more professional and one of these is to have an attractive website to entice new customers or readers about what you have on offer. But, where do you start? Here’s some advice for first-timers thinking of starting a website.

Which CMS and hosting company to use?

Your first decisions are going to concentrate on which CMS and hosting company you should use. There are many to choose from but undoubtedly, the most popular is WordPress. Although all of them offer the possibility of setting up a website with your own domain name for a few dollars, WordPress is one of the easier website-builders to use: templates are fully customized and yet you can adjust them to suit your style and needs accordingly. Once you’ve decided on a template of which many designs are free and varied, and domain name, your next task is to select a WordPress hosting provider to use. Try not to be overwhelmed by the basics of web hosting and choose a faster provider for an enhanced performance.

What are you trying to achieve?

Now that you have a website name, CMS and hosting provider, you next need to plan how you intend to convey your information, images and products, if you have any. By setting out a plan of action, it will be easier to clarify the goals of your website as you delve further into your design. Are you building a website for business? Or a blog site for pleasure? Who do you expect your audience to be? When thinking of the layout of your new website, these are the kinds of questions you should be asking yourself so that you have a clear idea of what message you want to convey to your target audience. Put yourself in the shoes of the individuals who will be likely to click on your website and try and determine the priorities that people want when visiting your site.

How are you going to plan your pages?

This aspect of website building should incorporate a fun element as you create and plan the content of your pages. Think about whether you want to impress your visitors with beautiful images on your homepage, or if you more concerned with providing them with detailed information about what your site is about. Look at other websites who offer a similar service or product and get some inspiration around designing your pages. Remember that once you have uploaded images and information, you can tweak them along with background colors, fonts and sizes until you reach the precise look you are going for.

Creating a website doesn’t have to be a complicated or daunting affair, and once it’s completed your next step is to get it out there for people to see your marvelous creation.

7 Ways To Make Your Site More Exciting

/ nancyrubin / 1 Comment

If you’ve recently started to look at your website and think that it just seems so boring, then it may be time for a change. On the one hand, this may be because you’ve just gotten used to it. So you’re more bored with it than anything else. But, it may also be because the website itself is actually boring. And when that’s the case, you may have to worry. Because if you’re finding it boring, the what are your customers thinking? Either way, you don’t have to just leave your website as it is now – you can really change things around and make it so much more exciting.

Sometimes, you just have to get yourself into a position where you’re bored with your website to then be able to change it. Because you’re not always going to be able to see what’s wrong when you’re not looking at the same old things. But, even when you know that something isn’t quite right, you don’t always know what will make it better. And that’s where this post comes in. Even if you quite like your site as it is now, you may take something away from this that can take it to the next level. Because we’re going to walk through seven different ways that you can make your website more exciting.

Do A Complete Redesign

Of course, the very first option you’re always going to have is to do a complete redesign of your site. Because when you think that the site is boring, or it’s just not really giving you the results that you want, you need to shake things up. A great way to do this is to make sure that you’re taking your analytics and really honing in on the elements that need improving. When you do, you should find that the end result not only looks great, but it much more suitable to what your customers want functionality wise too.

Change Your Branding

Sometimes, you’re not going to have to go to such drastic measures to make your site more exciting. If you love the layout and the functionality is perfect, maybe it’s just the branding that needs to be changed. From your logo to the fonts and colors used, sometimes you just need to shake up the visuals you have to make them more suited to your brand identity.

Start A Blog

From here, you’re then going to want to think about starting a blog on site too. If you have a blog already, then maybe you need to refresh your content or start a new series – both can be incredibly influential to your customers and viewers. This should also become a huge part of your marketing too. It can be a lot of extra work, but if you put the effort it, it will pay off.

exciting2 https://www.pexels.com/photo/business-coffee-computer-desk-374006/

Launch An App

How are you doing on the mobile front? If you’re not optimized for mobile at all, then this should be your first change. Even if you don’t know an awful lot about it, you can work with the software companies that do. By launching an app, you’re going to be adding a new dimension to your offering and even be able to target a new segment of customers too.

Use Video

Next up, you should give video some thought too. A lot of customers prefer video to imagery or written content. It can often get information across in a much more engaging way. So definitely think about what you can do with YouTube or onsite content going forward.

Create A Members Area

If your feel like your site is just the same, and that it’s not really offering anything exciting to your customers, you’re going to want to up your game with a member’s area. Not only is this exciting for your customers, it gives off an air of exclusivity. It’s somewhere that you can engage your customers more, and interact with them more – which has a huge benefit to both parties.

Focus On Interaction

Finally, you’re also going to want to make sure that you’re interacting with your customers as well as possible too. And you can definitely use your website to do that. With a great live chat offering, you can often add to the customer experience and make sure that you’re doing everything you can to keep your customers happy, and even improve your conversion rate too. It’s a great way to not only get feedback, but stop customers from dropping off through the sales funnel too.

How to Successfully Market Yourself as a Freelancer

/ nancyrubin

With social media evolving so fast and with the internet changing in the rate it does, it is practically a business suicide not to have some kind of marketing strategy prepared for your business. However, without a steady paycheck and with the constant pursuit for new clients, dealing with the issue of marketing may seem difficult. Marketing yourself as a freelancer may be a bit tricky, but if you focus, plan and organize ahead, you will soon realize just how far a good marketing strategy can take you.

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Create a Strong Online Presence

You cannot simply wait for people to find and hire you. You need to get out there and expand your reach. There is an abundance of industry-specific forums, blogs, and other communities which are great for developing your marketing skills and growing your freelancing network. Engage in social media and try to leave comments on different blogs, or answer questions on forums. Be helpful and and do not spam the users. When you engage with the community in such a way, you help build credibility for yourself and consequently expand your reach.

Do not Neglect the Social Media

Use social media platforms to build a public profile for yourself. Potential clients and employers will have much better chances of hiring you if you are present and active on social media. Having a detailed LinkedIn profile can significantly boost your client rates; using Facebook or Twitter for self-promotion can help you distinguish yourself from others and build a serious freelancing business. Make sure you are out there if you really want to expand your business and market yourself properly.

Build a Team of Freelancers

Try connecting with other freelancers as often as you can. This may not seem important from the marketing aspect of your work, but as far as networking goes, it really is. When you are engaged with numerous freelancers, the number of potential opportunities skyrockets. With strong connections with freelancers in different areas of expertise, you can take numerous projects and expand your client base significantly.

Focus on Referrals and Outsourcing

Referring clients to other freelancers is an amazing practice, and it both helps create a connection between freelancers and helps them expand their businesses. You can even get freelancers to outsource a project for your client through you and vice versa, so you can understand how a strong freelancing team can be very important when it comes to promoting yourself and your skills.

Incorporate Modern Web Design

If you do not have a website in the today’s market, it is as if you don not exist. This is especially the case for freelancers. But simply having a website does not necessarily mean that you are on track to become extremely successful. You must understand your focus group and you must address their needs. In order to do this in the best possible way you need to incorporate great web design.

Mix Marketing With Web Design

When it comes to web design, it can make or break your business. Good web design can really help you step up your marketing game. Whether you’re a genius web designer or someone who doesn’t know anything about it, there are some simple guidelines that you should follow. Keep your website simple, use responsive web design, test everything meticulously and ask for feedback from everyone. These tips have proven to be extremely efficient when it comes to marketing aspects of your website.

Think About Growth Opportunities

Think about the services you provide as a freelancer and think about the clients you have already worked with. Think about what they would like to see, and consider how that fits in your idea of a website. Do some research and check out what other freelancers from your branch of work are doing. With platforms like WordPress and with the power of Google you can soon understand how the world of web design works, or you can always consult a professional and still achieve what you’ve wanted all along – a better way to market yourself.

Put the Thoughts Into Action

Expanding the business is hard, and finding the best marketing strategies may seem like a nightmare, but all you really need is a bit of time and patience. Focus on building your online presence, and try to engage with others as often as you can. Think of the ways how you want to build your career, whether as a successful individual freelancer or as a member of a freelancing team of experts. Don’t be afraid to promote yourself and your skills, but do it professionally.

Google Says Freshen Up Your Content

/ nancyrubin

While there are – probably – dozens and dozens of ways in which Google likes to rank the content on your website, none of them has become more emphasized than “freshness”. So, in order to get straight into it and not beat around the proverbial bush any longer, here are some of the most important ways in which the god-that-is-Google tends to determine how fresh your content is.

Date Of Inception

Every single web page is going to be valued based on its inception date, something that holds less and less value as time goes on. Just so you know, the inception date is the time when Google first becomes aware of this new content, which tends to happen when the crawlers first detect it on your website or when Google finds a link to this content.

A Matter Of Updating

This is something that has gotten a little bit more attention over recent months. Instead of just rating your content on when it was first uploaded, Google also ranks your content on how regularly it is updated. Content that gets tweaked regularly has more value than content that never changes. Let’s say you go back through your content and change a sentence. Whoop-di-do. However, if you drastically change the main body then you will be having a much bigger impact on this freshness thing.

Frequency Of Changes

Ask those in well-respected SEO services, and they will tell you another huge proponent in the hunt for a better rating is the frequency in which your content gets updates because that is what will keep the Googlebots coming back to crawl your website. Let’s use some examples. Let’s say you have a blog that gets updated once a week as a means to keep your customers in the loop with what you are up to. Okay, that’s once a week something new gets added. Compare that to a major newspaper where their entire body of content gets altered daily and you see which one is more valuable to Google.

New Pages, Please

Another great way to improve the freshness of your website is to create new pages. This is something that a blog manages to do better than anything else because you are not only creating new pages regularly, you are also adding pages that are high in original content. That’s epic. That’s going to get you a freshness score to be super-proud of. You don’t need to go mad on this front, but a new page every so often will have a big impact.

Linking Plays A Lovely Role

Just so you know, the freshness-o-meter is not restricted to your page’s only. It also has a lot to do with the external links that you are using. These tend to wield a lot of power when it comes to measuring freshness. That is why you should always include a cocktail of internal links, outbound links and, if possible, links on external websites that link back to you. Google loves link-building because it makes you look relevant or, to keep with the word we have been using, fresh.

Starting Up A Business? It’s Simple With These Tips

/ nancyrubin / 3 Comments

Dealing within your business may come as second nature to you, but for someone starting out, it can all seem too daunting. How can you start a business? Where do you begin to fathom the challenges ahead? There are, however, some basic principals that you can overcome. Getting a grip on the main fundamentals create the perfect grounding to create your business. I thought I would share these simple tips to help you if you find yourself just starting out.

bustips Sourced

Business plans are essential

Having a business plan is an essential part of starting up a business. It gives you the focus and clarity to know exactly what steps and actions you need to take. However, many overlook this part of the process and possibly don’t spend as much time on it as they should do. But, not only does a business plan guide you, it can also help if you are looking to gain an investor’s interest further down the line. Or even if you are hoping to raise funds from the start. Which brings me onto my next point.

Consider the financial side of things

The financial side of things is one huge hurdle to overcome at the beginning of starting up a business. You have the initial finance you need to bring a product to market or launch a company or service online. But you may also find that you struggle with cash flow when you begin to start trading. This is when websites like https://smallbusinessloans.co could help you out. You need to be able to keep a business moving forward and the financial aspect can be one of the downfalls of a new start up. So plan ahead.

Social media can be your huge advantage

Social media management and promotion is a buzz with businesses taking different approaches and strategies of how they advertise their business online. And why not? After all, it is so diverse and with a big audience you really can take advantage of social media from an advertising and marketing side of things. A decent understanding of how you can utilise these platforms will be vital to your success, websites like http://www.dummies.com could help you out.

Think of your branding and website

The branding and your website are two key facts for your business and is something that needs you time, your attention and your focus. Everything is digital these days and mostly people will head online to find the right website for their needs. However, if they do happen to stumble across your website but the branding isn’t on point then you could potentially lose that customer or client. A digital marketing agency could help with logos and branding along with web development. Lastly, you will also want to ensure that your website can be seen through the mass of websites offered in search engines. This is when search engine optimisation and the use of keywords could help improve your chances of ranking better. Thankfully, there are plenty of tutorials online to help you make a start on this yourself.