Category Archives: Web Design

Landing Page Design, mobile app, Responsive Web Design, Web Design, Web Development, Wordpress

Web Design Hacks: Tips to Boost your Website’s UX

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No matter which business niche you belong to, the competition for business is bound to be intense in the online world. There are many things that sway purchase decisions towards your company. But to achieve that you have understood the psychology of the users and the elements in your website that instigate them to do business with you. If your website’s elements appease the psychology of the users, it will have a positive impact on the conversion rates. So, here are some tips that help you design and develop a website as per the needs of the users.

 

  • Add Special Elements in Key Areas: You have to decide, which are areas of the website you want to draw the visitors attention towards at first glance. Such areas should be highlighted with separate design elements or characters. You do not want the visitor’s attention to wander here and there, often overlooking the essential highlights of the website.

 

  • Use the Color Contrast: Believe it or not, wise exploitation of the color palette helps you retain the attention of the visitors. With contrasting colors and certain jump off elements, the call to action and unique value proposition content can be highlighted significantly.

 

  • Imaginative use of White Spaces: Many web designers, view web space as precious and do not want to waste any. But while you are striving to do so, you are also overburdening the visitors with information. White spaces are important elements of modern day web designing; they not only make sure that web page loads faster but also assure that the visitors have breathing spaces between all the important elements and content present at the website.

 

  • Plan for achieving consistency: Well, you have a lot to showcase to the visitors. You have the marketing messages, customer service, advertising and a host lot of other activities to take care. But, best websites find a way to blend all this information together. What that assures is: the customer gets consistent and hassles-free user experience.

 

  • Create the recall with Pictures: Modern day website landing pages are all about creating the desired impression with the use of high-quality images. Pictures often stick in the minds of the visitors, while the content might be forgotten. If you can convey certain highlights of your business with unique and attractive images, it will significantly boost your conversion rates.

 

  • Utilize the seeing it first Psychology: Often web surfers like to go through the top options in elaborate listing menus. This is where you need to plan. Place your most attractive services and products top of the tree, so that they become most viewed enhancing your sales scopes. Also, the content inside each of the pages should have an attractive heading which captures the attention of visitors and urges them to go through.

 

  • Showcase your Social side: The visitors who come to your website are social creatures; they want to read about experiences of other people before making a final decision. This is why you should showcase your testimonials and customer reviews on the landing page. Apart from that, you should also allow the visitors to view your social media profiles and learn about your customers’ engagements.

 

  • Highlight a Freebie: This old principle is as much attractive today as it was in the past. People like freebies, so whether it is a discount deal, limited time offer, free stuff or a sneak peek into the next product, use a prominent part of the landing page to showcase these. It will do greater good in the long term!

 

If you can use these psychological ploys, business will surely flow in!

Web Design

How to overcome the Psychological obstacles with good web hosting?

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We are in 2017, and it is a pity that web hosting still remains an afterthought for most businesses. While everyone now understands the imperativeness of a having a website up there on the world wide web, they are still ready to cut corners when it comes to web hosting.

Let me explain how web hosting can impact you. Suppose, you have built the most beautiful house and are ready to host a housewarming party, only to realize that none of the guests could actually make it because your house is in a very secluded location. That would not please you right? So, connectivity is imperative to your house, in the online world your website can achieve this with the aid of a capable web hosting service provider. Still thinking? Let me throw in another example. Now you have bought a really cheap plot of land, and build a beautiful house on it. Some days after moving in you find all the precious things have been robbed one night. Moreover, you find out that your house is in an area with high crime rate, would you be able to live on in peace, ever? Cheap web hosting can similarly give you sleepless nights. With the hope of having proved my point, let us now come to why investing in web hosting should be a prime decision this year.

 

  • Fast Loading: Now, I have statistics from Kissmetrics to prove the downsides of slow page loading. The statistics suggests that average Internet surfers would wait for no more than 6 seconds to view a page in its complete form (with content, design and graphics). And this can be attained only when the web host offers lightening fast speed leading to really quick loading time. Just ponder – what is the point of bringing thousands of visitors to your website if they cannot read or see your website in its entire form?

 

  • Minimum Downtime: Again, every web host would need to change things around a bit and this would lead to downtime. But what matters is the time span when your website is not available on the web. Best web hosts make sure that all their maintenance tasks are performed during the late hours of night when the traffic is supposed to be less. Just think how embarrassing it would be if you were in the middle of an important business deal and about to proudly show your website just to find that it is down and remains so for many hours!

 

  • Data Security: A scary statistic was projected by Net IQ; it stated that more than 70% of small businesses suffered from cyber attacks. And I am sure investigation would point fingers at the inadequacies of the web host. Web hosting is a big responsibility and protecting data security needs a lot of stringent measures. Web hosts, who are after quick money, do not care for elaborate security set-ups. And when that happens, the already reluctant customers would not like to share their personal details with you. You know better, how this will impact your business.

 

  • Safe Payments: e-Commerce is a huge market today. Every business wants to benefit, and increase their online revenues. But you have to think as a customer. How often do you enter the PIN code in front of an overseeing crowd at an ATM? You do not do that right? Similarly, why should you expect the customer to transact with you if the banking details and all other confidential information cannot be guaranteed to be kept safe? More than 60% of transactions would not be processed because the customer felt insecure at the last moment. Now that is a telling figure and could have led to lakhs of profits! Do you want to lose all that money coming your way?

 

  • Server Load Handling: You spend so much of money in promotions to see your website get a high volume of traffic. But when it happens, you find that the website has crashed and is not able to handle the excess volume. That means you should have a scalable solution and trust only a web host who can provide you that.

Hope, you would now see web hosting in a new light and take better decisions in this regard

Web Design

Dedicated Hiring: Leading Marketplace Trend for 2017

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Dedicated Hiring: Leading Marketplace Trend for 2017

In a recent study conducted across many countries on the leading workplace trends for 2017 it was found that dedicated hiring or outsourcing would be a force to reckon with this year. With the average tenure of employees on a massive low (hitting 1.2 years), businesses in most developed nations are hit by a new problem – recruiting quality man force for the job at hand and then retaining the skilled employee for many years. Studies estimate that the businesses in the US have suffered billions of dollars worth losses due to shifting loyalties of employees. In such times, outsourcing model is the way to fall back for most businesses. And within this model, the dedicated hiring services make sure you have a virtual employee doing the entire job a full time employee sitting within your business premises would do. Now, let us find some other reasons that make dedicated hiring from an offshore IT company such an attractive proposition.

  • The Cost Factor: Recruiting an experienced employee in the US can cost many thousand dollars each month. If the same responsibilities are put on an experienced employee at an offshore location, through the dedicated hiring model, then you could save more than half of the expenses. All that money could be used to enhance business reach and launch new services. Think about it!
  • Talent Pool: Not undermining the talent in developed countries in anyway, it can be said that India and other outsource hotspots have a vast pool of talented professionals. Apart from great educational background to sound technical skills, they possess it all. If you thought latest technologies would be too hot to handle for the hired remote employees, then you are under a wrong idea. Each of the companies in India and other outsourcing destinations has a dedicated Research and Development team. The role of this team is to keep an eye on the modern technological advancements and inform or train the employees likewise.
  • Time & Delivery: You cannot let go of such an advantageous proposition just because the time zones don’t match! Even if you are worried about this time gap, let us inform you most outsourcing companies in India have their offices open 24X7 to negate this factor. You can talk, discuss and get updates for your work any time that fits your schedule. Another thing that would fit into your business plans ideally is the timeliness of deliveries. The full time employees may fail to meet the deadlines, but the dedicated hiring resources would seldom do that.
  • No Employee Turnover Losses: When you recruit an employee you not only pay the salary, but also spend significantly in training and getting the employee at par with the requirements. When the employee leaves, the process starts again and the growth curve comes to a halt. The employee turnover rates in the developing nations are much higher than those witnessed in the leading outsourcing hubs such as India. Even if your virtual employee leaves, you do not have to worry about anything. It is up to the service provider to find an ideal replacement and move the work at the same pace. This can be a great solace for every business owner.

Seeing such helpful features, it is no wonder that the dedicated hiring model was, is and will be a factor for business success.

 

Web Design

How to Implement Hero Headers and Letterboxes in Website Design?

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Five months into 2017 and we are seeing a prominent web design trend. Full-width above the scroll images is captivating the imagination of the web surfers. Such a design pattern can be exhibited through the use of Hero Headers and Letterboxes. Both these header designs are logical inclusions in your website design plan. They not only look great, but offer the same eye-catching feel across devices (in terms of responsive design). Whether you include a large still or video image, whether you want to highlight a single offer or many at the same time these headers can help you achieve them with ease. When re-designing a website, Hero Headers and Letterboxes can be great options to de-clutter a website! So, let us learn about these new design sensations.

Hero Headers

It is a type of over-sized header display with a mixture of visual, textual and navigation elements. Such a header is placed above the scroll in your design framework. Though the choice of elements completely depends on the tastes of the web designer, the most popular trend is the use of photo with text and one navigation button. The Hero Headers are heavily dependent on their visual appeal, so a well thought out approach is essential in the choice of images and texts. The header works on the psychology of – if they are impressed they will scroll. And this effect can be only obtained when the images are really great!

Letterboxes

This header style contains some additional styling to the Hero Headers. Websites utilizing such headers use border frames over the main image. The large image can be compared to watching a movie on TV. Below this main image, there are other design elements sprinkled in such as navigation, branding content and search boxes. The Letterbox style provides more room to the images, giving the website a de-cluttered effect. As the header is quite similar to the social media cover photos, so the design is a bonus for brands looking for a consistent visual across all channels.

Tips for better Hero Headers and Letterboxes

  • Drop Colors: If you have a colorful logo, you might want to showcase its black and white variant while designing these headers. Your logo should not compete, for attention, with the colorful header image.
  • Bold Typefaces: You have to design for the contrast effect. The typeface you choose, for content over the header, should be bold as well as easy to read. It should be a part of the image and not compete or hamper it.
  • Depth of the Image: The success you have with these headers depends hugely on the quality of the image chosen. The image should not only be colorful and attractive, it should be clear as well. Pixilated images waste the potential of the design. While choosing the image, think hard over what you would use. Choose an image that clearly gives out the message you want to show to the visitors first visiting your website.
  • Fade Effect: Using the tint or fade effect on the large image helps designers provide the desired contrast between the image and the elements such as navigation, text and other elements.
  • Think of Smaller Devices: You should be ready to re-size the image so that it loads evenly for mobile and other devices. At times, you might have to swap a larger image with a smaller one so that the design looks even.
  • Text on Image: When you include text on image, make sure the main area of the image goes undisturbed. At the same time, the text should be easily readable as well. So, this again will require some planning.
  • Keep it Simple: Designers tend to use an image, animation or video on the header. But do not get too greedy with the scope at hand and include multiple things. If you are implementing a slider, keep the pace really slow so that the visitor might be able to read the text.

The first thing a visitor sees at your website is very important. Hero Headers and Letterboxes keep the visitors interested and inspire them to look through the website.

 

Landing Page Design, Responsive Web Design, Web Design, Web Development, Wordpress

How to Optimize Content Title Tags for better performance?

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Search Engine Optimization may have thousands of tricks to earn you visitors, but there can be nothing better than organic traffic. If visitors come to your content through their related searches, and find it helpful then they will keep returning back, time and again. This will keep your website fed with a steady influx of visitors. This not only helps you promote products and services better, but also leads to a steady rise in the page rankings. Though, many SEO experts are of the opinion that Title Tags have lost their former importance, but in terms of bringing traffic they are very important. So, today we tell you how to utilize the title tags to get more traffic and better rankings.

  • Use Numbers: Today’s Internet surfers want to make maximum utilization of their time. They will skip through results, unless they find something interesting. Studies suggest that numbers, when wisely used in the title, can help you get high clicks. Titles such as: 10 best reasons to visit India or How to save 35% on electrical expenses with LED installation – are some of the examples of numbers based titles.
  • Date Specific: Many surfers want information with pinpoint accuracy. To get this, they would use years, months and dates in the searches. Titles such as: Top Performers in EPL for April 2017 or Best Movie Oscar Nominees 2017 – are again some date specific title tags.
  • Length of Titles: This is a big problem area! Thousands of great content on the web can never reach their prospective audiences because the title tag is too long. The potential for the other half is wasted because they are too short. So, while you have to include the keywords and give something interesting for the surfers to find, you have to also care about the characters. Ideally, the title tags should be limited within 50-60 characters.
  • Starting with a Question: Asking a question is a great way to frame a title tag. By asking a question you are raising curiosity in the mind of the reader and more often than not, the curiosity will lead the surfer to click on the link. Asking a question gives out a clear signal that the content would be targeted towards answering a specific area rather than meandering here and there.
  • Use Synonyms and Variants: This is a very helpful practice when you are writing to promote. Trying out as many variants of a facility based word (offer) would be great to attract the crowds. Suppose your offering is cheap taxi service. Rather than just stopping at “cheap” you could include “Book affordable, low cost and cheap taxis in New York”. Now, that makes sure you do not miss out on any of the related searches.

As the psychology of the surfers has changed, from research based reading habits to utility based ones, the content posted on the web should be changed likewise. Title tags being an important crowd puller need to be given much thought so that they earn high organic traffic.

Landing Page Design, mobile app, Responsive Web Design, Web Design, Web Development, Wordpress

Give a Boost to your Site Speed with SSD Caching

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In this digital era, every business either has an online entity or is planning to have one. Whether your website is commercial or non-commercial you need a space on the web to showcase your offerings to the world. But merely having a website up there on the World Wide Web is not enough to succeed! It is just the start of your journey. The basics you need to take care of before launching a website are good content, aesthetic design, and smooth functionalities. But even these do not often please the online audiences.

Today’s surfers have a lot of choices. They are impatient and will not wait to see what you want to showcase. In such scenarios, the website loading speed is very important. If you want more conversions, preach out or just showcase certain things, your goals will be achieved only when the website loads in flash quick time. Yes, the web hosting services you choose are very important to achieve this end goal. But there is also a mechanism available now which can help you attain fast website loading speeds, and it is named SSD Caching.

What is SSD Caching?

In the old days of Internet, websites relied on Hard Disk Drives (HDD) to store and retrieve all the digital data associated with your website. Without going too deep into the nitty-gritty of the process, it can be said that the process was very long and lead to slow website loading speeds. That is very logical when a website has to fetch data from remote hard disks after each request. Then, arrived an alternate solution in the form of Solid State Drive (SSD), which had a flash memory and did not comprise of any movable parts. As a result, the data processing speeds were quick, but often storage capacity for the website would get limited. So, it did not prove a complete solution for the web masters.

As the Internet world matured, the concept of SSD Caching was introduced. This process is able to merge the best of both the processes together. While the complete data remains stored in HDD, some part of it is kept for ready use in the SSD. This cached data can open the requested information quickly, while the webmasters do not have to worry about their storage capacity running out.

How does website performance improve with SSD Caching?

Many of the high traffic and successful websites are today relying on the SSD Caching technology to offer the web surfers a great user experience. With quick loading times and limiting bandwidth usage, SSD Caching as captivated interested among all sections of the online business industry. Some of the ways in which the technology has helped webmasters are:

  • Minimizing the booting time for the operating systems.
  • Highly responsive and speedy application loading times.
  • Optimizing the computer functioning with the caching process.
  • Improving the user experience with fast loading pages and providing information instantly.
  • Improving a website ranking, as Search Engines also diagnose website loading speed before providing rankings. And fast loading websites tend to rank higher.
  • Happy user experience, higher traffics and information on time improves the conversion rates and enhances sales.

So, if you are wondering how to improve the speed of your website and limit its bandwidth usage, SSD Caching is the best solution.

 

Marketing, mobile app, Mobile app, Responsive Web Design, Web Design, Web Development

Measure your Mobile App’s Success with Key KPIs

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Gone are the days when mobile app development was all about having a great idea, fully functional features and stunning visuals. Today, the marketplace has shifted to the mobile apps and no matter which category you want to post your app in, there is a lot of competition waiting for you. So, even when you, as a developer and conceptualizer are completely satisfied with the outcome of the app, you are not assured to get a great response from the target users. This is why it is very important to not just release an app on the app store and forget about it. The application owners should try and understand the user interactions by analyzing the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).

Why is KPI analysis so important?

If you want to succeed with the plans to promote and market your mobile app, then you should keep on measuring the success of the app in terms of the KPIs. Regular monitoring of the indicators helps you understand how the app is faring in the market and provides you scopes to better certain areas. It is also a quick way to set the valuation and worth of the app, which comes to use when you have to converse with the stakeholders or funding agencies. The success and performance metrics coming out of KPI evaluation should help you in future development and marketing plans.

Essential KPIs

  • User Downloads: The number of times your app has been downloaded is the most basic KPI you should keep an eye on. If you are seeing high download count, that means users are liking the idea or service you have projected before them. Rest of the KPIs is dependent on this too.
  • No. of Installations: Most people feel that number of downloads and installations are the same, but they are not. Many times, people would just download the app and shun it after that. So, in such cases, the user has liked your idea but due to certain issues could not end up using the app. Most of the times, this is also an indicator that the file size of the app is too high.
  • No. of Uninstallations: Ok, so users downloaded the app used its features and then decided to uninstall it. There cannot be a single or handful of reasons for such uninstallations, and users will not care to leave a feedback. But you can make sense from such a data if the number of uninstalls has significantly increased after you launched a new version or started advertising through the app. When new things introduced in the app are not liked by the end users, the rate of uninstalling will automatically be high.
  • App Crashes: If a user installs your app and it crashes time and again, it will leave a bad impression in the minds of the users. As apps are built with a complex mesh of codes they have the likelihood to crash. But this tendency of the app should be monitored and rectified as soon as possible; otherwise you will lose a lot of users.
  • Tracking Upgrades: Whether you are offering free or paid updates, the success of the new version should always be tracked. New versions are always launched with an intention for the betterment of services, so it is essential to understand how that is faring among the users. If you are going for the paid update, you should measure the free v/s paid metrics. You should also see the ratings for the newer version v/s older one. If the existing users are not updating to the newer version than that would mean updates should not be launched into the market, unless they are unavoidable.

Monitoring or KPIs often give app developers and businesses the insights they much require bettering their offerings. So, measure them and move up the ladder of success!

 

 

 

Facebook Marketing, Google+, Internet Marketing, Landing Page Design, Marketing, mobile app, Responsive Web Design, SEO, Social Media Marketing, Twitter, Web Design, Web Development

Thinking about Digital Marketing from Business Objectives

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The digital marketing bandwagon comes with endless opportunities for businesses. But the sad part is that more than 80% of the campaigns fail miserably straining relations between the service providers and the clients. While digital marketing campaigns can give a significant impetus to your business, it can be successful only when there is a thoughtful approach put into it. Now, there are two parties associated with a digital marketing campaign – the service providers (who put in their expertise) and the clients (who possess business domain knowledge). When the skills of both these parties meet, the result would be a result oriented digital marketing campaign.

For an example, IIHM Kolkata is known for “hotel management college in Kolkata“, they do PPC and facebook campaign also.

Measuring the Business goals is the most important

The smooth flow and functionality of a digital marketing campaign depend a lot on the in-house talents possessed by the service provider, but the client plays an important before the inception of the campaign. As a business owner, you have to get the business goals you want to attain with the campaign all straight before it gets going. Most of the time the immediate answer would be high conversion rates and great ROI! But that is an overhead view of the business goals. You have to think deeper than that. You have to assess the potential of services and products and UVP (Unique Value Proposition) of your business. Once you do that with minuteness new scopes would open up. Best digital marketing campaigns do not use an overall approach, they target with pinpoint accuracy. And that is what you have to aim for, with the help of service providers. Pull up some statistical data about the growth rate of your sector, emerging trends in the industry and your specific positioning in the sector.

How to mold the campaign with findings?

Once you have done the due research, you would be in a better position to define the business goals and what you want to attain with the digital marketing campaign. Below are some tips you can implement in your digital marketing campaigns:

  • Make it Seasonal: If your core offering is selling air conditioning units or repairing them, then there is no point of starting a campaign in the middle of the winter season. If you make such a fallacy, all the efforts will go down the drain. No one really looks for servicing or purchase choices for air conditioning units when it is chilly outside. So, all your ads and content marketing will go unnoticed, and by the time summer season arrives you would already have left hope of getting high ROI from the campaign. If your research data shows that your particular type of product or service gets high sales during a particular time of the year, use that data and kick start your campaign during the high potential season.
  • Make it Regional: If your services are available in a particular geographical area, why are you spending extra on setting a nationwide campaign? Suppose, you offer cab services within a certain state, there is no point in targeting the entire nation and trying to reach out to each and every person typing for cab services. You should stay restricted within the key cities within the state. While many business owners feel that digital marketing campaigns should reach their business out to every Internet surfer, you are deviating from the main goal which is to get conversions. Conversions would only come when you are able to reach out to people who need your type of services. So, think again before you start the campaign.
  • Give it an Occasional touch: So, you want to run a digital marketing campaign for your restaurant chain. Christmas and New Year would be the ripe time for your business. But there are other competitors who are attracting crowds while your restaurant is not getting enough sales. Well, the digital marketing campaign can help you set the record straight. Throw in some exciting offers, great deals, and discounts. Let the experienced digital marketing professionals reach such offers to the prospective customer base. When a person planning to visit any restaurant on such occasions gets added incentives (in the form of discounts) they will choose you over the counterparts. That is a great way to leverage sales.

So, now you know how you can utilize the digital marketing campaigns to drive high sales. Use it and reap the benefits.

Identity Design, Landing Page Design, Web Design

Web Design Hacks: Tips to Boost your Website’s UX

Posted on by admin

No matter which business niche you belong to, the competition for business is bound to be intense in the online world. There are many things that sway purchase decisions towards your company. But to achieve that you have understand the psychology of the users and the elements in your website that instigate them to do business with you. If your website’s elements appease the psychology of the users, it will have a positive impact on the conversion rates. So, here are some tips that help you design and develop a website as per the needs of the users.

Add Special Elements in Key Areas: You have to decide, of which areas of the website you want to draw the visitors attention towards at first glance. Such areas should be highlighted with separate design elements or characters. You do not want the visitor’s attention to wander here and there, often overlooking the essential highlights of the website.

Use the Color Contrast: Believe it or not, wise exploitation of the color palette helps you retain the attention of the visitors. With contrasting colors and certain jump off elements, the call to action and unique value proposition content can be highlighted significantly.

Imaginative use of White Spaces: Many web designers, view web space as precious and do not want to waste any. But while you are striving to do so, you are also overburdening the visitors with information. White spaces are important elements of modern day web designing; they not only make sure that web page loads faster but also assure that the visitors have breathing spaces between all the important elements and content present at the website.

Plan for achieving consistency: Well, you have a lot to showcase to the visitors. You have the marketing messages, customer service, advertising and a host lot of other activities to take care. But, best websites find a way to blend all this information together. What that assures is: the customer gets consistent and hassles free user experience.

Create the recall with Pictures: Modern day website landing pages are all about creating the desired impression with the use of high-quality images. Pictures often stick in the minds of the visitors, while the content might be forgotten. If you can convey certain highlights of your business with unique and attractive images, it will significantly boost your conversion rates.

Utilize the seeing it first Psychology: Often web surfers like to go through the top options in elaborate listing menus. This is where you need to plan. Place your most attractive services and products top of the tree, so that they become most viewed enhancing your sales scopes. Also, the content inside each of the pages should have an attractive heading which captures the attention of visitors and urges them to go through.

Showcase your Social side: The visitors who come to your website are social creatures; they want to read about experiences of other people before making a final decision. This is why you should showcase your testimonials and customer reviews in the landing page. Apart from that, you should also allow the visitors to view your social media profiles and learn about your customers’ engagements.

Highlight a Freebie: This old principle is as much attractive today as it was in the past. People like freebies, so whether it is a discount deal, limited time offer, free stuff or a sneak peek into the next product, use a prominent part of the landing page to showcase these. It will do greater good in the long term!

If you can use these psychological ploys, business will surely flow in!

Google+, Marketing, Responsive Web Design, SEO, Social Media Marketing, Web Design, Web Development

9 Reasons Why Small Businesses Need Websites Of Their Own

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Recently I went to a popular but small book publisher in Kolkata’s famous College Street area to try and sell the owner a website. The owner was a friend of mine. I chatted briefly with him, discussed about the troubles he faces to get new customers, the marketing strategies taken for distributing books and so on. He was generous enough and allowed me to run through the basic benefits of having a website giving me his full attention. Figuring I am close to finalizing this deal, I finally said, “Do you think a website for your business is something you’d be interested in hearing more about?”

He replied, “I have a very small publishing house and I work with a few staffs. It is already a headache for me to keep track of everything and everybody working here. Moreover, I sell books through my distributors. They take care of my customers’ demands and I supply the books accordingly. Why should I need a website? A website means extra costs to me which I cannot bear right now. I am not tech savvy either. I won’t be able to maintain it. And we’ve never felt the need of advertising about our publishing house. Every year I put up a stall in the Kolkata Book Fair. It is enough advertising for my brand. I do fair business there and rest of the year it goes pretty well. Will a website bring more people in here? Well then, no thanks, I don’t need one.” He firmly believes his business does not need a website.

Over a decade’s service to small and medium business owners in India and outside, helping them build and run their websites, I am amazed to see how many of them still do not want to have any website or online exposure of their own. After a few more similar experiences I clearly understood the questions and concerns small business owners pose about getting a website. I have tried to address to these queries as much as possible during my interactions with potential customers and here are some small business website myths revealed:

Q1. Do I really need a web site for my company?

Whether your company needs a website or not depends on your decision only. Website is not an advertisement. It is a multi-functional communication tool. For a well-organized business with local clientele, where a backlog of customers is waiting to be serviced you may not need a website. But if you want to communicate effectively with a broader range of clients, attract new customers, explore new markets and take significant market share from your competitors — then you definitely need a website.

Q2. I cater to a very small segment of the society. My customers know me and I know them. That’s enough for me. Why should I need so much exposure?

Well, as I mentioned before, if your business is localized, well organized and there are lots of customers waiting to be served, then you might not need a website for further branding at all. However, a simple business page (say Google+ page) in a social media platform might help you to retain existing customer base and gain future customers.

Q3. Is it very costly to build a website?

Not at all. Earlier website designing and development costs were high, because everything had to be custom made. However, due to introduction of WordPress and other such CMS and CRM based free website designing platforms, designing, development and maintenance costs have gone down significantly over the past few years.

Q4. I already have a free web page on some other free portal. Why do I need another exposure at a cost?

A webpage in someone else’s domain is not a website. It does not provide you with full functionalities and are often not good for customer interaction or customer management.  However, this kind of listing services enhances and empowers your new website.

Q5. I don’t sell any products online. Do I still need a website?

If you sell something special that people are looking for then a large portion of people (perhaps a market unknown to you thus far) will search the Internet, because it’s fast, easy, global and private. A web site will put you in the running with others on the Internet.

Q6. I am not tech savvy either. I won’t be able to maintain a website.

Don’t worry.Your web developer can help you with the designing, development, maintenance, changes and updates, which are generally simple and costs are within your budget.

Q7. Many of our customers aren’t computer users. They like face to face interaction with a personal touch.

Time is changing as is the ways of finding new products and services by people all over the world. Your existing customers may not be tech savvy right now, but they will become eventually. What about the future potential customers who are already using smart phones and tablets to find their required products and services? The percentage of rural population using mobile phones to access internet is also increasing in our country. So why wait long. A website will keep you in sync with this growing trend.

Q8. I am already spending thousands in advertising. Why should I go for an additional cost for setting up a website?

A website is not an advertising investment. It compliments and empowers your online advertising efforts.

Alternatively, I’ve decided to put together a list of 9 major reasons why a small business needs a website:

1. Keep up with the competition

Modern tech savvy consumers use internet to search for products and services they need before they make a final purchase. Most of them would assume you have a website and they will search for one in your name only to find you do not have one. The result is obvious. All those consumers will turn on to your competitors’ websites. You lose potential customers. Hence, even if you have a small business, a professional looking site will actually help gain credibility and a slight advantage over your competitors who do not have one yet. In particular, home based businesses benefit from having an online presence as they do not have a proper store front to promote their products and services. So to keep up with your competitors you must have a website. 

2. Build your brand

Online reviews (like Google reviews), your interactions with other customers, your social media presence, the frequency and quality of your posts in blogs help to build a potential customer’s trust in your company or product.

3. 24x7x365 accessibility to information

The never-sleeping-always-wake internet gives your business portal 24-hour virtual showroom which would not have been possible in case of a brick-and-mortar establishment. When you set up a website for your business, you are not only reaching out to your existing customers but also gaining potential customers allowing them to have unlimited access to your product/service information, reviews, new line of products and services that you are going to offer, etc at any time of the day and from anywhere.

4. Showcase your works

A website acts like an online brochure or catalogue of your business. Showcase your work, products by including a portfolio or image gallery, testimonials and all those that tell about your business worldwide. 

5. Target a wider market  

You can make avail your services and products globally as your website will provide an alternative location to sell them. 

6. Cost effective sales and marketing tool

Your website can serve as a “marketing and sales” machine for your company. It allows for a wider, more cost-effective distribution of your business and brand as opposed to traditional marketing techniques, which usually included printing and mailing costs. Well written and compelling sales copies on your site attract ideal clients and compel them to use your products or services. Traditional advertisements are a revolving cost to a company. You can buy an ad space in a newsprint or roadside billboard for a specific period of time, spend huge amount of money to design and print them, put them up and then after a few days the ad is gone. You may or may not get the expected amount of return on your investment. A website, on the other hand, comes with several features of online promotion that you can control and use continually and accordingly. Compared to print ads and billboard advertisement, costs of designing a website and running it is quite low. Also its potentiality to reach out to a wide range of niche customers is better than the traditional ways. Hence websites are a very cost effective method for promoting your brand and business.

7. Time saving technology

Providing information to your customers is time consuming as it involves phone calls, face to face interaction, designing and printing a brochure and distributing it, etc. It is lot easier and quicker to update information about your products and services on your website than in print material. Thus making it an effective way of letting your customers know about the arrival of new products, upcoming events, special promotions, or any new services you now offer.

8. Improved customer services

Nowadays websites are built with CRM (customer relationship management) capabilities to help manage your existing as also new customers. Appointment booking system, customer contact list, email marketing, custom enquiry forms and SMS alerts are certain CRM tools that significantly improve your ability to stay connected and engaged with your customers.

9. Lead generation

Lead generation is crucial in case of online sales and marketing. Adding freebies like free downloads of forms, brochures, e-books, etc. and other valuable resources in exchange for opt-ins to your website can help you gain new leads from prospective customers searching for your products and services.

The internet is in fact has become the basis of business activities over the past few years. There have been significant increases in traffic and business generation after the introduction of ecommerce. People are always opting for the easiest, cheapest and quickest means to reach out to others. Imagine you are going for a long hike and at night you are looking for a roadside motel. What will you do? You will simply take out your smart phone and Google to see whether there is a motel located near you. If the nearest motel owner has enlisted his business in the Google map then viola, he gets a needy customer in the middle of night. So, even a small business requires online presence to hook customers and retain them.

Hence the conclusion: Small businesses do need websites of their own