Four Crucial Elements for Any Successful Website

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article|Website Design | Four Crucial Elements for Any Successful WebsiteFor nearly thirty years, businesses and individuals alike have utilized the internet to project their thoughts, desires, and projects to the rest of the world. Over this time, the nature of the internet has evolved dramatically: there’s probably no better illustration of this evolution than the functionality and aesthetics of most websites.

Used for everything from gossip and personal blogs to major online marketplaces, the look and feel of a website has morphed considerably over the years. In addition, there are more brands, blogs, and businesses operating online than ever before: as such, any target audience has an unprecedented number of choices for their news, information, products or services.

Building the very best website possible – one that is functional, user-friendly, aesthetically pleasing, and usable across all devices – is crucial. To guide webmasters, bloggers, and others in the right direction, let’s take a look at four elements in particular that are crucial for successful websites.

Quality Hosting Services

An incredible amount of time and energy goes into building high-quality web infrastructures. While a simple website can be deployed in as little as a few minutes, a significant and formidable presence that can dominate within one or more niches takes countless hours to perfect. All too often, efforts are focused on building these vital components – but the ingredients for a successful website begin long before the first page is even created.

The selection of a hosting provider plays a huge role in the long-term viability of any website. Elements such as bandwidth and storage obviously matter – especially as a website grows – but just as important is the overall speed and security of a hosting provider. Since there is a direct correlation between page speed and search engine ranking position, generating organic visibility largely revolves around having a website that is fast. Additionally, most users will not wait around forever on your pages to load; they’ll simply look somewhere else.

There are several different hosting solutions available, depending on specific needs. Shared hosting, the most common and affordable solution, can be right for many websites when specific providers are carefully researched. Dedicated hosting is the most expensive and arguably the most reliable option, with a dedicated server utilized for each specific website. A good mixture of the two, VPS hosting helps provide additional speed and storage without having to share resources with a plethora of other websites. To learn more about these hosting provider options, check out these details.

User-Friendly Interface

If people cannot easily access and navigate a website, then its utility is practically zero. Once a tentative web infrastructure is deployed, focusing on improving the user interface is the next item on the list for success. There are numerous technical and aesthetic elements within this broader dynamic to be considered, and plenty of trial and error will be needed to produce the ideal outcome.

Obviously, design is critical in building a successful website that users can enjoy. Ensuring that the appropriate navigation and link options are placed throughout the site can make a huge difference in reception. A suitable color scheme coupled with tasteful imagery helps tie the virtual fabric of the website together and makes branding much easier. Accentuating vital elements on each page – such as the latest blog posts, social media updates, and email subscription forms – will enhance the cumulative marketing power a website provides.

One other critical element of user-friendliness to consider is a mobile responsive design. With more people now using mobile devices to navigate websites than standard desktop devices, it is in many ways smarter to design websites catering to the former group rather than the latter. However, mobile responsive design can be implemented and used to render the best version and resolution of the website for any and all users, based on the device(s) on which they are browsing.

Ample Content

There are many reasons to launch a website: marketing new products, getting the word out about charitable causes, or simply just broadcasting thoughts and information to those who are interested. These differences can lead to fundamentally different types of websites at first glance, but one core concept is present throughout every successful website on the internet: ample content.

The phrase “content is king” is a well-known statement in the world of digital marketing – and for good reason. Most people are not going to discover your website, brand, products or services without something of interest being presented to them first. The easiest way to do this is to create fun, informative or entertaining content that can be shared via a variety of channels.

Additionally, search engines prioritize content above practically anything else. Websites that tend to rank well in search results have a continuous flow of content being published, and each piece of content tends to be detailed and well written. Even if the focus of a website is to sell products or collect subscribers, generating these conversions is difficult without something non-promotional to attract audiences.

Persistent Marketing Efforts

Even a well-designed website with plenty of content and lightning-fast speeds isn’t likely to draw huge crowds without some effort. To truly unlock the potential of a website, a persistent digital marketing effort must be maintained. This strategy can encompass many different marketing options.

Social media marketing has increasingly become the preferred marketing choice for brands that have the budgets to target specific audiences. As a website grows, email marketing can be used by collecting email addresses from customers and subscribers. Search engine optimization (SEO) revolves around organic exposure by improving rankings in search results. PPC campaigns can also be used to instantly gain exposure in the same sets of search results.

Ultimately, there are dozens of viable and effective marketing strategies that can be used in conjunction with content to promote websites and generate exponentially larger numbers of visitors, purchases, and conversions. Even the biggest brands utilize digital marketing as a way to grow and maintain dominance.

Many, many hours of work must be poured into the construction, maintenance and improvement of successful websites. Through quality content, consistent marketing, reliable hosting services and a user-friendly interface, any brand or individual can piece together the building blocks for a viable and successful digital presence.

7 Types Of Marketing You Can Do Yourself

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StrategyDriven Online Sales and Marketing Article |Marketing Your Business | 7 Types Of Marketing You Can Do YourselfYou don’t need to hire a marketing company to promote your business. Whilst creating adverts and designing packaging are probably best left to professionals, there are many other forms of marketing that can be easily DIYed. This could save you money and give you more control over the voice of your brand. Here are just 7 types of marketing that you can do yourself.

Networking

Building connections is a great form of marketing. By meeting influential people and telling them about your brand, you can spread of knowledge of your business through word of mouth. Networking events are a popular ways of building connections. You can also use sites like LinkedIn to build connections online. Other forms of networking could include attending conferences, trade fairs, local launch parties, joining local business groups and reaching out to people directly via email.

Web design

It’s also possible to build your own website using a free website builder like WordPress. You don’t need any programming know-how to use these website builders, making it an easy DIY way of acquiring a website. These are hosting providers out there that can offer cheap web hosting with SSL, allowing you to keep to a tight budget. Paying for a more expensive host and paying a web designer to build your site may be necessary if you’re a larger company, as it could help with the speed of your site and authenticity of your brand – however smaller companies can simply rely on a cheap host and DIY website.

Social media

Social media marketing is also something you can easily do yourself. Setting up a Facebook and Twitter page is free and easy and you can build an initial following quickly by inviting all your friend and family to follow. Social media can be a great tool for keeping existing customers in the loop when it comes to events and promotions. It can also be a great tool for attracting new customers by promoting posts – this is something you can do yourself via social media without the need for a social media marketing company.

Blogging

Blogging is another effective DIY marketing strategy. Generating blog posts on your website can help you to keep your website active and utilise more keywords, which can boost your search engine rankings. Your posts can also be a chance to boost your reputation – most companies use blogging as a way of offering advice to potential customers, helping to demonstrate expertise and improve credibility. You can even create guest posts on other people’s sites to expand your web presence.

Vlogging

Vlogging involves creates video content. YouTube is the most popular platform for this – many companies have YouTube channels that they dedicate to giving advice. This is great for one’s credibility as it demonstrates a willingness to show your face and the fact that you’re confident enough to give advice. When starting a business YouTube channel, it could be worth investing in a good quality camera and microphone in order to keep a sense of professionalism. Setting up a YouTube channel is free and you can use other mediums to promote your videos such as Facebook and blog posts.c

PR

PR involves reaching out to journalists, influential bloggers and media outlets in order to encourage media coverage. A lot of businesses use a PR company to do this, but you can quite easily do your own PR. By researching into media outlets and finding people to contact, you can then start emailing them with requests for coverage. It’s best to have some kind of angle in order to encourage coverage – this could include a new product or an upcoming event or an interesting story related to your business. By creating a press release you can help to deliver this angle in a way that grabs people’s attention.

Event marketing

It’s also possible to host your own events without using a marketing company. This isn’t always easy but it can be done. Event marketing could include attending a trade fair, hosting a conference or putting on a seminar. You can even host webinars online. To promote the event yourself, take advantage of social media and use email marketing to inform key people.

5 Things to Know About Running an Offline Marketing Campaign

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Combining online and offline marketing|5 Things to Know About Running an Offline Marketing CampaignMore and more businesses are integrating their online marketing efforts with offline marketing campaigns. The two marketing approaches are not meant to be used separately, but rather as an integrated, holistic way of reaching a target audience. There are more strategies to use – and campaigns to run – as well, which means there are more opportunities to take the target audience on a seamless journey both online and offline.

Still, combining online and offline marketing is not something you want to take lightly. More importantly, running an offline marketing campaign requires extra care if you want to produce the desired results. When done correctly, offline marketing campaigns can fully amplify online marketing and vice versa. Before you get started with your own campaigns, here are the five things you need to know about running an offline marketing campaign.

It’s Just as Seamless

Integration is still an important keyword when you are planning an offline marketing campaign. It is easy to fall into the trap of running promotions and other activities separately instead of as parts of a bigger strategy. Falling into this trap will result in effective individual marketing efforts, but no real long-term achievements or substantial KPIs.

With the right approach, you can integrate different marketing activities and amplify their impacts. An in-store promotion can be combined with social media marketing, direct marketing, and even email marketing to create a bigger impact. For example, customers can earn a discount by posting a photo of the store or your product to their social media profiles.

Mind the Tools

I know a lot of business owners avoid using certain marketing tools, mainly due to misconceptions about them. After all, TV ads are expensive and radio ads just don’t work. Are they really that bad? The answer is a big NO. Each marketing instrument and tool is effective when used to reach the right target market. Older consumers in a local market, for example, still listen to their favorite radio shows; commuters do the same too.

You just have to be more careful when choosing the right marketing tools to use. Take steps to fully understand your offline audience and how to best reach different audience groups. Use the insights you gather to determine the right kind of marketing campaign to run, and the best instruments to use for getting the message across effectively. It’s the same approach used in online marketing, but you use it to choose offline marketing instruments instead.

Tangible Marketing

To further separate your offline marketing campaigns from their online counterparts, it is also a good idea to use tangible marketing assets. This is a great step to take if you want to boost user engagement, increase awareness, and push your brand to more people. There are plenty of ways to do it too.

You can use merchandise like T-shirts, hats, and pins to get really close to the audience. These are items that your potential customers actually wear, making them very effective for increasing exposure and building loyalty. Similar to the way schools use jackets and pins as a way to develop pride among students, you can browse these selections and make your own pins for the same purpose.

Don’t Forget the Basics

Despite the growing number of businesses taking marketing seriously, abandoning the basics remain the most common mistake businesses make on a day-to-day basis. Yes, having great posters and producing cool merchandise for your brand are great investments to make, but have you applied the same approach to your letterheads? Or your retail space?

With web development, you always develop a killer website that pleases visitors before attracting traffic from various sources; why not do the same with your offline marketing efforts? Create a retail space that really represents your brand, incorporate brand elements across your assets (i.e. shipping labels, packaging, or business cards) and make sure you are ready for the exposure you get through offline marketing activities.

Freebies!

Freebies always work, especially when they are used as part of a bigger marketing campaign. Don’t use freebies to boost sales but use them to increase awareness and build brand loyalty. You can offer free T-shirts or a bonus cup of coffee to loyal customers. In turn, those customers will be even more loyal, knowing that you really appreciate their business and pay attention to the relationship you have with them.

The approach creates a more lasting effect. Sure, offering bonus items to boost sales is great, but offering freebies to loyal customers will result in a higher customer lifetime value and more return in the long run. There is also an added bonus to benefit from: loyal customers are more likely to recommend your brand (and your products) to other potential customers.
One more thing….

There is a big misconception about the unmeasurable nature of offline marketing. With online marketing, you can always measure the impact of every effort or activity. That’s not the case with offline marketing activities, but that doesn’t mean the impact of offline marketing cannot be measured entirely.

While you cannot get detailed insights as easily as you could with online marketing, there are still ways to constantly monitor, evaluate, and improve your offline marketing activities. It’s called paying attention. Surveys and marketing research aside, paying attention to the way customers react to your promotional offers or offline marketing activities says a lot about the campaign itself.

Paying attention to the customers will also lead to better use of offline marketing tools. If you see more customers using the custom lapel pins we talked about earlier, you know that they are very popular; you might want to produce more pins than T-shirts the next time you order goods for your brand. You can even observe the designs that work and stick to them.

Offline marketing and online marketing work great together. When you can combine the two marketing approaches seamlessly, you have all the tools you need to create a big impact. With these things about offline marketing covered, getting started with your own offline marketing campaigns is certainly easy to do.

How To Expose Your Vacation Rental to Thousands Of Online Visitors

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article|Online Marketing|How To Expose Your Vacation Rental to Thousands Of Online VisitorsIf you have a holiday home or if you are looking to lease a room in your house or even lease your house then this is a must read strategy guide to help you grow your vacation rental business no matter how small or large your operation.

Vacation rentals are in their prime at this time. There are plenty of websites available on which you can list your property for free and expose your vacation rental to thousands of people seeking to rent a holiday home for their vacation.

For those that are looking to get into the vacation rental business, the first question they usually ask is “Which website should I list my property on?”. Well, the answer is, in fact, an easy one if you are willing to part with a small monthly fee every month.

List Your Vacation Renal on All the Websites That Will Allow You To

You should list your property or properties on every vacation rental website that is available. That means Airbnb, HomeAway, FlipKey, Booking.com, and so on. You can find some recommendations for vacation rental listing sites here.

Why List My Properties on All Vacation Rental Websites?

There are two key reasons why you should use every available website at your disposal to list your vacation rental.

Free to list your property

This is the most obvious point we’d like to make is that on nearly all of these websites it is free to list your property. The only time you will pay any fees to the website is if someone books your property. Read about Airbnb service fees applied here for a better understanding of what you will pay when someone does book your vacation rental.

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Take advantage of all the free internet traffic your website will gain from being listed on multiple websites

People looking to rent a holiday home find these vacation rental websites on social media as well as internet searches using Yahoo, Google, and Bing. The reason people searching for holiday homes are able to find these websites online is that every vacation rental website out there has a dedicated digital marketing team and budget to bring traffic to their website.

When people find the vacation rental site they like, they will search for holiday homes in the area they plan to visit. Your property, if listed correctly, will appear in these filtered searches for the area the holidaymaker wants to visit. That is free exposure for you because it cost you nothing to list your property on the website.

Now picture this. If someone chooses HomeAway to search for a holiday home over Airbnb, it doesn’t matter. That is because you will have listed your property (for free) on both these websites. Therefore, anyone searching for a vacation rental in the area your property is listed on either the Airbnb or HomeAway website will see your property as an option to book for accommodation om both of these websites.

Think about it. All that traffic on the internet coming to your vacation rental home no matter which website people choose when searching for ‘vacation rentals’.Plus, if someone sees your property on both websites, they are more inclined to trust and book your place – especially if you have already built up an established profile with plenty of positive feedback.

For more information about positive feedback for vacation rentals, check out this HomeAway vacation rental success guide.

How Do You Manage Multiple Websites?

Obviously one of the key issues here is that you need to manage multiple listing across multiple websites. Now, this used to be a headache for people that already use the strategy mentioned here. However, now you can use vacation rental website builders to manage all these websites centrally.

You can have your own branded website with a booking system or a WordPress appointment booking plugin built in. You will have a channel manager that centralizes all the calendars by syncing your main calendar with all your vacation rental website listings on sites like HomeAway, VRBO, and Airbnb so there is no risk of double bookings. Plus, you will have a central website where all your photos and listings can be stored.

Check out the Lodgify vacation rental resources page where there is a wealth of information covering how to market your website, how to optimize your website for local SEO as well as actionable SEO tips, how to increase your bookings via Airbnb, optimizing your HomeAway website listings, and how to write your own business plan.

One of the best articles here we recommend if you do decide to take our advice given in this article is to read the article titled: “Increase Direct Bookings and Save Time with Vacation Rental Software” on the Lodgify resources page. The software is actually provided by Lodgify, which is the website that provides all the resources you need to take your vacation rental business to the next level.

Top 5 Facebook ads strategies for ecom or dropshipping

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article | Top 5 Facebook ads strategies for ecom or dropshipping | Facebook Ads | EntrepreneurshipIf you are looking forward to boost the popularity of your dropshipping business and get more orders, you must take a look at Facebook marketing. In fact, Facebook paid advertisements are in a position to provide outstanding results to you. At Strategy Driven, our favourite course for ecommerce is Franklin Hatchett’s ecom elites course. The ecom elites review on aaronsreview.com goes into great detail as to why you should buy the course.  As an alternative, you can also work with Facebook advertising agencies.

As the first thing, you need to understand that Facebook advertising is completely different from Google advertising. If you are familiar with Google advertising, you will not be able to apply the same strategies in here to end up with positive outcomes. You must be aware about the specific strategies, which can help you gain positive results in Facebook.

Here is a list of 5 such effective Facebook ads strategies that you can follow for dropshipping or ecommerce. All these strategies can provide amazing returns to you and you will be able to go ahead with any out of them.

1. Make sure that you create a sense of exclusivity

Facebook is all about exclusivity. Therefore, you need to make sure that your advertisements on Facebook are also in a position to create a sense of exclusivity. This can provide you with a clear advantage by being on a social media network such as Facebook. You should always provide exclusive content via the Facebook ads. This can consume a lot of time and effort. But when you compare it with the returns that you get, you will be able to have a clear idea about the benefits that come on your way.

2. Highlight before and after

In the Facebook advertisements, you need to highlight the conditions that exist before a specific action and the conditions that exist after a specific action. No matter what kind of a product you are trying to promote with Facebook, you need to take it out of the box and snap a photo to be uploaded to Facebook. Then you need to snap another similar photo after you use the product. Both these photos should be combined and uploaded on Facebook.

For example, assume that you are going to sell running shoes through your ecommerce store. The first thing you need to do is to take out the running shoes, keep them along with the wrapping and then capture a photo. Then you need to take another photo, which indicates a person wearing the running shoes. This photo should be taken with a nice background behind it. If you can follow this strategy, you will be able to get the best possible results out of your Facebook advertisements.

3. Receive benefits from the fame of your competitors

When you are promoting a dropshipping or an ecommerce business on Facebook, you need to pay special attention towards the competition. However, you will be able to take advantage from the fame of your competitors.

Many people worry that having famous and reputed competitors is a disadvantage. That’s because people often tend to go ahead with the brands that they can easily recognize. However, you will be able to talk about those recognizing brands and then tell that there is something even more interesting and better. With that approach, you can promote your product. This will provide you with a better opportunity to grab the attention of your audience.

All you have to do is to upload a post with information related to the product offered by your competitor. Inside the post, you can promote your product according to the above-mentioned approach.

4. Highlight the contrast

You must be selling variant or customizable products through your ecommerce store. In such a situation, you need to make sure that you upload Facebook advertisements, which highlight the contrast between them and the ordinary products available in the market.

You can even do with the help of exact same shoes as well. All you have to do is to introduce the different colors and textures, when your customer keeps on scrolling through. This can give life to an outstanding advertisement in the long run. It can also highlight all the variants that you have got for sale under your store as well.

However, you need to understand that it is not possible to receive effective results by paying attention only towards the colors. You should also take a look at the fonts and background colors as well. That’s where you need to think about handing this over to a professional designer. Then you can completely focus on promoting your dropshipping or ecommerce store on Facebook.

5. Create excitement about products on the minds of customers

Through Facebook advertisements, it is also possible for you to create excitement about your products in the minds of customers. You just need to think the most exciting moment for your customer would be in the product lifecycle. In most of the products, unboxing is the most exciting part. For that, you need to select a product and then promote it via Facebook advertisements. Due to the excitement that you create among customers, they will be tempted to visit the ecommerce store. As a result, you will be able to generate a significant income out of it as well. That’s because you can get more people from Facebook to purchase the product that you offer. It can create a positive impact on the other products available for your purchase in the ecommerce store as well.

Any ecommerce or dropshipping store owner will be able to follow these strategies. Then you can easily end up with outstanding results. You will also fall in love with Facebook advertisements due to the amazing returns that are offered to you in the long run.