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The Strategy Driven Guide to Boosting Your Website’s Performance

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, The Strategy Driven Guide to Boosting Your Website’s PerformanceBoosting your website’s performance needs to be your number one priority. Without a great site, all of your digital marketing efforts will be for naught. Imagine, as a user, you see an ad on Instagram. You are interested, click it, and are directed to a website that fails to meet your trust factors. Perhaps it doesn’t work on mobile, or perhaps its design is old and outdated, making it difficult to navigate. There are many different trust factors that online users rely on nowadays before they buy from a new company online.

Boosting your website’s performance isn’t rocket science, but it does need to implemented well and to the best of your ability. You need to ensure your website is secure, that its information is correct, and that downtime is limited. Users do not want to be made a fool of, so ensure your website is up to code. To show them your site can be trusted you need to improve your site and its digital presence.

Understand How Users Are Interacting with It

Google analytics or other tracking tools can be incredibly useful in determining where the problem areas of your website are. A high bounce rate indicates that your homepage or perhaps your PPC marketing strategy are in some way failing. A less than impressive home page can have people click off before they even see your product lists, whereas a misguided PPC strategy can have people who don’t want your site click on your ads.

Conduct an SEO Audit

Understanding how users are engaging with your site will help you address the key problem areas first, but that doesn’t mean you should ever stop there. Go through and conduct a full website or SEO audit to clean up your website, ensure there are no broken links, unnecessary redirects, or now black-listed SEO tactics on your site.

Commit to a Strong Content Strategy

Content is king because it is how customers can engage your website in more ways than just scrolling through your product or services pages. It is how you can become a true resource to your customers, and how you can attract new, organic traffic streams.

Create content that is effective and useful to your audience. Post it on your company blog but also across social media. Keep to a consistent plan, such as uploading a weekly blog post every Tuesday, for instance, and make your content interactive.

Hire an SEO Agency

Auditing your website is step one. It is essential if you want any future digital marketing tactics to work well, because if your site isn’t looking great then getting people to your site will result in nothing more than a high bounce rate. If your site needs a huge overhaul, however, it is wise to hire an Austin SEO agency like Creatif Digital that can help improve your site’s design, SEO, and then work with you to bring more organic traffic to your site through search rankings and PPC marketing.

Your website needs to be perfect, because if there is any hitch in its performance, you can turn away a potential customer in a second. Go through and remove any problem areas, improve it with SEO and content in mind, and know your limits. If you don’t have the resources or skill needed to do this, hire a company who can make these improvements for you.

Navigating the Seas of Entrepreneurship: 7 Pitfalls You Need to Avoid as a Small Business Owner

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | Entrepreneurship | Navigating the Seas of Entrepreneurship: 7 Pitfalls You Need to Avoid as a Small Business OwnerAs an entrepreneur, learning to navigate the business landscape can be tricky, especially if it is your first time starting a business. Learning the hard way is never advised if you can absorb the lessons of those who have sailed into the business world before you. However, as an entrepreneur, you may be facing greater risks than normal that can potentially become snares on the path to success. Consider these seven pitfalls to avoid if you want your company to flourish.

Not Setting Clear Goals

A business owner who does not take the time to set clear goals and objectives will travel in many different directions, and is more likely to waste time, money, and effort in the process. Avoid making the mistake of “winging it” as you go, or you may find yourself nowhere fast, or moving in unprofitable circles. Not setting logical, measurable goals can result in great frustration and disorder. Goals and objectives serve as a way to determine whether or not the company is making meaningful progress. Without goals, it is far more difficult for employees to meet quality standards, and for CEOs to make intelligent decisions on behalf of the business. Making your goals too general, or creating unreasonable, elusive aims can leave you and your employees wondering whether the company is sailing forward, or stagnant at sea.

Not Performing Market Research

Many individuals may brainstorm what they believe is a great business idea, but it is a mistake to avoid performing thorough market research before launching any type of business. By understanding the intended industry you plan to break into, you can make more strategic moves to obtain higher influence and more customers while blazing a trail to success. Selecting an oversaturated market can also make it far more difficult for your business to excel, so it is recommended to pick a niche market that you can dominate in.

Not Defining Your Target Market

A business that intends to serve everyone often ends up serving nobody well. It is crucial to focus on a target audience as an entrepreneur. The Small Business Chronicle declares that any company that lacks a target audience can have haphazard promotion strategies, severe budget issues, ineffective consumer tracking, and poor site traffic and conversions. If you know who is a part of your target audience, then you can invest in marketing, omni-channel advertising, and product research and development accordingly.

Not Having Adequate Capital

Ensuring that you have enough financial resources to launch and keep the doors of your business open is wise. It is critical for business owners to secure enough capital to execute operations,obtain efficient, industry software and equipment, and to compensate employees (if you have them). As a small business owner, you can get a loan to help meet fundamental financial needs required to launching and maintaining your business. With a combination of personal funding, loan monies, and funds from investors, you can successfully fuel your small business.

Not Following a Solid Budget Plan

Having money at your disposal is not enough. Acting without a detailed budget plan for your company is reckless and can lead to a significant waste of resources. The Small Business Administration reports that about half of small businesses survive the first five years, but only a third make it past the 10-year mark. Business failure is often a result of the lack of financial resources. CEOs that are too eager to launch without being prepared for both fundamental and unexpected expenses are often stricken by surprise. It is not unusual for a small business to make little to no profit during the establishment stage, so your access to financial resources must be secure until you can generate a steady profit.

Not Creating an Online Presence

Billions of people browse the internet daily, and a huge number access social media platforms every day. If you want to launch a successful business, you cannot underestimate the power of an attractive online presence and reputation. In addition to creating an excellent website that is easy for visitors to navigate, your site and sales funnels must be mobile-optimized for stronger search engine optimization (SEO). Forbes suggests that your site should be mobile-optimized to rank higher in search engines and to cater to the growing mass of mobile users.

Integrating social media marketing into your company’s marketing plan is fundamental to expand your reach to any target audience. Tons of consumers regularly use social media to interact with friends, family, coworker, and strangers, and they are often glad to share their experiences and review companies that they deal with. The Pew Research Center reports that nearly 90% of 18- to 29-year-olds use social media, nearly 80% of people aged 30 to 49, and about 64% of people aged 50 to 64. If your company builds a significant online presence and maximizes it through social media, you can obtain widespread exposure for your brand, and boost your sales significantly.

Not Selecting the Right Partner

One serious pitfall that business owners must avoid is selecting a terrible partner to go into business with. Giving up too much equity too soon with a bad partner is a move that an entrepreneur can live to regret. Although the excitement of launching a business with someone to assist you may seem like a good idea, if you end up at odds and ends with your partner, it will likely cost you in an expensive separation. However, selecting the ideal partner that possesses strong industry knowledge, passion, and is fully committed to the company mission is a true advantage. When you are feeling anxious, your partner can provide encouragement and offer solid advice and direction. Entrepreneur suggests that selecting someone who complements your strengths and weaknesses and shares your vision for the company is key.

Achieving success in a business does not occur by chance, but it is often the result of extensive preparation, deep work, compatible partnerships, and strategic execution. Creating a detailed business plan is the first major step to take to sail towards success in any industry. Having a mission that resonates with your values and the type of brand that you desire to represent to the world is essential for becoming fruitful in entrepreneurship. Small business owners that do not heed the warnings may find themselves out of business and in debt within the first few years. If you cover all of the bases and avoid dangerous pitfalls in your business, you can attain excellence on your journey.

Sales Dwindling? Here’s Why

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | Online Marketing
 
All businesses need to keep their sale numbers up as high as possible to ensure that they are bringing in enough money each month to ensure they can cover all costs and still have enough money left over to make a profit. However, sometimes this isn’t always possible. Even though you might think that everything has been going well with your company’s operations and marketing strategies, there could still be periods during which your sales seem to tail off.

Even though you might not think that there is an obvious reason why your sales are dwindling, there probably is a cause for these poor sales. Sometimes, you just need to look a bit closer at your business to determine what that cause is. Here are a few common reasons why a company’s sales might dip every so often. Thankfully, most of them are simple enough to recover from.

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | Online Marketing
 
Shake-Up At Management Level

Any issues at the management level of a business can create a trickle-down effect, and the consequences can often be felt throughout the organization. Even something that shouldn’t be too problematic, such as a manager resigning and a new professional taking their place, you might be surprised to find just how disruptive these changes can be. They can also affect areas of your business that they aren’t necessarily linked to, including sales. It’s just unfortunate that the trickle-down effect will disrupt most departments, so your sales won’t be immune to any changes at management level.

Poor Marketing

Ideally, your company’s marketing needs to be consistent at all times. There always needs to be a current strategy or campaign that your marketing department are implementing to ensure that your company is always visible to the public. If your business’s marketing efforts ever dip at any time, then you might notice that the quality of your marketing gets slightly worse. This will lead to fewer sales as it won’t be tempting any consumers to come and try out your brand. If you feel that your marketing campaigns need a bit of a revamp, you might want to invite an external marketing agency to come and collaborate with your in-house team.

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | Online Marketing
 
Forgetting To Follow Up

Most of your sales team will be busy every day with contacting potential clients and cold-pitching to the public. This is hard work and I’m sure that most of the team will have a seemingly never-ending list of leads to contact. However, just contacting everyone once isn’t enough and this will rarely lead to any sales. Your sales team need to always remember to follow up on any leads that they have made contact with. This will then remind the lead about your company and can encourage them to go through with a purchase.

Bad Forecasting

At the start of every year, you should be making a few different business forecasts, including a projection of your potential future sales. It’s also important that these projections are regularly updated to reflect current data and figures.However, if you use bad data or make some mistakes while creating these projections, you could end up with some incorrect forecasts. If these overestimate how many sales you are estimated to make through the year, then there is no way your real sales figures will live up to the forecasts. This could reflect very badly on your company. So, it’s a good idea to use a sales management CRM to help you manage your current sales figures and turn them into a reliable forecast. These kinds of CRM can also give you other useful insights, such as how you can go about increasing your annual revenues.

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | Online Marketing
 
No Training

Can you remember when the last time you offered training to your sales team was? If it was a few years ago, or you can’t even remember when you last trained the department, it’s a good idea to organize a course or one-off training day for them. It’s important that you stay on top of all your staff’s training so that they are continually at the top of their game. If you let training slip, then so will the standard of their work too. Ideally, you need to offer your sales staff at least one day of training each year so that they are always up to date with the current trends and best practices that are dominating the world of sales.

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | Online Marketing
 
Bad Online Visibility

It’s also a good idea to try to stay on top of your company website’s SEO. Many entrepreneurs think that they only have to work on the site’s SEO when they are in the process of creating the website. Unfortunately, though, that isn’t the case. Ideally, you need to keep on working on the SEO throughout the entire lifespan of the website. Good websites should be regularly maintained or else their SEO will become useless. So, if you haven’t’ worked on your site in a while then there is a good chance that your company aren’t as visible online. Fewer people will be stumbling across the site because it won’t be ranking high in search engine results. And that means fewer people will be buying your products or services.

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | Online Marketing
 
Aiming At The Wrong Target Market

Every single product or service on the market will have a set target audience. These are the people you need to sell to. If you aren’t 100% sure who is in your target audience, then you can carry out some market research to find out. Once you know, you then need to start aiming all of your marketing at them. If you end up targeting the wrong kind of people, then your marketing won’t be having a positive effect at all. You’ll just be pushing your product or service onto people who aren’t that interested in it at all.

As you can see, there are quite a few reasons why your sales might start to dwindle. Hopefully, you’ll be able to turn things right around before it’s too late for your business’s revenues!

5 Business Tips to Help Orthodontists Get More Clients

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, 5 Business Tips to Help Orthodontists Get More Clients

Whether you are a new orthodontist opening a dental office or want to increase the number of patients you see, implementing new marketing strategies will boost your revenue and growth. With so many dental clinics popping up, it is also an excellent way for dental specialists to stand out from the competition. Here are five business tips that will help orthodontists get more clients.

1. Build a Visually Pleasing and Informative Website

Did you know that about 90 percent of consumers visit websites before going to a local business? It is the best indicator as to why businesses need to pay attention to the aesthetics and engagement of their websites. Most especially in the healthcare industry, there is not enough consideration placed on website aesthetics even when it is the most significant avenue businesses have to convert their website traffic into patient sales.

A great example of such a website built for patients is Baum Orthodontics as the website is aesthetically pleasing and provides patient tabs that make navigation accessible.

2. Use Strategic SEO to Rank on SERP

When Google updated its search engine results page (SERP) algorithms, search engine optimization (SEO) was no longer an easy process as there are now more than 200 factors that web pages are scored. Optimizing pages using a variety of keywords is now a critical component to ranking which depends on authoritative backlinks, content variables, keyword clustering, user experience and page load speed. A local SEO strategy will also promote conversion rate optimization, which will boost your traffic in your local area.

3. Use Google My Business

As you are a local business, you must use Google My Business as Google Maps only displays the top three businesses in one-mile radius as there is a push for mobile accessibility. You want to claim your free listing and use location-specific keywords that show location like city or neighborhood dentist, long-tail SEO services like ophthalmology or specialty service and contact information that target customers searching for services.

4. Use Word-of-Mouth Advertising

Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most influential advertising tools available whether it is from your patients or from comments on your social media page. Nine out of 10 consumers will trust a recommendation from a friend or family over another form of advertising. Their testimony will also convert a customer faster because of experience, which is something you would not be able to do in just one conversation. Set up a patient referral program to build your clientele as it will convert to sales quickly.

5. Use Pay-per-Click Internet Advertising

Pay-per-click advertising, such as Google AdWords, is a valuable tool that allows your keyword specific ads to appear on the same page as organic search results which helps if your page is not ranking because of SEO. You also do not have to buy the ads but rather pay a click-through-rate when a potential customer clicks on your advertisement.

Many of these marketing tips are affordable and easy to implement in-house. Even if you must hire a website or SEO specialist, the new patient return-on-investment potential is worth the investment.

5 Powerful Ways to Generate More Business Leads

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, 5 Powerful Ways to Generate More Business Leads

Never undervalue the power of promotion when it comes to selling a product. You could have the best item on the market, but it doesn’t mean a thing if your target audience doesn’t know about it.

To generate a substantial revenue year after year, you need people to take notice of your brand and product. Carve a place for your brand in an industry by checking out the five powerful ways to generate more business leads.

1. Publish & Optimize Your Content

Experienced digital marketers will be the first people to tell you about the importance of high-quality content on your website, as it can serve as a superb source of web traffic, which can consequently result in more leads.

To drive visitors to your site, you must regularly publish informative, entertaining copy that is unique to your competitors. You also must optimize your content with stunning images, insightful videos, and professional infographics, which will increase your readership, share count, and backlinks to your website.

2. Apply for Tenders

Amplify your profitability by applying for tenders to secure a bid to supply a company with your products or services. Whatever industry you are in, the experts at Executive Compass can help you to produce winning tenders to receive large or small contracts, which, in turn, can help your business grow at a rapid rate.

3. Use Email Marketing

Engage your subscribers with an effective email marketing campaign. It can help you to connect with past customers and those interested in your brand, so it is a viable way to generate leads.

Ensure a subscriber opens your newsletter by writing a compelling subject line that makes them want to find out more about what’s inside. Also, don’t forget to feature a call-to-action button to convert a subscriber into a customer, as it can help to guide them to the checkout.

4. Focus on Direct Engagement

Rather than talking to the masses, which can make your customers feel like just another number on your database, you should focus on direct engagement. While FAQs can be an effective way to answer a potential customer’s questions, it lacks the personal touch.

Give your demographic a reason to want to buy from your brand by focusing on direct engagement tactics, such as a live chat facility, forum, and help center. Make sure you regularly have friendly and welcoming customer service representatives available to answer their questions, which could lead to more leads and a positive reputation in your industry.

5. Market Your Brand Via LinkedIn

LinkedIn is more than a social platform to connect with your past and current colleagues. It provides a space to strike up relationships with new clients, as you can personally reach out to business owners, directors, and managers in a friendly, laidback manner.

Not only should you communicate directly with busy professionals, but you also should regularly publish exceptional content on the platform to engage LinkedIn members and establish your business as a thought leader, which can lead to potential customers and clients reaching out to your company.