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Importance of a website in marketing and sales of your business
Table of Contents
Importance of website in Marketing
Importance in your social media strategy
Importance in your content marketing strategy
Importance in your email marketing strategy
Importance in your PPC
Importance in your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Importance of a Website for Sales
Building Credibility for your business
Accessibility 24*7
Make the Right First Impression with Professional Web Design
How to Get Started with a Website for Your Business
In today’s digital age, every consumer is researching online before making any purchases. According to eCommerce foundation, 88% of consumers research online before making a purchase whether it’s online or store. This behaviour should convince you to build a website for your business today.
If you want to grow your business in the modern market, you need to build a professional website. It does not matter what industry you are in you need a website. Not having a website indicates that you are no longer in business anymore.
Importance of website in Marketing
To succeed in business you need to have a solid marketing strategy and your website will act as a base for all your marketing strategy. Every type of communication, content, paid advertisement you put online will direct customers to your WEBSITE. On your website, the customer will know clearly what type of services and products you offer.
Importance in your social media strategy
Let’s say you are using Facebook to reach and engage with customers, you will have to send them to a place where they will learn more about your business. Website will act as an Online office where the customer will know more about your product and services.
Importance in your content marketing strategy
You need to create great content that will inform and engage with your target audience just like you are reading this blog post right now.. whether its blog posts, product description, service description, you will need a place where you can host all your content. A website will be the perfect place to host all your content live with complete control over your content.
Importance in your email marketing strategy
With email marketing, you can nurture your customer and convert them to a paying customer. With the email marketing also, you will have to send them to a place where they will find more or make a purchase of product or service you are selling.
Importance in your PPC
PPC is the best and fastest way to reach customers who will be more likely to be interested in your product or services.No matter which platform – Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest- you are using for your paid campaigns, you will need a website where customers will be directed to.
Importance in your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
When customers search for a product, service, or a problem they want to solve, a search engine like Google will direct them to relevant pages which will give them desired information. Now to come at top of these search result you need to optimize your website for search engine like Google to reach more customers.
Importance of a Website for Sales
Sales is the most important operation for your business. No matter how great your product is, if you are failing at selling your business cannot survive.
To get sales you need to reach out to potential customers. More the reach more opportunity to make sales. Having a professional website will enhance your online presence to the next level.
With a website your customer can buy your product round the clock, you won’t need to be available to make a purchase happen because a customer will find needed information and instruction on your website.
Building Credibility for your business
Every major brand has a website regardless of how the consumer buys their product online or offline. In today’s marketplace businesses without a website, won’t be considered trustworthy. This is because most businesses today have a website and which shows that they are transparent about their business.
Now, you must be thinking how exactly website builds credibility? The website allows customers to know more about your brand and mission. You can showcase your product and service. When a customer knows more about your business trust will build automatically.
The content you will create on your website will show your customer that you know what you are talking about. With help of valuable and educational content, you will build a strong relationship with your customer and increase conversions.
Apart from building trust and credibility, you will also get to show your customer how you are different from your competition through your content.
Accessibility 24*7
Imagine you are working 24 hours a day how much more sales would you be able to do.
With a website, your customer will be able to access it anytime which will increase your opportunity to grow business. Even if you are not in your office, your website will work around the clock to get more customers for your business. And the best part is all the process can be automated, you reap benefits even when you are asleep
Make the Right First Impression with Professional Web Design
The first impression is the last impression.it’s very difficult to change it afterwards. Even if your business is operating completely offline, customers are researching on google before even visiting your store.
Now, let’s say you have to build a website where customers are having a hard time navigating or its very simple design, then you are losing customers.
A survey by website2 community states that 94% of customers reject a business because of the unattractive website.
A good website design has the following elements:
- Simple navigation
Customer should be able to find everything they want to know with ease. Your menu should be clean and simple.
- Attractive Design
Your website should use images and colours aligning with your brand. Your design should be pleasing to the eye.
- Helpful Content
Your content should be educational and valuable which helps a customer to make the decision.
- Search Engine Optimization
Your site structure and content should be optimised for the search engine in order to get more customers
- Fast Site Load Times
If your website doesn’t load within 5 seconds your customer will shift to your competitor.
- Easy Conversion
Your website should have an easy and quick checkout process for your buyers.
If you don’t have in house website developer you can hire freelancers or company to get a professional website
How to Get Started with a Website for Your Business
By now you must have understood the importance of a website to grow your business. With a website, you can communicate and engage with your customers. You will benefit even if your business is completely offline.
Creating your own website is not hard.
Choose a Domain Name
Ideally, your domain name should be that of your company name. In case, it is not available, you can choose a domain name that reflects your business line. Make the domain name catchy and distinctive. The domain name is a powerful marketing tool that you should fully utilize.
Web Hosting Service
Opt for a web hosting service that is credible with a strong reputation. Choose a service provider that can accommodate changes quickly and economically. This will come handy especially when your business expands, downsizes, or has other important updates.
Website Design
Website designing has to be a product of several brainstorming sessions as building it is not as simple as you may think. Make sure your website template is easy to navigate and doesn’t resemble your competitors. After all, you don’t want your business to look similar to your competition.
There are many website building services that help you design your own website in a few days. Drag and drop services like Squarespace and Wix are easy to use and affordable. If you have some technical knowledge you can use wordpress.com
However, if you want professional, optimised, mobile responsive website, then you should hire a freelancer or web design agency. You may invest some money in designer but you will soon find it was worth it.
If you need help designing an attractive website that’s optimized for the search engines and easy to navigate, it’s time to call in the experts. I Pankaj Madlapurkar at pankamadlapurkar.com provide WordPress web design services to help brands like yours reach new audiences online.
To find out more about our web design services or to learn more about the importance of a website, contact me today.
eCommerce Solution
Selling your products online
An eCommerce solution is a feature-filled, customisable online storefront and shopping cart that will be integrated into the WordPress CMS. This will allow you to manage both your website pages and all of your store’s products in one place. You will have full control over orders, shipping costs, sales, promotions, discounts and products.
In order to receive credit card payments, you will need to have a secure hosting package with an SSL certificate to ensure the security of your customer’s credit card details. You will also need a payment gateway to process the credit card payments and a merchant account with your bank to receive the payments.
SSL Certificate
The SSL certificate can be thought of as a lock-box for your data. It doesn’t make it any harder for anyone to obtain the data but it encrypts the data to the point that nobody can understand it. In addition to encrypting data, the SSL certificate ensures visitors that your business is legitimate, and will not attempt to defraud them in any way.
Payment Gateways
An eCommerce payment gateway is a service that authorises your customers’ credit card payments while processing them securely with your merchant account.
Merchant Account
When dealing with a payment gateway, you will also be required to establish an online merchant account with your bank (fees vary depending on the bank). We will be able to provide you with information and instructions on how to establish a merchant account once we know which bank you are using.
WooCommerce
Your WordPress website will be transformed into an eCommerce online store using WooCommerce. WooCommerce is a WordPress eCommerce toolkit that helps you sell products online through your website. WooCommerce allows you to easily add, edit and amend products and pricing at any time, run sales and coupon campaigns offering a range of discount options such as 10% off or free shipping, and keep up-to-date with the store’s performance by viewing detailed reports.
WooCommerce 2.0+ has been fully security audited by the leading WordPress security firm Sucuri to ensure it meets the highest WordPress security standards possible.
Social Media Integration
Social Media Integration
Social media integration connects your website to your social media accounts allowing new content that you add to your website to also be posted to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest etc. Visitors will also be able to share content from your website through their social media accounts. To encourage conversation reviews, comments and testimonials can also be integrated into your website.
Social Media Buttons
Social media buttons will be added to your website linking your audience to your social media accounts including Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn, YouTube, Vimeo, Pinterest etc.
Share buttons will be added to specific content on your website. For example, photos, blog articles, upcoming events and the venue’s location can all be shared through Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google Plus etc.
Social Feeds
Facebook and Twitter feeds will be added to your website, updating automatically as you add more posts. An Instagram feed will also be added displaying all of your Instagram photos.
Blog automatically posting to Facebook & Twitter
Blog content that you add to your website will be automatically posted on Facebook and Twitter.
Integration of Facebook ‘Like’ App
A Facebook ‘Like’ app will be embedded into your website to allow your audience to Like your Facebook page without leaving your website.
MailChimp Newsletter Sign-Up
Your audience will be able to sign-up for your newsletter directly through your website. Their email address will automatically be added into your MailChimp subscriber list.
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
Website Search Engine Optimisation
SEO is the practice of improving and promoting a website in order to increase the number of visitors it receives through search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. When a visitor searches for a website on Google, they type keywords that best describe the website they are looking for. The websites that Google lists have been fully optimised to show up for those specific keywords. For example, if someone searches for a ‘florist in Melbourne’ Google will list all websites in Melbourne relating to florists. But how does Google know that a website relates to a ‘florist in Melbourne’ and in what order to rank them?
Content
Creating keyword-rich content and producing fresh content regularly is a key factor in SEO. Optimising images for best quality while reducing file size also plays a role. Behind the scenes, your website will contain meta tags, meta keywords, meta descriptions, ALT tags, title tags, optimised naming conventions and site-maps. Google utilises all of this information to best target traffic to your website by people looking for what you offer.
Performance
Ensuring your website loads quickly and works efficiently is another key factor in SEO optimisation.
User Experience
User experience describes how visitors interact with your website and what impression they are left with. Ease of navigation, legible text, rich content and a brand identity they can trust all contribute towards a positive user experience. As previously mentioned, more than a quarter of all Google searches are now taking place from mobile devices. Google not only recommends responsive layouts but also favours websites with responsive layouts. This is especially true when a user searches for local services using a mobile device.
Google Places
A Google Places listing will allow your website to appear alongside its competitors on the Google Maps view when a visitor searches for your services. In order to set-up, a Google Places listing Google must post a PIN number to your company’s address. This verification adds a level of trust to your website for the visitors and for the Google search engines.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a service that generates detailed statistics about a website’s traffic, visitor’s keywords, number of visitors, how the visitors have found your website and where they have accessed it from. Using this information it is possible to improve the flow of visitors to your website by fine-tuning the SEO.
Google AdWords
Google AdWords is a service that advertises your website at the top of the Google listings when a user searches for your specific keywords. Google displays the advertisement for free but has a ‘pay per click’ system which means that you will be charged every time a user clicks on your ad. You’ll start by choosing a daily budget that you are comfortable with, and then change it at any time. There’s no minimum spend and you’re not locked into a contract.
Responsive Website Design
Responsive Website Design
Having a responsive layout means that your website fluidly resizes for optimal viewing regardless of the screen size or device (desktop computer, laptop, tablet or smartphone). This ensures ease of use and a better audience experience without the need for panning, scrolling or resizing. Your audience is much more likely to enjoy viewing your website on a mobile device without needing to zoom in to read the text or to find the navigation menu.
Website Development
Website Development — Building your website
The website development process starts by taking the graphical elements (colours, fonts, layout, images) defined in the design process and coding them using web industry standards (PHP, HTML5, CSS3, JS, jQuery). This is typically done by first coding the home page, followed by templates for the interior pages. When the website is ready for review you will be supplied with login details to view the website before it is launched to the public. You will also be supplied with instructions on how to update your website.
WordPress CMS Development
Your website will be developed using the WordPress CMS (Content Management System). WordPress CMS adds a user-friendly administrative area to your website allowing you to easily login and update the content of your website at any time. You can effortlessly make textual, graphic or structural changes to the website in an instant without having to deal with or look at any of the complicated programming code.
Cross-browser & Cross-device Testing
It’s important for your website to function correctly regardless of what browser (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer) or device (iPhone, iPad, desktop computer) your audience is using. Before launch, your website will be testing on the latest versions of the major browsers, and across a range of mobile devices to ensure that it looks and functions correctly. Having a responsive website design is vital to ensure your audience has the best experience using your website on a mobile device without the need for panning, scrolling or resizes the page.
WordPress Website Security Maintenance & Updates
WordPress Version & Plugin Updates
If your website is built with WordPress it’s crucial to keep the WordPress version and plugins up-to-date to eliminate vulnerabilities. This is an ongoing process as new WordPress versions are being released all the time. Any vulnerability with the files can lead to a hacker attacking your website. Types of attacks vary but examples include sending SPAM emails to your clients or uploading additional pages or sections to your website advertising the hacker’s products.
WordPress Security Maintenance
Having reliable security measures in place from the start is key to ensuring that your website is not a target for hackers. As standard, I always add basic security precautions into every WordPress website but on-going maintenance is also available.
WordPress Training
WordPress Training
We offer customised WordPress training to ensure you and your team are confident in updating and maintaining your existing WordPress website. Of if you’re new to WordPress but would like to learn the basics we offer an introduction course to get you started.
We provide one-to-one, group and classroom WordPress training for all skill levels. Even if we didn’t create the website for you, we are happy to review your current website and create a WordPress training manual to talk you through. We’ll also guide you through creating your own WordPress website if you don’t already have a website. A custom course structure will be created based on your experience level and requirements.
WordPress Training Courses
Introduction to WordPress
This course is perfect for you if you want to learn about building a website or blog with WordPress but not sure where to start. The Introduction to WordPress course will show you how to create a free website or blog using the WordPress.com platform. It’s as easy as creating a free account, picking a template and adding in your content.
WordPress Maintenance & Updating
This course is perfect for you if you have an existing WordPress website and would like to learn how to back-up, update and maintain your website. We’ll also go through adding new pages and posts, editing pages and posts, adding your social media links, adding new users, adding menu items and any other features that you’d like to learn about.
WordPress Essentials
Feeling comfortable updating your WordPress blog or website but want to add in some extra functionality? Linking your blog to your social media accounts, adding a photo carousel or contact form, adding in an SEO (search engine optimisation) plugin, and creating a newsletter sign-up are just a few of the options at your fingertips. We’ll also go through any other features that you’d like to learn about.
Customised WordPress theme
WordPress CMS (Content Management System)
WordPress CMS adds a user-friendly administrative area to your website allowing you to easily login and update the content of your website at any time. You can effortlessly make textual, graphic or structural changes to the website in an instant without having to deal with or look at any of the complicated programming code. You will have full control over your website’s content.
Custom WordPress Theme
All of the websites that we create have been built using tailor-made, custom WordPress themes which have been coded from scratch.
Custom WordPress theme creation begins with creating a unique design. This process starts with a pen and paper to sketch page layouts, wire-frames, sitemaps and menu structures. Digital designs are then created using the sketches and your company’s brand guidelines are added for a personalised look and feel. You will be presented with a variety of website design concepts to review. Feedback on the design concepts is essential to give you the opportunity to express your thoughts on the design and make alterations where desired before the final sign-off.
Once the design has been finalised, the creation of the custom WordPress theme can begin. This starts by taking the graphical elements (colours, fonts, layout, images) defined in the design process and coding them using web industry standards (PHP, HTML5, CSS3, JS, jQuery). This is typically done by first coding the home page, followed by templates for the interior pages. When the website is ready for review you will be supplied with login details to view the website before it is launched to the public. You will also be supplied with instructions on how to update your website.
Pre-Purchased WordPress Themes
A pre-purchased WordPress theme is perfect for websites on a tight budget or deadline. It is an out-of-the-box design and layout that is ready to integrate into the WordPress CMS straight away. WordPress handles all of the content for you (posts, pages, comments etc.), while the theme transforms that content into a beautiful and clean layout for your audience to view. You will be able to make minor changes to the design to incorporate your company branding such as changing colours, adding a logo and adding imagery but if you are looking for a unique, custom design you should opt for a custom WordPress theme.
WordPress Training
We offer customised WordPress training to ensure you and your team can effectively manage your website through the WordPress administrative area. We are happy to teach you over the phone, Skype or in-person at your office. We can travel to any location in Ireland, whether you are in Dublin, Galway, Cork or anywhere else across the country.
We can provide training for individuals or groups, and supply detailed notes on all of the topics covered for future reference. The training will cover everything you need to know to update your website independently, specific to your theme and custom functions