Tag Archive for: social media

15 Reasons Why Websites Matter in 2022

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Over the past ten years, there’s been an enormous focus on social media and businesses of all sizes have had to make decisions on how and where to spend marketing dollars. With all the focus on Facebook, Yelp, Google Business, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and whatever this year’s newest social media phenomenon is, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that maybe a business doesn’t need a website anymore. However, there are many reasons why websites still matter in 2022. If you don’t have a website, it’s time to hire someone to design one for you. And if you have a website, it might be time for a website redesign.

1. A Website Gives You Instant Authority

A well-designed, user-friendly, responsive website with informative, quality content establishes trust between author and audience. A website demonstrates expertise, authority, and permanence. While social media sites come and go, your business website should be the central focal point of your online presence. Think of the website as a businesses marketing hub and the social media sites and backlinks as the spokes.

2.You Don’t Own Your Social Media Pages

If you rely exclusively on social media sites, what happens when your entire audience hinges on a social media network and that network starts making decisions that negatively affect you, your customers’ experience, your brand image or identity, or all of the above? We have seen this recently with Facebook. Social media sites change algorithms without warning, create new rules that may restrict your ability to communicate with your customers, or even disappear altogether. Former President Trump knows this all too well. Anyone remember MySpace or Friendster? If you drive traffic from the social media spokes to your own website, you are and will always be in control.

3. You Get A Huge Return On Your Marketing Investment

Consider the cost of online advertising (which is constant – if you want to keep advertising you have to keep paying) or the cost of creating print materials which are out of date as soon as you print them. Then compare those costs to the $4,000 required to create your own business website. It almost always makes sense to invest in a website.

4. Your Local SEO Relies On Your Website

Good search results require a solid internet presence. A website is a fundamental part of that internet presence. You need your own domain and your own content. It’s far more difficult to rank in Google’s local pack listings without your own website.

5. Consumers Expect It

Most consumers expect a business to have a website. As a business owner – if you want customers – make it easy for people to find you online.

6. A Website Showcases Your Expertise

Nothing shows off your expertise better than your own website. You can create any kind of content you want, publish portfolio pages, blog posts, informative articles, and select which customer testimonials to highlight. The content on your website gives you a chance to show potential clients that you understand their problems and their needs.

7. Your Website Can Hold And Keep A Visitor’s Attention

When a visitor lands on your website, your are not positioning yourself next to a bunch of other social media sites all vying for attention. When people get to your website, it’s up to you to hold and keep a visitor’s attention. You can do that by anticipating their needs and writing content that answers their questions.

8. Without A Website, Customers Will Consider You Less Professional

On average Americans spend 23.6 hours online per week. People tend to spend 5 hours a day scrolling on their phones. If you don’t have a website, potential customers won’t take you or your business seriously.

9. Your Customers Need Answers

Both your current customers and potential customers are looking for information. Don’t you want to be the one to give them answers rather than having a search engine point them to someone else’s answers? During your website design you will want to answer three questions:

  • What is your business?
  • What services or products do you offer?
  • How can customers reach you?

Make sure that function and communication are as important as aesthetic design.

10. Be The Leader Online

The answer to the “Do I need a website?” question revolves around being the leader of your field. A high-quality, user-friendly website that answers your customers questions will make you the leader of your field online. If your competitors already have websites, make sure yours is better. Show customers why your company is better and why they should buy your products or services.

11. Websites Are Essential For Building Your Brand

It’s impossible to create a professional image for your brand without a website. Anything short of a website looks cheap and unprofessional.

12. Websites Are Great Customer Service Tools

Modern customers look to social media for customer service when a website doesn’t meet their customer service needs. The problem is that by that point most customers are angry and they aren’t turning to social media to be productive. If you have your own website, you can control your customer service process and direct customers to up-to-date FAQ pages or customer service contact info simply by sharing a link.

13. Websites Are Important For Link Building

Links are essential for SEO but they are even more important for referrals. A business website has greater authority and is of greater use when promoting your brand.

14. Increase Your Working Hours

Website visitors can access your online marketing material at any time of any day at their leisure if you have a website. Being available at all times helps with marketing and sales and is also a step towards optimal customer service. If you have chatbots on your site that can help clients with simple issues when they need it most, you can take this idea one step further.

15. Provide Social Proof

Customer behavior is influenced by what others have said about your company. People expect to check your website to learn more about your company regardless of whether it has a 5-star rating on review websites. Customer recommendations on your websites are a terrific method to impress potential customers and give social proof.

Final Thoughts

It’s absolutely vital to have a professional, high-quality, user-friendly, responsive, brand-differentiating website in 2022 if you want to increase sales, increase your bottom line, and expand your company. Business websites in particular help customers make purchase decisions. A simple website costs pennies but can yield huge rewards in the long term.

 

 

Best WordPress Plugins – Social Media

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WordPress is an incredibly flexible, easy-to-set-up and manage web publishing platform that has been downloaded more than 60 million times since its launch in 2003. As of August 2013, WordPress is used by nearly 19 percent of the top 10 million websites. The content management system’s popularity has spawned thousands – nearly 30,000 in fact – of plugins that expand the basic functionality of WordPress. At Connect4, we routinely use 45 WordPress plugins. We use some plugins, for security, admin, and SEO, for example, on nearly every site we create.

The problem with WordPress plugins is that many of them present as much trouble as they do opportunity on a website. Not all plugins play friendly in the same sandbox. And not all plugin developers continue to provide updates for their plugins. Plugins that haven’t been updated in a year make for a security risk. So make sure you consult with your webmaster or web developer prior to installing any of these plugins. It’s always a good idea to make sure you have a backup before trying out a new plugin.

Today we are going to focus on social media plugins.

Social Media

  1. Social Author Bio
  2. Social Media Feather

Social Author Bio

Social Author Bio adds a author bio box with the author’s avatar with built-in and custom social icons on pages/posts.

 

Download Social Author Bio

Social Media Feather

Social Media Feather is a super lightweight and free social media WordPress plugin that allows you to quickly and painlessly add social sharing and following features to all your posts, pages and custom post types.

Now the only social sharing and bookmarking plugin with full support for the Retina and high resolution displays as used in iPad 5 and other devices!

The primary goal behind the plugin is to provide very lightweight WordPress social sharing and following that doesn’t add any unnecessary burden to your site and especially on your users.

What sets WordPress Social Media Feather aside from the plethora of other social sharing and following WordPress plugins is its focus on simplicity, performance and unobtrusive impact.

 

Download Social Media Feather

The Eight Critical Steps to Internet Marketing Success

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Marketing is the process of connecting people and products. With proper implementation, technology enables connections. We are the midst of a marketing paradigm-shift. There are new marketing tools that allow for low-cost direct connections between organizations and their constituents.

The challenge is knowing how, why, and when to utilize these new marketing tools.

The Eight Critical Steps to Internet Marketing Success Are:

  1. Marketing Plan
  2. Target Audience
  3. Message
  4. Medium
  5. Website
  6. Press Releases
  7. Email Marketing
  8. Social Media Sites

Marketing Plan

A marketing plan is essential because it will allow you to think about strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats ahead of time. The marketing plan will help you:

  • identify and set goals;
  • determine your budget;
  • target specific audiences;
  • create and prioritize messaging;
  • identify the most efficient and effective distribution medium; and
  • create a time line for implementation.

Target Audience

Identifying a target audience is critical. Internet marketing is particularly well-suited for a highly segmented target audience. If you want to take advantage of this opportunity, however, you need to know the socio-demographic characteristics of your audience.

Message

What is the most important thing you want to say? What is the most concise and attention-grabbing method of saying it? That is your message.

Medium

What is the best way of distributing the message? There might be several different ideal mediums – website, email marketing, press releases, pay per click advertising through Google AdWords, for example.

Website

There is no excuse for not having a website. Any organization that wants to interact with customers online must have an online presence. Generally, less is more. Websites are no longer repositories for data. Audiences expect better and will judge you based on the quality and presentation of your site. A site that looks like a dollar store in a seedy neighborhood should not be trying to communicate with an audience that doesn’t shop in dollar stores.

Press Releases

Online press releases can be extremely effective.

Email Marketing

Email marketing campaigns using Constant Contact are a very good way to communicate directly with, and develop, existing relationships with your constituents.

Social Media Sites

There are more Facebook users than the U.S. population. If you have time to focus on social media sites, this can be a very effective way to leverage the Internet for free. The key is spending time, however.

To learn more about effective Internet Marketing, visit Connect4 Consulting. Connect4 Consulting is a full service marketing and technology communications firm.