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Your website is one of the key elements of your brand. It can often separate you from the competition, and make the difference between whether or not you gain a new customer. In managing the daily operations of your business, however, it is easy to overlook this important aspect of your brand, and as your business, technology, and customer expectations evolve, so must your website.

As Tampa web design specialists, we recommend asking yourself the following six questions to help determine if it is time for a new website.

1. Does your website align with marketing objectives?

All marketing initiatives intentionally or unintentionally lead back to your website. So, you must ask yourself, are the objectives I am trying to achieve with my marketing efforts strengthened when a prospect finds my website? The answer to this question could be “no” for a number of reasons. For instance, an outdated design, unfocused and unorganized content, broken links, or a website that is incompatible with mobile devices all lead to potential issues with the perception of your brand, and in turn, hinder your marketing efforts.

2. Is your website mobile-friendly?

Is your website mobile friendly? If not, it should be. Mobile usage is increasing globally as people are becoming more and more accustomed to using their smartphones and tablets to search for information online. Your customers are going to visit your website from a mobile device, so it is crucial that your website provides a positive mobile user experience.

3. Can visitors easily find information on your website?

Information hidden deep within your website because of a confusing navigation structure is a surefire way to frustrate your customers and lose business to your competitors. If you constantly receive feedback asking for information that is already available on the website, this may be an indication that the content is not organized in a way that makes it easy for your customers to find what they’re looking for.

4. Is your website compatible with the latest browsers?

Customers will visit your website using a number of different browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, or Safari. As these browsers update over time, compatibility issues may occur, causing broken links, slow page load times, and a number of other potential issues that will create a negative user experience. If your current website is not compatible with current web browsers, this is another indication that it’s time to update your current website.

5. Are you able to easily update the website’s information in-house?

Outdated information on your website is detrimental to your credibility. If your business does not have the ability to easily update information in-house, creating a new website on a content management system is an excellent solution. A content management system gives you the ability to add information, update projects, and add company news with little to no technical expertise.

6. Have you redesigned your website in the last five years?

Web design standards and technology are constantly evolving to create a better user experience for website visitors. These standards often relate to the aesthetics, functionality, and usability of your website. Today’s standards use a clean, minimalist approach, strategically designed to accommodate the way users interact with a website across different devices.

Conclusion

Much like your company, website technology and design standards are constantly evolving. To adapt to these changes, it is important to view your company’s website as a dynamic part of your brand that should be regularly updated to meet your customers’ expectations. If you answered no to any of the questions about your current website, we recommend consulting with a knowledgeable Tampa web design company.

For more information regarding custom web development services, please call us at (866) 611-6267 or submit our contact request form.

It’s time to shift thinking away from the idea that smartphone usage is only for people on the go. In today’s reality, the relationship between consumers and their smartphones expands far beyond a means to find a location, send a text, or make a call. In a 2013 mobile consumer survey by Google, 58% of smartphone users stated that they use their device to stay informed by reviewing websites, products, and news online, and 82% stated they use their device to casually browse the internet. Social patterns and behaviors have shifted and every aspect of people’s lives are integrated with their smartphone in hand.

With this evolution in behavior, a societal expectation has emerged. Consumers expect the ability to access online information from anywhere and at any time with the same user experience across all devices. To sum up their survey findings, Google states, “Having a mobile-optimised site is critical and a cross-channel strategy is needed to engage consumers across the multiple paths to purchase.”

What does this mean for your business?

Your Brand Must Be Mobile

For starters, it is a necessity to embrace mobile and cater to your mobile customers. Whether it be through a mobile-friendly website, a mobile app, or a combination of both, your brand should be able to connect with your audience through their mobile devices. If that communication channel is disrupted, brand perception suffers, because it sends a message that says, “I am out of tune or don’t care about the needs of my customers.”

Your Sales Strategy Must Be Mobile

By building sales strategies around smartphone usage, you will see an increase in mobile conversions. In the aforementioned Google consumer survey, 46% of smartphone users stated that they made a purchase directly from their device, and of those, 60% make at least one smartphone purchase every month. The survey also shows that 38% of smartphone users made an offline purchase as a result of preliminary research performed on their smartphone.

Conclusion

Technology is advancing at a rapid pace, and it is important for your business to stay current with these changes or run the risk of alienating prospective customers. If you don’t have the time, capabilities, or desire to develop a mobile strategy in-house, consult with a Tampa web design company that specializes in mobile. Mobile is not a thing of the future. Consumer behavior is changing now, and smartphones are at the center of this societal shift.

Download the entire Google mobile consumer survey.

For more information regarding how to develop a successful mobile strategy, please call (866) 611-6267 or submit our consultation request form.

Social media may play a significant role in your organization’s marketing strategy, but as a Tampa SEO company, we want to set the record straight. Tweets, likes, and shares do not equate to higher rankings in Google Search.

This topic is the source of significant misinformation, but the head of Google’s spam team and distinguished engineer, Matt Cutts, debunked the myth earlier this year during a Q&A video posted to the Google Webmasters’ YouTube page. In the video, Cutts clearly states that any relationship between social media and rankings is purely the result of correlation and not causation.

Correlation Vs. Causation

To put this into context, let’s say you produce content for your website in the form of a blog post, and then share that blog post to your social media pages resulting in hundreds of likes, shares, and re-tweets. A few days later you evaluate the rankings for that blog post, and see that it has made its way to the first page of Google Search. This would seem to point to a causal relationship between social shares and search engine rankings. That observation, however, would be incorrect. High rankings and social media success are unique to one another, but both result from the same source, GREAT CONTENT.

If you provide valuable content that people find useful and engaging, then it is more likely to be shared on social media, and also given greater authority on Google Search.

Cutts describes this by saying, “There was an SEO that said, okay we see a lot of likes on Facebook and those are the pages that rank well, but that’s correlation, not causation. Instead, it’s probably because there’s something really awesome, then it gets a lot of likes on Facebook and a lot of people decide to link to it. The better content you make, the more people are to like it, in Google, Twitter and Facebook.”

What about Google+?

It has also been speculated that Google +1’s result in higher rankings, but Matt Cutts debunked this myth as well in a response directed to an article published on The Moz Blog that implied Google +1’s do influence Google rankings. In his response, Cutts stated that “If you make compelling content, people will link to it, like it, share it on Facebook, +1 it, etc. But that doesn’t mean that Google is using those signals in our ranking. Rather than chasing +1s of content, your time is much better spent making great content.”

Conclusion

While social plays an integral role in building your brand identity and connecting with your audience, it is important to understand that Google’s algorithm does not consider social signals when determining how to rank pages on your website.

If you are searching for SEO services in Tampa, please call us at (866) 611-6267 or submit our consultation request form today.

As a company that specializes in digital marketing and custom web design in Tampa, we can say with 100% certainty, email marketing works. According to a study conducted by the Direct Marketing Association, email was shown to have the highest success rate over any other outbound strategy, with 66% of consumers stating they have made a purchase after receiving a marketing email.

To create a successful campaign, implement our recommended three C’s of email marketing.

Compelling Content

The essence of email marketing is creating a connection with your target audience. This relationship is built and strengthened by the quality of the content you provide. Once an email is opened, you have mere seconds to grab the attention of the recipient, so from the headline to the conclusion, make it compelling.

Before publishing an email, ask yourself the following questions.

1. Is this content relevant to my audience?

2. Is my message clear and concise?

3. Does my content provide value?

4. Is my industry knowledge being expressed?

5. Does my content go beyond the surface of the topic?

If you can answer yes to all of these questions, you are on the right track. Also, make sure you are taking the time to properly edit your work. Grammatical errors and the use of incorrect or false information can be detrimental to your credibility.

Customize Formatting

Once the message is perfected, the next step to designing an effective email is to ensure that the email is properly formatted. If the layout of your email is not stylized, the content may seem overwhelming and difficult to read. The use of headings and subheadings can help bring attention to important points, and also make large quantities of information easier for readers to digest. If a certain point in your message relates to a service your company provides, a previously published article, or an industry study, provide links to extend reader engagement. Finally, keep in mind that some readers may use a mobile device to access their email, so font sizes, style, and color should be legible across all devices.

Calls to Action

No message is complete without a call to action. It is important to provide interesting information that does not explicitly try to sell your product or service, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have an objective. If there is not a definitive action to take, the user experience ends at the email. Whether you want the reader to schedule a call or visit your website, at the close of every written communication, provide a clear call to action. The call to action should epitomize the objective of the email and guide readers to the next step.

Summary

A successful email marketing campaign can be achieved through a well thought out strategy. Take the time to write compelling content that connects with and engages your audience. Then, design your layout in a way that is not only visually appealing, but compatible across different devices. Finally, always keep the end goal in mind, and close every email with a clear call to action.

If you would like to learn about our Tampa web design or email marketing services, please call us today at (866) 611-6267, or request a free consultation.

We are living in a digital age, where real-life decisions are made with the help of preliminary online research. In fact, according to a 2013 study conducted by GE Capital Retail Bank, 81% of consumers search online from their desktop or mobile device before making a purchase.

If you are neglecting your website, you are missing out on opportunities to showcase your brand to potential customers. As Tampa web design and digital marketing professionals, we’re providing three reasons why your website should be the center of your marketing universe.

1. Your Website Serves as a First Impression

You know the old saying, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” Well, the same holds true when it comes to your website. It takes no more than 50 milliseconds for a website visitor to start forming opinions about your company. If you think that the aesthetics of your website do not play a role in how your customers view your brand, consider the “halo effect.” The “halo effect” states that people start forming ideas and attributing characteristics from what they see on a physical level. If they see something pleasing, they instantaneously place positive attributes to that person, place, or thing. If they see something displeasing, then they associate it with negative attributes. When it comes to your website, the same holds true. A poorly designed website that lacks a professional appearance will cause your audience to draw negative associations with your brand, resulting in a bad first impression.

2. Your Website Impacts Brand Perception

You might have the best product or service in your industry, but if you don’t have the brand perception to match, people will bypass your company for one they perceive as more trustworthy and credible. Brand perception is a leading factor in how people view your company. In a study conducted by Stanford University, over 75% of users stated that the design of a website determined how they viewed the overall company and their credibility. The impression a prospective customer gets when they first visit your website lives far beyond the initial visit, and once negative brand perception is established in the minds of prospective customers, it’s very difficult to overcome.

3. Every Marketing Effort Leads to Your Website

The time and money spent on advertising, public relations, social media, and search marketing ultimately leads prospective customers to your website, which is why it’s essential that your brand and your capabilities are well represented. A website that fails to do this discredits your brand and undermines other marketing efforts, resulting in lots of wasted time and money.

Conclusion

As a web design company in Tampa, we cannot stress enough the importance of having a professionally designed website that serves a great first impression, creates positive brand perception, and complements your other marketing efforts.

Don’t let a poorly designed website negatively impact your business. Give us a call today at (866) 611-6267 or submit our contact request form for more information.

Consumers are becoming increasingly accustomed to doing a large portion of their online browsing and shopping from the convenience of their smartphone. Therefore, if your website fails to deliver a mobile-friendly experience, consumers will move on to a competing website that can.

To begin converting more smartphone visitors into paying customers, implement these actionable tips into your website today.

1. Customize Content for Smartphone Users

One of the most important things to consider when optimizing your website for smartphone conversions is your content. If smartphone users have to sift through irrelevant content to find what they’re looking for, the likelihood of them staying on your website long enough to convert into a purchase or lead will dramatically decrease. Smartphone users are typically on-the-go, and want to find what they are looking for quickly. The information provided should be clear, concise, and crafted around the intent of the smartphone user. Keep in mind that when customers are on-the-go, they typically want to find a businesses location, phone number, or hours of operation. So, make sure these details are readily available and highly visible on your website.

2. Organize CTAs Accordingly with Smartphone Behavior

When it comes to optimizing your website for smartphone conversions, make sure your calls to action are legible and large enough that smartphone users do not have to pinch and zoom to read or click on them. Then, determine which calls to action will be most effective for smartphone users. Remember, smartphone users are on-the-go. While a call to action to download an in-depth 20-page white paper may be a huge success for desktop users, it is very unlikely that smartphone users will want to open and read that same paper on their smartphone device. More effective calls to action for a mobile user may be “Find a Store,” “Click to Call,” or “Get Directions.” Such calls to action prompt conversions and are formulated specifically around the smartphone user-experience.

3. Keep Contact Forms Short & Simple

As a Tampa web design agency that specializes in responsive web design, we recommend keeping contact forms short and simple when optimizing your website for smartphone users. Forms that require less information to be submitted perform better than forms that require a greater amount of information. This is especially true for smartphone users. The smaller screen sizes of smartphone devices make it difficult for smartphone users to input a lot of information, and may deter them from completing the form. The goal of your forms is to gain leads, so the less information your forms require from smartphone users, the better.

Leverage Digital specializes in mobile and responsive web design services in Tampa. For more information, please call us today at (866) 611-6267 or submit our consultation request form.

Did you know that 33% of Google traffic goes to the website listed in the number one position? While this fact exemplifies how important high rankings can be, rankings are just one component of a successful search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. A crucial and often ignored element of SEO is whether the strategy is targeting the right audience.

Here are four ways to ensure your SEO strategy drives the right customers to your website:

Focus on Specific Products or Services

The first step to driving the right traffic to your website is to determine which products or services you want the campaign to promote. If you offer multiple services or product lines, focus on the most profitable and best sellers first. Then, as your campaign gains traction, expand it to focus on your other products and services as well. An SEO strategy that lacks focus may drive visitors, but not necessarily customers.

Know How Your Customers Search for Your Products or Services

As a Tampa SEO company, we recommend understanding how your customers search for your products or services. Do they search for them by location? Do they search for them on a mobile device? Do your customers purchase quickly, or do they research extensively before making a purchase decision? Understanding how your customers search for your products or services is vital to a successful SEO strategy.

Select The Right Keywords

Once you’ve decided which products or services to focus on, and you know how your customers search for them, you now have the necessary information to select the right keywords. Remember, keywords should be chosen based on both relevancy to your products or services and relevancy to your customers, not just by how often the keywords are searched. The objective is to select keywords that will drive the right audience to your website.

Provide Content That Your Customers Value

There are generally three reasons people use search engines:

1. To search for information on a specific company

2. To research specific services or products

3. To purchase a specific service or product

When developing optimized content, write for your customers, not search engines. Keep the needs and intentions of your prospective customers in mind, and build value in your products or services by creating content that provides them with the specific information they are seeking. Include calls-to-action that effectively guide them through the sales funnel, and are consistent with their intentions (e.g., “Learn More” versus “Buy Now”).

For information on SEO services in Tampa, please call us at (866) 611-6267 or submit our free consultation request form today.

Email marketing can be an extremely effective tool for businesses to stay top of mind with their customers, but without a focused plan, your email marketing efforts are not reaching their full potential.

Before sending out your next round of emails, read these 5 actionable tips for creating a successful email marketing campaign.

Tip 1: Set Specific & Measurable Goals

Strategic planning is the key to any successful marketing campaign, so before you send out your first email, determine your goals and objectives. Goals should be specific and measurable. For example, if you want to increase unique website visits, plan your strategy and content around this goal. Next, determine how you will measure the success of your campaign with a specific targeted number of visits.

Tip 2: Know Who You’re Trying to Reach

In order to send information that is relevant to your target audience, know who you’re trying to reach. Before drafting your message, determine who the intended audience is and what information they find valuable. If your message is not relevant to the receiving audience, you are losing out on valuable opportunities to connect and engage with that person. For varied audiences, provide unique content that addresses the specific needs of each segment.

Tip 3: Determine Optimal Send Frequency

The next question to ask before beginning your email marketing campaign is the frequency between messages. You can send emails out daily, weekly, or monthly, but make sure to be consistent. Have a set time each month to plan, write and send out your emails. Test to see which frequency is optimal. Sending emails too often can be annoying and may result in a high unsubscribe rate. Send emails too seldom, and your customers may forget about you.

Tip 4: Communicate Value in The Subject Line

As a Tampa web design company, we understand the importance of communicating value through email subject lines. Nearly one third of email recipients open an email based on subject lines alone. Find a way to communicate the value of your message through a subject line that speaks to your target audience’s needs. The best way to write great subject lines is through writing interesting content. Interesting content usually generates interesting subject lines.

Tip 5: Present a Clear and Concise Message

Rather than overwhelming the reader with lots of information, provide them with a clear and concise message that’s easy to digest. Most recipients will scan your email to pull out bits of information they find of value, rather than read it word for word. Inundating them with too much information will likely result in them ignoring the email. A good rule of thumb is to provide them with a little information they can absorb, rather than a lot of information they ignore.

Conclusion

Email marketing can be a great tool to connect with your audience, but only if it is executed correctly. Set specific and measurable goals, determine who your audience is, how often you will speak to them, grab their attention by providing value in the subject line, and present a clear and concise message. By keeping these tips in mind, you are on your way to integrating a successful email marketing campaign.

Leverage Digital is a Tampa web design and digital marketing agency. For more information, please call us today at (866) 611-6267 or request a free consultation.

As a Tampa web design company, we constantly look for ways to increase website conversion rates for our clients. We find that one of the most effective ways for businesses to turn visits into sales is by building trust and credibility, and one of the best ways to do this is through the use of testimonials. Studies show that testimonials help build trust and enhance your brand’s credibility with prospective customers, and consequently contribute to increased conversions.

– As reported by BusinessWeek, 70% of Americans say they look at testimonials before deciding to make a purchase.

– A study conducted by CompUSA and iPerceptions revealed that 63% of consumers indicate they are more likely to purchase from a site if it has testimonials.

– According to a Dimensional Research survey, 90% of respondents claim that positive online testimonials influence their purchase decisions.

Below, we outline three steps to effectively use testimonials to build credibility and increase website conversions.

Step 1: Actively Seek Out New Testimonials

Reach out to existing or past customers and ask them about their experiences with the services or products your company offers. Not only will you gain a testimonial for your website, but you will also gain valuable insight about their experience with your products or services. If the feedback you receive is negative, that’s okay. Negative feedback provides an opportunity to improve your customer experience.

Step 2: Use Testimonials That Address Pain Points & Highlight Benefits

Just because a testimonial is positive, doesn’t mean it’s effective. The most effective testimonials address the customer’s pain point and emphasizes the benefits your service or product provides.

An example of an effective testimonial is, “Prior to seeking the services of Company A, our business had difficulty with consistently meeting quarterly sales objectives. Company A’s services not only allowed us to meet our quarterly sales objectives, but enabled us to exceed them by 200%.”

Step 3: Place Testimonials Alongside Contextually Relevant Content

Testimonials are most effective when they’re relevant in context to the product or service being viewed. For example, if your business has three service offerings: A, B, and C, then a testimonial for service A would be most effective alongside areas of the website that are devoted to service A. This reinforces your credibility to the prospective customer for that specific service. In contrast, placing testimonials that are relevant to service B or C alongside content that discusses service A would add little value.

Conclusion

By placing effective testimonials alongside contextually relevant content, your website will be better equipped to build trust and credibility with prospective customers, and ultimately generate more conversions.

Leverage Digital is a web design company in Tampa. For more information, please call us today at (866) 611-6267 or request a free consultation.