Since the inception of the Internet, how a business has shaped its Internet presence has changed from simple webpages to flashy websites and full-fledged social media fueled marketing campaigns. Companies must not only consider how they present themselves, but must also be cognizant of the methods used to make their presence known.
SEO Factors
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is important if a business intends to make money online. Even a business that uses the Internet just to establish a presence or announce themselves an expert in their field has to carefully choose its keywords, and make sure it presents content that is not only search engine friendly, but reader friendly as well. Since Google changed its algorithm, one of the newer SEO trends has been for a company to start a blog and use it to attract customers. Blog posts are more search engine friendly, and allow a business to combine offering pertinent information to its customers with optimum keyword search capabilities.
Internet marketing Orange County Style
Internet marketing in Orange County and around the world is user-specific. It is very similar to word-of-mouth advertising, since customers who like a product or service will tell their friends, but instead of these conversations occurring while chatting on Main St., the conversations are taking place through tweets on Twitter and in Facebook walls. To execute an effective Internet marketing campaign, businesses have to go where their clients are, so knowing your customer demographic and social networking sites this demographic frequents is an important factor when developing an Internet marketing campaign.
Website Design California Style
The newest website design trends revolve around mobile marketing. With smartphones and tablets becoming all the rage, businesses are developing web design platforms that run correctly on a smaller screen. This is an emerging niche market; so many designers are using website outsourcing to have this portion of a business’ web presence completed.
Every business has to have an Internet strategy for bringing in new clients, new customers, and new fans. Social media can be used to a great effect to produce a greater “bump” for their bottom line. Having any sort of website strategy has to involve not only Facebook, but other social media outlets that will allow the business to gain as many followers as possible.
The best way to make more out of your internet presence is to use as many websites as you possibly can to make sure that your customers and potential customers know that you are out there.
Yes, starting with Facebook is a good start, but it is also a good idea to have a Twitter account, to have share buttons on your website for all of your content, and to even cross-post your items to all of your accounts with the outlets you use. When you cross-post, the people on both networks can see your information, follow you on a neighboring network, and refer more of their friends to you.
If you want to get more “super fans,” you will have to start offering promotions, sales, and contests on your networks that allow your followers to win prizes, get good deals, and generally give people a reason to keep checking up on your business. The more fun the interactions, the more likely people are to keep following.
In the end, you can only increase your presence online by making your business look more appealing to new potential customers through fun interaction on social networking sites.
YouTube is the largest video sharing website and is second only to Facebook as being the most popular website in the world. It is a misconception that YouTube is just for funny videos of teenagers looking for fame. Many businesses, from insurance companies to grocery chains, utilize video marketing on YouTube to better promote their products and services.
Having a successful website strategy can help you develop a YouTube strategy. When you were building your website, you took into consideration your audience, SEO, and content. Think about your website strategy as you plan your video. Develop a unique video that will set you apart from other businesses offering the same product or service as you. When you make a YouTube account, it would be a good idea to name it after your business. Use a high quality camera when you shoot your video. Don’t make your video too long, as you will lose your audience. Keep it unique, informative, family-friendly, and to the point. It would be a good idea to have a “call to action” at the end of your video.
Consider what you would like the audience to do after viewing your video – would you like them to call your business” Would you like them to pay your store a visit” Part of a successful YouTube strategy includes an effective call to action. Video Marketing can include sharing your video on your social networking site, emailing it to people you know, and inviting friends.
Whether you’re a big or small company, now is the time to get on YouTube and become a pioneer in your niche. You budget doesn’t have to be huge and you don’t have to put an incredible amount of resources into creating your videos. People want to see real people and real content anyways; don’t forget that. And remember, YouTube has 790 million visitors monthly. The possibilities are endless!
There are many website design trends onboard for 2012. Most of these have to do with the introduction of HTML5, which greatly improves the HTML coding process, however they are also concerned with cross-platform compatibility. While you may not adopt them all, if you are serious about webmastering, you should be aware of them. Your competition is almost certain to take advantage of one or more of these.
How SEO, Social Media, Blogging, Web Design & Analytics Will Change
It is always in your best interest to keep up on emerging SEO trends and changes in web design. While webmastering is a large job for anyone and demands you wear many hats, brushing-up on trends and your competition is a good thing to do at least once every few months. Even if you only do this once a year, it is a good habit to practice.
SEO trends come and go quickly, while web design trends tend to stick around a while. Search engine optimization changes rapidly, largely because so many search engines update their algorithms so often. These demand closer consideration more often, where design trends are slower to emerge.
The microblogging trend in social media seems to be topping-out. More people are creating blogs for longer discourse, though few are being maintained regularly. Social networks and status updates remain popular, and many continue to grow and develop. Having a social media presence is no longer an option; it’s a must.
Two of the top analytics sites recently updated their interfaces and features. Most notable are real-time statistics and mobile device counts. The more modern interfaces make the information easier to access and more pleasant to view.
Stay on top of these trends, even if you choose to ignore them for your own website. Revisit emerging trends at least occasionally to keep up with competition and the Web.
Desktop web browsers are fast and powerful. Their mobile counterparts, on the other hand, are generally less equipped (although they are speeding up everyday it seems). So it is paramount to remember that mobile-friendly websites need to be simple and efficient.
This can be achieved in several ways. First, when creating a mobile-friendly website, be sure to eliminate, or greatly limit, the number of images that are on the site. The screen resolution for most computer monitors is many times greater than that of a cell phone’s screen. Depending on how the mobile browser works, this might force the user to scroll sideways through pages. In that case, large images will make scrolling a cumbersome task. Otherwise, the browser may shrink the page to the width of the screen, which will create fuzzy or misshaped images.
In addition, note that mobile browsers may have a hard time processing certain technologies like Flash and Javascript. Both of these elements add functionality and depth to the online experience and they may seem like a hassle to remove. However, there are huge benefits to using basic HTML and limiting the amount of images and advanced forms of website code, namely speed and usability. And with websites, whether being viewed from a computer or mobile phone, its all about decreasing the bounce rate.
By concentrating on text, pages will load quicker and the user will be able to get the information they want without compromising bandwidth usage. Also, avoiding Flash and Javascript will cater to all types of mobile browsers. Every person will be able to view the web page, not just the ones who can utilize such technologies.
Catering to mobile and non-mobile crowds is not a hassle. It only requires some awareness and knowledge of the target market (and their behaviors). In the end, both the growing mobile base and website hosts will be much better off because users will be able to access what they desire and hosts will get the viewers they need.
