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The Importance of a Responsive Website [INFOGRAPHIC]

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By James Wilson

There are many reasons why having a “responsive website” is such a key element to any website. Having a site that is responsive means that your visitors can browse and find information regardless of the type of device that they are using.

This is both crucial for the overall user experience and conversions. This infographic highlights some of the key statistics that really show the importance of having a mobile friendly website. In the US 55% of internet traffic is coming from mobile devices and this continues to increase every year.

Having a responsive site is critical in 2017 and will doubt help with converting and retaining customers. You can create a “mobile friendly” site with many of our web hosting companies such as eHost and SiteGround to name but a few.

Download this infographic.

By James Wilson

Sourced from Top10 Website Hosting

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5 Easy Ways to Get Users to Your Website

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If you can demonstrate your brand’s mission throughout your site, people will be flocking to it in no time.

It’s never easy to stand out from the crowd. After all, there are probably over a thousand sites in your industry, and while you know your product or service has the potential to be at the forefront, getting there probably seems like an exhausting, labor-intensive (and potentially very expensive) venture.

However, gaining traction for little-to-no money or effort could be much more feasible than you may think. In fact, you’re probably already taking some of these actions right now; and, with a little bit of tweaking to your strategy, you could be off to the races with more traffic than rush hour in L.A

1. Start a blog (and keep up with it).

Starting a blog is one of the most efficient ways to not only drive traffic to your site but give visitors a taste of how you think as well as what your brand is about. However, while a lot of folks want to hop right in and start writing, it’s important to have a plan in place so your content doesn’t become redundant or stagnant. Not to worry though, as there are plenty of guides on how to begin. I recommend Moz’s “Beginner’s Guide to Content” as a good place to start.

2. Become a thought leader.

Thought leadership follows in the same vein as blogging but differs in that the content you produce is based more on ideas and observations about your respective industry. As (Entrepreneur contributor) Jayson Demers relayed in “5 Steps to Becoming a Thought Leader In Your Industry,” the goal is to become the spark of innovation for your peers.

While thought leadership isn’t always an available option for every industry, it’s worth every second of effort to not only drive traffic but to further both personal and professional growth, as well.

3. Change up your email strategy.

As BlueHost noted in its 8 Outstanding Ways to Promote Your New Website, strategies like developing a contact list and changing your email signature are simple steps in the right direction. There are also tons of great products out there to help your direct email responses, such as Mailchimp (an easy to use email marketing platform), Boomerang (a Gmail add-on to help you choose when you send/receive emails) and Mailtrack (which lets you know if/when someone opens and reads your emails).

4. Form a partnership.

Partnering with another successful business can be an excellent way to show off the types of brands you align yourself with and to gain new followers almost instantaneously. However, while plenty of business owners have their bucket lists of people they want to work with, a partnership still needs to be a symbiotic relationship.

Entrepreneur writer Kate McKay summed this up perfectly in her piece, “How to Create Strategic Partnerships That Are a Win-Win”: “Be clear on the value you bring to the table,” she wrote. “Be honest about why you’re interested in creating a partnership and what you bring to the table. Write down the answers to the following: ‘Why does this relationship benefit my professional and personal growth?’ and ‘What do I expect to gain from this partnership?’

“This is not a time to hash out your business plan or a mission and vision statement,” McKay added. “If you don’t have clear answers to these questions, you’re not in a position to create effective connections.”

In short, a partnership is just like any other relationship:  a shared experience of value. So make sure you bring something to the table, too.

5. Become a social media master.

Tackling social media isn’t as hard as you might think. In fact, the key to success with it is right in its name: “social.” All it takes to begin gaining followers is the ability to start a conversation and keep it authentic.

The driving factor behind customer-acquisition success is that you make sure to keep your brand’s online presence genuine, instead of giving in to the temptation to serve canned content and activity. Don’t post articles just for keyword metrics; don’t pay for followers just to make your account look more appealing. Operate your brand’s online presence the same way you run your personal social media accounts.

While it’s important to be mindful of driving your social channels to your primary website, as long as you remember your brand’s mission throughout the site, people will be flocking to it in no time.

Image credit: MCCAIG | Getty Images

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AJ Agrawal is the CEO and co-founder of Alumnify. an alumni-engagement platform.

Sourced from Entrepreneur

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8 Tips to Take Your Website from Meh to Yay!

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Here are some website redesign pointers for growing small and medium-sized businesses

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Says Ufuoma Otu of Take Culture Media, “Whether you plan to redesign your website in-house or source it externally, play an active role in managing the process. This is the first tip we give to growing small and medium-sized businesses. The initiative you display on the front end and the attention you give to communicating the site’s vision early on will help drive momentum on your project and ultimately help make it successful.”

 

Other tips include:

Know what you want.

This helps saves a lot of time, effort, revisions, and increases the likelihood of you and your developers creating a finished product your team is happy with for a long time. Well, until it’s time to redesign your website – again!

Carve out time to peruse various websites you like, figure out various elements of them you can integrate into your site to enhance your users’ experience.

Commit to an effective review process.

The website redesign process is only as complicated as you and your team make it. Yes, the process may vary based on the size of the website, company or project it’s being built or redesigned for. Will you communicate changes primarily – by phone, email, in-person meetings? Who are the stakeholders who will green light progress and changes? For example, in smaller companies, the C-suite is more accessible and will play a more active role. In larger organisations, department heads may wield more influence on changes and updates to be made.

Usability is king.

It used to be content is king – it still is. So is usability. Welcome to the user experience kingdom. Always think of how your users will interact with your site. Envision this, test it, implement, and test again – on different devices and platforms. The general rule of thumb is: use fewer words, more photos or graphics (depending on your industry), and intuitive navigation. The point is to make the user experience as smooth as possible. Keep testing until you go live.

Be flexible.

Stick to your process – yes. But on the flip side of that, be flexible. Creating or redesigning a site is a dynamic process that happens in real-time and in tandem with changing needs, market changes, and other factors that are not always within your team’s control. Provide vision and guidance, but be open to your team’s interpretation of the vision expressed.

Honour the creative process.

It is a creative endeavour; recognise it as such and not simply as a to-do item on your list. Or you can, but you may end up with a site that lacks essence. Lead with praise before offering constructive criticism, and the next iteration of the site could very well knock your socks off.

Make it a visual canvas.

The most stunning websites walk the fine line between eye-catching colours and white space. This makes them visually appealing but makes the content easy on the eye. Nowadays we look at screens all day long, so adopt an elegant site design that is simple and users will be glad to use – and even simply admire.

Share it.

What good is the most well-designed website no one knows about? Once you finally have the website you are proud of, share it! Let everyone in your organisation know about it. Don’t forget your clients, social media community, and collateral materials. And remember to update your relevant keywords on search engines.

 

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5 Tools for Making Your Website the Best One on the Market

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By Chris Richardson.

The modern marketplace continues to evolve as the time goes by. Everything’s changing quickly – the technology, the consumer’s mindsets, the trends – these are all factors that dictate how the marketplace functions. Moreover, the digital sphere is enormous compared to how it used to be 1 or 2 years ago; imagine what’s coming next!

Modern businesses are also adapting to the current conditions. Big brands pay very close attention to their online presence. Moreover, as websites are the primary forms of welcoming potential customers, every business is now trying to capture their prospects’ attention by offering a great user experience through their platforms.

Another variety comes from the fact that most brands are trying to differentiate themselves. Innovative marketing campaigns, new software and tools, and all sorts of offers are set on the table.

Backlinko is a great example of such a brand. Besides the fact that they’ve targeted almost every keyword that’s related to SEO, they have also managed to offer a nice user experience to their users. Quality content that’s backed up by trustworthy information makes Backlinko rank first on many keyword phrases and variations.

They could be considered the best on the market, and they surely made it big with the help of various digital tools. Nowadays, if you want to stay on track and keep up with the trends, you’ll have to leverage every tool and software that could potentially improve your website.

During today’s post, we’re going to take a quick look at few of the most impactful software that can help you become the biggest and the most qualitative reference in your niche.

1.   BuzzSumo

The first software that I believe to be critical for any website is BuzzSumo. This platform has successfully managed to create a precise algorithm for detecting trending content. And as content is an essential part of any business and website, focusing your efforts towards creating and delivering amazing content can be considered smart.

If you’re looking to overstep your competitors, you need to provide…better content. People are using the web in order to either solve their problems or fulfill their needs. If you’re delivering good content, you have good chances of developing a powerful community that engages constantly.

BuzzSumo helps you find content ideas, find and connect with niche influencers, and also offers you professional social media analysis tools. I’d say that this is a must if you’re pursuing greater goals with your website.

2.   Quick Sprout

If you want to take a look at what your competitors are doing, you should definitely give Quick Sprout a try. You just enter the URL that you want to analyze, and in a matter of seconds, the software gives you insightful details about that website’s performance. In addition, they have a social media tab that’s also useful if you want to see how popular they are.

This is truly helpful to any webmaster, as analytics have a huge role in the development of a professional brand. The best thing about this tool is that they’re offering suggestions on what changes you should make in order for your website to perform better. The data is provided after a careful market research has been performed.

3.   Google Keyword Planner

Even though it is the most basic SEO tool that’s been around for long, Google Keyword Planner is an essential help for any website out there. In a few words, the tool gives you plenty of useful features that help at identifying potential keywords and key phrases that you’ll later optimize for better rankings.

You get details such as monthly unique searches, cost-per-click average rate (in case you’re going for paid advertising), and different geo-targeted information regarding Google’s users’ search behavior.

Showing up on the first page of Google gives you authority and lots and lots of traffic over time. Neglecting SEO will most likely disadvantage you in your efforts of becoming the best resource within the niche.

4.   Canva

Your website needs to look good – always! That might represent a problem for some webmasters, as graphic designing might not be their forte. And because visual content is quite popular today, webmasters that ignore it will lose a lot of potential attention towards their brand.

Canva is the best image tool on the market, giving you the possibility to create professionally customized images for your website. You don’t have to possess any type of designing skills, as they offer an easy drag-n-drop tool to keep it easy.

Numerous special fonts, plenty of photo editing features, and lots and lots of free stock images…these, and much more! I’d say that Canva is a must if you’re looking to create a quality visual experience for your website users.

5.   EssayGeeks.co.uk

As already mentioned, content has a very important role for any business organization. Therefore, your content must be extremely valuable and on point. Moreover, it should be impeccable, which means no structure, grammar, and spelling mistakes.

EssayGeeks.co.uk is a content writing service that puts professional writers at your disposal. You can use them for various tasks such as content planning, content creating, editing, and proofreading. Everything’s flexible with them, so you can communicate your specific requirements and you can continue from there.

 

Conclusion

Online business success never comes after swallowing a magic pill. It’s all about hard work, persistence, and innovation. I say innovation because every new tool that shows up in the marketplace is a potential goldmine for you. If it helps you bring automation to your platform, you’d be a fool not to leverage it.

By Chris Richardson.

Chris Richardson is a journalist, editor, and a blogger. He loves to write, learn new things, and meet new outgoing people. Chris is also fond of traveling, sports, and playing the guitar. Follow him on Facebook and Google+.

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Easy Ways to Monetize Your Blog or Website

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By Gregory Go.

You’ve started an online business, picked a profitable niche market, and have a website or blog that is getting a decent amount of website traffic.

Now it’s time to start thinking how you are going to start making money with your online presence.

The list below provides ways to monetize that won’t take up a lot of your time, so you can focus on building your site with good content and growing your traffic.

These are the most basic (and arguably the least profitable) methods, but they are effective interim monetizing strategies.

In the long run, you’ll probably want to incorporate other ways to make money with your blog or website including things like affiliate marketing and possibly selling your own information products.

As with most strategies regarding money, diversification is key. Try a combination of these methods to maximize earning potential (without making your site too ad heavy). Play around with your layout, if it’s flexible, to give different ads more or less exposure (don’t let them overshadow your content). Test a variety of networks. Make sure you are being paid accurately and in a timely manner. Monitor your performance and if you are not happy with the service or results, try another company.

1. PPC Ads (Pay Per Click)

Google Adsense is the most popular and widely used option.

They serve contextual ads (image or text) based on your content and pay when someone clicks on the ad. How much you make on Adsense depends on several things. First, advertisers bid on keywords, so if you happen to write about a topic that has high paying keywords, then each click will be worth a lot more than another topic with low valued keywords (keywords that have really low bids).

Also, people who came to your site from search engines are more likely to click on these ads than people who are repeat visitors. It makes sense then to spread out your Adsense ads to provide easy access for search visitors.

See Also: 5 Ways to Grow Your Audience and Make More Money Blogging

2. CPM Ads (Cost Per Thousand)

Unlike CPC ads, CPM ads pay per impression. Viewers don’t need to do anything for you to be paid. You just need to serve the ad to them. The downside is that you’re paid almost nothing for each impression, meaning you have to get A LOT of traffic to make serious money.

Rates can go as low as $0.10 per thousand impressions. But it’s still a good option to use in conjunction with CPC ads. CPM ads can be placed in less prominent spaces (below the fold) whereas CPC ads should have a better position. Most ad networks that offer CPM ads have CPC ads thrown in as well. You can set your own prices and remove unappealing ads.

See Also: 4 Ways to Get Massive Amounts of Traffic to Your Website

3. CPA / Affiliate Ads (Cost Per Action)

CPA ads pay per action. Viewers don’t just need to click on them, but they actually have to do something, either sign up/register with their email address or make a purchase.

Not surprisingly, they are the highest paying ads. However, how likely your visitors will click on the ad and perform the desired action will depend very much on how relevant the ad is to your content. For example, a site about digital photography may do very well showing digital camera CPA ads. Some sites are much better suited for CPA ads. Consider whether any CPA ads would add value to your visitors.

You can find CPA ad networks related to your market simply by doing a Google search for “your niche” + CPA networks. Popular CPA ad networks include Conversant (formerly Commission Junction), Adfish, and Amazon Associates.

See Also: The Most Profitable Niche Markets for Affiliate Marketing

4. Text Links

Text links work the same way as the other ads described above. You set aside a space on your page and text links will start showing up when they are purchased. You need to submit specific pages you want to display text link ads on your site, so be sure to enter your most popular pages (usually your homepage, category pages, and most popular blog post or article pages). Rates are based on how much traffic your website gets; the more traffic the higher the fees you will get. If you get a lot of traffic to your website and are considered an authority website then text links may be profitable for your site.

See Also: 3 Free Ways to Market Your Website Online

5. In-text Advertising

In-text ads don’t require any additional real estate, which is attractive to many site owners. Ads are attached to text in your content, showing up as underlined or double underlined words that are clickable. Some will pop up a little advertisement when the word is moused over. Many viewers, however, find these ads distracting and may get confused thinking that the underlined text should be linking to another page on your website.

As mentioned at the start of this article, there are much better ways to make money online.

6. RSS Feed Ads

Offering a feed of your content is essential. More and more readers are using feeds to catch up with their favorite sites, and not offering one will alienate a lot of readers who would be interested in your content. There is yet to be a lot of advertising options within feeds, but for now, you can still monetize the traffic to your feed.

No matter how you decide to monetize your website, one of the most powerful things you can do is capture the information of the people visiting your website so you can bring them back to your website and ideally get them to take multiple actions on your website – utilizing the power of email marketing.

By Gregory Go

Sourced from the balance

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