Ecommerce Sales Tip: Crowdsource Customer Photos

Free People's "#myfpdenim" Campaign

Selling products online can be a challenge, but the best way to showcase those products and make more sales is through photos. Yes, having a detailed product description is great, but people also want an accurate visual depiction of what you’re selling.

In a previous post we talked about how to tell the story of your company through photos, which is something that many businesses are now doing through sites like Pinterest and apps like Instagram. There’s something about a picture that can convey what words or text on a web page cannot. According to an article posted at GetElastic.com, websites that include photos of real people seem to convert more than those without photos of people. However, keep in mind that using stock photos of models may not be as effective either.

Are You Losing Sales Because Your Website Is Slow?

Have you ever visited your website to see how fast it loads? In this day and age where people have more things to do and more articles to read, they just don't have the time to sit around for even 10 seconds and wait for your website to load in their browser. This could adversely affect your sales and readership.

An article In the August 2012 issue of Website Magazine breaks down the intricacies of what is called web performance optimization (WPO). This concept of WPO came about as more and more companies wanted to publish a variety of media on their websites. The bottom line is that WPO enhances the user experience, thus increasing traffic to your site, which ultimately means more sales for you. What website would you rather buy from: one that is slow to load or one that allows you to find what you want and to be able to purchase it quickly?

Why You Can't Ignore Mobile Marketing Any Longer

As we’ve mentioned before, mobile is changing the way we think about web design. Along with that comes changes in how companies will market themselves for mobile users.

Consider a couple of these statistics about mobile marketing:

• 70% of all mobile searches result in action within 1 hour. 70% of online searches result in action in one month. (Mobile Marketer, 2012)

• 61% of local searches on a mobile phone result in a phone call. (Google, 2012)

Mobile marketing doesn't just mean buying ads on Google, it encompasses other channels of communication such as Facebook, Twitter, and even mobile apps. Most people who do own a smartphone typically have Facebook or Twitter on their phone. As they're waiting at the doctor's office or standing in line at the grocery store, they're on their phones. They search for apps that help make their lives easier or apps that entertain them.

Could your business develop an app that could provide value to your customers?

How to Nurture Relationships With Customers

In our last post we talked about how to create trust with potential customers who visit your website. So when they do become a customer, then what? How do you continue to nurture that relationship and create deeper connections with the people who buy from you, subscribe to your blog, or subscribe to your newsletter?

Ted Rubin wrote a great article about how to create real relationships with social marketing which inspired this post. Ted talks about being real and authentic, which can be a challenge when you're interacting online, but as he points out, there are ways to show people who you really are.

The first step in nurturing relationships is to follow up with customers. This is one thing that many businesses forget to do. It's like sleeping with someone on the first date and not calling them afterwards...or ever.

How to Create Trust With Potential Customers

Source: Uploaded by user via Tammie on Pinterest

With so many websites and businesses out there today, it's a little more challenging to figure out the scammers from legitimate businesses. If a person is on your site for the very first time, how do you go about enticing them to stay on your site? How do you build trust with these potential customers?

How do you get people to purchase your products or services if all they know about you is the information you’ve shared on your website? Here are a few tips...

3 Marketing People to Follow on Twitter

One of the biggest challenges for most business owners is marketing their products or services. In this social media world where we’re constantly bombarded with marketing messages, it’s become even more of a challenge. The old days of marketing are gone, so how do we keep up with all these new trends in marketing?

Well, we turn to Twitter for inspiration and ideas about all things marketing. Instead of simply listing a bunch of names and doing the standard “Follow Friday” using the #FF hashtag on Twitter, we thought it would be more beneficial to share with you via a blog post the 3 marketing people we follow on Twitter and why we follow them...

3 SEO Changes You Should Know About

SEO has been one of the biggest enigmas of the online marketing world. The industry of SEO (search engine optimization) is an ever-changing field. As you read this article, the search engine algorithms have probably changed a million times. (Ok, maybe just a few thousand times...)

If you don’t keep up with SEO, your business may not be as successful, but if you over optimize your site, you can be penalized. It’s a double-edged sword that companies like us have to deal with on a daily basis. Even if you have a firm working on the SEO of your website, it’s still good to be in the know of the latest changes.

Here are three changes in SEO that you should be aware of:

How to Stay on the Path of Business Success

Running a business or selling a product/service has its ups and downs. In the current economy where opportunities to make sales appear to be scarce, there are businesses that are still thriving. Is your business one of them?

There are a couple questions you should address to ensure that your business stays on the path of success...

Do You Know What Your Customers Need?

Over at TheCustomerCollective.com, Mark Hunter questions whether or not we are helping customers or clients clearly define what it is that they want or need. Oftentimes customers are not even sure what they are looking for.

Google Plus For Business: Virtual Ghost Town or Huge SEO Opportunity?

Are you using Google Plus to market your business?

At a recent San Diego Social Media Breakfast meeting, one of the topics was the use of Google+ for business. Only a handful of attendees said that they used the social network, while the majority said that they do have a Google+ account, but never use it.

People who do use Google+ on a regular basis say that they like the clean, uncluttered interface. If you log into Facebook on a regular basis instead of using a social media management tool such as Hootsuite, Sprout Social, or any of the many tools available nowadays, you can suffer from information overload.

3 Ways to Make Your Business Memorable

As a business with a web presence, you want to attract people to your website and then convert those visitors into customers or clients right away. The reality is, most people who are browsing the web are looking for information and doing research first before actually making a purchase. According to a study conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 58% of Americans are reporting that they conduct online research on products or services that they are considering purchasing.

So what can you do to get people to remember your company as they are doing online research for the products or services that you offer?

Color Psychology in Web Design

The color theme that you use for your website has an effect on how visitors and customers perceive your business. Certain colors evoke particular emotions within people. How do you want site visitors to feel as they are browsing your website?

Do you want to inspire visitors to purchase products from your website?

Do you want them to know that you are a professional business?

Do you want them to trust you?

All of these questions can be answered with the help of colors.

Using Facebook For Customer Service?

Facebook has certainly come a long way since the days of just being a place for college students to hang out online. It’s grown exponentially to the point that it’s normal to see big brands and companies’ updates along with personal friends’ posts comingling in your timeline.

Along with these changes in online social interactions, people’s actions and expectations have also transformed when it comes to communicating with companies online. Customers expect to be able to contact a company via sites like Twitter or Facebook and receive a prompt reply.

Now that companies understand the virality of information shared via a site like Facebook, they’re paying more attention to the activity and interactions on their Facebook pages. It only takes one negative comment or experience with a company for that information to spread at lightning speed, so if you don’t take the time to monitor customer conversations, comments, or questions, you could be damaging your company’s reputation without even realizing it.

The New Rules of SEO: It's Still About Content

The rules for SEO change constantly. It used to be that the number of inbound links to a website weighed heavily and helped to increase your ranking in the search engines. Nowadays, it’s all about providing unique, relevant content and making sure you’re not “overdoing” SEO, or over optimizing your website.

Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable quotes Matt Cutts of Google and shares an audio from a panel that Cutts participated in during SXSW:

Are Your Customers Tech Evangelists?

Are your customers tech evangelists? An article at Website Magazine reports:

"A recent study from International Data Corporation reveals what many mobile marketers have simply assumed all along – that targeting “tech evangelists” will lead to a higher return on investment and greater success with mobile apps."

When you know who your customers are, what drives them to buy, and what inspires them to share information, it's easy create content and personalize their experience with your company.

Tell the Story of Your Company Through Photos

This week Instragam, the popular photography application that was once available to iPhone users only, has been rolled out to Android phones. According to PCMag.com, 1 million copies of the app were downloaded in less than 24 hours.

Many businesses have used Twitter and Facebook to market their brand, but as we’ve witnessed from the success of sites like Pinterest, the sharing of photos offer another opportunity for companies to share more about their brand.

Does Your Website Look Like a Cookie?

Does the design of your website influence a person’s decision to do business with you?

There are many web development companies out there who serve a particular industry, and they market themselves as specializing in designing websites for lawyers or dentists. Yes, these companies can create fancy websites with video and the whole nine, however, upon closer inspection, you discover that the content and design for one lawyer’s website is the same as other lawyers’ websites in other cities or states. This is what I discovered recently as I was doing research on lawyer websites.

Are You Losing Website Visitors Because of Navigation?

Example of a clear navigation bar on a website

One of the most important elements that we consider when designing a website is the navigation. How easy is it for your site visitors to find the information that they are looking for? Can they navigate through your website without having to go back to your homepage to see the list of pages on the site? Navigating through a website can be simple or complex depending on how many pages your site has or how much information needs to be organized.

What Do You Want From a Modern Web Design Agency?

As a firm that offers website design, we have to walk the walk and talk the talk. Our website is due for a total redesign, and we would love your input...

Even though we are specialists in website design, we still appreciate and value your feedback. We like to think that many minds collaborating and working together can produce something much more fun and exciting. We’re all about building a community that helps and supports each other, so this is an opportunity to follow through on that philosophy.

What is it that you want from a modern website design agency? What kind of information would you want to know about us? How can we design our site better so that it’s easy for you to find information? Should we go with a light or dark design? These are the questions to ponder as you browse and evaluate our website.

The Link Between Pinterest, Jeremy Lin, & the iPad 3

Source: blessyoursweetheart.tumblr.com via Andrea on Pinterest

What do Pinterest, Jeremy Lin, and the iPad 3 have in common? They’re new, exciting, and creating a ton of buzz on social media and around watercoolers all over the world. As much as people often gripe about change, humans actually like new and shiny things. We like excitement in our lives. What better way to inspire excitement than to introduce something new to the mix.

Is Social Media Necessary? The Case For Customer Service

It’s interesting that many business people ask, “What’s the point of setting up a social media account? Is social media really necessary? What do we use it for?”

For marketing specialists who have been involved in the “interwebs”, the answer is clear. Yes, social media is essential. Many marketing gurus will push the idea that social media is a necessity to get the word out about your company. After all, millions of people are now using sites like Facebook and Twitter to gather news, resources, and information, so why not go where people are hanging out?

Yes, social networking sites are a great way to market and promote your brand, but have you thought about using social sites for customer service?

In the following video, we share our thoughts about how social media can impact your brand’s reputation and what you can do to monitor feedback online from customers who do share their experiences about your company...

5 Infographics About Web Design

It's Friday and you're brain is probably fried from reading emails, blog posts, tweets, and Facebook status updates all week. Instead of writing up a post about how cool web design is (Ok, we're a little biased), we thought of sharing a few infographics about web design that we came across this week.

Why Content Will Remain King For Infinity

Back in the early days of the internet, many marketers used to say, "Content Is King!" You have to provide good content in order to be noticed by people. Then social media came along, and the word "engage" became a huge buzzword. You had to engage with your customers in order to build brand loyalty and get word-of-mouth marketing.

While social media is all the rage and yes, engaging with your customers is very important, but when all is said and done people are looking for content. Content is what makes up the internet, right? Without it there would be no internet.

5 Easy Ways to Integrate Social Media Into Your Website

Source: ohmygov.com via Collin on Pinterest

Are you missing out on opportunities to interact with your customers and get more visitors to your website?

If your company is involved in social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, there are several things that you can do to make it easy for site visitors to share your content with their networks, add content to your site to keep it fresh and interesting, or get more Twitter followers or fan page “likes”.

Featured Client: VisitorTips.com, Virtual Travel Brochures

If you do any traveling or frequent places where there are tourists, you have probably come across one of those displays containing brochures and local travel information guides. These displays are usually in car rental places and motels/hotels, but what if you wanted to find out about local attractions before you even arrive in a city? Of course you could do research on the internet, but we’d like to introduce you to VisitorTips.com, one of our clients whose website contains virtual brochures from cities across the U.S. and Canada.

Mobile Apps and the Future of Web Design

Push Notification on iPhone

Web design has come a long way since the late 90’s when flashy graphics and simple HTML were the order of the day. If you wanted to “surf the net”, you usually had to do it on a regular computer, so all web developers (or what we used to call “webmasters” back in the day) had to think about was coding for one device. You could get away with big, shiny arrows and images. Your text could stretch on for days on end on a single page.

Well, those days are long gone...

Web design now has catapulted into a whole new dimension that encompasses smart phones, netbooks, iPads, hand tablets, and the list goes on and on. We can now browse the web on our TVs and even vehicle monitors. When it comes to designing your website, you have to keep in mind the various devices and different browsers people are using to view your site. Can you design it in a way that makes it easy for the user to access all the information on your site? Does your site load quickly? These are just some of the things you have to consider.

Changing How We Do Business in 2012

In the following video, Jay Baer of Convince & Convert gives a short presentation about why people provide the power of now...



In this day and age of social media, you can longer hide behind a fancy company logo or nicely produced TV ads touting how your company is “#1 in Customer Satisfaction” because in a matter of seconds someone can do an internet search to find out if that really is true.