…or are they?

Business Owners Have Been Slow To Adapt To Mobile-Friendliness

In this world where information is consumed primarily on mobile devices, one would think that the average business owner would be on top of important changing trends in SEO (Search Engine Optimization). However, just earlier this year it was estimated that nearly half of small businesses do not yet have a website – and moreover, of those that do have websites, nearly one-third do not perform well on mobile devices.

Many business owners saw significant traffic changes from the algorithm update, though many companies noticed little difference in their traffic, even after refusing to go mobile-friendly. But this is all about to change.

Google Isn’t Taking No For An Answer Any More. 

If you are in the group of business owners who decided not to update your website, or if you were sold an inexpensive “separate mobile-friendly option”, things are about to change for your Google rankings. And this time, it’s for real.

Google will now check your mobile website’s content before your desktop website’s content when ranking.

What, exactly, does this mean? In a nutshell, it means that if you are delivering two websites to your customers (separate Desktop vs. Mobile websites), the mobile version is what Google will use to determine where to place you among your competition. When a business has two separate websites (mobile and desktop), more often than not the mobile site is a simplified version designed only to lead visitors to contact the business and not to rank on search engines. These small mobile-only websites lack the content that is needed to rank on search engines – and this is going to affect the placement of the full (Desktop) version.

The days of Desktop vs. Mobile are gone – today Google recommends a responsive website, where the exact same website and set of content are delivered to desktop and mobile visitors alike. 

Buying a responsive template won’t cut it.

Yes, a cheap responsive theme may do the trick and make your website mobile-friendly. It might make Google happy for a while. But if your website is not built as a sales funnel, to convert traffic to leads, it’s not going to do you any good. Take a look at some of the low-cost templates on a smartphone before you buy, and take a look at your competition on mobile. Do the headlines flow on mobile? Can you vision your current set of content and pictures displaying on a smartphone? Do you know what it takes to convert traffic to leads on a mobile device?

A lot more than just the quick-and-dirty responsive design markup goes into creating a professional business website that will close leads. Our Minneapolis website developers have been hand-coding websites since 1993; we have more than 60 years of combined experience, and we have all been working in this field since the dawn of the smartphone technology. Our online marketing experts know what needs to be done to make your website go from just mobile-friendly to a mobile lead generating machine. Call 763-350-8762 to talk with an online marketing expert today.

The post It’s Official: Google Won’t Let You Get Away With A Non-Responsive Website Any More appeared first on Iceberg Web Design.

Platforms like Pinterest and Instagram allow retailers to showcase stunning photos of their merchandise. And this is especially effective for businesses that depend on eCommerce, such as Shopify.

Serviced-based businesses may find it challenging to develop captivating visual content. This includes:

• Attorneys
• Accountants
• Bookkeepers
• Financial advisors

So which social media platform is best for your business if you are a service provider?

The answer might not be so obvious, so let’s take a closer look.

1. Consider Geo-targeting

One unique trait of service-based businesses is that – in most cases – they tend to serve local clients. In other words, they have a traditional brick and mortar setup.

If that describes your situation, which social media platform is best for your business?

The answer is any that supports local searches. Three great examples would be:

• LinkedIn
• Google+
• Facebook

By creating a company page on any of these platforms, you can enter the physical location of your business. In turn, customers can find you by searching for your services in their local area.

2. Consider Your Ad Budget

Virtually any social media platform that offers the ability to promote posts for a fee could work to your advantage. The key, however, is to choose a platform that allows you to target both local users and those that have an interest in the service you offer.

Some popular social networks that permit paid promotion are:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• Twitter

It is worth noting that Facebook and LinkedIn offer the most reliable targeting options. At the same time, Twitter and Pinterest are more cost-effective, often allowing you to buy impressions on a post for just a few cents each.

3. Consider Your Content

Regardless of what type of service-based business you run, stop to consider what you intend to share on social media.

Chances are if you are a lawyer or accountant, you won’t be snapping very many selfies to upload…

In most cases, you will be posting more detailed content – links to relevant articles, guides, tutorials, and forms, for example.

Platforms that best display rich content – optimizing what you share for the most clicks – would be:

• LinkedIn
• Google+
• Facebook

Sure, you can share a link on Twitter… but with 140 characters to work with, a lot can get lost in translation.

4. Consider Your Audience

Do you operate a B2B or B2C business?

If consumers are your best customers, forget about LinkedIn.

At the same time, if other businesses are your best customers, you can forget about Instagram, Pinterest, Vine, and Snapchat.

The platforms that both businesses and consumers use to gather information are typically:

• Facebook
• Google+
• Twitter
• YouTube

There are, of course, exceptions to every rule – but these are the main four to choose from.

So, Which Social Media Platform Is Best for Your Business in the End…?

If we take a quick tally of the points above, we see that Facebook appeared on all four lists, with Google+ and LinkedIn appearing three times each.

Most of the time, these three platforms will serve as your best social vehicle for attracting and engaging with clients.

Still unsure?

Iceberg Web Design can help sort out which social media platform is best for your business.

In fact, we offer a selection of different social media solutions to meet the needs of your business.

To get started, contact our Minneapolis website development and social media company online, or call 763-350-8762.

The post Which Social Media Platform Is Best for Your Business? appeared first on Iceberg Web Design.

In a world that turns to social media websites, forums, and blogs to get their news and keep up to date with their favorite companies and celebrities, the E-Newsletter still has its place. In this article, we will explore the pros and cons of using an E-Newsletter to promote your business – and why it may or may not be a great advertising tool for your company.

Pros

Easy to read statistics. While a blog might pull readers in based on the keywords you choose for good search engine optimization (SEO), it’s much more difficult to track the kind of traffic your blog receives. You’ll get some data about your visitors and the pages they are reading, but at best you will know that “someone in Coon Rapids, Minnesota” has visited your site. Most modern day E-Newsletter platforms like Constant Contact and MailChimp, however, will give you very detailed statistics about people who engage in your newsletters. You will be able to see exactly who is opening up the email, where they were when they opened the email, and which links they clicked. This information is invaluable as it helps you figure out if the content of your newsletter is reaching your intended audience – and whom you should target in your other marketing efforts.

Directs traffic to your website. E-Newsletters direct your readership to your website, blog, or other social media pages. Since you can specifically mention a new blog post in your newsletter, it’s a great way to cross-market across different venues. Not only that but it helps to keep things like your blog and Twitter or Facebook page active in the minds of your customers. They are now more likely to check out that new blog post because it was mentioned in an email – the post may have gone completely unnoticed if you hadn’t sent it directly to your clients.

Inexpensive. Maintaining an e-mail newsletter list is much easier and less expensive than its traditional postal mailing address counterpart. It costs money to print postcards and letters, as well as to pay for postage to get your message to their mailbox. Research suggests that the return on e-mail marketing is much higher than that of traditional postal mail marketing – and if you are using cost of each to calculate your ROI, E-Newsletters will surpass postal mail every time. E-Newsletters save you both money and time.

Shows your personable side. Having an E-Newsletter makes it easy for the business owner to be more personable. Not only can you give weekly or monthly updates about your business but you can also share thoughts, opinions, or personal stories. People will get a rare look behind the scenes and see that your company is more than just a business. This in turn, will help you to build trust between you and your reader base.

Create your brand. What’s great about E-Newsletters is that you can control the way the formatting looks through the use of HTML emails – especially if you have a professional marketing company design your E-Newsletters. Every time you send something out, the colors, organization, design, and your logo will be standardized. This will help you to establish what your brand is and what people can expect to see. You can then apply similar branding and design techniques to your website and social media pages. This will create continuity and make your company easily recognizable.

Customizable newsletter. Not only can you control the way your newsletter will look but you can also customize your newsletter so that it only goes out to a certain demographic or portion of your e-mail list. For example, people who are interested in hearing about new promotions can receive special incentive coupons over other people who are not. Or if you’re looking to target your message to a certain age group or location you can do that too. This is when having the extra statistical data comes in handy.

Cons

Too much e-mail. People are inundated with e-mail from everyone, everywhere. It’s easy to overlook a couple of e-mail items if they are not a high priority, especially if the recipient has a lot of them. Unfortunately your E-Newsletter might be one of those emails that is overlooked and sometimes lost amidst the other newsletters and company briefs that are all clamoring for attention.

Spam filters. If you’re E-Newsletter isn’t lost in the mix of hundreds of other e-mails then probably it may get sent to the receiver’s Junk Mail folder. While spam filters are great for the average user, they’re a death sentence for online marketing strategies.

Inconsistent updates. An E-Newsletter marketing campaign only works if it is sent on a consistent basis. When a blog or a newsletter becomes inconsistent, not only do readers and potential customers forget about you and your company but they may also think that your inconsistency is a reflection of how your own company does business.

Too much online marketing. In order to stay relevant and reach a variety of different people who are at different levels of technology use, you have to use a mix of different platforms. The quality of the E-Newsletters can get lost when trying to market your business across multiple media channels. For example, you are likely already marketing your business through social media websites like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter, and on YouTube, blogs, and websites. With so many accounts to look after some other areas can suffer. While E-Newsletters are a great way to drive traffic to relevant pages and websites, if not done properly, people will lose interest and stop reading.

Too much information. Since there are a variety of ways to get information out to your audience, it is crucial that E-Newsletters have high quality content. However, it is easy to overstep that boundary and provide too much information. Most people are crunched for time and wading through emails is something that is quickly done in an off-moment. Not everybody has the time of day to carefully go through his or her email and read every single one. If your E-Newsletter has too much information, you are risking the content simply being skimmed and then quickly deleted. Try and keep it light.

Unsubscribe buttons. Just as it is easy for subscribers to sign-up to receive your E-Newsletter, it’s just as easy for them to unsubscribe from it. If your E-Newsletter fails to deliver high quality content, people will begin to see an email from you as annoying and will quickly hit the unsubscribe link at the end of your email.

Accessibility for everyone. A good portion of your target audience may be receiving your E-Newsletters on their smartphone or tablet. Often times the professional formatting on your HTML e-mail newsletter doesn’t look so pretty when viewed from an email app or phone web browser. Most out-of-the-box E-Newsletter templates don’t have the responsive design technique built in – so you may want to enlist the help of a professional e-newsletter designer to deliver a responsive HTML template that will be accessible on every device.

Thinking about starting an E-Newsletter?

Overall, the E-Newsletter is a great tool that you can use to add another layer of effectiveness to your company’s online marketing campaigns. E-Newsletters do have their drawbacks and limitations, but for the most part the benefits of E-Newsetter marketing outweigh the cons.

Are you thinking about starting a weekly or monthly E-Newsletter? Iceberg Web Design now offers full-service online marketing, including e-mail newsletter design and campaign management. We can even help connect you with a professional content writer to generate the content for your newsletter! Contact us today for more information and to get started.

The post The Pros and Cons of Creating an E-Newsletter for your Clients appeared first on Iceberg Web Design.