The internet was officially created in 1983. However, it didn’t pick up until the 1990s, when more and more people purchased home computers and individuals realized just how influential it could be in their daily lives. This is great news for you, since it means you can advertise your business to a huge audience of people.

Updated on September 18, 2019. The  original article was published on July 7, 2016.

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Since the original writing of this article, Domino’s Pizza has been in the news for trying to bring a case to the U.S. Supreme Court, contending that ADA Compliance should not apply to their website.
Our feeling on this is that is will fail, and that it makes more sense for websites to be accessible to all.

Since the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990, any business that “holds itself publicly accessible” has had to make reasonable accommodations for anyone who is considered disabled. These accommodations apply to buildings, restrooms, elevators, parking lots, and cover everything from the width of the parking spot to the height of door handles. Anyone who fails to meet these standards can and frequently is subject to lawsuits that lead to costly renovations, fines, and of course legal costs. Continue reading →

Online business is incredibly complex. In a digital age that has ecommerce sales slowly taking over retail, just about every brand needs an online presence to maximize their potential. This is especially true for ecommerce websites that don’t have the luxury of a physical location – simply a web address in a sea of billions of addresses!

Whether you’re a new online business owner or just want to ensure you’re doing everything right, focusing on the right aspects of online sales can help you to make your business work in the long term. Below are the two most important metrics to focus on at the base of your business to give yourself the best chance at success.

Web Traffic

You can’t make profit without sales, and you can’t make sales without customers!

Separated into two main categories – returning and unique visitors – your total web traffic tells you how popular your online store is. A higher total web traffic means that your business is getting exposure, allowing you the opportunity to turn visitors into customers with your website.

Unique visitors is the preferred metric of the two, as new customers means more people are being introduced to your website, causing you to grow your brand. These are most likely coming from your marketing strategy, and are a great way to measure if your current marketing campaign is working.

Returning visitors are also useful, as returning customers are worth more over their lifetime because you don’t need to pay for the acquisition of their subsequent orders . It also means you have brand loyalty, which will allow you to be successful even once your unique visitors slow from an existing campaign winding down.

To make sure where your visitors are coming from, you should implement Google Analytics onto your website. Here you’ll be able to see the referral links that people are clicking to get to your site, which will tell you where your marketing dollars should go.

Conversion Rate

Once you’ve spent all that money on marketing, you still need to close the deal. No matter how much traffic you have, if you don’t get them to complete the purchase, you’re not going to make money. You could even lose money on each customer if you’re not converting well.

Conversion rate is the ratio of buyers to visitors on your site. If you have 100 unique visitors and 5 make a purchase, that’s a 5% conversion rate – and not too bad! However, that may be too much to expect for some websites.

If your website isn’t responsive, your checkout is complicated, or your site is overall hard to use, you’re not going to gain the trust of your customers – trust that gets them to enter their payment info at checkout.

To improve your conversion rate, consider implementing conversion rate optimization (CRO) strategies on your site. These include shortening your checkout form to only necessary information, creating effective calls to action, ensuring your website is fast and response, and providing live support to answer questions.

Online business is a constant battle for attention. Staying relevant on social media, creating a brand, attracting customers, and earning sales requires some creativity. To give yourself the best chance of success online, you need a comprehensive and results-driven approach to business – something video marketing can help you accomplish.

Video marketing involves creating videos to provide information instead of relying on text. Often featuring a visual aid plus voiceover, these relatively simple videos can make a huge difference in how your brand is seen and remembered by customers – two huge factors in your success online.

Below are 4 reasons to implement video marketing on your website and in your marketing campaign.

More Engaging Than Text

Text is absolutely everywhere online, which makes it relatively monotonous to read – the opposite of what you want your marketing to be! In an age where everything is digitized, many companies aren’t taking advantage of the benefits offered by the internet – in this case, media creation that unfolds live rather than on paper.

In addition to being boring, text also requires active reading as opposed to listening to a narrated video. There’s a reason people use text to speech or listen to audio books. Not everyone likes to read!

By creating videos for your website or marketing campaign, you’re reaching more potential customers and giving yourself a better chance of keeping their attention while you get your pitch across.

Increased Shareability

Viral marketing is an incredibly cost-efficient way of getting advertising, and videos are a great way to try your hand at going viral. Whether you’re trying to spread information or awareness of a problem or just “Old Spice” it with a memorable, funny ad that gets shared on social media, the likes and shares are much more likely to come from videos than text.

Great for SEO

According to Moovly, having videos embedded on your website can lead to a 53 times higher chance of being on page 1 of Google. Need I say more?

By implementing your “about us” or “instructions” page as a video on your site, you could greatly improve your search engine rankings, recruit more visitors, and potentially earn more money through your business.

Leaves a Lasting Impression

Off the top of your head, can you remember the opening line of this article? What about the theme song to your favorite TV show?

One of video marketing’s greatest assets is the ability for it to be remembered. As videos often contain sound, images, and text, they enlist more of the viewer’s senses, which helps to form a connection with the content. This leads to greater memorability, and a better chance that your brand will stick out in their mind.

While the design of a website is of very high importance, often the content – and specifically the verbiage – is neglected, which is a big mistake. You can create one of the most dazzling, well-designed websites in the world, but if you fail to keep people interested and explain your business, then you will be unable to market effectively. To get yourself noticed and ensure your clients and customers keep coming back for more, avoid the following common mistakes when creating your website’s copy.

Whether you want to sell products online or are just looking to attract more customers, a quality website is crucial to your success. A website acts as your virtual storefront – explaining what you offer, displaying products, providing contact information, and even processing orders.

Right now, if you’re going to be fully honest with yourself, would you say that your digital marketing strategy is as effective as it could be?

If you’re reading this article, chances are good that at the very least you think it could be in need of some improvement, and easily one of the best ways to improve it will be to understand and avoid some of the top digital marketing mistakes that other people make.

Marketing is a core fundamental of any successful business. The saying “you need to spend money to make money” is true for most businesses. However, there’s no guarantee that spending money on advertising will pay off. Finding the right marketing avenue to give you the best return on your dollar can be the difference between turning a profit or going sideways.

When it comes to finding a wide-reaching, low-cost, and effective form of marketing to help your business grow, email marketing can be the solution.

Continue reading →

With every new Apple or Samsung release, smart devices are getting more & more popular. These handheld computers can do just about everything a PC can do, but with a much smaller screen. Because of this, unresponsive websites look a little wonky when loaded up on various devices, making them much harder to use effectively. This is where responsive web design comes in.

Responsive web design involves building a website that responds to the environment it is being accessed in. Different devices have their own screen sizes and orientations, making it important that your website fits all of them while still looking great & working correctly. An estimated 80% of internet users own a smartphone (Smart Insights), and an estimated 51% of all internet traffic comes from mobile devices (Statista), so if your website isn’t responsive, you risk losing more than 50% of potential users. Continue reading →

When the time comes to build a new website or redesign an existing one, you’re going to have to make some big decisions. Your website is your primary selling point, your storefront, and your identity all in one, so you want to make sure you’re doing everything right to see the best results.

One of the biggest decisions – one that will affect the entirety of the website – is the decision between building around a single landing page or creating a full-fledged site with interior pages. Some believe that a single page will look better, simplify the user experience, and cut down on development time and costs. However, it also comes with some pretty significant disadvantages! Continue reading →