Blog

 

Having a website for a small-town business is crucial for promoting tourism, attracting new businesses, and providing valuable information to local customers.

 

However, designing a website for a small town can be challenging, as it requires a different approach than designing a website for a business in a large city.

 

In this blog post, we will discuss small-town business website design best practices that can help you create an effective and engaging website for your company. Let’s start by answering this important question we get asked all the time:

 

Do I even need a website if my customers are local?

Yes, a small-town business should have a website. A website serves as a digital storefront for businesses, and in today's digital age, it is essential for any business, regardless of its size or location. Here are some reasons why a website is important for small town businesses:

 

• Online Presence: Having a website allows a small-town business to establish an online presence and reach potential customers beyond their local area. With a website, they can showcase their products or services, provide contact information, and make it easier for customers to find and learn about their business.

• Credibility: A website can lend credibility to a small-town business. In today's digital age, many customers expect businesses to have a website. Without one, potential customers may perceive the business as less legitimate or less professional.

• Marketing and Promotion: A website can be used as a marketing tool for small town businesses. They can use their website to promote their products or services, offer discounts or promotions, and showcase customer testimonials.

• Customer Convenience: A website makes it more convenient for customers to interact with a small-town business. Customers can place orders or book appointments online, access business information from anywhere, and get in touch with the business through contact forms or email.

In summary, a website is important for small town businesses as it establishes an online presence, lends credibility, serves as a marketing tool, and makes it more convenient for customers to interact with the business.

 

A quick note on Local SEO

Having a professional website for your small-town business adds one other advantage: it helps with your Local SEO. Local SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is crucial for small town businesses because it allows them to be visible to potential customers who are searching for businesses in their local area.

 

With local SEO strategies in place, small town businesses can improve their online visibility, drive more traffic to their website, and ultimately increase their sales and revenue.

 

Search engines favour local companies in their search results. But you can’t take advantage of that favouritism if you don’t have a website. How does a search engine like Google know what town you’re in or what local areas you service if you don’t have a website?

 

Now you might be asking why Local SEO is important at all. Here are some specific reasons why local SEO is important for small town businesses:

 

• Targeted Traffic: Local SEO helps small town businesses target their audience by optimizing their website and online presence for local keywords, phrases, and search terms. This ensures that when people search for products or services related to their business, their website will appear in the search results, resulting in more targeted traffic to their website.

• Competitive Advantage: Local SEO can help small town businesses compete with larger businesses in nearby cities or towns. By optimizing their website for local search, they can attract customers who are specifically looking for businesses in their area, rather than competing with larger businesses for generic search terms.

• Increased Visibility: Local SEO can increase a small-town business's visibility in search results, maps, and local directories. This can help them stand out from competitors and make it easier for potential customers to find them.

• Improved Reputation: Local SEO can also improve a small-town business's reputation by increasing their online reviews and ratings. Positive reviews and ratings can help build trust with potential customers and encourage them to choose their business over competitors.

In short, local SEO is important for small town businesses because it helps them target their audience, compete with larger businesses, increase visibility, and improve their reputation.

Now that you understand why you need a website, and some of the marketing advantages it offers your company, let’s dive into the best practices for small-town business website design:

 

Website Design Best Practices for Small Towns

Most great website designs have certain key features. It’s become best practice for great web design companies, like REM, to include these features by default in all its small-town designs:

 

1. Start with a Plan: Before we even begin the design process, it is essential to have a plan in place. Identify the purpose of your website, define your target audience, and establish your goals. Your website should be designed to meet the needs of your audience and align with your goals.
   
   Setup a time to talk with our Marketing Director if you need help defining your target audiences and setting up your marketing and sales goals.
    
2. Keep it Simple: When designing a small-town website, it is important to keep it simple. Avoid clutter and prioritize the most important information on your homepage. Use a simple color scheme, clear typography, and consistent branding throughout your website.
   
   REM websites are expertly designed by our in-house designers. You’re not getting a cookie-cutter template. With REM you get a custom website that is specifically designed to help convert visitors into customers. We don’t let design clutter get in the way of communicating with potential sales leads.
    
3. Be Mobile-Friendly: With the rise of mobile usage, it is essential to design your small-town website to be mobile-friendly. Use responsive design techniques to ensure your website adapts to different screen sizes and devices.
   
   All REM sites are mobile-friendly and will work well on almost any mainstream browser or device. This gives you access to the largest potential group of clients.
    
4. Optimize for SEO: To make your website discoverable, it is important to optimize it for search engines. Use relevant keywords in your content and meta descriptions, ensure your website has a clear hierarchy, and use descriptive URLs.
   
   If SEO, or digital marketing in general, is a priority for your company, let your REM representative know right away. We can bring our marketing team in to consult on the design from the very beginning.
   
   By the time your site is done, it will not only be beautiful and easy-to-use, but it will also be setup perfectly to launch your online marketing campaigns.
    
5. Provide Valuable Content: Your small-town website should provide valuable content to your audience. Showcase local attractions, events, and businesses to promote tourism and engage visitors.
   
   REM also offers content creation services as well as content marketing. If your staff are afraid to write online, or they consider writing to be a tedious task right up there with going to the dentist, then our team can help!
    
6. Prioritize Accessibility: Your small-town website should be accessible to all users, regardless of their abilities. Use alt tags for images, ensure your website is navigable with a keyboard, and use high contrast colors for readability.
   
   REM websites come with accessibility basics included, but we can also upgrade your small business website design to be fully AODA compliant. If you are interested in a fully accessible site, just let your REM sales rep know.
    
7. Incorporate social media: social media is an excellent tool for promoting your small town and engaging with visitors. Incorporate social media links and feeds on your website to encourage social sharing and interaction.
    
8. Use Calls to Action (CTAs): Calls to action are an effective way to encourage visitors to act on your website. Use clear and concise language to guide visitors towards your desired actions, such as booking a hotel or visiting a local attraction.
   
   While we are on this topic, it’s also important that you work with other businesses in your area so that you can link to their websites for relevant services.
   
   For example, if you run a small-town yoga studio that is doing retreats, you should have links to local healthy-eating restaurants. Maybe a local store that sells yoga equipment. How about a link to local hotels or a bed & breakfast in case guests want to stay somewhere before or after your retreat.
    
9. Test: Once your small-town website is live, its important to continuously test your site and make sure all these key features are easy to find and use. Monitor your website analytics, gather feedback from users, and make improvements as necessary.

 

In Conclusion

Designing a website for a business in a small-town requires a different approach than designing a website for a business in a large city. By following these small-town website design best practices, you can create an effective and engaging website.

 

What are internal links?

Internal links are hyperlinks inside your website that lead to a page inside your website. External links are links that link to webpages outside of your website. Internal links are normally used to point to important information on your site, especially content that might be relevant to the visitor.

 

There are different types of internal links. Along with the links on your homepage, post feed, menu, etc., you can include internal links in your content. These links are known as contextual links. Contextual links are useful, and point website users to engaging and interesting content. Additionally, they help search engines find which content on your website is related and help the search engine determine its value from there.

 

The more links an important page receives, the more crucial it will seem to various search engines. This means that well-used internal links are incredibly useful to your SEO.

 

Internal vs. external links

All websites, even online storefronts, consist of internal and external links. While internal links connect posts and pages within your website, external links connect pages to different websites.

 

Why are internal links important?

Internal links are useful and important to use if you’re managing a website. Three reasons why you should be using internal links include:

 

• Helping users navigate a website more easily.

• Assisting with establishing information hierarchy for a website.

• Helping to spread ranking power – link equity – around websites.

 

Best internal link strategy

 

1. Figure out the best structure for your website

A good practice for website structure is to imagine it being organized like a pyramid. At the top of the pyramid is your homepage, then below that you would have grouped content divided into key categories. The further down you go, the more you will find individual pages that are not parts of the main content categories, but still might be important. If done properly, your website’s menu should reflect this structure.

 

It can really help to visualize your website structure if you write each page of your site on a post-it notes and then place them on a large table or wall so you can rearrange them as needed. Does that article on how to return your product belong in the Support section? Or maybe the Frequently Asked Questions page? Or perhaps you need links from both areas?

 

2. Determine what your most important content is

It’s necessary to determine what your most important website content is – your cornerstone content. To put it simply, this is your best and most complete content, and serves as the core of your business. These are the posts you want people to discover when searching for products or topics that you specialize in.

 

If you want to let Google know that this is your most important content, you should be adding multiple links from different pages on your site. That’s where contextual links come in.

 

3. Include contextual links

When you’ve accumulated multiple articles that you’ve written about a specific topic, they should be linked to each other. This will demonstrate to search engines and your users that these articles are topically related. This can be done by linking directly from sentences in your own copy or by adding links at the end of the post, or even better, from both locations.

 

4. Think about adding a related post section

Consider adding a related post section to your website. There are countless add-ons and plugins which can add complete related post sections to your posts. This can be an effective way to expand your post reach to more visitors. Think about testing it out is you use one, however. You want to make sure the related posts are actually related posts

 

If you’re unsure, then link to posts manually and put the link to that post at the bottom of the article.

 

5. Add links for hierarchical pages

If your website includes hierarchical pages, try linking parent pages to their child pages and vice versa. Also, don’t forget to link sibling pages to each other. These specific pages should be related to one another on a well-organized website, which is why connecting them makes the most sense.

 

6. Include links to your most recent posts

It’s a great habit to make sure that every time you publish a new piece of content on your site, you add links to the new content from older pages. Remember to try to make sure that when you do this, the pages that you are linking from are topically related to the new content. Google prefers if the contextual links are relevant to the topic the visitor is reading.

 

Adding internal links to your most recent content is a great way to ensure that search engine crawlers find the new content and index it when they follow the links from other pages on your website.

 

7. Add navigational links

If you want to make your cornerstone more authoritative, add links to it from the homepage or the top navigation menu. This method should be done with the pages that are the most imperative to your business. This is going to give the posts or pages on your site more value.

 

8. Insert links to your taxonomies

Taxonomies, such as tags and categories, assist in organizing a website and helping users and Google understand what your posted content is about. For example, if you have a blog, it could be helpful to add internal links to the taxonomies that post belongs to.

 

9. Input links to your most popular posts

Inputting links to your site’s most popular posts or pages is another important point to consider. You should be creating these sections in the sidebar or the footer of your website so that they show up on all pages and posts.

 

10. Anchor text

After you decide which links should be included on a page and which ones should be granted link value, it’s necessary that you incorporate the proper anchor text.

 

Your anchor text should look natural when used in your copy and you should avoid using generic terms like ‘click here’ or ‘read more’.  Generic anchor text doesn’t tell Google, or the reader, where the link is taking them. Using descriptive anchor text means that your reader knows where the link is going, and you can even include keywords to boost the value of the link with Google.

 

An example of great anchor text would be: “Let REM help you with a new business website” vs. “REM makes great websites. Click here to learn more.”

 

11. Orphaned Content and Internal Linking

Orphaned content are pages on your website that do not have any internal links connecting them. This makes it difficult for users to find, and harder for search engines to crawl. In this process, you need to determine what pages you want to be found, deleted, or optimized for search engines.

 

Conclusion:

Utilizing internal links correctly is incredibly important in optimizing the success of your website and boosting your content through search engines. If you follow the strategies and tips outlined above with the implementation of internal links, your SEO and users will thank you.

 

REM offers a robust Search Engine Optimization service that can help your site rank higher in Google Search Results. Our expert team of digital marketers will make sure that your site has the correct SEO setup and meets all of Google’s requirements. We even take care of fixing your internal links for you!

 

Speak with our Marketing Director to see if REM can help you get noticed online.

 

 

Your website is a critical part of your organization’s story, marketing efforts and digital presence in the big bad online world. You spend time and money creating an online experience that would attract and drive certain behaviors from your target audiences. But somehow your site has a high “bounce rate.” So, what exactly does that mean?

 

Well, a bounce, in simple terms, means people are coming to one of your web pages and leaving without staying for less than 10 seconds. While they are there, they are not clicking on any links, your Call to Action (CTA), or another page.

 

The bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who do this versus those who interact with your site. The average bounce rate falls between 41% and 55% and the ideal is 26% to 40%. Anything above and even below could mean your site has a problem and is not performing to the best of its ability.

 

To find out your site’s bounce rate look at the individual channels and pages in the behavior column of Google Analytics. If you are scoring above 55%, “Houston we have a problem,” or even worse, we have several problems. It could mean bad content, misleading descriptions, a poor navigation experience or design. Most importantly it’s a sign that users are not doing what you want them to do on your site; they aren’t converting. And this can have an impact on your SEO rankings. In fact, one industry study found a strong relationship between time on site and rankings.

 

Sometimes a website can have a naturally high bounce rate. Therefore, it can be very important to check with a digital marketing specialist who can determine the cause. For example, what if your website has a name that is very similar or identical to another company in a different industry. ‘ABC cleaners’ could be a dry-cleaning company or a window washing company.

 

Another reason for a naturally high bounce rate would be if your city or street has the same name as another place. Websites in Cambridge, Ontario will sometimes get visitors from Cambridge, Massachusetts or Cambridge, England. Those visitors will naturally bounce once they realize they are on the same page.

 

Let’s get down to business and explore some of the top reasons your site could be failing to engage your audience and causing a legitimate bounce rate issue.

 

Three words: content, content, content

With so much information on the web it’s a rare thing for someone to accidently end up on your site. People use google to search for information and visit the sites they think have it. If your content doesn’t measure up, they’re leaving. Content must meet the users’ expectations, or they will bounce to another site.

 

Following a few basic rules can help:

 

1. Create content that matches with your visitors’ search intentions. Your website should focus on the reasons and problems a visitor may have and try to address them.
2. Keep your phrases short. Writing for the web is quite different than writing for a printed publication. Sentences should be short and include key words to improve your SEO rankings, especially in your headings.
3. Think about the user journey and improve internal linking. Where do you want them to go and what do you want them to do while they are on your site?
4. Invite visitors to your call-to-actions. Make it simple and easy.
5. Keep educating! Tell them about related blog content on your site and keep them longer.
6. Follow good design principles. Make your page scannable with easy-to-read headers. Break up your content with engaging images. Make sure your important information is loaded and visible within 3 seconds of the page coming up.

 

Look around for an honest opinion from a colleague, a professional copywriter or even a loyal customer to review your content and adjust accordingly. You may also consider hiring a writer or a good content strategist.

 

---

 

REM offers content marketing and blog writing as some of our digital marketing services. Our professional writers produce content that is engaging, and you don’t have to do anything, just review it once before we post it online. Speak to your REM representative or contact our Marketing Director for a free, no-obligation conversation about how we can help.

 

---

 

Slow Load

Studies show the average online attention span is about 8 seconds. And on top of that, most people will leave if your site doesn’t load in less than 3.9 seconds! You don’t want your visitors to spend those precious seconds of their attention watching a throbber (the loading icon), or they’re going to bounce. There are millions of other web pages. Patience is not an online virtue.

 

Rethink whether you want that big video file to automatically play and take a closer look at those scripts. Take advice from the Google and run a Page Speed Insights test to find out their recommendations. Other tools include Lighthouse reports, Pingdom or GTmetrix. If your page is taking longer than a few seconds you need to fix it.

 

Keeping it Real

Real titles and real descriptions matter. Your title tag and meta descriptions play a key role in setting visitor expectations. When your content doesn’t line up, people bounce. Nobody likes to be misled, nor do they have time for it. Accurate titles and descriptions are necessary; consider these your first impression. If you falsely advertise, they will simply return to the search engine and go to the next best page.

 

Good meta descriptions do the following:

 

1. Explain the organization or the purpose of the page - Provide information a user is looking for like the product or services offered, the location and operating hours.
2. Pull direct content - Think of using a quote or perhaps the first couple of sentences that summarize the content of the page. Chances are a lot of your key words are found there.
3. Summarize - If you primarily sharing information, Google suggests summarizing the entire page. This will give search engines more opportunities to find your page.
4. Share differentiators - If your site is supporting a specific product, share what makes it the best in your description.

 

The lesson here is to be accurate and be descriptive. This will bring the right visitors to your site and encourage them to stay.

 

Navigation

Nothing is more frustrating than landing on a page and not being able to find the menu, the next step or good grief, the link to buy to your product. Poor design creates problems for users who want to browse your site resulting in, you guessed it, the bounce!

 

If your content is good, your titles and descriptions on point maybe it’s time to hire a designer to identify potential issues. Work with them to ensure the menu, links and any CTAs are self-explanatory and easily accessible. This will improve your user experience and your bounce rate.

 

Be friendly to the phone

Global web traffic on mobile phones has surged in recent years and as of November 2022, 60.28 percent of all web traffic came through mobile phones. If your website is not mobile friendly you are doing your organization a huge disservice.

 

Consider these common mistakes of unfriendly websites:

 

• Content is too wide, going past the screen
• Links are too close making them inaccessible on small screens
• Text is too small, meaning your users are spending too much time trying to accommodate your content

 

Websites that are not optimized for mobile do not look good on mobile devices AND they probably don’t load very fast, either. Take the time to explore the site from your own mobile device or to find out how your site measures up by trying Google's mobile friendly test. Alienating the majority of web traffic is only going to increase your site’s bounce rates.

 

REM designs beautiful, user-friendly websites for businesses who want a great user-experience and a fast-loading website design.

 

Error 404

We’ve all been there and usually we give it our best effort and click that link a few times just to be sure. If your bounce rate is really, really high, with visitors only spending a few seconds on the page, chances are they’ve hit a blank page or 404 error message.

To replicate a user’s experience try looking at the page from popular browsers, Safari on desktop and Chrome on mobile. Then find the time or expertise to help you fix broken links, errors, and ensure those blank pages stop your visitors from bouncing.

 

Don’t ask for the kitchen sink

Only ask for what you really need. If you try to collect too much information from your visitors,’ they will bounce! Requesting maiden names, social security numbers and financial information will deter people from staying on the site. People are wary and they have the right to be with the number of online phishing scams out there. The SlashNext State of Phishing report found over 255 million attacks in over six months in 2022 alone! 

 

Take the time to build trust and inform your users. If they stay and learn, your bounce rate will go down and your SEO rankings will go up.

 

Never ignore your bounce rate

How long someone stays on a page can help you determine the success or failure of a website. SEO isn’t just about key words, titles and tagging. It’s about strategic content and design, navigation, and most importantly engagement. Just think about how much time, energy and money went into building your site. Start with those critical pages and try a few improvements. Check back in a few weeks and see if they’re making a difference.

 

You want to know that those efforts are paying off and you’re living up to your visitors’ expectations. Monitoring your bounce rate can be a simple and effective way to take your site to the next level!

 

---

 

If you don’t have the time to do this yourself, or in-house, speak to your REM representative or our Marketing Director so our expert team can help take this off your plate. You can then focus on running your business and helping clients, while we take care of making sure people can find you online.

 

 

Email marketing is an attractive, simple, and effective strategy for entrepreneurs to grow their business, sell a product or service, or connect with their customers in a genuine way. Not only is it relatively low cost, but it is simple to create in a short lead time (we’ve all been there!), the results are easy to measure and the impact it can have on your engagement with your customers is tangible. All of this, of course, if done well.

 

Through our research, we learned that 61% of consumers prefer to be contacted through email, that 99% of users check their email every day and that for every $1 spent, email marketing has an ROI of $42. Those are promising numbers!

 

A successful email marketing campaign includes planning, audience segmentation, personalization, and a strong call to action. Above all, the most essential thing is that a genuine connection needs to be made between the sender and the receiver. It is through relatable, thoughtful, and valuable content that your emails will be opened and engaged with time and time again. Otherwise, you can risk your carefully crafted email ending up in the spam folder, or worse, unsubscribed from.

 

To prevent that from happening, below are ten tried-and-true ways to genuinely stand out in your customers’ inboxes.

 

1. Create relatable content

 

A powerful and impactful email campaign goes beyond numbers (though measuring those is certainly important) and aims to add value to the customer. It is often forgotten that customers do not owe anyone their attention — it is earned.

 

“Permission is earned through quality content and offers, genuine interest in and deep understanding of consumer preferences/needs, and a consistent track record that builds trust. Keep the trust, keep the permission, keep the customer. It’s not just the volume or brilliance of content that matters, it’s how that content relates to them. If content is not relevant, it’s nothing more than a waste of your time and a reason for the consumer to take away permission for ongoing interaction with you.” explains Ted Rubin.

 

Relatable content depends on who your audience is and what they deem valuable. If your brand promotes selling sustainable products, one way to empower and educate customers is to provide them with further information or research about climate change and why their purchase would make a difference. If you are a lifestyle YouTuber and your brand focuses on motherhood and home living, one way to provide value would be to showcase time-saving hacks or meal-planning ideas. In short, anything that you share with your audience that could better their livelihood, empower them to make a change, save them time or money, or simply provide them with comfort or wisdom is relatable and valuable in their eyes.

 

2. Keep subject lines short

The purpose of the subject line is to grab the customer’s attention. Email subject lines will get cut off if they are too long, particularly on mobile devices. We know that 46% of opened emails happen on mobile devices, so using short subject lines with fewer than 50 characters ensures that people scanning their emails will open yours. Also, stay away from clickbait titles. Not only will it leave a sour aftertaste in your customers' mouths, but it will also dilute your credibility as a brand.

 

3. Use a reputable email provider

Using a less reputable email marketing campaign provider will hinder your chances of landing in your customers’ inboxes. Do your research before committing to one platform. REM offers a newsletter module, and our designers can create a beautiful newsletter template for you. Speak to your REM Customer Success Team member and ask them for more information on setting up your newsletter.

 

4. Find the right time to send out your emails

The best time to send emails depends on your audience. According to aggregate data, the most likely times for customers to open emails are 10:00am on Tuesdays and 3:00pm on Thursdays. Emails sent at these times will likely deliver results. For optimal results, however, you need to study your specific email lists and campaign analytics. Segment the lists into subgroups of customers based on feedback and interactions with your content. This primary research should drive your email timing, not general industry data.

 

5. Personalize emails through market segmentation

Unlike traditional advertising, email marketing reaches its audience every time. In fact, 99% of consumers check their email every day. This allows the perfect opportunity to create a genuine connection with your audience through market segmentation. In other words, you can tailor your message for each target audience.

 

Say you’re selling apartment units in a condo building. By separating your audience into buyers, investors and realtors, you can reach each audience and provide them with clear, valuable information that is pertinent to their area of interest.

 

Another common way to do this is by age group. We know that different generations intake information differently. Ivan Veta, SEO specialist at Scopic Software, found this to be a helpful method for his clients, as it allowed them to switch up their strategies according to generational marketing preferences.

 

“Our learnings thus far have concluded that millennials react positively to campaigns that contain infographics,” said Veta, whereas “Gen X and baby boomers readers tend to click on action buttons to read more about a certain topic.”

 

By personalizing emails through market segmentation, you’re providing tangible value to each audience and connecting with them in a way that is genuine and thoughtful.

 

6. Understand the 3 Rs of email marketing

On any given day, a customer’s inbox is flooded with emails, promotions, sales, or inquiries. Consider their activities across all social media platforms and you can see how easy it is for someone to experience content fatigue. A customer’s attention is their most asset and yet it is pulled into hundreds of different directions daily — often before they’ve even had their first cup of coffee!

 

Because of this, Alice Elliott warns digital marketers and entrepreneurs to understand the 3 Rs of email marketing — content must be researched, relevant and relatable.

 

Rather than relying on algorithms or automated systems, she encouraged entrepreneurs to do the hard work of collecting email addresses that are a suitable match for their brand. While the fishnet approach works for certain brands, it is more valuable in the long run to create a curated list of loyal customers.

 

Once you’ve gathered a curated list of email addresses, ensure that your product, service, or content is relevant to this list. The journey between your content and the “unsubscribe” button truly lies in the relevance of the content.

 

Lastly, avoid the “spray and pray” approach to email marketing. Rather than throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks with the customers, focus that attention on writing a considerate, relevant, and valuable campaign.

 

7. Offer valuable solutions

For your email marketing campaign to have any true impact on the customer, it must offer some valuable solution to their pain point. Whether it is offering your decluttering services to an overtired mother who simply lacks the time to tackle that area of their home or providing a discount code to your audience for an upcoming sale, finding ways to offer value goes a long way with your customers.

 

8. Be authentic

In a world consumed by filters and smoke and mirrors, it is beyond refreshing to interact with an individual or a brand that is unapologetic in their values, beliefs, or morals. That authenticity is what draws like-minded people together, builds brand loyalty, creates community and a feeling of belonging, and converts leads into customers. Best of all, it is in an authentic and genuine way.

 

9. Include a call to action

With all this focus on getting the customer’s attention, it’s easy to forget the initial intention of the email. Are you reminding them that they have an item in their cart? Alerting them of a sale? Promoting a new product? A clever subject line may improve your open rate, but to increase engagement, you must increase your click-through rate or the percentage of subscribers following email links to your webpage. This is where you’ll need a call to action (CTA).

 

Developing a call to action can be as simple as including a direct request. “You can’t expect your audience to guess what you want them to do next,” said Kendra Jones, a PR and marketing strategist specializing in influencer marketing. “Placing concise calls to action, such as ‘Click here to download your free guide,’ that are hyperlinked to the opt-in increased my click-through rate by 18%.”

 

10. Optimize for mobile

Since 70% of emails are opened on a mobile device, and your CTAs all lead back to your site, mobile optimization is crucial.

 

Here’s what mobile-optimized looks like:

• All relevant text can be read from a single screen without having to pan
• The email and landing page load quickly
• There are clear, tap-able buttons
• Font type, size, and color are easy on the eyes

 

Email marketing is a valuable tool to connect with your customers in a genuine way and stand out in their inbox among the influx of content competing for their attention. If done right, email marketing can convert leads into lifetime customers. It can provide education, entertainment, value, and solutions. Before you send out your next email marketing campaign, make sure you pull up this blog post to double-check that you’ve accomplished all ten recommendations before hitting “send”.

 

Speak with your REM Customer Success Team or Sales Rep for more information about setting up your own newsletter and start reaping the benefits of great email marketing.

 

 

Imagine this: you’ve spent countless hours and a good chunk of money designing a custom website. You’ve thought about every small detail. You’ve mapped out how the user will interact with your website. You’ve written a thoughtful, clear, and conversion-driven copy. You’ve chosen between dozens of fonts, images and designs and you’ve arranged them just so. You’ve integrated third-party plugins to track analytics, capture emails and take care of back-end details. Now, you publish.

 

Your website crashes before it even has a chance to shine. Well, it turns out you are not alone in this situation.

 

According to the Third Parties chapter of their 2021 Web Almanac report, “a staggering 94.4% of mobile sites and 94.1% of desktop sites use at least one third-party resource.” They also found out that “45.9% of requests on mobile and 45.1% of requests on desktop are third-party requests.”

 

Your website may be using more third-party services than you realize. These services use requests to external hosts (servers you have no control over) to deliver JavaScript framework libraries, custom fonts, advertising content, marketing analytics trackers, and more. These third-party resources load in your visitor’s browser while your web page is loading, even if your visitors don’t realize it. They may be critical to the site functionality, or they have been added as an afterthought, but all of them can potentially affect how your users interact with your website and the overall functionality of the site.

 

You may have a lean, agile, responsive site design only to find it gradually loaded down with more and more “extras” that although were designed to enhance the back-end experience and analytics, often hinder functionality.

 

Recent research finds that third-party plugins could be hindering your website’s performance more than helping it. In this blog post we will be exploring five reasons why plugins hurt your website’s performance and a simple, integrated solution — go custom. After all, a custom website deserves custom solutions.

 

1. Third-party plugins cause conflict

A main cause of errors on your website is conflicts between two or more WordPress plugins that you may have installed. A conflict happens when two plugins are trying to accomplish the same thing in the same way, which causes one or both of them to malfunction. Third-party plugins are a major source of security vulnerabilities and website performance bottlenecks.

 

A perfect example of this is the Yoast SEO WordPress plugin. The Yoast SEO WordPress plugin version 19.7 was discovered to contain a conflict with other plugins which resulted in websites experiencing fatal errors. To make matters worse, this is the third time this year that this has happened.

 

To find a solution to this problem, WordPress recently announced a proposal to take a more proactive approach toward third-party plugins to improve security and site performance. What is being discussed is a plugin checker that will make sure that plugins are following best practices.

 

"While there are fewer infrastructure requirements for plugins than there are for themes, there are certainly some requirements that are worth verifying, and in any case, checking against security and performance best practices in plugins would be just as essential as it is in themes. However, as of today, there is no corresponding plugin checker” explained the team at WordPress.

 

One of the main problems is that there is a multitude of plugins available created to boost website performance, track SEO, user activity, etc. The intent is a good one. However, because of the large number of plugins available, multiple are used on websites simultaneously, making it hard to know which combination of them is creating conflict with each other or with the website’s custom coding. Another issue is the need to periodically update plugins, which again opens the door to possible conflict and website malfunctioning.

 

Many of our customers come to us with this exact issue, beyond frustrated and unsure of what to do next. We have transitioned each one of them to our custom-built CMS, [email protected], and have taken the reigns on managing all development and updates in-house, eliminating the need for third-party vendors. Our customers have realized the benefit of having a stable and custom solution to their problem, ensuring that their website is performing optimally, and not needing to compromise on any key features. Not only has this saved them time and money, but it has also ensured that no customers were lost because of their website’s lack of performance.

 

2. Some themes are incompatible with third-party plugins

The reality is this — plugins are built by various developers. This means that sometimes a website theme will be incompatible with a certain plugin. Although the plugin itself might have dozens of features, if one or two of those features don’t work properly with your theme, your website will not function well. You could try and troubleshoot each individual plugin, but that is a time-consuming and often fruitless task. Surely not how you want to spend your working hours!

 

3. Third-party plugins can be discontinued without notice

One of the most concerning aspects of using a third-party plugin is that at any moment it could be discontinued. This would mean that you are essentially left to your own devices to troubleshoot the issue, find which plugin has been discontinued, search for an adequate replacement and then hope that the one you chose does not conflict with your custom-built theme. It’s truly a hassle and a real way to lose time, money and potential customers. There is ample uncertainty in our world, but this is one that is truly avoidable.

 

4. Third-party plugins can slow down your website

Few things are more frustrating to a user than a sluggish or non-responsive website. The culprit for this is often the number of third-party plugins running on your website simultaneously. The reality is that any plugin that loads resources (such as JavaScript or CSS files) will slow down your website. Consider that you’re usually running multiple at once, and your website could be experiencing some real fatigue and performance issues. One temporary solution for this would be to become selective about which plugins are essential to your website and eliminate the rest. Unfortunately, this does not solve the rest of the problems we have covered in this blog post. The wise solution would be to allow a professional team of website developers to handle the functionality of your website, to ensure that you are not spending your time down the rabbit hole and potentially losing customers in the process.

 

5. Unexpected costs can arise

Developers earn an income by providing a free service for a limited or trial amount of time, and then charging the user once that time is up. In most cases, third-party plugins operate the same way. Most developers offer a free trial for up to a year and provide ample support during this time. After that period, however, you may have to pay to continue using the plugin or try to find support elsewhere. Additionally, some developers will charge customers for continued updates to their plugins. This can be a major issue because WordPress tends to change its core code often to improve performance and security. Outdated plugins can conflict with the new version of WordPress and cause issues on your site.

 

We believe a strong case can be made for the fact that third-party plugins can wreak havoc on your custom-built website, costing you time, and money and potentially losing customers. Finding where the conflict is between your theme and the plugin (and which plugin at that!) can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. With constantly changing and evolving plugins, updates to both the plugin and WordPress as a platform, unexpected website crashes and unexpected costs, this can be a frustrating experience at best.

 

There is a better way. At REM Web Solutions, we have removed the guesswork from the situation and have created a custom CMS, [email protected] Because of the nature of our work, we handle all the development and updates in-house, eliminating the need for third-party vendors. This stable and reliable solution can allow you to breathe easier knowing that your website is performing optimally, your users will convert to customers because of the fluid navigation, and no more time and money is spent troubleshooting an endless problem.

 

As we said, your custom website deserves a custom solution.

 

 

Professional writing is something we all do dozens of times a day; but how much thought do we really give it? The way we write in a professional setting sets the tone for not only our selves but the company we represent. If we have spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, or are simply too wordy that can make a negative impression on those we are communicating with.

 

Everything we write in our day to day working lives, from emails to social media posts all reflect upon us and our companies. Therefore, we need to make sure we are coming across as best we can. Writing matters, and many people have trouble remembering how much it can impact us. Writing is how we tell stories, make deals, convey history; it is the fundamental for human communication. Writing in the workplace or in a business setting is no exception.

 

Marketing Materials

Marketing Materials covers a wide range of writing tasks: from sales copy on websites to social media posts to blogs on your own website. Marketing is the first thing a prospective client or the general public will see of your company, so you need to make sure it is well received. If your copy is riddled with spelling errors or typos it sends a bad message.

 

First you need to look at your general advertising copy: Newspapers, billboards, websites, etc. Figure out the message you are trying to send and who you want to see it. Make sure it is easy to read from far away or in small print text. Avoiding errors will help with this, it will allow your potential clients to read it easier.

 

You also need to consider visual aids. If you are worried about not being able to fully get your point across without having one large text block, consider pictures. Using visual aids such as graphs or photos of your product can help people better understand what you are trying to say without having to read as much.

 

Next, look at your social media posts: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Even though this may seem as a more casual setting or form of advertising, it still matters. Social media these days reaches a massive audience base and can spread your message further than you originally thought.

 

Posts can be shared and sent to others across different platforms, so you need to be careful with what you say. Anytime you are posting anything you are representing your company. Your opinion has no place in the work environment and so it should not have a place on the company social media. Spelling, grammar, and sentence structure errors all also matter, so make sure to triple check before posting.

 

Finally, look at personal marketing: Networking, your personal website, client communications, etc. Most people do not think of any of these as marketing, however, when it comes to the professional world, everything is marketing. Anything you say or do regarding your company can have a big impact. If you are making a blog post for your companies' website, you need to make sure that you have no mistakes. The smallest mistake in your writing can defer potential clients.

Marketing is the first look a potential client or the general public has at your company. You need to make sure that from the very start your company comes across as professional.

 

Proposals

Business proposals are everything when it comes to first contact. Whether you are sending one to your boss for a new project or to a new client; they are the first point of contact people will get from you. You need to make sure that you are coming across professionally, clearly, and to the point. There are a few things you need to be thinking about when writing a proposal:

 

1. What is your purpose? Think about what you are trying to achieve by sending this proposal and make sure that is your soul focus and topic point.
2. Who is your audience? Is it your boss? Is it a new client? Your audience matters as you need to know who you are talking to. If you are writing for your boss, you do not need to explain every facet of the company and its policies. However, if you are writing to a first-time client who knows nothing about what the company does or how they run things, you may need to explain more.
3. Stick to the point. Do not go off on tangents. You do not need to be talking about everything all at once, all that does is confuse the reader and deter them from wanting to read more.
4. Use active writing. What that means is do not sound passive. If you are hovering around a point or avoiding getting straight to the point, it can come off as too passive. Now I am not saying go out and tell your boss or client what to do and when to do it as if you are in charge. But what I am saying is you should be straightforward. You do not want to come off as if you do not know what you are talking about.
5. Avoid text blocks. Whenever possible, avoid long overly wordy text blocks. No one wants to read a three-page proposal with no breaks. They will get bored or lost and give up reading it all together. Keep your paragraphs, if possible, between 3-5 sentences and break up big groups of text with new headers.

 

Your proposals are very important, and they can make or break a potential new deal with a client or cost you that promotion. Be careful with what you say and how you say it. Most importantly make sure you are considering all these points when writing.

 

Emails

I am sure anyone reading this has written at least a handful of emails throughout their lives. Emails are the foundation that keeps businesses going. It is how everyone in the professional world communicates, whether it is with clients or your boss or your colleagues. However, not everyone thinks of emails as business writing, but it is.

 

Sending emails may seem a boring mundane task you have got to do a hundred times throughout the day, but they are everything. Most people will quickly type out an email and send it off without giving it another thought. The way you write emails can make or break your entire professional career. Clients and your boss will forever remember if you have typos or grammatical errors in your emails constantly.

 

It has been proven that people are less likely to want to continue to work with or in the future with a company that sends poorly written emails. Granted one or two occasional mistakes is simply just human error and most people will ignore it. However, constant and unchecked mistakes is seen as lazy and unprofessional and can cause major issues for you in the future.

When writing emails, make sure to proofread them. Now yes, I understand that most of you are very busy at work and many of you have better things to do with your time than re-read an email. However, it will help you immensely in the long run.

 

Once you do it a few times it will feel routine and less like a burden or extra task you must do. It will also allow you to go back and fix any mistakes you may have made before sending it and potentially coming across as unprofessional to a new client. There are reason teachers tried to engrain it into us all throughout school, it works, and it helps.

 

Internal Communications

Internal communication may be the last thing you think of when needing to sound professional, but everything counts. Internal communication in this sense refers to communication throughout a company with other employees, whether that be your boss, colleague, or subordinate. When you are speaking, or in this case writing emails or likewise you need to sound professional and like you deserve to be there.

 

Writing in the workplace or professional setting is like proving you know what you are talking about. Everything in the way you present yourself matters in a professional setting. You would not show up to work in your pajamas, in the same way you need to make sure you are communicating properly.

 

Poor writing cannot only affect your performance, but the performance of the people you work with. If you are not clear in what you are saying or make mistakes and do not correct them, it can affect everyone else around you. For example: if you are emailing your partner on a project at work and tell them that “79% of clients reach out for future projects” when you actually meant “97% of clients reach out for future projects”, that can greatly affect not only you but your partner as well. Simple mistakes can make or break your career, so you need to be careful.

 

The way you talk to anyone, whether it be a client, your boss, or a colleague matters. You need to make sure you are writing everything from emails to proposals correctly and clearly.

 

 

Everyone needs Search Engine Optimization.

 

Search engine optimization is a constantly evolving area of expertise. Even before the rapid changes brought on by the pandemic, we would see daily or weekly updates on SEO strategy.

 

Every business owner knows that showing up on the first page of Google is important to getting traffic and therefore customers to their website. Google has held the dominant search engine position for years, still accounting for over 85% of all searches done online.

 

Avoiding search engine optimization and relying on word of mouth or print advertising is no longer a feasible option for reaching new generations of consumers who make most of their buying decisions online.

 

Trust REM to help you with your SEO

At REM, we help our customers to get noticed online. Part of that process, after building you a beautifully designed website, is optimising your site to show up in search results. We work hard for each of our clients to improve their PageRank on a steady basis.

 

To keep up with the constantly changing world of SEO, our team must be constantly learning from the SEO community. The process is even more difficult because the main companies, like Google, don’t give out their ‘trademarked’ information.

 

When Google releases an update to their search algorithms, the entire SEO community braces for the impact. Then the SEO managers start to discuss the changes and see what affects the updates have had on their sites.

 

There have been multiple times where SEO updates have completely changed a sites PageRank, but when you look at the official update, there won’t be anything that should affect the site. We do wonder sometimes if Google tries to sneak out unofficial updates, this is always a hot topic of discussion in SEO groups.

 

So how do we do it?

First, our team is fully trained on all the basics of SEO. Having a complete and thorough grasp of the fundamentals is important to start playing around with the nuances of SEO.

 

If you need to brush up on specific topics relating to the world of SEO, we can’t recommend the site Search Engine Journal enough. Anyone doing digital marketing should read the SEO articles on this site.  The main link to the site is: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/

 

However, beginners should start by reading their SEO Basics eBook:

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-guide/?itm_source=site-search&itm_medium=site-search&itm_campaign=site-search

 

Follow that with this post on the basics for a successful SEO campaign. This post will also start to bring all the basic concepts into focus and show you how to apply them to your site:

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-basics-to-be-successful/343811/?itm_source=site-search&itm_medium=site-search&itm_campaign=site-search

 

Once you have the basics down

Okay, you’ve read through all the basics. Now it’s time to start to narrow down your knowledge to the area that is going to help your site the most.

 

Ask yourself what your site needs first. Should you focus on Mobile SEO because all your clients visit your site on their mobile devices? Or perhaps Local SEO should be your focus as most of your customers live within your immediate vicinity?

 

Here are some examples of the menu options on Search Engine Journal’s site:

• ENTERPRISE SEO
• GOOGLE ALGORITHM UPDATES
• INTERNATIONAL SEO
• LINK BUILDING
• LOCAL SEO
• MOBILE SEO
• ON-PAGE SEO
• TECHNICAL SEO
• VERTICAL SEO

 

Obviously, if you have the time and inclination, you should try to read all these sections as they can be very helpful to your overall understanding of SEO best practices.

 

Google algorithm updates

This is a quick list of sites we read just specifically for Google Algorithm updates. Each time a new update comes out, you might need to adjust your SEO strategy or update your site to meet new requirements. If you don’t, you could suddenly lose all the SEO work you’ve done.

 

• https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-algorithm-history/
• https://searchengineland.com/google-seo-news-google-algorithm-updates
• https://www.seroundtable.com/category/google-updates

 

Daily blogs for the latest updates

Here is a list of the websites that we visit each day for the latest information. Some sites don’t update daily, so it’s good to have a large list of favourite sites, and then you should have some new information everyday.

 

If it does seem quiet, don’t get complacent, the next Google update could result in hundreds of posts that you need to read. So, if it’s quiet, use that time to hone up on fundamentals or explore new areas of interest in the SEO field.

 

Search Engine Journal

“Search Engine Journal is dedicated to producing the latest search news, the best guides and how-to’s for the SEO and marketer community.”

 

This is easily one of our favourite resources. The articles are well organized and easy to read and understand. In fact, this is the first site I give to our marketing team. If you can’t grasp the concepts on this blog, you’re really going to struggle with SEO overall. Remember that REM can help do your SEO for you if you are already frustrated by this point.

 

Semrush Blog

“Semrush's digital marketing blog is an innovative resource for content strategy, content marketing, SEO, SEM, PPC, social media and more.”

 

Semrush is best known for its suite of SEO tools that can help you to do keyword research, site audits, and other key SEO tasks. The Semrush blog has a huge amount of very helpful SEO knowledge which you can learn from even if you don’t use their software. They do a good job of giving general advice which isn’t specific to just their tools.

 

Search Engine Land

“Breaking news, updates, insights, analysis and guides covering SEO, PPC and all things search from the Search Engine Land team and subject matter experts.”

 

A top site for getting the latest trends, breaking stories, and cutting-edge news in the SEO world. We highly recommend following the site or their newsletter so that you get notifications as soon as new content is available.

 

The Ahrefs Blog

“The Ahrefs Blog. Expand your SEO and marketing knowledge with detailed tutorials and case studies. The benefits are obvious: free, passive traffic to your website, month after month.”

 

A highly popular SEO blog, Ahrefs has been around since 2011. The author, Tim Soulo, has written top SEO content for years. He has created some of the most shared content and some of his posts can generate thousands of links, comments, and shares. If you want to learn about SEO, you need to be reading this blog because your competitor probably is.

 

The Moz Blog

“The industry's top wizards, doctors, and other experts offer their best advice, research, how-tos, and insights—all in the name of helping you level-up your SEO and online marketing skills.”

 

The Moz blog has been around since 2004, but it welcomed new management around 2014. The site has evolved into a top resource on the web for anything related to online marketing. The main focus of the site is definitely SEO, and it is the home to the largest online SEO community. This is a great blog and community if you want to be an SEO superstar.

 

Search Engine Watch

“Search Engine Watch provides news and information about search engines and search engine marketing. Search Engine Watch was started by Danny Sullivan in 1996.”

 

Search Engine Roundtable

“A well-rounded view on search engines and search engine marketing from five segments of the Web population represented by senior members of the major SEO/SEM forums on the Internet.”

 

This blog does a great job of keeping you up to date on the conversations and news happening behind the scenes in the world of SEO. The site curates the most interesting threads (conversations) taking place in SEM (search engine marketing) forums on the web. They bring in experts to summarize the threads and provide even more detail.

 

Neil Patel’s Blog

“Your #1 resource for digital marketing tips, trends, and strategy to help you build a successful online business.”

 

If you work in the field of SEO, marketing, or blogging, then you have probably already heard of Neil Patel. His articles are very easy to read, and he breaks down complicated process into easy-to-digest nuggets of SEO goodness. We highly recommend reading and watching as much of his content as you possibly can to up your SEO game.

 

Yoast SEO

“Yoast helps you with your website optimization, whether it be through our widely used SEO software or our online SEO courses: we're here to help.”

 

Yoast is a very popular SEO plug-in for WordPress websites. If your website is built on WordPress, there is a high probability that you are using Yoast for your SEO. REM uses a CMS called [email protected] which let’s you do SEO optimization without an additional plug-in, but for WordPress users this is the best option available. Luckily, the blog covers all SEO issues and trends and not just ones specific to WordPress. It is still definitely worth the read.

 

Backlinko Blog

“Backlinko is an SEO blog that focuses on actionable SEO tips, strategies and case studies.”

 

This blog used to have more regular posts until it was recently bought out by a larger competitor. The blog has a wealth of knowledge in the past articles, including some of the best blog posts on how to optimise and write content for SEO.

 

Raven

“The #1 Source for Internet Marketing Agencies. We write tips for digital marketers and we create beginner through advanced guides for search engine optimization.”

 

Searchmetrics

“In our blog we write about current issues in the areas of online marketing and SEO and show interesting statistics and trends.”

 

Cognitive SEO

“We have written and optimized - for our own blog or other pages - thousands of articles and SEO friendly blog posts in the last 10 years.”

 

Google Search Central Blog

“The Google Search Central Blog is where you can find official Google Search core algorithm updates, announcements of new Google Search features, and SEO best practices. Subscribe to our RSS feed and get the latest updates in your favorite feed reader.”

 

In Conclusion

We hope this article has helped give you a viable resource of blogs to follow as you work on your SEO journey. The sheer volume of content and the constantly changing best practices mean that you need to know most of these tactics to be competitive with other sites.

 

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the weight of how much work this could be, remember that REM can help you by doing your site’s SEO for you. Our costs are designed to fit most budgets and the SEO work is completely hands-off so you can focus on selling or other important areas of your growth.

 

Speak to your REM Sales rep today, or use our contact form to speak to our Marketing Director to get started on how to get your site noticed online.

 

 

One of the most effective ways you can make your small business stand out and generate client interest is by starting a blog for your company. Although it may seem intimidating at first, starting a blog does not have to be a complicated process.

 

Business blogging and content marketing are essential for businesses that want to thrive in a digital retailer space. Google has clearly stated that content, especially valuable content updated on a regular basis, is a key criterion to ranking in search pages.

 

---

 

Below are some tips and necessary steps to help you start your own business blog. But don’t forget that REM offers blog writing services to supplement your own blogging or even blog for you. Each blog is custom written for your company and ghost-written, so you get full ownership of the content.

 

1. Register a domain

The first step that you should begin with is registering a domain name. To do so, simply visit a domain registrar, type in the domain you want to purchase and pay the required fee. Remember, you won’t be able to buy any domain, only one that isn’t already registered by another business or person.

 

If you already have a business website, speak to your designer about adding a blog to your existing site. REM customers have the option to get a blogging module during their initial design or add one later. Speak to one of our sales reps to discuss your options for adding a blog to your custom business website.

 

2. Select a content management system

There are countless content management systems that you can choose for your blog.

 

Some popular options include:

 

[email protected]

REM’s own custom CMS system has all the blogging features you might need built right into the module.

 

Blogger

A free Google product that has been influential in the world of online publishing since it was established in 1999. Blogger is simple, and it can be linked with all your Google accounts.

 

Ghost

Ghost is a great choice for businesses looking for an intuitive dashboard and built-in SEO features. There is a free version of the platform, Ghost Open-Source, and a monthly subscription option for more advanced features.

 

Tumblr

Although it’s known as a social media website, Tumblr offers a user-friendly interface that’s ideal for blog posting. It’s a good choice for incorporating trending subjects and memes if you’re looking to incorporate a casual tone to your blog, and best of all, it’s free to use.

 

3. Implement an editing tool

Nobody wants to read blog posts that are filled with spelling and grammatical errors. To catch mistakes before they make it onto your site, consider implementing an editing tool. Grammarly is a reliable option, and although there is a paid version of the editing add-on, the free version will likely be enough to cover any common errors that might pop up in your blog.

 

4. Consider a content calendar

If you’re already familiar with social media calendars, then this concept isn’t much different. A content calendar for your blog would include blog post ideas, pitches, the timelines for completing each of your posts, and the publishing dates. This will help you stay organized and keep up to date with your posts.

 

5. Send out an email newsletter

Emails newsletters are an incredibly effective and simple way to get the word out to your current and potential clients about your blog. You can send out a weekly newsletter with updates about recent posts, and a sneak peek into the newest content on your blog. Consider utilizing a platform like Mailchimp to help design, set up, and schedule your newsletter.

 

[email protected] has a newsletter module which you can add on to your existing site or new custom build. Our talented, in-house, designers can make a gorgeous template and then our Customer Success Team can walk you through how to edit and send them out on a regular basis.

 

6. Use Google Analytics Dashboard

The Google Analytics Dashboard is a hugely helpful tool in helping you track and review the statistics of your blog posts. You will be able to look at information like the number of people visiting your site, where they’re located, and how long they’re staying on your web pages.

 

Speak with our Marketing Director to learn more about digital marketing and monitoring your traffic on your sites.

 

7. Write engaging content

The key to a successful blog is the content. People will not want to stay and read your posts if they’re not written well, and the subject matter isn’t engaging. Try to think outside of the box with your topics, and make sure that each post is thoroughly edited.

 

People will want to stay on your site if they see that your posts are unique, thoughtful, and offer valuable information that they would not be able to receive the same way anywhere else. Standing out in a highly competitive space can be challenging, but if you put the work in to make your content shine, you’ll start to see the benefits of prioritizing it–and your customers will be grateful for it.

 

8. Have a cohesive theme in mind

It’s necessary to have a plan of action in mind when creating your blog and to think about the goals you want to achieve in the process. You don’t want your blog to be all over the place and inconsistent, so strategize a theme, or at least central points, that you want to regularly incorporate into your posts.

 

---

 

Now that you know some of the basic steps, what are the benefits of starting a blog? There are a number of positive reasons you should be bringing your blog to life, but here are some of the ways your business could be benefit from a blog:

 

1. Leads

Although this is not something that will happen overnight, creating a blog is a great opportunity to generate leads. Each post you make opens the possibility of reaching a potential client, and if your content is well-written, consistent, and reliable, it’s more likely you will start accumulating people who rely on your business.

 

Building trust and authority (read more below) takes time, but it’s worth it when trying to establish your business as a trustworthy source.

 

2. Traffic

Creating blog content is an excellent way to gain more traffic on your site. Generating more content is the key to ranking high on Google. Combining business blogging with social media will increase the amount of search engine results your business receives online, and as a result, boost your website traffic.

 

3. Authority

Blogging can help establish authority for your business as a strong figure in a competitive industry. By creating an engaging blog with content that demonstrates your thorough knowledge and expertise, more and more people will look to you for advice. Even smaller brands can benefit from providing helpful information to their target audiences.

 

Once you begin sharing well-written blog posts consistently, customers will rely on your business and go to you for services and assistance. Solve minor problems for your readers, and do it for free, and soon you’ll be hired to handle bigger jobs. Show your readers you are a Subject Matter Expert.

 

4. Make more money

Not only can your blog be the perfect method to reach clients and create more traffic on your site, but you can also earn money from it as well. Monetizing your blog can be an effective way to earn more money for your business.

 

Some ways you can make money from your blog include:

 

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing involves showing ads on your site for outside companies. If a visitor clicks on an ad link and makes a purchase, you will earn a commission from that sale e.g., Amazon.

 

Offering private ad space

Unlike Adsense, you can provide private ad space to other companies, like Nascar sponsorships.

 

Selling digital products

With little to no cost on physical materials, you can also use your blog to sell digital products. Well-written e-books, for example, can be a lucrative resource to sell.

 

Adsense ad revenue

Adsense is a popular form of ad revenue for websites. It’s important to note that with Adsense, however, you won’t receive a lot of additional money unless your website has a large amount of visitor traffic.

 

5. Highlighting products or services

A blog can serve as a great way to highlight products or services that your business would benefit from promoting. Create blog posts about specific products breaking down their benefits and top-selling points to encourage customers to purchase them.

 

6. Expanding on your business’ values and goals

It’s not always completely clear where a business may stand on important issues or what its values and goals are from a website alone. A blog can help expand on these points and provide clarity to your audience about the things your business stands behind.

 

In a socially conscious world, an increasing number of people care about the ethics of the places they choose to do business with and blogging can be an ideal way to share these viewpoints in detail.

 

7. Showcasing your knowledge

Blogging gives business owners the opportunity to showcase their knowledge and expertise about a variety of different topics. You want to prove to your customer base and any potential clients that you are knowledgeable about your field and can provide them with the best resources to prove it.

 

8. Sharing honestly

A blog can be the ideal platform to share posts transparently and honestly. Customers highly value honest companies who are open about their policies, products, and services. Blog posts can serve as a great means to do this and engage with your audience on a more personal, down to earth level that makes them trust you more.

 

Conclusion:

Creating a business blog is one of the most effective ways to expand the potential of your online presence and stand out in the highly competitive e-commerce space. Take the opportunity to develop a blog that showcases your knowledge with unique and engaging posts and establish yourself as a top competitor in the digital marketplace world.

 

Use these tips to get your blog started, and you’ll quickly see all the benefits business blogging has to offer! If you don’t have the time to tackle this on your own, or if you want to write one post a month while we write additional ones for you, speak to an REM sales rep today to get started.

 

 

Starting an E-commerce website doesn’t have to be challenging, but it does require planning, clear objectives, and an understanding of consumer psychology.

 

REM’s [email protected] offers a robust E-commerce platform with a suite of tools and shipping options to help get your online store up and running correctly from the start.

 

---

 

If you’re interested in building a successful E-commerce business, here are some of the things you should consider before you get started.

 

1. Select a platform

When you’re setting up your E-commerce website, one of the first things you should be thinking about is what hosting platform to use. Compare online store builders and weigh your options to see which one would work best for your business. Consider template and theme options, payment processing, Amazon integration, free trials, and built-in metrics when deciding on which one to use for your product sales.

 

The software you choose should ultimately be based on your customer experience goals, so be conscious of those needs when making your decision. Sit down with an REM sales rep to see if our E-commerce platform and a beautiful custom website will work for your needs.

 

2. What to sell

Although it may seem like an obvious, basic step, but having a clear idea of what you will be selling is essential to getting your E-commerce business started. Follow what’s trending and look at social media for inspiration.

 

3. Understanding your consumers

When you begin building your E-commerce business, you should have a comprehensive understanding of who your consumer base will be. Truly knowing the buyers who will be purchasing your wares will help you understand their habits and offer what they really want to see rather than what you want to sell.

 

4. Order tracking and simple checkout

Incorporating order tracking features and a shipping system into your website can save you on resources in the long run. As well, customers will be able to track, update, or cancel their orders easily.

 

Long checkout processes are often a huge turn-off to online buyers. If they’re purchasing something digitally, then they want the process to be faster than it would be in-person. Additionally, you can include a “guest checkout” option and bypass annoying your customers by forcing them to go through a mandatory sign-up for buying products.

 

If you want to gather names and emails, e.g., for a newsletter, make sure you give your customers an enticing reason to provide their information and make an account. Offer a 5% discount or maybe a free product, or cheaper shipping for site members vs. guest accounts.

 

5. Payment

You’re more likely to see success and an increase in sales if your E-commerce business accepts all methods of electronic payment including PayPal, Stripe, and Amazon Pay.

 

6. Social media plan

Create social media accounts for your online store to set up an additional online presence and get the word out about who you are and what you offer. This way, you’ll be able to connect on a personal level with potential consumers, advertise your products, and provide additional customer service support.

 

Create a social media plan that targets your main goals and addresses your business’ needs.

 

7. Customer support

Investing in top-notch customer service and buyer support is another crucial aspect of operating a successful E-commerce business. Live chat and Q&A features are popular options to engage with customers. Chatbots are also another feature to consider since they can provide 24/7 support when humans aren’t able to.

 

8. Mobile commerce

More and more people are opting to online shop using their phones. This is why it’s important that you optimize your website to function smoothly on mobile devices as well as on desktops. You want to create a strategy that ensures your mobile website works seamlessly between both options and buyers are able to use them easily, without any unnecessary roadblocks or errors that would prevent them from hitting the check-out button and purchasing the items in their cart.

 

9. Marketing campaigns

Marketing your E-commerce site can be one of the most challenging aspects of getting an online store off the ground. Creating a dependable marketing strategy will be essential in succeeding with your business.

 

Strike a balance with your marketing choices so you’re not relying too heavily on one strategy. Sit down with our Marketing Director to brainstorm some ideas on how to get your store noticed online. Even better, hire REM to do your digital marketing for you so you can focus on the other parts of your business.

 

10. Content management plan

Creating interesting content that users want to read is one of the most necessary steps in ensuring your online business is successful.

 

Tips to making good content:

• Write topics that are unique and engaging to new customers
• Make sure posts are easy to scan, and free of any errors
• Use a conversational, friendly tone
• Try to include interactive elements like links and videos

REM offers content and blog writing services to help improve your content. Improving your content will also help your rankings in Google. All of our content is ghost-written for your company, and you will own and can take full credit for the content.

 

11. User-friendliness

One of the most important factors of your website that you should be considering is its user-friendliness. You want your customers to be able to operate your site easily and not run into any unnecessary difficulties.

 

The longer a site takes to load, and the more challenging it is to navigate, the more likely it is that users won’t stay on it and will take their business elsewhere.

 

Tips to ensuring a website is user-friendly:

• Keep the design simple
• Use accessible language and a friendly tone
• Be mindful when choosing a colour palette
• Ensure the layout is straightforward to use
• Place your company logo on the top left
• Make your content easy to skim
• Include your business’ social media icons

 

12. Security measures

If you have an E-commerce business that promises to keep your customers’ personal information safe and secure, consumers will be able to trust and rely on you. A security badge is a way to make your website dependable.

 

Avoiding retail fraud for the sake of both customers’ and sellers’ safety should be one of the largest priorities you focus on when starting your E-commerce business. Make it clear to buyers that you genuinely care about protecting their emails, passwords, and credit card numbers.

 

13. Shipping products

An overwhelming majority of shoppers will abandon their carts for online purchases before they checkout due to additional fees like high shipping costs.

 

To try and avoid buyers leaving their carts before purchase here are some things you can do:

• Choose the best shipping method at a lower cost
• Be clear and up-front about shipping costs from the beginning of the purchasing process
• Offer free shipping on certain items or after a shopper spends a specific amount of money
• Include an estimated delivery time-range

 

14. Keep an eye on prices

In order to be a top contender in a competitive online market, you will need to keep your prices at a reasonable level. Research the prices that similar businesses to yours are selling their products for to get a sense of what price range you can be selling your stock for.

 

15. Have a team in place

Having a reliable marketing team in place to support your online store can be hugely helpful in making the process of starting and operating an E-commerce business less stressful.

 

16. Post-sales

Your job isn’t over when a customer has completed a sale. It’s valuable to stay in touch with your consumers and receive feedback, while encouraging them to visit your business again. Send them reminders about good deals.

 

17. Return policies and reviews

It’s unrealistic to expect that every product you have to offer is going to work out equally for each customer. It’s beneficial to provide a reliable return and refund policy for unsatisfied customers on specific products.

 

As well, give buyers the option to leave reviews after they’ve made a confirmed purchase. This will be valuable for you in the longrun, as you will be able to read feedback about your products directly.

 

18. Email newsletters

To help push the word out about your business and make people aware of deals, membership sign-up incentives, sales, and new products, email newsletters can be an incredibly effective option to for this.

 

Include an email newsletter pop-up on your website and generate an email contact list that you update with new customer information.

 

---

 

Conclusion:

There are a lot of different factors to consider before starting an E-commerce business. If you follow these considerations and put careful planning into your online store, you will become a reputable shop that consumers can rely on and trust.

 

Speak with an REM sales rep to get started with your very own custom E-commerce website to really show off your products and wow your customers.

 

 

Colour is one of the most important visual elements to consider when designing your website. Each colour is associated with a different meaning and can elicit various feelings and memories depending on the person. However, most people make snap judgements about products based on colour alone, which is why so much consideration should be placed on the task of choosing the right palette.

 

Therefore, it’s necessary to seriously think about the colours you want to use when thinking about the look of your website, as they can have a direct influence on the people who engage with your business’ online presence.

 

REM’s in-house designers and our marketing team are available to help discuss different colour options for your business website. In the meantime, check out the tips below for the most effective ways to use colour on your website and understand colour symbolism and connotations before you speak with them.

 

1. Warm colours

Warm colours are yellow, orange, and red. These colours are associated with energy, passion, positivity, enthusiasm, pleasure, and interest, to name a few. Be mindful of how you use these colours, as they can appear harsh and over-stimulating if they’re used too extensively.

 

2. Cool colours

Cool colours are blue, green, and purple. These colours have a calming effect on viewers, which is why they’re so commonly chosen for websites. Be wary about overusing them, as they can appear cold and impersonal if incorporated incorrectly.

 

3. Neutrals

Neutrals include white, black, grey, and brown and are popular choices for design. If used correctly, neutrals balance out more overpowering colours and can be incredibly elegant and chic.

 

4. Include an accent colour

When planning out the basic colour layout of your website, apply the very effective 60-30-10 ratio. When broken down, this means the main hue is applied to 60% of the website, the secondary is applied to 30%, and the remaining 10% applies to an accent colour that heavily contrasts the other two colours. The accent colour should be utilized as emphasis for the most important site materials and content.

 

5. Don’t go overboard

One of the worst things you can do is go overboard with your colour choices. Don’t feel the need to clutter your website with an overabundance of different colours, hues and tones. Less is more in this instance, and you don’t want to visually overwhelm the users on your site with too many conflicting and overlapping colours being used at once.

 

6. Think about your target audience

Really delve into your primary target audience, as this can help you narrow down your top colour choices. If your market is mainly women, studies have shown that they prefer blue, green, and purple. Men prefer blue, black, and, green. Blue seems to be a universally liked colour, so when in doubt, try to lean towards using blue. Lighter shades are typically associated with health and wellness, relaxation, and travel.

 

7. Consider the contrast of the background and text colours

Think about the colour of the background and the colour of the font you’re using and whether they will work well together visually. Colour combinations with enough contrast so the content is clearly visible and distinguishable on the page are important to consider for website visitors with visual impairments.

 

8. When in doubt, use a colour chooser tool

Colour scheme generators can be incredibly useful tools that can help you create a palette that’s professional and unique to your website. Play around with different colour wheels and try out various combinations to see what works best.

 

Conclusion:

Deciding on just the right colour scheme is so important for the efficacy of your website. Make sure you’re considering the symbolism and connotations of different colours, and you play around with combinations that are best suited for your target audience.

 

When you’re ready to go forward with an amazing business website design, contact your REM sales rep to get the process started.