This year the Integrated Webworks crew held our annual holiday party at Buca Di Beppo. Check out the pictures on our Facebook page to see all the hijinks. Presents ranged from video games to recipe books at our event this year and everyone left having experienced a good time and a full stomach.
The Jacksonville Business Journal published in their December 9th 2011 issue the list of the top 25 web design firms here in Jacksonville. Integrated Webworks was awarded number 6 on the list. We would like to thank our clients for their continued support and the Integrated Webworks team for their hard work and dedication.
The ability to make personal connections with customers is what sets a small business apart from a giant company. While connections can be made outside of the digital and internet world, Facebook gives a rare opportunity to reach out to people in their own home, on their own time, and seemingly like it was by their own choice. It doesn’t feel as accosting as an advertisement in the “real world”, because the fans are the ones to choose whether or not they want your business in their feed.
On my Facebook news feed I see many updates and photos from friends, but also the updates of the businesses I have chosen to “like”. The best business pages are the ones that stay interactive with their fans – posting quality content like that of specials and sales, coupons, events, etc. They also answer questions regarding what their hours are, how long a fitness class lasts, and anything else the fans may want to inquire about. Those types of things are what keep the fans interested and keeps you from being hidden from the feed.
Not only does Facebook help you build a community of fans, those fans are also a stockpile of demographic information. You can target users by their listed interest and reach out to them. You can pay for advertising on Facebook and have your ads shown on the sidebar to people who are just browsing their own pages, payable by impressions or by clicks. You can even set an advertising budget so you don’t go over on spending.
There are many ways to draw customers to your business, but in this digital age, it cannot be disputed that Facebook advertising and business pages are crucial in drawing attention to your business. The best pages require a little bit of time on the owner’s part, because they are active in posting relevant material, and quick to answer questions and comments the fans might have. As an owner, your goal is to keep your small business in the minds of your fans so that you will be the one they run to when they need the specific service or good your business provides.
At Integrated Webworks, we provide complete service for your social media needs. You have the option for us to create your page and let you manage the updates, or we can create the page and manage the periodic updates for you. Give us your advertisement budget and we will work with Facebook to place ads all around the website, specifically appearing on the pages of users with interests relevant to your business. With our help, your page will have a fanbase complete with interactivity and demographics of your potential customers.
Being your own boss has always been an American Dream; but starting a brick and mortar business requires hefty capital that most people don’t have. An online business costs a fraction of what it takes to open a brick and mortar business, and most online businesses can be started while still keeping a full time job.
The majority of online businesses don’t make it past launch, and very few that make it past the first year actually make money. There are several reasons that contribute to the failure of online businesses which we will discuss below.
This is the most important part of starting any business. Before creating a business plan it is important to research your competitors online and see how you can set your business apart. Research the demand of your product or services you plan to offer and how you would want to price them.
After research you have to create a plan. Creating a business plan helps to keep things prospective and keeps you on track. Most new entrepreneurs without a business plan tend to change their ideas weekly and the project never launches.
Once you have a business plan in place, it is important to implement it in a strategic format. Find the right web design company (link to integratedwebworks.com) to design your online business. The right web design company will have a plan (link to the blog that talks about different project phases) to take your business idea and provide you a final product while providing you advice at every stage. The phase “you get what you pay for” is very true for a website design company. Pick a company that has multiple people each with different expertise so you get the best end result.
This is usually where most online businesses fail. Marketing is the cornerstone of success. Having the best business idea and a great website to go with it does no good if no one knows about your company. Work with an online marketing company that has search engine experts, social media experts, and will provide a plan before they start your online marketing.
Online businesses have a huge potential to succeed and grow if done the right way. At Integrated Webworks we help companies with the correct advice at every point of the client’s project from planning to implementation to marketing.
We wish you the best with your online venture, and if there is anything we can help you with please contact us (link to contact form) at 877-279-0279.
On Saturday October 22, the Integrated Webworks team participated in the Walk for Awareness for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Breast Cancer foundation. We help support and donate for the fight against breast cancer.
I have noticed that I keep getting asked one question by a lot of business owners. My first reaction is look around you. Facebook’s logo is in most TV commercials, print magazines and accessible by every smartphone. Unless your customers use nether of the above, you need social media presence to continue marketing your business.
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube are four social media sites that are more popular then all the others. The question should not be if your business needs social media marketing, but rather which one would work best for your business and how you can use it to positively impact your business.
Unlike traditional marketing, social media marketing results are not as noticeable right away, but can take some time. The idea is to communicate with your prospects or clients using the social media, have them be fans of your business or followers and ultimately generate business. If you had 1000 fans or followers and you want to promote a new product or services, it would take less than 5 minutes to communicate that to 1000 prospective clients; that’s the power of social media.
Social media is not just about getting new clients, but is also about keeping the ones you currently have. Fortune 500 companies like Best Buy and Apple do not just use their social media to promote products but also use it to get feedback from their current clients. Small businesses can use social media in a similar manner and the customer loyalty is impeccable when done the right way.
Social media marketing does require time and dedication. Your fans and followers want to hear from you often, if you are not doing that, they will not continue being your fan or follower. We at Integrated Webworks realized that and have an option for our clients. We manage their social media pages by posting company news, promoting products or services, responding to customer comments and even write blog articles to keep the fans and followers updated about client’s industry.
Social media is not an option for businesses that want to market or stay in business. Which social media site to use and how to use it, will determine the success of a social media campaign and ultimately the success of the business itself.
A website’s success is not based on any one single factor, but a combination of efforts. Integrated Webworks would like to bring attention to 4 important aspects of a successful website. This is the strategy we use for our clients who have had struggled to make their web presence greater, and this has brought them tremendous success with their website. This strategy can also be applied to other products or services.
Visibility – If a prospective client cannot find your website, it is not going to yield you any positive success. So accordingly, Integrated Webworks has the number one aspect to consider is visibility or online presence, this would be the client’s Online Marketing strategy. When we put together a client’s website strategy, online marketing includes combined efforts of Search Engine Optimization (SE0), Social Media Marketing, Pay Per Click Marketing (PPC) and Directory Listings (Google Places). We want to create a online marketing plan that will get your website found regardless where your prospects are looking.
Visual – So your prospect found you, our goal now is to make sure they visually like what they see. Have you every clicked on a search result and go to a website you did not like visually, and clicked right back to find another search result. That’s why the visual aspect of your website or social media page is number two on our list. We want to make sure that the visuals on a website or the social media page invites your prospects to further learn about the products or services you offer. Most users visually decide if they want to go further into the site within 3-5 seconds, which is not enough time to read any content.
Navigation – Once the prospect has liked your site visually, the next step is to make sure they can find what they are looking on your site without much effort. A strategic navigation and call to action will help draw attention to the key elements on the page, thus the number three on our list is navigation. Navigation of a site varies tremendously based on the demographics of their prospective clients and the type of product or service offered. No matter how simple or complex navigation can be, it comes down to considering usability and findability. Understanding a client’s business is our number one goal while we design their website navigation.
Content – Though content is important to explain about how the products or services work or are offered; it is listed as number four on our list because unless the prospect gets to the content, the best content will go unread. Content is also important for online marketing, in particularly to search engine optimization, thus completing the circle from content to visibility. Keyword research for our clients are conducted to optimize the benefits of being found on the web based on their product or services and are provided to client before the content is written for the site. We want to make sure the client provides content with the correct keywords to make a greater impact on their visibility.
Being able to find your website or social media page is determined by what prospective users are visually liking what your page has to offer, finding the information the prospect is looking for and having provided content relevant to the page are the 4 important aspect of a successful website. It is also important to monitor each of these aspects to make sure they are working to make your site successful. In a later blog, we will talk about how to monitor each of these aspects.
