Minimise the delay in launching your B2B website

In the beginning  of your new website project, Austin Digital develops a timetable that calculated for design, quality assurance, design, copywriting, and development. And only a handful of times does a B2B website usually launch on the pre-determined target date.

Let’s evaluate at 4 typical reasons why a B2B website launch is prolonged.

Not providing a dedicated project manager at your business.

Not providing a dedicated project manager at your business. A typical scenario occurs when a new person joins the website project team, without prior knowledge to how the web design process started. We advise clients against adding new team members to a web design project once it has already started.

As mentioned before, many pieces of a B2B web design project are reliant on other smaller pieces. A web design agency can not simply move on to a different part of the project while they wait for materials.

Missing due dates for input or providing reference materials.

Provide all the information you can at the start of the build, this dramatically reduces the time of the initial build. This holds true for B2B web design projects. It’s best to assign one or two people to be the main decision makers and the information providers on a project and to give them the authorisation to make the final call on design, copy, images, and such.

Many business underestimate the amount of time it takes build a website, so it’s important to be realistic about the effect it will have on team timetables. A design agency will do the massive lifting, but your feedback and contributions are important to creating a premium B2B web site that ensures your brand stand apart among the competitors.

Changing instructions or goals mid-way through a job.

It’s vital that each the website design company and the customer provide quick responses and keep in touch regularly. It pushes everything back a few days if responses on the web or the copy design is delayed by a few days. The days add up and your launch date can be delayed by several weeks if that occurs repetitively.

Way too many decision makers.

The best way to prevent any hold-ups is to assign a dedicated project manager with decision-making power to the B2B website development project. Having a dedicated project manager ensures that one person is keeping an eye on routines and has the capability to keep the project on track by getting timely feedback, gathering resources needed for the design agency, and making decisions to keep the project moving along.

This is a huge one and probably the most usual main reason website tasks are postponed. Normally, different stages of the website design must be finished before settling the upcoming phase. This implies a delay in the website design stage will postpone development.

In conclusion

Many items of a B2B web design undertaking are conditioned on other small parts. We suggest clients against including new team members to a web design project once it has already commenced. Often, a web design project is one more thing on an extremely congested timetable. The best way to prevent any hold-ups is to delegate a dedicated project manager with decision-making power to the B2B site project. Having a dedicated project manager ensures that one person is managing to keep an eye on calendars and has the ability to maintain the task on track by obtaining timely feedback, acquiring sources needed for the design agency, and making choices to keep the project moving around.

Buying Domains best practises and guide – Austin Digital

Regardless of what domain name you essentially decide  on, you might want to consider some of Austin Digitals top tips to think about when naming your new business:

Your domain name really should be as brief and short as possible.

Reduced name domains are actually less complicated for direct-type ins, don’t spillover text on your business cards, and could be thoroughly obvious in search engines, and are social friendly (they can be easily shared from someone to the next).

Do not buy a dropped domain.

except if you aware of the record of the domain name. You may inherit harmful consequences or negative affiliations, from the previous owners. Even though the domain may have been scrubbed in google search engine ranking algorithms, you can imagine that the back links to that site were not beautiful.

Don’t put hyphens in your domain.

They are very easy to forget and confuse your consumers and your traffic may divert to the version of the domain names in which don’t work with hyphens.

Don’t use domains that reach all related to someone else’s brand.

This is unlawful and can get you in hot water quickly if an individual discovers and chooses to file a suit against you. Any brand equity that you build into the domain will be lost as quickly as you get that desist and cease notice.

Use key phrases or Keywords.

if in any way possible. Even if there is small Search Engine Optimisation value to a keyword-rich domain, it will build better SEO keywords linking to your domain affiliations with your clients.

However don’t use to many in your domain choice, as this will negatively affect your ranking.

Consider your social presence. If you’re naming a new business.

It is ideal to make sure you can get some other social media accounts with the exact same company name. Just before you settle on the domain use KnowEm.com to search the most popular social media handles and names to see if your brand name is still available.

Acquire similar domain names.

If they are offered, to keep any individual from buying our your brand domains, purchase easy misspells and other popular names associated with your business, It may be expensive to start buy it may save you thousands later on once you have increased a brand and the domain squatters can’t leverage your domains against you for high prices.

Because it might be available, don’t settle for the.co domain of your brand. Although, there are many prominent products and business like angel.co, pocket.co and calendar.co they nonetheless likely eliminate large amounts of quality traffic to the.com versions of their domain which are totally irrelevant to their service.

Google rankings & mobile friendly websites

Getting good, relevant answers when you search shouldn’t depend on what device you’re using. You should get the best answer possible, whether you’re on a phone, desktop or tablet. That’s why we build mobile friendly websites.

Last year, Google started using mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal on mobile searches. Google announced the beginning of a rollout update to mobile search results that increases the effect of the ranking signal – to help your users find even more pages that are relevant and mobile-friendly.

If you’ve already made your site mobile-friendly, you will not be impacted by these updates.

Editing your site to work on mobile platforms is no longer viable. It is now a necessity to upgrade your website to keep in line with your competitors. Speak to us today about resolving this issue and getting your website design mobile ready and also boost your traffic in the process!

Give me a call today if we haven’t already made your site mobile responsive!

Some site owners have googled their sites running routine traffic audits and discovered that Google had added a warning below their search result. The warnings in general read “Your page is not mobile friendly.”

Many older website sites were designed for viewing on computers. The way that a smart- phone or tablet displays websites is different. Because of smaller screen sizes and different operating systems, certain websites appear in a more linear style when viewed from a mobile device. While this is sometimes not an issue, in most cases websites can be rendered unworkable by the difference in display.

If you are among this group, please put your mind at ease. The warnings are only visible to the site owners, themselves. Google determines the site owner by keeping track of your IP and matching it against the IP from which the site has been edited or published. Those from other computers who run the same Google search will still see your site in the same place in their results, but the warning will not be there. This is not a deterrent for your customer base. It is simply an experiment Google has undertaken to see if the warnings will increase mobile friendliness from already established websites like yours.

However, if you are seeing this warning regarding your website, the warning being hidden from searchers doesn’t solve your primary problem. The concern many website owners have is that the warning will prevent people from viewing their website. In fact, the warning is a useful heads up that your site is unworkable from a mobile device.

With most searches now coming from mobile devices, you want to be sure that those who find you on their tablet or smart phone are going to be able to retrieve all the same features and information as those who use a laptop or other computer. Most people, when they click on a non-mobile friendly website from their mobile device will see a jumbled mess of unclickable and unreadable content. When this happens, they are more likely to move on to one of your competitors’ websites than they are to seek out a desktop computer to view your website from for a better experience.

If you haven’t already made your mobile friendly websites

Contact us now

Advantages of Using MailChimp Newsletters

MailChimp is the partner that every small business needs, streamlining the process of anything mass email related. As the world’s leading email marketing platform, MailChimp plays an integral role in growing small businesses around the world. Sure, you can create an email newsletter using a service like WordPress, but that method isn’t nearly as reliable and lacks the services MailChimp offers. Listed are some of the key advantages of using MailChimp that will make any business or blog owner wish they signed up for this service yesterday.

Emails go to the Inbox:

This might seem obvious, however, experiments have shown that when you don’t use a third party service like MailChimp emails are more likely to be sorted into spam folders. Furthermore, the website Top Ten Reviews tested different third-party email marketing systems and MailChimp was one of the most successful in delivering emails to inboxes.

Simple and Customizable Interface:

In short, MailChimp is easy to use and makes it possible for you to design your emails just the way you’d like. MailChimp allows users to utilize existing code within a newsletter or email and use it again within the application. For example, if you already have a HTML coded newsletter on your website you can simply copy and paste the code into MailChimp and edit it how you need to. MailChimp even looks over your email before you send it out and identifies any problems.

Automation:

With MailChimp you can create and schedule automated emails that you can use to do things like follow up on purchased products send product recommendations based on a customer’s shopping behavior. MailChimp offers preset automation workflows to which make it easy to determine and choose the best workflow for your business in just a few clicks.

Analytics:

MailChimp offers detailed analytics which inform you of things like how many people opened the email, how many people unsubscribed after receiving an email, which links within the email were clicked and how often, and how responses to your emails compare to the industry average.

Integration & Mobile Options:

You can easily view reports or send campaigns from your phone no matter where you are using MailChimp’s mobile apps. MailChimp also integrates with popular apps such as facebook, twitter, and salesforce, allowing you to easily sync your data across platforms.

Affordability:

Most importantly, MailChimp is an affordable option, whether you have 100 or 20,000 subscribers. As a new business with less than 2,000 subscribers, Mailchimp is free. As your business grows you’ll pay an affordable monthly fee with which you can send an unlimited number of emails.

MailChimp is affordable, easy to work with and reliable. Further, MailChimp out performs its’ competitors and allows you to successfully and efficiently market your business by offering capabilities that you couldn’t perform on your own. When it comes to effective email-marketing, look no further than MailChimp.

Growing a social media presence and the key to making it work

Social media has transitioned from obscurity to a place of prominence for individuals with access to a computer. Of the 3 billion users who actively access the internet, almost 2.1 billion have social media accounts. Studies show that social media usage is no longer limited to younger generations though, at 89%, the 18-29 age group is the highest consumer followed by 72% of users aged 30-49, 60% of 50-60 year olds and 43% in the 65 plus demographic. Social media usage continues to climb along with consumer reliance on smartphones and tablets. Websites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, SnapChat, Instagram and Pinterest have become common household names. Social media has infiltrated our language and changed the way we communicate. We post, share, like, network, tweet, snap and pin our way through each day.

Growing a social media presence is an important, multi-faceted tool that enables businesses to reach the 72% of internet users who frequent social media sites. There are Social media enables businesses to identify their target demographic and focus advertisements directly to potential customers. In addition to reaching the right audience, businesses can evaluate the success of marketing efforts with real time metrics allowing them to make better decisions. Social media monitoring can position a business to lead, instead of follow, the industry by providing key insights into the competition.

Social media helps businesses build relationships with customers in a comfortable environment.  It provides a valuable space to learn more about what customers want and how they feel about your brand. Research has indicated that regular connections with customers on social media increases customer retention and strengthens brand loyalty.

With more than 3 billion active users, social media and mobile social media have a noteworthy influence on retail purchases. Nearly 75% of businesses who marketed products on social media saw an increase in sales within the next 12 month period. Consider the impact of a single website, Facebook, where 47% of users reference the site as their primary source for purchasing decisions. It is easy to see the marketing potential of keeping a consistent online presence at the forefront of consumers minds. So when they are ready to make a purchase, they know where to turn.

Since consumers are looking to social media presence for information and purchasing decisions, it is understandable that over 67% of them rely on the same avenue for customer service needs. Businesses with a social media presence must provide 24/7 support and commit to timely responses to meet customer expectations. Financial gains for businesses that offer service via social media achieve a 7.5% year over year growth compared to 2.9% year over year growth without such service. Outstanding service is integral to business success since 86% of customers switch brands when they experience poor service. Further, negative experiences are often shared on social media making it critical to monitor activity and resolve quickly.

Social media is a key ingredient to increasing traffic to your website and improving search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines scan internet content and create indexes that are used in conjunction with ranking algorithms, a series of rules and calculations, to determine the order in which links are sorted in response to an internet query. A higher search engine ranking means your website URL will appear closer to the top position where it is more likely to be selected. The frequency in which a business URL is linked or shared on social media is a key factor for improving search engine results.

Embracing social media as an integral part of the marketing strategy will position businesses to realise increased success.