Online Features to Tie into Your Website

A Custom Website for your business is the main, most important part of your web presence. Without a website, you don’t have a solid foundation for building your reputation on the web—your website in what anchors the boat in the open waters of online marketing. However, there are some key features you can incorporate on your website that branch out and increase the space you take charge of online. What are some of these features and how do they work?

Social Media Pages: As long it doesn’t serve as a replacement for your website, a social media business page on Facebook or LinkedIn can be very beneficial to your company. These pages have your logo and address easy to find at the top of the page with an “About” link to read more information. Social media is a great place to share updates, news, and current promotions.  You can also share blog posts and post comments that get the user’s attention and link back to your website. There are many options for how the public can interact with you on these pages so you can use the privacy settings to be as laid back or strict about others posting comments, liking your page, and connecting with you as you like. Often a social media icon will be included in the header or footer of a website and when a user clicks on this, it goes directly to your page.

YouTube Channel: If your small business has products or services you can demonstrate or events that take place in the community, a YouTube channel may be a good place to show your customers some of these. It’s a way to make your company feel real and relatable before a customer ever contacts you directly. Not every company has material that would be showcased best through YouTube, but if you think it could work for you, there can also be a button on your website that links to YouTube. This feature can be easily integrated into your custom website.

Review Sites: While you don’t want to appear only on review sites, once your company has established its online presence and positive reviews come in, you can include a link to your company’s page on sites such as Yelp!, Urban Spoon (for restaurants), Trip Advisor, and more. You don’t have to link your website to all of these pages, but maybe pick one or two with strong reviews on them to include as buttons on your website. When potential customers see good reviews and ratings on these sites, it reassures them that they can trust you as a company.

Google + : Google+ is becoming more and more popular and serves as a compliment to your website. It offers users a detailed map and directions to your location, a photo of your building, and other information which you can customize. The Hangouts feature enables group meetings and discussions. The content on this page should be unique from other places you have. If customers find your Google + page before your website, chances are they will visit your website shortly after.

Your custom website should always be your main focus, but as you create and update it, these features can be incorporated to fully round out your presence on the web. Beyond Custom Websites knows what works to get businesses found and build their reputation. We are happy to include these features on your website and are able to do so seamlessly and customize them to your requests. Contact us today and we’ll show you how it works.

It’s Important to Be Organized, Especially on the Web

Your whole life, you’ve probably been told to be organized—clean your room, your desk, your car, and the files in your office. You’ve probably always been either really good at it or not so good at it. Organization is important, but one place that it is even more important is on your website! A website needs to be laid out clearly with enough sections to break up content and topics, but not so much that you have 20 tabs on the main navigation bar. So what can you do to make sure your custom website is neatly organized and people can find what they need and enjoy visiting your website?

First of all, five to six items should be the standard for the main menu: Home, About Us, Products and Services, Testimonials, FAQ, and Contact Us for example. If you do have a blog or portfolio, you can also add this to the main menu, but keep this structure in mind when brainstorming for your website. You should also place your contact information in any easy to find place on every page.

If you have more pages you would like to add, use sub-menus. For example, you might have a page for each service you provide under the Products and Services page drop down menu. However, make sure the main navigation heading is click-able as well. It’s also a good idea (and becoming more and more popular) to make your logo a link back to your homepage. It might be a good idea to write down a Sitemap first—a list of all the links your site will have—before the site is built. If you are currently running a coupon deal or special, you can put it on each page with a “Click Here to Print” button or a link to download it. That will make the customer aware of the deal and remember to look into it before they leave the site. Another tip is to remember the three click rule-of-thumb: a user should be able to get to what they need or at least know they are close within three clicks. Be consistent with the way drop down menus appear (vertically or to one side) and try to avoid PDFs which the user has to download and often take a long time to load. Finally, don’t have all your content justified to the left side of the page or make the area of your site too small. It should be evenly distributed throughout the page and the browser.

What’s one of the most important tips for keeping your website organized? Ask a professional! Beyond Custom Websites and their web design experts know all about organizing websites, which we’ve done for thousands of small businesses. We will gather information from you and advise you on how to structure your pages, where to place content, and what type of navigation and links will work best for your business. Contact us today and you’ll see that you don’t have to worry about a thing. Beyond Custom Websites will serve as the organizer of your website for you.

Beyond the Basic Pages

Most websites have pages that are the standard norm: Home, About Us, Products and Services, Photo Gallery, and a Contact Us page. These are essential pages and a good structure for your site to have. However, not only can you customize the content and design of your website, there are pages you can have that go beyond that to personalize the website for your business.

Blog Page or Link: A company blog is a good way to communicate with your customers and share inside knowledge about what you do. It will keep people coming back to your website to see the latest posts and in turn, learn about what’s going on in your business right now. People can leave comments, which is a good way to get feedback and get the customer involved. You can build a blog page within your site or you can link your website to external blog on a site like Wordpress or Blogspot.

Testimonials: If you have regular customers who are happy with the work you do or you remember a particularly good experience, ask them if they will give a testimonial and have a testimonial page included in your website. This builds your company’s reputation and will give users real, positive stories to compare with any reviews they may have seen on another site.

Events: If your company has regular community events or gets involved with projects that go on in the community, you can feature an events page on your website. It can be a calendar or list format—you can even post images of flyers or ads if you have them. If there are any past events where you took photos, you can include those here as well. An events page will show your involvement in the community and give people an opportunity to participate in these events, if possible. People enjoy hearing about news and it will help your company stand out.

Staff Biographies: A well established business with employees that have been with the company for a long time puts confidence in potential customers and gives them a feeling of security. You might want to have a page of staff photos with a brief paragraph about their position with the company and their personality. This will help people get to know you as individuals and make them feel more comfortable interacting with you.

Beyond CustomWebsites can create as many pages and whatever type of page you want for your small business website. We make sure your website projects a unique image about your business and makes you memorable so customers keep coming back. Contact us to get started building a website personalized for your company.

A Mobile Website in 2013

 

You’ve probably already heard that have a custom website for your business is absolutely essential. What’s newer to entrepreneurs is the knowledge and importance of mobile websites. A website can load on a mobile phone or tablet, but that doesn’t mean it is mobile friendly. What’s more, a site that is mobile friendly is not the same as a mobile site. So where do you start, and what can a mobile website do for your business?

A mobile website is a compact, streamlined version of your desktop website. It has much of the same information, but with fewer images, smaller navigation, and a layout that will fit on those small screens. A mobile friendly site with load on a device and be fairly easy to see, but you may have to scroll around to see everything and zoom in and out. A complete mobile website may eliminate some of the information from the full site, but it will always have a “view full site” option so users don’t miss any information.

In 2013, more users are accessing the internet from their mobile phones that from their desktop or laptop. A vast majority of searches performed on a mobile device are for local businesses they want to find—they are out shopping and want to stop for lunch, they need a locksmith to get back into their car, and so on. Customers need a mobile site that is easy to view, easy to use, and loads quickly. Expectations are high for these websites, but if businesses keep up with a great custom mobile website, they will stand out against the competition.

Beyond CustomWebsites can be your web experts and build you a mobile website that is customized to fit your needs and represent you as a unique business. We do all the work for you and will communicate with you one on one throughout the whole process. No waiting around or worrying about meeting expectations with us—we do what we say we’re going to do, when we’re going to do it. Contact us today to find out more about how we can create the perfect mobile website for your business!