A website is an essential tool for any business in today’s digital age. It allows a business to establish an online presence and reach a wider audience. A website can serve as an online storefront, showcasing the products or services a business offers. It can also provide important information about the business, such as contact information, hours of operation, and pricing.
Having a website also helps to establish credibility and trust with potential customers. A well-designed and informative website can give customers confidence in a business and its offerings. Additionally, a website can be used to collect valuable data about customers and their behavior, which can help a business to make informed decisions about marketing and advertising strategies.
Sounds like a website does a lot for a business, right? That is why we make it really easy for you to start a website in 3 easy steps: 1) Choose a host 2) Choose a Web Address 3) Choose a Theme
1. What is a Hosting Plan?
When creating a website, there are several key decisions to make in order to ensure a successful outcome. One of the most important decisions is choosing the right hosting plan.
A website host is a service that allows individuals or organizations to make their website accessible on the internet. Essentially, a website host provides the necessary technologies and infrastructure to store and serve up website content to visitors who access the website through a web browser.It is a place to store the files that make up your site, such as images, videos, and HTML documents.
There are many different types of website hosts available, each with different features and pricing plans. Some website hosts offer shared hosting, which means multiple websites are stored on the same server. Others offer dedicated hosting, which provides a server exclusively for your website.
Our team has several host options available and preferences as to why we use certain ones. Ask us whatever questions you may have about this at anytime!
2. What Is Your Web Address?
Another important decision is whether to choose your web address, also known as domain name, now or later. While it may be tempting to wait until later stages of development, choosing a domain early on can help you establish your brand and provide a clear direction for your website.
Here are some tips to help you choose a web address that will be effective and memorable:
Keep it short and simple – Shorter domain names are easier to remember and type accurately. Avoid using hyphens or numbers, as they can make the domain name harder to remember and pronounce.
Make it easy to spell – Avoid using unusual spellings or words that are commonly misspelled. This will help ensure that your audience can easily find your website.
Use keywords – Incorporating relevant keywords into your domain name can help improve your search engine ranking and make it easier for potential customers to find you online.
Consider your brand – If you already have an established brand name, consider using that as your domain name. This can help build brand recognition and make it easier for customers to find you online.
Check availability – Before settling on a domain name, make sure it is available for registration. You can use a domain name registrar to search for available domain names and register your chosen domain.
3. Make Your Website Look Good with a Theme
Once you have your hosting plan and domain in place, the next step is to choose a theme. This will determine the overall look and feel of your website, and can help you establish a visual identity that will be memorable to your visitors.
Designing a theme for a website can seem like a daunting task, but with a little planning and creativity help from our team, it can be a fun and rewarding experience. Here are a few steps to help you get started:
Determine the purpose and audience of your website: Before you start designing your theme, it’s important to have a clear understanding of the purpose of your website and the audience you’re targeting. This will help you choose appropriate colors, fonts, and imagery that will appeal to your intended audience.
Choose a color scheme: Once you have a clear understanding of your website’s purpose and audience, you can choose a color scheme that reflects the mood and tone you want to convey. Keep in mind that different colors can evoke different emotions, so choose colors that align with your website’s purpose and message.
Select fonts: Choose fonts that are easy to read and complement your website’s design. Stick to a maximum of 2-3 fonts to avoid cluttering your website.
Create a layout: Sketch out a rough layout of your website, including where you want to place your content, images, and navigation menus. This will help you visualize how your website will look and make it easier to start designing your theme.
Add images and graphics: Images and graphics can make your website more visually appealing and help convey your message. Choose images that are relevant to your content and align with your website’s color scheme and overall design.
Test your design: Once you’ve created your theme, test it on different devices and browsers to ensure it looks good and functions properly.
The Bottom Line
Your website is an essential part of your business, and it should reflect your brand’s personality while providing an enjoyable user experience. To achieve this balance, your website should be user-friendly, functional, and accessible to search engines. We understand that you are focused on running your business, which is why we offer website maintenance and security services to handle your website efficiently.
Our team of professionals will create a unique design for your website that accurately represents your brand’s values and goals. Once the design is complete, we will convert it into a responsive, functional website that works seamlessly on all devices, including mobile phones and tablets.
After the launch, we will check periodically to ensure that everything is up to date, functioning correctly, and that security measures are in place to prevent any breaches.
With our website design and maintenance services, you can rest easy knowing that you have a reliable partner to take care of your website while you focus on growing your business. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you create a website that perfectly represents your brand and attracts your target audience.
This blog was influenced by a mall close to True Fit Marketing called Century 3 Mall. This mall was quite a gem in its heyday. And then, like a lot of similar malls, it started to die. Now it is abandoned and has been for years. The local government associations are now trying to figure out what to do with the crumbling and dilapidated structure. There have been fires, break-ins, flooding, ceiling collapsing and many more issues. It is time to tear it down, but that costs money. It also costs money to keep the building up to code even though it is empty. Quite the predicament in this era of online shopping. Is there a mall like this near you?
Who scored some great deals a couple weeks ago during Amazon’s Prime Days? Walmart, Target, Kohl’s and a whole bunch of other retailers rode the coattails of one of Amazon’s biggest online sales days every year (besides Black Friday). It’s amazing how convenient technology has made shopping these days. With the option to shop online, people can now order everything they need from the comfort of their own homes. Some stores even offer delivery services, making it even easier for shoppers to get what they need without ever leaving the house.
The emergence of online shopping has transformed the retail industry and has forced brick and mortar shopping centers and stores to adjust their marketing strategies. In person shopping centers and stores now need to focus on creating unique experiences for customers that cannot be replicated online. This includes offering a variety of entertainment options, hosting events, and providing personalized services. Additionally, brick and mortar shops need to enhance their online presence by developing user-friendly websites and social media pages that engage with customers. To attract and retain customers in the digital age, shopping centers should adapt to the changing retail landscape. This can be achieved by implementing strategies that incorporate technology, such as offering online ordering and curbside pickup options. Additionally, creating unique experiences within the shopping center, such as hosting events and offering personalized services, can help to draw in customers. It is also important to focus on sustainability and social responsibility, as these values are becoming increasingly important to consumers. By embracing these changes, shopping centers can thrive in the digital age.
Here is how.
In Store Shopping at a Mall
Is there a mall near you? According to a report from Green Street, malls have experienced the sharpest decline in value among all commercial property types since 2018. From small stores to large retailers, malls were a big hit years ago. Now they seem to be dying faster than ever! Why? Likely because rent is higher than it has ever been, the trend is to shop closer to home and people are literally shopping at home on the Internet. It used to be a luxury of just mall walking and seeing what good things could be found, but now people have a mission, a true reason to go shopping. And thanks to the Internet, there isn’t a need to “waste” time walking around a mall. Stores that survived the mall era have moved out of the big complexes and into smaller strip mall areas.
Strip Malls/Strip Center/Strip Plaza
Ulta, Old Navy, Gap, Sephora, Macy’s and other well known mall stores have been moving to strip malls, also referred to as strip centers or strip plazas. Strip malls are open air retail developments that lack enclosed hallways. Instead, they consist of retail storefronts that are connected by common walkways. These storefronts are often arranged in a straight line, L-shaped, or U-shaped layout. They have large parking lots with spaces near whichever store you’d like to shop at and are typically closer to home rather than a big mall.
There is a difference between buying and shopping which can also be seen as the difference between running errands and seeking out experiences. This can be linked to a mall and a strip mall. We know what we need to buy, so we just go buy it versus skimming the shelves. This change makes marketing for a mall very hard. There needs to be a reason to get consumers into the mall complex itself, plus ways to get them to visit multiple stores with multiple purchases.
Online Shopping Versus In Store Shopping
The rise of mobile devices and easy access to the Internet has drastically changed consumer behavior in the past decade. Shopping habits have been revolutionized as a result.
To effectively market to consumers, it’s important to understand that the division between online and offline marketing is a myth. Consumers engage in both online and offline shopping, and it’s crucial to convey a consistent image across all channels. A multichannel marketing strategy is highly effective in making a strong impact.
Shopping in an actual store is facing increasing competition from online shopping, which requires businesses to adapt and modify their offers regularly. To remain competitive, brick and mortar stores must evolve their marketing strategies, as content marketing and social media could be essential tools in this effort. Just because you have a brick and mortar store does not mean you can’t have an online store as well. In fact, you should have an online store no matter what!
The Bottom Line
The role of malls has evolved beyond just shopping. Consumers now visit malls to socialize and feel a sense of belonging. As such, malls should prioritize their function as centers for socializing and culture rather than just shopping. This means focusing on hosting events such as musical and artistic performances to attract the general public. Marketing efforts should also be tailored towards promoting these events and creating a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere.
Open-air shopping centers are becoming increasingly popular among consumers due to the convenience, safety, and selection they offer. This trend is expected to continue, leading to healthy lease demand for the next few years. In addition to these benefits, open-air centers provide retailers with more opportunities to connect with customers and build brand loyalty. As a result, traditional shopping malls that fail to evolve may struggle to survive in this changing retail landscape.
No matter if it is a mall, strip mall or online shopping experience, marketing is still important and can work for both entities. Having the marketing work together simultaneously can help grow sales and customer engagement. Expanding an online presence can attract new customers, while promotions and advertising can increase sales. Collecting contact details enables personalized communication and rewarding loyal customers can foster repeat business. Highlighting brands and products through giveaways and promotions can showcase your best offerings. In times of low consumption, employing deals and online campaigns can help revive interest. Even though there is an added expense associated with brick and mortar stores, the pleasures of shopping have not died and plenty of shoppers still enjoy the experience.
It seems like in the recent month, the discussion of artificial intelligence (AI) has really blossomed. Marketing teams that are utilizing AI for positive gains are skyrocketing. AI writing tools are flying at us faster than ever before. A once very scary idea has now flourished into user-friendly programs that can help promote brands and businesses in a faster, more efficient way than ever before. The floodgates have been opened to many impressive AI options on the market, so let’s take a look at three tools that we find helpful and are interested in using more!
Canva
Our team uses Canva on a daily basis for many things, especially graphic design. Not everyone on our team is a professional design and Canva makes it easy to create nice graphics. It was exciting to hear about their newly released AI intelligence suite. Awhole new slew of features are designed to make creating content like social media graphics, presentations, and advertising materials more accessible to those without professional design experience. Beyond graphic design, Canva also has AI writing technology that helps to create high-quality content. We find it useful to help with social media posts. It is a great tool to use when writer’s block happens and the words just won’t come out right. If you are nervous about AI tools, we suggest starting with Canva’s suite as they are now being touted as a competitor of Adobe! It is easy to use and still needs the human aspect to get it to write something that sounds good.
ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer)
Released in November of 2022, ChatGPT is a computer generated conversational tool. If you are not familiar with ChatGPT, we are sure you have used Amazon’s chat feature and have had to have a conversation with their AI to get your issue resolved. ChatGPT is similar to that in which it will follow an instruction in a prompt and provide a detailed response. Take a look at the sample below in which the human asks ChatGPT about a coding issue.
ChatGPT responds looking for more information to help it help the human. It collects data from the human and learns from the human feedback of responses. However, it does have its limitations. According to their website, these are the limitations:
ChatGPT sometimes writes plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers. Fixing this issue is challenging, as: (1) during RL training, there’s currently no source of truth; (2) training the model to be more cautious causes it to decline questions that it can answer correctly; and (3) supervised training misleads the model because the ideal answerdepends on what the model knows, rather than what the human demonstrator knows.
ChatGPT is sensitive to tweaks to the input phrasing or attempting the same prompt multiple times. For example, given one phrasing of a question, the model can claim to not know the answer, but given a slight rephrase, can answer correctly.
The model is often excessively verbose and overuses certain phrases, such as restating that it’s a language model trained by OpenAI. These issues arise from biases in the training data (trainers prefer longer answers that look more comprehensive) and well-known over-optimization issues.1,2
Ideally, the model would ask clarifying questions when the user provided an ambiguous query. Instead, our current models usually guess what the user intended.
While we’ve made efforts to make the model refuse inappropriate requests, it will sometimes respond to harmful instructions or exhibit biased behavior. We’re using theModeration API to warn or block certain types of unsafe content, but we expect it to have some false negatives and positives for now. We’re eager to collect user feedback to aid our ongoing work to improve this system.
ChatGPT can really be useful to gain information, to help with issues and to bounce ideas off of. It can be a helpful tool if used in the correct way.
Jasper
Jasper touts itself as an AI platform for business that helps your team create content tailored for your brand 10X faster, wherever you work online. Headlines, articles, blog posts, captions for social media, email marketing campaigns, and even translation are just a few examples of what Jasper can offer. A frontrunner in its capabilities, Jasper is also a leader as far as bang for your buck. However, just like many of these AI tools, it collects information from the Internet and compiles it into whatever category you choose (ex: blog post). The only fact checking is then from whoever is “writing” so some research should be done to make sure it is all true.
The Bottom Line
Writing is a gift that a lot of people don’t have. Just like we have musicians and athletes and so on, each person is unique with their talents. However, to a writer, using AI writing tools can seem like cheating, or not actually being the author. Proofreading, researching facts and citing sources will still need to be done no matter what program you use.
It is scary to think about whatever we are reading and if a human wrote it or some AI program. Doesn’t it make you wonder about authors now? What about employment for writers in the future? Are human writers just going to be shoved to the wayside because now AI tools can do their jobs? It is impossible to know the future, but it is definitely something to think about. Would you rather have a real human behind your written words of your business and brand or an AI robot just putting words together to make them sound nice? And just for your knowledge, we didn’t use an AI tool to write this blog, but it doesn’t mean we won’t in the future!
Times are changing on social media where if you pay a certain amount of money, you can obtain the famous blue checkmark to show verified account status. But does that little checkmark really mean anything to anyone anymore?
What Is Verification?
In the beginning of Twitter blue checkmark time, in 2009, the blue checkmark was used to show who was an official and authentic account, usually a celebrity, athlete, or someone of high status. It helped to determine which account was real versus fake or a parody as multiple accounts for users kept popping up, even though it wasn’t actually them.
Facebook followed suit and started their verification process in 2012 and Instagram in 2014. Same kind of process to make a clear distinction between a real page and a page run by a fan.
Most sites have a verification process and they are similar. Just prove you are who you say you are and then you will obtain that blue checkmark. But now the blue checkmark is growing to include more people than just those with a big name or reputation.
Exploring Paid Verification
When Elon Musk took over Twitter, he had to figure out new ways to monetize the business. This came in the form of a monthly subscription to have the verified blue checkmark along with verified member-only features like the ability to post longer videos, less ads on their feeds, and a bump to the top of news feeds. At first Musk’s plan came with some backlash, but it is still chugging along. The numbers don’t seem to be coming back where they predicted they would be, but it is still new. “Twitter subscribers in the US made up less than 0.2% of monthly users in January, two months after Elon Musk introduced Blue,The Information reported Monday, citing a document,” viaBusiness Insider. While 0.2% doesn’t seem like a lot, when you put it in monetary value, it is. “Twitter’s currently bringing in an extra $2.4 million per month via the program, or $7.2 million per quarter,” according toTravis Brown.
The platform is also adding gold checkmarks for official brand accounts, and gray ticks for ‘government and multilateral’ accounts. At what point is too many different colored checkmarks too much and do they even make a difference? According to Business Insider, businesses will pay $1,000 per month to keep theirgold verification checkmark.
And now, Meta just announced their plans for verification for Facebook and Instagram which include, “a subscription service that lets you verify your account with a government ID, get a blue badge, get extra impersonation protection against accounts claiming to be you, and get direct access to customer support. This new feature is about increasing authenticity and security across our services. Meta Verified starts at $11.99 / month on web or $14.99 / month on iOS. We’ll be rolling out in Australia and New Zealand this week and more countries soon.” via Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook post.
If Verification is Bought, Is Value Lost?
When something like verification is able to be purchased, does it make having the checkmark a lesser value? Do those accounts that have the checkmark even matter to users? Does it devalue the accounts that “earned” the verification in the first place with follower numbers?
The checkmarks could be looked at as a status of being able to afford whatever that checkmark costs. And because of that checkmark, whatever those accounts have to share, whether important or not, gets pushed to the top of the feed just because they pay for it. Do you like this or would you rather see the accounts that you follow because you enjoy what they post at the top instead?
“New research from Maine Business School at the University of Maine shows that verification isn’t always a positive, as socialmedia consumers associate verification more with celebrity than credibility and are much less likely to trust product endorsements from verified accounts if the content is inconsistent with the influencer’s brand.”
The results from a study published in February, 2022 in the Journal of Consumer Behavior showed that not only do consumers associate verification more with celebrity than authenticity or credibility, but because of that, they are less likely to trust a verified social media influencer if they are advertising a brand that is inconsistent with their usual messaging. Even when the brand seems suited to the social media influencer, consumers do not trust verified accounts more than their unverified counterparts.
However, since the social networks are all moving in this direction, we shall see how consumers feel really soon. Will the social media outlets make more money? Will consumers feel value?
The Bottom Line
Most, if not all, social media platforms have some form of a verification process. And just like how buying likes and followers is a big mistake on all platforms, buying verification might be looked at as the same thing in today’s world.
Each business is unique and may benefit from the pro’s of verification. It is always worth researching what value is received when purchasing verification. But at this time, marketers and business owners might find more bang for their buck with other strategies.
Diving into digital analytics can be a daunting task, especially for those who aren’t data analysts at heart. From websites to social media, to digital ads and beyond, analytics isn’t anything new, but the ease of obtaining digital information is growing at a lightning fast pace. It is something we can all learn about, and continuously learn about! We will likely never know it all, but by having this information literally at our fingertips, it provides opportunities for those studying them to learn and progress with new ideas and visions faster. Interpreting data can vary from business to business, and what is considered a success for you can be different as well, but let’s just skim the top off of what data analytics is and briefly learn what the most important parts of analytics are for beginners.
Google, Social Media, and Other Digital Analytics
Likely the most popular kind of analytics for a website, Google Analytics is used by over half of all websites. Google tries to make their analyzing methods easy for the viewers, but there can be a lot of data and quite the big puzzle to put together. When first opening Google’s data interface, it can seem like a lot of information being thrown at you. But once you set up your goals, you will start to see the magic happen. You’ll learn where your audience is coming from, who they are, what their habits are, and so on. Here is a good reference for Google Analytics for Beginners, but we can also help answer any questions that you might have.
As for social media, each platform improves upon their analytical composition constantly. Insights as to who is following you, the performance of your social media posts, and learning what your target audience craves are all examples of why analytics are important for social media. There is likely very valuable information in your social media analytics, it is just figuring out what is most important to your business that is key. And truthfully, once you figure out how to interpret the data, the social media channel will likely change how they show you this data and you will need to re-learn how to read the information all over again. They are always keeping us on our toes!
Since this is just a quick reference, there are three things we suggest taking into account when learning how to read your analytics. Understanding your audience is critical as you need to know what they want and how you are going to respond to that. So let’s just briefly hit on the following topics to give a brief overview of what they are and how they help your business.
How do people reach your site?
What are they doing when they get there?
What is your conversion rate?
How Do People Reach Your Site?
Thanks to analytics, we can see how a user even came to find your website. Did they just do a random search on Google? Did they click one of your digital ads? Did they click a link on social media? Your analytics will tell you all of this information which can then help to determine what is working best for your target audience and where you need to be!
What Are Common Behaviors on Your Site?
Once someone is on your site, whether it is your website or social media, what are they doing? Your analytics will give you a glimpse into how much time someone is spending on your site, where they are going within your content, what are they clicking, where are they getting stuck, how much time are they spending on certain pages and so much more! All of these behaviors can help improve your website for your audience.
What is Your Conversion Rate?
And finally, likely the most important analytic that we all want, is what is your conversion rate. If multiple people are getting stuck on a certain page and leave the website, then it is a website problem, not a customer problem. If you start to see patterns of what website visitors are doing when they make a purchase, then it is rewarding to see what you are doing is working for your audience. You always want to make sure that whatever you are pushing, whether it is a product, service, sale, download, etc., that it is easily accessible to the viewer and they obtain their goal for coming to your website in the first place.
The Bottom Line
Analytics are not always easy to digest but they are essential. If you are just learning analytics, start with our three recommendations for what to check out first. Once you learn those, then you can keep diving deeper into more. If you are not working with a marketing team that provides clear and consistent analytics information, then contact us to chat about how we can help.
