How To Create a Mobile Friendly Responsive Website?

Choose a Content Management System
Unless you have prior experience building websites, you probably want to use a content management system (CMS) to build your website. There are many options, but you probably want to go with either WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal. These are the most popular CMS systems to date, and have a tonne of useful plugins, and templates for beginners.

Create a Website Header
Keep your website header as slim as possible, and test it on small screens to ensure it scales properly.

Outline the Main Site Navigation
It is important that you keep your navigation as simple, and organized as possible. Use drop-downs to group pages under parent tabs, and apply internal linking to navigate to less trafficked, supporting pages through body text.

Create a Website Footer
Don’t underestimate a website footer’s effect on conversion. If your web page’s content is compelling this is where all your visitors should end up after reading the page, so use footer elements to continue the user’s experience.

Create Your Home Page

1. Theater, Carousel or Slider
2. Slogan or Tagline Header
3. Brief Company Description
4. Product / Service Page Links
5. Promotional Materials: (videos, images, testimonials etc) 
6. Call to Action Button

Create Your Contact Page

1. Title: Contact (Company Name) – (Service Area). 
2. Full Contact Details: Address, City, Country, Phone Number, Email, Fax, P.O box. 
3. Map: Google Embed or Custom Design. 
4. Operating Hours: Normal hours and holiday hours. 
5. Email Contact Form: Collect at least: Name, Email, Message.
6. Location Images (Gallery) or Virtual Tour: Check out Google’s 360 tour. 
7. Social Links & Handles: Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, SnapChat.
8. Leave a Review Prompt: Link to Google Maps, and other Directories.

Create Your Service / Product Pages

• Create product titles, and keep in mind how they will be read in search engines. 
• Add your service area / city in your product titles to help get more local traffic. 
• Create clever product descriptions that answer the following questions: Who can benefit from this product / service? (usage examples) What are the product / service features? (specs and options) How much does it cost? Where can I buy / pay for this product / service? Product / service specs PDF. High Quality product images from multiple angles. 
• Product videos and that highlight key features. Customer reviews / testimonials. Social sharing buttons.

Set up a Company Blog
Company blogs are an easy, and great way to keep your website updated with fresh content! One or two posts a month is more than enough for the average small-medium business.

Install Google Analytics

How to Increase Your Website Traffic by 100,000

If you want 100,000+ visitors, you have to perform tremendous task for next 9-12 months, after one year you may see steady traffic from various sources.

Lets Increase Your Website Traffic Now!

No matter what you think you know about blogging and website support, there is always room for improvement, right? After all, you always wish you can increase your website traffic. If you aren’t already following these 7 simple rules, take a gander and give a lot of consideration to following them. They’ve worked for many successful bloggers, including me, and they’ll work for you, too!

Rule #1: Mood is Everything

Setting the right mood for your article is crucial to a successful blog post. If your reader can tell that the information you are giving them will be credible or useful based on the mood of your blog article, you’ll have a more successful blog post. For example, opening a blog post with the promise that you can help a retailer multiply their sales is much more compelling than one that simply opens with telling them you hope their last big sale was profitable.

Rule #2: Data is Everything Else

To build credibility and establish yourself as an expert, you use data. Whether it’s your own data or someone else’s, if it supports what you are promising or saying, it helps you build the case for what you say. It’s the difference between sound advice backed up by experience and research versus something that was just made up on the spot.

Rule #3: The Hook Brings You Back

The average person’s attention span is a mere 8 seconds. That means you have to snag more of your reader’s attention quickly, like using your headlines. Your headlines are your hooks, and they need to be designed to drag people kicking and screaming, if necessary, into reading what you have to say.

Rule #4: Show Some Love

If you love your readers enough to do just about anything to keep them happy, they’ll reward you with staying with your blog for a long time and support. They’ll comment on your content, share it with the world, and tell everyone they know just how great you are.

Rule #5: Put Your Heart Into It

Don’t just blog about any old thing you can think of. Blog about something that you truly care about, something you can really put your heart into. This will help you write consistently and keep up the momentum that draws readers to your blog. Nothing is worse than a blogger who only blogs once a month out of necessity, instead of out of love. Write about what you love, and that love will help you write more (and get more readers.)

Rule #6: Make a List, and Check It Twice

Collecting emails is essential to successful blogging. This is so true that some blogs out there rely on email for up to 28% of the total traffic to the blog. If you’re blogging, make sure you offer something to entice people to give you their email address, like an eBook or an online course of some sort. That way, you can utilize your email marketing to its fullest potential, pulling in the traffic and ad revenues that you want and need.

Rule #7: Keep it simple, silly!

This rule refers to your vocabulary. Maybe you know the longest words in the dictionary, but most of your readers probably don’t. What’s more, when you use those long words, they feel like you’re talking down to them. Don’t talk down to your readers, or you’ll lose them! Instead, use simple, down-to-earth language that everyone can relate to.

5 Ways to Attract Readers to Your Small Business Blog

So you can write compelling blogs, and you’re up to date on your social content calendar, everything is going dandy, but there is just one thing you’re missing – you need to attract blog readers.

Some people think coming up with fresh topics to write about or finding the time to write regularly is the challenge but actually, it’s getting enough viewers to engage in your post. So much so that people are commenting, asking questions, or your blog has been shared across numerous social networks. That’s what the end goal for your business’s blog should be.

Add a “subscribe” button
If you attracted a reader, why not ask them to come back. Adding a subscribe or signup button gives the customer an option to be updated on your blog is the best way to grow your following.

Ask customers to visit your website and follow your blog
If a customer is showing interest in shopping in your store or visiting your beauty salon, they could possibly be interested in seeing what you have to share online. It certainly won’t hurt to ask!

Have your website appear on your business card and share it with your customers before they leave and simply say, “When you have a chance, take a look at our blog, I think you’d find a few articles helpful when using our products” or something to that effect. People won’t know to read your blog unless they know it exists!

Follow and engage with others in the blogging community of similar interests
Not everyone that would be interested in your blog are customers or buyers. It’s mostly other bloggers and business owners in the same industry looking to network, grow, share likes, comments, follows, etc. Pass by other blogger’s pages and share your comments and likes. For the most part you’ll find they’ll return the love!

Share Blog Posts to Facebook,
But not every post, or you’ll come off too pushy. Every week you should try to post a “highlight” article, perhaps highlighting the best moments or topics shared over the week. This is the kind of post worth sharing to Facebook without flooding your friends pages.

Monitor your Blog’s analytics
Just because there aren’t any comments doesn’t mean people haven’t visited or read the article. Get familiar with your blog’s analytics and see what topics gain the most traction. Follow the trends and post more about what people seem to be interested in.

What are the most important first steps in marketing a new iOS App?

There are a number of pre-launch marketing activities you need to ensure you have done:

Buzz, buzz, more buzz. No hype.
There has never been an easier time to create an online business. But, equally, there has never been a more difficult time to grow one. Build as much hype as you can, you’ll need it.

The most effective pre-launch campaign has got to be the application Mailbox. They absolutely nailed it. I’ve tried to dig deep into the actual activities they did for people reading and I have simplified it into a list for ease of implementation.

These activities are not unique to Mailbox, so test parts of these and see which convert best for you.

Social Media
Grab your social handles. If you can get a decent name for your application on Facebook and Twitter, that’s brilliant. Similarly, to future proof yourself from changes in the social paradigm, keep an eye on new social networks like Snapchat. People will soon find a way to utilise that effectively for mobile app promotion.

Now you’re signed up, get talking. Create a spreadsheet where you pinpoint the influencers in your area and connect with them. Post content related to your product and build reputation. It’s very important to realise that you shouldn’t use social to directly sell your product. You must add value to the conversation that is already happening around you.

Now you have started to create some noise on social, don’t be afraid to put some modest PPC spend behind it.

Join HackerNews/Reddit and start to join and add to discussions which are based on a similar niche to your products. You’ll earn Karma, which means when you eventually come to pushing your content - you have gravitas. This is an interesting post on HackerNews.

Get active and provide brilliant content on other forums and social sites (like Quora) to post on topics related to your product. Again, don’t overly push your content but add real value to the discussions that are already taking place.

Your own blog can become one of your most effective user acquisition channels. Buffer have had incredible success with it and we see a similar trend. Your customers, who are humans, like to talk with humans, not brands. Check out what Buffer have achieved here.

There are many clever/smart growth hacks you can utilise on these social networks to maximise your newsletter sign ups. Mr Ryan Hoover discusses a pretty cool little hack he used here and, of course, I wrote personally about growth hacking on my blog here, which was very well received.

After you have spent some time establishing yourself in these various distribution channels, you can now start to connect the dots. However, even after you have spent time establishing yourself, you must tread carefully. Don’t oversell yourself.

Setup the funnel
One of the most important things you must ensure is installed and tagged correctly from day one is that your conversion funnel is measured. We use Mixpanel here at Tapdaq for our conversion funnel and we think it’s pretty good. Your conversion funnel is needed to continually iterate your product to ensure you maximise the hits you generate on your landing page.

A Guide to Establishing Online Presence on a Budget

Getting started with a new small business can be an upward climb. But, as we all know the view from top is so rewarding. It’s certainly challenging when you have high hopes and goals you want to accomplish; only to realize you’re stuck with a tight budget.

Understandably you want to start making sales, gaining clients, whatever it is you do so that you can grow your budget and do more with your business. How do you get people to seek out your business? How do you get people to notice you?

While posters and handing out flyers might be the first thing you think of, it is a great idea however, since the print and design could get costly and only reaches people in that specific area. With a limited budget you want to extend your reach without spending too much to start.

Here’s how:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

This is an internet marketing strategy that you will use to be found online through search engines like: Google, Yahoo, or Bing. To optimize your business’ organic search results will be based on how well your SEO strategy considers how search engines work. For example, the content on your website should contain keywords or terms that your targeted audience would be searching. For example, a restaurant in Niagara Falls would would contain content on their website that some way or another mentions key terms like, “things to do in Niagara Falls” or “places to eat by the Falls”.

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Social Media marketing is an essential part of any marketing campaign. It is one of the most effective ways of marketing, advertising, or communicating with people and potential customers online. An important element of social media is the way people can follow and like your posts further increasing your social popularity online.

Blogging

Invest time into your website by creating intriguing content. Remember the purpose of content is two-fold:

• It is engaging, educational, relevant and timely to the intended audience.
• To ensure Google values the content that you have published by being SEO-friendly, to increase organic search results.

How Blogger Outreach Can Grow Your Restaurant Business

Getting influential bloggers to feature your restaurant on their blog is one of the best ways to promote your business for little to no cost. After all, blogs are said to be one of the most influential digital resources people turn to when making purchases.

Have you ever heard of a “foodie”? It’s not just a person who loves to eat all kinds of foods for fun, it’s a food blogger, a person with an interest in gourmet cooking, blog writing, and photography. The notable ones are those with a substantial following and are desired to be enlisted by other successful restaurants. If you haven’t already, you should get started with a blogger outreach campaign for your restaurant.

Here are tips to reach restaurant bloggers:

Build Connections
Turn to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Google + profiles, etc. Search for hashtags #foodie #FoodBlogger #FoodPhotography #FoodForThought #FoodDiary. This may bring up a ton of results but it’s a good start to finding the perfect foodie.

Start following the bloggers that share a lot in common with your brand, like their photos, and share comments. Get to know the types of food and beverages they tend to post about. This is a good way to get on the bloggers radar before formally contacting them.

Take note of the number of followers, likes, or shares the blogger may have. You’ll want to consider reaching out to bloggers that have established a good following. Working with a new blogger could also benefit you both mutually. You could never build too many relationships and connections.

Reach out
Your first contact should be personable, light, and conversational. Keep in mind that influential bloggers get a ton of emails and requests like this often. You’ll need to stand out from the crowd. Start with introducing yourself and tell them a little something about your restaurant.

Start your pitch with inviting them to visit your restaurant, mention some dishes, and beverages you think they’d love to try. Mention ways you both can mutually benefit from connecting.

Follow and engage with others in blogging communities of similar interests
While it is the bloggers role to come up with the content, it is always a bonus to suggest creative new blog ideas.

1. Invite the food blogger to attend a special event: A wine tasting, oyster fest, taco Tuesday, etc.
2. Ask the food blogger to post about a daily menu by inviting them to dine at your restaurant everyday (at no cost, of course). This way, you’ll guarantee a full week of posts by the food blogger, attracting all of their followers to take notice of your restaurant.
3. Share a specialized recipe
4. Suggest a “look-book” for food lovers. Similar to a fashion look-book, but for food. The food blogger could feature their best photography on your featured dishes, cocktails, and desserts.

If the blogger doesn’t show immediate interest, that doesn’t mean they won’t consider it at another time. There is a huge community of food bloggers out there. Just remember to show your personality, share your story, and be unique.

6 Lead Generation Strategies Using White Papers

It’s clear that white papers are a great way to open doors and make the sales process easier. At this point, you’re probably excited about using white papers. Once you have a quality white paper written, it`s time to use it to generate leads. Use these proven lead generation strategies to attract interest from qualified prospects.

Build an email list with your white paper.
Email marketing remains one of the most reliable ways to make sales. There`s just one problem: how do you get relevant prospects to sign up for your email list? There’s a simple solution: offer a free digital copy of your white paper to each person who signs up.

You can then reach out to each person who signs up for the white paper. Pro Tip: Experiment with different services such as the Hello Bar or SumoMe’s Scroll Box to increase the number of email signups on your website.

Introducing a new product to past customers.
How often have you heard the advice – which is absolutely true! – that selling to past customers than gain new ones? Yet many companies fail to make the most of this opportunity. Here’s how white papers help. Let’s say that you’re launching a new product and you think a few past customers would be interested.

How do you start the conversation? Offering a white paper to your past customers is a great move. Psychologically, you’re showing them that you can bring insight and knowledge to the table in addition to your products. This approach is especially helpful if the new product (e.g. a complex marketing application) requires significant background to understand.

Present a Seminar.
Delivering a presentation in front of a live audience remains an excellent way to build a business. How do you come up with what to say? Easy: adapt your white paper into a presentation!

How do you generate leads? On the last few minutes of the presentation – during the Q&A time – tell audience members how they can receive a white paper that summarizes the key points of the presentation. Pro Tip: Not sure where to present about your industry? Review the Association of Association Executives (http://associationexecutives.org/) website. There’s a conference and association for practically every industry category you can think of!

Present a Webinar.
Sometimes you can’t afford the time and effort required to present at a conference. Or maybe you just missed the deadline to submit your conference application.

Don’t’ worry – there’s another approach. You can give a web seminar (i.e. “webinar”) using tools like GoToWebinar. (https://www.gotomeeting.com/webinar/features) to your prospects based on the white paper’s content. For the best results, offer your white paper as a free download at the end of the webinar for those who email you to request it..

Following Up On Networking.
How do people make complex decisions when it comes to making major purchases? According to consulting expert Alan Weiss, referrals from a peer (e.g. one manager to another manager) are the top way to land high value business opportunities. Let’s say that you’re already proficient at networking and meeting new prospects.

How do you stay in touch without coming across as annoying? Add a step to your follow up process where you offer your white paper to prospects. Then, a week or two later, you can get in touch again to discuss the white paper’s findings. For this method to work effectively, it’s vital that you have a detailed white paper that speaks to the pressing needs of your market.

Enhance your Trade show Marketing.
Trade shows offer an interesting sales opportunity. On the one hand, you have the rare chance to meet with hundreds of potential buyers in one location! That’s hours of travel time and hassle saved. On the flip side, you may be seated right next to all of your competitors! That makes standing out from the crowd more difficult.

There’s a way through the noise by using white papers. Think about the tradeshow from your buyer’s point of view – they came here to stay informed about trends and share their insights with colleagues.

Listening to one more sales pitch doesn’t help them look good in front of their boss who paid to send them on the trip. What’s better? Coming back with a white paper – your white paper! – that provides valuable information about the industry.