How to Make Your Website Stand Out from the Crowd

An optimized, aesthetically-pleasing website that is easy to navigate is the key to getting traffic and increasing click through rates. Continue reading to find out how you can create an on-brand website that attracts your ideal customer.

With the abundance of people using the internet, and with how many of those people are making their own websites or blogs, it can be incredibly difficult to make your own website a successful one. With the sheer quality of people creating online content daily, it can be very easy to get lost among the crowd, leading to your site getting little to no views. 

However, the reason your site may not be getting noticed isn’t necessarily because it’s a bad site, but more due to the fact that you’re not implementing the best techniques to optimize your content and give it the best chance to attract a wider audience. Here are some of the top tips to help your website stand out from the crowd. 

Use a Good Web Host that’s Reliable with Minimal Downtime

A web host is a platform where your website will be published, as well as where the design and functionality of your website can be made, such as Squarespace, Wix, or WordPress. You want to ensure that you’re using a great web host from the get-go, as a good host will ensure that you have a wide potential audience base, while also giving you the best tools to create a stunning website, as well as making sure it’s running smoothly and securely. It’s important to do your research and find out which web hosting service is right for you.

Find a Niche with an Active Audience Online

Every person and their dog has a personal blog, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It can be nice to have a personal space where you share your feelings, ideas, or articles, but if you’re looking to reach a wide audience, it may we worth doing something different. Adding an interesting niche or hook to your website and content can be just the ticket to make it more appealing for people to read, as people are constantly looking for something fresh. If you’re unsure what else you can do, there’s plenty of website ideas you can explore online. When we started FemFounder.co, we knew we wanted to cater to female entrepreneurs between 30 and 50 located in English-speaking countries. After we carved this niche, reaching and connecting with those people became very easy.

Choose a Good Domain Name and Purchase All of the Extensions

Your domain name is critical in helping you reach a wider audience, so because of this, a lot of time needs to be taken when considering your options. You want a domain name that relates or even matches popular key terms and Google searches related to your website’s niche. This will help you rank on Google, which will make you more likely to get more views. It’s important that you choose a domain that’s easy to remember and even easier to type to make it more searcher friendly.

It’s also a good idea to invest in your domain name and pay for a premium one, as this can make you look more professional. A lot of web hosting platforms will add a URL extension to your domain, such as ‘Domain.wordpress.com,’ for WordPress, which can put viewers off. Domains aren’t too expensive and can be a great investment to help make your website grow. You can purchase the .com, .co, .info, and .biz extensions to ensure no other company grabs your domain name.

Choosing the right web host from the outset is pivotal for any website owner. A top-tier web hosting service lays the groundwork for reaching a broad audience and equips you with the advanced tools to design an impressive and engaging website. Additionally, this plays an important role in ensuring your site operates smoothly, offering visitors a seamless and secure browsing experience.

Beyond the basics of uptime and bandwidth, a great web host provides robust security features to protect your site from threats, efficient customer support to promptly address issues, and scalable options to grow with your website. Investing in a quality web host is investing in your site's future success, ensuring it remains accessible, fast, and safe for everyone who visits.

Use the Right Layout, Colors, and Type Faces 

Things such as your website design, fonts, and color scheme can be far more important than you think when it comes to attracting more viewers and readers. You may think your website looks pretty or slick, but your color choices may be giving off psychological vibes that may not suit your product. 

In fact, color psychology is important in business, especially in advertising, and each color can impact a person’s viewing and buying preferences. For example, black better suits luxury products as it’s a powerful color, while blue is seen as being trustworthy, and green is more of a relaxing color due to it being the easiest for the eyes to process. It’s vital to learn how color works to find the best scheme for your website.

If you’re looking for more website design tips, visit Marquet-Media.com.

8 Ways to Build Trust With Your Customers

There are many key elements that’ll determine whether your business is a success or a failure, including the strength of your ideas, price point, and the competition that you face from other companies. These, however, can be considered the obvious matters to focus on. One of the most underrated yet crucial factors is the truth that you develop and maintain with your customers. While you might be getting most things well, if there’s no trust with your customers, then there’ll only be so far that you can go. In this blog, we’re going to take a look at some best ways to establish trust with your customers. 

Tell Your Story

If there’s one thing we’re beginning to understand, it’s that the public is becoming less interested in faceless companies trying to sell them things. There’s too much of it, and consumers are a little worn out. And anyway, it’s hard to build a connection with a brand that you know little about. Small business owners are in a fortunate position because they typically have a much more interesting story than big corporations. So make sure that the public knows it. Rather than keeping the personal side of your existence on hold in the professional sphere, put it forward. You’ve been on a journey to get to where you are now: say it loud.

Be Transparent

Would you trust a friend that always seems to say one thing, but then does another thing? You wouldn’t, or at least you shouldn’t. The same principle can be applied for businesses too. One thing that breaks any trust that consumers have for a company is when the company does something a bit sneaky. For example, if they list the cost of their services as one thing, but the real price is something else. You might make the first sale because the customer is already committed to buying it, but you’ll have lost their trust -- and that’ll make it less likely that they’ll return in the future.

Show Your Expertise

Who do we generally trust in the world? The people who know what they’re talking about. You’d trust a doctor’s medical opinion more than you would the opinion of a random stranger, after all. But of course, people aren’t going to know that you’re one of the people that know what they’re talking about unless you show them. So make sure you’re showing the world that you can be trusted when it comes to whatever it is your business deals in. There are numerous ways to do this. You can have high-quality content on your website, publish videos about your products and services, and all-around using any platform that allows you to show off what you know. The effective thing about this method is that there’s nowhere to hide. If you can confidently publish this information, then it’ll be successful. 

Testimonials and Reviews

People do listen to what companies say, of course, but the corporate voice isn’t the most important voice when it comes to developing trust with customers: that’s reserved for the voice of your happy customers. Studies have shown that recommendations from strangers are nearly as powerful as a recommendation from a family member.

So take a look to see if there’s a way to publish reviews from your customers on your website. To do this, you’ll need to first get their opinion; how you do this will depend on the type of business you have. For example, if you had a hairdresser, then you could ask them in person. If you’re running an online business, then you can follow up on their order with a request for a review. If you’ve been doing your job well, then you’ll likely have plenty of positive reviews coming your way!

Contact Information

It’s all good and well saying the right things, but ultimately, customers want to know that when they have an issue, they’re able to get in touch with the company that they’re dealing with. Indeed, there are few things more frustrating than having difficulty speaking to someone when you need it most; even if you were feeling positive about a company, this is something that would put doubts in your mind. So make sure that your customers can always get in touch with you.

On your website, you should list your social media channels, email address, and phone number. If you don’t have the time to monitor your phone calls yourself, then look at outsourcing the task to a company such as Virtual HQ. You’ll also want to develop a system that ensures emails are answered promptly. If you’re an online-only business, you may consider incorporating a “live chat” feature into your site, too. 

Ask Their Opinion

Your relationship with your customer is a two-way street, not a one-way street. It’s a conversation. People are more likely to trust when it feels as if they’re being listened to! So look at asking for their opinion on how you can serve them better, and then work on incorporating their ideas into your operations. Doing so will have them trust that you’re there to do right by them. 

Solving Problems 

It’s easy to keep a person’s trust when everything’s going well. That’s because the trust isn’t being tested; it’s just there. The true test of trust is when there’s a problem, or, more specifically, how you respond to a problem. If you’re doing everything you can to remedy the issue, then the trust you’ve established will remain intact. 

Carry On Improving

Finally, be sure that you’re carrying on pushing forward. You may once have had the trust of your customers, but if it looks like you’re on the way down, then that trust will slowly erode. People don’t trust companies (or people…) who look like they no longer know what they’re doing, or that they’re past their best. You can avoid this issue by staying committed to improvement. No matter what industry you're in, there’ll always be new ways of operating and new trends popping up. 

Bonus: Ask Their Opinion

Your relationship with your customer is a two-way street, not a one-way street. It’s a conversation. People are more likely to trust when it feels as if they’re being listened to! So look at asking for their opinion on how you can serve them better, and then work on incorporating their ideas into your operations. Great ways are to conduct focus groups in DC. Doing so will have their trust that you’re there to do right by them.

The RealReal is a Making a Name for Themselves

The RealReal has been dismissed by many luxury establishments, but it is becoming clear that it is a company to be reckoned with. It has found success by slowly becoming a trusted partner for luxury-fashion consigners and buyers over the years. This strategy has helped push them to the forefront of the resale market. In fact, the company has made $288 million in funding since it began in 2011.

In the beginning, the RealReal was solely an online company. In its first year of business, the company made $10 million dollars in sales, followed by six years of growth. In 2017, sales topped $500 million. Today, the company is expanding from its online market to actual brick and mortar storefronts. Thus far, they have opened two stores.

One is located in New York City, while the other is in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles store has a unique section that is devoted to men’s fashion, which is a fast-growing part of the company’s business. In addition to these two permanent locations, the company has got the word out about its brand through pop-up shops. These shops only opened for a short time, sometimes a day to a couple of weeks. All of these storefronts help the company in several ways. They produce larger orders and help the company secure the best quality consignments for them to sell.

One of the main reasons The RealReal has found success is because it appeals to a large market. For older, wealthy clients, the draw to find a good deal is what leads them to consignment shops. For Millennials, which is one of the company’s main targets, the hunt to find that perfect item at a great price is what draws them in. They want to have their own look that can’t be easily copied by others. This company is great at providing that.

Another benefit of the company is that it allows more people to have access to luxury brands. While not being “cheap,” they make luxury items much more affordable. This means it isn’t impossible for many Millennials to afford a high-end item, such as something from Louis Vuitton. Customers love finding a treasure that they never thought they could have had before or something that slipped through their hands at a boutique at a fraction of the price.

This online consignment boutique helps support first-time sales for luxury brands. Many first-time buyers like to look at consignment shops first to see the price of their potential buys. The reason is that they want to know they are getting a good value. Additionally, they want to know that, if they want to, they can sell the item after they are done with it and make a significant amount of their money back. 

The company is also a great source of trends. Based on searches of their customers, they can tell what luxury retailer is hot at any point in time. For instance, they have noted that Gucci has pushed Chanel out of the number one spot for the most searched brands on the site, and Louis Vuitton continues to hold the number two spot, with Chanel being close behind. They also track trends between men and women, noting that men are moving more towards casual street styles.

As time goes by, the company has received a major increase in online traffic, as well as more engaged traffic. Most buyers look at around ten pages per visit. Most of these visitors are of the Millennial generation, making up nearly one-third of their customers. As the years go by, this company is becoming a major success and a real threat to all other companies in the retail business. 

Looks, Books, And A Lot Of Hooks! Making Your Business Image Important In Every Way

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A successful business is a lot to do with how we are perceived. If we want to be a better leader, the advice is that we have to practice faking it until we make it; we put this image on of the person that we want to be. It is all about growing into that image. And when we are growing a business, a lot of what makes it transcends boundaries and building up our brand image is always going to be the most valuable commodity. But what can we do when we are looking to build up a proper image? A lot of it has to do with how we look, but it's also about hitting the books and coming up with a lot of marketing hooks! Let's delve deeper.

The Power Of Semiotics

The study of signs and symbols highlights the vitality of any business image. When we start to talk about marketing components like a website, we have to think about those small images that we present to the customer that either inspire them to click or go away completely. We have to remember that web design is all about the layout and the journey. But also, the images we present are going to raise subconscious red flags if we do it wrong. It's important to consult a marketing firm, or a design company like Connective Web Design to go through the imagery. We have to remember that semiotics can provide an entryway into a customer's emotions. Using symbols and signs effectively, through our logo, our website, as well as any promotional material, can ignite a spark in their minds.

Learning To Cultivate Your Leadership Image

Hitting the books is part of what we need to do as we nurture our business. In one respect, we start to learn about how we can lead and figure out our style of leadership through trial and error. But when we start to figure out what we don't have, this is when we have to hit the books. There are so many ways to improve our leadership, by looking at those that we admire but also understanding that it's not about emulating these people.

When we start to improve our processes within the business and understand how to speak to people differently, this doesn't mean the battle is finished. We have to remember that it's an ongoing process that we fine-tune. So many business leaders feel that they don't need to make drastic alterations to who they are because it's their business and they can do what they want! This is a very unhealthy approach to run a business.

The Importance Of Consistency Across Every Channel

From our brand to our leadership, and everything in between, the importance of consistency isn't just relating to our physical appearance, it's our actions and interactions. While there's a lot of talk about in terms of the message, especially from a social media platform to the website, we have to go further to bring this message into the real world. We can do this through training our staff members, ensuring that everything has a specific tone of voice, but also understanding that we aren't above it all! Consistency and the overall image comes from the leader. This means that we've got so much of an influence on the final product, that we had better hold onto it tightly. But this doesn't mean that we should control everything with a vice-like grip. If necessary, go back to your business plan and see if you have gone further away from what you envisioned. From branding to products to employees, consistency is what will make our business image transcend. Keeping everything on tone is vital.

Our image is always important, but how we bring this image to the masses is not about the marketing or the employees; it is about the whole entity. Developing a business is about those smaller components that get everything up and running, but in order to make it successful, it's about making that impression in a customer's mind. The image we present is not just a design, it's the entire package. When we need the looks, we need to hit the books, and we need to have a lot of hooks.

One In A Million: How To Make Your Business Stand Out

No matter which industry you try and dominate, there is always going to be competition. The key to success in business lies in outshining rivals and persuading customers that you are the best choice, but how can you make sure that you stand out from the crowd? If you’re looking to propel your company forward and reach the top, here’s a handy guide to help you excel.

Showcase your personality and build your brand

Think about all the big businesses you’re familiar with for a second. The multinational corporations and high-profile brands we all know are much more than a business name or a single product. Branding is crucial to give your business personality and show customers what you’re all about. Use branding techniques to provide people with information about your venture and enable them to get to know your back story and understand your objectives.

If your brand is weak, and you’re considering a rebrand, or you’re launching a new company, it’s wise to spend time thinking about how you’re going to celebrate and showcase your personality and use branding to engage with potential customers. Look online for logo inspo and conjure up a design that embodies your brand and enables customers to gain an insight into what you do or sell. Your logo and tagline, your packaging designs, and any content you share online or via the mail should be relevant to your target audience. For many people, your logo is the first glimpse of your business, and often, you don’t get a second chance to impress.

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Engage with your audience

Once you’ve got the basics of branding pinned down, it’s time to enhance and strengthen the relationship between your business and your customers. Engage with your audience via social media, mail or email, and get to know your audience. Use content to promote your services and products, but also to create a strong profile for your brand and to facilitate communication.

Customer service is vital, and there are many ways you can ensure you receive 5-star ratings. As well as simple steps like responding to questions or queries quickly and delivering on promises, it’s wise to elevate the experience and treat your customers like VIPs. Add a personal touch to emails and social media messages, offer treats for loyal clients and make sure you’re easily contactable.

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Do your bit for good causes

Corporate social responsibility is a hot topic. More and more companies are participating in schemes or supporting individual causes as a means of giving back to the community or promoting national or international charities. If you don’t already do your bit for good causes, look into projects in your local area, or research charities or initiatives that are linked to causes that are important to you.

You could sponsor a local team, an event or a program, you could donate a portion of your profits to a charity, or you could set up a scheme that raises funds for an initiative through sales. Choose a cause that is close to your heart and that complements your brand. If you produce sustainable products, for example, it makes sense to support eco-friendly projects. If you run a dog grooming salon or a veterinary practice, raising funds for animal shelters or conservation schemes is a great idea. Corporate social responsibility has multiple benefits for businesses. Employees take satisfaction from giving, and customers like to buy into companies that have a reputation for supporting charitable causes.

Be original

Imagine yourself as a buyer for a moment. You’re standing in a store aisle, surrounded by products that are essentially very similar. What makes you choose one item over another? Take another example. You’re browsing online looking for a local service provider in your area. What compels you to select one company instead of the others?

Originality can fuel entrepreneurialism, but even in a scenario where you’re not reinventing the wheel and coming up with a ground-breaking new product, it’s possible to make your brand stand out. The way you brand and market products and services can make all the difference. Use innovative, creative approaches to spread your message and entice customers and offer something slightly different. This could be as simple as adding a personalized message to parcels you send or featuring your customers in social media posts, rather than models.

If you do not have an in-house marketing department, you can outsource your branding and marketing activities. You can invest in digital marketing because it is easier to precisely identify and pinpoint your target audience, as well as analyze the right tools and approaches that work best. Additionally, it can be more cost-effective. There are many digital marketing companies like AdInfusion that help businesses upscale their marketing tactics and easily reach more consumers by using strategic SEO, Facebook, and Google Ads. If you haven’t considered this marketing approach, perhaps it’s time to do so. 

Aim for rave reviews

Did you know that over 90% of consumers now check product reviews before buying a product? 

With reviews and ratings becoming increasingly influential, it has never been more important to aim for optimum customer service standards. An excellent review can distinguish you from your competitors and encourage buyers to choose you. Urge customers to leave feedback and share their experiences of your business, and utilize comments and ratings to make continual improvements.

You can learn from both positive and negative opinions. Share brilliant reviews and testimonials and offer incentives for those who spread the good news to friends and family. If you find yourself in a situation where a customer complains, and there’s a risk of attracting negative attention, try and resolve the issue as quickly as possible. Explain why things have gone wrong, provide a solution, and offer compensation. Every business makes mistakes, but not all of them respond in the right way.

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Think Hard About Your Name

Your business name is going to be exactly what reflects your brand, your values, who you are, etc. Plus, this is something that should really be timeless, too. So, with all of that said, do you have a business name that could reflect your business for years to come? 
Better yet, is your business name something that could be easily remembered but, at the same time, not generic or similar sounding to anything else? Whether you’re choosing a name like Golden Ventures, Oak & Ash, a catchphrase, or even your full name, will these be memorable? Will these reflect your brand? Is this something that you’d be able to settle with for good? Seriously, this matters so much!

Final thoughts:

Competition is an enduring feature of business, and to get ahead, you need to beat rivals and ensure your company stands out. When trying to attract and keep hold of customers, it’s crucial to have a strong brand and to celebrate your unique identity. Enable customers to get to know you and what your brand stands for, and use social media and email to get to know your clients and followers. Encourage engagement and communication, focus on providing first-class customer service, and try and offer something different. This relates to innovative products and services, but also the way you present your business and interact with customers. Utilize feedback and take ideas on board to impress new and existing clients and maintain the highest standards of service.

Is There Such A Thing As A Price Comparison That Doesn't Leave You Out Of Pocket

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No matter what you’re offering these days, the chances are that twenty other companies in your area are providing much of the same. Worse, consumers can now get online and compare similar company pricing within seconds. If you’re not at least offering an option to reduce costs, then you’re asking for failure. It really is a business-eat-business world, and price comparisons have become crucial for boosting success as a result of that. 

The trouble is that, often, efforts to match prices can end in lost profits. Does that mean you should scrap the idea? Not at all, but it does mean that you should consider the following ways to compare and match costs without leaving yourself out of pocket.

Offer competitive prices in the first place

Perhaps the best way to avoid comparisons that cost is to offer competitive pricing in the first place. Keeping an eye on the market and making sure that your costs stand up to those tests should be a fundamental business practice. By incorporating that with a price comparison offering, you guarantee a reputational boost that’s unlikely ever to cost you. After all, your price comparison will be little more than a goodwill gesture if your costs are already lower than, or as good as, everyone else’s. This can also be beneficial for ensuring your price comparison never throws product quality into question. Remember, after all, that a comparison service that sees you knocking off a great deal every time could well leave consumers questioning your price points in the first place.

Automate the process

If you aren’t careful, price comparisons can also cost a great deal more in labor. You could end up out of pocket by a significant margin this way, which is why you should consider automation. While not all business applications are suited to automated procedures, price comparisons can work incredibly well for this. So long as you’ve thought about and planned the deployment of robotic process automation (RPA) in this area, it can work incredibly well for gaining market impressions with ease. While you will still face some upfront costs, they’ll pale in comparison to the amount you’d spend otherwise. 

Use comparisons for acquisition

On average, acquiring new customers costs five times as much as retaining old ones, an issue that companies continually struggle to overcome. By using your price comparisons as a selling point for new customers, you could, therefore, end up saving yourself money regardless of your efforts. After all, new customers with lifetime value are always going to be worth more to your business than the small discounts and allowances you’ll need to make to match prices across the board.

If you’ve been resisting price comparison offerings before now, think again. As more and more companies offer this service or similar, there’s no denying the benefits and expectations you could enjoy from doing the same. And, by keeping these tips in mind throughout implementation, you make sure that your efforts here needn’t ever cost you above the odds.

Why Your Brand Guidelines Are So Important

No matter how small your business is, you need people to know it's you. Your branding is key to the identity of your business and will also have a lot to do with its success. The idea of building a brand identity and creating brand guidelines can be daunting, though, but it doesn't need to be. There is plenty of information out there to help you and free tools too. 

Remember that consistency is the backbone of an authentic, trustworthy, and recognizable brand and customer experience, so this means having consistency in the way you look, speak to, and service your customers and target audience. Staying consistent takes effort, and it also means you have to have rules, and this is where you need to write yourself some brand guidelines.

Brand guidelines are a set of rules about how to represent your brand across channels and assets, helping your business build credibility and recognition as you grow. They can include visual guidelines such as logo usage, color palette, typography and they can also cover your company's mission, brand voice, and imagery.

You then need to use your brand guidelines when you are designing brand assets such as your website, invoice templates, brochure, social media accounts, and packaging. Make sure any new employees are aware of them, and of course, any designers you are working with are too. 

You can either create your brand guidelines yourself or outsource them to another company to do it for you. If you're not sure about it, you can search for other company's brand guidelines online as an example. You'll find some great ones and very detailed, but you can use these as a guide and adapt it to your company. This way, you'll make sure you don't miss anything, though, and you'll also learn from someone who has done it and shown that it works. Check these out as good examples:

Walmart Corporate Brand Guidelines cover just about everything you can imagine. It includes direction on the brand's editorial voice and how to use its logo in print, online, on promotional merchandise to name a few. It also covers appropriate fonts and how to use logos, icons, and taglines correctly.

Then there’s the Mozilla Style Guide which is another really useful one to look at. It has an online style guide to help its open source community understand how to use its logos and trademarks for Mozilla, the Firefox browser, and its other products.

It isn’t just about looking pretty, according to a study from The Verde Group and the Wharton School, two-thirds of all shoppers use more than one channel to make purchases so with all the online and offline opportunities to make an impression, it’s about consistency across all channels and touchpoints to make your business branding and identity familiar, pleasing to the eye and recognizable to your customers. 

Keep it simple by focusing on a small number of fundamental brand values; be consistent because every aspect of your business should make customers feel the same way about you. Additionally, communicate your brand. Make sure every advertisement, brochure, and letter helps reinforce the same message. If you have a logo, use it everywhere, but make sure the quality is consistent. 

Remember to be honest. If you don't believe in your brand, no one else will.