Dream Big
As a startup CEO you need to have a dream for the company and then you need to have the presence and persuasion to get other people to follow it. Phillip Thow says a quality CEO is a person that steps into a room and everyone becomes quiet in order to listen to what they have to say. People need to respect you and this will come by having a vision and actually accomplishing this vision.
Surround Yourself with Goodness
Phillip Thow says a CEO will only be as good as the people that work for them. You need to take the time to go out and find people that are going to contribute effectively to your company. It is important to hire people that you feel know more than you ever could in certain areas. Bringing in talent will aid in strengthening the company and will also help you to find people to trust with leadership positions in the organization. Once you hire people, never leave them hanging to try and figure out their own jobs. Phillip Thow says that effective companies spend money on training and they actually take a lot of time to really train their employees. This will allow them to know all that they possibly can about the company, making it much easier for them to fit into their roles.
Become the Face
When you think of the major companies like Microsoft, Facebook, and Nike, what do you see? Besides the logo and the money, the face of these companies is the CEO. Phillip Thow says that as the startup CEO, it is your responsibility to represent the company. People will immediately identify you with the company so you must be able to have a presence. It is vital that you take public speaking courses and other classes to learn how to interact in social settings and how to be the CEO.
Improve Web Performance Using These Web Analytics
Trying to understand web analytics can be overwhelming, there is so much information out there, some good and some bad that it is difficult to sort through it all and determine what is right for you and your business. The first thing you need to have in place is a host or other tool that will give you the statistics for your site. You need to be able to determine certain factors about your website and understand what each one means. It is extremely important for you to understand these web analytics so that you can correctly set up your website for SEO and SEM. Below are the five main web analytics that you should understand in order to get the best performance possible from your site.
Conversion Rate
The conversion rate shows you how many visitors to your site were converted into taking a call of action. The call of action could be making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter or even just filling out a survey. If you have a lower than desirable conversion rates then you can look at the other metrics to help determine where you may need to make some changes.
Some tips for helping your conversion rate include gaining higher quality traffic by using the proper keywords, having a great landing page where people will find everything they are looking for and using persuasive speech on your main page to entice your visitors to take the call of action you want.
Cart Abandonment
You have sales slip away every day as people will spend the time looking through your site, adding items to their virtual shopping carts and then never check out. Although this is a common problem with site owners, it should not be so common that the cart abandonment rate is too high and you are losing unnecessary sales. If you do have a high cart abandonment rate then you might consider taking a closer look at your site and its features. There is something that is causing those potential customers to walk away from making the purchase and you need to figure out what it is.
It could be that the payment methods accepted are not offering enough options for users, or they feel it is not a secured site. Maybe your shipping charges are too high or your ship time to slow. There is some reason why a person would take the time to add items to their cart and shop through your site and then just walk away, no one likes to waste their time and you certainly do not like to waste moneyso find out what's wrong and fix it immediately.
Conversions For First Time Visitors
This metric can show you how many first time visitors are being converted into taking a call of action on your site. It is great to have repeat customers but if you notice that your first time visitor conversion rate is low, then you may need to spend more time getting the word out about your website.
You may need to look into the keywords you are using and also where you are marketing your site to. You can find the web analytics about where your visitors are coming from through your statistics and hopefully that will reflect where the problem lies. You need to have new visitors coming onto your site all the time, ones that will convert to the call of action on your site, so maybe you need to market harder, stronger or just elsewhere.
Bounce Rate
A bounce rate shows you how many visitors came onto your page and immediately left upon viewing it. Usually a bouncer is considered someone who spent 30 seconds or less on your page. All sites get bouncers, it is not a huge deal unless you have a bounce rate that is 40% or 50%, then you might want to consider making some changes.
Most times people bounce quickly from a site because it either was not what they were looking for or it was taking too long to load. Stay away from having too many graphics on your site that will take too long to load, people will feel the site is unprofessional and get bored quickly, so they leave, regardless of whether you had what they needed or not. If you use keywords that are not relevant to your offer on the website then you can expect that you will immediately lose visitors and your bounce rate will go up. You should always ensure that you have the right keywords for marketing your niche and that your landing page is designed to not only show the visitor who and what your company is all about, but that it is designed to convert the visitors into customers or clients.
Time to Conversion
If you are getting mass traffic but notice that your visitors are only spending a short time on your site, then you need to find out how to market your page more efficiently so they are enticed to stay and view your pages longer. You want to have your visitors not only visit the main page, but you want them to five into the website further and browse. The longer the visitor stays on your page the more likely they are to convert, they are obviously interested in what you have to offer.
Make sure that you are designing your website so that it is not only giving the visitor a clear message about your company but that it is also very easy to navigate. You want to give them the ability to browse through your pages quickly and easily, your pages should load fast and each page should be enticing enough to get the visitor to want to stay and look further. This way you have a better chance of converting them into a customer or client.
Online Advertising
You can find many ways to advertise your website, products or services online without spending a fortune, sometimes without spending a penny! Online article directories are a cheap method of advertising where you can add links back to your site. You can use emails, newsletters or other forms of digital advertising that will not cost you a cent or you can add posts to forums, create your own blog site or even join a social network. Forums are a great way to get attention on other people's websites and the blog will not only work as advertising for your site it will also help in your rankings within the major search engines. Social networks are often overlooked by businesses as a form of advertising, but creating a business page has proven to be a very effective form of advertising for millions of businesses across the globe!
There is no cost in creating a well optimized website if you do it on your own and the content on your site will work as a form of advertising as it helps you rank higher in the search engines result pages. Everything you do to help benefit your website can be extremely affordable and even in some cases free if you do it on your own.
Keeping Your Online Reputation Clean
There is nothing worse than having your online reputation smeared through the mud. Sometimes this can happen at no fault of your own, through either a competitor using shady tactics or by misrepresentation through a bad company brand or logo advertisement. If you find that your name has been tainted online and do not know where to turn, call on the experts.
Sometimes these negative comments are from competitors and they can simply be removed once the IP has been traced. Other times if they are from actual customers that have had bad experiences, it is best to address them and offer some sort of compensation or even just an apology. Many times people will feel more comfortable with a company knowing they will own up to their mistakes. Having a professional on your side to help you figure out when it is best to ignore, avoid, erase or acknowledge a bad comment can make a huge impact on how you are viewed.
Be Careful When It Comes To Online Marketing Trends
Online marketing techniques, methods, trends and campaigns can change quickly, sometimes too quickly. You have to be careful when you choose what marketing techniques you want to use for your Seattle website to ensure they are offering a solid foundation to reach your goals.
You never want to begin your marketing campaign for your Seattle website using the newly offered trends to methods for quick results. You should invest in a sound and solid campaign for your Seattle website, and then of course you can begin trying out the new trends that are offered.
You have heard the phrase "all that glitters is not gold", so keep that in mind when you are looking into the marketing trends that are being offered to get your Seattle website fast results. Many of these trends will promise more traffic, more visibility within the search engines for your website, more sales and quicker growth. Just remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is.
There are some trends that are offered that will deliver on their promise, but it can be tough trying to decide which ones to invest in. Hiring an SEO agency is usually the best way to promote your Seattle website and get the results you need. They can help you determine which methods are worth investing in and which ones are not. They will also help build you a solid marketing campaign in which you can begin to expand from.
You have to have a solid online presence for your Seattle website before you start chasing after the trends that are offered. So, put your investment dollars towards something real and not something that may not be. Stick with a solid keyword campaign that offers you the visibility within the search engines and work on creating a well designed website. You can then turn towards the foundations of online marketing such as email campaigns, online directories, blogs, social medias and backlinks to get further visibility within the search engines. Just remember to start with something solid so you always have something to stand on when those trends you want to try do not offer the results they had promised.
Get The Most From Your Facebook Posts
Many people do not realize that Facebook uses an algorithm in their newsfeed. This means that when you see your newsfeeds pop up they are not randomly chosen but carefully selected by this algorithm. The algorithm is known as EdgeRank and work by factoring in the below components of a post:
Affinity: How often a page is interacted with by a user, this rings true for friends or business pages. So, if you visit the Seattle baked goods page often, it is more likely to show up in your newsfeed.
Edge Weight: The type of content that is posted will have an edge weight, so when you are posting videos, images or just text about your Seattle baked goods websitegive it some serious thought.
Time Decay: When a post is becoming stale or has been sitting awhile it is less likely to be seen. So post often about your Seattle baked goods to ensure you are noticed.
When you take into consideration this algorithm you will find that there are certain variables that will give you an advantage over your competition. You can use these facts below to help get your Seattle baked goods page in the eyes of all your fans and their friends and their friends, etc.
- You receive 20% more user interactivity on posts made between the hours of 8pm -7 am
- Wednesdays offer an 8% increase in fan interaction
- You will gain a 40% increased chance of user interaction if you post 1-2 times daily
- You will gain a 71% increased chance of user interaction if you post 1-4 times a week
- You will have an 86% increase in user interaction by creating posts about your Seattle baked goods that are 40 characters or less.
- You will generate 2x the user interaction by posting a question as you would a regular post
- Fill in the blank posts will create 9x more user interaction than any other post
- When creating coupon posts for your Seattle backed goods, use $ off instead of % off, they are 2x more effective
Is Offline Marketing a Thing of The Past?
By the year 2015, some market analysts have stated they believe that offline marketing will take a huge hit. The online marketing community is becoming more and more effective and offers a more valuable way to promote local and national businesses. So, this means that if you have a Seattle based business and are not using the internet to market your company, you may too be something of the past in the next few years!According to an advisory company BIA/Kelsey who has dedicated their studies to growing businesses they have determined that more than 70% of all offline advertising budgets will shift to online advertising by 2015. That is a huge amount of revenue that is going to be lost for offline advertisers.
Online advertising for your Seattle business includes several platforms, below are the most commonly used methods for marketing your business online.
Online Media: Using mobile SEO techniques, social media networks, online directories and blogs or forums you can promote your Seattle business effectively online. Social media networks and mobile device apps are proving to be a strong contender for marketing your Seattle website, so keep an eye on the trends that are offered through these platforms.
Performance based Commerce: Pay per click and offering deals, coupons or coupon codes is another effective way that businesses are advertising online. Although this method may be less cost effective as some of the others it is still a fast growing empire and expects to take some of that offline budget that is going to be dispersed.
Customer Retention services: This method of advertising for your Seattle website includes e-mail campaigns, your website infrastructure, reputation management and other services that are solely customer connected and used to gain a relationship between your Seattle business and the customers.
Traditionally forms of offline advertising while will not go away, they will take a hit. So you will notice a shift in newspaper advertising, radio ads and even television ads going towards online marketing techniques instead.
- Written By: Phil Thow, Seattle, Washington.
Online Purchasing Is Booming
Offline businesses are now faced with the dilemma of whether or not to take their business into the new age of technology and start working on an internet marketing campaign. The decision should be simple, if you want the business then you go where the business is and the business is online.With millions of potential customers online each day, why would any business not want to be in the middle of it?
Consumers know that with a few clicks of the mouse they can find a local business, locate an online business and have access to hundreds of places to buy the products they need. They can shop online at any time during the day or night and even have access to their products on weekends and holidays. There is no more struggle to get to the local business during their regular business hours, the internet never closes.
The selection is so broad online that it is impossible to not find what you are looking for and consumers love this feature. They also love the great savings, the convenience and the ability to read reviews, compare prices and quality and have the items shipped directly to their front door. With all of these benefits offered to consumers online, there is no reason why any business, even if offline would not want to start working towards obtaining a great online marketing campaign to generate leads for all of this business.
Convenience
Convenience of online shopping is a huge factor for those who prefer the method for purchasing. Consumers can go online and have access to all the information they need to make the decision about the products they plan to buy. With side by side comparisons they can look at several websites to ensure they are getting the best possible deal and all of this can be done right from the comfort of their own home. The internet is always open, so shopping can be done anytime, from anywhere.Selection And Price
There are many more options when shopping online, with so many stores online than you would find in your local area you are able to find anything you need, no matter how rare. Since there are so many websites online the competition is much higher than that of an offline stores, so price is always lower. The businesses are forced to keep their prices low and offer more specials and deals in order to gain the customers they need to survive, so for the internet shopper this is a huge bonus.
Think Locally When Creating A Home-Based Business
The struggling economy has caused many people to try to find ways to bring extra income into their home. Seattle Washington and Scottsdale Arizona are two areas that have struggled, and the people in these areas are trying to find ways to support the lifestyle they have gotten accustomed to. One of the best ways to do this is to create a home-based business. A business that is run out of your own home is more flexible and will allow you to work when you have the time available. Phil Thow recommends creating a business that you are passionate about.
When creating a home-based business it is important to think about who your customers will be. If you are targeting people who live in Scottsdale Arizona, it may not be a good idea to try to sell snow removal equipment through an internet website. Instead a good internet business will be to offer local businesses a way to market what they do through advertising. A website can be created that will target the people of Seattle Washington and then ads on that site can be sold to local businesses. Many web site owners use services that sell them pay-per-click ads for their website from anyone. If you can target specific markets and create a website that will attract the right crowd, you could be finding a niche that is underserved. For more information about building the right niche for your business contact the experts like Phil Thow.
Many local businesses are struggling because people can turn to the internet to buy anything they want. They have tried a variety of marketing techniques including a support local businesses day, so this is a market that can be utilized. The important thing for anyone who wants to create a home-based business is to try to find a place where they can stand out from the others. That is what will make people want to use their services and it is what will help them earn the income they want.
- Written By: Phil Thow, Seattle, Washington.
Why Your Offline Business Needs A Website
You might be thinking that having a website for your offline business is simply a waste of time; the truth is not having a website for your offline business is a waste of good advertising opportunities. Phillip Thow knows the importance of internet marketing, even for the Scottsdale Arizona business owner who only sells their products or services offline. So, why is it so important for your offline business to have a website?
Online Visibility
Online visibility for your Seattle Washington business is crucial if you want to expand your marketing campaigns. Only having the localized marketing campaigns surrounding your offline business will limit you to the millions of potential customers who are online.
Even if you plan on keeping sales limited to your offline store you can still gain some major brand recognition that you could not otherwise get offline by creating a company website. People love to know who they are spending their hard earned cash with, so allowing your customers to visit your Scottsdale Arizona business online and learn more about your company can help create a more loyal customer.
Local Listings For Mobile Devices
Phil Thow wants all offline business owners to know that if their Seattle Washington business is not online in the directories, they will lose business. People rely highly on their mobile devices when looking for a business in the area, so even if you offer the best products, the most affordable prices and have the best customer service in town, if your business is not listed when those potential customers do their mobile searches, your competition will get the business.
- Written By: Phil Thow, Seattle, Washington.
Marketing Your Small Business On A Small Budget
If your Scottsdale Arizona business is on a tight budget but you want some big advertising, go online. Internet marketing is the most affordable and most effective method available. With millions of users online and many in your targeted audience group, there is no reason why you should not be using the internet to market your Scottsdale Arizona business.
Creating and operating a website for your Scottsdale Arizona business can be the most affordable and the most profitable thing you do for your marketing campaign. Everything you do to market your Scottsdale Arizona business will be centered on your business website.
The search engines will require you to submit your site and that is free, once you do you will be able to optimize your website to show up in the top search results and start earning some major traffic.
In addition to the search engines, you can use the social media networks to your advantage. Your Scottsdale Arizona business profile should be created and submitted to each of the popular social networks so you can begin promoting your business to the millions of users who have already joined. It is free to join the networks and you can advertise, promote, research and connect with other businesses all with a few clicks of your mouse.
In addition you can also use local directory listings, article directories, video hosting sites and various other platforms to promote and market your Scottsdale Arizona business online at a minimal cost.
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