12 Best Web Design Tips for Building a Local Business Website

12 Best Web Design Tips for Building a Local Business Website

Updated May 11, 2021

Every company, no matter what size, needs to have a professional looking website. It can be overwhelming to those who have not gone through the process before. It is essential for your business so whether you intend to develop a website in-house or outsource it, gaining a good in-depth understanding of what’s important from the web design and technical perspectives is certainly worth your time.

Getting a small company site can be among the greatest obstacles that small company owners need to deal with. The job ends up being a lot harder as the choices are seemingly endless and the expenses can easily getting out of control. The web designer needs to be able to produce a website that is not only aesthetically pleasing but can drive significant and appropriate traffic to your organization to produce more leads or sales and decrease the issues that users commonly experience like slow load times, broken links, poor mobile experience etc. The possible technical problems are extensive. We won’t go into depth here but just be aware, your designer needs to be experienced or you could be in for some real unforeseen headaches.

So, let’s get into our top 12 suggestions to rock your local business website.

1. Simple but Elegant Web Design

A small company website design needs to be basic yet visually appealing. It represents your business and should therefore make a great first impression. It’s your online store front so make sure the shelves are clean there’s no letters missing on the sign LOL. Your website absolutely must convey that your company is trustworthy and professional. People instinctively pass judgement in about one second give this some attention. Get a few designs done and get feedback from people before you launch the website.

2. Check Out the Competition

We always recommend that our clients have a good look at what other successful competitors are doing with their web design. One should not just look at the site but really think about what is appealing about it. Then like magic, you will likely start to realize what the website is lacking and you’ll start to come up with ideas to beat your competition by doing it better.

3. Don’t Go Overboard on Style and Content

Complex style can overwhelm your audience and don’t over do the amount of text – at least on the home page. There is a temptation to please Google with a lot of text but you need to be strategic about.

One of the best strategies, which will also increase engagement, is to put an excerpt of a given topic and require the viewer to continue reading by clicking through to another page. Sidenote – this will help your “bounce rate” which is counted when someone comes to your website and doesn’t click on anything. An uncluttered overall style communicates professionalism.

Focus on web design that will give your visitors a great user experience.

4. Make it Easy for Google

An uncluttered website, clear material, appropriate URLs, sitemap, and pertinent keywords will enable online search engine like Google to index your small company site with ease. Website design for small company must consist of at least minimal SEO optimization.

Getting listed in Google My Business so that you can show up on Google maps on a local search is also essential.

Our web platform of choice is WordPress for many reasons and it’s Google friendliness is among the top reasons. You get a great selection of amazing SEO plugins to choose from like Yoast SEO or our new favorite “Rank Math

5. Mobile Friendly Web Design

After Google’s statement of mobile-first index, it would be practically self-sabotaging not to have your local business website be responsive. This simply suggests that your website will adjust and reorganize the page layout when seen on mobile phones. A simple explanation would be that your multi-column page layout will re-flow into a single column layout. That may make it sound simple but sometimes you can spend many hours making sure that all your pages look good on all sizes of phones, tablets, laptops and desktop computers.

Making a website mobile friendly can be quite daunting and there are many tools available to help with the process. One of the tools we like to use that gives us a quick preview of how a page will look on multiple devices at once is Responsinator.

6. Optimize for Incoming Leads

One of the most crucial functions of any small company site is to concentrate on the incoming leads and capture as numerous as possible. Normally prior to buying an item individuals like to do a preliminary research study and contrast, and might not be all set to purchase right away. Put some effort into finding ways to obtain your visitor’s email address. This way you can follow up with them or retarget them with ads so that if they are not ready to buy now maybe they will be later. Sometimes popups work for getting people to give you their email but it is becoming less effective. Popup Maker is a good Popup Plugin for WordPress that’s easy to use. One of the best strategies is to give away something, like a useful information, in exchange for their email.  You don’t want to irritate people so don’t be too aggressive with this.

We recently discovered a powerful new pop builder tool from Adoric.  It has Machine learning features, Interactive templates and tons of other features like Email collections, lead generation, content promotion and more. It’s an excellent solution for marketing leads and Conversion Rate Optimization.

7. Keep your contact information in Plain Sight

This might seem obvious however this oversight happens all the time. Your telephone number and e-mail address need to be shown plainly on the site and, if possible, at the top and bottom of every page. Develop a ‘CONTACT’ page at the end that includes not simply the contact numbers however e-mail address, physical address of the business, and a map, together with instructions to and hours of operation of your business. Make sure it gets done and you can forget about it.

8. Professional Branding is a Must

Concentrate on communicating expertise and be consistent about it. Developing a brand strategy will help you get control of this. A solid brand strategy will keep On track by providing you with a roadmap for consistent usage of messaging and the appearance of all your imagery etc. Your brand is it just your logo it is the overall feeling that people get when they interact with your company. Our company can help you with developing your brand, read more about brand strategy here.  Once you have your branding in place just be consistent with all your fonts and graphics.

9. Style Should be Simple but Distinct

Whether you are developing your site by yourself or working with a small company website design business, your objective must be to produce a site that shows your brand name. The impression is the most crucial and will either draw in or fend off audiences. If you utilize any ordinary design template and your site looks like countless others on the web, you will never ever have the ability to make a lasting impression in your audience’s mind.

A bad home page could cause visitors to bounce immediately. The home page  is extremely important so pay a lot of attention to getting that right and it will help to set the tone for the rest of the website.

Visitors expect a smooth easy navigation that can take them from Point A to Point B flawlessly so make sure you give that to them. Make your website work for you, not against you. A basic, easy to use, and tidy website design without unneeded gimmicks is the strategy for success. You can experiment with gimmicks later but build something solid first.

10. Showcase Products and Services Beautifully

Several small company website designs are not able to display their items successfully or they overload it with too many product or services on one page and mess it up. Keep in mind that you just have of a couple of seconds to win or lose a possible customer so work on making an irresistible first impression. If you are a business selling items online then the item images and descriptions ought to be crisp and concise. If you have a fantastic website design but don’t display your products or services well, there’s a good chance your visitors will move on to look somewhere else. NextGen Gallery is a nice plugin for displaying images in different types of gallery styles.

11. Fast Page Load Time

Viewers get restless if a website takes excessive time to load. Guarantee that your small company website design has the best server facilities and bandwidth to support it. A website that is rich with graphics and photos can take a long time to load. There are many tools and techniques to reduce the page load time and it is certainly worth the time and effort to address this right away. A good caching plugin can go along way to help and it’s fairly easy to implement. One caching plugin we use regularly is W3 Total Cache

12. Relevant, Quality Page Content

Last however not the least is the importance of the content on your local business website. This is a significant factor in getting indexed by online search engines. The more relevant your material, the simpler it is for online search engine to discover and index your website. Content relevance will play a major role in attracting the right visitors to your website. Headings are extremely important in letting your readers and Google quickly understand what the content is about so pay close attention to all your headings.

Research study reveals that there are more mobile users than desktop users now which is why it is vital to have a company site that loads quickly and presents a pleasant mobile experience. Google also uses page speed as a crucial ranking factor. According to specialists, a small company website should less than 3 seconds to fully load. The Google Page Speed Tool is an excellent way to find out if your website passes the test.

The absence of a good website can adversely affect your company. Without a site you might loose business to your competitors. For someone to purchase a product or service from a company they don’t already know is a big leap. They will usually want to know and see more about your company before committing. Always keep that in mind and it will help guide you to build a platform to showcase your company in a way that will make people feel comfortable with the idea of being your customer.

Extra Web Design Tips!

Index Your Website

Search engines such as Google, Bing and others search for particular elements to help them determine where your site should rank in a search result. There are actually over 200 ranking factors in the Google algorithm but some of the most important are Page Title, headings, structure, quality of material, keywords, URLs and sitemap. Pay attention to these to get the ranking you deserve. Check out the Google Webmaster Guidelines to understand what you must do to boost your search ranking.

There are several things to setup when you want to get into tracking all of your online activities. You’ll need Google Analytics, Google Console, Facebook Pixel and more. There is a great plugin called Site Kit by Google that makes things easier to get setup is a real time-saver.

Keep Your Website Safe

It’s truly mind boggling to know how many sites get hacked every day. There are bots just going at it all the time – it’s insane and thinking about it too much cold make you crazy.

There are solutions. First implement a backup strategy so that in case your security does fail, you will always have an up-to-date backup so your site won’t be down for long. For this we recommend a plugin called UpDraft Plus.

Now for the security, there are 2 plugins that I like to use. Wordfence and Sucuri are both excellent options and easy to setup.

We hope that the suggestions above will assist you in your web design process to build a successful Local Business Website.

OCEANONE Design offer a full range of design and marketing services so get in touch with us if you need help.

We were voted in the Top Digital Agencies Of 2020 according to DesignRush 

#WebDesignBocaRaton #WebDesignToronto

4 Steps to a Powerful Value Proposition that Boosts Conversions

4 Steps to a Powerful Value Proposition that Boosts Conversions

The importance of an effective, powerful value proposition is widely misunderstood. It may be just a few words (usually 10 words or less) but as a marketer it may be the most important and challenging thing you ever make. It’s important because it will serve as the foundation for all of your other messaging. It needs to be short and unique. It must also sum up the most important things customers need to know about your company or product.

A strong value proposition is a very valuable tool that must be generated from a need in the marketplace, and used to convert even the most skeptical customers.

Developing a value proposition is more of a discovery process than a writing task. It doesn’t matter how much experience you or your marketing team have, it can’t just be a written statement or declaration. It needs to be the result of the analysis of customer activity and feedback and then it must be tested.

It may start with brainstorming ideas but it is optimized and refined with a methodic approach and it’s not as complicated as you might think.

Here are the 4 steps you can use to discover your value proposition and boost conversions.

  1. Answer this question: If I am your ideal customer, why buy from you rather than your competitors?
  2. Compare your answer with the claims of your main competitors.
  3. Keep fine tuning your value proposition until it can be expressed in a single, credible sentence that is immediately understood.
  4. Once you have a few good possibilities for a strong value proposition, you need to put them to the test.

How do you test your value proposition? Test it using A/B Testing with Google Ads.

You create a series of ads and landing pages to test each one of your value propositions and see which one appeals to people the most. There is a time investment but you don’t need to a large advertising budget to get your answer.

With a solid value proposition in place you can move forward with your various advertising campaigns with confidence.

This simplified article introduces the basic principles of developing a value proposition. It’s purpose is to provide a basic overview of processes we learned from MECLABS.

If you would like to find out more about how we can help your company develop a value proposition or if you have any other questions about marketing, please don’t hesitate to book a free consultation.

Who Can Benefit from Marketing Outsourcing?

Who Can Benefit from Marketing Outsourcing?

Updated April 4, 2022

There has been a growing trend in the world of business to focus on core competencies and outsource the rest of the day-to-day functions. By focusing on what the company does best many management teams have been able to realize significant cost savings and enhance the profitability of their firms.

Many companies have already discovered the value of outsourcing their manufacturing to lower cost producers, but there is money to be saved in outsourcing other services as well. For instance outsourcing marketing services can yield significant cost savings while providing better results for the company and more excitement on the part of consumers.

Small Companies Benefit from Marketing Outsourcing

Whether they are well-established companies or new startup companies, small businesses can benefit greatly by outsourcing their marketing services to qualified professionals. Many small companies will not have the funds necessary to hire and staff an entire department of creative designers and ad writers, and outsourcing those marketing services can put the small firm on an equal footing with companies many times its size.

From a marketing perspective it can be hard to tell the size of a company – good marketing looks good no matter what the size of the firm associated with the ads.

One mistake many entrepreneurs make is trying to do everything themselves. While the desire for control over the quality of the message is certainly understandable, trying to do everything on your own can backfire badly.

Unless you happen to be a marketing guru as well as an entrepreneur it may be better – and more cost effective to turn the marketing reins over to those with years of experience creating and running successful ad campaigns. By maintaining control over the finished product but outsourcing the process, entrepreneurs and business owners can have the best of both worlds.

Outsourcing marketing services also makes a great deal of sense for small companies that are undergoing periods of rapid growth. It is difficult enough to scale up vital functions like administrative duties and finding suitable office space, and ramping up the marketing department can be even more of a challenge.

By focusing on managing the growth of the company and outsourcing where they can business owners can make the transition from tiny startup to thriving small business that much easier.

Large Companies Benefit from Marketing Outsourcing

Of course it is not just small companies that can benefit from the power of marketing outsourcing. Such outsourcing is also the perfect solution for companies who are trying to do more with fewer resources. Companies who need to downsize without losing their brand identity or sacrificing their marketing prowess can look to marketing outsourcing firms to fill in the gaps and make a smooth transition.

Marketing firms can serve as either a supplement to a smaller and leaner marketing department or as a replacement for that department. This allows companies to be more flexible as they trim costs and find the right business structure in the new economy.

Large companies who are ramping up the size of their firms instead of cutting back can also benefit from outsourcing their marketing services. Rapid growth is both a blessing and a challenge for many companies, and it is important for companies to learn to manage their growth intelligently.

By focusing on the core of the business and outsourcing services like marketing smart companies can keep their brands intact even as the company continues to grow and change.

Outsourced or Full-Time Staff, what’s better?

Digital Marketing is quite complex and it has been said that it changes 8 times faster than most other industries. It’s constantly evolving, so staying up on the latest best practices is no joke and could lead to disappointing results if you’re not using the latest tactics.

Companies that provide marketing services survive by reputation and delivering successful results. For this reason alone it really makes a lot of sense for companies to go with outsourced marketing because most marketing companies will go a long way to make sure they deliver a successful campaign. A great result will keep you coming back and they can count on you to enhance their reputation and not diminish it.

A company can actually have more control of cost when outsourcing. A large full-time marketing staff can very expensive if you plan to have them do everything in-house. It is also a long-term commitment which of course it makes total sense for some businesses. However, for many companies, it makes more sense to outsource where they can set a specific budget to get projects done.

Have Teams of Experts Working on your Marketing Campaign.

When you outsource your marketing services to a good company there will likely be several highly-skilled people working on your project. A single campaign usually involves a long list of different elements that could all benefit from the input of an expert in that area.

For instance a campaign to promote your new product or service may need a list of experts such as: Marketing Strategist, Copywriter, Graphic Designer, Photographer, Video Director, Video Editor, Actors or Spokesperson, Facebook Ad specialist, Google Ads Specialist, Social Media Strategist, Social Media Campaign Manager and a Project manager who will deliver the reports to you every month.

This is an example of the various tasks that may be involved, it could certainly be a lot more or maybe less but you get the idea. You need a lot of people who know what they are doing. If you are a large enterprise it probably makes sense to have all these people on a full-time salary but for many companies it is more practical to develop a strong relationship with a good, reliable marketing company.

It can be a difficult decision but when you take some time to weigh the pros and cons, the answer should be quite clear and you can move forward with your decision.

We can help and we are proud to say we have been voted one of the Top Custom Website Design Companies in the designrush agency listings.

Contact us to day to get started.

Social Media Strategy Tips for Local Businesses

Social Media Strategy Tips for Local Businesses

In recent years, we have seen great advancements in data connectivity and a rise in mobile users. Due to this, social media has risen up as a new platform for marketing. While the conventional platforms have not yet become obsolete and still play an important role for some businesses, social media not only provides you with an opportunity to target a wider set of audience but also enable you to interact with them at a more personal level.

So, before you start your social media marketing campaign, it is very important for you to have a well-thought-out strategy ready to be executed. This will not only help you to identify the hurdles in social media marketing but you will also be able to use the right tactics to tackle these hurdles and reach your goal in the time.

Keep A Business Objective in Mind:

Social media has its own perks and by using it effectively, you can achieve many things. It has made a lot of things easy such as performing customer service, engaging with customers, increasing web traffic, expanding the audience, getting valuable feedbacks and much more.

But to achieve all these you need to have a goal in mind that you can work towards. Now to achieve your objective, you need a strategy and you need to very careful while making it. Don’t let social media make your objective, instead make your own business objectives and let the social media drive those them.

Optimize Your Content

You probably have read many blogs in which they mention that your content must be high quality, original, relevant and appealing to your audience. But how does one create a content like that? If you want to position your brand at a very high position in your industry, then you should take a look into what the successful brand are already doing.

Follow 60/30/10 Rule

This rule means that you should create and post 60 percent of the content that is relevant to your product. Share 30 percent of content that is relevant to the local community or a non-competitive local business and share 10 percent of the content regarding sales and promotions of your services. This will help to create high quality content and still maintain the consistency.

Your Content Must Be Shareable

Better than original, high quality and relevant, you must put focus on content that is shareable. If you are confused what is content is most shareable, take a look at your competitor’s activity and note what content gets the most likes, comments and shares. Now go back to your project and start creating posts and curating content that has similar elements but better. Sharable content can include…

  • How to Posts
  • Positive Content
  • Trending Topics
  • Social Causes

Be Present

This is the easiest way to talk directly to your customers and you can do that without spending any money. Be sure to like, comment, share and answer content relevant to your niche as well as on monitoring and engaging. It can be challenging to optimize the time you’ll spend on this activity so keep in this in mind.

Good news is that you don’t need to monitor all the social media channels all the time. A good way to start deciding where to be present is to look where your competitors are. For instance, if they are posting more on Instagram then maybe you should start paying attention to that platform too.

Share compelling visuals whenever you can

People now days, specially millennials are always in a rush, so you get only a few second to grab their attention. You need make those few seconds count, else they’ll move on to some other post or website. So, always try to include quality visual components in your posts because if your content seems to be below average no one will stop scrolling and see what you have to offer. Posts including image produce 650% more engagement that text-only post and is more like to get shared 40 times more. Again good quantity visuals are important as they tend to increase the people’s willingness to read it by 80%.

Prepare to Spend Money on Social Media Marketing

“There is no free lunch”. Yes, this also applies here. Fact is that organic growth is dying. Platforms like Facebook, Google and Twitter have updated their apps to prize more to paid content and less to non-paid content. This means it’s harder to get space in your customer’s timeline. Now, what would be the point of spending so much time and effort in producing content, if nobody is going to see it.

However, you must understand that you should prepare before you start to pay, otherwise you’ll be just wasting money. Now the question arises that how much should you spend? Well, this all depends on the nature of business and target customers.

When we are talking about Facebook in particular, there are a few approaches. If you are promoting something specifically like a Product Sale or Signing up for a mailing list you should run an ad campaign because there is a lot that you can control. There is much to know about Facebook Advertising strategies which is beyond the scope of this post. In fact we have a Free eBook called “How To Win On Social Media” on this topic. See the signup to the right of this article.

USEFUL TIP – Sometimes you just want to get people to read your blog post. In this case use “Boost” and set it for $1/per day for 7 days. This is very low cost exposure but “what’s the value?” you ask? If you have Facebook Pixel installed on your site you can use Google retargeting ads so those visitors to your blog post will see your ads on other sites. They will become more familiar with your brand and you’ll increase the likelihood of them buying from you.


DOWNLOAD Our Free Social Post Planner (In Google Sheets, click FILE > make copy). It has a daily, monthly and archive view as well as a brainstorming tab.


Get Your Content Shared

Do you best to encourage people to share your content. There are also some great services like quuupromote.co that will spread your blog posts to get shared by influencers for a small fee and this works great. There are similar services but this is one of our favourite and very affordable.

Grow Your Following

  • Post frequently – 4x per day if possible
  • Optimize your posting time
  • Use visual content – Photos – & Videos
  • Use hashtags strategically
  • Engage with replies
  • Create an inviting profile
  • Find followers within your network

A special note about Instagram…

How to quickly grow your Instagram Following.

When you post something on Facebook, how many people engage with your post? 5? 10? 20? Instagram is very different. With zero followers you can get a lot of likes.

How you say?

The magic of Hashtags!!!

With Instagram you can post up to 30 hashtags per post! That’s a huge number. Now you just have to be strategic about selecting the right ones.

With a new account you should put up about 12 posts.

You want to find relevant hashtags with 50k-300k images per hashtag. After you get over 10k followers, you can use more popular hashtags, but at the early stage don’t go after hashtags with more than 300k images because you’ll get lost in the feed and get zero engagement.

Your goal is to get featured within the 9 top posts under each hashtag.

Moving forward, you should post 3-4 times per day.

Instagram doesn’t work for every kind of business. It’s a very visual platform. If your business is not very visual, like accounting or insurance then Instagram is probably not worth the time. Think about whether you could come up with 3 or 4 good images per day to help make your decision about trying Instagram. Accounting and insurance came to mind as not being visual. However, I have not looked into that and there may be companies in those categories having success.

Repeat what worked

Don’t get disheartened if something didn’t work just try something else. Don’t give up on the idea of using social media as your marketing tool. And if your social media efforts were successful, just stick to what you have been doing. It is as simple as that. Just if one thing didn’t work for you doesn’t mean that nothing will work. Try again, just stick to the basics, redefine your audience and reconsider about the amount of investment.

Social media is great tool for small business owners as it is unique and it can take a company’s fame to new heights, broaden its reach and can create a wide range of customers. But all this is going to work only if you are determined to do it.

 


If you need help with your Social Media Strategy, our design agency offers a full range of Social Media and other digital marketing services.  Just click here to book a Free Consultation.

How to Build a Content Marketing Machine

How to Build a Content Marketing Machine

When you’re creating an online business, you hear, over and over, that you need to be a master of content marketing to build your online brand. But how do you create the content marketing strategy that works? How do you turn your business into a lean, mean, content creation machine?

Define Your Purpose

So you’ve decided to start a website/blog. What are you going to talk about? Are you going to relay and interpret industry news? Talk about your products? Talk about the customers who are satisfied with your services?

Educate your customers on how your products can make a difference in their lives? All of these topic areas can make great content blogs, and the best ones combine many of these elements to blend into a multidimensional whole.

To make sure that your business isn’t just recreating the content of your competition, it’s worth surveying the other blogs in your niche that exist. Find out what space others are occupying so that you can make a space for yourself.

Do Your Research

Beyond finding out what your competition is doing, also do research on keywords, popular searches, and common questions in your industry. After all, if your blog is going to become a destination, you need to create a roadmap for your audience.

Answering their questions, catching their interest, and advertising yourself through social media and search engine results is the first step toward making yourself visible to them.

Make a list of topic keywords that can be headlines as well as phrases that you can use periodically throughout your content posts to attract attention from search engines.  Use the brainstorming tab in our Free Content Marketing Planner.

If you need help coming up with ideas for your posts, checkout Neil Patel’s  great post called How to Come Up with 93 Blog Ideas in 10 Minutes.

Create an Editorial Calendar

One of the most frustrating things to see as a consumer of content is that businesses and bloggers often fail to pace themselves with blog creation. They post several topics all at once in the first few days, and then forget to post for days and weeks on end.

This doesn’t work for multiple reasons. First, to keep your readers coming back, you need to be continuously creating new and useful content. Regular refreshment tells your site visitors that your website is up to date, which helps the page to climb the rankings. Second, your customers need reminders to come back and find your fresh content.

The proliferation of social media has pushed the now into our minds; we are less concerned with what happened yesterday, and what to know what’s going on right now. You need fresh links to draw in fresh audiences to share on fresh timelines. To get that, you need to create regular content.

Before you start blogging, decide how often you want to post – once a week is a bare minimum, but more than once a day is usually overkill – and make sure you have a month worth of topics ready to go.

Keep yourself several days ahead with blogs scheduled to post to your site and share themselves to social media at appropriate times. By automating everything, you maximize exposure.

When you’re tired and not sure what to say, have a stable of ideas to go back to; it helps you keep your content flowing.

For in depth knowledge about blogging, Ryan Robinsons website is one of the best resources you will find.

DOWNLOAD Our Free Content Marketing Planner (In Google Sheets, click FILE > make copy). It has a daily, monthly and archive view as well as a brainstorming tab.

Content Marketing Planner

 

Getting Exposure for Your Content using Social Media

Naturally you you want to make sure people see all this great content you have put all this effort into creating it. There are many ways to promote your content. We won’t cover the topic of promotion in depth here but we will talk about social media. It’s a big one.

After each piece of content you create, you should immediately share it on all your chosen Social Media platforms. Most companies use at least Facebook, Twitter and Google My Business.

Others like Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat are chosen depending on the industry you are in as some are more visual than others. For example, Fashion and Beauty type businesses will definitely want to be on Instagram and Pinterest while an accounting firm probably won’t.

If you really want to benefit from Social Media you need to post a lot. Like several times a day. You may be thinking, how are we ever going to produce enough content?

This is where content curation comes in. You don’t need to be the author of everything you share on Social Media. In fact it’s a good idea to share other people’s content as long as it’s relevant and useful to your audience.

Social Sharing

When it comes to social sharing you need to get the balance right, A common strategy is the 5:3:2 rule.

So for every ten posts:

5 should be content from other sources that are relevant to your audience, (curated content). Keep in mind what your reader would be interested in and it will keep them more engaged. There’s a ton of these types of posts that can curated and shared. Sign up with a service like Feedly, choose relevant topics and you will see then in you account every day. Then simply choose the ones you want to share by copying the URL and pasting into the scheduling app of your chosen sharing app (see below) .

3 should be original content such as blog posts or videos, that would be interesting to your audience.  It can also be about  Product promotions, Product information etc.

2 could be about your staff so your audience gets to know your company which helps build a relationship and builds trust. These post could also be Customer stories or case study in nature.

Also at any time you could announce special offers, trade show events or any other special announcements.

Schedule your social posts with an app.

Your social posts could be planned in a Google Sheet like the one above but in reality we find it more practical to use a web application like Buffer, Later, or Hootsuite. Lately we have been liking Later. These apps save a few steps in the workflow and it’s much easier for everyone to contribute. These all have a free tier entry level.

Accept Feedback from Your Clients

When you create a blog, make sure you have a way for your clients and customers to reach out to you with questions. They might be simple – how do I use this product to accomplish this task – or more complex – what position does your company take on this situation? Some of the best articles are those where a company responds to customer questions and concerns. They show that you’re listening and you respond to your audience, which does more to further your brand than almost anything else can.

This is easy to implement if you have a website built with WordPress. If you need help with WordPress, this is and area of expertise for us. In fact we are recognized as a top WordPress Website Design Company on DesignRush. 

When you create content, you’re furthering your company’s brand, building your sales funnel, and developing tools that increase your company’s position and discoverability. Treat your content marketing just like any other aspect of your business; proceed with a plan, create regular deadlines that you can meet, and take it seriously. By doing these things, you’ll make sure that your content drives your business forward and creates a responsible relationship with your customers.