We are not heroes, doctors or anyone else at the front line. But we want to help how we can. We’ve created some communication support assets that can be shared online. Most of these were created by other artists, repurposed by us for socials.
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When businesses ask us for quotes to build a website they are often not sure how the price is calculated. It may seem like an arbitrary number pulled out of thin air without looking at the works behind the numbers. At JYZ Design, we strongly consider the cost of designing a website through the time required by our team to offer the fairest prices for small and medium-sized businesses. There is quite a lot of work that goes into a website – to make sure it functions to modern standards, that it looks professional and to ensure it brings an optimal return on investment for our clients. It is important to understand the most common factors you should take into account when deciding whether or not the price you’re being quoted by a website design company is reasonable.
Deciding the scope of a website design proposal begins with knowing your company’s mission, future vision, and customer needs. The number of pages to a website is generally reflective of the amount of business your company does or can conduct online or how much of your information can or should be relayed online. For example, a company that aspires to provide an array of products/services may prefer to have increased niche pages. Should the company’s mission revolve around diverse options, describing each specific service through multiple niche pages promotes goals surrounding the company’s function and markets. Should a company be focused on a main service, such as a restaurant, not as many niche pages will be needed like websites for car dealerships. Mission pages reference a company’s function, markets, advantages, goals and beliefs, including pages such as:
A larger, more service driven company might also opt for a more lengthy project portfolio or staff page. The visions of a company include its soft skills, where the company exhibits its values, support, achievements and staff. Website pages can be:
Having the most beneficial website to customers requires thinking about needs that go above and beyond the homepage and the about page. Customers are both internal and external. Whether it be corporate companies, schools or local businesses, internal customers play an important part in the success of the company. Depending on how closely linked your company is to current news, it may be crucial to update customers on how the latest news events coordinate with your company. As such, the following pages highlighting specific customer needs are:
The more pages involved in a company’s website increases the diversity of the design layout, the dynamics of structuring SEO, and the work behind providing the best content.
Having your website easy to manage and update is essential. As the internet constantly evolves, so will your website. When you build your site, it is not a fixed cost, but includes having the flexibility to update it with every change or update your company requires. Investing early on in a productive website is a long-term benefit that saves time and money. WordPress is the best and most popular open-system CMS because it contains a high flexibility of functionalities while offering a full suite of plugins and themes that make design time efficient. As a website platform, WordPress has become so ubiquitous that in 2020 it is powering 35% of the websites on the internet. It takes up 60.4% of the market share for Content Management Systems (CMS). WordPress is most effectively utilized with innovative creativity that allows small businesses to compete distinctively on the market. Marketing and design agencies embody the mission of creativity with tools such as these and ensure a low cost to high quality ratio when designing your website.
Domain/web hosting allows websites and web pages to be posted on the internet. Hosting companies necessitate that your website domain is owned in order to host with them. Most standard websites function flawlessly with a typical domain provider like Godaddy. Starting from $9.99 a year and hosting from a company like Siteground, the cost of a website takes into account selecting, registering, and hosting your website’s domain.
Cursive writing, which actually is a component of Penmanship, is among the chief lessons a child could really ever understand. Everyone understands that each single individual has her or his own hand writing. Additionally, it help educate a kid discipline and endurance that’s much required to be able to be a productive paper writer generator. As an issue of truth each fashion of handwriting may enable a instructor discover the way you can teach each pupil.
The web system aids within the interaction procedure and in posting the composition easily. Professional writers and proofreaders supply a number of editing services to pupils in virtually any subject. Now doc enhancing is exceptionally needed to guarantee effective and mistake -free information. This is the place where professional editors come in, and they’re accessible using a internet – centered article editor platform.
When designing a website, the common notion is that money can be saved while efficiency is not reduced through utilizing online domain providers. However, some web design companies will offer discounted shared hosting. When websites are designed by local marketing and design agencies, individual costs to maintain a website are included within the combined rate. Because of this, website design agencies are cheaper than a dedicated server. Website design agencies ensure your website’s web hosting plan generates consistent traffic, conversions and is reliable for the security of your domain.
A study on the effect of aesthetics on web credibility discovered that first impressions are 94% design-related. Design spurs a company’s credibility, relatability and memorability. When a website browser clicks a website and is pleased by the design, a strong bond of customer-company trust is created. Experiments show web user’s first impressions of credibility can be judged in as little as 3.42 seconds derived only from its aesthetic appeal.
As the prevailing evidence shows clients and customers seek out your website for the content, it is how this content is displayed that makes it truly worthy of reading. Websites are successful because of their ability to intertwine data with colours and visuals. 38% of people will stop engaging with a website if the content or layout is unattractive. The intricacy of a company’s website design relates to outside factors that are internalized and is why website design agencies provide such high returns on a website’s investment. Website design specialists take into account how your specific target audience wants to view your website, retains information, and the layouts that appeal most to them. They are innovative when it comes to design and positive first impressions. 73% of companies invest in design to differentiate their brand from competition. With the increase of mobile usage, it is imperative to have an attractive website.
Every website needs visuals to represent unique products and service offerings from their company. Consider the source of where your picture content will come from. Do you have high quality photos from past projects? Will you need custom photography? Will you need custom graphs or mockups to represent specific product features? Would your brand benefit from custom illustrations? Odds are, like most businesses, your designers will simply work with stock photos, which most companies will include as part of the website build. Original photos grab customer’s attention, build credibility and show the true power of your product or service. When you invest in the design of infographics and custom photography, customers invest back.
Psychologist Jerome Bruner found that people remember 10% of things they hear, 20% of what they read, and close to 80% of things they see or do. Infographics and photos provide an immersive, alluring experience to your website. When you have your website designed by a marketing and design agency, you receive an artistically driven team that knows where and how to include comprehensive, beautiful imagery, eliminating the financial stress of reaching out to freelance photographers with a narrow vision for your website.
The cost of a website includes its marketing component. When building a website, you are also tasked with digital and content marketing that includes taking into account:
Websites are the foundation of showing potential clients who you are, what your mission is and the products you offer. Additionally, it is proving to customers why they should stay loyal and continue to grow with you as a company. When done right, the written content of your website promotes your brand as a thought leader, inquires calls to action, and micro-targets demographics.
Great written website content elevates the design, information and pictures on each of your website’s pages. Written content is relevant, showing industry experience to dynamically promote information that customers are searching for. According to McKinsey & Company, the three C’s of customer satisfaction are consistency, consistency, and consistency. Aligning your brand’s message and target throughout all of your written content is challenging, yet done right shows that you care about your customer’s journey.
Oftentimes, business owners are specialized in their sector, yet they do not know how to navigate the complicated workings of written content. When we build a website, we want our efforts to be worthwhile. For people new to marketing it can be a headache. Time is as valuable as money, and when taking into account the research written content requires, the ease and guaranteed quality of marketing agencies are worth the price of a website. Outsourcing your website to an agency ensures that the love for your business is shown in the style of your website, maintaining consistency and scaling your efforts.
The purpose of a website is to drive traffic growth by targeting demographics and increasing customer relations. This cannot be achieved without incorporating Search Engine Optimization into your website. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) increases the number of leads to your website through its visibility on the search engine. You can check it out from this article.
SEO includes inserting long-tail and short-tail keywords into your website’s written content. Used in moderation, Google picks up on these keywords to boost your website’s ranking and allows your site to pop up when customers input these keywords into the search engine.
With its recent algorithm updates, Google allows only the most quality websites to be visible. SEO requires a balance of understanding how to incorporate keywords and a high caliber of images amongst other components within your website. When done correctly, SEO boosts your website’s ranking and location targets communities with high potential client conversion. Resulting in a high source of leads and increased user engagement, SEO adds to your brand’s reputation as a thought leader.
SEO is an excellent source of cost management to think about for your website to enhance your ROI. Search Engine Optimization thrives through:
E-commerce has become a lifeline of retail and will continue to become more popular as the years progress. Absolutenet shows that Amazon has surpassed Walmart as the world’s largest retailer. Globally, online sales account for 16.4% of retail purchases. Should your company wish to sell its products online, this is another cost to take into account when creating a website. Additionally, the risks of error must be remembered when a website is launched and your e-commerce platform is expected to perform and fill orders to a high degree of excellence. Including e-commerce within your website involves challenges and risks, but the rewards are endless when businesses provide the option to locate their product quicker, enable deals, stay open 24/7 and create targeted communication. Including e-commerce in your website allows brands to be the central voice of their sales, thus the leads to their website are more crucial than ever.
JYZ Design offers e-commerce websites, as our extensive experience greatly contributes to effective e-commerce design and implementation.
Website functionality is the foundation of how well your website will work for customers on the web. On top of creative design, websites need responsive design. Your company’s website should be able to be opened, accessed and optimized from whichever mobile device customers browse upon. Responsive design ensures that the layout of your website is formatted in such a way that it navigates customers to points of purchase through many different avenues.
To summarize, building a website will always be an investment. It is how you choose to go about creating your company’s website that determines whether this will be an investment of your time and money or a return on your investment. Aspiring to build a cost-efficient, quality website that delivers on written and visual content is a comprehensive task. JYZ Design delivers the consistency that customers look for in the modern age by offering a small team of professionals at a lower cost than a single full-time employee. Writing for your customer, our team provides support and a wide range of services to ensure your website is keeping up with the times. Visit our website calculator to view prices, request a quote, or book a free consultation to start creating your website.
Creating a website for your daycare centre can seem like a very big and very complicated task. Between promoting SEO, ensuring that it is visually appealing all while being accessible, it is a big project. First impressions hold the same effect when parents open your website as they would if visiting your daycare. Is it organized? Does it portray the quality they are looking for? Make sure your website has all of the information parents are looking for, but don’t get lost in it. Parents don’t want to read walls of text about your values, pages about what your programs include or paragraphs about the kinds of toys you have. Keep your website modern and relevant by providing:
Daycare is fun for children and your website should display that. Websites are an investment in lasting ROI, customer interactions, and increased awareness. Utilize colours, bright images and interactive technology to elevate your website and include all information in a summarized manner. A website is the impression of your daycare, therefore it is a good idea to invest in a marketing and design agency to create your daycare’s inviting and competitive website. So you’ve finally opened the doors to your daycare…now what? Gone are the days of a sign and a good location being enough for people to start knocking. Parents are used to researching all their purchasing decisions online; they want the highest quality childcare and they’re putting in the work to find it. You need to stay fresh on their minds from the start of their search process right up to the point of decision making.
Childcare marketing can be very affordable if done correctly, but maintaining a near-capacity attendance requires consistent effort through content creation, social media, SEO and even paid digital ads. The easy part is parents in your vicinity are always in need of your services; the tricky part is making sure you show up when they’re looking.
Parents want to see and visualize how your daycare center is different from others. They want to be able to visualize their child in your daycare. Getting photos that show it off well is the foundation of all your other marketing materials. These photos will be on your website, social media posts and any other advertisements. They will be the first thing to seize a parent’s attention. Capture all aspects of the children’s day – where they will play, learn and eat.
Here is a guide of the different areas of your facility to showcase:
Consider hiring a professional photographer who will excel at capturing these concepts from an outsider’s perspective. These types of photos are universal when it comes to digital marketing. Written content is just as essential to attracting parents to your daycare, yet nothing will allow them to retain necessary information as easily as photos.
With 2.41 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the world’s third most visited website. With this, it is easy to say that Facebook is the most used social network. Ripe with the opportunity for daycares to post targeted ads, Facebook advertising caters to parents.
Make sure your cover photo represents your daycare brand well, and that all your daycare’s contact information is accurate. Facebook’s demographic skews heavily toward adults. The best for this age group by far, statistics show that 71% of adults and 74% of high-income earners use Facebook.
Organic content creation on Facebook is getting harder and harder to generate traction. But surprisingly, Facebook has become popular for community engagement in other ways. For example, the use of Facebook messenger has increased steadily in the last few years, projected to grow to three billion users in 2022. People are used to being able to connect with businesses and ask questions to get quicker responses than email or phone. With the close customer contact that Facebook marketing provides, parents will stick to Facebook, and if your daycare centre doesn’t have an account, you’re missing out.
Photo focused Instagram is a great opportunity to tell different stories, show interesting content and provide value to parents. Instagram offers a platform to get ahead of parents’ decision making time and stay top of mind when it comes time to picking a childcare center. Here are some ideas for types of posts:
Instagram marketing allows your daycare to participate in customer conversations and regularly post how happy the children in your daycare are. More crucial than with other businesses, parents will want to ensure that a daycare’s values are in line with theirs. The more posts they see about why your childcare centre is right for their family, the increased opportunity for your daycare to remain top of mind.
Having various social media platforms and a website is nothing if you don’t stay engaged. Like, follow and comment actively with potential customers and community partners in order to softly push them to check out your page and become aware of your company.
When a follower emotionally connects to what your social media profile boasts after finding you through comments, ads or follows, they’ll take a look at your profile. Digital word of mouth and being actively engaged increases chances of your page being shared with other parents within the community – the bonus? You didn’t have to put any extra effort to find them.
When your business is active through social media with potential customers and community partners, the number of leads towards your profile and website clicks increases. According to a study, 71% of consumers having positively experienced a brand’s social media are likely to recommend the brand to their friends and family. Think of how this helps when users happen upon a daycare they know someone in their family needs. Think of online engagement as “social proof.” Parents lean towards accredited daycares as they automatically place more trust in them and their standard of quality. Online, customers trust the opinions of celebrity endorsement or a customer testimonial. Social media engagement offers these forms of social proof for your daycare; you’re in the know, you prove that you want to be an active part of your community, and parents follow you.
With digital ads designed to target parents throughout the web and social media with a plethora of written content, video creation, infographics, and photos, it is important in your daycare centre’s marketing strategy that you vary your types of digital ads. Parents won’t all be in the same places online, searching the same keywords, and following the same social media accounts. If you want to target all potentially interested parents within your community to fill your daycare close to maximum capacity, you’ll want to vary your digital ads. Daycare centres that have waitlists or are filled near-maximum capacity have gained the social proof of their community, built from the connections formed on various platforms.
Instagram continues to provide the most popular influencer marketing, as their posts are within the top three most effective content formats at 78%. Micro-influencers have turned into a sought after commodity for Instagram marketing, they are your community’s “social proof.” Micro-influencers post content coordinated to a specific theme. Parents you want to reach will be following accounts like mommy influencers.
Mommy influencers have strong, loyal followers who are actively engaged with their content. Parents and customers are looking for quality insights, their followers follow their leads as trust authority has already been established. In 2018, 49% of consumers depended on influencer recommendations on social media, a necessity that has only increased.
Remember mommy bloggers? Before social media became such a popular platform to a variety of influencers, blogs written by moms were the most trusted and viewed outlet to receive social proof of products and services. The idea of mommy bloggers combined storytelling and advertising. Credible as ever, mommy bloggers began the revolutionary marketing idea of social media influencers. Influencer marketing is expected to grow to a $10 billion industry by 2020, and it is all thanks to mommy bloggers.
On the large social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, mommy influencers retain strong social proof amongst communities of customers looking for the best daycare centres and innovative products. This credibility is transferred to your daycare when recommended by influencers. With the kind of following your daycare seeks to target, influencers engage new parents, generate high-quality leads, and build trust with your daycare.
Local long-tail niche keywords are the new trend in how Google chooses to prioritize search results. Long-tail keywords are three to four keyword sentences very specific to your daycare centre. These keywords reflect the kinds of searches parents will be inputting into Google, and you’ll want your daycare to pop up at the top of the search list.
“Daycare centres near me” is a perfect example of a long-tail keyword parents will be inputting into their mobile devices. “Near me” organic searches have witnessed a 900% increase from 2013 to 2017, as keywords such as these continue to become more popular and more necessary to a local daycare’s marketing strategy.
Search Engine Optimization is at the heart of a daycare successfully being able to attract parents to their childcare centre. Organic search equates to 95% of all web traffic. Including long-tail keywords within your website and written content allows your website to rank higher with the decrease of keyword competition. Including long-tail keywords with highly competitive short-tail keywords boosts the website’s standing.
Long term SEO inputs keywords that are relevant all the time to your daycare centre as the search volume remains consistent. To be beneficial, Search Engine Optimization takes time curating regular, quality content including short-tail, long-tail, and long term keywords. Google rewards those websites which have more quality, educational content surrounding keywords, with higher ranking positions. Therefore, the more quality content your daycare site uploads, the more Google will reward it in organic search rankings.
Create specific service pages targeting specific keywords. Invest in a digital marketing company that regularly publishes keywords through content that displays your daycare centre as a thought leader with the valuable content parents are searching for.
Nothing beats the reviews of satisfied parents whose children have been or are enrolled in your daycare centre. Parents know best, and it is definitive that they will be a powerful reason potential customers choose your daycare. Spiegel Research Centre (2017) shows that 95% of shoppers read reviews before making a purchase. Daycare is a major stepping stone in a child’s life and if such a high percentage of shoppers so avidly read reviews for products, parents are definitely combing through the reviews of your daycare centre.
The more reviews, the more informed opinion potential customers can form about your daycare centre. Whenever possible, ask for reviews; it doesn’t require much and the benefits are endless. Easy ways to ask current parents enrolling their children in your daycare revolve around:
Remember to thank those who leave positive feedback in your reviews. Should there be a negative review posted, you cannot delete it, but the speed and professionalism of your responses redeem any wary opinions formed by parents reading through them. Parents will be attracted to daycares that care and replying to reviews will prove that you do.
Whether it be for booking tours or to register, your daycare’s website needs to include a form that is easy to find for signups. Embed a customizable signup form in your website that pops up after your homepage has been loaded. Should parents be thinking about potentially enrolling their child into your daycare, or wanted to look into your daycare centre further, they won’t need to decide whether or not to make this decision when the form is presented to them. Popup forms perform almost three times better than the option to click on a signup form within the website. Provide the pop-up form as a way for parents to sign up to book a tour. Within the dropdown menu of your website, ensure that “register” and “book a tour” is an option.
For the leads, awareness and reputable reviews that digital marketing can provide your daycare, the return on investment is worth the initial costs. Once you’ve attracted parents, word of mouth will spread and with consistent, effective marketing to reach communities, your daycare centre will definitely maintain near-capacity enrolment. Digital marketing isn’t just for big businesses; take advantage of the web’s opportunities to market your daycare and grow your strategy in 2020.
Content marketing is the type of business activity that collects dust on the to do list shelves until business owners look back six months later, in regret over lost leads and forgotten potential. We often hear that productivity gets lost with the push and pull of marketers vs those that know the business internally. Whereas a content marketing company is held accountable for the monthly deliverables and knows how to get it done.
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Digital marketing professionals know the frustration of chasing the latest developments or alterations with the way the major social media companies run their platforms. From pushing organic content, to hyping videos, to the rush for Stories to influencers, the market changes fast and is unrepentant when it leaves you behind. What worked in 2018 won’t work as well now, and it’s up to us marketing professionals to be on top of the ball, to provide our clients with the services and results they expect from us.
With that in mind, here are some social media marketing tips that will work in 2020:
During the good ol’ days of Instagram and Facebook, you could put up great content, attract eyeballs, grow your brand and reach them with every new post. Those of us who keep track of these metrics have noticed a decided decline in the ability to reach new people. Even more troubling is the almost complete inability of hashtags to garner new followers. Oh sure, the content is still shown in the feed of #sundayfunday, but with 48 million+ hits on that particular tag at the time of writing, your post will get swallowed up in the deluge. What you can do at this point is, buy some likes and shares from themarketingheaven.com. Doing so has helped many businesses from shutting down.
Instagram, through its parent company Facebook, will say it’s a function of so many users that the sheer amount of content makes it impossible to have the same engagement per post as when the user base was 10% of what it is now. And they’re not wrong, but their other newest change has exacerbated this trend: not displaying likes.
The concept of Instagram has been that the more likes a post gets the higher up the hashtag feed it is, the more eyeballs it attracts, the more engagement you achieve, the more followers you gain, the more likes you get for subsequent posts, lather, rinse, repeat. But with Instagram’s new policy of hiding likes, ostensibly to push for quality content over “like bait”, engagement has plummeted and it becomes rare for posts other than those with massive followings to gain traction.
Why on earth would a social media company purposefully limit the engagement of users on its platform? They say it’s meant to “remove the pressure of how many likes a post will receive”; however, the real, obvious reason is…
The reality is that Facebook is a publicly traded corporation with a market cap value approaching $600 billion. To keep growing that market cap and profitability, they need to keep finding new revenue streams. If companies or brands get “free” market exposure, Facebook is missing out on revenue streams on their platform. Therefore, you will not get free market exposure any longer.
The good news is that both Facebook and Instagram have developed excellent paid ad platforms. With over a billion people on each site allowing access to their user data, various algorithms have been developed that can precisely target users down to minute characteristics. Therefore, whatever product, service or brand you’re marketing, you will be able to target the exact people who would be most interested in what you’re selling. And the even more encouraging news is that depending on the target geographical area, the cost is quite reasonable.
The Zuck taketh and the Zuck giveth.
For now, the influencer play is still a bubble that’s growing. They’re being hit with declining engagement too, but they’ve built up enough of a user base previously, that in relative terms, influencers are still as good a bet to reach an authentic audience as paid ads. But, all good things will come to an end, and– to refer back to new revenue streams– Facebook will find a way to tap into the influencer revenues which will either raise the cost for marketers or limit the engagement and reach of influencers.
The answer is yes, just not as much as before. The strategy in the way back past of 2017-18 was to post everyday to build followers and gain customers for free. While that’s a relic, the new paradigm is to think of your social media feed as your social media website. We market your website as your 24/7 marketing tool, and your social media feeds should take the same approach. Instead of posting everyday, post the best quality content that is most reflective of the brand, services or products. That way, when your paid ads or influencer campaigns are sending users to your profile, they’re greeted with your best representation of the business.
Social media spend should be focused more on quality rather than quantity, with marketers adding value by being able to produce precisely targeted ads, with re-marketing thrown in, and producing content that will light up an influencer’s page. The answer then is that social media spend hasn’t so much declined as it’s shifted. Businesses used to pay for a marketer’s time (posting everyday), now they’re paying for a marketer’s skill in navigating paid ads, as well as the ability to come up with catchy taglines.
Social media marketing is an ever changing landscape, which requires digital marketing professionals who will never rest on their laurels. It’s tempting to put it in autopilot and do what we’ve always done, but the competitive landscape requires effective digital marketers to know what changes have happened, how those changes will affect a business and, more importantly, how to best make those changes work for a business.
Easy to use website builders have flooded the market with certain low barrier to entry industries with amateur websites. This has left data organization companies like Google in frenzy trying to sort through the clutter and bring the websites you are actually looking for to the forefront. If you’re actually expecting your website to be a source of traffic and conversions and the industry is competitive, Moonfarmer agrees that a Shopify, Squarespace or Wix just won’t cut it.
1. Keyword research: A professional website company will do an in-depth Google keyword analysis, including what your competitors are ranking for, what has a reasonable balance or high search traffic and low competition. This includes niche or specific long tailed keywords that might be capturing untapped traffic — like “Mexican organic restaurant” versus “restaurant”.
2. Heading tags: In the development of the website, a professional web designer will embed header tags in the code to create a hierarchy of importance to tell Google bots. If these aren’t chosen correctly or are not tagged, you may never see your page ranked.
3. Design: UT web designers have lots of tools at their disposal – like stock photos (with proper copyright attributions). Working with existing templates is doable, but unless you are completely comfortable with your artistic vision on how colors are contrasted, photo editing and typography, there is a visible difference between amateur designed websites and professional companies. As users are used to high standards, they will be able to tell the difference as well. If you’re starting a roofing company, you can have your website designed by this company that won the Roofer Website Designer Choice Award.
4. Content: Deciding how to segment and prioritize information is crucial to both ranking for the right keywords as well as organizing information to be easily found by visitors. This can include decisions on what to put on the homepage and what to offer people to “read more”. A common issue that business owners have is writing walls of text about the subject matter they love, without necessarily deciding what is most important to present first.
5. Functionality and integrations: You’d be surprised to learn how many software applications are available to optimize your business operations. Some examples of apps you might need are: Customer Relationship Management (CRM), payment processing, membership portals, event signups, subscriptions, eCommerce, etc. Web designers from web design nashville will be able to integrate these effectively to help your business run like a smooth money making machine. Website builders are super limited in what they can integrate with and lots of companies reach a point where they reach a wall of what can be implemented.
There is of course good reason to use a website builder as well, we actually recommend it for people just trying to get started, with a lower budget. Professional web design companies often come across amateur websites at a growth time when companies are ready to upgrade. The benefit is that you don’t need any technical knowledge to just get started. You can also easily edit if needed, though most web design companies will setup an easy process for editing as well.
This diagram shows the exact difference between website builders and WordPress, which JYZ Design uses. It’s a steep learning curve, but we’ve done that hard work for you. As Thomas digital suggests, “using a ‘free’ website builder could cost your company many tens of thousands of dollars in wasted man hours and even more money in the opportunity cost of lost potential revenue.”
Comparison
| Website Builder | Website Company | |
|---|---|---|
| Price Point | $ | $$ |
| Traffic Expected | ✓ | |
| SEO Optimization Potential | ✓ | |
| Functionality Possibility | ✓ | |
| Growth Potential | ✓ | |
| Ease of Edits | ✓ | ✓ |
| Design Expertise | ✓ | |
| App Integrations | ✓ |
Conclusion
Website builders are a great place to start if your main objective is to have somewhere for customers to find you. But if your business is in growth mode and you need SEO to start becoming a traffic source as well as compete in your industry, you need to work with a website builder that is specialized in how to make your website work for you.
Blogging is often put aside by businesses. With what seems to be much more pressing digital marketing platforms to take care of, blogging is viewed as a time-consuming commitment that requires an innovative creative output and therefore lacks the desire to fulfill. Websites are the heart of many businesses, so it makes sense that blogs allow businesses to gain 67% more leads than those who don’t utilize them and should be apart of any companies digital marketing strategy.
It is normalized that with blogging comes consistency. Each published blog is a new opportunity for your company’s website to contain more keywords. When using Search Engine Optimization, we want to ensure that all of our important keywords are found within our website. However, our actual website cannot be crowded with an oversupply of keywords, or Google will rank your website lower. Blogs provide the solution to this new era of authentic content with minimal keywords.
Blogs are where your words go. There will always be new keywords – 15% of searches made on Google every day are new. There is always new questions to answer, information to provide and keywords to acquire. Blogging is the hub for all of this. Write content that answers a question and provide content that you know readers will want to see. Once you base your blogs around quality information you can include these keywords, increasing your potential to become an authority site.
Google loves content. Its algorithm heavily focuses on a website’s content and how frequently posts and updates are made to it. What clients want when searching for websites align comparatively to how Google’s algorithm now works. Keeping Google happy will keep your clients happy.
Both users and search engines are looking for a website with fresh content. You do not always need to update your service or product, but keeping clients in the loop about industry events, developments, news and tips is a perfect way to regulate content flow. The more updated your website content with valuable information in blogs is, Google will rank your site higher with each of its updates.
Raises Your Link Authority Links are the currency of the internet, you can buy backlinks online to better market your business. Writing about quality, need-to-know and insightful information increase your chances of receiving links to your blog and raising brand awareness. Additionally, blogs are a great way to input relevant inbound links that will direct readers to the main parts of your website. Increasing the length of time that potential customers spend on your site can allow readers to become loyal customers. Within your blogs, attach one or two external links to quality and trustworthy websites. These links should be relative or expand on the information within your blog. When you promote great content to your readers, Google promotes you.
Businesses need to take any avenue open to them to prove to their current customers why they deserve their loyalty and show potential customers why their business is worthwhile. Consistently posting articles that show your knowledge and how well you understand your customers displays your company as a thought leader. Many customers will only choose business with companies they trust and feel are accredited. You want readers to view you as the place to go for information. The more you prove to readers through your blogs how reliable you are, you will earn their trust. When the time comes, this trust will turn into a return on investment when your product or service is chosen against other competition.
Building an online following isn’t often a priority for businesses because it can be time-consuming and difficult to measure direct return on investment. We would like to make the argument that there is immense long term value in building up an online presence for almost any company, acting as an additional intake for either new clients or building up a culture to attract great talent. The sought after rewards of social media are won with having loyal followers, navigating how to attain them contributes largely to businesses not wanting to create their accounts
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If you’re launching a new business, rebranding or updating your website, you may be seriously considering hiring a website design agency. Of course, with this consideration comes the internal debate of whether or not the investment is worth the payoff.
You can take a few different routes when building a website; using a website builder or hiring a professional Calgary website design agency. While website builders can be effective for very small, blooming businesses, informational directories, blogs, and initial project start-ups, in order to compete properly in your industry, you need a high-quality, fast and personalized website that can stand the test of time.
If you’re already here, chances are you’ve looked at how the cost of a website is calculated to see the dynamic of marketing, design and copywriting powers that go into creating an optimal website and you’re interested in getting a quote.
The pricing for websites retains a standard range per the professionalism, experience and artistry that goes into creating them. The prices for websites are divided according to website type, including a:
Having a website with a simple list of requirements does not mean you should resort to website builders if you can afford to invest in a professional website. A budget landing page provides a clean, modern, functional and opportune technology to leverage your local online presence and use as a platform to channel social media and digital marketing.
A budget landing page includes the essentials like a home page, contact form and information. It is a great way to start building revenue and recognition. Within three weeks, you’ll be on your way to establishing your business without breaking the bank. Keep in mind, your expectations for a good ranking can’t be too high as Google doesn’t crawl websites without well-rounded sitemaps.
Small business websites range from $3,200-$5,500 per website. Small businesses encapsulate start-ups, local businesses and the self-employed.
The exact cost to build your website depends on its functionality. If you have multiple types of products, your website will be on the higher end of the spectrum, as you will need more pages.
It is important to remember that within this cost, you are not just paying for a website, but for a domain name, hosting, content management system, custom page design, search engine optimized copywriting and the peace of mind that your website will be up and running within 3-8 weeks with a smooth launch.
A small business website will make sense if your business requires 5-6 pages that contain a homepage, about page, portfolio/gallery, services, FAQ, contact and blog.
The average Calgary web design price for a corporate website ranges from $5,500-$15,000. However, the budget of a larger corporation, depending on its needs, can also see numbers for a website reach past $15,000 and up towards $25,000. Corporate websites maintain the functionality, quality and reliability of the small business websites on a larger scale, more networked scale.
Larger website projects typically require a Request for Proposal with detailed information on the scope. This can vary greatly, depending on the number of pages and whether or not any technology is required. Most companies with the capacity to complete projects like this will require a detailed consultation before giving a concrete quote.
A corporate website’s scope usually includes at least 20 pages to account for all of its products/services, information about the company, information for/about shareholders, contact information, news releases, membership functionalities and resource databases.
The corporate website receives customization according to its services to showcase its competitive edge in a dynamic collaboration of effects, coding, content and design. On average, a corporate website takes at least six weeks to plan, execute, evaluate, edit and launch.
The website structure accounts for a large chunk of the average price for a corporate website, with the cost for a secure website certificate, ongoing maintenance, domain registration, content, potential gateways, livechat, and features filling in the rest.
With web applications, the read-only format of a website evolves to be able to change according to the requests of the customer. Web applications consist of interactive features that allow users to engage with the business or organization.
The average Calgary web design price for web application starts at around $7,000. The cost includes the functionalities that consist of getting a standard website up and running, such as domain hosting, secure website certificate, search engine optimization, content writing and custom design, with the additional software components that add interactivity. The costs for different plug-ins are thus included.
Our Calgary website designers highly recommend those who are interested in web application to seek out professional agencies. Web application does not just represent the business, but becomes a part of the business – and it is crucial that it exceeds modern standards and works without a hitch.
Developing custom applications requires a specialized company familiar with UX design and the latest programming languages. Some examples of common software based web development projects include:
ECommerce is paving the way for website design. When you optimize your website for eCommerce, you open your business up to a powerful stream of revenue and potential leads. The eCommerce website remains static except for its shopping functionality.
The design of an eCommerce website more intricately involves expertise in UX design to align product photos, product descriptions and product captions with their functionality across different browser types and sizes. From product details optimized for Google shopping to shipping setup and email marketing integrations, there’s a lot of detail that goes into a successful online shop.
Similar to the pages of a website for small-corporate businesses, the number of products that make up the eCommerce portion of your website will determine the price of your website. As such, the average Calgary web design price for an eCommerce website ranges from $5,000-$11,000 for an agency.
Depending on the number of products your business will list, the pricing follows the following format:
Now that you know the price of a Calgary website, you can start researching website design agencies whose scope meet this target, as we intend to do. When searching for the right website design agency to create your website, price is important, but it should not be the leading factor of your decision to choose the agency that you do.
Take a look through the portfolios of your top candidates, agencies all have a distinct approach, and therefore style, to the websites that they create. Some agencies may specialize in tech-focused, software websites, while other agencies may have strengths in travel and tourism.
Make sure to check if the websites designed all look the same, or if the websites are expertly customized. The marking of an excellent website design agency notes the similarities of the sites through their quality and creativity, not duplication, when pieced together into a portfolio.
You want to browse through the agency’s entire website. Do they do social media marketing? Digital marketing? The more diverse the services of the agency, the better they will be able to create your website to act as a platform for digital advertisements and as an anchor to social media.
Additionally, you want to survey the design and copywriting of the website agency’s website. The attention to detail and level of innovation will tell you how attuned they are to the current market, new trends and how much quality of care they put into websites.
Check out the team section of the website. One of the best things about hiring a Calgary website design agency is the vast knowledge the agency draws from their team in their areas of expertise. The team should consist of copywriters, website/graphic designers, project managers and web developers. If the team does not consist of these core people, you may be missing out on your advantage via agency.
Ultimately, the proof is in the consultation. Most website design agencies will offer a free consultation for you to meet with a leader and talk about your goals, ideas and how they syndicate with the expertise of the agency.
Remember, the agency you choose will be your partner for at least a few weeks. Their vision, values and passion are just as vital as their experience.
Although these average prices represent our most up-to-date scope of the web environment, website prices in Calgary can and will still vary. Knowing how much your website should cost you will help you plan your goals to take with you to your consultation meeting.
If you’re still on the fence about considering whether or not to go with a professional Calgary web design company, consider:
You can also use tools to get a better quote, just by answering some questions on our free website quote calculator. Or feel free to get in touch with our website design agency if you have any questions.
Something we hear super often in the marketing industry is something along the lines of – my business doesn’t need to be on social media. Customer expectations are evolving with the top companies in the world. And no matter what industry you’re in, there are made up of people. And people are spending their valuable attention spans on some form of digital platform.
Just because you’re not interested doesn’t mean your customers, clients and associates aren’t! Research shows that 80% of people trying to make a purchasing decision will Google the company online. This includes results not only for your website, but also your social profiles. Apart from a few demographics, people from all socio-economic backgrounds are on social media. Here are some statistics to back this up.
A common misconception is that B2B can’t be done on social media. Yes, Linkedin is a great platform for reaching other professionals. But research shows best post times is still between 9-6PM, meaning people mostly browse the network during work hours. Outside of that, decision makers within companies – CEOs, founders, account managers – anyone that has a say in doing business with you, are still spending time on Facebook. Mobile use during office hours is also increasing, with 80% of B2B buyers reported to be using a mobile device at work.
People get annoyed the most by one particular kind of post: hard sell ones. Flashy sales, or anything with a prompt to “BUY NOW” are annoying to potential customers. The correct goals and corresponding tone for social media messaging is: adding value, building trust and communicating above selling. Presenting giveaways and contests, collaborating with respected thought leaders or giving announcements they care about are all ways to build consistency without shoving a product down a customer’s throat.
According to buffer, here is a study on best posting frequency practices that some of the biggest brands in the world adhere to:
Engagement decreases slightly after the third tweet.
2x per day is the level before likes & comments begin to drop off dramatically.
20 posts per month (1x per weekday) allows you to reach 60 percent of your audience
The top brands on Pinterest have experienced steady growth – and in some cases rapid or sensational growth! – by adopting a multiple-times-per-day posting strategy.
Major brands post an average of 1.5 times per day to Instagram. There’s no drop-off in engagement for posting more, provided you can keep up the rate of posting.
Companies that increase blogging from 3-5X/month to 6-8X/month almost double their leads.
If content creation doesn’t come naturally, it can feel like too much work. Social media is being bundled into other jobs, like receptionists when it really requires a specialized role. An alternative for this might be to split up the role – IE an employee good at photography can take photos while another can post or to contract a company. Social media marketing companies usually have a process in place to streamline the tasks required to get your public image out there without too much hand-holding. Find one that understands your brand and automate this side of the business.