How to Create a Website with Services in 10 Steps
In the service industry, the Internet is the best place to attract new customers. This is a matter of efficiency and convenience: it is much easier for most clients to order a service on the website than to call the office, and even more so to come there in person.
Successful businesses use online scheduling tools to meet customer expectations and increase sales. With their help, you can easily manage bookings and accept payments directly on the service website.
The good news: you don’t need a large budget, an army of designers, and programming experience to create a high-quality website with an online recording function. This article will tell you how to create an effective, reliable and secure website with services for your service in your own hands.
How to create a website with services in 10 steps:
- Build the foundation of your site
- Select page format
- Decide on a corporate identity
- Add content
- Connect tools for online scheduling
- Set up SEO
- Set up the mobile version of the site
- Show the site to a friend
- Promote your service
- Keep up to date
1.Build the foundation of the site
Before diving into the marketing details, you need to create a foundation for your website. The fastest and most efficient way is to use a quality website builder.
2.Select page format
Service owners often have doubts about which format to choose, and the final decision should depend on your business objectives. The classic site contains several separate pages; This is a good solution if you fill your site with heterogeneous content: create a blog or a photo gallery. This way, the classic site format will avoid confusion and facilitate navigation through the various sections. Unlike the classic website, the landing page represents one common page. Links in this menu do not send the reader to other pages but different parts of the same page. The advantage of this format is that it is much easier to control the order in which a customer views your site. In addition, such sites look much better on mobile versions. Due to their simplicity and flexibility, landing pages are rapidly gaining popularity – more and more service owners are choosing this format instead of multi-page sites.
3.Decide on a corporate identity.
For a website with your company’s services to stand out from competitors, it must be original and recognizable.
Here are some steps to take to personalize your brand.
Find the right domain.
The domain is your site’s address in the search bar of your browser. If you have the domain name the same as the company name, it is easier to find a site on the Internet and provides a more cohesive brand experience.
Create a logo
A logo is a very important part of a corporate identity. Most often, it is with him that the client’s acquaintance with the service begins, so the logo should occupy a prominent place on the company’s website. And Make sure the logo is clickable and leads to the home page.
Choose corporate colors
Choosing the right brand color scheme will improve the appearance of the site and help evoke the desired emotions and associations in the client when interacting with your service. According to research, most people form their first impression of a website based on the palette alone. Plus, well-chosen brand colors can increase brand awareness by up to 80%.
4.Add content
Now let’s get to the fun part. Think about what content your service will need. There is no exact formula for determining the optimal number of sections and pages – it depends on the product and your business objectives. Here are the most popular options:
Home page
The home page is the first thing users see when they visit the site. Therefore, it should be bright and informative at the same time. Place your company logo and name in a prominent place, and briefly describe what services you provide. Since your goal is to sell services online, be sure to add a button “order now” or “sign up” on the site’s cover. In this way, customers can immediately take advantage of your offer.
Online Recording Page
As we said at the beginning of this article, the ability to order and pay for services online can significantly increase your sales. We advise you to place an online entry on a separate page and create a clear and detailed list of services with their names, price and availability at the moment.
Page “About the Company”
A page like this is a great opportunity to share the story of the service and your values to create a stronger emotional connection between the customer and the brand. If the company has a large team, this page can tell more about each employee – for example, put their photos, names and titles. Thus, the service will acquire a human face, which always positively affects the number of loyal customers.
Contact page
If it is difficult to find contacts or a feedback form on the site, this can scare the client away and make him doubt the quality or legitimacy of the service. Therefore, add a section or page with contacts in a prominent place and tell visitors how you can be contacted: for example, by phone, via social networks, by mail or through a form on the website. The more contacts, the easier it is for a client to contact you and book a service, which will positively affect the dynamics of sales. In addition, we recommend placing contacts in the site footer on all pages. This is the usual arrangement of contacts for many users, so duplicate all relevant information there.
Blog
A quality blog is a great way to unite a loyal audience around a product, build a company’s profile in the market, and drive traffic to your website. 72% of online marketers say content creation is the most effective SEO strategy for getting a website to the top of the list and generating new subscribers and customers.
Reviews
Real and trustworthy customer reviews are one of the best ways to build brand trust. For many potential buyers, the reviews become the decisive factor that convinces them to use the company’s services. If you have a database of reviews, be sure to add it to the site – with a high probability, this will positively affect the dynamics of sales.
Media publications
Like customer reviews, positive media coverage builds customer confidence in the brand and adds credibility to your services. If various publications and other Internet resources have written about you, be sure to include this section on the site.
FAQ
On the FAQ page, you can collect questions that often arise from site visitors and answer each in detail. It will also increase brand credibility and help potential buyers feel more comfortable interacting with your service.
5.Implement online scheduling tools
Now is the time to add the online scheduling option so that visitors can order and pay for services directly on the site, whether it is meeting with clients one-on-one training courses or workshops on Zoom.
Here is the detailed procedure:
- Create a service – like a face-to-face meeting, educational course, or online class.
- Add team members if you’re not alone.
- Indicate the availability of the service – for example, list the company’s opening hours or each team member’s schedule.
- Customize how orders will be displayed on the site; you can put them together or arrange them on different pages.
- Choose a convenient withdrawal method. With cloud retouch Bookings, you will be able to withdraw funds using a secure and reliable online system.
- Add important details – your address, preferred currency and time zone.
Booked appointments are automatically synced to your and your customer’s calendar. If a customer makes an appointment, you will receive a real-time notification. In addition, you will have access to important information about the client – contacts, birthday and other relevant information that will help provide a high level of service. You don’t have to be on duty at the office to offer services, send invoices and confirm reservations.
6.Set up SEO
SEO is about optimizing a website for search engines, like embedding keywords in the text, setting up meta tags, and more. This helps the site move to the top lines of search engines and the client – to find your site on the Internet. It can take some time to understand all the intricacies of SEO settings. But there are a few simple things to start with:
- Choosing the right domain name
- Register on Google My Business
- Using the right keywords on site pages
7.Customize the mobile version of the site
More than half of all web traffic goes through smartphones. And this figure continues to grow – so your service site must be displayed perfectly on any mobile device. In addition, in creating a site, you can separately configure and check the mobile version of the site and make sure that it will be convenient to use.
8.Show the site to a friend.
Before publishing the site, make sure that everything looks and works exactly as intended. Check your content for errors and make sure all links point to the right place. Show the site to your friends and acquaintances and ask them to go over it with a fresh eye – this way, you can notice the errors you have already stopped noticing after several hours of creating the site.
9.Promote your service
After launching the site, you need to tell the world about it. One of the easiest ways to do this is to share the news on social media. Create an interesting post, share it on your account and ask your friends to do the same. We have written in detail about other methods in the guide on free website promotion.
10.Keep up to date
To maximize traffic to your website with services, remember to fill it with fresh and relevant content. Follow the latest industry trends, add new blog posts and adapt services to market demands. The analytics section in cloud retouch Bookings will help you understand how well you are doing this task. You can analyze the number of new and returning customers, follow the purchase history and determine the most popular offers. Creating a service site with online scheduling will help your business reach new heights, increase sales, and gain new loyal customers.
How to Build a Strong Brand
Successful branding is the key to the success of almost any business. Everyone needs a strong brand: companies large and small, independent professionals, creative people and even non-profit organizations. We have already written that working on a brand is an ongoing process and that it needs to be done every day. But this is understandable, and it is unclear another – where to start?
As you may have noticed, branding and everything related to it will be the topic of today’s conversation. Let’s finally figure out what constitutes a good brand – one that you can love with all your heart.
Here’s How You Can Create a Strong Brand:
Lecture hall
The very first step is to understand who you are working for. Who is your target audience? What does she look like, where does she live, what does she do? What are her favorite sites and social networks? Find the answers to these questions – and half the job is done.
Budget
Think how much money are you willing to spend on brand development? This is an important issue and needs to be clarified from the outset. By the way, you can get by with a little blood and make something yourself, for example, a website and a logo. Before you spend, look for what you can save on – money, as you know, is never too much.
Involvement
In marketing, everything is constantly changing, so you need to keep an eye on where the industry is heading, keep your finger on the pulse, read the resources in the field, and see what other companies are doing.
“Voice” of the brand
Any good brand has its own “voice” and intonation, so you need to decide how to communicate with the audience. Equal or emphatically respectful? It is very important not to be mistaken here. For example, you can “listen” to how other brands do it.
Yes!
One of your goals is to make sure that any question about your brand can be answered “Yes.” Is this a good product? Yes. Can you trust this company? Yes! And it would be best if you believe in yourself, in your values and in what you do.
Daily schedule
Want to keep up with everything? This means that you have to learn how to manage time. Working on a brand is seriously addictive, so it is important to be able to start and finish.
Living stories
People are much more interested in brands that tell stories. Ideally, you want to make sure that whoever you reach out to also becomes a part of the story. The Dove campaign is a good example. This is not just an advertisement for soap or shampoo. And this is a story about us, our fears, our insecurities, and that we certainly deserve better treatment.
Zoom out
It is very easy to get bogged down in detail and stop seeing the forest for the trees. The little things are, of course, important, but do not forget to periodically “step back” and look at the whole situation.
Sincerity
Although you are going according to a predetermined plan, everything that comes from you should look alive, direct, truthful. But do not overdo it; otherwise, no one will believe that everything is exactly as you say.
Quality over quantity
People shouldn’t have any questions about the quality of your product or service. Remember: reputation is everything. Do not chase after the number of customers – it is better to have fewer but satisfied than many, but dissatisfied.
Influencers
To promote your brand, you will need the help of people popular in various circles – they are also called opinion leaders. These are not stars in the traditional sense of the word, but quite ordinary people: bloggers, Instagram users with a mountain of subscribers, leaders of local parties, etc. Their words carry weight, and that’s what you need.
Monetization
We are pleased to read good reviews on Facebook and see that many people visit our sites. But remember: this is not a victory yet. Winning is when your product or service sells well because, ultimately, the business starts to profit.
Persistence
Working on a brand is a long and detailed process that does not tolerate negligence. If you want to feel the results – do not work from time to time and not according to your mood, but constantly, every day, adhering to the plan and schedule.
Offline
The main part of branding tasks is the Internet because it is the most effective communication channel. But this does not mean that you should forget about offline. I was worried that you don’t have enough money to cover the whole city with ads? No big deal; there are many other good ways to get your message across to your audience.
The habit of experimenting
You can’t do without experimentation. The grooved tracks are, of course, comfortable and safe, but they also lead to predictable results. Our advice: learn to take risks and find unexpected solutions in everything – design, copy and promotion.
Diversity
Do you want as many people as possible to know about your brand? This means, use as many communication channels as possible. It would be best if you were sure to reach out to your audience, wherever they are.
Secret trump card
Every successful brand has at least one unbeatable trump card. Think, what is your specialty and how are you better than others? This will be your ironclad argument, which is difficult to argue with. The main thing is not to use it too often; otherwise, the effect will disappear.
Texts
We have already said everything about the design and corporate identity, and now we want to draw your attention to the texts. Please write clearly and convincingly so that the audience believes you and accepts everything you want to tell them.
Versatility
A strong brand will take root anywhere: in flyers and brochures, on a Facebook page, in a mailing list, on a website, landing page and in an oral presentation – in a word, everywhere. This means that your task is to develop a corporate identity that will fit into any format without question.
Form style
Your company needs to have a corporate identity to differentiate itself from competitors and make the right impression on people. Everything should be thought out: colors, fonts, words and images. And remember: the style is not made for the show but to work with it.
Charisma in communication
If you want to build good, lasting relationships with people, you need to make sure they do not stand on the sidelines but talk to you. This can be done both in social networks and in life – for example, at meetings or right in your store or office.
Target
You need a plan and a goal to understand what you are striving for in general. Sometimes you have to go astray and be distracted by something else, but always keep in mind the ultimate goal and do not forget why it all started.
What’s next?
It would be best if you asked yourself this question all the time. Please do not standstill. Think about the next step, about what you have not done yet, about your weak points and work on them.
Grinding
To not stand still, you need to carefully analyze your work and think about what can be improved. Take into account the experience of previous campaigns, analyze successful and unsuccessful cases, and work on mistakes. This is necessary to understand what to do and shoot not at random but precisely at the target.
Effective collaboration
You don’t have to do everything in splendid isolation. Even if you are well versed in design, writing, management and various other issues – do not deal with them yourself, rather trust the professionals. You will see, your business will only benefit from this.
Bright updates
Even if you are doing well, you need to shake yourself up and come up with something new from time to time. Maybe it’s time for you to refresh the logo? Or update the site? Or change your Facebook cover?
How to Increase Brand Credibility
According to the explanatory dictionary of Ozhegov, trust is confidence in someone’s honesty, sincerity and correctness. Consumer confidence in a brand is based on several key factors:
- quality products
- ethical production
- honest communication
- good reputation
Building a website for your project is a great start to building long-term relationships with your customers. Here you can talk about brand values, team and work processes. Building a loyal community is impossible without customer trust. We will tell you how to get it and save it further.
What is brand credibility?
People interact with different brands every day: they set the alarm clock on the phone of a certain manufacturer, press the button of a certain coffee machine and add a certain brand of milk to their Americano – you can go on and on. When you first tried these brands, you trusted advertisements, packaging, online reviews, or the advice of friends. You bought that same milk for the second and third time because it did not disappoint you the first time. Then you continued to buy it because so far everything has been excellent – it is tasty, natural and turns sour in exactly two days, as befits fresh milk without any questionable additives.
If the example with milk seems too common, then let’s turn to the appendices. What maps do you use to find out the way – google or Yandex? Most likely, only one of two – because you escaped a long traffic jam several times or found the right entrance the first time. Now you know that these recommendations can be trusted.
This is how brand trust is built. It reflects how the company delivers on its promises and meets your customer’s expectations.
Why is brand credibility important?
As with any relationship, trust is the key to success. It is better to spend time and effort building a reputation and a loyal community than constantly investing in aggressive advertising and marketing, which were last effective 20 years ago. What gives consumer confidence:
Increase the audience. Word of mouth has worked, works and will work – the more people share your values, the more likely they will recommend you to their friends. This leads to the next point.
Read More: How to Take Pictures of Clothes Without Mannequin
Conversion. Customers who trust you will not only bring friends – they will buy again. This increases income and shows that the business is growing and solving the problems of buyers.
Brand ambassadors. The most loyal and devoted customers. They love and appreciate your business. They will defend him on social media, referral forums, and conversations with friends. Don’t let them down.
User Content. It is also UGC – user-generated content. It is free, most often loyal, but most importantly – an effective form of marketing. UGC replaces advice from friends and helps you buy. By posting customer content, you show that their opinion matters to you.
How to increase brand credibility
Conscientiousness, sincerity, and correctness are the three pillars on which the loyalty of consumers to the company rests. Here are five tips to help you build long-lasting customer relationships:
Share your values. Shared views unite – share what is behind your logo, why you believe in what you do, and why you need to stay true to your beliefs.
Be honest. Inform customers about return options, shipping costs, and other important conditions. Try to answer possible questions in advance on the website, on the product card, on the payment page or in the FAQ section.
Simplify navigation on the website or in the mobile application. Make the buying process simple, straightforward and fast. Add a quick checkout button, cart widget and wishlist. A responsive site that is easy to use from a mobile phone will add customer loyalty.
Share your knowledge. And more – tell customers about your successes and failures, workflows, news, and publish reviews. You can create a blog or share content on your brand’s social media.
Work with the negative. Unhappy customers and angry reviews happen to all businesses. Sometimes it may not be your fault, but it is better to understand the situation and apologize than to ignore the client’s comment and let them go to third-party reviews.
Motivate and reward. Show users that every review, comment, photo, or tag matters. Arrange surveys, contests, give re-purchase promotional codes and engage customers in brand communication.
Use analytics. Follow the actions of buyers on the site to make it even more convenient. Send email newsletters and optimize ad campaigns. Data is the power that will help improve sales and increase customer confidence.
What Is a Favicon and Why Are They Useful
Take a look at the tab menu right now – see those little logo icons on each of the tabs on the left? They help us understand which site is on each of the tabs, especially when there are a lot of them and the text no longer fits.
A favicon, icon, or even a favicon is one name for such a small but important site element that plays a big role in the site’s usability, identity and branding.
We will tell you about what a favicon is, why it is needed, what function it performs, and much more in detail in this post.
What is a favicon
A favicon is a small 16×16 pixel icon used in web browsers to display on a tab and translated from English. “Favorite icon” – FAVoritesICON. A favicon often consists of a logo, the first letter of a company, or other images that characterize the business. All these elements must fit into the square – this is how the favicon looks on the tab.
Where is the favicon used?
- On open tabs in the front of the site name.
- In the browser history.
- On the bookmarks bar.
- The favorites, where you save all the interesting pages.
- In the desktop and mobile search results of Yandex and Google.
Why the favicon is important
Despite their tiny size, favicons are essential for any website: they improve the user experience, are part of the branding and show the professionalism of the company:
User experience. Favicons serve as memorable visual cues for the user who opens many tabs, saves sites to bookmarks and applications. Thanks to them, it is easier for users to find the desired site in their favorites, which speeds up the work with the site and simplifies returning to it.
Branding. It is one of the elements of the corporate identity that contributes to the memorability of the logo and corporate identity of the company.
Professionalism. The favicon is like a finishing touch – you can do without it, but with it, the picture is complete and thought out, and users understand that you are serious about even the smallest details.
How to make a favicon
One option is to contact a professional designer. Most likely, if he has already made a logo for you, then the favicon will not be a problem.
When creating a favicon, you should first choose the correct format and size. This is necessary for the site icons to be displayed well and with high quality on any device.
Favicon format
The preferred file format for the favicon is PNG. It is supported and displayed correctly by almost all browsers, ensuring high-quality icons on the desktop and mobile devices.
The second most popular format is JPEG. Why the second one? JPEG, SVG and GIF favicons have rendering issues due to lack of broad browser support. However, in order not to exaggerate the colors at all, it should be noted that icons in SVG are scaled without loss of quality. which in the future can be an excellent solution to all problems with displaying favicons.
Favicon size
The optimal size is 16×16 pixels. This is the size they usually display, so check how your icon looks at this small resolution. Sometimes, larger sizes can be used for a desktop, such as 32×32 or 48×48.
Transparency
If your design has a transparent background, be sure to save the file in PNG format with transparency enabled.
What Is Bounce Rate and How to Reduce It
Every business owner wants to create a website that will attract leads and generate sales. It is important to measure your site’s performance using various metrics. One of the most important metrics is bounce rate. This article will tell you what it is and how to reduce this indicator to increase traffic.
What is the bounce rate?
Google defines bounce rate as “a session with a single pageview on your site. ” In other words, rejection is a situation in which a user came to your site but did not click anywhere and did not go to other pages. Such sessions are divided by the total number of visits to the site. And the result of the division is the bounce rate. A high bounce rate indicates that a large number of visitors close your site immediately after visiting, without interacting with it in any way. The reasons for this can be very different:
- Poor design that makes a business website look unprofessional
- Inconvenient interface
- Misconfigured targeting ads make users’ expectations from the site not match the actual content. This can happen if you have chosen the wrong target audience or used irrelevant keywords.
Google users can take advantage of built-in analytics to measure bounce rate.
Why measure bounce rate
The bounce rate is a great illustration of how performing the site is. The higher this metric, the more the level of interaction with the site drops – and with it, the sales.
Example: You have opened an online T-shirt store. The store’s landing page has “View collection” and “Buy” buttons. A high bounce rate means that a large number of visitors have not clicked on any of these buttons. which means they have not moved to the next level of the sales funnel. Another important aspect is the impact of bounces on SEO… A high rate signals search engines that a site is poorly optimized for users. As a result, the site goes to the bottom lines of search results, which negatively affects traffic and can be detrimental to small businesses.
What is considered a good bounce rate?
There is no universal number – it depends on the industry and the type of site. For example, for an online store, a low bounce rate is much more important than for a blog. After all, the goals of these two sites are completely different. For a landing page without buttons and links, an extremely high bounce rate is allowed – because of the page design, even interested users do not need to click anywhere. It is also important to remember that bounce rates depend on which device the site is viewed on. The study shows that the average bounce rate for desktop users is 42%, while the bounce rate for mobile devices is 16 percent higher.
In general, the rate should be no more than half of the traffic – however, even then, it is worth reducing it for the good of the business.
How to lower your bounce rate
- Check your download speed. On average, you have a few seconds to grab a visitor’s attention. If pages load too slowly, it annoys the user and is more likely to go to the more optimized sites of competitors. There are several ways to increase your download speed: reduce the number of media files, skip animated images, limit the number of fonts, and much more—detailed instructions in the guide to speed up the site.
- Improve UX / UI Design. Inconvenient navigation is a common cause of high bounce rates. Users may not find the button they want or the content they are promised. Make sure all the important sections on your site are easy to find at a glance, and the call-to-action buttons lead you where you need to go.
- Set up your targeted ads correctly. Sometimes business owners make promises in their advertisements that they can’t deliver, leading to higher bounce rates. For example, some companies advertise their products as free – when it is only a free trial in reality. Such ads can increase traffic but at the same time increase bounces – after seeing that they have been misled, users will be frustrated and leave the site. Remember – direct advertising leads to more stable conversions and increases brand credibility.
How to Use the Persona Method in Product Analysis
Determining the target audience and their behavior is one of the most important stages in creating a product, developing an application or website. The thorough analysis allows you to make smarter decisions and create a product that truly meets users’ needs and covers their pain.
Product designers have developed several techniques for audience assessment and user portrait definition. One of the most popular is the persona method. It is used during the product research phase, even before the actual design and development of the interface begin.
The persona method is a simple and powerful UX research tool, but it isn’t easy. Let’s figure out what they are, why personas work, create them, and effectively put them into practice.
What does the term “person” mean in UX research?
A persona, aka a character, is a generalized but realistic description of a typical or target user of a product; that is, an archetype, not a real living person. Characters should be described as real people, but they should not document every aspect of an imaginary person’s life. In other words, this is the characteristic of the most likely site visitor.
What is the unique method?
The unique method is a qualitative research method. Its goal is to create multiple characters with the characteristics of potential product users. Simply put, each character is a collective image of one group of your target audience.
Why do a user portrait?
Creating a user image will help you get to know your audience better. You will be able to more accurately identify their key problems, needs, goals, and pain points. Ultimately, this will lead to a better user experience, making the product more valuable and attractive to the target audience.
You can make smarter, more informed decisions about your product based on your user profile. For example, which features might be useful to users, which logos they will respond to better, or which text they understand better.
Examples of people
Essentially, personas are “sketches” of real people. For a company in the print industry (say, a bookstore), you can model the following characters:
- Roman, 42 years old, teaches literature at St. Petersburg State University and uses the Internet only to check to receive assignments from students by mail and fill out electronic forms. It connects exclusively to the network from a home computer via a broadband connection. I have never made purchases via the Internet, preferring to place orders by phone.
- Lena, 28 years old, business analyst, an active Internet user for the last ten years. Use everything you can go online-MacBook, iPad, or your iPhone.
Thus, potential clients of the company are completely different types of people with completely different needs.
In some cases, it can use simulated personas in this form. However, fully developed characters have a more detailed description indicating the goals for which they will go to the company’s website.
For example, Roman will visit a site because he wants to read a review of a new book by Yuval Noah Harari, and a blog on this site is run by one of the teacher’s best students.
How to create a user portrait
Before creating personas, you should at least have an idea of your target audience. It would help if you had at least minimal preliminary research in the form of surveys, focus groups, in-depth interviews, etc. It is recommended to make up to 4 people, as a larger number can lead to defocusing, which will only interfere with decision-making.
Step 1. Conduct qualitative and quantitative user research.
Start by collecting data about your users (or potential users). This can be done in various ways, using qualitative and quantitative research methods. Combining both approaches will result in a more balanced and accurate result. However, this will depend on several factors: your resources, how much time you have, and where you are with your product. It is best to start research as early as possible.
Examples of quantitative research
Online surveys: This is a fairly simple and affordable way to research users, especially if you are self-employed and don’t have the resources a larger company might have. You can use basic tools like Google Forms and share your survey on suitable social media groups. These polls can include both multiple-choice questions and open-ended questions for extended answers.
We recommend that you put the most important questions at the beginning; this will increase the likelihood of getting a complete and thoughtful answer. Ask what the user’s problem is and what they expect from the product.
Web Analytics: Analyze certain factors such as the number of visits per page, time spent on the site, the path of visitors through the site where problems arise, etc.
Examples of qualitative research methods:
User interviews: this is an opportunity to ask questions and get detailed information about the experience of using your product from real people.
Focus groups are group interviews in which a small group of participants from your target audience discusses their experience with a product.
Contextual interviews allow an opportunity to observe how someone uses your product in their environment without asking pre-planned questions or giving them specific tasks.
There are different methods, but these are usually one-on-one sessions that involve observing the user’s experience with a product (or prototype product) and identifying their problems.
Step 2. Organize your research
Structuring the received data into an understandable and clear document can be no easier than getting the data itself. However, you will likely already be beginning to feel your audience and their problems by this point.
Data analysis and visualization allow you to see patterns in user behavior from different segments and compare their characteristics. The process and form of imaging will depend on the type of examination.
Graphs are great for quantitative research. They will give you a clear idea of trends that you can incorporate into your portrait.
There are several options for qualitative research. While there are many online UX research tools and websites out there, a simple method for visualizing data is to use stickers. Transfer quotes from users to your notes and group similar or recurring insights. For example, multiple users may have flagged the same problem, product flaw, or goal. Putting them together will help you see trends and thus gauge your audience.
If you have collected many detailed answers, put them together and insert the resulting text into the word frequency counter. So you will find out what language your audience speaks and whether there is general data about hobbies, interests, demographics, etc.
Step 3. Decide on the number of characters
You already have a clear understanding of the audience and the subgroups that make it up at this stage. If there are many such subgroups, select the four most important ones, and for the rest, find overlapping characteristics and use them as an additional one. There is no unnecessary data, so you can always refer to this other group for clarification if you have difficulty making decisions.
So you have four groups. Now describe the collective user image for each of them. Make sure there is a clear distinction between the groups. You can classify them, for example, by age, technical ability, motivation to use the product, the problem the product is covering, and other characteristics.
Step 4. Describe the image.
Name and Photo: Choose a name and photo that matches the person’s nationality and location. Avoid stock photos and overly generic names.
Demographic data and statistics: age, marital status, work, residence, education, experience, etc. This data should be based on prior research, unlike the name and image.
This includes goals, pain points, behavior, and opinions. This will make it easier for you to understand users’ motives and answer the question, “Why will they use your product?”
For example, the motivation for using an app to find apartments may be to spend less time visiting apartments. The problem with the same application may be that, in real life, the apartments do not correspond to the photographs and descriptions that appear on the Internet.
This should be a short sentence that summarizes the user’s needs the most. Although this is fiction, one should justify such a statement with the research results.
Continuing with the apartment finder application example, a quote might be something like, “I want to find a new apartment quickly, and for that, I need an effective tool.”
Step 5. Render the user image.
The turn has come for the last but no less important step-to draw up a final document for each person. Use mockups from the Internet to structure your information. The purpose of such a document is to be understandable by any of the team members who work on the product designers, developers, illustrators, marketers, copywriters-they will all do their part based on this research. They should have a clear idea of who they are making the product for and how their role affects their lives.
The user image will guide the design, development, and promotion of a product. You will make decisions that will ultimately become a ready-made interface with it.
Hashtags: Why Are They Needed and How to Benefit from Them
On the one hand, a hashtag is just a hash mark on the keyboard. On the other hand, it is a symbol of the digital age. Thanks to him, various social movements appeared, for example, #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter, and people began to use this sign-in daily communication. In this article, how hashtags appeared, what value they have, and how to use them.
How did hashtags come about?
The history of the hashtag began in 2007 when former Google designer Chris Messina proposed using the hash sign to organize messages on Twitter – the social network was still gaining momentum. So, the hashtag has become a tag, a keyword or phrase that makes it easier to search by topic and content.
The new feature was first used by attendees at the August South by Southwest festival in Austin. Messina suggested using tags to follow the event on Twitter without being distracted by other feeds.
In October, wildfires that struck California sparked a surge in hashtag popularity – people used them to share news and stay updated.
In 2007, the most popular hashtag was used more than 9 thousand times, and ten years later, users posted 125 million hashtags every day.
Hashtags opened up a new dimension on Twitter – the company developed an automated hashtag search engine, and soon other platforms began to use the tag.
Why are hashtags important?
A hash mark in front of a word makes a hyperlink out of it. Thus, each hashtag becomes an anchor that allows you to find and group posts from the same topic on social networks.
It is important to note that different platforms give outposts by hashtags in a certain sequence.
Twitter: It shows all posts that have a hashtag. The user decides whether to read only the popular ones or watch the newest ones.
Facebook and Instagram. Above are the posts that are the most popular and have the most likes, comments, and saves.
Hashtag types
1.Profile Navigation
Anton is a popular travel blogger. He has traveled to many countries, knows all the pros and cons of each location, has become an expert on how to get through a long airport transfer, and loves to share life hacks.
In 2017, Instagram provided an opportunity to subscribe to hashtags.
Every day he publishes at least one post with useful information. To make it easier for subscribers to have the desired overview, he created headings by country and hashtags in each thematic publication.
2.Geographic
Such hashtags are tied to a place – most often a district, city or country. Use them if you provide services or sell products through your account. For more efficiency, glue the service name and geotags.
3.Branded
These are hashtags mentioning the brand name. With their help, you can search for UGC and track its reputation, work with negativity and respond to reviews about the company. If you have launched a contest or challenge, then using hashtags, you can track all participants in the activity.
Masha goes through a writing marathon of 2 weeks long. Every day she writes a post and at the end puts the hashtag #marathon_day_2, thanks to which mentors can find her post and leave a comment.
Hashtags for Instagram
Instagram is the most reliable social network for hashtags, and you can use up to 30 in one post. Put hashtags at the beginning of the post if it’s a rubricator or at the end if they don’t carry a functional load.
To hide hashtags from a post, add them in the first comment – this will not affect your search in any way.
In addition, you can attach a hashtag to a story, and there is a special sticker for this. By clicking on it, you will see all the stories under this hashtag and be taken to the thematic feed.
To go to the hashtag feed directly, enter the query through the “#” search, for example, # freshyagodyspb. You can also subscribe to this hashtag there – then posts with its mention will appear in your feed along with other subscriptions.
Hashtags for Twitter
As intended, the Twitter hashtag is a label for sorting posts by category. A fountain of tags is not welcome here, as in Instagram, so the optimal number for one post is 1-2 hashtags.
The platform has a separate section, “Trending Topics,” that lists popular hashtags. This section is constantly changing – the set of tags depends on geolocation, current events in the world and the number of mentions of the keyword by users. For example, during the US elections, the most frequently posted tags were #Trump and #Biden.
Hashtags for Facebook
You can use hashtags on Facebook, but it’s not very useful. At the most, show your involvement and knowledge of the current schedule. One or two hashtags per post are more than enough.
Hashtags for TikTok
A new and so popular social network with its own rules of the game. The very essence of the site – viral videos and challenges show that hashtags are an important promotion tool. Without it, the video will not appear in the thematic feed and will not receive the possible coverage.
Beyond reach, it shape communities. If a user often watches videos with the same hashtags, TikTok will show similar content at the top of the search results.
The same is true for brand hashtags – for example, the cosmetics brand Glossier uses the hashtag #glossier to bring all the lovers of the company’s products into a single community.
Challenges and jingles. I was hoping you could think of the extremely popular self-isolation track I’m bored in the house. The number of views on only one #boredinthehouse tag is 4.7 billion – that is, more than half of the world’s population.
Hashtag rules
- Write hashtags in one word without spaces. In writing, you can use letters, numbers, underscore, emoticons.
- Short and catchy hashtags are the key to success.
- To be more effective, hashtags must be relevant and contain keywords that people can use to search for information about a product or company.
- The search involves hashtags posted by the company in its post or the comment below. The company’s hashtags are not included in the comments of other accounts in the search.
What Is Conversion, and How to Calculate It?
It’s not enough to create a website – you need to make sure that it fulfills the tasks you set. And one of the essential metrics that measure website performance is conversion. This article will tell you what a conversion is, how to calculate it, what conversion rates can be considered successful, and how to optimize your site so that more visitors make purchases and click on links.
What is conversion?
Conversion is how a site visitor takes the action you want. Depending on the site’s purpose, this can be buying a product, registering for an event, downloading an application, subscribing to a course, or any other action that turns a visitor into a potential customer.
How to calculate conversion
Before calculating the conversion, decide on the user’s action on the site. As we wrote above, such an action can be purchasing a product or service, registering, or even subscribing to your newsletter.
Here is the conversion formula used to calculate:
[ number of visitors who took the desired action ] / [ total number of visitors ] = conversion rateIn simpler terms, you need to divide the number of visitors who took action by the number of all site visitors.
Here are some examples of how to calculate conversion rates:
Example 1: Tickets for a concert
Imagine that you are a concert promoter and decide to create a website that sells tickets for a show online. In this case, the conversion is the number of people who visited the site and purchased tickets. To calculate the conversion, you need to study the site statistics. For example, in March, 1,176 people came to the site, 56 of them bought tickets to the concert. Based on the formula above, you carry out the following calculation.
56 / 1,176 = 0.048, or 4.8%
This means that the conversion rate in March was 4.8%.
Example 2: Fitness site
In this example, you are a fitness trainer looking to expand your client base. To do this, you have created a website where you offer a free weekly workout checklist. All visitors need to do to receive an index is leave their email address. This will give visitors free workout information and new recipients for future marketing emails. In this case, the conversion is the users who left their mail. You can see that 635 visitors came to the site in July, of which 21 people sent an email.
The same conversion formula is used here:
21 / 635 = 0.033, or 3.3%
In this case, the conversion rate in July was 3.3%.
What is a reasonable conversion rate?
What is a good conversion in marketing? How do you know if a website is performing well or if you urgently need to optimize it for better results? There is no universal answer to this question. A satisfactory conversion rate depends on the industry, business goals, audience behavior, and location. However, the approximate figures are as follows: for areas like hi-tech, finance, healthcare, and so on, a range of 2 to 5% is considered a reasonable conversion rate. For eCommerce, the metrics are lower – from 1.84 to 3.71%. Conversion rate is a way to measure website performance and motivate yourself to new successes. Therefore, choose ambitious yet achievable numbers when setting your target conversion rate.
Also, keep in mind that conversion rates are only relevant for sites with good traffic. For example, if your site is visited by four people a month, and one of them takes the desired action, the conversion rate will be an unimaginable 25% – but such statistics are utterly useless for measuring site performance. First, focus on attracting many new visitors, and only then start calculating the conversion.
Where to see site statistics
Google Analytics. You can set conversion goals and track their progress in real-time on this service. Google Analytics has a lot of valuable metrics, including the number of visitors to your site.
Built-in analytics tool. For example, Cloud Retouch analytics is available to all platform users. With its help, you can track user behavior: for example, compare the actions of new and regular visitors. Plus, you’ll receive personalized recommendations for improving conversions and other metrics.
How to increase conversion
- Create a landing page. The advantage of a selling landing page is that nothing distracts the client from purchasing a product – unlike a multi-page site with a considerable amount of information. Be sure to write down the product’s benefits and add a call to action button.
- Improve UX. Clear and legible text, intuitive navigation, and the ability to buy in a couple of clicks make the user experience more comfortable and, therefore, increase the likelihood of conversion.
- Add a solid call to action. Make sure your site has a button with a relevant CTA. For example: Buy Now, Register for a Course, or Subscribe. Make it as easy as possible for the client to take this or that action.
- Optimize your mobile version. More than 50% of user traffic comes from smartphones and tablets, which means your mobile version should work perfectly for a good conversion. Reduce the number of elements and make the buttons more prominent and visible.
- Chat with users via live chat. By adding a live chat feature to the site, you can quickly answer any questions – which means increasing loyalty and, as a result, getting more potential customers.
- Add reviews. Positive testimonials from your previous customers will help build more trusting relationships with your visitors and nudge them towards a purchase or other action you want.
What Is CRM System
Website creation , a well-thought-out marketing strategy, competent promotion in social networks – all this helps a small business to attract more customers.
However, the growing popularity of the brand creates new challenges. Large numbers of clients are difficult to manage – especially if you keep records in a notebook or Excel spreadsheet.
This is where a CRM system will help you – a comprehensive solution that allows you to account for customers, manage sales, automate business processes and simplify analytics and reports. In the article we will tell you what CRM is, what are its advantages, and how to understand if it is time to implement such a system in your business.
What is CRM and how does it work
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a customer relationship management system. Traditionally, this acronym refers to an approach that uses analysis of customer preferences and behavior for more effective lead generation and sales. However, more and more often, CRM means not just a method, but tools and programs that help to achieve the desired result.
CRM is an essential part of small business management. It allows you to collect all information about potential and current customers in one place. This is very important because this information is usually scattered across different platforms: for example, on social media, on a website or mail, or in marketing presentations. In addition, CRM provides useful tools like live chat, marketing automation, or contact management. All this helps to more effectively lead the buyer through the sales funnel from the first contact to the purchase.
Why do you need CRM
Here are some important signs that it’s time for you to use CRM:
- You have accumulated too many Excel tables with reports that do not add up to a coherent picture
- It’s hard for you to track shopping behavior across platforms
- Your marketing and sales teams are mired in routine tasks and don’t have a single business strategy
- You are struggling to convert leads and retain existing customers.
An example of using CRM in small business
Anna bakes custom-made cakes. In the first couple, she had 5-10 clients a week – so she herself took orders through her Instagram account, negotiated the details, paid and delivered the cakes. But over time, orders increased to 200-300 per week, a catering service was added to the cakes, and they had to hire bakers and drivers, create a website , rent a workshop and open a physical bakery.
Managing clients manually became difficult: they forgot to contact one client, another did not specify special wishes, and the third brought the wrong cake. Plus, Anna spent all her time on process management, and she did not have the strength to come up with a new menu. In order not to lose clients and unload herself and her employees, Anna implemented CRM. Now each order is processed according to the same scheme.
1. The customer places an order on the bakery’s website, and the task “Contact the customer within ten minutes” appears in the CRM. If the manager misses the task, Anna will receive an automatic notification.
2. The manager contacts the client, helps to choose the filling and appearance of the cake, learns special wishes, information about allergies and other important details. After that, he transfers the task to the next stage – “Payment”.
3 . CRM automatically generates a document for payment, taking into account the size and details of the order. The manager sends the document to the client, and after payment transfers the task to the “Preparation” stage.
4. The shop manager appoints a responsible pastry chef and transfers the task to him. All customer wishes have already been recorded in the CRM – so the pastry chef does not waste time clarifying the details of the order.
5. After the cake is ready, the pastry chef moves the task to the “Delivery” stage. The driver receives an automatic message with the address and time of delivery, as well as the customer’s phone number. After the order is delivered, the driver marks it in the CRM, and the order is considered complete. After completion, the order is saved in the database. Anna can use the order archive for all sorts of analytics: the effectiveness of managers, the amount and number of orders, determining regular customers and the most popular dishes, and much more.
Benefits of using CRM
Improved analytics
Any prosperous business is a huge amount of daily updated information that is almost impossible to keep in mind. CRM not only brings this information together, but also makes it more understandable and structured for perception.
Deeper understanding of customers
CRM collects information about customers and leads from different sources and brings it together on a single platform. This allows you to create an effective marketing strategy that is more targeted to customer needs.
Superior service
CRM stores customer information – including contact details, purchase history, and special requests. This means that when communicating with the sales department and other business representatives, the client does not have to repeat what he needs over and over again. The buyer will feel as if you know their needs in advance – and this in turn will lead to an increase in customer loyalty and reputation in general.
Sales growth
Because CRM provides comprehensive insight into customer behavior, it is easier for marketers and sales teams to join forces and communicate correctly with a customer based on their position in the sales funnel. This is positively reflected in the conversion rate.
Better customer retention
Customer retention is just as important as customer acquisition. According to research , a 5% increase in customer retention increases sales by 25-95%. CRM allows you to improve and speed up communication with customers, and as a result, expand your loyal customer base.
Facilitate workflow
CRM helps automate routine tasks such as abandoned cart emails or payment confirmations. This relieves the workflow and leaves more time for strategic tasks.
Improved communication between departments
A single database and a step-by-step system of tasks allows each department to feel part of a global process. Using CRM increases productivity and eliminates confusion in team processes.
What Is Drip Marketing and How to Apply It
Effective lead generation is a complex process that involves many different marketing tools, including drip marketing.
The term “drip marketing” originated as a direct translation of the English term “drip marketing” and is a scheduled automated email campaign. The goal of this strategy is to drive traffic to the site , increase user engagement, and, as a result, conversion.
We’ve prepared a comprehensive guide to help you launch an effective email marketing campaign and get the most out of drip marketing.
What is a drip campaign?
A drip campaign is a form of marketing automation that is most commonly used in digital marketing. With this method, a series of predefined ones is sent to your contacts over a long period.
The sending time of each email is based on certain triggers. For example, you can schedule the first email to be sent to users after they subscribe, and the second one 3 days after.
Drops have several advantages:
- They help you gently develop relationships with customers, gradually increasing their interest, rather than annoying with a lot of content. Since such emails are personalized, they are more attractive to users, which ultimately affects an increase in conversion and a decrease in the number of unsubscriptions.
- Drip marketing boosts user engagement by keeping them from forgetting about your brand. Well-written emails with a convenient and unobtrusive sending schedule increase customer confidence and help guide them through the sales funnel.
What platform to use for drip marketing?
Creating a drip email directly from your site’s dashboard is perhaps the most convenient way. With this approach, all information about your business, reports and email data will be concentrated in one place.
Types of drip marketing campaigns
Welcome Emails: Create automatic welcome emails when a new user signs up, subscribes, or requests a free trial. Let them know that you are happy to meet them and tell us more about yourself, your brand and its philosophy.
Sales funnel: Create a series of emails that nudge potential customers to purchase. Submit brochures, demo, trial access. Ask them to share their tasks to better understand how to cover their needs.
User Engagement: These are emails that invite users to return to the site. For example, an email “We miss you” to subscribers who haven’t interacted with your brand for a while, or an email “You might also like it” – it will tell you about products and services that may be of interest to customers.
Abandoned Cart Reminder: Sometimes customers leave their carts not because they don’t want to buy products, but because they were distracted or something more important happened. These users should be reminded of their purchases because they are the hottest leads closest to completing an order.
Renewal Reminder: Send renewal reminders to customers if your product is a subscription. If the renewal occurs automatically, notify users in advance that the money will be debited soon. If not, notify them that their subscription is about to expire and remind them to pay to continue using the service.
Confirmation Emails: Send a letter of appreciation for your purchase, confirmation of receipt of payment, and an invitation to continue shopping.
Guides: Create a series of letters, each one about a specific subject. For example, turn your blog content into an SEO course where a specific section is covered in a separate email.
How to set up a drip campaign
- Define your main goal
- Define your target audience
- Plan your campaign
- Create engaging content
- Launch a campaign
- Optimize your strategy
01. Determine the main goal
Perhaps you want to get new customers or you want to draw attention to your brand. Regardless of what you’re aiming for, it’s important that you have a clear goal in mind when designing a drip campaign.
Think about what you want your audience to do by the end of the drip campaign. Have you bought a product, subscribed to the newsletter, or have started to visit the site more often?
If it’s still difficult for you to decide, see which of the following goals may be relevant to you:
- Product promotion
- Increase in sales
- Increasing brand awareness
- Increased engagement
- Increasing the number of subscriptions
02. Define your target audience
Digital marketing is not a universal story; It works best when messages to users are personalized. To make your emails more personal, segment your target audience into segments so that you can more easily understand what the main message should be for each user group.
Market segmentation is the division of an audience into different types of customers based on their common characteristics. For example, this can be location, age, interests, behavior on the site, and more. Based on this data, you can create triggers that will determine which emails certain users receive.
For example, you can create an abandoned cart trigger. In this case, your segment could be people who have not returned to their order for 24 hours or more. You will then create an email drip specifically for that segment in order to complete the shopping process.
03. Plan your campaign
At this stage, you should know what the purpose of the mailing is and which groups of people you will be sending them to. But how many emails do you need to create? And how often do you need to send them? On the one hand, you want your audience to be engaged and engaged. On the other hand, don’t annoy them with too much content.
Effective mailing is from 4 to 10 letters with an interval of 3 days to 2 weeks between messages. You can set a gap of 3-4 days between the first emails to interact with users immediately after the trigger. Then postpone sending emails for a longer time to avoid overwhelming customers with information.
04. Create engaging content
For your letters to be opened and read, they must be interesting and informative.
Clear title. The most important action a user must take is to open the email. Without this, even the most beautiful content will disappear under a ton of other emails and sink into obscurity. To prevent this from happening, the subject line should be bright and interesting.
Personalization. Letters that were written specifically for a specific group of people are much more popular than those that were written for everyone and therefore impersonal.
Tone of voice. Brands, like people, have personality. Help your clients get to know and love your project by creating a memorable brand. Determine how you want to communicate with clients – relaxed or professional, using slang and humor, or, conversely, strictly and to the point.
Brevity. In the era of 15-second videos, you don’t need to write long letters – most likely they will not be read, or they may not even start reading when they see the length of the text. Keep your message short and clear, and link to your website or blog for more details. Exception: courses by email. In this case, the user already knows that the letter will not be short and will definitely read it to the end.
Include a CTA: Every email you write should include a call to action that guides readers towards the end goal. It should be a prominent button with the text “Start Now”, “Download” or “Register”.
05. Start your campaign
After you’ve created your emails and finalized your strategy, it’s time to send them to your audience. Since the process is automated, all you have to do is set an initial trigger and specify the number of days between emails.
06. Optimize your strategy
As with any good marketing campaign, you must continually adapt your strategy for better results. If your campaign hasn’t met its goal, you may need to change audience segments, adjust content, or change the timing of emails.
For example, if the open rate is low, try changing the subject line. For low conversions, check the button or call-to-action text. Continuous analysis and optimization of your campaign will help you achieve the best results and increase your sales.
