The short answer is yes, even if your business is happily ticking along, you are busy enough with word of mouth, and things are just plain fine and dandy. Your website is not always for your business but it’s for your customers too. With 70% of the buying decision now being made before a client has already contacted you, and 74% of people say website design affects their trust in a website, people want to be able to research and have their questions answered – and trust your answers are unbiased and accurate.

Take buying a new fridge for example. You can do a Google search from the comfort of your home and find out everything you want to know. You don’t have to go to a shop and be wondering will fit in your space or traipse the town finding parks while contending with bored kids, sideways wind, and salespeople eager to get you to buy something now.

Online, you can browse through all the main retailers to compare prices, specs, and measurements. If all the information you need is online, you just have to pop in and tell the store what you want!

Customers do research ahead of time

Potential customers want to research, research, research. Take a more complex and expensive purchase like renovating your home or building a new house. All those expensive things you just do not want to get wrong. The more expensive something is, the more research you’ll want to do first. You want to be absolutely sure that you have the right product and that you’re getting it from the right company. So if you’re a business owner, how can you make yourself out to be that company?

If you are good at what you do, don’t you owe it to your potential customers to inspire them with work you have completed and make sure they are getting the best people for the job? As someone who prides themselves on doing the right thing does it not grind your gears when you hear horror stories of shortcuts and shoddy workmanship when you know if they had just come to you they could have avoided all that?

This is where your work, your testimonials and reviews come into play. You need a place to house them and a website is perfect for this. Word of mouth is fine for people that are in your circle but there could be good clients out there that simply have not come across you yet.

Weed out bad fits and streamline the contact process

One possibility of having a website that may sound counterintuitive is that some companies end up with fewer people contacting them for a bit. Why would that be? It’s because if you have enough information on your website, customers can decide from there if you’re a good fit. You’ll be less likely to get tyre kickers and more likely to get people who are already interested in what you offer. This can also save you time. You’re less likely to have to put down your tools and stop what you’re doing to answer a call that leads to nothing or to answer a quick question. Instead, if this information is online, you can focus on what you do best– plain old fashioned hard work!

A website can prove you’re the expert

Customers want to know all their options to make the best decision for them. Remember, they don’t hold all the knowledge that you do as an expert in your field. I recently had a friend build a house and when asked about what sort of windows they wanted they just didn’t know what they didn’t know and felt like a deer in headlights. What are the options, what are the colours, styles are there extra things I can add? They didn’t know. If the customers don’t know this information ahead of time, that means more time for the worker to explain the options–or worse, don’t do it at all!

Simplify your processes

Helping your clients understand what you do and what you offer can save you time when it comes to quoting as well. With you providing everything they need to know on a simple, well-designed website, research is enjoyable and gives them time to figure out what they do and don’t like. A website can take away some friction for you quoting as well you can have an informed two-way conversion with the client as to why that may or may not work. You have educated them before bombarding them with industry jargon and on-the-spot decision making.

If there is one thing you don’t want is a house full of windows that just aren’t quite right and Joe down the road has all the bells and whistles that you didn’t even know existed. You owe it to consumers to share what you do and how well you can do it. Sometimes people want to be inspired by work they see online and how they can go about creating this for themselves and sometimes they just want to make sure that your services fit what they are looking for so they are not wasting your time.

Think about last time that you bought something with a difficult buying process that left you feeling in the dark. A website can help make sure you aren’t doing that to your potential customers!

Want to find out more about websites? Click a button below!

The post Do I really need a website if I have enough clients? appeared first on Back9 Digital.

A 3 star review is NOT a good review score. It means you were unhappy and that the business didn’t deliver on its promises and expectations. Even if you personally think 3 stars means a job well done, the majority of people see the scale a different way. Satisfied customers giving poor star ratings is frequent enough that we think that some people are misunderstanding what the star rating on some of these sites mean.

Happy customers giving those 3-star ratings could accidentally be harming a business they love.  A couple of these for the same business could  lower the online rating enough for people to not bother clicking in and reading more, all because satisfied or even regular customers rated it poorly. Are you one of them?

What does the 5-star rating system mean on Google and other review sites?

While specifics vary on individual review sites, in general, the best way to think about the 5-star rating system is your satisfaction level. Instead of something like hotels where each half star indicates a new tier of fanciness, a 5-star rating on a site like Google means that the business did well and you’re happy with the result. To further illustrate this point, check out our explanations and examples about each online rating below.

5 Stars

5 stars doesn’t mean the business is the single best business in the entire world. It’s not meant to be reserved for the best of the best. Instead, 5 stars means you were happy and satisfied with your interaction with the business. It means the business didn’t do anything too off-putting and that you’d feel okay returning some day. If you’re a regular at a place by choice, it should be a given that you would rate it 5 stars.

Example of 5-star rating

I recently went to a pizza place that had excellent, handmade pizzas. It was in a busy part of a downtown city, so parking was tough. The people in there were friendly and helpful, even though I had a voucher. I was a bit early so had to wait a few minutes, and it was a little warm for my liking. When I got the pizza it tasted great, though I wouldn’t have minded more pepperoni.

Why 5 stars?

You probably noticed that I actually had a few minor issues about the place. Parking was bad… But it wasn’t their fault. I also understand that I generally prefer cooler temperatures compared to most people. And sure, more pepperoni would’ve been good, but they didn’t skimp. Since I was happy overall and got good service, this deserves 5 stars.

4 Stars

A 4-star rating is doing pretty well. However, there was something you dealt with that was more than a minor inconvenience. 4 stars means that you were satisfied overall, but there was something significant that made you wary. This could be some kind of miscommunication that’s the fault of the business or going to a service-based business where the worker was a little off-putting or wasn’t the friendliest but still got the job done.

Example of a 4-star rating

When I first moved to New Zealand, I brought my little dog with me. Because importing animals is so complicated (probably even more than humans!), I worked with a company who knew the laws and took care of all the paperwork and gave me a timeline to make sure it would be done properly. It was quite expensive too. This wouldn’t have been a problem on its own, except for at one point they forgot an important step from the vet so I had to make an extra appointment and push my move out by a few days.

Why 4 stars?

In the end, this delay actually worked in my favour, but for other people it could have ruined the entire move plan, and it was a mistake on their end that shouldn’t have happened. Besides that, service was good, and employees were helpful and responsive. But since the setback cost me more and could potentially hurt other people’s plans, I knocked one star off.

3 Stars

A 3-star rating means that you had a so-so experience, and would probably be hesitant to return. 3 stars means you were unhappy with something important, but that the company did some things right. Things like waiting an extra long time for your food at a restaurant, constantly rescheduling appointments, and low-level rudeness from employees are common reasons someone might give a 3-star score.

Example of a 3-star rating

I decided to try a new burger cafe after they had a special promotion where I got a milkshake to go with any burger on the menu. It didn’t taste terrible, but the burger was overcooked and didn’t come quite as described on the menu. The milkshake, while it tasted good, didn’t have the toppings mixed in properly and they were all at the bottom.

Why 3 stars?

None of the food was necessarily bad, but everything was a bit off. The employees seemed unfocused and distracted. And there were enough alternatives in town that I wouldn’t visit again.

2 Stars

A 2-star rating is for when you have a bad experience, but not absolutely terrible. 2 stars means the overall experience was poor, but there was at least one redeeming, positive quality or portion of the experience. This could be something like being very expensive for the value, getting bad service, or having a mistake in your order that takes a few times to get right. And although the majority of the experience is bad and you won’t return, the business did something positive like having friendly servers or offering a partial refund.

Example of a 2-star rating

A franchise I’d gone to a few times in the past ran a radio ad for a new item that I was keen to try. I was planning to go somewhere else until I heard the ad and turned into visit them instead. I got sat down and told them what I was there for and was told that they didn’t offer the discount anymore. Then I explained that I heard the ad literally less than 10 minutes earlier but they didn’t change their mind. Since I wasn’t alone and the person I was with was set on eating at the restaurant, we decided to stay. The meal I ended up with wasn’t particularly good–but the earlier experience might have been part of the reason why I felt that way. Fortunately, once the food came out we got a new server who was friendly and made the trip better.

Why 2 stars?

Not honouring advertising is bad, and can even be enough for 1 star on its own. And my food wasn’t the best either. However, the new server did what she could to make the experience better. She was friendly, helpful, and attentive, enough that the place deserved at least one more star.

1 Star

A 1-star review is for terrible experiences, places that are just the worst.  1 star means that everything about the experience was terrible. Not only will you not return, but you might actively warn others know not to go either. If a business gets 1 star, you’ll have a hard time wondering how they managed to stay in business at all.

Example of a 1-star rating

I was looking into a college I was considering attending and needed a place to stay. Being a poor student, my budget was low but I thought I found a good deal. A hotel in town was  offering a steep discount for a one night stay and I pounced at the opportunity. The pictures were nice. But that was it. The staff was rude and immediately identified me as one of those “voucher people” and I had subpar service from the start. I couldn’t check in 15 minutes before the check in time on their site even though my room was ready. Plus they added extra “fees” just because they could. The room was old and dark with almost no light. And the bathroom with the cracked tub had a door that wouldn’t open all the way because it would hit the wall of the closet.

Why 1 star?

They put me in the worst room (I’m assuming) because of a discount that they offered, and wouldn’t allow me to change to another even though the place was nearly empty. The extra fees shouldn’t have existed either. And they were rude about the whole thing.

Do customer reviews really matter?

We wrote more in-depth about customer reviews in a previous blog, but for a quick summary, some surveys show as many as 95% of people read online reviews before visiting a business. The overall star rating is the most important factor. Businesses with a 4 or 5 star overall rating have a good reputation and the vast majority of people trust them. Drop under 4 though, and trust starts to erode. Fall in the low 2s or 1s, and you’d better be an essential government service, or hardly anyone is going to trust you enough to take the risk.

If you have a good experience and are satisfied with a business, don’t harm their reputation by giving them a low star rating. Remember; 5 stars doesn’t mean perfect, out of this world amazing and exceeding expectations in every possible way. 5 stars simply means that the business did what they were supposed to and treated you well.

The post Are you accidentally harming businesses you love through online ratings? appeared first on Back9 Digital.

Yet, a lot of sites are still buggy or slow on phones and tablets. Speed is a huge issue. Nobody wants to sit around waiting for sites to load, and to help out, Google has created the AMP framework that anyone can adopt for their sites to load faster, but it has a few requirements your site must meet first.

What is AMP?

AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages, and the goal is to make pages load lightning fast on tablets and phones. An AMP page is a simplified version of the code created specifically for mobile that is stripped down to optimise for speed.  Pages using the AMP framework have a little lightning bolt next to them on the Google search results.

While this stripped-down code does come with some restrictions and limitations, for many business owners the speed advantage is worth the change. And for the most part, sites look and function the same as they did without AMP—only faster. AMP pages don’t allow custom JavaScript (unless in the amp-iframe) and have a size limitation for the stylesheet, and instead uses an optimised script that loads faster.

The AMP Logo

Are there other benefits to AMP pages?

The main benefit of AMP is to deliver lightning fast, amplified pages to users. But you might find that you get some other benefits as well, such as:

• More likely to have a higher spot in Google when someone searches on mobile
• Less load on your web servers so performance can go up
• Potentially higher chance of display network ads being shown if your site has advertising
• Chance to be featured at the top of Google results in the Top Stories Carousel. 

AMP is great thing to implement on your site. Just keep in mind that it requires making changes to the code of your website, and it’s important to pay close attention to make sure it’s done right so your website keeps working. If you aren’t comfortable doing this or aren’t sure how to access or change the code, the team at Back9 has an experienced website development team that’s happy to help!

The post AMP Up Your Website for Mobile Devices appeared first on Back9 Digital.

There’s a lot more to colour than simply matching well. Have you noticed that brands aiming to be high-end use colours like black and dark purple, while brands that want to show nature and health use greens and browns in their branding and logo? When choosing what colours to use for your brand, there’s a reason our designers don’t simply ask what your favourite colour is and translate it into hexadecimal colour code.  Like font choice, colour also has meaning. And while the subconscious feelings behind colour might not be exactly the same for everyone, in general, colours give off specific feelings and meanings that are all considered when designing your brand.

Colour Coding

Colour science is a field of science that studies colours, how to apply colours through technology, and the effect of colour on thoughts and behaviour, and is even a Master’s Degree in the EU.  While the correlation between colour and its effect on moods, imagery, and behaviours isn’t concrete or the same for everyone, in general, certain colours suggest certain features for many people, and colour choice is much more involved than simply what looks cool.  So what do these colours typically represent and when is a good time to use them?

Red

Red is a colour of action. It represents passion and excitement, and creates a sense of urgency. The colour red has the potential to trigger more raw, powerful emotions–but can do so for both negative and positive ones, so should be used with caution.

Orange

A colour that ranks high for making products seem less expensive is orange. A bit more on the playful side, orange typically is suited for more fun or adventurous brands. It’s typically not ideal for formal, corporate ones. If used poorly, it can instead make a brand appear childish and immature.

Brown

Brown is earthy, the colour of tree bark in the forest and the ground beneath. It’s a solid choice for companies that want to look natural or organic. This feel is emphasised when combined with other earthy colours such as green. It’s often seen as an honest, trustworthy colour, but used badly can look dirty or unrefined.

Yellow

The colour of happiness and sunshine, yellow is youthful and vibrant. While it tends to have a lot of positive effects such as optimism and increasing sales, it’s difficult to use well due to contrast issues and being hard to read. Using a wrong shade in the wrong contest can also look unclean or smudgy.

Green

Choose green when going for something healthy and fresh. As the colour of grass and leaves, green has gained traction as being the colour of environmental friendliness. When used properly with food, it can show vitality and healthiness… And when done wrong, make people think of unpleasantness such as mould.

Blue

Blue is on the opposite end of the colour wheel to red, and has a calming, cool, feel. It’s often used as the colour of logic, reason, and wisdom. While it’s usually a safe choice, the conveyance of reason can make it feel cold, unfriendly, and emotionless.

Purple

For much of history, purple has been the colour of royalty, and thus still has an air of luxury to it. And, since royalty is “more elite” than non-royal, purple brings about feeling of sophistication and superiority. But, that can also become a negative if used improperly and can be seen as over-extravagant or elitist.

Pink

Pink is a great choice to show caring and gentleness. It exhibits youthfulness and represents hope and is a bold choice to help a brand stand out.  But when used poorly, it’s more likely to look childish or needlessly rebellious.

Black

Used somewhere in a good portion fo designs, black shows power and luxury. Many high-end brands use black and white palettes to show sophistication and simplicity, that the product or service is good, plain and simple.  Like blue, black can also show coldness or even heaviness and seem domineering when used poorly.

White

Often representing cleanliness and purity, white is used often by modern brands. Usually, white is the best colour for the background of a website so that attention isn’t drawn away from other elements. This means using white for branding requires using an offsetting background colour like white, and using it wrong can look boring, empty, and plain.

So remember that colour is complicated, and the meanings behind colour is just one of the many things our designers think about when designing your brand, website, and logo!

The post Colour me Impressed! Why Colour in Design Matters appeared first on Back9 Digital.

It’s true what they say, that building up your network can have a massive return. So how do you build it up in the first place? There are a lot of things you can do, and when done right, networking can feel like a full-time job of its own. You can volunteer for community events so people get to know you and your business, which can be especially helpful if you’re a local brand. You can join local clubs or the Chamber of Commerce. Or you could try chatting up the rich-looking bloke at your kid’s rugby game.

All of those have the chance to have positive results, but statistically, your best chance is most likely attending a professional networking event or specific networking organisations like BNI. Here, people all come with the same purpose; to grow their own network and build long-lasting business relationships. This of course brings a new problem: How do you stand out and find the people? Especially if you’re not the most outspoken person in the Southern Hemisphere?

Whether you’re a veteran or attending your first event, these 9 professional networking event tips can hopefully help you become a true Worker of the Net.

1. Have a Goal

The first and perhaps most important thing to help make you successful at a networking event is to know why you’re going in the first place. What do you want to get out of it? Do you want to meet other people in the same field as you? Other business owners who you can work with? Meet up with some friends and raid the free drinks? Having a goal ahead of time helps you stay focused and know whether or not the event was a success.

2. Make use of your best traits

Are you a charismatic salesperson who can sell a professional butcher a month-old burnt steak? Chat up some people and use your magnetic personality to attract people to you. More on the opposite end? Then you might not want to reserve a time slot where you present in front of the entire crowd with an original dance routine.  For some, going out and introducing themselves to random people is natural and easy. For others, it might be better to eventually strike up conversation with someone sitting on a bench on the outskirts; or wait and have someone else start the talking.

3. Go with a bro

Navigating  new waters like networking events can be especially tough for a first timer, so it can help to go with a bro to help you sail. This doesn’t necessarily have to be someone from your own company either; networking events are a fantastic way to find people with similar interests or even new friends, and going around with a new buddy you met at the snack table can make the whole thing seem a lot less overwhelming.

4. Have your business cards prepared (and up-to-date!)

At a networking event, you’re likely to meet a lot of people. And there’s a good chance that you’ll forget about some of them right after you’ve met them. You can reduce the chance of this happening to you by carrying  business cards and handing them out to people you have a conversation with.  Just make sure that they have an updated photo and contact info… You don’t want someone tossing your card out later because they can’t recognise you or get in contact! Business cards are one of our popular services and something we can take care of for you if you’d like. Simply call us up or contact us and tell us how many you need and if you’d like a new design.

5. Introduce yourself with a fun story

One of the best ways that you can be memorable is by telling a story that resonates. And everybody has something interesting that happened in their lifetime.  Did you get your business location because the last occupants were kicked out and you happened to walk past the landlord before he posted an ad? Did you start your company because someone made an off-colour joke about “you should do that for a living” and now you’re way more successful than said disbeliever? Use it to your advantage! At networking events, everyone is meeting new people and introducing themselves frequently. So they might not remember your name right away, but might be able to recognise your picture on your business card as “the guy who named his store after his dog”.

6. Listen intently

Communication is a two-way process. So don’t forget to do half of it! Some people at networking events are always keen to be talking and interrupt everyone with a story of how their kid was 4th best scorer on the football team instead of listening to what others have to say. But listening is just as important. You might find that other attendees have something to offer that you weren’t expecting that could be a huge help to you.

7. Prepare an “Elevator Pitch” ahead of time

If you don’t know what an elevator pitch is, it’s a quick 30-ish second explanation of what you do and how you do it better than anyone else. It’s great for when you get stuck in an elevator with someone (hence the name) and only have a very limited time to grab their attention. Practising this ahead of time can make it quick and snappy. Then if someone is interested in that short time, hand them one of your updated business cards and try to make an arrangement to follow-up shortly.

8. Create a plan for follow-ups

Finding that sweet spot for a follow up is a challenge in and of itself. Answering as soon as your contact’s door closes seems desperate, and too soon after the event finishes can risk your message getting lost in massive pile of other attendees. But wait too long, and you might be forgotten or all the goodwill and excitement you built up can fizzle out and vaporise. A good standard that many experts recommend is to reach out to your contacts by the end of the next week. But remember to play it by ear; for some, much sooner or much later may be a better option!

9. Have Fun!

The last thing? Don’t take the event too seriously. If you go in with the expectation to gain a thousand qualified leads and find new suppliers for all your business needs that have better service and lower prices, you’re likely to be disappointed. But if you go in with the hopes of learning something new and meeting new, interesting people, you’ll probably find what you’re looking for. If your event has any presentations or courses, try to take the time to attend a couple of them–especially if they’re at no extra charge!

With a little bit of preparation and a good attitude–and following some of our helpful tips of course–you can go from a net “worker” to a net “boss”!

The post 9 Ways to Become a Professional Networking Professional appeared first on Back9 Digital.

And for databases, that cream is a Client Relationship Management system, which is literally CRM. Programs like Excel are great for organising data into columns and rows so you can find it later, but what about when you want to pull out specific bits like which customers live in Winton and have a first name starting with J? Okay, that may be too specific, but a CRM like Hubspot, can help you segment your database into useful groups. That helps you send the messages to the right people at the right time.

What is CRM?

Cream with fewer letters. It’s also a piece of software that helps you build a comprehensive customer database. A good CRM does more than just store names and phone numbers. There are many benefits to building a good customer database. You can make separate lists based on what type of customer someone is. Are they a subscriber who’s a big spender who camps out on your front door every time you have a new product so they can be the first to have it? What about ones that only resurface for big sales? You can connect your lists to buyer personas to reach them in the way that best suits them.

Big CRMy Bytes of Data

If you’re hungry for data on your potential customers, a CRM will give you more bytes than you can crunch. Wondering who opened your last email? There’s data on that, hard data that your best friend who “reads all your emails” can’t deny. Data like that is useful on an individual level, but it can also help see what type of messages get a better response.

Take this as an example; you wrote several emails and decided to do A/B testing—an option with CRMs where you can test two versions of a message—and then look at the detailed results a week later. Instantly, you see the one titled “Buy a new white shirt, get a pizza to dirty it up” had an open rate of 75% and dozens of people clicked your “Free pizza please” button at the bottom. And your other email, “Buy one new white shirt, get a second at double price”, also had a decent open rate of 50%… With nearly everyone clicking on that little unsubscribe link at the bottom.

“Wow, maybe I should give people stuff instead of charging them extra!” You say afterwards when you analyse the results. It’s brilliant ideas like that you can get through the use of CRM data.

CRM your opponents in the sales game

Effective Inbound marketing is a marathon, and using CRM is like taking a secret shortcut to finish faster.

While your opponents take the long way—sending dozens of emails and making blogs and social media posts based on trial and error with a lot of guesswork—you can skip some of those steps and figure out what’s working faster, letting you CRM your opponents by getting to the same point quicker and with less effort and fatigue. Be the CRM of your crop by rising to the top and see how a CRM can help you now!

The post The CRM of the Crop appeared first on Back9 Digital.

Aren’t brand and logo the same thing?

All squares are rectangles. But not all rectangles are squares. And there you go! The same thing applies to brand vs logo. Your logo is a part of your brand, but your brand includes much more than simply the logo.

So then what’s a brand?

A brand is the set of core values and beliefs of your business and what you represent. It’s not only your products and services, but how you treat customers and even employees. So if people walk inside and instead of “Hello”, you say “Welcome to Pizza Pete’s, the Petest Pizza south of Santa’s House”, then your weird greeting is part of your brand.

All brands have beliefs and values, whether they’re written down or not

It might seem silly to write down what you believe as a business, but customers are going to make the judgment for themselves anyway, so why not give them a push in the right direction? You certainly don’t want to be known as “The one that cheats people” because someone spread bad information and you have nothing to counter it!

But beyond that, customers want to know that they’re in good hands. They want to know why you went into businesses. “I saw a discrepancy I could take advantage of to make a lot of money.” Sure, maybe that’s true. But if you were successful, there was still a need that you fulfilled. And you probably learned a lot along the way too. Talk about that!

The logo doesn’t matter then?

No no, that’s not true at all! Just because your brand is more than your logo doesn’t mean the logo doesn’t matter. Your logo is the visual representation of your brand. It’s what people associate with your product or service. If you have a logo that you’re attached to and people can recognise, then great! Avoid major changes with it or you risk having to regain some of your audience.

But what if you’re a new business or your logo is Meh at best? Professional designers put in a lot of hours into designing a logo – from type to colour theory – because of how important it is. Sometimes, a painful amount of hours for something so small. But they look at sizing, colour schemes, symbolism, mood, and a whole lot more. People see it and think of your business, so it’s crucial that it gives off the right impression!

Need help with your logo or brand?

If all of this brand and logo stuff seems a little too much and you’d rather focus on just doing high quality work, we can help. Our dedicated team has specialists for everything from graphic design to writing these blogs, and everyone does what they’re good at! We can help manage your brand and create a new logo that you’ll be sure to love–after all, you have the final say! Get in touch with us today to get started.

The post Brand vs Logo appeared first on Back9 Digital.

For awareness, these steps add zero value to a buyer. Buyers are looking for additional information about your product that can’t be found online.

As a business owner or a salesperson, you can personalise your sales process to the buyer’s context by understanding the buyer’s journey. Whether you’re selling directly to customers or you’re b2b, in this blog post, we’ll define the buyer’s journey, and show you how to think through it when attracting new prospects – from leads to customers and to being delighted.

Why does the buyer’s journey matter?

The buyer’s journey is the process buyers go through to become aware of, consider and evaluate, and decide to purchase a new product or service.

The journey consists of a three-step process:

1. Awareness Stage: The buyer realises they have a problem.
2. Consideration Stage: The buyer defines their problem and researches options to solve it.
3. Decision Stage: The buyer chooses a solution.

The graphic below illustrates a sample buyer’s journey for the simple purchasing decision of a doctor visit during an illness.

How to Define Your Company’s Buyer’s Journey

If you don’t have an intimate understanding of your buyers, conduct a few interviews with customers, prospects, and colleagues to get a sense of the buying journey. Here are some questions you should ask to put together the buyer’s journey for your business.

Awareness Stage

During the Awareness stage, buyers identify their challenge or an opportunity they want to pursue. They also decide whether or not the goal or challenge should be a priority. In order to fully understand the Awareness stage for your buyer, ask yourself:

1. How do buyers describe their goals or challenges?
2. How do buyers educate themselves on these goals or challenges?
3. What are the consequences of inaction by the buyer?
4. Are there common misconceptions buyers have about addressing the goal or challenge?
5. How do buyers decide whether the goal or challenge should be prioritized?

Consideration Stage

During the Consideration stage, buyers have clearly defined the goal or challenge and have committed to addressing it. They evaluate the different approaches or methods available to pursue the goal or solve their challenge. Ask yourself:

1. How do buyers educate themselves on the various categories?
2. What categories of solutions do buyers investigate?
3. How do buyers perceive the pros and cons of each category?
4. How do buyers decide which category is right for them?

Decision Stage

In the Decision stage, buyers have already decided on a solution category. For example, they could write a pro/con list of specific offerings and then decide on the one that best meets their needs. Questions you should ask yourself to define the Decision stage are:

1. What criteria do buyers use to evaluate the available offerings?
2. When buyers investigate your company’s offering, what do they like about it compared to alternatives? What concerns do they have with your offering?
3. Who needs to be involved in the decision? For each person involved, how does their perspective on the decision differ?
4. Do buyers have expectations around trying the offering before they purchase it?
5. Outside of purchasing, do buyers need to make additional preparations, such as implementation plans or training strategies?

The answers to these questions will provide a robust foundation for your buyer’s journey. Once you know these answers, you can tailor your content and website to meet your users’ needs. The next step is to create content like blog articles, videos, and images.

The post What is the buyer’s journey? appeared first on Back9 Digital.

When it comes to website loading speed, even a one-second delay can dramatically reduce pageviews, customer satisfaction, and drop conversions.

The speed of your website even affects your website’s performance and subsequently your organic search rankings for SEO. Since 2010, Google has been accounting for a site speed in its algorithm.

So what’s the biggest factor contributing to your page speed?

Size does matter.

It takes browsers time to download the code that makes up your page. It has to download your HTML, your stylesheets, your scripts and your images. All this means it can take a while to download all that data.

As web users expect more engaging website, or UX UI design, the size of a site’s resource files will continue to grow. Each new feature requires a new script or stylesheet that weighs down your site just a little more.

How do you make sure your site is up to speed?

There are some great resources for analysing your site’s speed. Google’s PageSpeed Insights, and GTMetrix are the most popular. Both services will analyse your site and tell you where you’re falling behind.

A little warning: the results can be a bit daunting sometimes, but most fixes are relatively quick and easy. You might not fix everything the speed service recommends, but you should fix enough to make the site experience better for your visitors.

Let’s learn how to speed things up!

Out-of-the-box template solutions like WordPress and Joomla for example are great but do require the know how a little manual labour to get up to speed – It can all be quite daunting, so we are here to help – Obviously expert help comes at a price, but sometimes an investment in the right help can save you time and money in the long run…

Read about the benefits of a custom designed website here… 

Now let’s look at some essential speed solutions that every webmaster should consider.

1. Optimize Images

Images are one of the most common bandwidth hogs on the web.

The first way to optimize your images is to scale them appropriately.

Many webmasters use huge images and then scale them down with CSS. What they don’t realize is that your browser still loads them at the full image size.

For example, if you have an image that is 1000 x 1000 pixels, but you have scaled it down to 100 x 100 pixels, your browser must load ten times more than necessary.

Scale your images before you upload them to your site, so you don’t ask for more from your visitors than you should.

Take a look at the size difference when we scaled down one of our images:

The second way to optimize your images is to compress them.

There are several free online tools for image compression, such astinypng.com, that can reduce your image sizes dramatically without losing quality. You can see size reductions anywhere from 25% to 80%!

2. Browser Caching

Why make visitors download the same things every time they load a page?

Enabling browser caching lets you temporarily store some data on a visitors’ computer, so they don’t have to wait for it to load every time they visit your page.

How long you store the data depends on their browser configuration and your server-side cache settings.

To set up browser caching on your server, check out the resources below or contact your hosting company:

• Apache Caching
• IIS Caching
• Nginx Caching

3. Compression

Enabling compression is like putting your website into a zip file.

Compression can dramatically reduce your page’s size and thereby increase its speed. According to Digital.gov, The smaller the better, when it comes to page resources.

Compression can knock off 50 – 70% from your HTML and CSS files! That’s a ton of data your visitor won’t have to download.

Compression is a server setting, so how you implement it will depend on your webserver and its settings. Below are some resources for the most common webservers. If you don’t see yours, contact your hosting company to see what they can do.

• Apache
• IIS
• Nginx

4. Optimize Your CSS

Your CSS loads before people see your site. The longer it takes for them to download your CSS, the longer they wait. And the slower your website loading speed.

Optimized CSS means your files will download faster, giving your visitors quicker access to your pages.

Start by asking yourself, “do I use all of my CSS?” If not, get rid of the superfluous code in your files. Every little bit of wasted data can add up until your website’s snail-pace speed scares away your visitors.

Next, you should minimize your CSS files. Extra spaces in your stylesheets increase file size. CSS minimization removes those extra spaces from your code to ensure your file is at its smallest size.

So how do you minimize your CSS files?

First, see if your CMS already minimizes your CSS or if there’s an option for it. HubSpot, for example, already minimizes your CSS by default whereas WordPress or Joomla do not.

If your CMS does not have a minimize CSS option, you can use a free online service like CSS Minifier to minimize your files. Simply paste in your CSS and hit “Compress” to see your newly minimized stylesheet.

Minimizing your resource files is a great way to knock some size off your files. Trust me—those little spaces add up quickly.

5. Keep Your Scripts Below the Fold to improve website loading speed

Javascript files can load after the rest of your page, but if you put them all before your content—as many sites do—they will load before your content does.

This affects your website loading speed and means your visitors must wait until your Javascript files load before they see your page, and we know how much they like waiting.

The simplest solution is to place your external Javascript files at the bottom of your page, just before the close of your body tag. Now more of your site can load before your scripts.

Another method that allows even more control is to use the defer or async attributes when placing external .js files on your site.

Both defer and async are very useful, but make sure you understand the difference before you use them:

• Async tags load the scripts while the rest of the page loads, but this means scripts can be loaded out of order. Basically, lighter files load first. This might be fine for some scripts, but can be disastrous for others.
• The defer attribute loads your scripts after your content has finished loading. It also runs the scripts in order. Just make sure your scripts run so late without breaking your site.

All you need to do is add a simple word in your <script> tags.

For example, you can take your original script

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”/path/filename.js”></script>

And add the little code to ensure it loads when you want it.

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”/path/filename.js” defer></script>
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”/path/filename.js” async></script>

The importance of your scripts will determine if they get an attribute and which attribute you tack on. More essential scripts should probably have the async attribute so they can load ASAP without holding up the rest of your content. The nonessential ones, however, should wait until the end to ensure visitors see your page faster.

But for the best website loading speed, always make sure you test each script to ensure the attribute doesn’t break your site!

Conclusion

As online users demand a richer online experience, the size of our pages will continue to grow. There will be flashier Javascript, more CSS tricks and more third-party analytics to weigh down our sites,  but we can’t let this bog us down.

A little attention will go a long way—remember, just a one-second delay is all it takes to lose a lead, so you need to also think about what those lost leads may cost and  whether you are using an out-of-the-box template or a custom design.

The post 5 Ways to Help Reduce Your Website’s Page Loading Speed appeared first on Back9 Digital.

A Custom Website Design is made to fit your needs!

Websites are a lot like shoes – there’s a lot of options out there... And like shoes, one Size and Style does not fit everyone. 

Most people with a little bit of tech nous these days can figure out or teach themselves how to create a free (or cheap) templated website – well I use the term create loosely and sure, some template sites may have some variation in style, but essentially they’re a one-size fits all solution.

We simply don’t believe in trying to shoehorn anyone into a solution that doesn’t fit their long-term strategic marketing goals.

Whilst you could ask the question “Have Wix, Squarespace and Shopify killed Custom Web Development?”. We believe the answer is clear. Cheap – or free – ‘will do for now’ solutions ultimately won’t last and could cost you a lot more in the long run.

2. Reason #1 SCALABILITY

• We see it all too often. People have been shoe-horned into a solution that isn’t the right fit in the long term. This is often a sales technique to get more money out of them in the short-term future. But also can be simply because it’s all the people selling the solution can deliver.

  Once you’re in the online space and your mind is opened up to the possibilities you realise you want to add more to your site. Maybe these are custom website features driven by user experience. Maybe just a way to make you stand out from the crowd. Either way this can often result in a roadblock – or even worse a dead end…
  With a custom website, customisation is always possible – the sky is the limit!

2. Reason #2 BRAND CONSISTENCY

• The key to creating credibility with any brand is consistency, and to do this it means your identity should be yours – it should be unique! If you have a website that looks just like someone else’s – or worse – your competitors, think about what that may be saying to your potential customer and your sense of individuality.

3. Reason #3 YOUR CONTENT IS YOURS!

• Now we’re experts in digital marketing and not Intellectual property law, however,  something to think about when you choose your website platform, is whether the solution is open-source or proprietary. Should you choose some of the solutions that are proprietary and down the track you decide to upgrade the website or move platforms – or whatever – you may find it difficult to do, whereas open-source technologies allow the flexibility to adapt and grow as you do.

In the end, we recognise there is more than one way to skin a cat. By that I mean (as I said earlier) there are a lot of options out there and whilst we believe firmly that custom is the best option, ultimately it’s up to you. And which option you believe is best for you and your situation.  Every business is different and we accept that, but please… Do some research. Shop around and talk to your potential supplier or agency! Cheap now doesn’t always mean cheap forever… And if you need help, give us a yell. 

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