Business Strategy

I got a call today from one of our clients about some false claims on a website blog. The comments were in-fact, completely untrue... but, nonetheless hurt my client's image.

Here's the deal guys, conversations are being held on the web with or without our consent, some of these conversations can have a negative impact on your brand.

Take time each day to monitor your brand. Find out what people are saying about you and your company online. News travels fast on the web--good or bad. It's your job to make sure you're on top of it.

I'm a bus dev guy. That is my passion. I currently own two businesses and am working on a third. Being an entrepreneur is hard. In addition to the long hours and hard work, there is a lot of ups and downs! And, (in most cases) when you first start out, you have to do--and learn--everything: accounting, marketing, sales, operations, legal, fixing the toilet... et cetera. Is it worth it? Totally!

When I first started my web design and development company Bullsprig I didn't quit my day job. Let's face it, I needed to pay the bills somehow. What I did was work on the business at night, after my "real job". I would come home from work and spend time with my wife (girlfriend at the time) then, when she went to bed, I would get to work. This is what it takes guys. Hard work. Period. No other way about it.

I have a lot of entrepreneur / start-up business clients at Bullsprig. I love it because I love helping people achieve their dream of financial independence. Over the past couple of months, I have taken a good, 360 degree, look at my business. What are my clients really looking for? What do my clients want from me?

There is obviously a lot of answers to these questions, but I think I have really narrowed it down.

So, what's the point of this post? Well, I want to tell all my beloved readers and clients I'm taking Bullsprig in a new direction. Yes, we will continue to provide web design and development services and online marketing services. But, we're going to go a step further and provide more consulting services regarding their online and social media presence. We're going to help our clients build brand equity online.

The process of web design and development is never really done. Updating, and adding on to your website is something you should always be doing.

Having a website and communicating to your customers is how you get real feedback about your business. Writing blog posts, new FAQ's, announcements, Tweets... all these tools help your customers find out more about you and your business. It's not enough to build a website and call it good. You have to work at it.

We recently designed and developed a website for St. Teresa of Avila Catholic School. The very first blog post created a dozen comments from parents wanting specific additions to the website. As a business owner, you must read (and respond) to comments written on your website. Listen to your customers and give them what they want.

When you engage with your customers, you will find more and more people interested in your products and services. And, most importantly, your customers will tell you what they want and need. Be open to new ideas and perspectives and watch your business grow!

Search engine optimization is a never-ending job. All the time and money you spent designing and developing your website means nothing if people can't find you!

It's important to make sure your website design company optimizes your site during development, but there is always room for improvement. To get those precious leads coming in, you must ensure your prospects can find your website via search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Tip 1: Write Better Page Titles
At the top of your browser, on every web page, there is a title. Make sure each title is very specific, and is different than any other web page on your site. Search engines scan this data when indexing your site. Being specific counts! Do not use generic page titles like "About Us". Include targeted keywords in your titles.

Tip 2: Use Keywords Generously
Incorporate top phrases you want associated with your website. Do your keyword research, find out what keywords you want to target. Try to have your keywords appear a few times on your site. But, do not "keyword stuff". Keyword stuffing is putting A TON of keywords on a single page. This is a red flag.

Tip 3: Develop an XML Site Map
Site maps are a major component for search engine indexing. There are many tools that generate xml site maps for free... use them! Websites designed by Bullsprig submit an xml site map to all the major search engines every 24 hours. You need to do the same.

Tip 4: Broadcast Your Links
There are many ways to get your content out there to the world. Focus on social networks and trusted websites within your industry. Tell the world about your business, products, services, employees... everything!

Tip 5: Tweet About It
Twitter is a wonderful tool that has become an important part of search engine optimization. Tweets are now indexed in Google! If you have a Twitter account, include Tweets about your business and useful tips that your customers would like to hear about. If you don't have a Twitter account, get one!

These tips will help you get better traction with your search engine results. SEO is a never-ending job! The sites that rank highly in Google are there for a reason... you can be too.

In business, nothing happens until a sale is made. Leads equals sales. Without leads, your business will not survive long.

We consult our clients often about the importance of conversion rates. A conversion can be many things... a product purchase, information gathered from interactive forms, a contract signed, and so on. Your conversion rate is the percentage of people who actually do what you want them to do. For example, if 10 people visit your online store and three people buy something, your conversion rate is 30 percent.

Tracking conversion rates on your website is a very important key business indicator.

Your ultimate goal is to convert clients, make a sale and keep your business growing. After the initial conversion, you need to make sure you keep getting repeat sales from your customers. The way to do this is to create marketing and sales systems that work.

With our website design clients, we first determine what their business goals are, then create conversion funnels to support these business goals.

Too many business owners focus on getting their "look" right before they start to generate leads. At the end of the day, leads are far more important than your brand. Again, leads equals sales, and without leads, your business will not survive long.

If you're in the market for a website redesign, or brand-new custom website design, make sure your website design company focuses on your business goals first, website look and feel later.

I live and work in Reno Nevada. I think it's the best place in the world to live. There are so many options and fun things to do in and around the Reno area. This fits me perfect because I really enjoy spending time outside doing the things I love. One of my passions is skiing.

I am 45 minutes away from the best ski resort in North America: Squaw Valley USA. For the past 5 years I have been a dedicated pass holder and lover of Squaw. I consider myself an expert skier... although, nowhere near as good as some of the guys ripping it up at Squaw.

Recently, I found a website that offers everything I want to see and read about Squaw Valley, and other things skiing. This website is: Unofficial Squaw.

The team behind Unofficial Squaw are doing an incredible job of online marketing and delivering a website people love and visit quite often (myself included).

So what's their secret? Well, first, the layout and design of the site is really nice. They spent some time putting everything together, and either have in-house designers, or they hired a great web design company. The website is visually pleasing and has a nice grid-based layout making navigating the site very easy.

They've also incorporated some really great technologies in their website, including: weather widgets, Twitter, Vimeo video technologies, Slideshow Pro, Flickr and others.

But what really makes Unofficial Squaw so popular among ski fanatics is the content! They are delivering exactly what their visitors want: great content!

I am sure you've heard, "content is king." Make no mistake, this is absolutely true! If you want to have a website with tons of traffic and visitors... deliver great content with an easy to use website. Give your audience what they want!!

At Bullsprig, we consult business owners and individuals every week about how they can get more traffic to their website. Besides having a custom designed website, you must give users what they want. What are you selling? Do you have products, services, ideas? What about those products or services makes them "sellable"? Talk about it. Help your audience see the benefits of your offerings.

You started your business because you were passionate about it. Tell the world why and success will follow!

I am a huge fan of Napoleon Hill. Hill's works examined the power of personal beliefs, and the role they play in personal and business success.

Recently I read the following by Napoleon Hill:

Where will you be ten years from now if you keep on going the way you are going?

Many people fail to realize that big success is the result of little successes achieved, often over a very long period of time. Truly successful people are long-term thinkers. They know that they must build upon each achievement and constantly learn new and better ways of doing things. A regular review of your progress is an essential part of goal-setting. A goal is little more than a wish unless it has a timetable for completion. Make sure your plan for your life includes short, medium, and long-term goals. Revise your goals as circumstances dictate, check them off when they are completed, and set new and bigger goals for yourself as you grow. And take time to reflect often to make sure you are on the right course-for you.

Pretty powerful stuff. Let me break down this information.

Truly successful people are long-term thinkers.
Thinking long-term is easier said than done. Especially in the current business climate. You might wonder where you next sale is going to come from. Or, will my business survive this period. Every business owner has these thoughts. What's important is that you do something about it.

You need to look hard at your current marketing initiatives. What are you doing now? Is it working? Is your website working hard for you and your business? What is your conversion rate in your pay-per-click campaigns? Did that email blast generate any leads or sales? And so on.

If your online marketing initiatives are not working, you must do something different.

Successful people constantly learn new and better ways of doing things.
How much time do you spend on your website? Are you updating content, photos, FAQ's? How often do you talk with your web design firm / marketing agency? What type of funnels do you have on your website? Are they generating leads or selling your products?

There are so many better ways of doing business online. At Bullsprig, we have modules that allow you to update your website from any computer with an internet connection. How much time do you spend on social media? Ever wonder how to reduce the time you spend? If you have a Google AdWords account, do you have any keywords with a low quality score? What are you, or your web design agency doing about it?

With Bullsprig as your online business partner, we can help you find new and better ways of doing business online.

Make sure your plan for your life includes short, medium, and long-term goals.
At Bullsprig, we have an internal roadmap of goals. We are constantly working and moving forward to create new, better ways of marketing online. Better ways of designing websites, building ecommerce stores.

What are your online goals? Do you have any?

It's okay if you don't have goals... you might not know where to start. Listen, we know the web is complex. We're in business to help people and companies understand the web. We’re about streamlining the complex stuff so that anyone can understand it. Our products are designed so business owners and individuals can start small and grow with it as their business does.

We are actively involved with each of our clients. We work with business owners to define online business goals and make a roadmap to complete those goals.

Reflect often to make sure you are on the right course-for you.
Success online is the result of constant communication. We talk with our clients once a week: What's working? What's not working? How can we fix it?

We believe in providing you great technology, built to help you succeed, at an affordable price.

If your website design agency is not helping your business succeed online, it's time to look elsewhere. Contact Bullsprig today. Let's start the conversation.

We recently said goodbye to one of our longtime clients. They said they could not afford our services any longer, but really appreciated all the work we had done in the past, and would look forward to working with Bullsprig in the future, once the economy picked-up.

Looking back at our relationship, one thing kept eating away at me. You see, they decided to go with another marketing service provider (yes, one that was cheaper). That’s fine and good--we get, it every penny counts--except this other company isn’t providing a better service (in my opinion). So why would they bail on us?

The answer is plain and simple: lack of communication. On our part. Period. Our mistake, we will learn from it.

Our goal as a web design agency is to have all of our clients trust us and keep the communication lines open. It’s important that we deliver the very best service at a reasonable price. We want our clients to rave about our services and the results we deliver... recommend us to colleagues and friends.

I think it gets back to trust. Inspiring trust is a critical component to business, especially a service business like website design and development. I am a believer now that trust comes from communication. People will not recognize Bullsprig as a leader unless they trust us. People need to be convinced that we know what we’re doing and that we can deliver.

Recently, we have started having weekly conversations with our clients. These conversations are generally not long and take place over the phone. But, what we’ve noticed with these conversations, is that our clients are coming to us for more and more services. They are asking us more questions, keeping the conversation going.

These conversations have also given us an opportunity to talk about all the other services we provide, in addition to web design and development.

With the ever-changing economy and strains on your business, we need to know where you stand today. What your current business goals are (they change frequently), and how we can deliver ROI. What are your key business indicators? How can we leverage your website and online marketing initiatives to achieve these goals?

Our services should ALWAYS help you move your business forward and be worth the investment; otherwise, it is time to talk and revisit goals and deliverables.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of analyzing and enhancing your website to help potential customers find it on Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines. SEO is a process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a website from search engines via "natural" or unpaid search results (defined by Reno SEO companies as "organic" search results).

The term "search engine marketing" (SEM) deals with paid search. Search engine marketing seeks to increase the visibility of a website by promoting that website with the use of paid ad placement, contextual advertising and paid inclusion. Search engine marketing includes the use of Google Adwords, contextual advertising and other forms of online advertising.

Having your custom website design optimized for search is important because the higher your website appears in the search results list, the more traffic your website will receive from the various search engines. Website traffic is key if you want to have a successful online business!

Search engine optimization includes a lot of different kinds of search strategies in addition to your keyword search strategy. Image search, local search and video search are all components that should be included in your search engine optimization. By incorporating all these strategies in your SEO, your website will have a much better web presence, thus more traffic!

As part of your internet marketing strategy, SEO tactics should be incorporated into custom website development and design. Valid code is the foundation for effective SEO strategies.

Search engine optimization focuses on how search engines work and what specific terms people search for. SEO efforts should start at the bottom level of your website. That is, your HTML code!

The majority of web pages on the Internet are written in computer languages (such as HTML). This allows web designers and web developers the ability to structure text, images, multimedia content and more on a web page.

All software and applications written with computer languages are supposed to follow rules. This includes websites and web pages! A common mistake made by many web developers and designers is to NOT follow these rules. This is a huge mistake if you want quality search engine results.

Optimizing a website for search begins with valid HTML code. Quality, valid HTML code will remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines and make your online business search engine friendly. All of our Reno web design clients have websites built with quality code. In addition, we send an xml feed every 24 hours to all the major search engines, which helps our clients tremendously with their search results!

The term "search engine friendly" describes the overall layout and design of your custom website. Designing search engine friendly websites begins with valid HTML code. That code powers your overall layout and design, including: navigational menus, content management systems, images, blogs, forums, videos, shopping carts, and other elements that make up your online business.

In today's competitive business environment, proper SEO is critical to the success of any website. Whether you want to optimize your site yourself or want a professional Reno SEO agency to help you, Search Engine Optimization should be a keystone of your online marketing strategy.

The goal of your search engine optimization strategies should be to gain more visibility on major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines. Increasing traffic to your website is the only way to grow your online business.

If you need help with your SEO, SEM or your website design and development, contact Bullsprig today! We are a Reno web design and Reno SEO website design agency. But, Reno Nevada is just where we call home... we have a lot of clients all across the US and would love to work with you wherever you live!

With every custom website design project we undertake, we stick to specific guidelines to complete the project on-time and on-budget. That is, of course, easier said than done.

With every client wanting the absolute best work for their online business, it's best to stick to your project management guide or your design contract to fulfill your end of the bargain.

The absolute most important point in your contract is the one defining the scope of work. In our web design contracts, we are as detailed and precise as possible when dealing with project scope and reviews/revisions. If you let the project get out of control with client revisions, your project will be drained of any profit you calculated in. Nothing drains more dollars than unnecessary client revisions.

Stick to your project goals. What was the original business goal for this project? Sometimes we have clients try to make changes after they have approved the original design. This happens. More often than not, the original design was the correct decision. We always go back with our clients and review the project goals and articulate the logic behind the original design decision.

Sometimes client revisions are due to another, higher-level manager in the company. It's vitally important that you get the names and information of each key decision maker on the project, and involve them!

How important is client involvement? There are several phases of web projects where client approval is necessary to move forward. We let clients know how many revisions are budgeted in the project scope. And, when formal revisions take place, we always get a signature for approval.

It's important your web design agency takes the time to educate clients on the web design process and business goals that will be solved via your custom website design. If you're working with a web design agency, you've probably chose them because you liked their work. Trust them! At Bullsprig, we're in business because our clients trust our judgement when it comes to the design and layout of websites.

At Bullsprig, our clients are responsible for providing constructive feedback at each revision cycle. Each revision cycle is designed to move the project forward, to solve business goals as specified by the client.

At each milestone in the web design process, we insist on client approval and involvement. The website design and development should be completely 'client approved' prior to launch. This will prevent last minute delays and unexpected costs due to revisions.

After the site is launched, the education process continues. Clients need to know how to use their website, how to get traffic and how to evaluate strategy moving forward. Successful business owners know that in order for their website to gain traffic, convert visitors, and solve important business goals, the website has to be constantly updated, reviewed, tested, linked and maintained.

We build all our websites on an advanced technology infrastructure that makes it easy for businesses and individuals to maintain and grow their online business. After the launch of any website, we train all our clients how to use this platform. The Bullsprig platform boasts a wide array of powerful modules for empowering your website.

If you have a business in Reno Nevada, and are looking for a Reno web design agency, let's get in touch.