Category: General

As a small business owner, you may be thinking that your little ‘ole website would never
be of any interest to a hacker. Maybe it’s just a small informational site, and you have it
set up just the way you like it. Perhaps, you have people manage your website for you,
and the less involved you are the better.

Just as you protect and secure other assets like your home and car, you need to make
sure that you’re properly managing your website’s security. Your website and other
digital resources are important assets to your company and replacing them would likely
be costly, time consuming, and a drain on your business.

As a website owner, it’s important to understand the tools that come together to support
your website and to take steps to protect them.

Understanding Your Website’s Digital Assets and How to Manage Them

Your website requires several “tools” that come together to make it run. As a website
owner, you actually need to manage several digital assets.

Tips for business owners on managing your website’s digital assets:

1. Know what and where your assets are. We’ve included a list in the next
   section of the assets and services that combine to support your website. Keep
   the logins to your assets ready and available so you can respond to an issue or
   give someone else access to do so.
2. Maintain access to your assets. It’s great to have an IT team who can help you
   manage your assets, but always make sure you retain access too. Never
   relinquish control to an outside party! It’s like giving someone the title to your car!
3. Protect your assets. Use strong passwords! See our list below for ideas on
   how.
4. Handle renewals. Many people lose access to their domain because it fails to
   renew when the credit card on their account expires. Nope, Go Daddy doesn’t
   call you to tell you, and instead you can lose you domain! Plan for how to handle
   this!

Your Inventory of Website Assets Includes:

Domain Login: Your website’s address/URL is kept with a domain registrar, like
GoDaddy. Your URL holds the history and authority that your website has built up with
the search engines. This is a very important asset, and you need to retain control of it
and protect it with a strong password.
Website CMS (content management system) Login: This login provides access to
your website files on a platform such as WordPress. Often other people need access to
your website files, and if so, you can set up a temporary password.
Website File Backups: These are invaluable! If your site is hacked, a backup can get
you back up and running in no time. Without a backup, you might have to rebuild your
entire website! The best way to handle backups is for your hosting provider to record a
daily backup copy of your website files. This way any changes or updates to your
website will be current and included with your backup.
Hosting Login: This provides access to your hosting control panel.

Sound like a lot to manage? Talk with us about Bellaworks’ hosting services. We can
keep a secure record of your website, domain, and hosting logins and make sure you’re
using strong passwords. Our hosting services include daily backups, and if you ever
need them, we’ll be ready to help. We can even handle your domain renewals, giving
you peace of mind that you’ll never miss a renewal notice and accidentally let your
domain expire.

What’s My Risk? Why Would a Hacker Want to Hack MY Website?

We wish we could tell you that hackers only target high value websites like those for
banks and government entities and such. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. All websites are targets
regardless of presumed “importance.”

We have seen the websites of small business owners, even artists and event planners,
become victims of hackers. These business owners are often, understandably, in
disbelief. They ask, “Why would someone want to hack my site? There’s nothing to gain
from this!” However, the truth is that hackers have their motives, and anyone with a
website could fall victim to them.

Reasons Why A Hacker Might Hack Your Website

Vandalize Your Website. Sigh. Yes, sadly there are people who hack websites just for
the thrill.

Gain Server Access. A hacker who hacks a website that sits on a shared server can
then gain access to other websites on that server. Low-cost hosting providers often
group websites on shared servers, and a breach of one website can have devastating
effects on all.

Use Your Website as a Tool to Do More Harm. Once a hacker has access to your
website, he can conduct other malicious activity like installing viruses that steal
confidential information, installing back links to other websites, etc.
Disrupt Service, Steal Money/Information, or Make A Statement. These reasons are
typically behind the large-scale attacks, but any of them can also apply to your small
business.

How to Protect Your Website

Use Strong Passwords
Creating strong passwords is a must! Don’t leave the front door open to your website!
You need to make sure that your website CMS, domain login, and hosting login all have
unique, complex passwords that use a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols.
To give you a sense of the vulnerability or strength of various passwords, take a look at
the chart below from Digg.com.

 

 

Use a Password manager
Password managers like 1Password or LastPass can help you create strong
passwords, manage their use, and keep them safe! These services keep your
passwords in an online vault that will autofill your passwords safely when you need
them.

Two Factor Authentication
Large scale data breaches do still happen, which can expose your long, complex
passwords. Add further protection by setting up two factor authentication wherever
possible. Instead of using your cell phone to verify by text, consider using an app like
Google Authenticator or Duo Mobile for a higher level of protection.

Limit Login attempts
When possible, set up your accounts to limit login attempts. Hackers will move on to a
target that is less secure rather than cycling through unsuccessful login attempts.

Block Logins From Certain Countries
It can be difficult to block login attempts by country because hackers can use their own
VPN (virtual private network), which encrypts their activity. It is possible, though, to
block the IP addresses that are known to be registered in certain countries.

Change Login URLs

Most hackers take advantage of the easy targets sending out bots to attack login screens. If you change your login URL to something less common, it can reduce the change of you being a target.

Website User Roles

You can set different permissions within WordPress to limit a user’s abilities in the backend. Only give full Administrator permissions to those you trust.

Website Form Spam

Protect with the latest Google Captcha or math question. Developers can also use a honeypot field, which is an empty field that humans can’t see. If it populates, it is because of a bot, which will note the form as spam.

Do not click on random email links

Always reset any passwords directly through any website in question. Do not click on links in random emails that you receive.

 

Wonder how secure your website and digital resources are?

Contact us! We would be glad to discuss your current situation and recommend any additional steps that you could take to keep your assets secure.

Building a great website is one part of establishing your web presence. Ensuring that your customers find you when they need you is another component altogether!

If you’re like many of our clients, you know that building SEO is important. However, the topic of SEO can quickly get very confusing and overwhelming. Where do you even begin?

Basic principles of SEO

The search engines:

• Are in the business of returning the highest quality information to users based on their queries.

• Use sophisticated algorithms that guard against being manipulated! In fact, they penalize websites for manipulative tactics such as word stuffing.

• Reward you with authority over TIME as a result of searchers finding quality information on your website again and again.

• Consider a huge amount of data points when determining your rank. Most single tactics will not make or break your authority. It’s the consistency of your work in adhering to best practices over time that matters.

How to build SEO

How do we know what matters the most? How do we prioritize? Where do we start?

According to Moz.com, experts in SEO, “The foundation of good SEO begins with ensuring crawl accessibility.”

If the search engines don’t know that your site exists, they can’t index it and return it in search. From there, the path to better SEO quickly turns to high quality copywriting that incorporates keywords. If you don’t know what words your customers use to find you, your written copy may not connect with their searches.

Here’s a quick explanation of “how to build SEO” adapted from Moz.com.

Seven steps to successful SEO:

1. Crawl accessibility so engines can read your website
2. Compelling content that answers the searcher’s query
3. Keyword optimized to attract searchers & engines
4. Great user experience including a fast load speed and compelling UX
5. Share-worthy content that earns links, citations, and amplification
6. Title, URL, & description to draw high CTR in the rankings
7. Snippet/schema markup to stand out in SERPs

Please note that the BOLD line items are included and addressed as part of Bellaworks’ website builds and/or hosting services. The rest of the items on the list are available as extra services.

Also from Moz.com and essential to understand-

“Your page has to provide value to searchers and be better than any other page Google is currently serving as the answer to a particular query.”

And…

“We like to call this 10x content. If you create a page on a keyword that is 10x better than the pages being shown in search results (for that keyword), Google will reward you for it, and better yet, you’ll naturally get people linking to it! Creating 10x content is hard work, but will pay dividends in organic traffic.”

You may have heard it before, but make no mistake, CONTENT IS KING!

There are no “easy” ways to create great content. Writing compelling copy takes WORK!

 

What SEO work is included in a Bellaworks website design/development project?

Every client is different and has different goals regarding SEO.

However, Bellaworks knows there are certain best practices that any quality website must adhere to.

Bellaworks’ website design/development projects include these pieces of work which will contribute to SEO over time:

• Appealing and intuitive design
• Device responsive, mobile friendly design and development
• Clear navigation
• Redirects from old website pages
• Installation of Google Analytics
• Submission of sitemaps to Google
• Installation of Yoast SEO plugin that provides helpful SEO feedback on your copy

Bellaworks’ hosting services (optional – 6 or 12 month plans available), support your SEO with:

• SSL Security certificate
• Fast website loading speeds

What else can I do to help build SEO?

As you’ve read, high-quality copywriting is essential for building SEO.

Many of our clients choose to write their own copy, which can work quite fine and be the best choice for some companies.

For clients who want to compete for customers and organic search position, we highly recommend our keyword research and copywriting services.

Extra steps that will help boost SEO:

• Keyword research
• Quality copywriting with strategic use of keywords
• Keyword optimized headlines
• Internal links (links between your website’s pages)
• Alt tags that describe your photos using keywords
• Blog posts that feed the search engines new material
• Customized URLs for blog posts
• Consistent use of business name, address, and phone number
• Promoting your website over social media

Other marketing specialists can discuss:

• External links (links to other high-quality websites)
• Social media campaign that promotes your website

A Word About TIME

Your new website is likely up against other sites that have years of history and authority built with the search engines.

Be patient, stay the course, and adhere to the proven best practices.

It is going to take TIME and a steady stream of traffic to show the search engines that visitors are finding quality information on your website.

By TIME, we mean it can take a YEAR and OFTEN MUCH LONGER to build authority.

However, once you have built up the authority, you will be rewarded with organic search leads.

 

Contact us and let’s talk about SEO and how we can help grow your business.

Like many businesses, the last couple of years have required Bellaworks to…cue the voices of Ross and Rachel from the Friends sitcom, “Piiivvoot!,” in order to continue to thrive as a company. We are proud to be a small and nimble web design agency that provides a wide variety of web design services to our clients. As our clients’ needs have evolved, Bellaworks has too. In fact, we enjoy tailoring the right solutions to fit the needs of business owners searching for a web designer in Charlotte, NC.

One change that we started to see early on in the pandemic was the number of professionals venturing out on their own to start a business. They came to us seeking high quality web design services at budget friendly prices. They understood the importance of a professional website that would establish credibility, position their years of relevant experience, and clearly explain their services as well as the value they offer clients. These business owners are passionate, focused, and driven to make their vision a reality, and it has been incredibly exciting and rewarding to partner with them on their journey. 

Bellaworks continues to offer custom website design and development. We now also have new website packages that give clients a faster and more streamlined design process, lots of flexibility for content and branding, and all for budget friendly prices. Our solo and small business clients are loving these options. They also appreciate the convenience of working with our team on related services like logo design, photography, videography, and copy writing.

Are you dreaming of starting a new business? Does your business need a better website? Read about two of our amazing new business owner clients who partnered with us to bring their visions to life.

Charlotte Vintage

Owners Katrina and Stan have been collecting mid-century modern furniture pieces for years, and in 2021, they took the leap and started Charlotte Vintage. Both Katrina and Stan have a keen eye for design, and our team worked closely with them to develop a high-quality and distinct logo to represent their business.  We created their website with a very clean, modern design that showcases their unique furniture selection.  Our copy writer worked with Katrina and Stan to craft their About Us page that tells their story, which can be hard for many people to write on their own.

Bowen Food Safety

Lindsey Bowen contacted us as she prepared to launch her business, Bowen Food Safety, and we have taken each step forward in phases. We began by developing a logo for Lindsey with the soft scroll look and fresh green color that she had envisioned.  Once this key branding element was established, we got back together and worked on her website design.  We pulled the elements of the logo through to her website design and formatted the copy, which she prepared using our content writing tips and guide, and we launched Lindsey’s site. A few months later, we added a new page so Lindsey could offer online sign-ups for classes. The Bellaworks team partnered with Lindsey to provide her just what she needed, when she needed it, in a timely manner, and at an affordable price. 

From Lindsey-

“When starting a new company, getting the right logo and website can make all the difference in the world. The team at Bellaworks made the whole process seamless! They were extremely responsive and were able to answer all my questions. The team was able to take my vision for my logo and website and make them more fabulous than I could have ever imagined!”

It has been tremendously rewarding to help all of our business owners thrive in the current environment. Thinking of starting a new business? Do you have a business and need a better website? Contact us and let us help!

With the speed at which technology evolves and trends come and go, staying on top of your website updates is crucial to your online success. If you’ve recently undergone significant brand changes, want to reach new business goals, or have a site that simply looks a little out of date – it may be time to redesign your website. Let’s take a look at how a website refresh can benefit your business through the story of one of our recent clients: the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, NC.

When do you need to refresh your website?

When we talk about refreshing a website, there are two approaches to consider: consistent web maintenance and small updates, or a major overhaul that includes design and structural change. Maintenance and app updates should happen frequently, and we recommend revisiting your website and making smaller-scale updates about once a year. If it’s been 3-5 years since you’ve made any significant changes to your site, you may want to consider a redesign. When you redesign your website, you’ll have the opportunity to keep things you love, update areas that can make your business appear out-of-touch to tech-savvy visitors, and ensure that your site truly represents your brand.

The U.S. National Whitewater Center (USNWC – now Whitewater) came to us with a unique challenge: they needed to both improve user experience on their site with a redesign and change their URL without losing traffic. As their long-time web builder and consultant, we dove right in!

How a website redesign can improve UX

Great websites encourage users to move through pages intuitively and seamlessly. As your business grows or changes and technology improves, a website redesign can be the answer to creating an outstanding user experience (UX) that drives conversions.

The whitewater center was facing these challenges with their existing website:

• Difficult navigation
• Too much text & dense information
• Time-consuming manual input requirements
• Outdated brand look & voice

Overall, our team saw the need to make information easier to find, better guide the user through a clear journey to conversion, and eliminate clunky workflows that required daily manual entry from staff. Plus, the brand was ready to update its website’s look and tone to match its level of professionalism and create a clearer connection to its mission of getting people outdoors. Learn more about what goes into refreshing a brand in this post.

UX & brand solutions from Bellaworks

We got to work eliminating these pain points and implementing strategies to elevate UX and align the new website with the brand’s goals. We focused on the elements below to achieve ideal results for this outdoor Charlotte staple, and successfully transitioned their site to its new URL: whitewater.org. 

Creating an intuitive journey 

User experience is all about effortlessly moving visitors from Point A to Point B, anticipating their questions, and providing answers quickly and easily. We redesigned the whitewater center’s navigation to focus on guiding users from planning a trip to making a purchase without distractions or confusing steps. This included creating a super menu with key starting points, and nesting sub-navigation categories appropriately following those points.

Website design for scanning, not reading

Most web visitors will only spend a few seconds on each page, meaning the text on your website should be clear and digestible. Our team reconfigured page layouts to highlight the most important text and draw users’ attention to key information. By leveraging icons, bullets, expandable panels, and jump-to buttons, we were able to create a design that communicated ideas clearly and encouraged action.

Streamlining manual workflows

To address the issue of daily manual action required by whitewater center staff, we created a bulk calendar management system that eliminated the need for daily maintenance. Instead, the whitewater team could create and update their calendar on a monthly basis, and certain user roles were combined to streamline additional update processes.

Bolder branding for USNWC

The whitewater center had already established a strong brand identity, and they wanted to explore how their website could better support and increase their brand equity. We incorporated their iconic brand mark throughout website pages to reinforce brand recognition and implemented a brand new “Stories” feature. This page would serve to showcase experiences by whitewater center guests and illustrate the benefits of making a purchase to site visitors.

Following our redesign, the USNWC saw an increase in sales and a reduction in hours spent entering and correcting data. They’re happy to share their new website with prospective clients and partners knowing that its appearance, function, and UX is in top shape.

What do you need to redesign a website?

As you can see, successfully redesigning a website to attract your ideal audience, promote a positive user experience, and reflect your brand’s values takes more than just one web designer or brand specialist. It takes a team of web experts who can create comprehensive digital solutions that equally consider your UX, design, security, and branding. 

Take a look at our services to learn more about how we can help with your website redesign, and get in touch today to speak with a Bellaworks expert about your website goals.

So, you’ve got a great idea or a new business, and you’re ready to create a website. Do you know what it takes to not only develop a new site but make sure it stands up to your competitors on the web? Bellaworks web designers are ready to share the six most important aspects of building a business website, and what you should be asking if you’re searching for a web designer near you.

What do you need to create a website?

To build a successful website, you’ll need to consider:

1. Branding
2. SEO Strategy
3. Site Architecture
4. Design
5. Copywriting
6. Web Hosting

There are plenty of free web design companies that will make it seem like creating a site is a simple, done-in-an-hour task. You can absolutely purchase a domain name and put your logo on a home page in that amount of time, but to truly make an impact on the web, there are a few more considerations that can make or break your online performance. A great web development partner will help you navigate these steps and set you up for success.

Branding

Your website is the digital face of your company and needs to, above all, accurately represent your brand. When a client visits your site, they should immediately be able to identify who you are, what you do, and which benefits make you stand out. Developing a brand is a process that involves asking yourself questions like: 

• What traits does my brand embody? How does it look, sound, and feel?
• What are our business values? 
• What are our key benefits to our audience? 

And, of course, you’ll need to have a defined logo, color schemes, and typography standards (we go into why every small business needs a great logo here). This step is key to ensuring that your site helps you build brand equity and awareness with your audience. If you don’t prioritize branding your website, you risk losing customers or confusing site visitors with inconsistent visuals and messaging. If you’d like to learn more about creating a brand strategy for your website, consider collaborating with a professional.

SEO Strategy

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is how people will find your business on the web. After all, your beautifully designed website is only serving you if it builds connections and drives engagement with your target audience. 

As we leave keyword stuffing in the past, more and more SEO depends on both on-page copy and back-end coding. There are plenty of trendy SEO strategies out there (some of which can actually harm your online performance), but the best way to build trust with your audience and satisfy Google’s crawlers is to:

• Pay attention to the details in your site’s code
• Create quality content that provides valuable information for your audience

Take a look at this post on the basics of SEO for more on getting started.

Setting up the back-end of your site correctly from the beginning saves time, money, and headaches trying to figure out why your awesome business doesn’t show up when people search for your products or services on Google. If you’re up on the latest coding requirements for satisfying Google’s algorithm, then you’re good to go to create a high-performing site. But, if coding just isn’t your thing, this is an area where we’d recommend consulting with an SEO expert.

Site Architecture

Site structure matters both for visitor accessibility and for satisfying search engines. The general rule of thumb for website architecture says that a visitor should be able to get to any page on your site in 3 clicks or less. If you achieve this, your site is both easy (and enjoyable) to use for your customers and well-organized from Google’s perspective. Making sure your site stays easily navigable isn’t necessarily as simple as it seems. This is especially true if your business requires a high volume of pages or pages that regularly need to change (such as product pages). This article from Yoast dives deep into how to design your linking structure, categories, and content.

Design

If you’ve already done some research on web design for your business, you may have come across the terms UI and UX. UI stands for User Interface, and UX stands for User Experience. Both refer to the experience a user has when they visit your website, and often you’ll hear web designers talk about UI or UX optimization. When you design a website with UX in mind, you essentially say “Hey, my customers are the ones who’ll need to be able to engage and interact with this website – what is it that they need?”. If you choose to create a custom website with a web development team, they’ll be able to:

• Create specific functionalities for your business
  What actions do you want users to take on your website? Will they need to make a purchase? Sign up for a newsletter? Your designer will be able to arrange your site elements to make these actions seamless and straightforward.

• Leverage human psychology
  UX research tells us that certain behavior patterns repeat themselves throughout communities – and we can use them to our advantage when creating a user-friendly site. Things like reading patterns, image response, and emotional associations with color should all inform a website’s design

• Personalize your site.
  Along with great branding, your site’s UX should reflect your tone and style as a business. Calls to action, workflows, forms, and even error messages can be a part of a comprehensive design strategy that puts users first and builds your brand.

Copywriting

We’ll be honest: this is an area when many of our web clients say they’d like to do it themselves. And we get it! You know your business best and may be concerned that an outside writer may not be able to speak in your voice. Here comes the but: BUT, a professional copywriter knows what written content will generate leads and boost engagement on the web. Also, they are experts at learning a brand’s voice and writing in that tone to maintain consistency and professionalism across the board. 

Copywriting is often one of the most neglected areas of web design, even though it plays a huge role in pleasing search engines and converting prospects once they arrive at your site. If you’re reviewing existing website copy for your business, consider this:

• Are you clearly communicating your business’s biggest benefits?
• Are your headlines catchy, professional, and in line with your brand’s tone?
• Does your copy fit in well with your web design? Is it driving action and conversions?
• And the big one: are you including relevant keywords based on SEO research to drive search engine results?

A digital copywriter has expertise in optimizing the text on your site so you can spend more time doing what you do best. They understand details like: how many words should be featured on each section of a webpage, how many bullet points are too many, and exactly how many characters can be in the title of a blog to show up on Google. If you’re partnering with a digital marketing agency to design your website, don’t forget to ask about their copywriting services to make sure every word on your site is working for you.

Web Hosting

Picture this: you’ve just bought a brand new, beautiful car. Then you take it home, and you willingly hand the keys to a stranger who fills it up with the wrong gasoline, burns out the engine, and then steals the whole car. That’s what you’re doing if you don’t prioritize finding a high-quality, secure host for your website. Subpar hosting services can result in: 

• Slow loading speeds, frustrated customers, and poor SEO
• Bugs or hacks that prevent your site from smooth operations 
• A lack of dedicated customer service to make sure your plugins and applications stay up to date. 

Don’t overlook the importance of a trustworthy hosting service, and do your research to make sure your host will keep your website safe and secure.

Can I create a website for free?

The short answer is: yes. There are free services that let you choose a template and drop in your logo, business name, and copy. By working with a professional web design team, you ensure that none of the six steps we went over in this article are overlooked. When you consider that the number of companies doing business online is growing every day, standing out from competitors becomes a daunting challenge. That’s where the detailed service and expertise from web developers can really make a difference. At Bellaworks, we go over this checklist before every website launch:

CHECKLIST

We’re here to guide you through the exciting and complex process of creating a professional website that supports a comprehensive brand strategy. If you’re ready to get started building your business online or still have questions about what goes into making a website, feel free to reach out to our team for a free consultation and quote.

If you are a small business owner, chances are high that you’ve at least heard the term “SEO.” The acronym stands for Search Engine Optimization, which means optimizing your website and content to increase organic traffic; a fancy way of saying adding keywords to your website to make it more likely to show up in searches and make it easier for potential customers to find you.

SEO isn’t just about quantity of keywords, though — it’s also about quality of content. Yes, we all want more traffic, but you want the people that visit your website to actually be interested in what you have to say and/or sell. 

How SEO Works

In short, search engines like Google have “crawlers” or bots that comb through all of the content on the internet, including your website. The crawlers use the information they find to create an index that is then tied to an algorithm that makes similar results pop up when you search for something.

According to Moz.com (a great resource for all things SEO!), there are several factors that search engines use to determine the order (or ranking) that websites are featured from a search.

How to optimize your website

The whole reason we think about SEO is to make it easier for search engines to find you, which in turn makes it easier for potential customers to find you. While you can always hire an expert for some of the more complicated SEO tasks, there are a few easy things you can do on your own right now.

1. Figure out the keywords your audience is searching for.

You know what you sell, what problem you solve, and who your audience is, so get in their brains. If they were looking for you, what would they search for? If you need help figuring it out, Ubersuggest and Answer the Public are two useful tools. You can search for keywords for your website as a whole (about, sales pages, etc.) and for the pieces of content you put up on your blog.

2. Incorporate the keywords into your website and blog.

Once you find a handful of keywords, include them in your headlines, headers, throughout your copy, in the meta descriptions, etc. The trick here is to use them as naturally as possible. If the purpose of SEO is to drive traffic to your website, you don’t want to lose potential customers because you just threw together a bunch of keywords without delivering any real value.

If your website is built on WordPress, Yoast SEO is a helpful plugin for keyword optimization, indexing, readability, and more on your blog. 

3. Don’t forget about the URL.

Be sure to customize your URL for each blog post as well. Many sites either assign a random URL to the blog post or just use the title, but you can edit it to either take out words that aren’t relevant in the title or change it completely. 

For example, if you wrote a blog post titled “9 Questions to Answer When Choosing a Dog for Your Family,” you may edit the URL to www.yourwebsite.com/best-family-dog so that it only includes the main keywords.

4. Make the most of links.

First, don’t go crazy linking to other pages on your website or in your blog posts. External or outbound links do boost your value with search engines because they recognize that you are crediting someone else for more information, but can make it confusing to the reader if there are too many blue links — and worst of all, it takes them away from your site. 

Only add links when they are relevant and make sure you link to the keywords within that phrase. It’s easy if you’re linking to a specific source (like we’ve done above) or study, but if you’re writing about a statistic, you’ll want to link to the most relevant keywords in the sentence. Here’s an example that includes both, from our article “7 Reasons why your business needs a website“: “According to a study by the Local Search Association, a whopping 63% of consumers look for businesses online before deciding to buy from them, yet a third of small businesses don’t even have a website.”

5. Don’t forget about photos.

High-quality photos will enhance your website and blog posts, but it’s equally important to add “alt tags” to them for SEO purposes. An alt tag or alt description is copy that shows up on your site if the image doesn’t load, helps readers with visual impairments, and is another component that the search engines crawl to rank your website.

Depending on how your website is built, you may have to find the alt tag in the HTML or it may be as easy as adding it when you upload the photo. Either way, consider these tips from HubSpot:

• The description should make sense, not just be stuffed with keywords.
• The description should be specific and actually describe what is going on in the photo.
• It should be fewer than 125 characters (CharacterCountTool.com is an easy way to check this.)
• Just describe the photo, don’t worry about starting with “Photo of…”

6. Make your site accessible. 

Last but not least, don’t turn off potential customers because your website is difficult to navigate. A good site has the following characteristics:

• Loads quickly. You have to get the reader’s attention right away or they will leave your site and might not ever come back. 
• Is mobile-friendly. Customers who have a negative experience with your website on their phone are 62% less likely to buy something from you in the future. Again, a poor experience means they’re not likely coming back.
• Has a security certificate (https). This legitimizes your website and builds trust.
• The links work. You can’t help it if a website goes offline or a link is changed, but always double-check the links before you publish to make sure that they are correct. 
• Consistent and correct contact information. Your name, address, and phone number should be exactly the same everywhere it appears on the web.

There’s a lot that goes into optimizing a website, but just take it one step at a time. Create a checklist and set aside time to go through each section of your website. 

If you want to hire a professional to help with your website, SEO, or creating content, contact us for a quote.

Your logo says a lot about your business. It’s the one symbol that ties everything about your business together: your brand style, values, story, and more. It’s often the first thing that new and potential customers see about your business, which means it can have a lasting effect on their opinion — and future purchases!

A professionally designed logo is the keystone of your entire brand and makes your business easily distinguishable from your competitors to help attract your ideal customer.

Elements of a Great Logo

Take a moment to think about your favorite logo design. What do you like about them? What makes them memorable? Chances are they have one or more of the following characteristics:

• Balance. This doesn’t mean your logo has to be perfectly symmetrical, but the design should make sense and draw someone’s eye to the most important part of the image without being too busy.
• Simple or minimalist. Logos with too many words or images can make it difficult for potential customers to remember or recognize. It’s also tricky to ensure that the logo looks consistent when it’s blown up, scaled down, or used on a variety of mediums. Your logo could be a simple typographic design that is the name of your business or a basic image with your name. 

• Avoid trends. Especially with fonts. While script might be in today, when a blocky font is in 10 years from now, your logo will look outdated. A graphic designer can help you find ways to create something unique, interesting, and timeless.
• Matches other brand design. Your logo is one piece of your overall brand design, so you’ll want everything to go together by using the same fonts and color palette.

When to Refresh Your Logo

As your brand evolves or pivots, you may need to update your logo. For example, if your target audience changes from luxury to budget or your main offering changes from a product to a service, you might want to refresh your logo to reflect the new direction of your business. 

Or perhaps you jumped on a trend when you first created your logo and now it feels a little outdated. 

Many popular and classic brands have changed slightly over the years to keep up with the times. 

Take a look at how Pepsi has evolved over the years:

Apple started out with a very complicated logo. After they transitioned to a simpler image, they have mostly made minor tweaks to the color of the apple, showing that small changes can make a big difference.

Once you have a concept, consider how it looks across all mediums: different sizes, social media, print, website, mobile and desktop, etc. 
Need some support creating a logo or brand that will attract and retain your ideal customers? We would love to help! Start by telling us more about your needs and get a quote here.

You ever get the feeling that your brand has gotten a little… stale? Sure, things are going well, but as your business grows and becomes more successful, there will come a time when you need an update. A refresh. And don’t worry—we’re not talking anything too wild, just sprucing up your logo, marketing materials, and maybe your tagline or slogan.

While a brand used to be limited to the fixed pieces given to a product like its name, colors, and logo, today a brand is much more than that. A brand now involves the tangible fixed pieces, plus the powerful emotional side that exists in a consumer’s mind—including the feelings, expectations, and experiences they have when engaging with a company.

A brand refresh is less of an investment and risk than an entire rebrand. With a rebrand, you overhaul everything, likely because your business or target audience has changed significantly, there’s a new CEO in town, or you’re pivoting and offering something completely different. 

A refresh is a way to keep up with your customers and the ever-changing marketplace, and to give your business a more modern look. From Disney to Starbucks and everyone in between, even the most iconic brands update things every once in a while.

But how do you know if you need a brand refresh? Here are a few ways to tell.

1. Your customer base or target audience has evolved

Note we say “evolved” here, not changed completely. If you are shifting your focus from Baby Boomers to Gen Z, you will need to rebrand. If you are expanding to include both Millennials and Xennials/Gen X, you might just need to tweak a few things here and there. 

The most important thing is that no matter who your audience is, you get clear on who they are and what they value so that your brand/marketing/offerings speak to them. 

2. Your product or services are expanding 

Again, if you are moving from making sunglasses to offering landscaping services, you will need to rebrand. But if you are expanding your current products or services to include something new, you might just need to refresh things. 

Take Starbucks, for example. A company that once focused solely on coffee and tea now also sells wraps, muffins, and more. They didn’t stop making drinks, so they’ve never needed a complete rebrand, but they have refreshed their logo and marketing materials over the years to reflect that they are about “about a lot more than coffee.” Another good example of this is Netflix. They’ve managed to evolve from a mail-order DVD company to a streaming network that produces their own shows. Their marketing looks different now than it did 10 years ago.

3. Your logo feels outdated

What attracted audiences in 1990 is not what attracts audiences today, nor will it be what attracts audiences 20 years from now. If your business has been around for more than a decade and you’ve never updated your logo, now might be the time. 

Conversely, if your business is only a few years old but you jumped on a trendy bandwagon that is no longer trendy (it happens to the best of us!) or as your business has grown you’ve realized your logo no longer reflects the direction you’re going in, you may need a refresh. Consider small changes to your existing logo or starting over and coming up with a totally new one. 

4. Your visual messaging is inconsistent

If your marketing materials don’t all have the same colors, fonts, and general vibe, you need a refresh to get everything looking cohesive and on-brand. This includes business cards, flyers, your website, social media accounts—a customer should be able to see any of these and know immediately that it’s all the same company.

5. You don’t have a style guide

It’s a heck of a lot easier for everyone to be on the same page company-wide when employees have access to a style guide. It includes everything from your brand mission and acceptable/unacceptable logo usage to the fonts, colors, and images that you want to represent your company. Creating a style guide is a great way to get super clear and consistent across the board. 

6. Your current branding no longer reflects your values or your message has evolved

Like many of the other examples, if you are completely changing directions, you’ll want to rebrand from top to bottom, but if you are shifting your focus or your values have evolved, a refresh is probably all you need. 

A good example of this is Coca-Cola. Initially branded as a healthy and medicinal “cure-all” in the late 1800s, the soda company has changed its branding and messaging to keep up with the times over the years (and dropped the cocaine and opium that it once contained!). Today, Coca-Cola remains one of the most popular brands in the world because they continuously tweak their marketing and messaging to stay relevant.

7. Your brand doesn’t stand out anymore

If you’ve read Seth Godin’s “Purple Cow,” you know he talks about how something is remarkable until it’s not. You are different until there is a sea of purple cows all offering the same thing. (If you have no idea what we’re talking about, go get a copy of “Purple Cow” and read it asap. We’ll wait.)

Even if you had a brilliant, groundbreaking product or service idea, once everyone else is doing it, you no longer stand out and you’ll want to refresh your brand so that you continue to be noticed among all the other companies. We’ve seen this in many tech companies: Microsoft, IBM, and Apple have all changed their logos and branding over the years as they’ve evolved and to separate themselves from each other. If you think about each of those three companies when they started, you probably have a different perception of the brand than you do now.

8. Growth has slowed down or stalled

All of the above can lead to growth slowing down or even stalling. If potential (or even current) customers don’t resonate with your branding or messaging, they aren’t going to buy from you. 

Now more than ever, people want to feel connected to brands that have the same values and beliefs as them, which means your outdated logo could actually be costing you.

Want help with your brand refresh? Tell us a little more about your needs and get a customized quote here.

Your website is an important part of your business. Think of it as a virtual storefront and a place where potential customers can see what you have to offer, what your company stands for, and what you have coming up in the future. According to a study by the Local Search Association, a whopping 63% of consumers look for businesses online before deciding to buy from them, yet a third of small businesses don’t even have a website. 

If you are one of those small business owners who haven’t gotten around to creating — or hiring someone to create — your website, here are seven reasons why you should get a website going as soon as possible.

1. Having a social media presence is not enough.

While we recommend that you use social media to promote your business, the goal should always be to drive traffic back to your website. Social media offers little control over branding and messaging, while your website is completely customizable, giving customers an immersive experience of your brand. Your website is where they can learn about your company and make purchases. The social media landscape is constantly changing, but your website is a constant.

2. Control your company’s message and persona.

As we alluded to in our first point, you can’t control what social media platforms and their algorithms do. You have no control over what people say about your business, either. On your website, you can post positive testimonials, photos of happy customers using your product or service, and highlight specific features or offers.

3. Get a leg up on your competition. 

Consumers expect businesses to have a website and in a world where we are overwhelmed by choice, it’s even more important to have a place where people can learn about what makes your service or product different than all the others out there. A website can make your business look more professional and gives it more credibility than competitors who don’t have one.

4. Make it easy for customers to find you.

Whether you’re a brick-and-mortar business or primarily based online, having a website allows new customers to find you (especially if you have a marketing strategy in place!), current customers to make more purchases, and brand advocates to spread the word to their friends and family. Take it a step further and optimize your site for SEO, content, and mobile navigation and you’ll make it even easier for customers to find — and buy —from you!

5. Educate your customers.

It doesn’t matter if you are selling some as self-explanatory as sunglasses or something more obscure like an experience or service, a blog is a great way to educate your customers and provide them information that could make your offering more valuable. Using the sunglasses example, you could have a page dedicated to FAQs: What are polarized lenses? How important is UV protection? If you’re an Italian restaurant, your blog could include recipes, the story of where your pasta sauce originated, methods for making certain foods, etc. Every small business has something they could educate their audience around.

6. Save yourself time.

Using your website as a central place to have your contact/location information, product information, FAQs, guides, or how-tos (and more) not only makes it easier to get sales but saves you time on the phone or responding to emails.

7. Attract potential employees.

Just as your website acts as a storefront for potential customers, it is also a place for potential employees to learn more about your business. Besides having a specific page dedicated to careers or job openings, potential candidates can learn about your company background, culture, and values — before they apply. This will weed out candidates that might not be a good fit and help you attract more qualified job seekers.

Creating a website that will attract customers and boost sales doesn’t have to be difficult and doesn’t have to break the bank. Tell us a little more about your website needs and get a quote here.

In just a matter of days, we’ve all been forced to confront the reality of the current global pandemic.  The new normal for most of us involves many changes to the very basic ways we conduct business.  It’s been dramatic shift in a short time, and we are all trying to figure out how to adjust and move forward.

The good news is that your company’s website and your digital marketing tools offer fantastic opportunities to respond to our changing world.  Learning to fully utilize digital tools and resources is perhaps more important now than ever to your company’s success.  While this could feel overwhelming, please know that we are here to help.      

Our team at Bellaworks specializes in selecting and implementing digital marketing solutions that can make life easier and more productive for our clients.  It’s what we do and have been doing for over ten years. 

Below are some website changes and other tools to consider that might help your business right now.  Please take a look, and if you think we can help, let’s talk.  We’re all in this together. 

WEBSITE UPDATES TO CONSIDER NOW

Add Website Special Alert Messages

Many companies have critical messages that they need customers to see right now.  Here are a couple of options.

• Banner alerts– These typically sit close to the navigation bar on your website.  You can put information here and include a link to a page that contains more details.
• Pop up boxes- These are normally used when someone first visits a home page.  They are great for communicating key information quickly.  

CLEAN UP YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION

As companies switch to working remotely, one of the top priorities is making sure customers and clients can still reach you.  Here are some ideas that can help.

• Website contact page information– Make sure to check and update all of the contact information on your website.  Have your hours of operation have changed?  Is anyone checking the phone numbers that are listed?  Are the right people getting the right messages?   
• Website contact form– A simple contact form added to your website can help your customers reach you quickly.  When a form is filled out, it can be sent to one person or to multiple people who can help field inquiries.
• Get on my calendar­– Offer your clients the chance to immediately book a phone call with you.  Links to services such as Calendy can sit on your website and also be included on your email signature line.  They keep business moving by reducing the time spent on scheduling. 

UTILIZE YOUR DIGITAL COMMUNICATION CHANNELS

Your customers need to hear from you.  Make sure you stay in front of your customers by using digital communication channels.  These channels can be added at any time, so it’s not too late to begin using them.  Now could be the perfect time to start.

• Blogs- Writing articles and posting them to your blog is a great way to get the word out about your business.
• Email Newsletter- Digital marketing platforms like Mail Chimp and Constant Contact are excellent tools to use to send out important information to your customers. 
• Social Media- News can travel especially fast over social media channels and the interaction with existing and potential customers can be invaluable. 

ADD TOOLS FOR WORKING REMOTELY

Whether you need to meet with your internal team, host a project session with a client, or offer a yoga class online, there are digital solutions that can help.  If you are struggling to meet the needs of your clients remotely, please talk with us.  We’ve been using many of these tools for years and can help you find the best solution. Here are a couple that we love.

• Zoom– Zoom is a fantastic tool to use for hosting online meetings.  It has some very flexible features like using audio only, audio plus video and chat.  Scared for everyone to see your messy house during the call?  No worries.  Zoom even has a way for you to select a background.
• Google– If you are collaborating on a project or teaching a class and would like to share documents or spreadsheets, Google has you covered.  You can use this tool to collaborate on documents together and in real time. 

TALK WITH US – WE’D LOVE TO HELP YOU

We know that the thought of having to learn to use and rely on more technology can be daunting.  Talk with our team at Bellaworks.  Let us suggest, implement, and teach you to use tools that can make your life easier.  Contact us today, we’re here to help.