Tag: Google Analytics

5 Potential Obstacles to Your Website Project and How to Overcome Them

Posted on by jenny

As a website design and development company, you’d think we’d encourage anyone to build a website anytime they’re ready. Websites are an important asset, and keeping a website up-to-date and with modern design and functionality is something that most companies need in order to thrive.

However, after working with clients for over a decade, we have come to recognize certain situations that signal a need to take a minute before jumping into a website project. There are times when we uncover issues that need to be addressed before we begin.

If you’re considering a website project and wonder if now’s the time to start one, this list will probably assure you that you have what it takes. However, if any of these situations sound a bit familiar, there could be some work that needs to be done prior to beginning a website project.

Either way, our team at Bellaworks is here to help! We’re a small shop, and our core business is building websites and servicing our website design and development clients. We do all of our website work in-house from kickoff to launch. Plus, we provide hosting services. 

We can help your team overcome obstacles so that you can enjoy a smooth website process and finish with great results. 

5 Potential Obstacles to Your Website Project and How to Overcome Them

Reason #1: Your Company’s Management is Not Really on Board

Sometimes there can be a disconnect between the owners of a company and the person who oversees marketing efforts. 

The marketing director may see so clearly the potential that exists through a new or redone website. The business owner may agree to move forward with the website project, however, when it’s time for decisions to be made, they can have some reservations.

Sometimes business owners have a hard time making changes to the things they think made them successful. We’ve also heard people say that their last website project was so poorly run by another company that they dread doing one ever again. These are just two of several reasons we’ve heard that the management team just can’t seem to get on board.  

Bellaworks has worked with companies in a variety of capacities to overcome hesitancy and ease the perceived pain points on the way to creating a new website. 

Reason #2: Cost

Understandably, cost is an important factor. Companies need a quality website at a price that makes sense for their business. Since websites can range in price from free to many thousands of dollars, finding the right fit for your budget is important. 

In order to determine the cost of a website project, Bellaworks starts by discussing a client’s goals. Then, we scope the work involved. We determine whether an existing website can be updated or if it’s more cost effective to build a new website. If we determine it’s better to build a new website, we can discuss building it on a template or from scratch.

Our Bellaworks team always aims to find the most cost effective solution to achieve our clients’ goals. Having a clean, modern, responsive, secure website that positions your company in the best way possible is like having a great salesperson who is always on the job. There are many options that Bellaworks can offer, and you can rest assured that any website we build will be high quality and a great reflection on your company.

Reason #3:  Unsure of How to Present Products or Services

Descriptions of your products or services are a core component of a website. Yet, sometimes business owners can have a hard time describing their services to potential clients. We’ve seen this with clients ranging from business consultants to service people.

While we can’t make decisions regarding what services your company offers, we can help you present them in a compelling way on your website.

We like to help by offering suggestions for setting up your website navigation and information structure. We also provide clients with a content guide that has tips for preparing content. Many clients also choose to partner with our copywriting expert, who can really remove the burden of copywriting.

So long as you can outline the service or product you want to offer, we can help you package it and sell it on your website with compelling copywriting.

Reason #4:  You Don’t Have the Visuals that You Need

Some companies offer products and services that require the use of specific photos on a website. For example, if you are selling the use of a physical location or property, you need photos of it. Or, if you are offering a particular product, you probably want photos of your product.

It’s always preferable to have your photos ready before you start on website design. Our designer is inspired by photos, and good photos can really enhance a site. However, if you don’t have the photos you need, placeholder photos can be used temporarily. Custom photos aren’t needed for every company, and for service providers, we often rely on stock photography. 

At Bellaworks, we discuss your photography and video needs in our first meeting, so we can plan the best way to ensure you have the materials you need and get the best design for your website. We have excellent photographers and videographers that we can recommend to help you get the photos that you need.

Reason #5:  Not Prepared to Respond to Inquiries

Typically, one of the main jobs of a website is to generate next step actions from potential customers. The next step usually includes a request for more information or an interaction of some kind such as a quote for services, a newsletter sign-up, or even a phone consultation. 

We recently talked with one small business owner who provides a service. He said that he would like to have a website, however, his business is already booked. He doesn’t have anyone who can handle inquiries, so he doesn’t think a website makes sense right now.

Deciding how to interact with potential customers is an important part of planning a website. We discuss many different options with our clients in order to find the solution that works best for them. Generally, we are able to identify the right next step that will help our businesses move forward without overwhelming them.

In Conclusion

Our team at Bellaworks has been designing and developing websites for over a decade. We have experienced so many situations with our clients and have helped them to overcome countless obstacles that could have prevented them from building a great website. 

Reach out to us. Our team will be in touch with you quickly to begin discussing your project.

6 Reasons Why You Should Use Video On Your Website’s Home Page

Posted on by jenny

Over the last couple of years, our Charlotte website design clients have been making some really fantastic use of high-quality video. With the changes that are underway with Google Analytics, video stands to offer even more benefits to the companies who incorporate it into their website. If you’re considering a website design project, you’ve probably thought about what kind of photos that you’ll use. However, have you considered adding video footage?

Here are 6 reasons why you should.

Boost Your SEO 

Google Analytics has been overhauled, and the way Google tracks website “bounces” has completely changed. Google now tracks what it calls “Engagement Rates.” If a person comes to your website and stays for 10 seconds or longer, your site gets credit for engaging a visitor. This is also the case if a visitor has at least two pageviews or completes a conversion event, such as clicking on a call-to-action button. The more people who come to your website and “engage,” according to Google’s definition, the better it is for your search results ranking.

Because a video can command a person’s attention for longer than a still photo, using video footage is an excellent way to drive visitor engagement and to boost your position in search. Video combined with well written copy plus a catchy call-to-action button is even better!

Instant Branding

A video provides an unmatched opportunity to communicate an experience, a community of people, and sense of place. It instantly gives visitors a feeling of “ah, so that’s what it’s all about.” In seconds, videos can illustrate an atmosphere and setting. Is this experience formal or casual? Outdoor, indoor, or both? It shows the people who are involved and their age, ethnicity, vibe and even characteristics like whether they have mobility challenges or other accessibility issues.

Add Movement

When we plan website design projects, we often look for ways to incorporate movement into a website. This can make a site more appealing and interesting for visitors. Movement can be accomplished in a variety of ways such as by using custom animations or sliding sections. However, nothing beats the movement that a video can offer on a website.

Show a Variety of Services or Activities

One of our most long-standing Charlotte website design clients is the US National Whitewater Center. If you know about Whitewater, then you probably know that there’s so much more to do there than just rafting and kayaking! The homepage video provides a perfect place for them to highlight the wide variety of activities that are offered at the Center. Further, the video allows them to also capitalize on other areas that we’ve covered, like movement, branding, and SEO, which are also very important to them.

Show Size/Scale

Have you ever tried to take a photo of a beautiful place and thought that the photo just didn’t capture it? We get it. When our clients want to show the scale and how impressive a location is, video is always the best bet. In fact, aerial footage using drones is often the most effective way to capture the scale of a location.

Check out this video that our client Big Beverages uses on their homepage. Big Beverages is a new bottling company that has quickly grown. They want to show their state-of-the art facility and how large and pristine it is. Mission accomplished.

Add Human Connection and Emotion

In a digital world, one of the elements that always makes a difference is showing human faces and emotion. People connect with people. People do business with people. Showing a video that truly captures human energy and emotion is a powerful component to add to a website.

Our friends and clients at The Institute for Speech and Debate could have settled for a nice group photo to use at the top of their website. Instead, they are using a short, dynamic video loop that brings their summer program to life. It contains an aerial shot that also shows the size of a summer camp session along with the energy of the group.

Bellaworks Can Help

Adding a video to your home page is a small change that can make a big difference. Contact our team, and let’s make a plan for using video to engage with your website’s visitors. We can recommend what to shoot and connect you with the right professionals to get it done.

 

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Website Owners, Take Note! Google Analytics Is Phasing Out Its Original Code

Posted on by austin

Our Charlotte, NC website design team has been all a buzz about the changes coming from Google Analytics. If you own a website, you’ll definitely want to get up to speed on and prepare for the transition in Google’s products.

If this is all news to you, you’re in the right place. Read on to find out more about the changes that are coming.

Here’s the Scoop

Google is preparing to phase out its Universal Analytics (UA) data tracking properties, making way for the new GA4 analytics tracking system. These are two separate data streams, and you can have both UA and GA4 running on your website simultaneously. Over the next year, website owners are encouraged to use both and to compare the differences in how the data is being tracked and to make changes to any reports.

What’s the Timeline?

  • GA4 actually rolled out in October 2020. If your website was created on or after this timeframe, you probably already have GA4.
  • You can install GA4 anytime and begin collecting data.
  • As of July 1, 2023 UA will no longer track data. If you install GA4 now, you’ll have a year’s worth of data by then and your GA4 tracking will continue.
  • You will have about 6 months after UA stops tracking to download all historical UA data.

What’s Changing?

This is all part of a foundational shift in how data is collected in several key areas. To give you a sense of what’s changing, we’ll review three core areas that are undergoing overhauls as part of GA4.

Privacy Tracking

The old methods of tracking data through IP addresses, cookies, and tags are becoming a thing of the past. A higher level of privacy is being demanded today across various types of activities. You can read about the moves to protect consumer privacy which can be traced back to the European Union’s 2018 rollout of the General Data Protection Regulation.

GA4 will use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to make predictions and assumptions about website traffic and user behavior. This will supplement the data and fill in gaps created by increasing privacy restrictions.

Cross-device Tracking

Google’s previous tracking was largely based on collecting data from individual devices and sessions. Information was tracked in silos and was often duplicated across devices.  

GA4 offers a shift from a focus on individual metrics to a focus on the customer’s journey. It stitches together multiple data streams and sources, for example, from both websites and apps, to offer a more accurate picture of where a customer is in the sales funnel. It uses multiple identifiers to measure a single user’s journey, providing far more valuable insight into engagement and effectiveness.

Engagement Tracking

The metrics used for tracking are being redefined. This will provide a more realistic assessment of your user’s interaction with your website.

Here’s an example.

In UA a user’s visit to your website for several minutes without a next step click or interaction was recorded as a bounce, even though they could have found value in the website.

In the new GA4, Google will track what they’re calling “engaged sessions.” These are defined as the number of sessions that lasted longer than ten seconds, had a conversion event, or had at least 2 page views or screen views. You can see that the new GA4 parameters certainly more accurately reflect today’s user engagement.

GA4 has a number of default actions and events, like page scrolls, clicks, file downloads etc., that can easily be tracked without requiring manual set-up as it did in the past. Together with cross-device tracking capabilities, the data GA4 collects provides a much truer assessment of user engagement.

Take Aways

The new GA4 is a complete overhaul of Google Analytics, designed to be flexible with the changes and increased regulation that are already in motion for the industry. This is the time to install GA4 and to get familiar with its capabilities and how they can help your business. Set up your tracking criteria and begin to learn how to use the reports. And, of course, understand that GA4 is still in its infancy, and more changes will come. The internet and associated technology and regulations are still developing at an incredibly fast pace.