0
Category

Website

Apr 16
Love0

Common Website Tips and Tricks to Help Your Business Grow

By Sales, Small Business, Technology, Website No Comments

What we’re going to go over are some very common mistakes that we see when we’re reviewing a client website and some of the things that we like to always suggest to most businesses. 

Call to Action Page

Firstly, online tools or common practices that we like to implement on a website is giving clients or customers the option to contact you or do business with you, get a quote, or schedule a consultation through several different options. We know that this can be different depending on your industry and how you prefer to be contacted. But generally speaking, when we’re looking at small, local, even mid-sized businesses and we look at their call to action page, contact page, or their consultation page, we’re always pretty shocked at just how much missing information there is. There might be just a contact form, but there’s no phone number when they definitely should. have a phone number. 

As you can see here on this website, College Planning Institute (CollegePlanningInstitute.com), what we’ve done is we’ve got two columns here on the “Schedule Free Consultation” page. As you can see within the same frame, there are several ways that you could get started. If you’re more in exploration mode or just looking for a quote, then you might complete the form. It’s not going to be as time sensitive. It’s going to submit the info and their responsibility is to reach out to me. That’s a much more passive approach. 

But as you can see above, the email and phone number is also listed. Both of these are linked. So if you click on this, it will call the phone number on my phone. We see this mistake a lot with small business websites where they have just the text for the phone number and it’s not a button or it’s not linked. Have you ever tried to copy a phone number using your thumb on a mobile phone while you’re in a meeting or talking or driving? It is horrible. So make sure that it’s mobile, responsive. They can tap it and get in touch with you right away. 

But why not skip all of this? If you know you want to get started and you want to take advantage of the free consultation, just go ahead and schedule with them?

Calendly

Use a tool like Calendly, for example. Calendly is great. We have used Calendly for years because there’s a great free version and there’s a lot of fun stuff you can do with it. We have other videos and blogs about how to set up and use Calendly. As you can see here, you can customize it as well. It syncs with your calendar, so it’s only going to show times that you are available. If you go and edit my calendar and I’m blocked off Thursday for a doctor’s appointment and I use Calendly, it’s not going to have those time slots available for my customers or clients. 

We’re shocked that more business owners are not taking advantage of these real time synched calendars. They save so much time. They’re going to help you get more leads. They’re going to help you get more business.

I can tell you from personal experience, we went through our Big Red Jelly website and we started putting in embedded calendars using HubSpot, or CRM, very similar to Calendly. And right after we did that and we put those calendars on our call to action pages, we saw a significant, measurable difference in scheduled calls from real people who wanted real advice. 

Relevant Home Page

This is WaytoMoab.com, a website for an amazing tour guide company. One of the things that we like about their site is this little banner at the bottom, “Booking Now for the 2021 Season,” even though it seems minor looking. Point number two is try to have something that’s time or season relevant on your home page. 

A lot of people will design a website or digital platform and say, boom, it’s done. Maybe I’ll refresh it five years from now. The home page is probably going to be one of your most visited pages. You should have a promo, discount, something that’s seasonal, something that’s relevant. It shows that your business is updating your website consistently. It’s growing. It’s changing. It keeps up to date. 

As human beings, generally, we have a hard time thinking far ahead in the future. If you are an e-commerce brand, there should be a banner there or something there that says 25 percent off until the end of this month. There’s a price and a time incentive. 

So think to yourself, what’s a banner coupon, discount, an event, something relevant that can be added to your home page and something that you can update on a monthly basis. You will see results from something as small as that. 

Testimonials

This is something we see again and again with local businesses. They don’t have any testimonials or reviews listed on their website–at least nowhere really easy to find. What a lot of people do is they will have a page where they dump all their testimonials. Or they’ve just got one section where they’ve got testimonials and then nowhere else. 

Here on this website (triedntruecoaching.com), there’s actually testimonials on several pages. Above is an example of a carousel on the homepage with some testimonials. Even though these are static testimonials right now, just that cherry on top, adding validation onto all the information that was digested before is priceless. 

Don’t be afraid to strategically place single testimonials throughout your site. Small business owners do that nearly enough, especially if that testimonial is relevant to the information that it’s next to. 

Let’s say you have a bio about you on a team page. You might have a testimonial from a client that says it was great working with you. It adds validation to the information that someone just digested by visiting your website. Do not be afraid to be strategic with your testimonials, your reviews, your case studies. Use them as a tool to add validity to information on your website. 

Live Chat

Second to last point is just some very basic but easy to set up tools like this OnPoint website that we built (OnPointavl.com). As you can see here in the bottom right hand corner, this is a live chat plugin using the Zoho CRM, which was their preferred CRM. It’s like a sales software. This is a live chat tool when someone on their team is online, this will give a little green light. It will show that someone is online and when they’re not. It turns into a really easy to find contact for these tools.

There’s so much you can do and it can feel like you have an additional mini me who’s doing this work on your website while you’re asleep or while away. Think about a CRM, live chat, chat bot, or a combination of the two. Really leverage your time a little bit better by using these tools. We have other videos and posts about tools like Live Chat Chat, 

Secondary Call to Action

Let’s go to this website here. Get in the Cashflow Game (GetintheCashFlowGame.com). Very fun brand, very fun website that we made a while ago. 

Something we don’t see a lot of business owners do very well is offering kind of secondary calls to action or other pieces of value or content. As you can see here, decently, far down the homepage for this website, there’s kind of this secondary call to action, which is getting a free video course. A lot of people say, well, I want people to call me, I want leads. I want them to fill out my form. That’s your primary call to action. But are there other things that you could provide for the majority of your website, visitors who aren’t ready to pull the trigger and do business with you right now? 

We challenge you to maybe think about. What’s something of value you can offer that you’re not going to require anyone to pay you? What would be of great value content to share with future customers that might warm them up to do business with me in the future?

This is applicable to just about every industry out there. So as you can see here, this is a video course, a little bit more complex. If you were to fill out this form, it sends you an email sequence with videos and once per week each email comes with a new video. It’s really cool and really engaging. 

It’s always helpful to have a secondary call to action on your website. You’d be surprised how many people would take advantage of that. 

There are some tips and tricks for some common things we like to implement in websites and online business strategies for most of our clients. Hopefully you found one or two of these to be helpful for you. 

And don’t forget, you can go to bigredjelly.com/comeback and download the free guide to read about more of these points or schedule a free consultation with our team. 

Let’s get to work and do something fun together.

Mar 15
Love0

The Small Business Comeback Guide for 2021

By Marketing, Small Business, Technology, Website No Comments
Here at Big Red Jelly, where we help brand, build, and grow your business by combining powerful digital tools with human creativity and customization. We work in a lot of different areas to help businesses do better business online. In this post, we’re going to touch on a big campaign that we’re doing to kick off 2021 to really help small businesses come back. We’re going to dive into easy-to-use tools or platforms that a lot of small businesses can use.
Two of these tools are mentioned in our 2021 Small Business Comeback Guide. This is a free eBook that our team has created to help small businesses come back this year. You can download the free PDF guide here. If something intrigues you, or if you have questions, schedule a free consultation with our team. There really are not any strings attached. We are on a mission to help small and local businesses bounce back this year and we have a really strong feeling that is going to happen.

Use Digital Tools

Let’s jump into one of the steps: use digital tools. Powerful digital tools to help your business grow or scale.

Housecall Pro

The first tool we will discuss is a little bit industry-specific, but there are many tools like this for various industries. This one here is called Housecall Pro. This is a tool that we often recommend for small businesses who are in the home services industry. If you
have a business model where you send technicians or professionals to the houses of your customers Housecall Pro is a tool that would fit your needs. This can include electricians, plumbers, HVAC, garage door installation, cleaners, people who do home cleaning, commercial cleaning, residential cleaning, or any other industry that required you to go to the location of the customer in order to complete your job. House Call Pro is also a tool Big Red Jelly has been partnered with for a long time. We know how to set this tool up. We know how to integrate it with your website and we can also get you a discount on the subscription. Win-win!
Firstly, in order for small businesses to really come back, we have to embrace digital. We have to embrace online. It can be overwhelming and scary. The biggest question or concern that we get from small business owners is they don’t even know where to get started. Concerns such as a platform to invoice, send meaningful reminders, do my bookings, send out review requests, schedule people online, integrate with my website, have a live chat on my website, or interact with my customers. These are at least half a dozen different digital platforms to learn how to use and sign up for. And sounds expensive. But that’s not always the case. There is great software like Housecall Pro platform that brings it all together and makes it very easy to use for small businesses. They even have a mobile app so you can manage your business on the go.
So what does Housecall Pro actually do? It can do scheduling, dispatching, invoicing, software, and more. Again, if you’re an electrician, plumber, or if you go and do salon work if you’re a hairdresser or babysitter, a tutor, this tool will work for you. You can also integrate a calendar onto your website so visitors can see when you’re available and book an appointment. You can also set up memberships or recurring jobs. In order for small and local businesses to succeed, we have to do a better job of finding that recurring revenue. So you might already be doing a great job of landing sales, selling a certain product, but you have to think outside the box and think, is there a way for me to make this a subscription, a membership, some type of recurring revenue stream for my business? It’s going to help you scale and grow. Let’s say you are a company and someone books one of your technicians for a job. They book your technician for Wednesday at two o’clock p.m. to come to a check-up on the furnace. You can also set reminders. You can set a reminder to go out 24 hours before to Becky who booked your technician that Bob is coming out to check on her furnace at this time. Then it will send out another reminder a couple of hours before. This is going to greatly mitigate no-shows or last-minute cancellations, which is going to save you a lot of money. Then after the appointment or the booking is complete, what happens? You need to collect payment. You can collect payment right there on your phone using Housecall Pro. You can also send an invoice via text or email that they can open up on their phone and pay right there and then with their preferred payment method. One of our favorite little automations is after the job is complete, they’ve paid, they get a review request. They get a text message that says, “Hi, Becky. How was your experience with Bob today? If you enjoyed your experience, please take 20 seconds and leave a review here.” Which would then link through to Google, Yelp, Facebook or whatever preferred site.
We are huge believers in automating these things, getting your invoices sent out, review requests sent, making booking seamless on your website, and can be tracked on your phone. All of this can be done through Housecall Pro for reasonable prices. If you’re a startup, solopreneur, all of those things combined for $49 a month. If you’re interested, Big Red Jelly can help you out. We can actually get you a discount as well as help you integrate these things with your website. There’s no real benefit for us to refer people to Housecall Pro other than we just really enjoy it and know how to use and integrate it with the websites that we build.
Although Housecall Pro is a little bit specific in terms of the business model that they target, there are very similar customer relationship management, or CRM, tools like this. Housecall Pro is kind of a CRM plus. It’s a CRM plus invoicing, plus booking, plus project management, plus review requests, software plus more built into it. There are equivalents of this software for almost every industry out there. If you’re an attorney, if you’re a restaurant, if you are a whitewater rafting guide, if you are a business coach, talk to us and we can walk you through the equivalent of what this is for your business. You can automate so much of what you do. You can save time, money, get more reviews and higher conversion rates. You can make the customer experience so much more enjoyable because they can book online, pay online and do everything that they really want to online. And that’s just going to make them happier and coming back for more.

Google My Business

This platform is free, at least for now to use. This is your Google listing. So when you type in “best Chinese restaurant near me,” what pops up on your maps are different Google listings. Or you might see it on Google search. That is Google my business. If you have not gained access to your Google My Business account, or you have not verified your Google my business account, that should be a top priority. If you don’t know how to do that, shoot us an email. We can help you do that for free. Google My Business is probably the most important digital tool for a small or local business, especially if you are a brick-and-mortar store. Google My Business has been making some changes recently where if you’re in these service industries where you go to locations and service your customers at their location, Google My Business is also effective for you too. When you set up your Google My Business profile, you can actually dictate what your service area is. If you serve the entire state of Utah or serve your customers within a 25-mile radius of your zip code, that is a setting in Google My Business. They really are trying to create this social platform between customers and local businesses.

It is so intuitive and easy to use. If you go to Google and type in Big Red Jelly, luckily, we’ve been doing a good job on our Google My Business, you can see that this listing has our Google card on the right. In our Google card, you’ll see people also searched for social media profiles, posts we’ve done from Big Red Jelly, our latest reviews, questions and answers, products and services, then, of course, our information. You’ll also see 153 five-star reviews. Not bad where we’re located. After a Google search, your eyes are naturally going to go toward those visuals on the right. That is Google My Business. That is your Google listing. And guess what? You can dictate what shows up here. Once you’ve logged into your account and you’ve verified your account. On your homepage, it gives you a really cool dashboard where you can see your performance locally and how many people have viewed you Google listing. You can also see your reviews here. Also what we really like, you can share your business profile right here so you can send people to your Google My Business listing. In fact, that’s our invitation right now, find your Google my business, get it verified, copy your Google My Business link and send it to your closest colleagues, your team members, family, friends, anyone you’ve done business with or met with in the last
week.
Go get yourself 20 reviews right now. After all, why not? You can post as if it’s a social media profile. The insights are super helpful. The reviews you can go respond to your views, manage reviews from there.
Google My Business also has a free mobile app. You can go download it onto your phone so you can log into your listing and respond to reviews, post on the go, update your info, such as hours of operation, phone number if you are a local business owner. Get on Google, search for your business, try to find your business listing. If that doesn’t pull up your business, try to put in some extra information to really get it to appear. If it doesn’t appear, contact us and we’ll help you find it and get it verified so you can log in
and start growing your business using this free online platform.
Don’t forget to go to bigredjelly.com/comeback and download the free guide to see some of these other realistic, practical steps, tricks, and tips to help your business come back in 2021 and then schedule a consultation so we can chat. It’s all free, no strings attached.
Aug 31
Love0

Case Analysis: 3 Ways Zach is Bringing Success to 2 Big Red Jelly Clients

By Leadership, People, Small Business, Website No Comments

Zach Webber has been with Big Red Jelly from the beginning. He was there when Big Red Jelly was just 3 brothers in a pool house creating websites and has been with Big Red Jelly every step of the way to become the established digital agency it is today. These days, he is the Director of Web Design and Development and leads the web team in creating websites that bring the business success our clients are looking for. Here are just a few ways that Zach is driving that success for two of Big Red Jelly’s clients: Summit Pizza Co and Yara Yoga.  

Focus Web Sites on Strategic Messaging 

Something unique that Zach brings to the table is that he originally studied Public Relations at Brigham Young University. This means that in addition to knowing all the in and outs of the backend of websites and understanding the tech side of web design, he also has been trained to create websites that reflect strategic messaging. He says, “a lot of what PR is in my opinion, is understanding your audience. That applies to me as a designer because I have to understand my client’s audience and what they want in a website.  Understanding your audience really is the first step to anything.” He knows how to create a website that not only looks good but also is strategically developed to resonate with your customers. 

 

Summit Pizza Co saw the benefit of this focus on strategic messaging in their recent website project where they worked with Zach. They came to Big Red Jelly because they were in the process of re-branding their website and changing their logo colors. Summit Pizza Co. was originally started 31 years ago by a man who was working at a big corporate Pizza Place and got tired of corporate life and started his own business focused on home-style pizza. It now has 3 different locations and has grown exponentially since then. Zach helped Summit Pizza Co refine and create a website that reflected the new Summit Pizza Co. 

 

The new website is focused on connecting with Summit Pizza Co’s target audience and reflects the brand story of how pizza is really all about connecting experiences with family and friends after they go hiking or at a family reunion or just anytime people want to be together. The website also reflects Summit Pizza Co’s mission to have top-notch ingredients such as cheese without fillers. Zach was able to create a website that not only looks good but is focused on telling a story of good food and good experiences. 

Understand The Business Goals of the Client 

One of the most important things that Zach does in his work is to make sure that the website the team is building is going to help the client meet their larger business goals. This all starts at the very beginning of the Big Red Jelly web design process when the web team conducts an analysis of the existing website and business as a whole before getting to work creating a digital presence that is going to follow a larger strategy. This emphasis continues throughout the web design process as the web team continually checks in to be sure that the website they are creating is holding to those key business objectives. 

 

This is something that Yara Yoga has seen in its recent website project with Big Red Jelly. Yara Yoga is a Yoga studio focused on empowering people to live well. Before Big Red Jelly got involved, all Yara Yoga’s sales were coming from word of mouth and they had essentially no digital presence. Zach was able to take its business goals and create a website that was strategically designed to help them meet them. Yara Yoga wanted to create a way to drive traffic to their YouTube channel, connect their social media, and display a calendar of their classes. Zach took that information and built a website that didn’t have fluff in it but was focused directly on those business goals. 

Focus on Problem Solving With Design 

Web design at Big Red Jelly is focused on being both artistic and professional. Zach describes how one of his favorite parts about his job at Big Red Jelly being restricted by the challenges and requirements of various clients. This helps him problem-solve with their website. He says, “I like that challenge in terms of how do I visually make something that is expressive creatively, but also very professional. That same idea applies in terms of problem-solving what people want to achieve with their website people. Sometimes that’s phone calls or emails and that’s easy enough but some people want solutions that are a little bit more complex and so finding tools or solutions that work for all those people is a lot of fun. That’s what I enjoy.” Zach knows how to take a website and find creative solutions that center around design. 

 

Design helped Summit Pizza Co problem-solve with design on their website. The success here came from the simplicity of the website. It was important that customers could find the information and order as fast as possible and Zach was able to design a website that allowed customers to do this. The simplicity of the design allows Summit Pizza Co to enjoy more business. 

How Can Zach and the Web Team Help Your Business? 

If you’re looking to establish the digital presence of your business then Big Red Jelly is the place for you to go. Zach and the Web Team can help you design or edit your website to be messaged strategically to your customers, that will meet your larger business objectives, and that solves problems with design. Click here to get started.

Nov 20
Love0

Websites 101 – What you need to know

By Website No Comments

Websites, domains, DNS, hosting, FTP. If you’re just getting introduced to the wonderful world of websites, it can all be very confusing. In this blog, we’ll talk about the three basic components of a functioning website and what they do; domains, hosting, and your website files.

You’ll find that nowadays there is a plethora of companies that offer these things in a package wrapped up together to make it a little easier for the user. If you’ve ever worked with website builders like Wix and Square Space, you’ve probably used all these components without realizing it. As you start to level-up and outgrow your first make-it-yourself website, you’ll start to realize that there is a lot more that goes on behind the scenes that makes everything work together.

Your Domain

Your domain is the unique name that you buy from domain registrars like Godaddy.com, Domain.com, and Namecheap.com For example bigredjelly.com is our domain. This name is an easy-to-remember reference for where your website “lives”. Domain names usually end with .com, .org, .net, etc. These ending are called Top Level Domains. Each has its advantages, with .com being the most popular and the most sought after. Your domain is NOT where your website exists. It’s only a name for people to find your website more easily. To find domains for sale try looking it up on Godaddy.com or Domain.com. A domain name usually costs around $15/year.

Your Website

When people refer to your website, they are usually referring to what they see when they type your domain into their web browser. All the pages, images, and text content are the visual representation of a bunch of code. This code isn’t visible to the front-end user, what a visitor sees is what the code is telling the web-browser to display. When you pay to have someone build your website for you, what they are doing is using software to create the correct code to match your brand and display exactly what you want. This code exists as actual files, think word documents or images stored on your computer.

Now you’ve bought your domain name and had your website build. Now all you do is just connect the two and voila, right? Wrong. Remember, your website is exists as files and your domain is just a reference for people to find you easier. That’s where hosting comes into play.

Your Hosting

Hosting is the term given to a provider who gives you an actual location where your website files “live”. Essentially what you’re doing is paying to use the space on someone’s server, it’s like paying digital rent for your website files. This is something that is often looked over when people are considering building a website. Now, when it comes to hosting, you get what you pay for, usually. You can find a cheap host, and you’ll get bare-bones hosting. If you’re willing to pay a little more, you can find hosting that is faster, offers automatic updates and backups, monitors your uptime, and includes other services.

Now you have all the pieces for the website site. You have something to name your website, you have the files, and you have the storage location. NOW you can connect them all and you’re good to go.

Big Red Jelly can help you with your website dreams. We specialize in custom-designed websites and offer different hosting packages. Feel free to reach out and see if Big Red Jelly is right for you. To see our hosting packages, visit bigredjelly.com/hosting

Oct 31
Love0
Big Red Jelly office with employees busy working on tasks.

What Exactly is Digital Marketing?

By Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Website No Comments

The first thing people think of when they hear digital marketing is social media. And they’re right. To an extent. But digital marketing is so much more than just social media. According to a post written on Hubspot.com, digital marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that use an electronic device on the internet. Businesses leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and other websites to connect with current and prospective customers. So let’s go over some of what this entails.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization, or SEO, focuses on how your business ranks in search engines. Let’s say you own a local plumbing company. You’re just starting out and want to be within the first page if someone were to search “plumbing around me”. Through SEO, your business will be pushed to the first page. Things that factor into SEO are online reviews, page views, and search rankings. 

Content Creation

Through content creation, businesses are able to produce content related to their brand. Someone in digital marketing will write blogs, make videos, and even design a logo for a company. An example: let’s say you own a company based around mortgages. Through content creation, someone in digital marketing could write a blog about the different types of mortgages. Or make a video that involves their mortgage institution and why they decided to start a mortgage company. Content creation is vital in the digital age because it bridges the gap between companies and the online world.

Social Media

Social media management is the most common and very vital part of digital marketing. This involves every form of social media. Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. What goes into social media management though? Through social media marketing, businesses create brand awareness and help generate leads for your business. Digital marketers will manage your social media for you so you don’t have to. They create content calendars and post images and statuses for you. Through social media marketing, you can expect consistent and unique posts. 

Email Marketing

Email Marketing is useful when it comes to promotions. Companies can send out newsletters, give their customers discounts, offer loyalty programs, and welcome new customers. These are very helpful for companies that sell a multitude of products.

So the next time you hear the word “digital marketing”, hopefully, you will know what it is and that it’s more than just running social media. For more information, here’s a helpful video produced by Hubspot.

May 01
Love0

10 Quick Steps to Putting Your Business Online

By Marketing, Social Media, Website No Comments

10 Quick Steps to Putting Your Business Online

 

Putting your business online can be fun and exciting but it can also be very overwhelming. However, now is the time to do so. More and more people are turning to Google and social media to find businesses. Gone are the Yellow Pages days. Now if you aren’t on the web then you don’t exist.

Below is a list of items to start with when putting your business online. They include building a website, taking photos, creating an SEO strategy, focusing on content marketing, setting up email marketing, making advertising campaigns, writing blog posts, developing social media, forming a schedule, and engaging with your audience. Each one gives a description of the process.  

  1. Build a Website
  2. Take Photos
  3. Create an SEO Strategy
  4. Spend time focusing on Content Marketing
  5. Set up Email Marketing
  6. Make Advertising Campaigns
  7. Write Blog Posts
  8. Develop Social Media
  9. Form a Schedule for all Content
  10. Engage on a weekly basis