Las Vegas Web Design Las Vegas Website Design & Marketing Services - Perkolate

Evaluating Your Website’s Performance

Setting up a website for your Las Vegas business is the very first step of marketing your website on the internet. The success of your website depends on the goals you set and accomplish. 

If you expect your site to move your visitors to take some form of action while on your website, whether it is visitors filling out a simple online form so that you can contact them, or purchasing a product online, there are specific steps you can take to insure that your web site is functioning efficienctly. One of the very first ways to tell is to check on your website’s traffice. It’s a great tool to judge normal traffic vs. traffic at times when you are running promotional marketing and activities.

Having a large amount of traffic doesn’t necessarily mean that your site is successful at getting your business leads and sales. You want visitors to take action while on your website; call you, submit a form for a quote, make a purchase, etc. This is known as your website’s conversion rate and is essential in judging your website.

How to calculate your website’s conversion rate

To find your web site’s conversion rate, you take the number of visitors per month and guestimate the percentage of your visitors that actually purchased something. So, if you had 1000 hits to your site in one week, but only 10 of them purchased from you, your site conversion rate equals 1.00%. 

If your website’s goal is to get your visitors to fill out a form, make sure to figure out the difference between your site conversion rate and your sales conversion rate. Not everyone who fills out your online form will actually become a client. However, whether your site is setup to sell a product or service, or to get them to fill a form out, your website conversion rate measures the success and/or failure of your site whenever you promote or update your website.

Over time, you just may find that you need to implement a few additional marketing strategies if your website traffic and conversion rates are low. Some ideas that might help are implementing a SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy so that you can rank on search engines for organic searches. More visitors will be able to find your website more easily. Once your SEO strategy is in place, you should monitor your rankings and make any needed adjustments regularly to keep or grow your SEO rankings.

You should also review the usability and ease of your “call-to-action” on your website. How simple is it for a visitor to take action and what motivates them to take action? If you want them to fill out an inquiry form, for example, how easy is the form to find? How is it called out on your home page. How simple is the form to fill out? If the form is too long, it may discourage your website’s visitors to fill it out.

Lastly, write the copy on your website (especially the home page) carefully and with a keen marketing sense in mind. Remember the goals of your website and gear the copy to encourage visitors to take action. The right copy writing can be the difference between profit and loss for your website.

Most of the time, the biggest hurdle that most, if not all, small businesses, especially in Las Vegas, have is a limited marketing and advertising budget. Having a small business budget makes it difficult for your Las Vegas business to have the most glamorous marketing and advertising campaign. Advertising can be pretty expensive, especially when you have so many other things that can eat up your budget.

With a limited budget in mind, you should consider some less expensive and cost-effective forms of advertising your business including:

Website

Even with a small budget, you can get a small simple website up fairly inexpensively. Good news about a website is it can advertise your Las Vegas business 24/7.

Flyers

Create a simple flyer (you can do this yourself in Word) that you can hand to potential clients, as leave behinds in other businesses. Include an incentive or special offer to get better results. You can print a simple flyer on your own printer or have it printed in bulk at a copy center fairly cheaply.

Google AdWords

Advertise on google and come up on the first page as a “Sponsored Listing” and help deliver website traffic and leads for your business. Most times, you can find relatively cheap keywords to bid on and you can set your own monthly budget.

Sponsor Community Events

Donate services and/or time to local Las Vegas community events and be recognized as a supporter of your community. Often times you’ll receive a way to promote your business through a free ad, a press release or PR event. This can help give you an edge over your competitors as well!

Hang in There!

The key is not get frustrated because you only have a small budget to work with. Small businesses are often very imaginative, especially when it comes to stretching their money and making sure that each dime is put to good use.

I’m sure you’ve visited many websites that have banner ads over many of its pages. Blinking, flashing, popping up and sometimes you will actually take notice, read the ad and perhaps click through to the website. People do in fact click on website banner ads. You should consider banner advertising to help promote your Las Vegas business and website.

Sponsored ads on websites that are complimentary to your website can be an invaluable way to promote awareness of your Las Vegas company’s products and services AND gain valuable traffic to your website to encourage more leads and sales for your products and services.

Sponsored website ads can be free, bought, traded, or sold. Really just depends where you look, how popular the website is your are advertising on and how much traffic it receives. Where you choose to advertise online also depends on your current marketing budget. To find potential advertising opportunities, you should research websites you feel your ad might be a good fit for. There’s usually an “Advertising” link on the footer of the website. Contact the webmaster or advertising department and ask about their rates.

The more sponsored ads you have in key website locations, the more likely a potential customer will find your website and look at what you have to offer. Making your website business available to the world and easy to find is the best way to increase the traffic to your website.

Remember to keep your banner ads simple, clear, eye-catching and write a clear call-to-action like:

• Free Evaluation
• 10% off
• Free Shipping
• 2 for 1

Las Vegas businesses, here’s the lowdown… advertisement is simply not marketing, it is only a PART of marketing. It’s like saying you want to have a rich market, but you don’t want to market to you client base. Forget about online marketing, web marketing, a sound corporate identity. You don’t need ‘em?

So wrong. Same is true for revenue generation… if done in your own bubble, none of these valuable strategies and tactics will get the results you’re looking for. For your Las Vegas professional services, where your relationship with your target Las Vegas audience evolves and solidifies based on their trust for you - it is all about layering your “marketing touch” in a way that builds trust solidly over time. You will scare potential clients with too much too soon!

You, as a Las Vegas business owner, have to know which strategies to use and when, based on clearly defined objectives. Each and every marketing strategy has a different and unique purpose. Here’s an overview to making sound choices.

Advertising your Las Vegas business means getting the word out to potential clients about your company through paid advertising which includes ads or commercials in the Las Vegas media, including potentially print, radio, television and internet. You should consider advertising to:

• establish awareness for your company’s products and services
• heighten interest in the marketplace
• educate potential customers
• influence perceptions customers may have about your business

With that said, advertising can be fairly costly, but if you do it correctly and with a marketing perspective in mind and a fair budget it can indeed be effective and produce results.

Public Relations or PR is getting the word about your business products and service through the press, including articles, interview and newsworthy stories. As a business, you should use Public Relations to:

• build credibility and trust for your Las Vegas business
• move up a level in the eyes of your target audience and clients
• create a buzz
• get free attention

Getting good publicity requires a What’s In It For Me (WIIFM) messaging, so you have to pass the “who cares about my Las Vegas business” test each and every time. If you release a PR new item, for example, with “My Las Vegas business is proud to announce the…,” you’re going to end up dead in the water! Good relationships building with the local press is essential.

To promote your business equals getting the word out through articles, blog articles and email newsletters that you write and that potential customers will VALUE. These types of communications give you publicity and allow you to get enough visibility to become a speaker, a sponsor, will allow you to join committees and help you promote to:

• entice your target audience to consider your company’s products/service
• invite your audience to an a real time or online event or seminar
• introduce a new offer your business is promoting
• meet a short-term objective like a monthly sales goal 
• test new ideas about what your clients are looking for
•  invite interaction with you and your company

Promotions are one of the most effective ways for professional businesses to build trust with customers in the vast marketplace. The options in your promotional tool kit is both vast and can be cost-effective. Get a basic plan of both online/offline promotional strategies and tactics in place you will be in pretty good shape.

As a professional business owner, you will have to make critical choices for each and every strategy you undertake…. online, offline, etc. Here are some rules of thumb to help guide you:

• utilize the WIIFM factor always
• unless you have the backing of a fat marketing budget, promotion and PR tend to be your wisest and smartest investments for ROI
• online marketing and promotion is in general more cost-effective than print media
• permission-based marketing is a always a must

If you want your business to build awareness, interest, and credibility, you really will need all three strategies: advertising, PR and promotions as par of your marketing mix.

Perkolate is proud to announce the launch of its latest website for Ford Law Firm website at www.fordfamilylaw.com.

About the Ford Law Firm

The Ford Law Firm is a specialty family law firm dedicated entirely to the practice of family law and domestic partnerships in Alameda County, the East Bay and Oakland, California. The firm’s lawyers are experts in all types of family law matters, including divorce, child custody, child support, spousal support, paternity, stepparent adoption and complex property division.

Ford Law Firm Social Media & Social Marketing

Perkolate also set up social media accounts for the Ford Law Firm at twitter and LinkedIn:

• http://twitter.com/eastbaydivorce
• http://www.linkedin.com/pub/shane-r-ford/6/a58/813

Ways to promote your Las Vegas website in a cost-effective manner.

So just what is the difference between promoting your Las Vegas website and a traditional brick and mortar store? It’s a common question asked by many new business owners and internet marketers. It turns out the principles are the same but the methods are a bit different. Let’s take a look at how they differ.

The primary goal of the promotion and awareness-building of both is to first create awareness of its existence. Secondly, you need to communicate to potential customers to know what exact products and services you offer and why it will make their life or running their business more easily. Next you want to show them how your products and services are better than any others others in the market. This is all to achieve your final goal of visiting your Las Vegas website or store. Making the sale is another lengthy topic all together.

If you have a sizable advertising budget, you can start by advertising in the New York Times or on NBC for a brick and mortar store or on Google or Yahoo sites if you’re on the internet. If you do not have a large budget, there are many cost-effective ways you can promote your Las Vegas website.

8 Cheap Ways to Promote Your Las Vegas Website

1. Tell your friends and family all about your website. On average, a person has a couple of hundred family members and friends. Email them, stay in touch and let them know!
2. Sign up for a leads service that will refer leads to your Las Vegas website. This will be a nominal expense in relation to the leads if you utilize the right service.
3. Post your helpful articles and opinions on forum web sites. This helps add credibility to you as an expert in your field and will refer people back to your web site.
4. Consider Search Engine Marketing (SEM). An paid advertising campaign on Google Adwords is another way to reach your potential clients. You can choose the exact phrases and words you want and set your own monthly budget.
5. Create a flyer or simple tri-fold brochure that promotes your Las Vegas business and your web site.
6. Place newspaper classifieds in local Las Vegas newspapers. You can generate a very cost effective campaign using weekly newspapers that are less expenisve and can reach your target market in Las Vegas and beyond.
7. Write and publish helpful and insightful articles just like this one that showcase your expertise and knowledge and help direct clients back to your web site.
8. Start your own Las Vegas blog on your website. Your own company blog allows you to add more pages of content to your website and more pages of rich content helps with SEO efforts.

For more ways to promote your website for free, consider doing a google search for “free ways to promote my website” and see what other helpful tips come up. It takes a little time to do the research, but the benefits can be very beneficial!

Marketing your Las Vegas company is the current economy is now more important than ever. Without effective marketing strategies in place, you will not be able to reach new potential customers, and as we always say, if you aren’t marketing, your competitors surely are.

With this in mind, I’ve compiled a list of links that discuss and outline top effective marketing strategies for businesses:

• The Top 7 Marketing Strategies for Independent Professionals on a Budget - BusinessKnowHow.com
• Best Marketing Strategies - helium.com
• Top 10 Internet Marketing Strategies of 2009 - marketingcharts.com
• Top Marketing Strategies for Businesses on a Budget - UnArchived Articles
• Web Site Marketing Techniques Rated - streedirectory.com
• Best Marketing Strategies for Maximum Sales - Combining Market Research, Brand Management, Advertising and PR - suite101.com
• Top 5 Guerilla Marketing Strategies - sparxoo.com
• Top Email Marketing Strategies For B2B Marketers - webpronews.com
• Top 8 Strategies to Marketing in a Recession - ElementsDaily
• Niche Marketing Strategy - How to Greatly Increase your Odds of Business Success by Using a Niche Marketing Strategy = Geisheker Group
• Market Targeting - learnmarketing.com
• How To Find And Sell To Your Target Market - about.com
• Target Marketing - Targeting Strategies - websitemarketingplan.com
• Top Small Business Marketing Trends for 2009
• Top 10 Internet Marketing Strategies - about.com
• Seven Top Online Marketing Trends for 2009 - ClickZ.com
• The Top 10 Marketing Tips of All Time - marketingscoop.com
• Business Owner’s Toolkit: Marketing Strategy
• Business Marketing Strategy Essentials - bizrave.com
• One Page Marketing Plan Template
• Marketing Plan Outline - quickmba.com

When a Las Vegas business is looking into whether to invest in web marketing or to stick to local business it is good to know the pros and cons of working on the internet along with how to make a successful and widely exposed website. This way a business can properly decipher whether expanding onto the world wide web is right for them.

How to market websites?

There are many ways to market a website, some important and vital in the success of a web based business, and some more on the optional level. Some examples of vital needs in marketing a website are:

Web Development Related Marketing

When marketing online the way your website is put together and designed is vital in getting your business into the top of the search engines above all potential competitors. Some examples of making a good website are keeping all concepts within the website all related to one topic which is your business. Use an easy to remember domain name with a popular URL such as dot com or dot net. And also make sure your URL will not be confusable with a competitors so you do not risk losing business to someone else.

Search Engine Optimization

There are many very complicated concepts in search engine optimization such as installing meta tags, creating codes which make bot crawling easy to achieve on your website so search engines can easily index every page of your website, and more. When utilizing search engine optimization it is good to think about investing in a professional web design company in Las Vegas. A professional web design company can easily create very complex coding within your website to help you get your business an increase in visitors in a short amount of time. 

Web 3.0 is the future of the WWW as we know it. It will be the stuff of dreams and super future movies. It will enhance browsing so that you don’t have to make separate inquiries when figuring out several things. For example, you want to go miniature golfing, see the best movie out right now and eat at taco bell afterwards. Normally, you would have to open up a search engine, find mini golf range, search for movie theaters, go to another site to read about the movies, and then do yet another search to find the taco bell. So, what if you could just type something like “city name, mini golf, best movie, closest taco bell” , then just sit back and wait while the internet does it all for you? That is the dream and vision of Web 3.0

In a constantly evolving world of web design, graphic design, C++ and all those other design languages that most just have heard whispers of, what does this mean? It means even more evolution, more opportunity. More leeway for creative genius. In the current world of Web 2.0, a designer can make a stamp. He or she can make graphics, blogs, and make his or her presence known upon the internet. That is where 2.0 stops. 2.0 is designed for people to talk to one another. Everything panders to this desire to “stay connected” . Our cellphones, PDA’s, laptops, home PC’s. Web 3.0 takes it up a notch. Bordering on AI technology, the machines can speak to one another. Through keywords, through designs, the web page will evolve into something that allows the computer to see a web page as we do. As such, a designer, and those that want a design, must be able to speak this lingo.

The average computer user today tends use their computer to play a few games, check their email and watch a TV show. A portion of our population has not begun to tap into the full potential of the internet. As such, when they want a web page made for their businesses, they seek out a professional. In the age of 2.0, nearly anyone can publish a web site. Point and click technology makes it all simplistic, a dream. But in 3.0 if you cannot make the web page speak to the other pages, well it is lost in the sea of information that is the world of online. It is always best to hire those that understand this all, lest you be lost in the anonymity of the Web.