How Do I Promote Local Business on Facebook?

in Social Media Marketing by atsny February 25, 2022

Social media has taken over our lives in many respects. We have built stronger networks, we are able to stay connected with friends and family, make new friends, or promote a brand. There is so much that social media is capable of doing beyond what most of us imagine.

For a business, nobody wants to get a negative reputation. We live in a time when things are updated and advanced, nobody wants to be tagged as outdated. It is important today for a business to build a trustworthy approach and that starts with being involved in social media.

Developing a strong social presence is even more important for small businesses. Social media can help grow your brand and the more people that know about you, the more customers you will gain.

If you’re not ready to get on all the social platforms, you should at least have a presence on Facebook. The world uses Facebook to communicate. You can maximize your potential audience if you use Facebook as a marketing tool.

There are several options within Facebook that you can benefit from, starting with groups, pages with advertisement options. With the many options to promote your business, it can be a little overwhelming.

These five steps can help you get started in growing your customer base:

Make One Business Page on Facebook

Giving your business a professional presence starts by creating a business page. This page will be similar to your personal profile only its focus will be to highlight your business. You won’t be required to make friends to help people know about you. Instead, people can just show their interest in your business by liking your page.

It is important to add as much information as you can so customers can know all the required things about you. You will also want to add a relatable profile picture and cover photo of your page that will be the face of your page and let people know what your business does.

Maintain the Regularity of Posts

Once you have a page created, you are not done. Creating a page is just the first step. Next, you need to post content on it that relates to your business and products/services.

In the beginning, it will be difficult to get lots of likes. Creating posts is something you need to work really hard to get noticed and convince people to like your page. Posting often without large gaps in between is important.

You can make a plan of when you will post each week. These posts are how you engage and attract attention. You can post videos, photos, write-ups, anything that relates to your business.

You can even come up with some short clips that may give a behind-the-scenes look into your business. This can help build trust with potential customers.

Promote Your Facebook Page as Much as Possible

There is no point in putting so much effort into creating posts if nobody will notice it. While building out your page you can send invitations to your friends and people you know. If your business has a website, then you can add to the header for the footer area of your website design a link to your Facebook page to help drive people to your page.

You can have your Facebook link printed on business cards. You can add great deals or discount coupons on your Facebook page to help improve your follower base and ask people to like your page and share it with others

Engage the Followers on Your Page

Facebook has a sophisticated algorithm, and it prefers pages that have maximum engagement. It is important to not just post just anything. What you post needs to have content that is interesting enough to attract and engage customers.

It is a good idea to be social and engage with your followers. Create some posts that are more conversational and less formal. It is also advised that you be active in responding to your customers, so they know you are conversing with them.

Utilize Facebook Ads Option

Getting organic likes can take a long time and the result may not be as huge as you may want. Don’t get discouraged as you have another option to grow likes. You can advertise through Facebook ads. Promoting your page or a post will reach more people than just organic reach alone.

It can make targeting a particular type of audience much easier. You decide who are your potential customers and reach out to them using ads. Facebook ads can be customized to target a certain base of people by means of age, gender, location, interest, etc. As Facebook collects data on its users, it can reach out to people who have similar interests.

Facebook is just one social media platform, but it is a good place to start to gain a presence that can benefit your business. By not taking advantage of this platform, you are missing out on the growing number of potential online customers. Over the years we have helped thousands of clients get proper guidance and have helped strengthen their online marketing through social media platforms.

Generating Website Traffic for Syracuse SMB

Blogging: The Overlooked Tool in Digital Marketing

in Digital Marketing / Local Search Marketing by atsny October 20, 2019February 25, 2022

When it comes to digital marketing, what sets you apart from your competition is finding a specific voice in your product and service niche to demonstrate value and authority and to keep attracting customers and creating new leads and business opportunities. Understanding the importance of regular blogging on your website and it’s relationship to SEO, social media engagement and marketing, email marketing and a host of other factors can make all the difference in your online success and long-term growth.

There are enormous benefits to regular and consistent blogging on your website which can help to drive search clicks and visitor engagement and thereby increase website traffic and leads. The more eyeballs you can get in front of with your website and the more people realize how your products and services can benefit them, the more business growth you can experience.

Blogging: Relevance, Education, Authority

When you are writing a blog post, keep in mind that it needs to be informative, relevant, knowledgeable, and authoritative. And above all, your posts must engender trust. Because trust, or at least the willingness to take a chance, is what sales lead development is all about. Your posts need to be strategically relevant, and provide useful information to your potential client, without being in any way a sales pitch.

An effective company blog on your website (aka “content marketing”) demonstrates to your potential customers that you are not only well informed and know what you are talking about (trustworthy), but it also creates a bit of a personal touch so people can get a feel for your company and how you think about solving your customers problems and meeting their needs. Too often the difference between successful marketing and just skating by is the presence or lack of presence of a personal touch that potential clients can be comfortable with and relate to.

At the end of the day, business is built on relationships. And that personal touch is particularly available to anyone who reads and interacts with your blog, and by extension with your company.

Syracuse Web Design & Online Marketing Partners

When it comes to website design and online marketing, it’s hard to know just where to start. One way to make sure you’re maximizing your website’s potential to help you grow your business is to partner with an experienced Syracuse web design agency like ATS Design Group. Why not contact us today and schedule a free website evaluation and design consultation and put our experience to work for you?

Paul Albee is the digital marketing director of ATS Design Group in Syracuse, New York. Paul and his team specialize in all aspects of online digital marketing for Syracuse area small businesses including website design and development, blogging and content marketing, search engine optimization, and eCommerce web design and development.

Website Design & Maintainence Monthly Checklist

in Web Design Syracuse NY / Website Hosting by atsny September 15, 2019

Website Maintenance & Items You Should Check Monthly

It is essential in this digital day and age to have some sort of online presence for your business. Did you know that maintaining your website is just as important? We aren’t talking about just big changes like when you move in a different direction or rebrands itself with a whole new image. Even simple things can make a huge difference to online visitors and your business. Below we list the items you need to stay on top of when maintaining your website.

Contact Information and Forms

Your potential customers or clients won’t be able to get in touch with you if they don’t have the tools to do so. This is why you want your contact information to be the first thing that is visible on your landing page or easily accessible without a lot of searching.

Something else you need to check is any contact forms on your website. There could be a technical glitch, a bad email address attached for leads to send to, or any number of reasons that they may not function properly so questions, concerns or requests can be handled.

Promotional Offers and Deals

If there is one thing that annoys someone is finding a coupon or promotion and discovering they are too late and it has expired. If you offer deals or special that require a coupon be sure to update them often so they are valid. When people see outdated coupons and promotions, they get the impression your website is neglected and that is not the impression you want to make to customers. Simply by doing regular updating and changing promotions and coupons you give your visitors a reason to keep coming back and that is exciting for your business.

Image Errors and Broken Links

If your website has URL’s, external and internal link paths that have broken links and images that don’t display on your website, search engines will panelize you. Search engines takes those sorts of things into consideration as a ranking factor. Checking links on your website is something you should be doing monthly. Go through your site and make sure images are displaying correctly and that any links on your site take you to the appropriate page. While this may take some time for website that are larger and more complex, it is very much worth the time and effort and your website will be rewarded for it in the rankings.

Site Loading Speed

There is another maintenance thing you should keep on top of because it can significantly impact your ranking and more importantly conversion rates, is the speed at which your website loads. We live in a world where we want everything now. Statistics have shown that 40% of visitors to a website will leave it if takes more than 3 seconds to load. When designing & developing your website, this should be kept in mind. Even in established website as they go changes and pages are added or removed, that can impact the loading speed. By checking your website’s load times regularly, you won’t be losing business from slow loading speeds.

Your Website’s Blog

If your website doesn’t have a blog that might be something you may want to start. Surveys show that businesses with a blog often receive 55% more website visitors and 97% more inbound links just from having a blog. One of the most important aspects of a blog is making sure to keep it active and updated. Just like other items we mentioned, if a visitor sees outdated content, they get the impression that your website is also neglected and that is not an impression you want to give. Make it a habit to update your blog post with news products, and events related to your business. The bonus of this content is that you can share it across your social media platforms.

By keeping your website maintained, visitors to your site will be better informed and they will have more reason to give you their business.

Paul Albee is the digital marketing director of ATS Design Group in Syracuse, New York. Paul and his team specialize in all aspects of online digital marketing for the construction trades including Web Design Syracuse, SEO search engine optimization, and eCommerce design and development.

Does Your Website Need a Good Spring Cleaning?

in Digital Marketing / Uncategorized / Wordpress Web Design by atsny April 16, 2016July 6, 2016

Spring is finally here, or so it appears for the moment, so while everybody is thinking about getting out and enjoying the warm weather, it’s also a great time to take a dispassionate look at your website and see if a new Spring makeover is long overdue.

With everyone from millennials to baby boomers getting online to do their shopping as well as personal and professional research, it is clearly not a time to be “ho-hum” about the tired, outdated look of your website that was built five or 10 years ago and now looks hopeless out of date when compared to your competitors.

People look at your website in the context of all the other websites they visit, including your competition. Studies have shown that people judge a company by their first impressions of that company. And largely, that first impression is the company’s website. So why give that competition a leg up in digital marketing by looking less attractive than them.

Website Redesign: It’s Easier Than You Might Think

For a regular small business website, where your company is telling the story of who they are and what their products and services are, it’s easy and remarkably affordable to get a great new site with a modern, attractive look and feel. One of the hottest trends in website design is a clean, uncluttered, minimalist look that is easy to look at, easy to find what you’re looking for, and easy to contact the company. Lots of pictures, personable “About Us” page, project or product portfolio or gallery.

For companies looking to sell products and services online, it’s just as easy with modern, easy to use and maintain eCommerce solutions and secure payment options. Today’s eCommerce website solutions make it easy for customers to browse and shop, get detailed product information and checkout through a smooth, simple checkout process. today’s modern small business and eCommerce websites are designed to look good on all platforms, from desktop computer screens, to tablets and on your iPhone too.

So the question is how to move forward and do your research and due diligence to make your website update and makeover a reality. You might want to take a look at our portfolio and see what kind of work other companies have commissioned and then give us a call and set up an appointment to discuss your website design and update needs and requirements.

We’ve been doing website design and online marketing for just over 20 years, so we can help you ideas and inspiration to get you a step or three out in front of the completion fast.

Paul Albee is the digital marketing director of ATS Design Group in Syracuse, New York. Paul and his team specialize in all aspects of online digital marketing including Web Design Syracuse, SEO search engine optimization, social media marketing as well as print and advertising design.

WordPress Website Security

in Wordpress Web Design by atsny January 12, 2016October 20, 2019

WordPress Website Security: Keeping Your Website Safe

You are in need of a website to grow your business. You would be hard-pressed to find a better, more Google-friendly platform that WordPress. While WordPress has many extraordinarily appealing features that have made it the hands-down favorite among website development platforms. As a result of this popularity, however, comes a double-edged sword: it is a prime target for hackers.

Some relatively simple steps for WordPress Website Security can go a long way to keep your WordPress website up to date and protected from potential threats. In this day and age, we all know how important it is to keep our computers and websites protected and the following will show you what steps to take to protect your WordPress website.

1. Keep your WordPress platform up to date. WordPress has always been diligent about updating it’s platform to keep would be hackers from doing damage. Always make sure to keep WordPress updated, that includes plugins and widgets as well. If your not running the latest version of WordPress then your running a version that may have known vulnerabilities and bugs that hacker can exploit to their advantage.

2. Never use the default “admin” username. Make sure it is deleted and create a new one with admin privileges. This “admin” username is created when you first install WordPress. This is one of the biggest holes in any consideration of WordPress website security that is the easiest to eliminate. Hackers knowingly target this default username because many people don’t bother to change it. This is a very easy and necessary step to help protect against would be attackers.

3. Use complex passwords to access your website. Many attacks are dictionary-based which means that if you use a single word password, it will eventually be bypassed through process of elimination. It is best WordPress website security practice to use passwords with a minimum of 8-10 characters long, use a combination of numbers, letters and special characters (i.e.: #,@,%).

4. Add a trusted security shield. By adding a security shield such as WordFence, for example, that prevents too many login attempts prevents brute-force attacks, which often involve thousands of login attempts until a password is generated correctly. Your webmaster or developer can add any number of plugins that will prevent these brute-force attacks.

5. Make sure you are making regularly schedule website backups. If you site ever does get hacked, you should have a quick, easy and painless way to restore your website and get it back up and running with a minimal of reconstructive effort. A 30 day backup schedule for an average small business website works well for most small businesses. Talk to you webmaster about how to make this happen. They can do it for you, or you can do it yourself.

These steps are important for any WordPress website to protect it from will be attackers. But it is just as important to keep in mind that new attacks happen daily and it’s important that your webmaster stay diligent, and implement future security steps.

Paul Albee is the digital marketing director of ATS Design Group in Syracuse, New York. Paul and his team specialize in all aspects of online digital marketing including website design, SEO search engine optimization, social media marketing as well as print and advertising design.

Successful Website Redesign Considerations

in Web Design Syracuse NY by atsny August 16, 2015July 6, 2016

Far too often, when a company undertakes a website redesign project, it is with a sense of urgency to solve an immediate problem. But you can’t just take a “fire hose” approach to your website redesign. With the recent Google “mobile friendly” algorithm change, may small business owners felt a sense of panic.

Before you undertake any website redesign project, it is helpful to take a deep breath and think about what this opportunity gives you a chance to do. The last thing you want to do is spend thousands of dollars and end up with a website that solves the immediate problem but doesn’t address your overall brand and marketing goals moving forward.

Successful Website Redesign Considerations

Step number one for any website design or redesign project is “have a detailed plan.” We’ve written a blog post on this process that you might find interested: Successful Website Redesign Strategy. Take a look. It may be helpful in understanding what you want to accomplish going into a website redesign project.

The most important thing is to step back and take a look at the overall picture. Define your goal and what it is that you want to achieve, whether it is better search engine visibility, a better user experience on mobile devices, more traffic and sales leads, higher conversions, a more modern and up to date look and feel?

Set aside some quiet time – maybe two or three evenings at Starbucks – and think it all through. Look at your competitors websites. See what they are doing. Think about your overall brand message. How do you want your website to integrate with social media sites like Facebook or LinkedIn Writing everything down will help you stay focused and not get distracted.

Don’t Forget About Your Mobile Users.

Having a mobile friendly website (by Google’s standards) is no longer an option. A responsive web design allows your web page to dynamically change and resize itself based on whichever device it is being viewed on: a desktop computer, a tablet, a smartphone. In May 2015, Google announced that for the first time in history, mobile search (smartphones) outpaced desktop search in 10 countries, including the United States. Your customers are looking at you through the eye of their smartphone. It is important that they like what they see. Making sure your new website is built on a mobile “responsive” platform makes it easy to be sure your content and your brand looks good on all devices.

For additional information, please contact an ATS Web Design Syracuse team member to discuss your needs.