About Responsive Design

We use various devices to view websites, from laptops to smartphones to tablets. Responsive design allows your website to display content on different devices without sacrificing user experience.

What is Responsive Design?

Responsive design refers to a technique that enables websites to change their layout and content based on the device being used to view them. The design literally responds to its environment. For example, if your site uses responsive web design, a visitor who opens it on an iPhone will see a layout that is optimized for that phone’s smaller screen.

Media Genesis

How do I make a design responsive?

To make a design responsive, your web design and development team will consider how different devices are going to handle the design and how users are going to respond to that design.

Designers will create a flexible appearance that can deliver complementary layouts for the various screen size options while maintaining brand integrity. Developers create the code and add media queries, which are pieces of code that check the size of the screen being used and display the appropriate layout and content for that screen. Everything from image size to the navigation structure may need to change between devices to ensure a good user experience.

Today’s web development is not about one-size-fits-all solutions; it’s about taking advantage of the opportunities presented by new technologies. Responsive web design requires early planning, but the reward is a flexible, beautiful site that works as well on a smartphone as a desktop.

Why it matters

Media Genesis

The size of the screen and the method of input (keyboard or gesture) have tremendous impact on how visitors interact with your site, and people are now moving between multiple devices to access online content.

According to the Pew Research Center, among American adults, 58 percent have a desktop, 61 percent have a laptop, 46 percent have a smartphone, and 18 percent have a tablet. Microsoft predicts that mobile will overtake non-mobile internet use by 2014.

Mobile technologies are changing the way consumers interact online, but many companies are not changing to accommodate their clients. Neil Patel, founder of KISSMetrics, notes that while more than half of smartphone users will buy from a mobile site, less than 5 percent of brands actually have a mobile site.

Ignoring responsive web design could be a huge mistake for any brand, as a bad mobile experience will give your visitors a bad impression of you. According to Compuware, 40 percent of visitors will go to a competitor if you don’t offer a good mobile experience.

Responsive web design is one way to help ensure a good user experience across multiple devices. A good user experience can translate to more visitors, more sales, and a stronger overall web presence.

According to Forbes, “Beginning April 21, Google will use mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal in search results, rewarding websites that are fully optimized for mobile platforms.

Most modifications to the all-important Google Search Algorithm have only a low-weight impact on search results, however Google says the effect of this change will be profound. It is very important for any business owner with a website to respond accordingly.”

7 FREE Actions to Expand Your Businesses Exposure

By SoftwareGirl

Most business owners are look to expand their business and most business owners know about TV and radio ads and how expensive those can be. Using the premise of sowing and reaping, you can expand your business exposure using simple methods.

Basically, you will give away something in exchange for their name and email address so that you can keep in touch with them. Normally it takes between 7-9 touch points or pieces of content to turn a prospect into a buying customer. Feed them often enough with valuable content and you will become an expert in their eyes and then they will purchase from you.

1. Local businesses wanting more customers in surrounding towns can add those town names to the keywords for their website. Even if your business is digital and you know you’ll be physically in a certain area for a specific period of time, you can use the same technique along with creating a blog post and email campaign to those in the target area to let them know that you would like to work with them during that time. This is very easy to do. Let’s say you are located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. You would simply to go Google and type in “cities within 50 miles of colorado springs” and you will receive several links with the surrounding cities and towns.

2. Reach out to radio stations and let them know you’re looking to expand or you’ll physically be in the area, let them know what you do and that you would like to speak on their station about a particular free offer that you have put together for their listeners. Let them know that you are available for interviews! Have their listeners sign up for a yummy piece of content that would be of great interest.

3. Create a “sizzle reel” for your website and put it on YouTube as well. You could feature your Signature Service and also mention that you are currently working to expand into a certain area. Direct people in the video back to your website to sign up to get your yummy offer.

4. Video of tips/tricks for YouTube and Facebook. Be you have a particular pet peeve about something in your industry, this is also a great way to educate your ideal client. Don’t be afraid to be controversial because that will get a conversation going and create more interest about your field.

5. Volunteer your services to local non-profit agencies and first responders. They are out in the public all the time and they are respectable citizens.

6. Be sure to claim your Google Places ad and utilize it to direct people to your website. Be sure to have your hours of operation on the ad along with your phone number so people can contact you. If you’re in a hard to find location, include a map or a link to Google maps so that they can just click and navigate to your front door.

7. Get out and network in the community by offering value added information at a free event. This could take the form of a teleseminar or webinar to really expand your global reach. At the free event, invite people to a discovery discussion where you could find out if you’re a fit to work together.

10 Ways to Expand Your Brick and Mortar Business – Part 2 of 2

By SoftwareGirl

This post is a continuation of 10 Ways to Expand Your Brick and Mortar Business – Part 1

Meaningful content on the website. Due to the Google search engine, it is imperative that meaningful content be placed regularly on your website. That is why most static websites do not rank well with the search engines. The search engines and your potential customers are interested in what is new and exciting. If you just have a billboard website that states your name, address and phone number, and your competitor has a website that talks about weekly events, what’s new in the industry, new inventory, new employees and is constantly updating their website, they will naturally outrank you in the search engines. Ranking is what the industry is all about because let’s face it, if you’re not on the first page or two of search results, most folks will never see your website. The object is to engage your customer so they see you as a friend even before they pick up the phone or park in front of your business. People buy from people they know, like and trust. They want to see people and people in motion on your website rather than just having pretty pictures and text to read.

Google places. Google places is a free ad for businesses so that their basic information can be found out on the internet. Optimally, your place on Google places will also have a link to your highly interactive website along with your business hours and a map so that your business can be located.

Host events. Your business needs to be a hub of activity and the way to make it a hub of activity is to host events. Invite people into your business. Host a Chamber of Commerce after hours event, ol’ Cal would often film the commercials at his lot so there was always a new animal to view. You can also invite people in for free maintenance or checkups to ensure they will not need expensive service later. For a car dealership, offer to have heater and air conditioning check ups, tire rotation, brake inspection, belt and hose inspection and other easy value added services. The events you host are done to add value to the customer experience. When you add enough value, your prospective customer will come to see you as a trusted resource.

Incredible Offer. You want to give prospective customers an incredible offer. For the car lot, it could be a coupon book for discount services or free detailing on their current vehicle. When you give the incredible offer it is always something they would definitely want and it is in exchange for their name and email. You will continue to use their name and email to notify them of future events and other items of interest.

Complimentary Products. Once your customers purchase an item or service from you, they usually will purchase complimentary products to make their initial purchase last longer or to decorate their initial purchase. In the example of the used cars, complimentary products would include extended warranties, car insurance, supplemental car insurance (like AAA), car washes, car audio, specialty rims, car security, tinted windows, windshield replacement and repair, mobile oil change services, after market part suppliers and apparel.

Digital Products. Digital products are great because you can make them once and sell them over and over again. Digital products for a car dealership might include a video of what to check when buying a used car, it could be an affiliate link to a supplier that carries something that is commonly ordered that you choose not to stock, digital products could be tickets to a concert for a celebrity that happens to be coming to town next week that sponsors your vehicles, or sound file of what your cool mufflers actually sound like when installed on your car. You’re probably laughing about that last one but that is an actual product…and my friend paid $29 for that sound file….still laughing?

Newsletter. The newsletter is published at least twice a month telling your customers about upcoming new events and information having to do with your business. You can also tell them funny stories or invite to future events. For the car business, a newsletter could be used to notify customers of recalls and give them ways to quickly and easily take care of needed maintenance. Let them know about your shuttle service.

Social Media. Social media is where you create a community around your business. You’re still being of service and it helps to create a buzz around your business. For the car dealer, you might want to list videos of the latest sliding cars due to the ice storm last week, or pictures of the most modified cars. You could have poll on the upcoming changes in the new car models. You could have a poll on whether girls or guys like a particular model better than the other. You would want to take pictures of your live events and post those up on social media for others to see.

If you like what you read in this article and would like to see how you can expand YOUR business, apply for a complimentary Action Strategy Session so that you can have a clear roadmap to take your busines to the next level! The Action Strategy Session is valued at $297.00 and will give you concrete ways that you can move forward in your business.

Create Your Own Groupon – Part 1

By SoftwareGirl

Using Groupon can be very exciting for a business. Sometimes it can be too exciting. Take for example this bakery in the UK who says they lost $19,500.00 due to having to pay for supplemental labor during the Groupon special. The bakery owner underestimated how popular the special would be and 8,500 people signed up for the offer. What was the offer? 12 cupcakes for $10 which were normally priced at $40. She lost between $2.90 and $4.70 on each dozen.

What can be learned from this? The bakery owner’s goal was more business. Obviously Groupon upheld their end of the deal there. It sounds like in this case, too much of a good thing was…well, too much!

Limit Your Exposure

Groupon does allow you to limit your offer so if you know you’re not willing to bring in extra staff and train them for the rush that Groupon will create, limit the offer to the first X number of orders. The trick is managing the mind tricks that will inevitably come when the rush is over and you tell yourself, “Gee, I bet we could’ve done 50 more orders”.

Know What Your Normal Staff Can Handle

The worst thing that could happen is that your staff is stressed during the offer and they walk out on you leaving you with an enormous amount of offers that you cannot fill. Look at your current production. Are you able to handle any more orders without bringing in help? Ask your team for their input. If they don’t think they can handle and extra 2500 orders or whatever your limiter is, then there’s your answer.

Bring in Extra Help and Train Them

Have a meeting with your team based on the questions you asked them about the temporary increase in production. You did ask them, right? Our example bakery was only used to making 100 cupcakes a month. Let your team know that their jobs are secure and that you are bringing in extra help for the Groupon offer only and you’ll be letting the temporary help go after the offer expires. Also let your team know that you’ll be treating them to something special after the offer expires as a thank you for their assistance during the busy time.

Give a coupon or book of coupons for repeat business.

With each Groupon offer that you fulfill, include a coupon or book of coupons for special offers that you will be having on your own over the course of the next year. This will cost you very little and the payoff can be huge! Get creative with the offers such as buy one get one, refer a friend and get half off, buy 2 get 3rd free and so on. By extending the specials over the course of the year, there are many ways for that customer to return to you. Most customers will only take you up on one or two coupons through the course of the year.

Check back for more ideas in the second part of this article which will appear in a few days.

Turning Billboard Websites into Profit Centers

By SoftwareGirl

Ten years ago all you needed to drive more business to your door step was just to create your webpage. These webpages of yesteryear consisted of your business name, address, phone numbers and your hours of operation. They were like billboards on the internet information highway. Like billboards though, you didn’t know if your website was displayed unless you physically looked at it. You weren’t sure who else saw it or if there was an interest in your products and services until someday in the future the customer happened to mention that they saw your billboard website during a transaction with you. Was the billboard a good investment in terms of advertising dollars? Exactly how much business could you attribute to someone seeing your website? If your business actually was the “last chance” gas station, maybe you would know that the website actually drove traffic literally to your door, otherwise, you were likely clueless. Do you have the proper tools on your website today to establish a relationship with someone who sees it? Get ready to do your inventory!

Today business websites are buzzing hubs of activity and can drive and conduct business independently of any human interaction. So what exactly do you need and why?

You will want to begin building a database of potential and current customers. The database will reside in an autoresponder program and the people whose information is contained in the database will need to have opted in to your database so that you can communicate with them and remain in compliance with anti-spam federal laws. There are many different autoresponder programs that you can use.

The people will enter in their own information into your database by way of your optin page which is connected to your autoresponder. Once they have agreed to receive communication from you, you can send them newsletters and advance notification of any sales that you might be having in the near future.

Having an online store is another way that customers can interact with your business. You have specialized knowledge and information that you customers are interested in and you can help them to solve problems with your specialized information. You can hold special online classes and notify your customers of the special classes via your autoresponder. If you direct them to a special page about the class, you can also have them register and pay for the class on the same page. You can arrange for payment via your merchant account or via PayPal.

The beauty of all of this comes in the next arena which is the online store. I love this part because this is where the the machines begin to work for the humans! Once you have created some products of your own or acquire the rights to sell other people’s products, you can create your own online store where your customers can shop anytime of the day or night.

To recap, you’ll need the following items to upgrade your website:

Autoresponder (contains your database)
Merchant account
Online store

If you need assistance with any of these, an Action Strategy Session would definitely benefit you! Secure your spot at http://tungle.me/joanpounds so that we can have a conversation to take your website to the next level!

Grow Your Leads by a Level of 10

By SoftwareGirl

With Anthony Robbins and Chet Holmes

Do you want to massively increase your flow of targeted leads, without increasing your marketing budget? Tony Robbins, recognized by Accenture, Harvard Business Review and American Express for his business accumen, and Chet Holmes, author of the best selling author of “The Ultimate Sales Machine”, show how to increase your lead flow by 10 times, with strategies and techniques that work for small business as well as multi-billion dollar corporations.

3 Steps to Attract 1000 Fans

By SoftwareGirl

You’ve created your blog and you’re wondering why you’re not getting traffic? You have to actually tell people about all the great things that you have created for them! Wouldn’t it be great to be able to create something that will just work by itself so that you can concentrate on your business? This is where social networking enters the marketing arena. This will be a very tactical post that tells you exactly how to accomplish getting more fans, so let’s get started!

Twitter

Set Up Your Profile Have you set your profile? Really, go look at it. Do you have your picture out there? 95% of people will not connect to others who have not put their picture on their profile. Why? Because they feel like they are trying to hide something or are otherwise dishonest. Is your bio blank? Go ahead and add some information there such as where you live, what you do, where you work, who your best customer is. It doesn’t need to go into really personal details, but give people something to help you and determine if they want to connect with you. Lastly you’ll want to create a background for your profile. It makes you stand out!

Find Software I’m willing to bet that you don’t have time to be interrupt your work 10 times a day to make sure you tweet something to your followers. Wait! I’ll have followers?! Yes, what you have to say is important and people will follow you to hear what you have to say. Wouldn’t it be great to have a system to automatically take care of making sure you connect with your present and future clients? The software I use for this task is called Tweet Adder. Tweet Adder is great because it works silently in the background on your behalf. They even have a 30-Day free trial.

Add People I’m sure that you know the top performers in your industry. Wouldn’t it be great to find out who is following those people and wouldn’t it be even better if those people followed you too? Or, better yet, wouldn’t you like to know who the influencers in your industry are following? Simply set up the software to follow the followers of your influential people along with who the influencers follow and set the software to follow back all who follow you and you’re on your way to creating your first 100 fans in record time!

Start Tweeting This seems pretty obvious; however, you’d be surprised at how many people simply do not do this. Tweet about what is new and interesting in your business. Are you having a new product promotion? Will your store hours be changing for the season? Is there something your current customers should be thinking about or doing to make things easier for themselves? Tell them about it and include a link back to your website to get more information or make an appointment. Tweetmeme is a great free plug-in for tweeting about what you have just posted on your blog.

Facebook

Create a Fan Page Create a Fan Page for your business so that people can read about the new and interesting things that your business is doing. Set up an opt-in area with some valuable content that you give away for free when people click the “like” button on your fan page. That way they stay up-to-date with your business. This will help you to build your prospective customer list. Set your blog up with Networked Blogs and your blog posts will automatically appear on your Fan Page.

Invite Friends Invite your friends to like your business fan page so that they can stay up to date with what your business is doing and when they hear of someone needing your products or services, they can refer them.

Ask High Profile People to Become Fans You’d be surprised at how many influential people will actually help you on your way by liking your business fan page. They remember what it was like when they started out and once others see that they are following you, their fans will want to follow you too!

Post Regularly When you post to your blog, you’ll want to also tweet about each post and place a bit of the article on your fan page with a link back to your blog. You can set up your blog to automatically publish to your fan page so that you don’t have to update your fan page. It is automatically done for you! I love it when the computers work for me.

Top Lists

Create a Title The best way to start to create a top whatever list is to just create a title. Once you have the title, you can go about the work to create the list. Top lists drive close to 30% more traffic compared to other types of posts and they’re so easy to create.

Outsource If you don’t have the time to create your list, you can outsource it. I would recommend posting an ad on Fiverr.com and see if you can find someone to do the work for you.

Post Of course, once you have the post created, you’ll want to post it to your blog and watch to see how much traffic you receive. You’ll be amazed.

Twitter/Facebook Yes, once again, you’ll want to tweet and post to your Fan page that you have a new post on your blog. If you’ve already set Tweetmeme and Networked Blogs up to go automatically, it’s already been done for you!

Facebook Fanpages Attract New Clients

By SoftwareGirl

Facebook is a wonderful tool to help you attract potential clients. I have put together a video to assist you in creating a fan page for your business and a landing page.

A fan page is a page that describes your business or organization. A landing page is a separate page within Facebook where you can make an incredible offer to a potential client while receiving their name and e-mail in return. This information helps you to ethically market to your potential client and build a fruitful relationship.

I have put together a step-by-step video to teach you how to create your fan page and your landing page. Take a look and let me know what you think by leaving a comment!