Why use a contact form

Is it better to Have a Contact form or to display an email address? 

The entire point of having a website is for visitors to contact you and become your client. In order for them to contact you, you should provide a way to do so on your website.

Are you wondering whether you should use a contact form or display a simple email address?

Both methods can work, but here are some reasons why a contact form could be better. 

  1. It looks professional
  2. It can send emails to several accounts
  3. It hides your email address, so you get less spam 🙂
  4. Visitors can contact you from your website directly
  5. You can connect your form to an email list 
  6. It can collect valuable information

Look professional

The most common features on websites are contact forms. No matter how small the company, they likely have a contact form. 

Could send emails to several accounts

Multiple email addresses can be added to the form to receive emails. This is useful for bigger teams so that the right people get notified immediately.  

Hide your email address

Showing a plain email address on your website is asking for spam. Who wants to do that? 

Spambots search the internet for email addresses to add to their mailing list by recognizing the @ symbol. A contact form safeguards your email address and lets you add additional spam prevention measures like Google reCaptcha. (you know, the find the traffic lights kind of things)

Visitors can reach out from your website directly

With a contact form, all a user has to do is fill out the form and click the submit button. 

If you display an email address, the user has to copy it into an email software before writing a message.

You can connect your form to an email list

If a user sends you an email, they can also request to be added to your email list so it can grow. Who does not want to do that? 

Collect valuable information

This is my favorite benefit of a contact form. You can have a form that asks for more than just the name and message. Some of the questions I ask prospective clients on my website’s contact form are:

  • How did they find my website? 
  • How long have they been in business? 
  • Do they have a website already? 
  • Are they a local business?
  • What type of service are they interested in?

I believe that the more you learn about a prospective client before the first phone call, the better. 

Recently, I created a website for a local construction company where the contact form filters prospective clients based on their location, project size, and budget, saving the owner a lot of time with clients not in his target audience.

Conclusion

Are you now convinced that you need a contact form? All website platforms—Wix, Squarespace, Weebly, or WordPress—offer contact forms nowadays to easily add to your site. WordPress provides plenty of different plugins for both simple and complicated forms.  

Next time I will post about where to place the Contact forms. Stay tuned!

Did you know that I offer Website Evaluation?
I take your not-money-making website apart, find the issues, and explain how to fix them DIY.

10 Reasons Why LinkTree is killing your SEO

Everyone has an Instagram account these days. If you operate a business of any type, your social media platforms are essential for connecting with both potential and present customers. Social media is a powerful tool if it is leveraged right. Each platform has tools that are designed to help you leverage its power to reach and connect with your audience.

That’s what LinkTree is to Instagram. With the help of LinkTree you are able to connect your audience to other accounts; to a landing page, to an article, to a shop or a signup page or your other social accounts.

However, it is not in your best interest to use LinkTree when it comes to your site.

Do not enter and wrong way traffic signs

What is LinkTree?

LinkTree is a tool inside Instagram. Since Instagram only allows a single link in your bio area, LinkTree offers you a way to store all your links in one place. Then you put the link to your list of links in LinkTree in your bio. From this one link, you are supposed to be able to grow your followers and increase traffic to multiple links. LinkTree provides room for several links based on the package you purchase. You can include your Amazon affiliate link, your website, and your Facebook pages too. All your links housed in one link sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? There’s just one problem.

LinkTree is not good for your website SEO!

10 Reasons You Do NOT Want to Use LinkTree on Instagram

If you don’t have a website, you are fine using LinkTree, because there is no better alternative. It will work for your purposes, help grow followers, and send them to your other social sites, etc. But if you have a website and you’ve filled it with great content and useful information, you do not want to use LinkTree.

Here are 10 reasons why:

  1. Your social link send traffic to LinkTree website and not to your own domain. When a user clicks on your social link, the first thing they’ll see is LinkTree’s site, not yours. Their site offers users their first impression of you and your brand outside of Instagram. And lets face it, it is not much customization that you can do. 😞
  2. The user will have to click at least two times to even get to your real website.
  3. Users are less likely to click beyond the LinkTree page.
  4. Some users may click on a different link or button once they land on the LinkTree page. That means your site gets zero clicks. You miss out on traffic that could have benefited your SEO.
  5. The LinkTree website isn’t customized to your brand – it’s great for theirs though!
  6. LinkTree’s free plan doesn’t even allow you to customize your landing page on their site to your brand. You miss out on some important branding opportunities! This can lead to users feeling disconnected from your brand on Instagram and it may prevent them from pursuing clicking any further.
  7. Users may not ever see your website URL. That means they won’t be able to return to your site later.
  8. Studies indicate that 98% of the visitors to a website do not engage in a transaction on their first visit to the site. That means that a user’s first visit to your site is not likely to result in a booking, consultation, or appointment with you.
  9. To ensure that potential clients have a cohesive experience with you, your brand, and your practice you need YOUR URL in your bio.
  10. When you have the URL to your website in your Instagram bio, it allows potential clients to build familiarity with your brand. They will be more likely to read your blog, learn more about you, and pursue more information about you and your services.

If You Do Not Use LinkTree, What Should You Use?

Use your own website and create your own version of LinkTree inside of your website.
You get the benefit of sending traffic to your site instead of letting LinkTree get the traffic you have created. Traffic to your site is great for its SEO. Why is that important? Ultimately, organic traffic generation increases your conversions and sales. You can use Google Analytics to find out exactly how many visitors you are getting from Instagram.

That just makes sense, right?

You spent your effort, time, and money on creating your brand. When you set up your Instagram landing page, you kept all that consistent, right? You’re creating an image. You probably used your logo to build brand recognition and used professional images to tell your story. It took a lot of work to create a consistent story and connect your products and services to users. It wouldn’t make sense to give that all away. Leverage your IG account for YOUR benefit.

Final Thoughts

LinkTree is fine if you are just starting out and you need a place to put your links. However, if you are serious about leveraging social media and using it to create brand recognition, increase your followers, and make more sales, you will benefit more from using the link to your website in your IG bio.  If you want to, you can create a landing page that houses all your links. It would serve you as well as LinkTree, but provide you with a lot more!

Steel BuiLding Construction Company

CASE STUDY – Steel Building Construction Company

Summary of services: new website design | responsible and mobile-friendly layout | SEO implementation

Challenges & Solutions

The construction industry is growing at a rapid pace, but without a well-designed site, companies are getting left behind. 
Tridome Structures owners realized that they need a new website to support their sales team effort to reach new clients and new industries.

Tridome Structures LLC’s previous website did not provide much information about the company and its offers for different industries. We needed to structure the website 20+ pages and showcase all the amazing projects they have done around the USA and Canada.

The company already had their market research and copywriting for the website, which was a great help.
Our project was to take the copywriting and the market research and create a brand new website, which supports the sales team and gives tremendous information for different industries looking for steel buildings.
The new website includes individual pages for each industry and explains the benefits of using steel for large outdoor buildings.

Client: Tridome Structures LLC

 

Turek Web Design has been a true asset for our company. Our new webpage is dynamic and professional. Working with Monika has been a true pleasure. She is extremely responsive, accommodating, knowledgeable and always comes to meetings with great suggestions while taking in the needs of our company and the design we were striving for. Our team would highly recommend Turek Web Design for all of your design needs!

Erin Broude

CEO , Tridome Structures LLC

6 Reasons Why Blogging is Important for Your Business

You’ve probably found yourself spending more time online lately. Since you are searching, working, or socializing more than usual, you may have noticed a lot of buzz about blogging. Blogs are not new they got their start in the late 90s. They started out more as an online journal. But over the last few years, they’ve evolved into an integral part of businesses both small and large. It may surprise you to learn that blogging can provide numerous benefits for your business. Here are six reasons why it’s important to maintain a business blog.

Quality Content Helps Drive Traffic to Your Site

Ultimately, your blog posts will need to provide your audience with value-rich content. Most business websites use blogs as a way to drive more traffic to their sites. Blogging is an ideal way to increase your search ranking. There are basically two main ways a blog helps search engine optimization.

  1. A business blog gets updated regularly. Every time a new blog is posted, it offers another opportunity to make your site more visible to your potential clients. Search engines tend to take notice of sites with fresh content. Well-optimized content can help your site appear in search engine results for a variety of search terms. This ultimately brings more visitors to your website and over time, gradually increases traffic.
  2. Blogs can be beneficial for increasing your social media performance. When you have blog post content that adds value, is compelling and engaging, users tend to share it across social media outlets. As your content reaches a wider audience, your social media engagement and reach expand.

Blogs Can Keep Your Audience Updated About the Business

You as a business owner can think of blogging as a direct communication channel with your audience. It can be leveraged to keep customers and potential customers in the loop about your business. Your website content is more straightforward and practical. A business blog is more flexible and casual making it easier to connect with customers. You can share updates in such a way that it demonstrates who you are and not just what you do. It’s the perfect space to go into more depth about your products and services, comment on industry trends, and share timely content.

Get Valuable Feedback from Customers

A business website does a great job of presenting customers with the information they need. It’s only one-way communication. Customers don’t usually have room to ask questions, start a conversation, or comment. This is what gives a blog power. It can be designed to give your customers a voice. You can encourage feedback and discussion in the comment section of a blog. When you engage in great conversations with customers, you build trust, rapport, and authority for your brand. You also get to see your business from their point of view so you can make improvements where necessary.

Relay More Information About Your Products

Relevant content gives you the space to go into more in-depth explanations about your products or services. You have room to discuss how they are used and their advantages. You can share reviews, provide case studies, explore some of the specific benefits, or provide “how-to” guides with your target audience. This type of content helps to establish your company as an authority in the industry. This builds a knowledge bank; it also helps breed creativity and innovation. When you provide readers with deeper, more complex information on your posts, you are more likely to generate more ideas.

Quality Content Are Useful For Generating Leads

Search engines index blogs separate from the rest of your site. This provides a great opportunity for it to generate leads if you add a CTA or “call to action” to each post. This can be as simple as asking the reader to give you a call or schedule an appointment. It can also be an offer such as a free eBook, template, free trial, or some other type of content that visitors are willing to trade their information to receive. It’s not difficult to develop a CTA and involves just a few steps.

  • Create a piece of valuable content your visitors are like to exchange their information for.
  • Offer the free content and call-to-action by adding a popup or banner in your post.
  • Set up a landing page to send people who click the call-to-action. This is the page you will use to capture their information.
  • Once a visitor provides their information (email or phone number), they get access to the promised content.

You’ve got the lead and they receive valuable information in exchange.
Now you ask how to write a SEO friendly article?

Blogging and Boosting Your Brand Identity

The term branding doesn’t just mean your logo and slogan. Branding is now used to refer to how customers and potential customers respond psychologically and emotionally to your brand. Your blog should be a reflection of your brand and it should incorporate the same slogan, color scheme, and motifs as your brand and your website. You’ll want to continue solidifying your branding that you’ve used on your website and social media platforms. This helps keep your brand consistent. Maintaining a blog helps build your brand identity as it becomes an extension of your brand on a level customers can easily engage.

Final Thoughts

These are just six great reasons why consistent blogging is important to your online presence. As a matter of fact, blogging as a business entity hasn’t ever been more important than it is right now. Your business could experience more leads, more site traffic, well-established industry authority, and a better relationship with your customers. If you haven’t been blogging, then now is a great time to start. If you have been blogging there’s never a better time than now to make the most of it to increase your online visibility. Developing an effective blogging strategy can be just the boost your business needs!

How to write powerful home page content?

In a few seconds of landing on your website, your potential customers have already had their first impression of your company. Your home page is like your home entry door, visitors do not stay there for long, but they expect it to be cleanly kept, and welcoming. Let’s see what do you need to create great home page content?

Keep in mind, attention span is short.

Your home page content needs to give them a clear sense of who you are and what you do and invite them to explore additional pages, learn more about your services. If your page is not what they expected and do not have a clear message, they will leave immediately.

What should powerful home page content include?

The homepage is to grab attention, warm up your audience, take them on a user journey, to create credibility so at the end of the page your visitors trust you and will be ready to take action.

People find it easier to talk about the different services they offer, but if you offer more than one service, then the homepage is not the best place to go into details. You will have plenty of space on the services pages to explain what you do.

Here are a few key things to make your homepage better.

1. Know your primary audience

It sounds simple, but many business owners do not have a defined audience in mind. So ask these questions first.

  • Who is your primary audience?
  • What about the secondary audience?
  • Where do they hang out?
  • What kind of help are they looking for?
  • What kind of information do they need?
  • How will you reach them?

If you are able to answer these questions, that helps you to figure out what content and messages your audience will care about. Once you know your audience, it is easy to connect with them.
(Marketing Evolution has a great article on why it is important to decide your target audience)

2. Start with a Winning Message on the top

You can have the sleekest, most stunning website design, but if visitors can’t understand what you do within seconds, you’re going to lose them. Your top message is the attention-grabbing topic that makes them stop scrolling and pay attention to you.

Take a look at this header. Uber’s website is very clear about what it can do for people who are looking for work. The drivers are the main target,  they can get all the information within reach from the top section of the website.

home page with powerful clear message

3. Include a Value Proposition

The value proposition is a statement that explains why people should choose your service over that provided by your competitors.  

This should identify all the benefits that your services or products offer and describe what makes those benefits valuable. It should be easy to understand, define what you do, make it clear who you want to work with, and explain how you solve their problem.  

4. Explain what problem you solve

Knowing your target audience, you will understand the problems they face. Being specific about what problem your product/service solves for them helps too.

Like:
Outdated old website? – We provide modern, user and mobile-friendly websites for local businesses.
Great website but no traffic?
– We can improve website visibility with search engine optimization.
Need Google Business Listing?We can help with GMB optimization.

5. Tell them why they should choose you

There are very few businesses that do not have fierce competition. Tell visitors what sets you apart and why they should use your service instead of the other guy’s similar one. Be more accurate than, “We have the best people” or “We have the most efficient process”. Make it clear what makes you different, and be specific.

6. Give evidence that your service works

People trust real people. Show them customer success stories. Be short and specific.

You can grab a couple of testimonials from your Google Reviews and add them to your home page. I prefer adding testimonials spread out across pages, rather than dedicating a page solely for them. 

Successful customer reviews

If you can, add names, companies or, logos to strengthen your credibility.

7. Use Keywords

Search engines look for keywords to determine where to place you in their directories or listings. Make sure your home page content includes words associated with your business and more importantly that your prospect is likely to use looking searching for help. 

You need words and the right words.
Search engines do not care about your website layout, or background color, or images. Therefore some professionals, like photographers have a hard time ranking their websites, which are full of images, but lack words. 
A search engine-friendly home page needs a keyword-rich content copy.

8. Action Button / Calls to action / CTA

The goal of your website is to get visitors to take action. The best way to create buttons using action verbs like, Buy Now, Sign Up, Download this, or that. 

9. Mobile-friendly navitation

Make your website mobile-friendly, and easy to navigate. Your visitors should be able to instantly determine where to locate the information they need. My approach to home page design is to add as much info as possible to the home page. Mobile users scroll up and down easily, but it is harder for them to click on the menu on the top. 
The home page should promote your inner pages with easy hyperlinks or buttons.

10. Add images to grab attention

Images reinforce the message. Have you heard that “an image is worth a thousand words”? Most of the time visitors do not read all the words but scan the page to look for clues. Therefore it is good to use images. Visitors can emotionally connect to images and that is what makes it so powerful. Unique images grab attention easier than words. 


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