1. Perception is Reality

An outdated, poorly designed website is about as inviting as a plate of stale food so be mindful of what you are serving your current and prospective customers on your site.

Good website design is a crucial part of how site visitors will perceive your brand; there’s no question in our minds that customers trust your brand based on what they see on the Web. It determines whether or not people will jump off after landing on a page or click through to view more pages, watch a video, or fill out the contact box for more information. Design a website that is clean and uncluttered, with images that support your brand’s story and invite visitors to stay on the page.

2. Go Mobile

By 2014, it is predicted that more people will access the internet via their smartphones than their desktop computers. Smartphone market penetration has skyrocketed; according to statista.com, market penetration in 2014 is projected to reach 64 percent of all new handset sales, and IBM reports that mobile commerce sales now account for over 13 percent of total online sales.

Mobile optimized websites are very different looking then their desktop cousins. They are made to accommodate the smaller smartphone screens, touch screens, and gesture-based navigation. There are two way’s you can go with your Mobile optimized site: Smartphone Specific or Responsive Design. Both solutions will be thumb-friendly, require no zooming or panning left to right, only scrolling up and down.

3. Get Video

People like to take in information in different ways—through text, images, or video—so your website should offer various media. Video embedded in your brand’s website boosts visitor engagement or interaction, increases length of time on the page, and is good for SEO.

Think of your videos as online commercials – keep them relatively short and to the point, 60 seconds or less. These snippets of information can be linked to a longer video somewhere else, such as YouTube or Vimeo, which will also provide good back links to your website (another strong SEO strategy).

4. Become More Social

Social networks provide excellent ways to boost your business’ visibility online and your social media accounts should be linked to your website. Cross-promote your social media content with your website to encourage traffic to the site or to promotional landing pages. We recommend embedding widgets on your company website to allow Twitter or Facebook feeds, for example, another great cross-platform marketing tactic.

5. Search Engine Optimize (SEO) and Track

Strong search engine optimization will enhance your website’s organic search engine results. It involves implementing the proper keywords and keyphrases, writing relevant on-page content, and targeted meta tags, title tags, and page descriptions.

Website analytics provide valuable data about how your website is performing—information that will help you grow your business.

At very least you should be tracking this data on a regular basis:

• Where your site visitors are coming from (direct, referral, organic search or paid search)
• Bounce Rate
• What keywords your being found for
• Average visit length
• Top visited pages and landing pages
• Top exit pages

By analyzing this information, we can determine where you are losing your customers and through which channels you are gaining them. We then evaluate the changes necessary to encourage more traffic and convert more visits to sales.

By themselves, these five elements can only go so far, but taken together in a cohesive website development plan can help you turn your website into a valuable online asset for your business.

The post Five Tips to Make Sure Your New Business Website Makes the Right Impression appeared first on Kraus Group Marketing.

• Graphic Designer (Internship)
• Graphic Designer (Temp to Permanent)
• Web Designer (Temp to Permanent)
• Sales Representative/Account Manager
• Office Assistant (Part Time)

The post New Graphic and Web Design Positions Available appeared first on Kraus Group Marketing.

Do you have a GoDaddy website that is down currently?

First of all, I’m sorry to hear that… I know it must be frustrating.

The reason your site and GoDaddy’s site is down is due to the hacker group called Anonymous who took credit for knocking GoDaddy and all of their hosted sites off line.

Despite this not being a direct fault of GoDaddy they are probably one of the least professional hosting companies out there.

From our experience, a company that has developed and hosted hundreds of sites, their servers are slow which leads to poor load times. GoDaddy also has customer service that is comparable to your local cable provider, so if you have an issue, don’t bother calling them, you might as well google it, because after waiting on hold for 30 minutes you are going to get a customer service rep on the phone that reads from a script. Pulling you’re your hair is more fun.

Lastly their server technology is out of date which means that anything more then the most basic website means you need to upgrade your service. So if you are using them because they were the cheapest, well now your paying the same as many of their top rated competition and your still getting the same poor service and load times.

We usually recommend inmotion hosting to our clients, and have had very successful results. If your fed up with GoDaddy, and your numb-minded web developer or IT company that recommended them, please contact us. We’ll get you transitioned over to a much more reliable service.

The post My GoDaddy site is down… Why isn’t my GoDaddy site working? appeared first on Kraus Group Marketing.

Many of our initial conversations with new clients usually steer in the direction of “when will I show up on the first page?” What most do not realize initially is how loaded this question is. Before we answer that question we always have a conversation with our clients explaining what they should expect when it comes to developing their SEO. Here are a few of the main points that we discuss with them:

1. SEO takes time

There are over 255 million websites on the internet today. In 2010 there were 21.4 million websites added to the internet. Whenever a new website is added to the web it is sent and saved on what is called a server. The site will then wait for a search engine to find it on the server and index it. Think of the internet as a massive book that is constantly being updated with more and new information. Whenever your site is found by a search engine it will scroll through your site searching your information and then place you, or index you on one of the pages of the internet. With over 20 million sites being added a year, it can take a while until the search engine is even able to find your site. So don’t be nervous when you type in your site in the search field and nothing comes up for a few days, weeks or even months. In the meantime it would be in your best interest to work on your SEO strategy so that when you do become indexed you start off strong.

2. SEO takes work

So your website is built and your site has been indexed so you’re done now, right? Actually, you have just begun. Building your SEO is an ongoing process that should be looked at as part of your long-term marketing strategy. Once Google sends its Google bots to search your site and indexes one of your pages, it will not come back again, unless you give it a reason to do so. This same mentality goes with people that are searching your site. When you are reading a book, how many times are you going to go back to page one to read it over again? Yes you might go back once or twice to refresh your memory but once you get the information you need you move on. You need to have content that is not only going to cause the search engines to revisit and re-index your site but you also want the viewer to have a reason to keep coming back to your site.

3. SEO takes strategy

Once you begin your SEO you need to make sure it is working. SEO can be a huge investment of your time and if you are not tracking results and making adjustments where needed you’re losing money. Here are a few areas that you need to be looking at on your website:

Who is visiting your site?

If you are putting in the work to get people to visit your site, wouldn’t you want to know how many visits you are getting? What we do for our clients is check the number of visits that they’ve had on a weekly basis. If that number drops off we know that we need to review their site and make changes, whether it is copy changes, adding new pages, or changing the design elements of the site.

What is your bounce rate?

Your bounce rate is measured by the percentage of people that come to your landing page and then either leave instantly or click onto another page on your site. Typically a good bounce rate is below 31%. If your site has a higher bounce rate then you might want to consider either revising your copy or rewriting your Meta descriptions to provide relevant information to not only the end user but to Google as well.

Are you using relevant Keywords?

Content is king in SEO. Though the website design  is very important on keeping people on your site and helps to guide the end user throughout the site, content and keywords are what Google uses to index your site. If you are a Real Estate agent in northern New Jersey you need to have your content rich with those keywords. There is a Keyword tool in Google Adwords that allows you to check the relevance and strength of certain keywords. Take time to search which phrases are most relevant for your industry and write your content based on that information.

One of the services that we offer our clients are maintenance plans in which we track these results on a monthly basis and make the necessary changes and updates to the site as needed.

There are so many facets to Search Engine Optimization and these are just a few snippets of information to help you get better results for your SEO. If you would like to discuss more strategies to build your website ranking give us a call today at 973-998-5742 or browse through our website at The Kraus Group.

The post When will I see SEO results? appeared first on Kraus Group Marketing.

It’s pretty amazing to me that when I ask a company what their marketing budget is that 9 times out of 10 they stare back at me with the “deer in the headlights” look.  It’s really no wonder today that companies tend to be very skeptical about marketing. When you don’t know your business, who your customers are, who your target market is and what your marketing budget is, it is almost impossible to develop a marketing strategy that will bring about positive results.

Companies today are basically throwing marketing ideas at the wall and hoping that maybe one of them sticks.  When results are negative, they take on the attitude that marketing does not work.  This is not the way to develop an effective marketing strategy for your business.  Before you even begin developing a marketing plan there are certain questions that need to be asked and answered:

1.  Who is your target market?

Without knowing who you are trying to target, it is impossible to develop an effective marketing message. For example, if your specialty is restoring classic cars, your marketing message isn’t going to be that you are just a car repair shop.  You’ll end up attracting a young kid who ran his 1997 Chevy Corsica into the ground.  You need to hone in on who you want to attract, their age, their location, their sex, and yes, in some businesses even their ethnic background.   Until you know who your client is how are you going to know how to reach out to them on their level?

2.  Which products provide you with your highest margins?

We are all in business to make money.   It’s just good business to try and sell the product that makes you the most money with the least amount of overhead involved.  Would you rather have to sell 100 widgets at $10 or 1 widget at $1000?

3.  What is your current customer base and what percentage of your business is repeat business vs. new business?

Again I am amazed when I ask clients how many customers they currently have and who they are, that usually the resounding answer is something like: “ummm I’ll have to have my secretary check in on that.”  Marketing to your own book of business gives you a great opportunity to cross-sell your products, grow by referral and maintain retention. It is also important to know how much of your revenue is coming from repeat customers and how much is coming from new customers.  This will help you in determining which group you should be targeting.

4.  What will a lifelong client mean to your business?

We always say that marketing shouldn’t cost, it should pay.  If you gain one new client through your marketing efforts, whether that be acquiring them through your website, a direct mailer that you sent out or a customer referral program that you put in place, the lifelong profit that that client brings could not only pay for your entire marketing budget but also make you a profit.

5.  Where do you want your business to go?

What are your short and long term goals? Do you want your business to grow in certain areas over others? How much do you want to expand in one year? If you don’t know where you want to end with your business how are you going to map the directions to get there?  I cannot stress how important it is to sit down on a monthly basis and track your sales goals, look at your leads, see what is still pending and what needs to be revisited.  It is incredible what you will be able to find when you look at it and with that clarity you are able to put together an actual plan to get you to where you want to go.

6.  What is your marketing budget?

Determining a marketing budget can be a bit difficult.  There are a few strategies that you can use to help you get started and then as you operate with that budget throughout the year you can adjust your spending accordingly:

1. Use a Percentage of Your Revenue:

For small businesses this percentage is usually around 20%, for small to medium size businesses the percentage is around 10-15%, large companies and corporations usually set this percentage between 2-5%.  Depending on the size of your business and your goals you can set your budget within these benchmarks.

2.  Look at what your Competition is Doing:

If using the previous strategy is not accurate enough for you, another strategy that is used is to benchmark what your competition is doing and then set the bar a bit higher.  By doing this you are able to stay in line with industry set budgets but you are getting your name and message out to a greater degree than your competitors.

3.  What Does a New Client Cost?

While the first two options are a good way to benchmark your budget, if you are looking for more accuracy in determining your marketing budget, what you need to do is to first determine how much you want to increase your customer base for the year.  The first step is to determine the acquisition cost of a new customer, then you multiply that cost by the number of new customers that you want to acquire.  For example if it costs $1000 in service, paperwork, and time to acquire a new client and your goal is to grow by 25 clients in a year, then your marketing budget should be $25,000 a year.

These three strategies to determine your budget are only projections and should be reviewed on a regular basis to determine if they are in line with your sales and marketing goals.  The real benefit is that you have goals in place to market your business and an actual and measurable strategy to do so.

If the marketing company that you have been working with is not reviewing this information with you then they are not doing their job.  Give us a call today to receive a free consultation on your marketing goals. You can reach us at 973-998-5742 or visit us online at www.krausgroupmarketing.com

The post Developing a Marketing Plan appeared first on Kraus Group Marketing.

According to Nielsen, it is estimated that one out of every two Americans will have a smart phone by the end of this year.  If your site is not properly formatted to view on a smart phone, chances are that the user will bounce off of your site.  That equates to lost dollars in your pocket.

Not convinced you need a mobile website? Ask yourself these questions:

1. Does your current website have flash?
   From a design perspective a flash website can be very effective in maintaining a viewer’s attention.   A website with great looking images is like a well manicured store front.  Its appearance gives off the impression that you are a healthy, well managed and maintained business.  However, there is a downside to creating your website with flash: mobile devices do not yet have the capability of reading flash.  When a flash website is pulled up on a mobile device, that portion of the website will not be available for viewing on the mobile screen.  I’m sure you’ve all seen the annoying 3D box with the question mark in the center. We can format your website so that any mobile user can view the main points of your site and allow for easy viewing.
2. Is your company a retail business?
   It has been predicted that US online shoppers will double to 132 million in the next five years.* The majority of households today have dual working parents and people are moving towards convenience in everything that they do.  Shoppers are now logging on instead of getting in the car to make their purchases.  If you provide added value to your shopper by not only offering an online store but then also providing the option to use their smart phone, you will surely beat out your competition.
3. Do you have a contact form on your website?
   Any website that offers the opportunity to fill out a contact form needs to have a mobile website.  A contact form on a website is like having a full time sales person and customer service rep on staff.  It is the easiest way to gain a hot lead.  If someone pulls up your website on their phone and they do not have any easy way to request more information, I guarantee they will leave your site with small hopes that they will ever return.
4. Is Search Engine Optimization important to you?
   We all know that getting your website on the first page of Google is determined by how your site is being crawled and indexed, the better and more relevant copy and the more inbound links you have the better your chances are for coming in with better search results.  What you may not be aware of is that Google has a separate system for indexing your mobile site.  When Google indexes your website, it checks if your web pages are viewable on a mobile device.  If they are, then that information will be included in their mobile site index, essentially allowing Google to see you as offering more relevant information which will boost your ranking.

If you are looking to get ahead of the game and would like to develop a mobile website for your company please call us at The Kraus Group: 973-998-5742 or visit our website at www.krausgroupmarketing.com and fill out our contact form, one of our representatives will get in touch with you right away.

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Marketing has changed dramatically over the past twenty years and most industries are stepping away from the traditional means of advertising (such as newspaper ads) and moving towards interactive or online marketing.  A company’s website, one of their most important sales tools, needs to grab potential client’s attention.  More importantly, it needs to hold their attention.  This is why your bounce rate is so important.

So what exactly is a bounce rate?  A websites bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that view the site and immediately leave or “bounce off” the site instead of viewing more pages.  A bounce rate is measured by two variables: The percentage of website visitors who view just one page of your site and the percentage of visitors who stay on your site for a very short amount of time.

On average, a bounce rate is typically around 40%. A good bounce rate should be at 30% or below.  If your current bounce rate is higher than 40% don’t stress, there are methods you can put in place to help bring this number down.  Here is a list of strategies that can help you lower your bounce rate:

1.  Invest in a professionally designed website

One of the biggest reasons why people bounce off of a site is due to bad design and the presentation of the wrong message.  Presentation is important.  A site that is designed with unstructured lines, conflicting colors, amateur font sizes and/or images will cause the end user to quickly leave your site.

While many companies are looking to cut their costs in today’s economy, choosing a web designer that is competing with price will ultimately end up costing more in the long-run.  Usually with lower costs comes less experience which can create longer processes and a poorly designed website.  Your focus should be on the value and the ROI. Your web designer should be able to not only create an aesthetically pleasing site, but they also need to act as your marketing consultant and be well versed in optimizing your site. If you web designer is not asking you questions about who your target market is, what your vision, mission and values are and what you expect to gain from your site, you need to run… and fast!

2.  Create Easy Navigation

We are a time sensitive, need-to-know-now society.  Think about when you are searching for something on-line.  You need to find your answer quick.  If a website does not offer easy navigation, the person viewing it does not want to waste his or her time trying to find the right page, and trust me, they won’t.  A website should be aesthetically pleasing and lead the end user throughout the site.  Hire a web designer that not only has the understanding of design elements and how it affects the end user but that also has an understanding of end user web surfing habits.  The end user should be able to find what they are looking for in a few clicks, if not they will click onto another site.  To get an idea of a few sites with great navigation visit www.krausgroupmarketing.com and view the portfolio section.

3.  Write Great Copy & Use Great Keywords.

We always preach that content is king.  When you’ve built a great website that is easy to follow, and visually pleasing, the next step is to fill those pages with relevant content.  Not only will good copy help with your SEO, but when a potential client finds what they are looking for, it is almost guaranteed that they will want to dig deeper into the information that you provided on your site.

You also need to focus on choosing the right keywords.  Your bounce rate could have negative effects with your placement on search engines.  One of the factors Google analyzes on your site is not only how many people are viewing your site but also how long they are staying on your site and how many pages they are clicking through.  As the “Google-bots” index your site, they will look to see if the information on the pages relates to the content and keywords that are being used.  For example, if you own a travel agency and your keywords have to do with the weather conditions of tropical areas, that might cause you to have a higher bounce rate.  If someone wants to know how hot it is in the Caribbean and they are brought to a page that shows hotel prices in the Caribbean, they may quickly leave your site.  Once Google realizes this, down your sites rankings go.

Though there are several strategies to lower your bounce rate, starting with these three strategies is a great way to not only a great way to keep people on your site, but also increase your chances for better search engine rankings, which means more opportunity for people to see your site.

The post How Can I Lower My Web Sites Bounce Rate? appeared first on Kraus Group Marketing.

Miles for Matheny raises funds for Matheny’s Center of Medicine and Dentistry which provides specialized outpatient care to disabled children, adolescents and adults who are residents of New Jersey.

The Kraus Group team completed the 32 mile cycling ride.  Nick Kraus, the President of The Kraus Group said: “I am proud to be involved in such an amazing organization.”

The Kraus Group is currently working on developing a new website for Arts Access, a division of Matheny, whose mission is to enable people with disabilities to access,experience, and create fine art.

Michelle Kraus, VP of Sales at The Kraus Group says: “Working with this organization has been very rewarding and enlightening.  They are creating such a positive awareness in New Jersey and we are so excited to be able to support them while getting some great exercise!”

To learn more about this organization please visit www.Matheny.org

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