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Marketing

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Marketing

We hear this question all the time, how much should I spend on my marketing?   Most businesses on average spend 10-12% of their budget on their marketing/advertising efforts.   Up to 45% of their marketing budget is exclusively reserved for digital, and that is expected to double by 2021.    The trend toward digital is increasing and growing all the time, more and more people are turning away from traditional advertising methods (phone books, billboards, radio and TV ads).   Digital advertising and marketing is measurable, faster to adjust and has a broader reach. If you're a new business, you may be wondering what does 10-12% of my budget mean to me?   The simplest way to solve this, is to ask yourself "how much do I want to make this year?" and figure a minimum of 11% of that number

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Business, Marketing, Mobile, Mobile Apps, Uncategorized

Unless you own a tech company that builds and sells apps, chances are your small business does not have the knowledge or  capability of creating an app on your own.  There are plenty of companies out there to choose from. Cost Factors Mobile apps are all different.  They have a number of moving parts, and each one of them impacts the cost.  Primary examples that affect cost: Platform Functionality Design Like every other aspect of mobile technology, app building is getting faster, easier and better.   Mobile vs. Desktop "Within the last few years the world has seen mobile usage surpass desktop.  Mobile technology and availability are spurring on the growing trend of people accessing the Internet through their mobile devices, rather than desktops and laptops.  This mobile usage is mostly spent on apps, which means businesses need to have a custom-built app developed to

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Business, Marketing, Mobile Apps, Uncategorized, Web Design

    One of the biggest benefits of having a mobile app for your small business is always being within reach.  Always being available will help strengthen your connection to the customer and in return, strengthen your brand. Building brand recognition  "The more your audience trusts you, the more likely they’ll be to listen to later sales pitches and even commit to your brand.  With an app, you’ll demonstrate to your users why they should trust you by showing, rather than telling, what your brand stands for." - 4 Ways Your Business Can Benefit From Having a Mobile App Looking to learn more about how QC Total Tech can help your small business create its own mobile app?  Give us a ring at 563-823-1114 or fill out our form at  https://www.qctotaltech.com/contact-us/ and a team member will be in touch shortly.

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Business, Marketing, QC Web Design, Uncategorized, Web Design

Set yourself apart from your competition. Tailored To You In order to captivate people's attention, your business should have a site that is custom built for your company, to grab your customers and/or clients. A DIY website builder isn't going to give you that since they are created to look and do basically the same things. One Size Just Doesn't Fit All "Customization is ALWAYS required because no matter how much you may like the look of a template, there is always some feature that doesn’t quite meet your needs.  You can spend more time trying to fit into or change a template than developing a site from scratch.  If you do happen to find one that meets your needs, do you really want to look like the potentially hundreds of other sites out there that picked the same template?" - When DIY becomes OMG If

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Business, Marketing, QC Web Design, Web Design

  You’ve worked hard to build your business.  Now all you want is to get it out there for everyone to see.  The best way to reach as many potential clients as possible is through building an informative, user friendly web site.  While you may want to save money, a DIY website builder is not the best way to do that. Time & Effort You built it so that makes it yours, doesn't it? Probably not! Make sure you read the terms and conditions before signing because most DIY builders have it in their terms that they can cut off your site at any time.  They are known to change anything at any point in time and if you violate their policy, they can turn off your account. The worst part is that if you decide to terminate early, you won't be able to keep your site. The Human

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Business, Internet Advertising, Marketing, QC Web Design, Web Design

Occasionally, we speak with business owners who do not fully understand the difference between a professional web design service and “DIY” service.  As a business we can comprehend your worry about cost.  You have probably thought about saving money by creating it yourself or letting a close friend or family member. Should you build your own web site?  Maybe… but probably not! Every professional web company should know that your site should include a strategy to generate leads and/or sales.  It should have well placed call to action (or CTA) and serve as a way to educate clients and/or customers about your products and/or services.  It should also include a way to contact your business during off hours. Make A Good Impression! A well built custom web site plays a large part in your marketing strategy and is the face of your company online.

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Business, Marketing, QC Web Design, Web Design

There are plenty of DIY projects that you can tackle yourself, but your web site is NOT one of them! Some people think it’s simple to build a web site.  There are many DIY web designing tools available which allow you to “drag & drop” pictures, and “insert text” making it look so easy.  Keep in mind that these tools use templates that are generic and not specifically designed to meet your business needs and/or goals. What a Pro Knows Web development requires behind the scenes coding that’s done by skilled web developers.  Building a great looking website is hard and incredibly time consuming.  A professional will know: The Look - Adding too many design elements can confuse users and make it harder for them to perform anything. Navigation - Users need to be lead.  Think of them as children using your

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Business, Marketing, QC Web Design, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Terms, Web Design

Did you know that a little while back the Google webmaster team decided to start ranking websites by how long it takes a page to load? Page Speed Matters to Google Still using criteria like the Page Title, META Description, etc, your Google ranking will now take into consideration how long it takes a page to load on your site. According to Google if pages have a loading time of more than one second it damages the user experience.  Google admits that a one second page load time is their overall goal and base it off each page of your site   What Can Lower Your Page Speed? Some examples that may affect overall web page performance: Server performance Lots of traffic Extra large images (and complex file formats) Code density Text graphics Etc… Page Speed Matters to Visitors When a website loads quickly, people are

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Business, Marketing, QC Web Design, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Terms, Web Design

Technical Crawlability for Search Engines Nothing’s can be more irritating than seeing your web site being lower on the search engine ranking than your competition.  It may be even more annoying that you're not sure how they did it. The information Search Engines are looking for when crawling your web site needs to be in the infrastructure of your website. Some are how a web site provides information to Search Engines (like Google, Yahoo and Bing) when they index the pages of the site.  Examples are:  having a content site map (or an XML file) for Search Engines to properly index, and also making sure you don't have any broken or missing links. Some are about the initiatives the web site designer takes to notify Search Engines of changes made to the site.  Some examples are:  letting Search Engines know when something has been

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Business, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Terms, Traffic, Web Design

By now everyone should know that link building is one of the most important SEO techniques. "Google wasn’t the first search engine to count links as “votes,” but it was the first search engine to rely heavily on link analysis as a way to improve relevancy." - Chapter 6: Link building & ranking in search engines Not All Links Are The Same Some examples of proper backlink building include: Press Releases Blog or Forum Comments & Profiles Directories Business Network Profiles Social Media Internal Site Links Paid Ad Links External kinks from reputable sites will give you much better results than just by commenting on social media or blogs, and getting external links will eventually lead to even more SEO success. To learn more about SEO at QC Total Tech visit https://www.qctotaltech.com/our-services/search-engine-optimization/ or give us a call at 563-823-1114.

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