Five Key Tactics a Content Marketing Agency in New York Should Do For Your Website

Is your website pretty on the outside but lacking valuable content?  Then it might be the time you reassess your strategy. A content marketing agency in New York could be just what you need to give your traffic that all-important boost. Here’s what a professional agency could do for you:

1 – Provide clarity and a renewed focus on content

Many business owners are simply too close to their products and services to know how to change for the better. A fresh set of eyes and a new perspective will do wonders for your content. Whether your business offers web design in New York or bicycles in Beijing, a content marketing agency can help you to focus on your target market with content that they will want to read. A professional company will add value to your website in that people will visit more. Regular updates equal regular return visitors. And speaking of content, experts can also….

2 – Bring the latest content ideas to life

Remember when people first started putting videos on their website and before you knew it paint manufacturers were filming their products drying simply because using video was “so in right now”? Well, things haven’t improved so much. This example is a slight exaggeration, but the lesson remains: Whenever a creative new way of communicating comes into play, it doesn’t take long for people to try and apply it to their business in an awkward ‘square peg round hole’ fashion.

Marketing and web strategies are not ‘one size fits all’ because every business is unique. A content marketing agency will help you to apply strategy to your communications – and make sure that you are using the most current, appropriate means of doing so. The improper use of images, infographics, video, blogs, etc. are likely to occur if you don’t seek help from a professional. If you reside in NY, choosing a company offering web design in New York is the best way to avoid common content pitfalls and make sure your website is on point with your brand and voice positioned and projected properly. A specialist can also….

3 – Optimize your website

Small businesses in New York should also be mindful of services such as website optimization. The competition is feirce so finding an SEO company in New York is a significant step to take to keep your business on the www map. At the forefront of developments, SEO strategists are up-to-the-minute when it comes to the latest, ever-changing Google algorithms that will help your website climb to the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Being an SEO strategist is a full-time job for good reason and one which many businesses simply don’t have time for in-house. For the average business owner to learn the methodology, buzzwords and acronyms would take considerable time – by which point it will all have moved on and changed again! It’s a fluid beast that takes the dedication and skill of an expert. From updating your Meta descriptions and title tags to more in-depth structural optimization, once suitably augmented you will find your website getting more visitors than ever before! But how will you track them? Well, you’re in luck! Specialists can also…

4 – Apply Google analytics to your website

Google Analytics is a free tool that businesses find invaluable. Once properly configured, it can tell you how many people have visited your page, the duration of the visit, patterns, visitor behavior and their locations plus plenty more handy measurables. Although Google Analytics is a free tool, a completion, and certification of the Google Analytics course will ensure that the job is executed correctly. When used effectively, this analytics will ultimately provide you with the key to what content works on your website and what doesn’t. Smart content writing will ensue, replacing the previous method of ‘blind’ writing. Useful content will mean more engaged visitors, better ROI from better resource planning and an overall healthier business. Another item from Google includes…

5 – Google my Business

It is super easy to set up Google my Business – and it’s becoming increasingly useful and relevant to companies around the world. It helps your business to stand out by appearing in search results as a ‘card’ as well as in Google Maps when people search for your business or keywords that your website is optimized for. Ask us today how it can help your business.

We hope you found this 5 tactics useful. Hiring a professional content marketing agency can make a huge difference to the success of your business. Let’s get started on applying these tactics to your website and ultimately improving your business’ web presence.

This is the syndicated copy of an original article posted at https://hummingbirdwebdesign.com/five-key-tactics-a-content-marketing-agency-ny-should-do-for-your-website/

Logo design in NY – An Essential Step to Rebrand Your Company

Rebranding a company is a major albeit worthwhile investment. When your logo is your brand – and your brand is a household name, i.e., the Coca Colas and Apples of the world – then perhaps a complete redesign is detrimental. Such companies usually opt for subtle tweaks and modernizations. However, for smaller businesses, the world is quite literally your creative oyster; but where to begin?

What’s in a logo?

Your logo reflects the identity of your brand, it helps you to stand out from your competition, and (when properly designed and planned) becomes synonymous with the trust your customer base has in your company. It is therefore imperative to get it right. It says everything about your company without saying anything at all.

“K.I.S.S.”

“Keep it simple, stupid “is the working method of many creatives and writers alike, and with good reason! Well designed, simplistic logos tend to stand the test of time and escape the pitfalls of looking dated. You don’t want to try and cram your entire brand narrative, history, ethos, products/ services and direction into one logo (trust us, it is near-impossible and rarely works well!). But it is important that your logo is in keeping with your industry, and is something that will resonate with your target audience and existing customers. That said, don’t be afraid to be creative!

Some great examples of creative and minimalist logos include Filmaps – an app where you can share and discover film locations; Bipolar – a design for a Bipolar awareness campaign, and; CodeFish – an app design company. Less really is more and a changeup really can work wonders for your brand.

Know when it is time to rebrand

A rebrand can completely reinvent an organization. If your logo is looking a little dated, no longer fits with the direction of your company or you simply no longer like it, then it is time to make a change. The logo is a huge part of your business, and getting it right is imperative. It is the first logical step in a company rebrand – alongside color palettes and company style.

The whole package

Dare to be bold, but don’t do it alone. If you live in the New York area, it’s best to choose a professional company offering both logo design and web design in New York, so the over all design of the website unites well with the new logo design.

A new logo is fantastic – but if it is in contrast to the outdated website, you should consider modernizing your company’s online presence.   A strong website will instill confidence in your brand: we have all been on enough outdated, malfunctioning and tedious websites to know that they are detrimental to a brand’s reputation.

A sleek, scalable and intuitive website will continue to look after your customers, their impression of your company, and also your bottom line – even while you sleep!

As a web design company in New York, we’ve seen our fair share of misaligned logos and websites – and it barely ever works out well for the organization. Invest time and resource into your brand now to reap residual awards for many years to come.

It’s a tough call to be able to properly align a logo, website and overall brand, so a professional local web design company is often necessary to a prosperous rebrand. They will take you on an exciting and energizing journey from ideas and brainstorm through to the fruition of a seriously effective logo, website, and overall brand.

So often we see small business owners too busy running the business that they just don’t even notice how trends and designs have changed. It’s amazing what a rebrand can do for your business, its reputation and the morale of your employees. Get started today by contacting us for a chat; we’re always all ears (and ideas!)

This is the syndicated copy of an original article posted at https://hummingbirdwebdesign.com/logo-design-ny-essential-step-rebrand-company/

Facebook vs Google advertising – what does this web design company in New York think?

We like to do things properly here at Hummingbird Web Design. Great designs, fantastic wording that generates sales inquiries for our clients, and tight, focused SEO strategy on each page. As we say on our website, we’re “always aiming for PAGE ONE”. You’d expect nothing less with our team, dedicated to top-ranking, beautiful-looking web design in New York.

In this article, we’re pointing you to the opportunities out there for your business with the world’s two biggest search engines, Facebook and Google. “Woah!”, I can hear you say, “but Facebook is not a search engine!”. And to an extent, you’d be right. Facebook is not really good if you’re doing everyday-type searches but for businesses looking for customers, it’s the ultimate search engine.

Let’s say you run a beauty business targeting 18-35 year-old females in Tribeca. You run a typical B2C (business to consumer) company. Business is OK, you’re meeting the bills, but you want a few more customers through your doors so you can pay yourself more at the end of the month and keep a bit extra back in your business checking account.

You have an extra $1,000, and you want to know which advertising platform would be best, Facebook or Google. There are lots of different ways of measuring success in advertising but, for the purpose of this article, all we’re going to consider is “cost of conversion” – how much you have to pay to get someone to buy from you.

But first, what are the main differences between the two platforms?

Let’s take this scenario:

To start, you only want customers from the Tribeca area – no one is going to travel to your shop from the Upper West Side so you don’t want to pay for those people in that location clicking on your advertisement. Both Google and Facebook allow ultra-local targeting.

Next, you only want to target women aged 18-35 years old in Tribeca. This is where Google falls flat – that option doesn’t exist. So, if you bought a Google ad, it might be clicked on by women outside your desired age range and even by men. With Facebook, however, you can be incredibly precise. You can choose who sees your ad by age, likes, interests, income bracket and much more. You can be ultra-targeted and there’s much less chance of spending money paying for clicks from people you don’t want to sell to.

Beauty is a very personal thing. What type of ad will each platform display? Google only allows three lines of text. Facebook allows images and videos – everything you need to capture the attention and then the hearts of your would-be clients.

Just on these features alone, we’d recommend Facebook to you. But do the statistics back that up? There’s years and years’ worth of evidence to look through but what does it actually say?

Experts believe the conversion rate for leads are LOWER on Facebook than Google – in other words, people who visit your website from Google are more likely to buy from you. The problem is that the cost per click is much higher. An average B2C client, like our beauty business, pays 90 cents a click with Facebook but they’d be paying $8 a click with Google.

How does this work out? If you were paying $8 a click from Google and you turned 8 out of 100 visitors into a customer, each cost of conversion is $100. If you were paying 70 cents a click from Facebook and only 3% turned into customers, each cost of conversion is $23.33.

In other words, it costs 328% more to find a customer on Google than it does on Facebook if your primary business is selling to people and not to companies.

As a web design company in New York who cares about small business, we love the opportunity to help and advise you with your advertising goals.   Want to start a conversation with us about web design, search engine optimization, and online advertising? Call Nancy at 516 883 3851 or email nancy@hummingbirdwebdesign.com.

P.S. Our next article is about branding – a big topic. When it comes to logo design in NY, we’ve got a load of useful information to share with you so check back here.

This is the syndicated copy of an original article posted at https://hummingbirdwebdesign.com/facebook-vs-google-advertising-web-design-company-new-york-think/

Why Web Design in New York is an Ongoing Job to Get the Best Results

There’s always the temptation as a small business to have an expert web design company create a stunning website for your business and then divorce yourself from the web project.  Website done, job completed.  But to have a website that gets the best results time after time, what you need is a website that is updated, revised and has regular additions to get top ranking in those search engines.  But how do you know when your website needs updating and what should you change?  Local small business owners need to know that a web design company in New York will keep you on a competitive edge.

Time for an update

Sitting back down with a professional web designer is the important first step in seeing if your website needs an upgrade.  One of the first things they will tell you is that if your website is more than three or four years old, it might need a major overhaul.  This isn’t because your original web designer did anything wrong – it merely means your website is not up to speed with the changes in website design and with the constant changes of the internet in general.

Perhaps the biggest sign that an update is needed is that your website isn’t fully mobile responsive. With the huge focus by Google and other search engines on people using their smartphones to search the internet, your website will never show in those results if your web design doesn’t function well on mobile devices.
A few examples of once popular elements that are now major negatives for your website include:

•    Tables – this was the standard way to build websites a few years ago but doesn’t work now and causes websites to be slow and awkward

•    Flash – there are a few newer alternatives to the Flash player like JavaScript and HTML5 that make it easier to show video on your website

•    Too many designers have worked on it – everyone has been adding their code over the last few years, and the backend of the website is a mess

•    Images on your website have not been appropriately compressed resulting in slow loading time.

Why updated websites rank better

Having your website regularly updated and refreshed is about more than just getting rid of a few outdated elements like Flash.  In fact, it might be considered a vital, regular task that the business needs to do to have good search engine results.

Why might you ask?  Because search engines love fresh content and every time you add or amend something on your website, they are more likely to re-index your website.  When those changes are positive, add to the website and make it more user-friendly, you might see an increase in search rankings and therefore a boost to traffic.

This doesn’t mean make loads of small, pointless changes.  One of the best ways to make your site fresh is to add new content such as blog posts or videos.  A site that is updated at least two or three times a week is considered a freshly updated site, so if you use a schedule of new content, minor updates and the occasion big change, you can keep your website ranking well.  Companies focusing on web design in New York will apply these tactics to improve ranking.

Rebranding

A website overhaul is a great chance to look at the overall branding on your company and see if you want to change other elements such as your logo.  This might mean that you want to work with a company who offers logo design in NY. You might want an entire redesign of the logo with new colors, fonts and a fresh look to work in sync with the new web design.

Deciding about rebranding is something you want to do before you approach any web designer as there is a big difference between updating old elements and a complete rebrand.  Look at the costs involved, if your brand really doesn’t suit your company any longer see just how far you want to go.

Conclusion

Regular updates to your website and periodical redesign programs ensure that your site is fresh, up to date and offers the best user experience.  It also allows the chance to change things that aren’t working, bring focus on new keywords or new target customers and test what works and what doesn’t.  By working with professional web designers, you can have a program of changes that benefit the website and keep it showing as fresh to those search engine bots.

This is the syndicated copy of an original article posted at https://hummingbirdwebdesign.com/web-design-new-york-ongoing-job-get-best-results/

How to choose the right web development company

Starting a business in today’s technology-led world is easier than ever before. With more tools and guidance at our disposal, it is relatively easy to become your own boss. Whether you are a doing web design in New York, fashion in London or dog walking in Paris, an idea and a laptop is all many people need to begin their journey. However, the online marketplace is also teeming with competition, so it is important that your website stands out for the right reasons. It all begins by hiring the right people for the job.

There are many ‘pre-packaged’ website templates out there, but they are noticeable from a mile away and can immediately put potential customers off. Your website must work for your business – not anyone else’s. It should be optimised for mobile and tablet users, and flow in a way that your customers will enjoy and understand. A good quality website can be the difference between a small business’ success or failure. It is therefore vital to select your web development company wisely. So what exactly should you look for in a web developer?

Know your bottom line

What do you want your website to do? It sounds obvious, but many clients can be unsure of their website’s purpose and simply want one because they think they should have one. Is your company an e-commerce business? If so, you might want to invest in shopping functionality. If it is a consultancy firm, investment in interactive literature could pay dividends. Know what you want to focus on, and what your desired ‘call to action’ is for visitors. Also know what is possible with your budget. Work with your designers and be transparent. Ensure you both have a clear idea of what is to be delivered and when, and for how much.

Ask to view their portfolio

Does your potential web development company’s portfolio resonate with how you want your website to look, feel and function? With so many developers out there, your perfect match is waiting. Everyone has their specialties: do not settle for a mismatch if something simply doesn’t fit.

Know your strategy

How will your website work towards building your brand’s authority – both in terms of search engine results pages and in the wider world? A good web development company knows that a business is more than a website, and will want to make your website work in sync with your brand strategy for maximum impact.

It’s not all about design…

A website is only as powerful as the content that it possesses. Many web design companies offer content writing services. They are not mere ‘add-ons’ – they are imperative if you do not possess a capable writing function within your company. Strong content can engage visitors, which will in turn invest them into your brand with long-term loyalty. Poor content will drive them away, likely never to return. Search engine optimised (SEO) content can see your website rank at the top of search engine result pages which will give your company lots of exposure.

Make sure your web development agency turns to your content before design. More often than not, the reason a company wants to refresh or rebuild a website is because its content is lacking. If your web development company is showing you colour palettes before a content management plan, red flags should be popping up. Be sure to know how you want your content to perform, and enlist the help of a specialist by investing in content writing services.

Video content and strong imagery also add further layers to your overall content, prompting new levels of engagement and social ‘shareability’.

Ultimately, choosing the right web development company could well make or break a small business. Invest wisely, ask questions, feel confident in the partnership, and know that your website is much more than a place to display your wares.

So whether you are a doing web design in New York,fashion in London or dog walking in Paris, make sure that your chosen company has a proven track record of deep-rooted, strategically sound website development projects that have played a part in their client’s success. That way, you can be confident that your website will have similar success.

This is the syndicated copy of an original article posted at https://hummingbirdwebdesign.com/choose-right-web-development-company/

2017 Web Design Trends – how these trends can boost your online marketing efforts

Web Design Company NY

The world of web design is constantly evolving. Every year gives birth to a new trend – and what was in last year is already on its way out. Which trends should you follow? Which ones do you ignore? We know that it can be confusing. And as a small business looking for web design in New York, you may think that the latest web design trends don’t apply to you. Or perhaps you think they’re simply out of your budget. However, at Hummingbird Web Design, we believe in providing affordable web design in NY (we also extend our services to many small businesses throughout the country and internationally).

Our goal is simple. We aim to help boost your marketing efforts and increase your online presence. As a web design company in New York, we’re right in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the design world. But here’s what sets us apart from the rest: we offer affordable web design by focusing on the latest trends and adapting them to the specific needs of small business owners. And in this post, we’re going to delve into some of the latest web design trends for the new year. We’ll also show you how they can help you grow your online presence. Let’s read on!

Streamline Content

The users of today are accustomed to having the world at their fingertips. And with the increasing importance of mobile web design, this is a term you can take quite literally. One of the most important trends to follow this year is to streamline your content. The days of scrolling endlessly through a website are long gone. Your content should be upfront and succinct – the less menu options, the better. In fact, consider getting rid of the hamburger menu altogether! By doing this, you’ll simplify the user experience and enhance their enjoyment of your site.

Clean Design

When designing websites, we keep the following in mind: avoid confusion at all costs. For example, implementing effects like parallax scrolling – where backgrounds and foregrounds scroll at different speeds – might impress the user, but could risk annoying them with the lengthy load times and complex motion. Besides, all those graphics will make for very poor SEO results. Instead, lets consider implementing a minimalist look to the site. This will do two things: boost the performance of the website – always a plus – and eliminate clutter.

Big and Bold and Beguiling

In addition to keeping things minimal, use this trend to make your vision stand out. Create a simple yet all-encompassing statement across the front of your website. The trick is to make it concise. A brief declaration can cut right through the information overload of our fast paced society and be remarkably powerful!

Stock Options

While these might be of value in your retirement portfolio, in the world of web design, there’s nothing more played out than the stock photo. The generic nature of stock images make for an uninspiring and unimaginative website – something that you don’t want associated with your business!

Color Outside the Lines

Color is an integral part of our everyday experience. And one of the trends we look forward to is the use of bright colors. They can help to add a splash of zest to the everyday web experience. However, don’t go overboard – it’s important to implement them according to the visual identity of your business.

Un – Typical Typography

Can you see what we did there? Typography rules are a thing of the past. Using hyphenated words and unusual fonts can make a definite impression. Now, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t watch your grammar – there’s enough poor writing out there – but if done with clear intent, breaking the rules can help your website stand out.

On the Map

While the world wide web doesn’t have a physical address, your business does. And it helps to give users a sense of where you are. But avoid linking to the same boring Google map as everybody else. Instead, customize your map in a way that complements the look of your website. Just take a look at ours!

The Trend We Stand By

At Hummingbird Web Design, we believe that website design should not be about simply providing information. It should be about creating an experience. Whether it’s custom logo design or content creation, we aim to use the trends of the market to convey your business’ message in the most efficient, immediate and affordable manner.

Stay tuned for more articles!

This is the syndicated copy of an original article posted at https://hummingbirdwebdesign.com/blogs-latest-updates/