Manta, an online community dedicated entirely to small businesses, surveyed it's residents and found that 90% of them use social media for their businesses. The most popular way to attract new business opportunities is through your company website, which many businesses closely connect with their social media. 24% of the business owners surveyed gained new customers through their websites, with Facebook following closely behind at 19%. Other social media outlets followed. So what does this mean for your business? It's important for you to know where and how to find your customers. Are they on Facebook? LinkedIn? Google+? Since not every business caters to the same audience you must carefully think through your specific target audience and where they are most likely to congregate. Ask yourself these questions (among others): What social media venue would attract your t...
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Secret #1: Keep it simple Navigation. Make it easy for your customers to find the products they are searching for. Using simplified navigation (for instance breadcrumbs like the Apple Store example) gives your customers instant orientation to which page they are viewing and a visual path back. Search. Since approximately 50% of users are search driven - they instantly locate and use the closest search tool - having a search that narrows search results as you type is a great feature. Your results page should effectively and graphically list the results, proving to be simple to understand. Checkout. An easy checkout system or shopping cart can make the buying process smooth and more inviting. For example, it's easiest for me to checkout online with simply my e-mail address as a guest checkout, rather than having to create a new user account at each site I shop at. If yo...
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This simple, uncluttered infographic reveals information gathered by Steelhouse and uSamp about mobile shopping and social sharing. The findings are worth noting! For example, 83% of consumers base purchase decisions on star rating systems and user reviews. So, if you don't include testimonials of some sort on your website, you are lacking a major motivator. Take a look at the graphic for more of the fun findings, which includes statistics about social media websites. The graphic is taken from Silicon Republic.
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When I first learned of Pinterest, I had little interest in it. Another social networking website? No way - I already wasted enough time on Facebook; I wasn't interested in joining another social outlet. However, I eventually found myself suckered in and clicking around on the website. When I began to think of Pinterest as not only fun but resourceful, I was sold. I am a pretty average Pinterest user: 25 (ages 25-34 make up the largest percentage of users), middle class, bachelor's degree ('some' college is the highest percentage of users at 60%, which makes me think that many of the users are still in college), and oh - yeah... female! (Women make up 80% of the user database). I use Pinterest to plan weekly menus (with my husband hanging over my shoulder giving his recommendations by pointing to photos of bacon-this-or-that), to learn how to take care of my young gar...
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