Company
Humans are visual creatures, and the first experience visitors experience when they come to your site is the “look and feel” of your website design. We process visual stimulus 60,000 times faster than text, as a result, people form first impressions of your business in less than 0.05 seconds based on your website design.
The design of your website is instantly related and perceived as a direct representation of your product, brand and business. As such, having a beautifully designed website is the most important opportunity for a business to make a good first impression and influence your target audience.
According to the Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility, researchers found that 75% of users make judgments about a company’s credibility based on its web design.
“We find that people quickly evaluate a site by visual design alone. When designing your site, pay attention to layout, typography, images, consistency issues, and more. Of course, not all sites gain credibility by looking like IBM.com. The visual design should match the site’s purpose.”
Fogg, B.J. (May 2002). "Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility." A Research Summary from the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab. Stanford University.
In another study, Guidelines for Developing Trust in Health Websites, 83% of participants attributed the rejection and feelings of mistrust towards a website to website design factors. Content may be important, but, good content on a poorly designed website does not get read, indicating that design comes before content in terms if importance.
Responsive Web Design – Size does matter
In early 2005, Google announced mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor in its search engine algorithms. The Mobile-friendly Update as Google calls it greatly affected search rankings of web pages on mobile devices. What it essentially meant was that web pages which were not mobile-friendly would be less likely to show up on the first page of Google search results.
Fast forward to March, 2018, Google started rolling out Mobile-first Indexing which will typically start to use a web page’s mobile version for indexing and ranking (in the near future). So even though your website’s ranking may not be directly affected by Google’s Mobile-first Indexing at the moment, it most certainly will in the near future. You can use Google’s Mobile-friendly Test Tool to see where your website stands at the moment.
It makes sense for Google to start focusing more on mobile users as it is shown that mobile users spend double the time online than desktop users, as such Google needs to serve better content to mobile users.
If your site is not mobile-friendly yet, it’s best to get started in preparing your website to be responsive to avoid any ranking issues in the future.
You may have heard the saying “Content is King” before, it is true, and content is most likely to stay on that throne for a very long time. The reason is simple, stop for a moment and think what’s the reason you visit websites? It’s for the content naturally, be it to view the latest music video, or listen to the latest podcast to staying updated on your favorite celebrity or on a more serious note, to keep abreast of the business world and the market you are doing business in.
We consume content daily, just as we consume food. It has become a staple of our daily lives since decades ago, people have been reading newspapers and books. Today the amount of content available for consumption has increased multiple times, and it is our duty as website owners to provide not just relevant information to our visitors, but content that is useful for them.
Content on your website needs to address six major points as a business to visitors to improve their user experience:
Your value proposition needs to be clearly stated on the home page in short and concise sentences. People have short attention spans, and studies show that averagely, people spend 7 seconds or less on more than 90% of the websites they visit.
Your content should also serve as a guide to conversion, providing visitors with a logical pathway to eventually make a purchase, inquiry, subscription etc. The effects of conversion can be further increased by having a personal tone unique to your business which can connect to your visitors, potentials and customers. Great content coupled with beautiful web design will create an experience that is easy to navigate and understand, remember that your content needs to be presented in a simple and clear way to make it easy to understand.
Which would you prefer if you were given the choice of renting a room against owning your own home? That is the significant difference which we will be discussing today between using social media for business vs owning your own business or corporate website. Today we will be looking at the importance of websites for businesses.
It is undeniable that having a web presence is paramount to the competitive edge and success of your business today. However, in this age of social media, often times business owners are finding themselves neglecting the need of maintaining or even having a corporate website for their company. Instead they focus fully on their social media channels such as Facebook pages, Linkedin pages or Twitter and Instagram accounts. Who could blame them really? It is way easier to get started on social media, and the upfront cost and resource requirement is significantly lower.
Before delving into the pros and cons, let us understand the mediums first. What are websites and what is social media? Aren’t they both online? Isn’t Facebook a website as well? People can still find me on Facebook and that’s where I get my business from.
Social media are undoubtedly websites in their own right, however it is a public platform website, where everyone can sign-up as a member and interact with members of the community. Popular social media platforms today are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Linkedin, Snapchat. These are but the tip of the iceberg as there are many more smaller platforms which may serve a smaller more targeted niche. Let’s not forget the social media of China such as Weibo, which could rival Facebook if Mandarin was an international language.
Everyone knows what a website is right? Yes and no, any site you view in a web browser is in essence a website, but there are different types of websites for different purposes. There are search engine sites like Google, portal sites like Yahoo, MSN, and who can forget the ever popular social media sites like Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest. Some websites provide SAAS (Software as a Service) where you pay a subscription fee to access it’s functions, examples are Mail Chimp, SiteGiant, SeRanking to name a few.
Businesses would usually utilize either a brochure website or an eCommerce website, depending on the nature of the business. Photographers would do well to have their own portfolio site to showcase their masterpieces, corporate businesses utilize websites as their online business profile to disseminate information about the organization and the products or services they offer.
Now that we have a clear understanding of the difference between social media and websites, let us dive into the pros and cons and why SMEs should have a proper website for their web presence instead of fully relying on social media platforms as their primary online presence.
Many business owners are relying solely on social media as their primary online presence, why is that so? What are the reasons that drive SME owners to believe that using social media is sufficient to sustain their business in the long run? Let us find out below.
Everyone can see how many followers, likes or fans which you have as it’s all laid bare to see. There’s also not much statistics you can gather from the tools provide by social media sites in terms of analytics.
You can’t sell ad space on your social media page, those spaces are reserved by the third-party site for their own ad spaces which they are hoping to sell to you! As such, you can’t monetize your social media page even if you have millions of visitors each day.
Posts on social media sites are timeline based, which means older content will keep getting pushed further down the page. This not only makes it difficult for your target audience to find relevant information on certain products or services, they may never find it as let’s face it, who would scroll all the way down to your very first post just to find that piece of information?
In the spirit of continuous learning, we at Seraph Studios are constantly learning, re-learning and improving our skills. Experience has told us that there is always something to learn no matter how basic or advanced the content presented is, and so with an open mind we have registered for the eUsahawan Internet Marketing level 1 class. This day was a day where we took learning online marketing with an open mind in order to allow maximum learning capacity.
The closest venue available for the latest Penang session was at UiTM Permatang Pauh. It’s always exciting to visit a new place, and it was a nice campus with adequate facilities.
It was a full day course which covered the following topics:
It sure was a lot of topics to be covered in roughly 8 hours and the coach of the day, coach Devi was not only concise and straight to the point but also related the various techniques to real-life uses, which made learning online marketing easy for the participants.
It was quite a big class, with nearly 50 participants coming from all walks of life and age groups. Age is definitely not a deterrent when it comes to internet marketing if one has the heart to pick-it-up. Truth be told, one can no longer afford to ignore online marketing in this time and age, be it for personal branding, or marketing your business, most of the promotion activities are now taking place online.
We may not realize it, but we have been involved in marketing from the day we were born, from trying to get our parents attention, to trying to be friends with that popular kid in school and finally to trying to secure employment at the most up and coming company in town. Everyone has been marketing themselves and we continue to do so whether we realize it or not. Some people may have more success at it while others are simply not excelling at it, hence the need for marketers and personal branding coaches and if you’re more of a DIY person, online marketing training courses like the series of training courses provided by MDEC’s eUsahawan initiative.
It was a very hands-on one day course as coach Devi walked us through various steps to setup the tools needed for Facebook marketing, Whatsapp marketing as well as basic SEO keyword research. Even though it was more of a beginner class, but there are some key take-aways for the Seraph Studios team. We certainly look forward to attending the higher level classes as and when they are available, oh we forgot to mention that the class is FREE and anyone can sign-up for it at https://eusahawan.mdec.my/, dates, locations and seats are limited by the way, so it would serve you better if you signed-up early.
Once again we’d like to extend our sincere gratitude and thanks to MDEC for sponsoring such a meaningful program, as a wise people ensures a strong economy not monopolized by a few large corporations. Learning online marketing is a lifelong journey, as such we can’t thank coach Devi enough for her patience and great sharing of knowledge with the class, definitely a friendly and knowledgeable coach. It was definitely an enjoyable experience Learning Online Marketing with eUsahawan.
Lastly, do not hesitate to contact us for a FREE consultation, we’d love to discuss possibilities in helping elevate your business to greater heights!
Malaysia, one of the fastest growing nations in South East Asia has a population close to 32 million as of January 2018, with over 76% of the nation urbanized. Having a high urbanization rate allows its population access to the latest technologies, as such almost 79% of Malaysians have access to the Internet and close to 75% are active social media users. In recent years, mobile has been the preferred platform for Malaysians to access the Internet with a 68% penetration rate. Mobile users have been growing rapidly, having a growth rate of 2% since January 2017, in ten years’ time there will be close to 80% of the population accessing the Internet via mobile devices.
It is reported that Malaysians spend an average of 8 and a half hours accessing the Internet, of which 3 hours are spent on social media. The number of Internet users mean little if the mentality of the users are conservative, however Malaysians possess a positive attitude towards technology with 60% of users believing In the opportunities offered by technologies as well as preferring to complete tasks digitally whenever possible. This is a positive outlook for e-commerce, online booking systems or even prospecting online. What does this mean for businesses who are still not online? Well it simply means that you are missing out on a huge potential of having your business found by millions of potential customers across the nation. There’s no better time to embrace digital than now! You may not see instant returns on your initial investment into digital, but the returns will come eventually if you are online.
If you are still not convinced of the importance of digital for your business then perhaps you should consider the potential of a digitally connected business being found online. Reports from Hootsuite say that out of the 25 million Malaysian Internet users, 53% use search engines while 18% look for product information online on a weekly basis. Users can’t find what’s not there, and a business that’s not digitally connected will not show up on these users search results.
The top 5 websites ranked by Alexa in January 2018 are Google, Youtube, Google Malaysia, Lazada and Yahoo, with Facebook coming in at number six. Four out of the top five websites visited by Malaysians are search engines, Youtube being the second largest search engine globally for the uninitiated. Don’t take my word for it, believe in the stats and numbers presented. Don’t be left behind while competitors speed ahead on the digital highway, leaving the laggards in the dust. Don’t continue to waste precious advertising dollars on traditional media, 31% of users who bought a new product or service were first introduced to it via online advertising! Don’t put off your business’ digital strategy any further, if not now then when?
Time is not slowing down, and the digital landscape sure isn’t waiting for anyone, the longer you wait the more you lose out, it’s that simple. With that I’d like to bring this piece to an end, do leave your views on the importance of digital for businesses whether you are a business owner or not below. I’d love to hear your different opinions. Till next time. All reported stats and figures are based of the Hootsuite Digital in 2018: Asia Pacific Report.
It was the start of a magical experience as we embarked on a journey of self-improvement at the MaGIC Symposium 2017. It has been years since I last visited Cyberjaya and sure enough there has been major changes.
Next up, the first Keynote of the day was presented by Tom Kelley, partner at IDEO, who talked about Creative Confidence and Entrepreneurship. He talked about the importance of developing confidence through creativity that is unique to each of us. Often times we may not think too highly of our own creativity, but if we look deep enough, we may as well find that unique creativity in us that will allow us to stand-out.
He also stressed for us to be creative in seeking solutions to problems which appear to be inherently impossible to solve. Trial and error is also an integral part of the creative process, we should always test out our ideas in order to reduce the cost of failure and gain valuable insights.
Next up, the first Keynote of the day was presented by Tom Kelley, partner at IDEO, who talked about Creative Confidence and Entrepreneurship. He talked about the importance of developing confidence through creativity that is unique to each of us. Often times we may not think too highly of our own creativity, but if we look deep enough, we may as well find that unique creativity in us that will allow us to stand-out.
He also stressed for us to be creative in seeking solutions to problems which appear to be inherently impossible to solve. Trial and error is also an integral part of the creative process, we should always test out our ideas in order to reduce the cost of failure and gain valuable insights.
The next session was a masterclass by Julia Youngs from Creative Startups who talked about Re-Thinking Innovation. She mentioned that innovation means different things to different people and that we should never understimate our own ideas. There are multiple ways to innovate, and this includes innovating on products and solutions, delivery methods, or in the business model itself.
Ideas are often generated based on our own desires, needs and identity. We need to find ways to turn our ideas into opportunities. Julia mentions that there is an opportunity where there is market demand, and if we are able to execute the necessary actions well to create the willingness of people to pay for the job done, then you have successfully created an opportunity through innovation.
There were two Fireside Chats, the first one titled Rise from the Ashes presented a line-up speakers:
The chat was moderated by Tanuja Rajah.
The second Fireside Chat was titled Opportunity and Challenges for Startups in IOT with the following speakers:
The chat was moderated by Ainsya Mydiana Ahmad Madzian, Manager, Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation.
After the chats, we had a Master Class with Alletza Senn, Co-founder & CEO, Sparkline Pte. Ltd. On 10 Practical Ways to get started with Google Analytics.
She shared that you need not be an analyst in order to gather data on your web presence, and there are tools which allow you to do so without even logging into Google Analytics. A most useful session which will allow Seraph Studios to provide better services and more accurate analytics to our clients.
Web Presence, Online Presence or Internet Presence, these terms are used interchangeably, but what is Web Presence? In today’s connected world, almost everyone has a web presence, usually it’s on social media, forums, personal websites or blogs or as simple as email.
“the appearance of a person on the World Wide Web. Web Presence can be measured by the amount of sites a person or business has, as well as the authority and reach of said presence via Search Engine ranking, web traffic, popularity, and number of backlinks."
Wikipedia
Now Web Presence is more than the quantity of social media accounts you have or the number of websites you have. It is also about the quality of your presence on the Internet, does it generate a lot of traffic daily? Do you have a lot of followers on your social media account? Is your audience engaging with your content? Anyone can have hundreds of websites and social media accounts, but what use is it if there’s no quality in the content that’s being posted and shared on these platforms?
It is also about the influence of your Web Presence, does your website carry authority? Are people taking notice of your Web Presence? Do they revisit your website, or introduce it to their friends and family? Most importantly, is it benefitting your audience to visit your website, social media? Web Presence is defined on Wikipedia as being “the appearance of a person or organization on the World Wide Web.” And “the amount of web presence can be measured in the amount of sites a organization or individual has, which can include their own website, social network profiles, and their site’s search engine ranking, traffic, popularity, and backlinks.” Can you identify and list out the various Web Presence you have right now that’s representing yourself and your business online? Make sure you have the appropriate representation online in order to stay competitive in today’s marketplace.
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