Category: Marketing

The world is caught up in digital solutions, and business marketing strategies are no different. Yet, old techniques like flyer and leaflet marketing have shown tremendous results in customer outreach.

Try handing out flyers for an effective way to promote your New York business offline. You can easily find the target crowd at busy places like Times Square, Central Park, and Fifth Avenue.

But first, read below about effective offline promotions and flyer distribution New York.

What is Offline Marketing?

Any type of marketing activity that happens in the absence of the internet is offline marketing. It has been around for ages, and companies have built their fortunes with such real-world campaigns.

Some examples are:

• Billboards
• Newspaper ads
• Events and seminars
• Trade shows
• Flyer distribution

You may have seen many digital billboards on your way to Liberty Island, New York. In earlier days, there were roadside billboards on hoardings or colorful banners on lamp posts.

How Good are Flyers for Marketing Your Business?

In today’s marketing scenario, flyers are the most effective to get instant outcomes. While digital methods like PPC, SEO, and social media marketing are great tools, they take time to grow audiences.

In contrast, artistically designed flyers filled with useful information can attract people on the spot. Such efforts maximize your brand visibility, which is an excellent opportunity for local businesses.

Suppose you are about to open a quaint little eatery. You are based in suburban or commuter places in New York, like Sayville, Jericho, or Staten Island. The use of these physical marketing materials is invaluable.

Readers can either contact your office right away or save the flyers for later. Your information is within their reach, and their guests can also have it. Even if they don’t actively search for your services, they will become aware of the business.

Advantages of Using Flyers

All this information is excellent, but now you wonder what this tactic can do for your business.

Here are the benefits.

Cost Savings

Flyers are affordable and don’t cost as much as digital marketing tools. Printing and distributing flyers become cost-effective when you hire the right company. You can also do it yourself if you have the tools.

More Recognition

For local stores and businesses, most advertising is from “word of mouth” publicity. But first, you need to get your business noticed, which is what flyers do. Say you offer piano lessons for children in the Bronx. You can target students and families that bring their kids near the Bronx Library Center.

Tangible Materials

Flyers are physical things that you don’t lose in an inbox. You find businesses on digital pop-up ads, in emails, or when you look deliberately on search engines. But you quickly forget these when they are out of your sight.

Quick Turnaround

You can also use flyers to publicize events in a short timeframe. Pick a popular template or create your own design within minutes and start printing. Instantly attract crowds for corporate charity events or a promotional event for a local political party in New York.

ROI Boost

Modern flyers incorporate QR codes, website URLs, and specific leaflet numbers, which helps in tracking. So, your offline marketing efforts become measurable with new-age metrics. Overall, flyers can also complement your digital methods of promotions.

Which New York Businesses Can Use Flyers?

Flyers fit the needs of small business owners, such as:

• Hairdressers
• Boutique owners
• Trainers
• Tattoo artists
• Club promoters
• Café operators

The key is to use the right content for flyer distribution in New York to reach specific demographics.

Flyers are not just for businesses – even politicians, solo entrepreneurs, consultants, private tutors, and students can use them.

Sometimes, not-for-profit organizations can raise awareness about fundraisers they host or welcome people to unite for a cause. For instance, Central New Yorkers can distribute flyers to target their demographic when conducting peaceful protests or rallies.

With the rising trend of digital or online marketing, influencer marketing has become the watchword for the industry. It has become the choice of many marketers and many business owners looking for brand awareness and higher conversions. In the recent year a study has also been conducted to reveal the state of influencer marketing that was used by more than 86% of the population and amongst these numbers, around 39% were looking to increase their budget for influencer marketing looking at the short-term and long-term benefits.

The statistics also reveal that influencer marketing gives a Return on Investment to almost 11 times more than the traditional means when it comes to promoting the brand and strengthening your customer base.

However, despite of all the massive benefits, there are possibilities that brands are losing; there are brands that are failing at this type of rewarding marketing technique. Have anyone ever thought over the same and tried to understand why so? Have anyone ever got deeper into understanding where these brands are going wrong?

Surveys and studies also revealed the following statistics:

• 28% respondents of a survey found it difficult to find data for influencer marketing13%
  • 13% of respondents found measuring the metrics and tracking results a challenge
  • 9% respondents of the survey revealed that generating reports was a challenge

To have a clear insight, here are few reasons why brands fail at influencer marketing:

• Connecting with Wrong Influencers: It is very important to pick the right influencer so as to witness the success of your marketing campaign. This is most vital because if not the expected niche, social media influencers become just a lost soul in the game. However, brands make the most common mistake to collaborate with top social influencers without knowing its relevancy to your marketing campaign. Certainly, the influencer may be the top with highest number of followers but not specific to your niche. Under the scenario, the marketing campaign does not leave any influence over your audience.
• Restricting the Creative Growth and Freedom of Your Influencer: When you collaborate with influencers, it is of utmost importance that you give them the freedom of creativity. If you try to push your influencers with your own thoughts and plan, if you try to control their thoughts and actions, the marketing campaign may land into failure. Rather it is important to align your products and services with the interest of your chosen influencers and actively stay engaged.
• Paying Less to Your Influencers: Influencers do put in lot of their time and effort to create influence for your brand on your target audience. Under the scenario, if you don’t pay your influencers an appropriate compensation, there are possibilities that influencers lose interest in your campaign. At time even paying excessive compensation creates negative relationship with influencers.
• Content Density of Your Influencer is Not Appreciating: There are possibilities that the ratio of relevant content to the overall content of your influencer is not the right measure. You need to be specific for your needs and hence the content that creates influence over audience should also be specific.
• Choosing Wrong Influencer Platforms: Choosing wrong influencer platforms is another reason why brands fail at influencer marketing campaigns. When selecting channels only numbers do not work; it is also important to align your marketing campaign and your target audience with the right channel. For example, Facebook is best for cross section audience, YouTube amongst adults, Instagram amongst teens, and Snapchat for youth.
• Mixing Advertising with Marketing: Brands often make a mistake of mixing influencer advertising with influencer marketing. However, these are two different concepts. For advertising, social media influencers only post content for a brand on a pre-defined price and for marketing influencers go deeper into creating brand relationship with the target audience.
• Hoping From One Influencer to Another: Most of the brands make the mistake of changing influencer on and often and then making each understand the concept of your brand and idea behind your business. While filtering the right influencers you should be very careful about selecting the relevant ones and once you confirm with one influencer, it is important you stick to the same without any hoping. This helps the influencer learn more about your brand and showcase the same understanding to its massive fan following as well.
• Battling Between Popularity and Influence: Brands do make a mistake of considering popularity and influence in digital marketing as two similar things. However, these are different concepts of influencer marketing. The campaign may have the power to make your brand popular but to influence the purchase decisions of your target audience needs some more inspiring and influential.
• Focusing on Irrelevant Metrics: When undergoing a marking program, measuring the metrics is most common activity for all brands. However, brands should go beyond that and do understand that no results are achieved overnight. There are possibilities that you keep measuring the metrics that may prove to be irrelevant and in turn you lose the focus on your organizational goals.

Conclusion

Influencer marketing is a profitable venture with tremendous potential for improved business success and growth with new dimensions. However, few wrong decisions and initiatives in the process of marketing programs can prove to be tricky and lead you to failure. Hence, it is important to stay alert and patient at every stage with complete focus on your objective. Knowing the reasons why brand fail at influencer marketing, you will be in a better situation to handle your campaign with better understanding and improved insights. The goal is all yours if you have the heart to win.

Developing a mobile application is not as difficult as getting it discovered by people. Making your app discoverable is one of the major challenges that every marketer faces.

As there are already millions of applications across Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and other platforms, it is not easily possible for you to make your app discovered by people.

With the huge competition, it is getting difficult to stand among all the obtainable applications and even mobile app marketing is getting bigger.

However, best and experienced app marketers will follow complete mobile app marketing strategies, including both pre-launch and post-launch. The best marketing strategies comprise organic as well as paid marketing channels.

Marketing your developed application is equally important as designing, developing, and testing it, so make sure that you consider a right app marketing strategy that market your app successfully.

Moreover, there are various app promotion companies that are popular for developing a business plan to analyse user feedback.

Such companies are known for serving high-end quality marketing campaign for any mobile application.

However, if you are not planning on hiring such company and want to market your application on your own, the below mentioned guide will help you to market your application and get it discover by people.

A Simple Guide to Mobile App Marketing

Before You Launch an Application

Before you launch your application in the app store, it is essential that your marketing strategy needs to start well. Like any other product, it is important that you understand your users, who are going to use your application and how you can find them.

This is an essential part of the app marketing strategy. Here are some of the steps that you should take before you launch an app:

Choose a Right Name

Many of you think that what’s in the name of the application, but do you know that a right name can make or break an application. It is a must that you choose a unique name for your application that your audience finds it easy to memorise.

But, you ensure that it does not include keywords that your users are going to use for searching your app. An exceptional name of the app is a highly significant thing in the app store search. At the time of choosing a name, you should be sure that your choice is not invading on any trademarks. In such cases, your application will be rejected from the store.

At the time of choosing a name, you should be sure that your choice is not invading on any trademarks. In such cases, your application will be rejected from the store.

Choose Important Keywords

Talking about the keyword of the app, it is the most important thing because your users are going to look at it to understand what your application does. To market your application successfully, you need to understand keywords that matter to your app.

Let’s take an example of one fitness application, if you have a fitness and health application, the important keyword of the app is fitness, so it is important that you have this keyword as it will help your app to get found instantly by users. Make sure that you also include a keyword in the description.

However, there are various keyword tools likeApp Store Optimisation tool, etc. that can help you to choose right keywords for your app. So, choose right keywords and successfully market your app.

Know Your Competitors

Once you choose a good name and select keywords, it’s time to know your competitors. You should research on your competitors like which apps are ranking in the app store and its search results for your keywords. You can check those app’s features and keywords that they have targeted.

As there are many applications in the app stores, it is obvious that you will get a complete list of competitors, whose products are like your own.

You make sure that you research on this list of competitors and make it precise to the top 4 based on similarity to your app and the competitor’s success.

After You Launch an Application

Finally, you have launched your application in the market. There are many app creators, who think that the work is finished, but not in a reality.

Even, it’s a beginning of the real marketing of your application. Let’s have a look at the steps of app marketing that you can take after launching your app:

Register with App Store Analytics App

To comprehend your app distribution progress accurately, you need to sign-up for an analytics tool. Here, you will need an analytics tool that will help you to track your applications and your competitors through the Top Charts and Search Rankings.

There are a lot of analytics tools likeApp AnnieandMobileDevHQthat can perform a subset of the functions.

Featured on App Review Websites

You can notice a huge percentage of downloads for new applications once app review websites review your application. It is important for you to reach out to these media outlets to increase a burst of downloads at your launch time.

You should know those blogs, who submit content related to your competitors and their applications. You can get in touch with those blogs and pitch them to your application.

Ask Your Potential Users to Rate & Review Your App

If the application is ranked in search results, it depends on its ratings like how high its ratings are. It is important for your app’s success to get as many 5-star ratings as possible.

There are various ways to motivate your users to rate your application and one of the simplest ones is clearly asking for ratings from within the app as users engaging with it.

You can easily execute this request once they have used the app for a few times. It is a personal preference how you are going to encourage your users to run your app.Make sure that you think creatively and out of the box to get your users to rate your app.

Gain More Visibility

After launching your application, you should work hard to gain more visibility. Various ways are there to gain more visibility for your app like:

You should submit your app to different promotion websites likeLaunching Next. Using this website, it would be easy to gain extra reviews from users and other entrepreneurs.

You can boost attention to your application.

• You can also spend some funds on online advertising like Twitter, Facebook, and
• You can also publish your application in the alternative app stores
• Moreover, you can use in-apps contents and giveaways to tempt more users.
• If you are offering paid app, make sure that you provide some discount offers and give your application a chance to be featured in different lists of “on sale”.

Conclusion

The mobile app market is constantly thriving and you cannot see a single sign of slowing down. Now, people with a wonderful idea and mobile app marketing strategy can have an opportunity to reach millions of users and make a huge amount of money.So, let’s develop a next successful and unique mobile app that stands out.

Now, people with a wonderful idea and mobile app marketing strategy can have an opportunity to reach millions of users and make a huge amount of money.So, let’s develop a next successful and unique mobile app that stands out.

However, if you have an exceptional mobile app idea in your mind that you can be successful, you can discuss it with a professional mobile app development company like Technology Rivers.

The concept of “big data” is already 20 years old, and until now it was defined mainly by size and computational problems, with less focus on the opportunities it creates.

The amount of data in the world is growing exponentially, and most of this is because every Internet user, both human and non-human (IoT) is a data creator, willingly or unaware.

Most of this will never be used or looked at again, yet the trend is to store it…just in case.

A report by IBM released in late 2016, shows that 90% of existing data at that moment was at most two years old. Most of it comes from YouTube videos, images, Tweets, Google search queries, and e-mails.

Add the metadata attached to the human-created content, throw in the data created by wearables, beacons, and sensors and you have a more complete the picture.

The real question is: “How can a marketer use all these bits and pieces to drive growth for their business?”

How Is Big Data Different?

The best characterization of big data is the 5Vs: volume, velocity, variety, veracity, and value.

The difference between traditional data and big data is not just size, as the structure also plays a significant role in assessing the dissimilarities.

Big data includes a small part of structured data, carefully organized in tables that could be analyzed using conventional techniques, but the largest part is unstructured or semi-structured.

The unstructured part includes images, comments, and reviews while labels, tags, and keywords define the semi-structured portion.

Big data allows marketers to be accurate and address the habits of the consumer – all in real time.

It is a paradigm shift from the traditional approach of marketing, which used historical data to compute general trends.

Enter the era of the long tail marketing, where niche products are becoming more important than generic products.

Applications of Big Data in Marketing

Personalized Consumer Experiences

Consumers are becoming more connected and distracted at the same time. Companies are competing for a bit of their attention and are adapting the traditional sales techniques to the online environment.

Using the name and details of the person is a way to make them feel important and stop for a while, just enough to hear your pitch.

Customization should go far beyond this and provide relevant options, taking into consideration the previous actions of the consumer such as items they searched for, goods added to the basket but not purchased, or even comments on social media.

Real-time response

Users create data which powers real-time marketing by allowing cookies in the browser, checking in at various locations through social media or just having their location tracker activated.

Clients welcome on the spot marketing opportunities, although these are intrusive, if they come as coupons or discounts.

Providing guidance or responses to unsatisfied customers is another way of taking advantage of real-time interaction. Adjust your suggestions based on their search keywords.

Contextual marketing

Simply put, this means to be in the right place, at the right time, ready to make the customer an offer he or she can’t refuse.

Suggest alternative or complementary products to their choice, welcome first-time visitors and greet returning ones while thanking them for their loyalty.

Add a free delivery option when the value of the goods from the basket is approaching a threshold. Make the customer spend as much time as possible on your site due to engagement.

Offer personal support and call center alternatives for clients struggling to find what they need. Take the relationship off-line with a call or an appointment in a brick and mortar store, if possible.

Optimising Price Strategies

The online environment offers the opportunity to compare prices instantly. Keep triggers on the competition’s price strategy, show variation graphs to customers and enable them to set price alert targets.

These alarms give a valuable insight into the amount they are ready to spend on the product – most of all, they help you make a sale before a competitor does.

Consider retargeting an interested customer when the price has dropped to a value close to their alarm.

Identifying Gaps

If a client searches for something that is not on offer – although it would make sense for it to be – use this information to fill in your stocks or create the service.

List your products and think about the niches that could benefit from each of them, and are not currently engaged.

Design campaigns to target these segments and analyze results. Use big data tools to evaluate your competitor’s moves, including AdWords purchasing or keywords considered for ranking.

Reducing Costs & Increasing Revenue

Big data allows you to do more with fewer resources. Use the insights provided by the analysis to identify your 80/20 rule (which small niche is driving your growth) and invest in that.

Companies can save on publicity costs by engaging only with interested prospects. Optimize delivery by being present on the right channels, at the right times for your audience.

Learn from Amazon and think about the lifetime value of a client, not only short-term gains.

Big data helps you build a personal relation to each customer, in a way that is similar to how friendships develop; don’t let that go to waste.

Performing tests

Data and tests are a perfect match, and big data is bringing the game to a whole new level. You can learn about what your customers like, peek into online trends to see what is hot, and measure the shareability of your content.

It is possible to use big data to evaluate the potential of a thing to go viral.

Additionally, perform tests to optimize your landing pages and identify the specific problems of your website by looking at behaviors and bounce rates.

It’s best to make a map of your customer’s interactions with your site and redesign it to guide them to a buy.

Create different versions of an ad and let the automated algorithms pick the best version.

Challenges of Big Data for Marketing

• Appropriate tools

Their lack of structure makes Excel sheets, and SQL commands powerless in front of big data.

The variety of the unstructured data and the presence of natural language are serious challenges to overcome and usually require dedicated solutions. Big data consulting services use clustering techniques, including fuzzy clusters methods to help marketers understand and define consumer groups.

This approach is closer to reality and further away from the traditional demographic/sociographic segmentations.

• Relevance

Although data is abundant, time and resources are limited and expensive. Therefore, the main problem of any marketer is selecting the most relevant items.

Business strategy should be the driving force behind the collection process. The marketing department should first define KPIs and attach proper measures to these to harness the power of big data.

Automation can help analyze data, but the machine needs clear instructions from humans. For each KPI, the data scientists will select a few data sets to be recorded.

Tests will reveal that only a handful of indicators should be kept in the dashboard in the long run.

Aggregating data in indicators or compound sets is a way of capturing more information while remaining with a small number of final results.

• Security

Privacy concerns are growing as big data is considered an invasion of one’s personal life by conservators. Identity theft, intrusiveness, and lack of control over personal data are all concerns of clients.

The personal data is necessary to power artificial intelligence algorithms and make them learn about users to provide dedicated responses. Anonymous and aggregated data do not pose any direct security threat to users.

The real problems and opportunity for crime arise when data can be traced back to a single user, revealing behavioral patterns and preferences that a hacker could use.

Conclusion

Big data does not lead to better marketing automatically, it is just another powerful tool. The real change remains in the hands of marketing strategists.

Their mission is harder in this new context since simple forecasting tools based on demographic and sociographic characteristics no longer work alone. The solution is to pair census results with robust algorithms to create user personas, not consumer groups.

The hardest part is not analyzing, but selecting the most relevant indicators for the job from the ocean of possibilities. It is a problem of quality versus quantity.

Not all organizations are mature enough to harness the power of big data, although almost all can recognize the commercial potential behind it.

Marketers should think backward to get the right steps in implementing big data. Start by defining the desired outcomes, study the clients’ behaviors that lead to such results and determine the triggers.

Finally, deliver the incentive at the most convenient moment by using the customer’s preferred online channel and cash on the results.

Marketing has progressed immensely from mere product placement techniques or theamusing slogans used to sell soda or cars. It is in everything, from gum adverts to missile launchers.

Content marketing especially works as the creative branch of the industry and it is essential for the success of advertising campaigns.

Surpassing repetition and focus, content gives context and meaning to an ad, two key elements of its success. The online environment explosion in the last few years has created a field ripe for picking for marketing specialists.

The content they have created has attracted the attention of more people than ever. Here are 7 content marketing insights to consider in 2017.

1. Reduce the information

A common mistake in adverts is to include too much information. Being descriptive may be essential in other areas – such as promotion in specialised magazines – but in dealing with the general audience, one should take into account attention span.

Any product has a series of key features that can be easily emphasized without overloading the customer with information.

A good marketing strategy will play on these features in order to achieve its goal and will pass un on unnecessary additions.

This strategy is especially true for content marketing, which exists in an information-rich environment already. Reducing information has become a kind of golden rule among marketers, but it is still well worth mentioning.

For example, if one has to deal with an entire article, he has to spread certain keywords between the lines. Keeping fragments short and sentences informative is a sure way of keeping the customer interested.

When creating content for online publishing, the excess of adjectives can seriously impede on the purpose. Marketing is far from literary creation, both in aim and in method, therefore content marketing should refrain from using complex text structures.

Short and sweet or direct sentences can create a lasting impression on the reader and promote a product successfully.

2. Digitalize

Large, building-sized billboards are no longer the flagbearers of marketing. A busy intersection may be passed through by hundreds of thousands of people daily, but it cannot compete with the heavy traffic the internet ensures. Similarly, online access, with its array of tools such as immediate messaging or the charter one login pass used in banking, has simplified a substantial number of things.

For quite some time now, the prime area of advertising products has been the online environment. Content creation is the “bread and butter” of this environment, and it allows marketing companies to tap into a well of methods and means in order to reach the target audience.

For example, for a marketing company, its own online self-presentation is the first thing to focus on. Digitalization cannot be ignored as an addition to its image, it has to be part of its hard and soul.

However, the same environment is saturated by comparable ads promoting similar products. The style of a company’s content should be able to permeate the web and be heard. Consumers are nowadays used to the traditional ways in which marketing campaigns try to captivate their attention.

A successful business strategy includes a plan for the company to present itself as unique and different to its target audience, most – if not all – of which can be reached through the internet.

3. Create a story

Content marketing is perhaps the most important part of any marketing strategy, giving it shape and strength. Moreover, creating content is creating a brand story – how a product presents itself on the market.

A story is nothing other than the means through which to differentiate among products which saturate the market and suffocate the buyer, especially online.

Stories captivate the attention and imagination. Just like magicians awe their audience with a grave voice while shifting focus from one point to another, so can good content improve the image of a product by playing on its key features. Some brands have a strategy of suggesting uses or settings appropriate for their products.

Companies producing soda, for example, always portray groups of young people enjoying life together with the image of their products.

One of the most widely used technique in terms of story-creation is that of relating products to elements familiar to the potential buyer. For example, cleaning products play their essential role in the life of any housewife.

Conversely, toy companies understood the need parents feel to satisfy their children and the pleasure that children feel when they impress their friends. Accordingly, the content they push is moulded on these understandings of the product that “normal” people have.

4. Adapt

Creating a governing plan such as a content marketing strategy may be helpful in the short run, but the online market is always shifting and morphing.

Thus, the strengths of a well-established plan may turn into its weaknesses, making a campaign entirely redundant. It is, therefore, essential to constantly survey the market and adapt to it.

The created content needs to be part of a world and has to respond to it in order to cause reactions. For example, an airline carrier may vaguely hint at the political context regarding migration and travel. With such a subtle mention, the company can receive extensive rewards from its clients.

Conversely, a company may alienate a segment of the audience with the same daring messages. Such a campaign strategy may thus prove to be highly risky and only provides a good return value for the big name brand.

5. Establish a relationship

As mentioned before, ideas do not exist in a void, they are presented to an audience of extremely diverse individuals. An effective marketing strategy does not limit itself to presenting products and stories to the consumers.

Instead, it observes and documents their patterns, needs and wants. It is also vital to understand the promoted image through their eyes.

The best tool to reach and relate to a greater number of people is social media. However, by 2016 the content fatigue of people reached higher levels that before. Ads have become so numerous and yet similar and common that the target audience hardly ever noticed them. Instead, they pass over it as “just another ad”. This can be prevented with an audience persona already familiar to the public.

Instead, they pass over it as “just another ad”. This can be prevented with an audience persona already familiar to the public.

The most successful companies are those with an established name brand. Words are essential to such brands, as most choose to associate their name with a series of features or values, usually highlighted by their logo or slogan.

This is just another form of content creation and it can either take a company to new heights of profit or destroy and humiliate it, forever connecting its name to something undesirable or ridiculous. As such, content should be one of the key focuses of any company trying to establish itself before its target audience.

6. Frequent audits

Going back over past work to enhance or study the impact of the employed measures is something that most marketing companies do not do.

A satisfied customer is considered to be enough, although it shouldn’t be so. For marketing professionals, the work is not done once the ads are out. Analysis of past activity is an essential part of future success.

Certain kinds of content that are put on the market may fail to entail reactions at a certain time. The exact same content may be praised and cause an immediate rise in sales at another time. This happens because the ad market is volatile. The environment changes constantly.

A successful business strategy involves a marketing plan that is quick on its feet and observant. Being aware of the surroundings can only improve the quality of the produced content, and that is also true for any company striving for success.

7. Share information

The last point pertains to the “internal kitchen” of a company. In terms of content creation, cooperation and awareness are vital to success. Simply put, from creative writers to strategy developers and managers, the end-goal of a marketing campaign needs to be thoroughly understood by all.

Workload distribution is another key feature that needs careful balancing. Each team, as each individual, has its limitations and areas of expertise. By sharing information and encouraging cooperation, a company can only benefit and expand the said domains of knowledge.

The internet, along with a series of information sharing apps, has greatly improved the reach and connectivity of ads. As such, marketing companies and content developers need to be at the forefront of this trend in communication.

Every way in which more potential customers can be reached must be thoroughly known and populated with content. The web is any company’s friend, be it for self-promotional or business opportunities and is the most important takeaway of this point.

These 7 insights each bring a content marketing strategy closer to success. Beyond immediate customer satisfaction, they ensure the long-term viability of techniques and methods.

Flexible and proficient, the content thus created will reach a larger audience with a more impactful message. Sales and profitability will naturally follow.

Nowadays, social media usage by small businesses owners is gaining popularity. Thus, according to Statista, in the USA, 79% of respondents claim to implement social networks to connect with customers, 77% use them to promote their goods/services, 74% – to build an online reputation.

Businesses’ social presence is really important given the fact that for now there are 2.3 billion active social users and this number is expected to reach 2.95 billion in 2020.

But how to guarantee a great social presence with a small or no budget? One of the options is to employ a broad array of free social media tools that will help leverage your business.

1. LikeAlyzer is an online tool that can be implemented to analyze the effectiveness of your Facebook pages. According to this research, Facebook can boast the greatest number of users, so, make sure to get daily updated statistics for your own company or other targeted pages, compare your efforts and results with those made by your rivals or companies-role models.

2. Fanpage Karma is another free tool that can be used to get detailed info on your Facebook page. With this instrument you’ll be able to monitor success and expand your social reach, analyze KPIs of a limitless number of pages, use benchmarking, tag all the necessary posts, familiarize with trends, and simply derive inspiration.

Fanpage Karma has an extensive range of sub tools that allow getting well-organized Excel reports, instant notifications about competing companies’ activities, customized morning reports, insights into best times for doing posts, popular topics, best posting frequency, service level, etc.

3. Social Mention service is a kind of an online reputation manager. It’s really vital to listen to your customers/fans to understand how to handle negative experiences, resolve and forecast possible problems, improve services, so, make sure to track mentions about your company and discover the topics related to your products/services thanks to this free social media tool.

4. Free Review Monitoring is another helpful tool to follow online reviews that really influence the way your future customer will position your company. According to some statistics, about 90% of users take into consideration online opinions before making a purchase, and positive statements about goods/services affect 90% of clients. That’s why it seems logical to implement this type of a tool and get relevant info (including email alerts) about customers’ opinions.

5. Hootsuite is a great social media manager and planner that gives you a marvelous opportunity to utilize a special dashboard to schedule posts, reply to your customers with a single click, create lists of social influencers, automatically respond to common questions, obtain a clear picture of your main Facebook and Twitter activities, create real-time reports, easily calculate ROI, etc.

6.DrumUp is a curation tool that makes use of some sophisticated algorithms to discover and recommend new and relevant stories to your audience. It also saves your time on managing Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts and allows adding multiple accounts to your dashboard.

Among other options proposed by DrumUp are the following: schedules for repeating influential posts, timely notifications, automatic hashtag recommendations, content customization, etc.

7. Bit.ly is a perfect tool to track who clicks your links, placed on third-party websites and social media accounts. Thus, you will be able to analyze your online campaigns and improve marketing efforts, get a detailed insight into the most active daytime, most engaged users and their interaction with your content, etc.

Beyond that, with Bit.ly you are given an exciting possibility to optimize your links for all devices, thus, guaranteeing the best customer experience.

We have given you an outline of the most useful social media tools that can be implemented for free. If you’re done with that and want to extend your presence using more sophisticated tools, it’s a must to turn to social network software developers who can offer a vast array of options that will make your business grow even faster. Here you can find valuable info on social media integration with your website.

Nowadays, online shopping is one of the fastest growing and most thriving industries. In 2015, e-commerce sales worldwide amounted to $1.55 trillion, and revenues are expected to grow to $3.4 trillion in 2019.

Moreover,80% of the online population has bought something online at least once in a lifetime.

This statistics shows that, indeed, a wide range of users prefer to shop online, granting e-shops’ owners an excellent chance to earn well off.

However, it’s not so easy to start running a store in the Internet as it seems: it’s indispensable to gain customers’ confidence and entice clients by using an array of features/incentives and by avoiding some typical errors that make users abandon their carts.

So, what are those mistakes and what should businessmen NOT do?

1) Don’t grudge money on website design: For some e-shops’ owners, re-design and logo creation may seem a waste of time and funds. However, it is not really true. People get accustomed to “judge a book by its cover”, and the same with your store.

Try to present newcomers an appealing and tasty-looking website design and place your products nicely. More and more people prefer mobile shopping: in 2014, global mobile e-commerce revenues amounted to $184 billion and are expected to reach $669 billion in 2018, that’s why bear in mind that it’s really vital to implement a responsive e-shop design for mobile devices by engaging experts in custom e-commerce solutions.

2) Don’t puzzle customers with shopping fees: According to this survey, users will likely cancel the purchase if they face unexpected fees that were not mentioned at the very beginning. It doesn’t mean you should deliver goods for free, just inform your clients of additional charges beforehand, i.e. at the very first stage of the purchasing process. Furthermore, it’s a bright idea to install a calculator to save purchasers’ time on making additional calculations.

3) Don’t make clients create an account: No one has a desire to spend additional 10-15 minutes on your website, entering manually personal data. What is more, it’s not a game “Join the club” – your customers will decide themselves whether they want to use a membership signup option. You can also facilitate the process by integrating your online store with social media so that clients can log in via their social networks accounts.

4) Don’t underestimate online reviews influence: According to a Markting Land survey, 90% of customers admit that their final decisions on buying something depend on online reviews, and 86% are influenced by negative opinions. Quite impressive, isn’t it? Beyond that, don’t underestimate the influence of the online reviews posted on trivial and somewhat irrelevant web portals, because any review can be unveiled thanks to a well-thought search query.

5) Don’t limit the number of payment gateways providers: Of course, it’s impossible to run an e-shop without giving customers a possibility to pay for the purchased products online. So, think of suitable providers and use the secure payment gateways integration with your store. Furthermore, to feel comfortable with possible glitches you’ll need a couple of different gateways. You can choose such popular providers as PayPal, Authorize.net, PaySimple, Dwolla, Paynova, Intuit, etc. More info on payment gateways can be found here.

6) Don’t ignore search optimization issues: Any steps and efforts made to boost sales may turn to be impractical if your online shop isn’t optimized. So, remember to build back links and use suitable key words in headlines, title pages, and product descriptions. What is more, your product descriptions should be unique, informative, and not too long. Before advertising your goods, check which search queries are the most popular and try to use them while creating content. That will allow you to entice users, generate targeted traffic, and your e-shop will be ranked higher.

7) Don’t pass over your social accounts: If you have them at all… It’s well-known that 75% of Internet users actively employ social networks, their number now is 2.3 billion and it is expected to grow to 2.95 billion by 2020. That’s why it’s obvious you should create social media accounts that will help you to attract new potential customers. Creating a couple of accounts isn’t enough; mull over the full integration of your online store with Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, etc. (their choice depends on the type of products you sell). Display social comments on your online store and allow clients to share news about purchasing your goods. Check additional info here.

Conclusion:

Of course, there is the huge amount of other handy tips and useful advice that would help promote products online, increase sales, and entice new users. So, don’t doubt to ask help of savvy online store owners and specialists in business software development who will certainly share personal experience on booming businesses and managing online reputation thanks to modern technologies usage.

Nowadays, it is very popular to get free business email accounts and address from a long list of free mail hosting providers such as Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, and etc. A huge number of small business owners and especially start-ups use their services.

However, the main problem here is that the majority of free email accounts do not allow you to create an Email address with your own domain. And this can be a big issue because it could make your company look unprofessional especially in comparison with your competitors.

What is an email with your own domain name? For example, if you have a business website www.mycompany.com then you can make an email with your domain name like [email protected] This looks far more professional than [email protected] Right?

How to find business email addresses for free?

Here we will answer and explain this question. The post is divided into the following topics:

• Using a free email account that allows you to create a business email address ending with your own domain name.
• Best free email service providers ( that do not allow you using your domain)

Free Business Email Accounts And Addresses: Best List

1) Email Providers That Allows You To Create a Free Company Mail Address Ending With Your Own Domain Name.

Nowadays it is really hard to find a service like this, especially after Google Apps closed its free solution that allowed you to set up free custom email addresses for up to ten users. Microsoft also closed their service that allowed you to attach your custom domains to free Hotmail and Outlook.com accounts.

These services were great but they do not exist anymore. Despite that, you still have very good free solutions if you want business mail that looks professional:

• ZohoMail

For many users, Zoho Mail is a top choice when it comes to free business email accounts because it’s free for up to 25 mail accounts. You can easily enable mail hosting for an already owned domain. Also, they offer a range of domain management options for businesses.

One of the best parts of ZohoMail is that it provides a clean, intuitive, ad-free, and minimalist interface. In addition to that the signup and set process is so easy that it took us only a few minutes to finish all the steps.

You can add any email address that will finish with your own domain. For example, you can create [email protected] and you can add more 24 emails like this one in their free plan.

Here is ZohoMail free sign up page.

Except for their free plan, they also offer paid options, but if you are a small business owner their free plan can work great for you.

Key Features and Benefits Of Zoho Free Plan:

• A clean, fast Webmail with features matching or superior to those found in desktop email clients.
• No adds – they never display ads, even in their free plans, and your email exchanges are never scanned for keywords.
• Smooth Setup & Management – you can quickly set up email with a step-by-step setup wizard. Easily manage email policies, groups, and mailbox quotas.
• Secure and reliable.
• Online Office Apps
• You can migrate your existing business email account and mails to them using their very easy migration tool and a help guide.

ZohoMail is quite useful for a wide range of small companies to create free business email accounts and addresses. It is very easy to use and manage.

Actually, Zoho is one of the last remaining email providers that offers truly free email accounts for business without having to buy anything else of their services and products.

• Yandex.Mail for Domain

Yes, you see right Yandex!

Yandex.Mail for Domain is a free service provided by Yandex for setting up email on your domain. You can create 1000 free mailboxes like “[email protected]” and your mailbox users can use the Yandex.Mail web interface with all of its advantages, including the spam filter, automatic virus scanning, chat, and other features.

ZohoMail is an absolutely great service when it comes to getting a business email address for free. However, sometimes 10, 20 or 30 email accounts are not enough for your company or your business growing and needs more email addresses.

In this case, Yandex Mails for domains could be a very good free solution. It provides you with 1000 free users. You can setup 1000 email address for free!

Except that, you also can add your custom Yandex mail account in your email clients such as Outlook, Gmail, or Yahoo!

The only problem here is the custom domain setup page is in Russian language but Google chrome can help with translation. Actually, this problem is very easy to be resolved.

Yandex is one of the biggest search engines of the world. Of course, it is very popular in Russia but if you are in the USA (for example), Yandex.Mail for Domain could work great for you too. Its email service is reliable.

In addition to that, If you really want an absolutely free solution for a huge number of accounts on your domain name then this could, possibly, be the best solution.

To create free business email accounts in Yandex visit this page.

Features and Benefits Of Yandex.Mail for Domain:

• Free of charge service for setting up email on your domain.
• Provides you with effective communication between the employees of your organization.
• For a single domain, you can register up to 1000 mailboxes, which you can use yourself or give out to other users
• You can use your organization’s logo in the Mail’s web interface.
• You also can add your custom Yandex mail account in your email clients such as Outlook, Gmail, or Yahoo!
• Your mailbox users can use the Yandex.Mail web interface with all of its advantages, including the spam filter, automatic virus scanning, chat, and other features.
• Reliable and secure email service.

If you are a small business owner or need not more than 25 free business email accounts, we recommend Zoho Mail. However, if you need a huge number of free mail addresses on your domain, Yandex provide a good option.

2) Best Free Email Service Providers Without The Opportunity to Use Your Own Domain Name

This is not a very professional and recommendable solution but a lot of business owners still choose to use it.

Why is it not a very good solution?
Custom your email may seem like a not so important detail in the whole process of creating and managing a business but it may also have a crucial meaning.

Some clients and customers just do not trust brands and companies that send them emails ending with Gmail or Yahoo. Do not forget that Email is one of the key communication tools for your business.

Other important cons of having free business email accounts are that they look very insubstantial and unprofessional and there could be a lack of effective communication techniques that only paid options provide.

Despite that if you still want to create free business email without ending with your domain name, here is a list of the best free email providers:

• Gmail

You definitely know that Gmail is the best free email service all over the world. And you can use it even for your business needs because it provides a range of options that have valuable meaning for the companies. Gmail have a range of features that can support your small company’s communication. Some of them are: good inbox storage – 15GB, Calendar, mobile app, instant messenger, create folders, address book, personal signature, import social media contacts, Video Chat, social media feeds and more.

• Outlook.com

Outlook.com (a very famous Microsoft service) is also one of the most popular free email solutions all over the world. In the past, it was known as Hotmail. Outlook can be accessed via IMAP, POP and Exchange ActiveSync. It has a lot of advanced features suitable also for business needs: Calendar, unlimited box storage, instant messenger, address book, and etc. In addition to that, Outlook Mail automatically bans spam and scan viruses. Also, Outlook is fully integrated with MS Office which allows you to create and view your business files directly in your email.

• Yahoo! Mail

Yahoo! Mail is also one of the most popular free email providers. It is an email program on the web, Windows and mobile devices with 1TB storage, RSS Reader, social networking and instant messenger, Calendar and etc. Also, you can send up to 50 files a single email. It is a simple and easy-to-use program. Some of the main cons of Yahoo are that you cannot label messages freely and Yahoo does not offer IMAP access for desktop email programs.

• GMX Mail

Despite the fact GMX is not so popular, it provides a good free email service with a range of features that could be useful for business. It provides unlimited email storage, instant messenger, address book, social media networking, video chat, a rich web interface and mobile apps. GMX Mail also is a reliable email service filtered well of spam and viruses.

• Mail.com

Mail.com also provides most of the important email features that you might be useful for business correspondence. You can use unlimited mail storage, POP and iMAP access, you can set up your email to receive and reply all your emails from one address, and more.

See also our posts:

• Best Website Builder For Small Business
• Best Web Hosting For Small Business

Conclusion

There are many ways to creating a company’s mail. You can use free business mail accounts or paid options. No matter which one of the possibilities you will choose, always aim for a professional looking mail.

As we say above, it is much more professional your mail to end with your domain name. For that, you can use ZohoMail or Yandex.Mail for Domain. They provide free services with a range of good features.

Which mail service you use for your business now?

Finding the best website builder for small business can be harder than you might think.

Good website creators are easy to use and packed with anything you need to run a successful business site: e-commerce platform features with an easy-to-use online store, beautiful templates for impressive-looking design, great SEO (search engine optimization) possibilities, email accounts, mobile and smartphone optimization, blogging features, and more.

The quality of your website is crucial for your business. After all, a website is one of the top marketing keys for creating new customers.

What is the best small business website builder for your business? The answer depends mostly on your specific needs.

For example: if you want to run an online shop, you have to look for good e-commerce features. If you want an attractive design, search for builders with best template options and etc.

On the market, there are trusted and well-known website makers with many positive reviews, a huge range of pleased business clients and high level of customer satisfaction.

Here you will see:

• A list of some of the top website builders well-known for their reliability that can cover small business needs.
• The best e-commerce platforms for small business.

Best website builders for small business

It’s never been easier than nowadays, to set up your business website. You don’t need any special technical skills.

Here is an overview of the most easy-to-use and proven website builders for business needs. The page is focused on advantages for small business that any of the platforms provide.

Wix

Wix is a very easy to use website builder that allows you to create professional and business websites with a very beautiful design. Actually, this is one of the most popular and well-known platforms for creating websites for different businesses and industries. They have ready designs that are up-to-date with the most modern design trends.

Advantages for small business:

• Surprisingly easy to use drag and drop website builder with a great flexibility and no coding required. Anyone can create websites in no time.
• A great range of beautiful and professional looking templates with different thematics suitable for specific businesses. Templates are modern and attractive. Editing the template design is absolutely simple.
• Impressive photo galleries.
• Very good support – email, phone, help center, forum support.
• Good mobile site building tools – optimized for smartphones and tablets.
• Rich web store features– an online store is included in the “eCommerce” package.
• Multilingual sites are possible.
• A wide range of business tools such as Contact Manager, Site Analytics, Personalized Google Mailbox, Communication Tools for speaking with visitors directly on your site, ShoutOut Email Marketing and more.
• Get online bookings anytime – you can let clients make appointments 24/7 on your site.
• Invoicing – you can easily create and send invoices, track payment status and get paid.
• Specific tools that cover many business areas – online stores, designers, doctors, photographers, small businesses, hospitality, event planners, restaurant owners, consultants and more.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – page titles, alt tags, meta descriptions can be added individually.
• Secure hosting.
• Blog – you are able to easily create a beautiful and totally customizable blog to your site.

Wix has a name as one of the best website builders for small business all over the world.

Wix is available for free, but if you want professional features for good business performance (like your own domain name or priority support), you can have to choose one of their premium plans.

If your priority is a good looking website on your mobile device, Wix can give you this. You can present your small business with style.

Wix website builder is ideal for small businesses that aim to make a visually stunning website. But if your main priority is a good online store, definitely it is better to use online store platforms such as Shopify or Bigcommerce (listed below).

Website: Wix.com

Weebly

Weebly website builder is widely known as the easiest way to create a web page. No doubt, that for many people, Weebly is the best website builder for small business needs.

Weebly is a creator of choice for tens of millions users worldwide. It allows you to have your business website up and running it in no time. Also, Weebly provides good hosting for the websites that are built on their platform.

Advantages for small business:

• Incredibly easy to use and intuitive drag and drop interface. It doesn’t require any coding knowledge or graphic design skills, and it gives you tons of great features.
• Modern themes with attractive design themes. New gorgeous and professional-looking themes arrive all of the time.
• Mobile responsiveness – automatically adjust themselves to look perfect on whatever device visitors are using – smartphone, tablet and etc. Always optimized for smaller screens.
• Robust feature set.
• A unique mobile app that gives you the ability to edit and update your site on the go, or to create a new site from scratch.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – title, meta and description tags are very easy customizable at any page. Advanced settings for search engine optimization are available.
• E-Commerce Services with amazingly easy to create online stores. Actually, Weebly has an impressive set of e-commerce capabilities that make it very simple to sell products and services online. It provides multiple payment options.
• App Center that allows integration with many other third-party services, which is perfect for business.
• Image galleries, music and video players, and other widgets are all included in the main editor. Tables, calendars, and others are also included.
• Blog with all the basic features included.
• Friendly support representatives via telephone, email, and chat.
• Simple visitor statistics.

Weebly is one of the fastest growing brands in the website building field. It provides everything you need to get started and grow your website. In addition to that, this website builder has very high level of customer satisfaction and positive reviews.

Weebly is an ideal website creator for individuals and small-business owners who are looking for an easier builder with a very good range of capabilities and functionality.

It provides free version but the professional capabilities are in their premium plans.

Website: www.weebly.com

Strikingly

Strikingly is a website builder for building one-page websites. It allows you to easily create clear, simple information sections and large photos. If you want to build a one-page business website, Strikingly provides the best interface for this.

A single-page site is one of the great ways to make visitors paying attention to your product or service.

Pros for small business:

• Incredibly easy to use one-page website builder. Their sites (exception – those on their Pro package) are one-page websites. Also, it gives a great user experience for your visitors on any device.
• Intuitive drag and drop website builder. Absolutely no code or design experience. Innovative scrolling single-page design with sections to which you can navigate.
• This scrolling single page websites are ideal for mobile devices.
• A few but beautiful templates and elegant design tools.
• Mobile-optimized – their responsive templates look great on any device, automatically.
• Simple Store – you can sell products on your site with a good e-commerce functionality.
• SEO capabilities.
• Simple blog functionality for easy blogging. Each blog post gets its own page.
• Social Feed – you can show your business Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feed directly.
• Galleries, video backgrounds, media sliders, custom colors, password protection.
• Allows multi-page sites as well for Pro subscribers.
• App Store that gives you access to the many features such as A PayPal button for receiving payments, Google Maps, Google Calendar, Facebook comments, Typeform surveys, Newsletter tool and more.

Strikingly is ideal for a personal or small business website without the need for extensive eCommerce. Strikingly has a free version, but a lot of standard features require premium paid account.

If you are looking for an easy way to create a small business website with a beautiful design, Strikingly is worth to consider.

Website: www.strikingly.com

eHost

eHost website creator is a drag and drops website builder for quick and easy website creation without the need of knowing any programming language. eHost provides a low-price solution that focuses on simplicity. It comes with over 1000 pre-designed templates.

The company offers all in one solution- great cPanel hosting, domain name and web builder.

eHost website builder – pros for small business:

• One of the most affordable prices in the industry.
• A wide range of beautiful website templates all able to be customized.
• Fully responsive templates for mobile and tablet devices.
• Ideal for newbies, who are want to build a website, but have no any experience.
• Quickly creation and web page customization.
• You can upload images, create slideshows and galleries, create a contact form for your small business needs.
• The hosting includes leading hosting features with excellent customer service.
• 24/7 friendly and knowledgeable support.
• Additional eCommerce functionality to build a simple online store.
• Blog Setup Wizard.
• You can get your business website live within a few minutes, at very little cost.

As eHost is an all-in-one solution that includes very good hosting service and website builder, you can choose between their simple site builder and their cPanel features. If you want to get started quickly, you have to choose the site builder. But if you want to have more functionality over your site in the future, you need to opt for cPanel hosting. It includes PayPal integration, an online store with cPanel, advertising credits through Google, Bing, and Yahoo and more.

If you aim to find a simple website builder (without too much flexibility) including great hosting service at very good and affordable price, eHost site builder can be your perfect solution.

Website: ehost.com

Best e-commerce platforms for small business

Bigcommerce

When it comes to creating a business website for e-commerce, Bigcommerce is definitely one of the top and most popular brands.

Bigcommerce is an e-commerce solution that allows businesses to set up an online store and sell products online. BigCommerce’s security of online stores and beautiful templates make it a website builder of choice for many business owners worldwide.

Pros for small business:

• Unique and very beautiful templates and an intuitive storefront editor that lets you change your site’s look with no coding required.
• Integration with Paypal, Braintree, Square, Stripe, WorldPay, First Data, Cybersource and many other payment gateways.
• Very good search engine optimization (SEO) options – you can very easily add keywords to your products and pages. Also, they have search-friendly themes, optimized URLs, automatic sitemaps, and more.
• Support team available to answer your questions and solve your problems 24/7 via phone, email or chat.
• One of the most feature-rich e-commerce solution on the market for small businesses.
• Market-leading selling tools you need to create a store and grow your sales. Advanced conversion tools to reduce friction, encourage checkouts and even bring back shoppers who left your site.
• Secure hosting, unlimited storage, and bandwidth.
• Migration services – their in-house team moves stores to BigCommerce from other e-commerce platforms.
• Automatically mobile responsiveness.
• A strong accent to security with an average uptime of more than 99.99%.
• Very fast websites.
• Shipping options to improve conversion, encourage customer loyalty and streamline your operations.
• Deep analytics designed specifically for e-commerce.

Bigcommerce provides your business with amazing feature list, solid SEO, and ease of use.

No doubt that it is one of the best and leading shopping cart platform. Simpler interfaces, powerful marketing tools, and third-party apps allow you to create a profitable online store. And the most important – you have a solid base to grow your small business.

Website: http://bigcommerce.com

Shopify

Shopify is one of the most reputable online shop builders that give you all sorts of tools you need to run a successful online business. Shopify is a powerful but user-friendly all-in-one e-commerce solution with ease of use, flexibility, great quality and quantity designs.

Known as one of the most successful e-commerce platforms, Shopify is filled with features for creating a site in no time, and it is no need to worry about additional hosting or buying a domain.

Pros for small business:

• A very good range of beautiful and professional templates, so your online shop can look modern and attractive. Actually, they provide theme created by world-renowned designers.
• One of the more feature-rich carts out there. Some of them are optional and others are automatic.
• A large App Store where you can choose from over 1000 different Apps. Shopify gives you not only the ability to run a successful online store but also offer you other tools you need for other aspects of managing a successful business.
• 24/7 support via phone, online live chat or email.
• Mobile commerce ready – includes a built-in mobile commerce shopping cart.
• A Blogging platform that allows you to create lookbooks, encourage discussion, and moderate comments.
• Shopping cart that integrates with over 70 external payment gateways from around the world. From bitcoin to PayPal to iDEAL. Also, you can accept credit cards – Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express.
• Search engine optimized (SEO) – supports SEO best practices like customizable H1, title, and meta tags.
• A good set of marketing tools such as Product reviews, Email marketing, Sell on Facebook, Gift cards and more.
• Web hosting with Unlimited bandwidth, Daily backups, SSL certificate, 99.99% uptime and 24/7 monitoring and more.
• Good product presentation tools such as Zoom function, picture gallery, video and more.

If you are looking for the best online store and website builder for small business, Shopify definitely one to consider.

Actually, with Shopify you have all you need to run a professional online store – impressive designs, a great set of features, 24 support, online marketing tools, payment accepting and etc.

Website: www.shopify.com

Volusion

Volusion is one the most popular eCommerce shopping cart platforms for small business on the market today. It is a cloud-based eCommerce solution.

One of the reasons why this platform is so popular is the fact it provides a huge range of features including building a website, web hosting, checkout, payment processing, order management and management, newsletters, and much more.

In fact, Volusion provides your online store with anything it needs for online success.

• Impressively easy to use and clean interface. Very simple to navigate.
• Beautiful templates and tons of options to style your site, for any device – the only limit is your imagination.
• Hundred of Ecommerce Templates – easy to select and install on your site.
• Comprehensive e-commerce tools.
• Ecommerce website fully compatible with any device from homepage to checkout.
• Easy-to-use e-commerce SEO options.
• Easily post to social media sites – you can sell directly on major channels like Facebook, Amazon, and eBay.
• Powerful coupon and discount features.
• E-commerce inventory management & merchandising solutions made easy.
• Website Security & PCI Compliant Web Hosting.
• Payment – you can accept payments from a huge range of different processors including PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.
• 24/7 live support via phone, chat, or email.
• Integrations with Xero, FreshBooks, MailChimp, Quickbooks and more.

Volusion is one of the famous online store builders that allow you to start selling your products without the need of any technical skills and experience.

It is one of the preferable options because it provides a ton of good features, a simple interface and strong security tools. Also, it is a good value for money.

Website: www.volusion.com

Conclusion

Selecting the best website builder for small business allows you to get the most out of your website. It is a great chance to attract the clients you need to develop and grow your business.

Choosing the best website creator depends mostly on your needs. Your needs vary depending on your industry, product specificity, goals, requirements and etc.

For example, if you are selling clothes and want an online shop, proven brands for e-commerce platforms such as Shopify or Bigcommerce, can suits you great. But if you have a small interior design studio, Weebly or Wix, with their beautiful template solutions, can be the best choice for you.

Before picking the website builder for your small business, do your research and be informed of all features and advantages different platforms provide.

What is the best web hosting for small business?

It is not an easy question. Website hosting companies and their services are difficult to compare. They provide a wide diapason of features, price, and quality.

Choosing the best small business web hosting solution depends mostly on your specific needs. Ask yourself questions such as “how many visitors you have”, “do you run an e-commerce site with shop cart“, “do you have lots of video content” and etc.

Very cheap business web hosting service may suit you if you have a website with a few pages, without e-commerce tools and a small number of visitors. Generally, the cheapest hosting plans are less secure and slower.

If you aim to grow your business or you have an online shop, you need a more high-performance solution. Top web hosting companies provide small business with many features and services such as shopping cart software, 24-hour support, email accounts, high-security, tools for building and designing a website, and much more.

In addition to that, a high-performance web hosting does not necessary mean an expensive service. There is a range of excellent small business web hosting services at very good and affordable price.

On this page you will find:

• A list of top hosting companies that provide some of the best web hosting services for small business.
• What is the difference between shared, VPS and dedicated hosting? Which one is the best for small business needs?

Best web hosting for small business. Companies and services.

These companies listed here are chosen from their online reputation and positive customer reviews and from our years of experience (as a customer with business needs). As a person who run a business, you need a reliable web hosting company that can support your online presence in the best way.

Bluehost

Bluehost is definitely, one of the top and most known brand names when it comes to best web hosting for small business needs.

Not to mention that they are also an official “WordPress” recommended hosting provider.

Advantages for small business:

• Outstanding customer service and 24×7 support including live chat and phone.
• Incredibly easy to use. Among the best usability.
• You can use one account to host multiple domains for your business. You can track, update, transfer, purchase, and administer all of your domains seamlessly.
• Automatic backups – daily, weekly, and monthly.
• One of the most inexpensive (affordable) prices available. It really offers a good price among the most popular options.
• E-commerce integration – you can easily integrate online shop directly into your website / websites.
• 30-day Money-back Guaranty.
• Provides optimized hosting for WordPress. Many business owners run their site on WordPress, and here you have everything you need to make WordPress websites secure, easy to use, and extremely fast.
• High level of security.
• Powerful advanced capabilities like Secure Shell (SSH) access, server-side includes, log file access and web-based managers for files, databases, and email.
• Professional migration services – if you have already a website, Bluehost provide professional service that seamlessly migrate everything to your new account. It is very important for your business website especially if you are not a webmaster.
• Their services are updated to modern standards.

For small businesses

, Bluehost is definitely a value for money and great web hosting service provider.

Website: https://www.bluehost.com/

A2 Hosting

A2 Hosting has a really good reputation based on their incredible speed, uptime and customer support. Actually, this company offers unlimited everything you need for your website at a very good price.

If you aim to find a host that combine great speed performance, support, and security, it worths to consider A2 hosting as a small business hosting provider.

Pros for small business:

• Incredibly fast hosting. A2 Hosting uses HTTP/2 (Faster and more efficient network protocol), CloudLinux (it allows site runs smoothly even during traffic spikes on your server), CloudFlare CDN (Content delivery network focused on enhancing speed and security). All of these things lead to very fast hosting performance. For any business website, speed has a crucial role because it relates directly to your visitor experience.
• 24/7/365 guru crew support with knowledgeable, friendly and patient technicians that provide guidance, support, and care for their customers’ needs. They’re available through email, chat, phone or ticket system.
• 99.9% uptime guarantee wich makes A2 very reliable hosting.
• Developer friendly web hosting company that provides current versions of the most popular (and some not so popular) developer tools.
• Support the best open source e-commerce tools from Magento to PrestaShop.
• WordPress integration and special plans for it.
• Location option – A2 Hosting offers data centers located around the globe so your site can be closer to you and your visitors and customers to reduce latency.
• Anytime Money Back Guarantee – If you do decide they are not the right host for you though, they’ll give you a hassle-free refund.
• Flexible hosting choices and plans. Clear and simple pricing.
• Tons of customizable features and tools. Even they have solutions for ERP software, project management, tools to help teachers and much much more.
• Good value-for-money for a quality product.

When we talk about the best web hosting for small business, A2 definitely has a place here. With its amazing speed, dedicated support and range of features A2 can provide any business website with reliable and secure online performance.

A2 Hosting is a blazing fast web hosting solution. Whether you have a low traffic, brand new or a popular business site, A2 Hosting has got you covered.

The company has a great score of positive reviews and customer satisfaction in the majority of web hosting review sites.

Website: https://www.a2hosting.com

HostGator

HostGator is one of the well-known and respected web hosting providers in the industry. With its balance of attractive prices and features, it is a smart hosting of choice for many businesses all over the world. The feature-packed HostGator gives you all the tools to have an attractive and functional small business website.

Advantages for Small Business:

• 24/7/365 technical support – comprehensive customer support via live chat support, email support, and phone support.
• Free shopping cart software.
• Very easy to use control panel – easy to navigate control panel using graphical interface with several useful tools that make hosting and managing your website very easy.
• 45-day money-back guarantee – whatever your plan is, if you cancel the plan within the 45-days, you will get a full refund.
• Very easy WordPress integration.
• Useful Weebly site-building software – their partnership with Weebly ( an incredibly convenient drag-and-drop site builder) allows you to create a website in no time.
• Unlimited traffic, emails.
• Dedicated Migrations Team – standing by to transfer your existing content from your prior host and configure it to perform optimally on HostGator platform.
• 99.9% Uptime – the availability of your website is our top priority for every business. HostGator stands by that fact with their uptime guarantee.
• 4,500 website templates. This is an advantage only if you know haw to choose an SEO-friendly website template.
• Lots of hosting options – they can provide you and your business website with the flexibility it needs with hosting.

HostGator is an Award-Winning Web Hosting – since their inception in 2002, they have won numerous industry awards for their hosting and support.

Website: http://www.hostgator.com/

SiteGround

SiteGround is widely known in the web hosting industry as one of the best, most reliable, secure and fastest web hosting providers.

The company offers the full range of web hosting features such as a free domain and email, cPanel with SSH access, Cloudflare CDN, unlimited MySQL databases, and bandwidth.

Advantages valuable for small business:

• Legendary 24/7 technical support – their support team provide onboarding help and ongoing assistance at any time. Customer support is always ready to be of your service.
• Extremely fast with latest speed technologies. Speed is a crucial advantage for every business website. Integrates with CloudFlare for improved performance and security.
• Very stable platform with automated monitoring and daily backup.
• 1-click WordPress installer. For WordPress super speed they offer SuperCacher on all plans above the StartUp.
• Free website transfer.
• Many hundreds of positive reviews in the top web hosting review websites.
• Extend e-commerce service for business customers who need additional help in setting up their online shops.
• 30 days money back guarantee.
• 99.9% uptime guarantee which is impressing.
• Unlimited traffic, and emails.

If you are searching for fast and reliable web hosting provider with tons of features, SiteGround definitely is among the best web hosting services for small business and not only. It is favorite web hosting provider for different size of businesses all over the world.

Their phenomenal customer support is widely discussed in the top web hosting reviews websites. Actually, if you are reading these sites, you know that SiteGround is among the companies with one of the highest levels of customer satisfaction and positive experience.

Website: https://www.siteground.com/

Inmotion Hosting

Inmotion Hosting is among the top favorites for thousands of businesses all over the world. In fact, this hosting has one of the highest levels of positive reviews from both customers and webmasters. With a range of very attractive features and their reasonable price, Inmotion Hosting is widely recommended as the best web hosting for small business and also for large company websites.

Advantages for small business:

• Widely recommended web hosting for business (for both small and large businesses) with some of the highest levels of customer satisfaction. The company is rated as one of the top hosting providers by a lot of dedicated to hosting review sites.
• Clear focus on business hosting.
• Very fast page load speeds.
• A wide range of plans, options and web hosting services.
• High level of security with is extremely important for eCommerce.
• Great customer support via skype, chat, phone, and mail.
• Very good price – affordable and reasonable.
• WordPress installed for you during checkout FREE No-Downtime Website Transfer. Actually, it is very good for hosting WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla sites. Host unlimited WordPress sites on one account.
• Provides numerous free E-Commerce tools as having a one-click installer.
• 90-day money back guarantee.
• Unlimited domains, email, disk storage, and bandwidth.
• Free backup.
• You can choose server location maximum speeds & reduced latency.
• Work faster with SSH & develop in PHP, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Ruby, Perl, and Python.

Inmotion Hosting is capable of handling all of your growing business needs, from shared hosting for small businesses to dedicated server based enterprise-level solutions.

The company focus on Investments in Technology – their data centers are Category A, PCI compliant. With advanced Smart Routing™ technology & premium bandwidth providers, they maintain 99.99% network uptime.

Website: http://www.inmotionhosting.com

Web Hosting Hub

Web Hosting Hub is famous with its reliable and affordable web hosting solutions. They have plans to fit every hosting need from blogs, e-commerce and custom websites. Also, they have a special web hosting plan for small business needs for better performance. They help you to quickly get your business website online.

Pros for Small Business:

• They provide special plan dedicated to small business needs with unlimited websites and unlimited MySQL & PostgreSQL Databases.
• 24/7 always available customer service and technical support. Excellent customer support via phone, email ticket system and live chat.
• Small business friendly hosting.
• Free website transfer – they will transfer your websites for free. They make it very easy to move from your current web hosting provider. Their zero-downtime transfer process takes the pain out of moving.
• Fast web hosting and a lot of features at a low price.
• Very easy to use features even for beginners.
• Unlimited space and bandwidth.
• A wide range of-commerce toolssuch as 1-click free shopping carts and free customizable themes.
• WordPress and other apps are just a click away. They have 310+ free applications, including site builders like WordPress, Drupal, Concrete5, and eCommerce platforms like OpenCart and Magento.

With their features and service, Web Hosting Hub is a great choice for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Due to their fast, reliable hosting services at a low price, Web Hosting Hub has rapidly grown into a preferable and respected web host in the industry.

Website: http://www.webhostinghub.com/

The Difference between shared hosting, VPS, and dedicated hosting. Which one is the best for small business?

Anyone of mentioned above web hosting providers (as well as the others on the market) provides 3 main different types of hosting plans – shared, VPS and dedicated hosting. You have to choose one of them.

To pick up the best one for your business needs, you need to know what is the difference between these types.

Shared Hosting

Shared Hosting – this is a hosting plan where you share your hosting space with many other customers. In shared hosting, all user accounts share the available resources with all the other accounts on the server. These include features such as CPU time, disk space, Mail server, and memory. All performance resources on a server are shared.

Actually, shared hosting is the cheapest way of hosting a website because expenditures per server are covered by many customers.

Advantages for small business: First – low price. Second: it is a good option if you have small websites and their number is limited.

Disadvantages of shared hosting are the limited resources you have. As a user, you have some restrictions on hosting services. I mean, if some of the users on the shared server use a lot of traffic, email capabilities and etc, you and other individuals on the same server are very likely to experience worse performance such as shower time of the website loading. For business, this disadvantage can have very bad consequences related to a worse experience for your website visitors.

So before choosing shared hosting for your needs, carefully look at its limitations and restrictions. Always ask hosting provider about them.

VPS Hosting

VPS Hosting (Virtual Private Server) is a virtualized server. Like in shared hosting, in VPS hosting your website is on a server that also host other websites. However, the difference here is that VPS has fewer sites per server.

And here its big advantages come – the websites share the price of the server, which results in lower costs than dedicated hosting. But you have much better hosting performance. Other important advantages of VPS are that you can configure anything you wish on the server and you can use extensive 24/7 customer support. Also, VPS hosting generally has higher levels of security that shared one.

Maybe your business needs more Web hosting power. If you’re looking for a hosting plan that offers more power and flexibility than shared hosting, but you don’t want to pay much for it, virtual VPS hosting can be the best choice for your small business.

Actually, VPS is a hybrid between shared and dedicated hosting.

Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated Hosting is a type of web hosting in which the user rent and exclusive use an entire server not shared with anyone else. The server is devoted to a single company or for a single purpose ( for example – a website).

Dedicated hosting gives the company absolute control over the server – its software and security systems. It is in contrast to shared hosting.

As you might guess, this type of web hosting is the most expensive and generally it is not needed for small business.

A dedicated server is usually appropriate for a website (or many business sites owned by a company) that may handle a huge amount of traffic – for example – up to 50 million hits per day.

Conclusion:

As a small business owner, usually your choice is between shared and VPS hosting plans and services.

The best one depends mainly on your specific needs – the size of your business website, the current and expected amount of traffic, e-commerce and online shop cart options, plans for growth and developing and etc.

On the other hand, the shared and VPS plans out there provide different capabilities and features. For example, there are good shared hosting plans specially developed for small business needs and very good VPS plans that combine high quality at affordable price.

So before choosing your small business web hosting, think carefully how the different offers cover your needs. Allways ask the hosting providers about additional information and clarification of the things that you do not understand in their plans.

Picking the best web hosting for small business is not an easy task but it has a crucial role in your overall business performance. In our internet era, a good website can make a difference and can be one of your most important keys for success.

If you are about to create now an online business and you need ideas, check our previous posts: 101 website ideas and 21 types of websites that make money.