This post was originally published on May 23, 2017, and was updated on Dec. 18, 2019.
As a business owner, you probably rely on email as a primary line of communication with your customers and prospects. That’s why it’s important to make sure your emails make it past your recipients’ spam folders. Spammy emails can both sideline your email marketing efforts and hurt your business’s credibility.
We’ve all seen instances where legitimate messages are delivered to the junk/trash folder — how frustrating. Typically, this behavior happens because the sender has done something to trigger the recipient’s spam filters.
ISPs, networks and spam filters have a constantly evolving list of criteria and triggers used to judge an email’s spam score to determine which email gets through or not. This spam score is a major part of your email address’s reputation. Rack up a high spam score? Your email address reputation will go down and your messages might be rejected or deleted.
How to avoid sending spammy emails
Each email provider has its own unique rules and processes for handling spammy emails, but there are a handful of universally-accepted rules that email providers will follow.
By being aware of these simple criteria, your email has its best chance to make it to its intended party.
Follow these tips to avoid sending spammy emails to your customers:
As a business owner, registering your business’s domain should be one of your first steps. The next step would be creating a professional email address using that domain name.
Not only is this a solid branding practice, but you look more credible and professional in the process.
Having a professional, domain-based email address is an inexpensive cost of doing business and lends credibility to your email messages.
2. Make sure that your name and physical address are in your email
The CAN-SPAM Act established regulations and guidelines for businesses sending commercial emails. Part of this law deals with truthfully identifying yourself and requires that you include your business’s name and physical address in your email messages.
When sending an email, the information in the “From” field must be accurate and should not mislead readers.
You’ll also need to include a physical mailing address. Spam filters do check for these details as part of the CAN-SPAM guidelines, so failure to include accurate information can result in your messages going to the spam folder.
Tip: If you operate your business from home and do not want to broadcast your home address, consider getting a PO box to use as your business address.
3. Craft an appropriate, short and accurate subject line
Your subject line is your introduction to your audience. Use your subject line to clearly identify your email content so your recipients recognize immediately that the email is from you and what they’ll find when they open your message.
Your subject line needs to appeal to your readers while accurately summarizing the purpose of your message.
If your subject line doesn’t match the message, recipients are more likely to delete your email without reading it or simply move it to the spam folder.
Instant deletions or manual spam flags by a recipient will count against your overall spam score for future emails, so avoid misleading or inaccurate subject lines.
Email engagement rate is part of your overall spam reputation score.
Your email list might be comprised of users that originally opted into your emails, but perhaps they no longer want to read your emails. Instead of opting out, some users will simply ignore your messages and delete the email without reading it.
While this behavior might not be entirely your fault, you can be penalized by email service providers for the lack of engagement with your emails. To avoid this, you’ll want to keep an eye on your metrics and regularly prune email addresses that aren’t engaging with your emails.
Editor’s note: GoDaddy Email Marketing includes robust analytical tools that turns complex metrics monitoring into a breeze.
Keeping your audience engaged can boil down to the content that you choose to send. Long, rambling emails without any clear direction will quickly bore even the most engaged reader.
Keep it simple.
When drafting your email, craft your message to be concise and interesting.
To keep your message focused, include a call-to-action and place it near the top of your email. A call-to-action (aka CTA) is an appeal to your readers — a request that they do something in particular.
If your email requires readers to scroll to read to the end, you might want to reiterate your CTA toward the bottom.
This tip applies to your entire email message, from the subject line to the body of your email.
Bad grammar, poor punctuation or odd sentence phrasing tends to be the first red flag for spammy emails.
Take the time to proofread your email.
You want your email to reflect the professional you are, so take the time to craft well-edited messages. And, by all means, don’t use all uppercase or lowercase subject lines, as this can raise the spam alarm.
I’m sure you’re familiar with spammy-looking email messages. Many of those email messages will use similar words and phrases.
Spam filters track these trigger terms and, if you’re including these in your emails, those filters may send your email right to the spam folder.
Here are some examples:
Cheap
Click here
Income
Bonus
Order now
Quote
Limited
Cash
Sales
Winner
Deal
There are too many specific terms to list here, but the main point to keep in mind is that you want to ensure that you’re crafting genuine email content for your audience. If it starts getting too gimmicky or over the top, spam filters will notice.
8. Resist the urge to embed excessive files in your email
An excess of embedded images, videos, attachments or sound files is a huge red flag for spam filters. These types of files are commonly used by bad actors to spread viruses and malware. It’s perfectly acceptable to add images to your emails, just use them sparingly.
Email can be an efficient tool for your business, but if your messages are going straight to your audience’s spam folders, you’ll be missing out on important opportunities.
By keeping the above issues in mind, you increase the chances of your day-to-day communications getting to your customers and prospects. And that’s a win for everyone.
This article includes content originally published on the GoDaddy blog by Judith Kallos.
This article was originally published on July 2, 2013, and was updated on Dec. 18, 2019.
The images in your email newsletters bring life to the stories you share. Whether those stories share events, business updates, or new items for sale, quality images create better emails.
In short, images in email newsletters tell the story.
There isn’t a prescription to follow for the quantity or types of images to include in your email, so you’ll have to trust your gut — or enlist friends whose guts you trust. Send tests to yourself and look at the mailing in your inbox. Do the images draw your eye to the right spot? Is the email too busy? Too bland? Descriptive? Ask yourself how the email feels. Then tweak your content accordingly.
With images, it’s better to under-do than overdo.
3 guidelines for effective image sizes for email newsletters
Here are the points that we’ll cover so that you can effectively deliver your email marketing message:
1. File size: Less than 1MB (under 150kb is the ultimate)
Your readers view your email newsletters through all different types of internet connections and devices.
Keeping your file size small helps your emails load quickly in a wide range of environments.
Anything too big will take forever to process, and will bog down your email when it is being sent and opened. You want to keep your emails light and easy for people to open.
Are you having issues getting your image to be less than 1MB? Online tools like CompressJPEG can help you to decrease the overall file size quickly.
Most images that you’ll want to include in your email newsletter already come in one of these formats. Some more advanced image editors may offer more image file options. As long as you stick to the three file types above, your email marketing program will love you and so will your readers.
3. Image width: 590px for a banner image and 530px for all other images
These are the maximum widths an image will display in your email newsletter. We’ve tested image and email displays in many different email clients and inboxes — these sizes help your emails look beautiful everywhere.
In general, if you adjust your image dimensions to 590px (for banners) or 530px width (for everything else), the image file size will take care of itself.
Remember that sizing an image from large to small is always preferable to stretching a small image to larger dimensions to avoid pixelation and distortion.
Editor’s note: Need more in-depth information on using images effectively in your email marketing campaigns? Our detailed email marketing guide is the perfect place to start.
Now that you know the best way to format your images for email newsletters, get out there and create your next email marketing campaign!
This article includes content originally published on the GoDaddy blog by Emma Wilhelm.
This post was originally published on May 7, 2015, and was updated on Jan. 18, 2018, Dec. 11, 2018, and Dec. 18, 2019.
It’s no secret that a social media presence is a “must have” for ventures of all sizes. One of the best ways to improve your positioning across all social networks is through consistency of voice and branding — this includes social media image sizes.
A top priority should be making sure your voice matches the audience for each social channel; however, providing a consistent appearance for your brand is vital.
One of the best ways to accomplish both of these branding goals is through visual design.
As you visit the major social networks, you might see little consistency at first glance. However, as these websites evolve and update their offerings, it becomes easier and easier to use your design skills to create a recognizable brand across the spectrum of sites.
This “cheat sheet” offers you a brief guide to image size recommendations for many of the top social media sites (including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube and Medium).
With this information at your fingertips, you can develop that consistent branding presence while meeting the required dimensions of the website.
The sizing requirements for these sites change regularly. Our cheat sheet assures that you are prepared to stay ahead of the learning curve in 2020.
Please note: We created this cheat sheet assuming that you regularly create images and work on web design projects. You’ll find that we provide the dimensions for each type of image across all networks. For instance, when creating a profile photo, you can create all needed profile photos for your clients at once — meeting the requirements of the site and achieving that branding consistency. This list provides dimensions for the primary design assets of each network.
In many cases if you develop a single square “profile picture” that scales appropriately for the sizes below, you’ll be able to streamline the process for making updates across all the networks.
Social site
Image size
Twitter profile picture size
400px x 400px
Facebook profile picture size
170 x 170 pixels on desktop
128 x 128 on smartphones
Instagram profile picture size
110px x 110px (min.)
Pinterest profile picture size
165px X 165px
LinkedIn profile picture size
400px x 400px
300px x 300px (company logo)
60px x 60px (square logo)
YouTube profile picture size
800px x 800px**
Medium profile picture size
60px x 60px (publication avatar)
1000px x 500px (max.) (logo image)
Tumblr profile picture size
128px x 128px
TikTok
200px x 200px
** YouTube calls these “channel icons.”
Profile picture sizes
Twitter profile picture size: 400px x 400px
Facebook profile picture size: 170px x 170px pixels (desktop) and 128px x 128px (smartphones)
Instagram profile picture size: 110px x 110px (min.)
Pinterest profile picture size: 165px x 165px
LinkedIn profile picture size: 400px x 400px, 300px x 300px (company logo), 60px x 60px (square logo)
YouTube profile picture size: 800px x 800px
Medium profile picture size: 60px x 60px (publication avatar), 1000px x 500px (max.) (logo image)
The cover photo or header image is the big hitter on most of these networks. In contrast to the profile images, which are typically square, the various social sites have widely varying sizes for their cover images. Here are a few tips to remember:
You’ll probably want to go with a .png file, instead of a .jpg.
Since these images are often cropped or covered with other interface elements, put the important components of your design in the center of the image, and double-check that key parts of the image aren’t covered up when used in production.
Social site
Image size
Twitter
1500px x 500px
Facebook
820px x 312px
Pinterest
222px x 150px (board cover image)
LinkedIn
1584px x 396px (background or cover image), 1536px x 768px (business cover image), 646px x 220px (banner image for company pages), 1128px x 376px (hero image)
YouTube
Display varies by device; 2560px x 1440px (desktop), 1546px x 423 px (safe area for mobile and web, without text and logo cropping)
Tumblr
3000px x 1055px
Medium
1500px x 750px (min.*)
TikTok
900px x 300px
* Medium recommends you upload the largest image you can, maintaining a 2:1 width-to-height ratio.
Cover photo sizes
Twitter header: 1500px x 500px
Facebook cover photo size: 820px x 312px
Pinterest board cover image: 222px x 150px
LinkedIn: 1584px x 396px (background or cover image), 1536px x 768px (business cover image), 646px x 220px (banner Image for company pages), 1128px x 376px (hero image)
YouTube cover photo: Display varies by device; 2560px x 1440px (desktop), 1546px x 423px (safe area for mobile and web, without text and logo cropping .
Rich content sharing, including image sharing, is increasingly important across social networks. Creating imagery that is the right size for the network minimizes distortion and unexpected cropping.
Social site
Image size
Twitter
600px x 335px
Facebook
1200px x 630px
Instagram
1080px x 1080px
Pinterest
236px x scaled height (expanded pin)
LinkedIn
1104x x 736px (personal profile, company page)
YouTube
16:9 aspect ratio (video); to qualify for HD: 3840px x 2160px
One of the common questions that we hear is “why is Facebook choosing that image on this link?” or “why don’t my share images look the way they are supposed to?” There are typically two reasons for this. First, you need to make sure the social network knows which image you want it to highlight when you share a link. This is typically done with Open Graph tags or other metadata.
Secondly, you need to make sure the images included in a page or post are the size that the social network expects. If the shape of image isn’t right for the social network, it will often distort or ignore that image.
Social site
Image size
Twitter
800px x 418px (1:91:1 aspect ratio)
Facebook
1200px x 630px
Instagram
110px x 110px (photo thumbnails)
1080px x 1920px (Instagram stories)
Pinterest
735px x 1102px (pin preview); 600px x 600px (board display)
LinkedIn
1104px x 736px
YouTube
1280px x 720px (custom video thumbnail)
Medium
Will pull story header or profile image*
* To make an image in your Medium story a clickable link, click on it, giving it a green border, and then press Ctrl + K / Cmd + K.
Shared link graphic sizes
Twitter: 800px x 418px (1:91:1 aspect ratio)
Facebook: 1200px x 630px
Instagram photo thumbnails: 110px x 110px, 1080px x 1920px (Instagram stories)
Pinterest: 735px x 1102px (pin preview); 600px x 600px (board display)
LinkedIn: 1104px x 736px
YouTube custom video thumbnail: 1280px x 720px
Medium: Will pull story header image or profile image
This post was originally published on October 19, 2019, and was updated on Dec. 18, 2019.
New year, new Instagram marketing strategy. Now is the time to revamp your salon’s Instagram feed so you can bring in new customers and get your loyal fans excited to book an appointment.
As more businesses join Instagram to try to capture customers’ attention, it will be increasingly difficult for your business to stand out among the crowd. That’s why you need to approach your salon’s Instagram feed in a smart, strategic way.
These five savvy tips will help make your salon’s Instagram shine in 2020.
Keep your grid in mind.
Highlight your talented staff.
Share news about your products and services.
Start a contest.
Target locals with the right hashtags.
Let’s take a closer look at each strategy.
1. Keep your grid in mind
When Instagram users go to your salon’s Instagram page, the first thing they’ll see is your grid, or your nine latest posts. Make sure your grid is in tip-top shape by using high-quality photos and videos, consistent filters and captions that are written in your unique voice. And consider using your logo as your profile picture to reinforce your branding.
One of the benefits for customers who visit your salon is seeing the familiar face of their favorite stylist. Post pictures of your team at work on your salon’s Instagram. Not only does it allow you to show off your talented staff, but it also gives users an authentic view of what to expect when they walk through your doors.
Immortal Beloved, a salon in Washington, D.C., did just that when it featured one of its stylists — an expert in curly hair.
The new year is the perfect time to let customers know about the new things happening at your salon. Did you just add a new line of hair care products? Or maybe you upgraded your massage chairs? Post about it.
In this post, Austin salon Milk + Honey shows off its new hydrating face mask. This post works on two levels: First, because it was posted on a Friday, the service will be top of mind as customers head into the weekend, which is when they’d be likely to stop by the salon. Second, it’s a repost from a fan, which helps reinforce how much current customers love their products and their salon.
Running a contest can help get more eyes on your brand, and it isn’t hard to do.
You can either set up a simple contest, like a “tag a friend” contest where you ask users to tag a friend to enter, and then choose a winner at random. Or you can ask customers to post photos at or about your business. Then you choose a winner and message them directly. It’s a nifty way to get new eyes on your business and more engagement with your salon’s Instagram posts.
5. Target locals by using the right hashtags
By including hashtags that are unique to your city in your captions, you can reach locals looking for a salon like yours. Many potential customers use Instagram to research salons by searching for hashtags. Think about what those potential customers will be using and add to your salon’s Instagram posts so your posts come up in their search results.
This simple trick will get your salon in front of people who are most likely to book an appointment.
Plus, Instagram now gives users the opportunity to follow hashtags in the same way they follow other users. So, every time you use that hashtag in your posts, anyone who follows that hashtag will see your new post.
One Austin-based hair stylist used local hashtags, such as #austinhair, #atxhairstylist, #austinsalon, #austinhairstylist and #atxlife, to get in front of salon-goers in her city. And she smartly used periods in her caption to keep the hashtags from cluttering her main message.
The new year is the perfect time for a makeover for your salon’s Instagram. Revamp and rejuvenate your feed so to attract new customers and engage your loyal fans.
A website launch is an exciting and anxious event. It’s the culmination of weeks, months or years worth of hard work. And a website launch checklist helps you keep that event on the rails.
Why do we need a website launch checklist?
No matter how experienced we are at doing something, there’s always a chance that we’ll make a mistake. So, in this article, we’ve pulled together a checklist of tasks that web designers and developers should consider when launching a new site.
By following this checklist — or, even better, by using these recommendations to create your own checklist — you’ll have a documented process to follow for every site that you launch.
Make every launch a smooth one
If you’re a web designer or developer, a smooth website launch reassures your client. It shows that you know your stuff. But when a launch doesn’t go smoothly? Watch out. You’d be surprised at how quickly you can burn through goodwill.
First things first: What’s included in a website launch?
Generally speaking, a website launch follows three phases:
Building
QA testing
Launch, aka “Go Live”
In most professional web development settings, this work happens across three environments:
Development server/site
Staging server/site
Production (“live”) server/site
For smaller operations, the Development and Staging environments might be one and the same.
On our GoDaddy WordPress Hosting plans, for example, we see users doing design and development and testing on the built-in staging site. If everything looks good, they’ll push the staging site to their live site.
So, if you’re ready to launch a website, we’ll assume that you’re using some kind of development or staging server to safely build and test the site.
You can never be too safe when preparing for a website launch.
Because every environment is different, we’re going to list things to remember and things to be aware of, rather than giving step-by-step instructions. We’ll also be platform and host-agnostic in our descriptions.
What does the website launch checklist include?
At a high level, this website launch checklist covers five areas:
Keep your client in the loop about timelines and deliverables. Let them know what to expect, and when to expect it — including potential hiccups during the website launch process.
You don’t want to scare your clients, but they need to know that some things aren’t in your control. For example, you may have to wait for DNS propagation before the site goes live for everyone.
Reassure your client that they’re in good hands.
You know what you’re doing. As long as you have the credentials and access you need to troubleshoot, everything should go smoothly.
Gather the credentials you need to launch the site and troubleshoot any potential issues. Let the client know that they shouldn’t change these credentials until the site goes live.
You’ll need usernames and passwords for the following:
Domain registrar
DNS provider, if your client isn’t using the registrar or web hosting provider
Current web hosting account
New web hosting account
Test the credentials the day before, and the day of when you plan to launch the site. That way you won’t be stuck halfway through a website launch without access.
Pro tip: Does your client use GoDaddy for domains or hosting? You can sign up for a free GoDaddy Pro membership, then ask your client to grant you secure access to manage their account. That way your client won’t need to share their login credentials with you.
Airline pilots use checklists to ensure they never miss a step. Even veteran pilots rely on them. This level of diligence is one of the reasons air travel runs so smoothly and safely.
Thankfully we’re not flying a plane here — just launching a website. But the idea is the same. By following defined procedures, we’re less likely to forget or skip important steps.
Review everything
Check for design consistency. The site header and footer, typography, color scheme, spacing and other standard site elements should be consistent across all pages.
Check all the text, images, media and links. Is everything working? Are the links pointing to the right destinations? Any typos or grammar issues? Consider using a spreadsheet or project management tool to keep track of any problems you encounter while reviewing the site.
Check for potential legal issues. The website belongs to your client, not to you. Legal issues — privacy policies, user agreements, image licensing terms, et al — are your client’s responsibility. Have them double-check that everything is OK before you go live.
When in doubt, your client should refer to their legal counsel, not to you. You’re a web professional, not a lawyer. (Unless you are, in fact, a lawyer.)
Optimize the site to load quickly. This includes optimizing images, caching static assets, and using a CDN. Page speed continues to rise in importance for user satisfaction, site performance and SEO rankings.
Test that the site works across all major browsers and devices. Test on Mac, PC, iOS and Android. You can run a test with physical devices; with software, like the browser’s Dev Tools; or with a service like BrowserStack or CrossBrowserTesting.
Protect the website from spammers and security threats. Is the site built with WordPress? Use a security plugin like Sucuri or Wordfence to protect against malware and brute force attacks. You’ll also want to protect the site from spammers using a plugin like Akismet, Clean Talk or Antispam Bee.
If your client doesn’t want to deal with comments, you can disable them entirely with the Disable Comments plugin. You can also choose to disable comments on a per-post or per-page basis.
If the site isn’t built with WordPress, you can still use a security monitoring service like Sucuri Website Firewall or GoDaddy Website Security to keep an eye on the site. Who manages and pays for the service will depend on your arrangement with your client.
Replacing an existing site? Check for corresponding content. The most important and most popular pages of the existing site should have corresponding pages and content on the new site. This helps prevent the site from losing search traffic when Google spots missing content. Setting up URL redirects helps with the switch. (More on that below.)
Ensure the site is optimized for search engines. Meta titles, meta descriptions and page headings should include the keywords/topic the page is trying to rank for.
All meta titles and descriptions should be unique.
Page headings should be wrapped in <h1> tags with subheadings in <h2>, <h3>, etc. Images should have alt tags and, if appropriate, the alt tags should include the target keyword/topic of the page.
Pro tip: For large sites, you can use a tool like Screaming Frog to crawl the site and check for duplicate meta titles, broken links and other potential site errors.
What should you use to handle SEO? The Yoast SEO plugin is our go-to recommendation for most WordPress sites. (It’s what we use on the GoDaddy blog.)
To get started, see our article on setting up the Yoast SEO plugin. Alternatively, for an in-depth guide, check out the Yoast SEO website.
Not using WordPress? Your SEO options will vary depending on the platform you’re using to build the site. If the under-construction site isn’t locked down, you can use a tool like Neil Patel’s SEO Analyzer to get an SEO score.
Connect the site to Google Search Console. Connect the new site to Search Console once it’s live. Search Console is how Google communicates with website owners, and it’s absolutely necessary for troubleshooting SEO issues on Google.
Plus: If your client needs affordable and ongoing SEO support, check out our SEO Tools service. It walks through the on-site SEO process with an easy-to-follow, step-by-step wizard.
Add social sharing buttons. Make it easy for the site’s visitors to share the site on social networks and elsewhere.
Again, there are a variety of WordPress plugins that’ll handle this, like Ultimate Social, Scriptless Social and Hustle. Otherwise, you’ll need to rely on whatever platform you’re using.
Add a favicon. The favicon — or “site icon” — appears in the browser tab and makes the site easy to identify at a glance when a bunch of tabs are open.
In WordPress, you can add a favicon under “Site Identity” in the Customizer. Otherwise, the favicon configuration will depend on the site platform.
Set up a web analytics tool. You won’t know if the site is working if you’re not tracking how it’s used. That’s where web analytics come in. Google Analytics is the de-facto standard because it’s powerful, free, and integrates with Google Ads. Here’s how to get started with it.
Google Analytics isn’t your only option for web analytics, though.
If you’re looking for a simple, privacy-minded alternative, check out Fathom or Simple Analytics. If you’re looking for an open-source alternative to Google Analytics, check out Matomo or Open Web Analytics. There’s also AWStats, which comes bundled with many shared hosting plans.
While these latter tools may not be as powerful as Google Analytics, they may be the right fit for the website you’re about to launch. Weight their features and benefits against what you or your client needs for the website.
Review the products. Check images, descriptions, attributes, reviews and other information. Look out for test products that might still be listed on the site.
Test transactions. Test all payment methods. Make sure the transactions are completed, receipts are sent, etc. … as expected. Also, check your back-end reporting for any issues.
Review system emails. System emails — also called transactional emails or informational emails — are usually triggered by some kind of customer interaction. Alerts, confirmations, receipts, refunds, etc., are all common in an online store. Ensure the emails are sent as expected, and that their content is accurate and appropriate. (Look out for placeholder text!)
Test customer functionality. Go through the motions as a customer. Create an account, add items to the cart, make a purchase, cancel a purchase. You get the idea.
You’re looking for gaps and oversights in the experience.
Do any steps feel broken or like a poor experience? It’s better to catch these now than for a customer to catch them and complain, or worse, say nothing at all.
Review support content. Ecommerce websites will usually have a “Help,” “Support” or “Customer Service” section. Review the content. Is anything missing? Is there any placeholder content that should be updated or removed?
Configure funnels and goals in Google Analytics. Enable Ecommerce in Google Analytics, then set up your goals and funnels to report on purchases and other transactions.
Heads up: Don’t forget to reconfigure your payment gateway. Check that your payment gateways aren’t in Test mode or using staging URLs. Depending on your approach, you might want to change these before or after deploying the site.
Likewise: Pushing an exact copy of the Staging site to Production might break the connection with the credit card processor. Have a $1 product you can purchase just to test a transaction after the site goes live.
Encrypt traffic with an SSL certificate. All websites should be secured with an SSL certificate.
Use the right type of SSL certificate. Basic SSL certificates verify that a user has a secure connection to the website. Advanced certificates (Organization Validation and Extended Validation) go further, verifying the ownership and identity of the website. These are good for ecommerce websites and any type of site handling sensitive data.
Purchase the SSL certificate ahead of time. OV and EV certificates take longer to verify, so make sure they’re ready to go well in advance.
Changing the URL of an existing site? Prepare in advance. Let’s say you have a client moving their website from OldDomain.com to NewDomain.com. If not done correctly, the move can make a large (and bad) impact on the site’s performance.
Google provides a handy Change of Address Tool to help you move websites from one domain to another. But this only applies to the website, and a domain change affects more than just the website.
At a high level, you’ll need to prepare for:
Pointing the old domain to the new domain
Setting up new SSL certificates
Updating DNS records
Forwarding old email addresses to new email addresses
Redirecting old URLs to new URLs
Changing page URLs? Set up 301 redirects. Say you were launching a redesign for an ecommerce website. Their domain isn’t changing, but the page URLs are (e.g. the “/store/old-product/” URLs changed to “/shop/new-product/”).
You don’t want to lose any traffic that was going to the old product pages. So, by setting up URL redirects, you point traffic to the new page and protect the site’s SEO.
Before you go live, create a list of old and new page URLs. Then, on the new site, create URL redirects that point old URLs to their corresponding new ones.
If you’re on a cPanel hosting plan, you can do this with the .htaccess file. If you’re using WordPress, you can also use a plugin like Redirection or Yoast SEO to handle the redirects.
Configure web font services, 3rd party tools and APIs. Services like Adobe TypeKit and Google Fonts are popular solutions for handling web fonts. Google Fonts works everywhere, but paid services— like Adobe TypeKit — will only load on sites associated with a TypeKit account.
The same goes for other third-party tools and APIs, like Google Analytics or the Facebook tracking pixel.
If the website domain doesn’t match what’s in their system, the tool/service won’t work.
To avoid this, make sure to configure the services for both the staging site (for development and testing) and the live site.
For example, you should have separate Google Analytics properties for the staging site and live site.
Check that the site’s emails are being sent and received. Depending on where the live site is hosted, the emails it generates may get blocked by email service providers like Gmail and Outlook. Or it may be that the web host won’t let the site send emails at all.
This means that, if you’re using WordPress, the system emails — like new account notifications or admin alerts — won’t get through, or won’t be sent in the first place.
What’s happening there?
Email service providers may blacklist servers that have a history of sending spam. This means that emails sent from large web hosts may get filtered or blocked by the recipient.
To avoid having their servers abused by spammers, some web hosts disable sending emails altogether.
What can you do?
If emails are getting flagged as spam: Update the site’s DNS records with an SPF record whitelisting the web host. Here’s how to do it with domains hosted at GoDaddy.
If emails aren’t being sent: Configure the site to send emails through a separate service. If you’re using WordPress, the WP Mail SMTP plugin can connect the site to an SMTP service like SendGrid, Mailgun or Gmail.
Never go live on a Friday. No one wants to work on the weekend and clients don’t want to be called on a Friday night. Aim for earlier in the week, like Monday or Tuesday. You have more runway if issues arise, and it’s easier to get a hold of people during the week.
Let your client know when the deployment begins. This ties back to our first point around setting expectations.
You want to be transparent but reassuring.
Give them an idea of what’s happening and how long you expect it to take. Clear communication can put a lot of worries to rest.
Back everything up. Run a final backup of the new site and, if applicable, the existing site that you’re about to replace. Worst-case scenario, if something goes wrong during the deployment, you’ll be able to restore the backups and try again.
Pointing an existing domain to a new IP? Wait for DNS propagation. A common approach to website redesigns is to deploy the new site to a new server, then point the existing domain to the new server’s IP address. It may take a while (24 to 48 hours) for the DNS update to propagate across the internet.
Remove unnecessary bloat after the deployment ends. Any content, code or plugins you needed for the deployment, but don’t need for the live site, should be removed. This limits the amount of data you need to migrate.
Check everything again. Review all the pages, images, media, links and forms. Test the site’s performance with Google PageSpeed. Check for WordPress errors. Run a crawl test with Screaming Frog and check for broken links or other issues. Check the site in Google Analytics and make sure it’s detecting traffic.
Using WordPress? Make sure you’re not blocking search engines. This is a sneaky one. If you’re using WordPress to build the site, you may have blocked search engines from indexing the site while it was in development. Make sure this option isn’t enabled on the deployed site.
You’re effectively running through this whole checklist, again, after the site is deployed. This final round of checks ensures everything is working properly before you hand it off to your client.
The website has launched and everything is working properly, but your work isn’t over yet. Now you have to give your clients everything they need to take control of the site.
You don’t want the relationship to end here —they may need help with ongoing maintenance, site monitoring, and future updates — but the client shouldn’t feel like they’re “locked in” with you.
Think of the hand-off as a welcome kit for their new site.
Consider including:
A .zip file of the site files. If you’re using WordPress, you can use a plugin like Duplicator to generate a .zip file of the whole site.
A copy of the database. Again, assuming you’re using WordPress: Export the raw .sql file from your MySQL database. Your client might not know what to do with it, but it is good to have, especially if another developer steps into work on the site.
A copy of all communications. Some project management tools allow you to export the project. For example, Basecamp can export all communication and files into a nice .zip file. If you can, hand that over, too.
Cheatsheets and documentation. Reference material to help them use the new site.
A “thank you” letter outlining next steps. You’ve launched a new site! Now what? Tell your client what they should expect next. Will there be a final invoice? Can they get a discount for referring new leads to you? This is your opportunity to roll a website launch into more work.
You can never be 100% sure of what will happen when going live. You could be in the middle of a launch and the power goes out. Or something happens to the webserver.
Events like this are beyond your control. They’re unknowns. But the tips we’ve covered in this article will help you wrangle everything that is within your control:
Set client expectations
Gather the credentials
Follow procedures
Deploy the site
Hand control to your client
Not only will you reduce the chances of something going wrong, but your clients will know you’re a professional. Why? Because you’re following a process — you’re not winging it.
What’s next? Consider selling ongoing website maintenance. You can earn some recurring revenue while continuing to look after the site you’ve just launched.
When Phil Levine entered the web business in 1997, less than 40 percent of American households had a personal computer, Apple was on its (supposed) last Unix-driven legs, and Netscape was the browser of choice for this new thing called “surfing” the Internet.
During this nascent time for the industry, designing websites was about trial and error — full stop.
“It was all just hard-coded HTML sort of sites,” Phil recalls. “There wasn’t Managed WordPress. There wasn’t managed anything.”
Nowadays, it’s a whole new world. Phil is the owner of South Florida Web Advisors, a full-service hosting and website management business. And he uses GoDaddy Pro religiously.
Truth be told, Phil is a bit of a GoDaddy Pro super-user, having used Pro — or what would become the Pro set of tools — for the past seven years as part of a Managed WordPress solution.
As his business grew, he found himself with over 200 domains and 250 websites to manage, and he badly needed automation tools lest his day be eaten up by mind-numbing, monotonous maintenance.
“Around 2013, GoDaddy started rolling out delegated access so I could purchase on behalf of clients. That was a real game-changer.”
As more tools were added to the program, most of all Managed WordPress, Phil was able to use GoDaddy Pro to better offer a true turnkey solution.
“With the full integration of one dashboard, I was like hey, this is exactly what I need. I don’t need to remember a bunch of passwords now, and making bulk updates is simple and fast.”
That translates quickly into lasting cred with his clients, who really don’t want to have to think about whether their sites are up-to-date and running smoothly.
“I’m the one who gets the notifications when a domain needs to be renewed and through the GoDaddy Pro dashboard. I see everything and my clients leave it to me.”
Philip Levine at WCUS with the GoDaddy Pro team
In addition to relying on GoDaddy Pro as his all-in-one site maintenance platform to grow his business, Phil’s become an active part of the community and a GoDaddy Pro evangelist at events like this year’s WordCamp Miami and WordCamp US.
“I worked with [GoDaddy Pro’s Field Marketing Manager] Adam Warner and his team, and I actually worked the booth a little bit, to be able to give some feedback as an end user to other end users. That’s an opening to discuss GoDaddy Pro, and disabuse them of the stereotypes associated with GoDaddy.”
This dovetails with broader advice he has for web developers and designers: do your research.
“At the heart of the matter,” Phil says, “You need to know what problems you’re trying to solve for your clients. Answer that question and you can implement the right hosting and maintenance solution.”
A lot has changed in the past twenty-plus years since Phil started, but some truths about business remain the same.
Interested in giving GoDaddy Pro a try for yourself? Sign up for free.
Elizabeth Pistole is the founder of The Dancing Divas & Dudes dance team for individuals with special needs. Proving that dancers can disprove disabilities, she has been able to expand the organization, originally based out of Nashville, Tennessee, to include several national locations.
When Elizabeth was growing up, she enjoyed a bright future of opportunities. For 13 years she enjoyed competitive dancing and being part of a team. Each activity she participated in allowed her to gain confidence, self-respect, and taught her how to set goals and achieve them.
Her sister, Natalie, however, did not have the same opportunities.
Natalie faced a challenge — Down Syndrome.
Growing up alongside Natalie, Elizabeth witnessed the obstacles and societal stigmas her sister faced and decided it was time to do something about it.
If her sister and other individuals with special needs were to be given any advantages, it was up to her to create those opportunities.
In an effort to combat and erase society’s stigma towards individuals with special needs, Elizabeth established The Dancing Divas & Dudes organization.
Q&A with Elizabeth Pistole, founder of The Dancing Divas & Dudes
This interview has been gently edited for length and clarity.
GoDaddy: Tell us about your business. What do you do?
Elizabeth Pistole: The Dancing Divas & Dudes was started as Nashville’s first dance team for individuals with special needs.
The organization was created to serve as a microphone to the special needs community.
We now have several chapters in several states.
“Through dance and teamwork, our dancers strive to express the value and worth of individuals with special needs,” says Dancing Divas & Dudes founder Elizabeth Pistole.
GoDaddy: Why did you start your business?
EP: As a competitive dancer of 13 years, I had many childhood opportunities to learn teamwork, achieve personal goals, and learn many life skills.
My sister, Natalie, who was born with Down Syndrome, did not have the same opportunities as I did. I was able to grow as a young woman because I had a support system that pushed me to reach my potential.
Society does not offer that support system to Natalie, as many people see her as lacking potential and value.
With Dancing Divas & Dudes, the member’s community involvement and performances play a crucial role in erasing society’s stigmas attached to them and providing a potential-filled future.
GoDaddy: What are some examples of how the program can combat stigma in the community?
EP: Internally, we help each dancer grow confidence by expressing their emotions through creative movement.
This confidence eliminates inadequate feelings and allows the dancers to effectively build team and communication skills.
We are goal-oriented and help individuals with special needs not settle but reach their potential.
Externally, our organization specifically targets the demographic of individuals who do not recognize the value of individuals with special needs.
Monthly activities allow organic integration into the community. Specifically interacting with this demographic plays a key role in eliminating the stigma that individuals with special needs are not able to contribute back to society.
GoDaddy: Is it challenging for the members?
EP: If we were only ever expected to learn 2+2, then we would never understand calculus. Society typically expects individuals with special needs to do mundane jobs or not work at all.
The Dancing Divas & Dudes believe that individuals with special needs should be able to achieve their wildest dreams.
Part of being a member is to learn to face challenges and set goals.
GoDaddy: How did you get started? What were your first steps?
EP: The team started with a passion for my sister and dance.
My first step was to identify that there was a market for a special needs dance team and that the market for special needs programs was not overly saturated.
The job of identifying the market was tackled through research, analyzing needs, and receiving feedback from the general audience we intended to serve.
GoDaddy: How did you select who would qualify to participate?
EP: Through in-depth study and observation, two demographics were most commonly not being recognized — the high functioning individuals with special needs who were not being pushed to reach their potential and the members of society who were fearful to interact with the atypical community.
The challenge then became finding a way to address both demographics simultaneously. This was addressed by creating a goal-oriented program that would interact with all community members on a regular basis.
After careful observation, each member of the program is given a personalized set of goals. “Many programs for individuals with special needs do not work with each participant to establish personal goals,” Elizabeth says.
GoDaddy: What were some of the challenges with developing such an ambitious program?
EP: The approach to creating this program was to create a strategic development plan. This development plan was crucial to ensuring the proper growth and foundation of such a unique program.
This development plan was detail-oriented to break down the policies, budget, program marketing, lesson plans, volunteer rotation, performance schedules and community interaction calendar.
This strategy created a guidebook of clear communication that was needed for the organization to successfully implement this original program.
Setting clear guidelines for everyone to follow prevented miscommunication, which translated to the reliability of the emerging program.
GoDaddy: How long did it take to see success?
EP: The credibility of the new program fast-tracked it to success.
The success of hard work and meticulous set up came to fruition quickly after the program was launched. Participation was 45% higher than expected.
Within one month there had been more than 10 requests for the team to attend events.
This almost immediate reaction from the community was a clear indication of how critical our program was.
GoDaddy: Where and when was your first competition?
EP: After several months of the program existing, the personal goals each dancer had set for themselves were becoming feasible.
The team was then able to travel to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, for their first competition where they performed for more than 500 people and lived out their mission of “Dancers Disproving Disabilities.”
Since then, the team has intentionally interacted with over 13,500 members of the society through numerous events and travel.
GoDaddy: What external pressures are you up against?
EP: The most pressing pressure was the idea that individuals with special needs aren’t capable of competing.
Most people thought that the dancers would not be able to travel and perform for large audiences, and they definitely didn’t believe that they could compete well.
Beyond the lack of belief in our dancers, many believed that I was too young to be able to run the program well. While these are added pressures they have in no way stopped me from persevering for my sister and her peers.
GoDaddy: What resources have helped you on your journey?
EP: Social media and online communication have played a huge role in my success. Being able to communicate with thousands in an efficient manner has been instrumental. I also made a relationship with a mentor who could answer questions when needed.
I have gained a lot of momentum for my organization by building relationships with other local businesses and networking to share my mission.
However, my most important resource is my dancers. They inspire me to make my organization the best it can be and help me tailor the program to serve them best.
GoDaddy: What challenges have you overcome so far? Any big milestones or achievements?
EP: With any new business, there are inevitable challenges you will have to face. There have been small challenges such as finding inexpensive practice space to big challenges such as needing to develop new programs.
A challenge we overcame that also served as an achievement was mentoring a student at Auburn University to start a chapter there.
It was challenging to work remotely and make sure that things were done properly but it allowed us to develop a startup guide.
By working through that challenge we created the ability to implement programs in multiple locations.
This growth was a huge milestone because it broadened the reach of our organization.
GoDaddy: How are things today? What are you focusing on?
EP: Through hard work and dedication, our growth rate has been exponential. We started with one dancer and now have 20 dancers in Nashville and 30 in Alabama.
We started with one program and we now have three programs in each chapter: competition team, noncompetition team and a dudes team.
It took one-and-a-half years to have our first performance. Now we perform four regional competitions and four local performances per year. We started with a few team building activities per month.
GoDaddy: Do you see growth in the community as well?
EP: We now have one activity a month and we strive for six of those [per year] to be community-driven. We try to serve at other organizations so that we can show the ability of individuals with special needs to give back to their community.
GoDaddy: Has there been anyone other than yourself to help manage the organization?
EP: Organizationally, we have grown from four board members to 10 over the past year. We have recruited more than 130 volunteers, hired two staff members, and partnered with 10 different nonprofits. We have started two new chapters in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Auburn, Alabama.
GoDaddy: Outside of competition and community events, are there any other activities that help grow the organization?
EP: Our first annual gala is this month, which is predicted to increase the budget by 437.5%. With such growth, we are focused on our programming in order to make it sustainable.
GoDaddy: What’s your day-to-day routine like? How do you work?
EP: Being the owner of an organization comes with a different schedule every day. If I am not working in the office I am meeting with local businesses, other organizations, or attending networking events.
GoDaddy: What are some tools you rely on to keep organized?
EP: I use my Office 365 account through GoDaddy to communicate about meetings/events, schedule email reminders for the events, and follow up after each meeting.
In the office, I do a lot of coordinating and planning. My Office 365 account also allows me to communicate and coordinate meetings, team events, other chapters, my board and performances.
GoDaddy has been instrumental in allowing me to organize and manage well.
GoDaddy: What is the best way for people to find out more about the organization?
EP: I manage and utilize three different websites, all through GoDaddy.
Our primary website offers information about our mission, has links to social media, allows volunteers to sign up, and enables people to give feedback and join our team.
We also have a .info website where I upload team information, volunteer information, and any other information that others may need to access.
Our annual fundraiser also has a website where people can buy tickets and donate. At least once a week, I go into my dashboard to monitor our traffic and promote our online presence.
GoDaddy: Where do you see yourself, and the business, in five years?
EP: We have ambitious goals for the future. Our goals are as follows:
Have at least 15 competition dancers, 20 non-competition dancers, and 15 dudes in all chapters
Increase the number of dancers served by 266%
Separate the non-competition team into skill levels so that teaching and choreography can be tailored properly
GoDaddy: With an increase in dancers, does that allow you to increase performances?
EP: Yes, for performances, our goals include:
Performing in the 2021 National Dance Competition in Orlando, Florida
Have the Alabama and Auburn chapters participate in regional competitions
Be able to participate in more local services projects
GoDaddy: What kind of operational changes will you need to make to manage this growth?
EP: We will increase our national board to 15 members, develop national committees, have at least four chapters by the end of 2019, seven chapters by the end of 2020, and one in every state by 2030.
GoDaddy: What other ambitions do you have that will help the organization get your message out?
EP: I want to provide high school graduates with special needs a scholarship to attend a university with a special needs program and participate in that university’s dance team.
We would also like to participate in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and appear on the Ellen DeGeneres Show.
Finally, we would like to share our message internationally and perform in Iceland where they have a high abortion rate of individuals with Down Syndrome.
GoDaddy: Any advice or recommendations for other aspiring entrepreneurs?
EP: My first advice is you are never too young to start chasing your dreams. Never let anyone tell you that you can’t do it.
My second piece of advice is to prepare! Most businesses fail due to a lack of preparation and planning.
Make a detailed business plan that you can follow and rely on through rough areas.
Lastly, it is a lot of work so make sure you have the time and passion to start a new venture.
Ah, the holiday season. Snow flurrying, chestnuts roasting and (hopefully) a large amount of website traffic for your business. If your website is designed properly, you’ll be able to convert holiday website traffic into sales. But how do you keep them coming back after the holidays?
With so many buying options out there, it’s important that you stay top of mind after January 1st, and we’re going to show you how.
5 ways to convert holiday website traffic to new year sales
When you’re thinking about the process of converting holiday website traffic to new year sales, we have several steps to follow:
You probably know this already, but it’s important to understand the difference between prospects, leads and customers. Specifically, there are two conversions that can occur on your site.
A prospect becomes a lead and a lead becomes a customer.
A prospect is anyone who visits your website. Prospects may be on the site for just a few seconds, or they may click through every page and read every blog post because they’re interested in learning more about your product or service.
A prospect converts to a lead when they provide you with their contact information.
In most cases, a lead will provide you with their name and email address to join your mailing list, or they may fill out a contact form to receive more information.
Turning that prospect into a customer is the lifeblood of your business.
You’ll want to make sure you contact them right away — and keep in touch until they make a purchase.
Sometimes, depending on what you’re offering, you may be able to collect information such as their phone number, address, business name, or a special date like a birthday or anniversary. Of course, the more information the lead provides, the better you can segment and personalize your marketing messages.
A lead converts to a customer when they purchase your product or service.
One transaction is great, but your real goal is to create a loyal, repeat customer who comes back to purchase your products again and again. In fact, on average, loyal customers are worth up to 10 times as much as their first purchase.
One way to bolster customer loyalty is email marketing.
Editor’s note: Looking for an all-in-one tool for your website and email marketing efforts? GoDaddy Websites + Marketing makes it simple.
Driving email marketing subscriptions is mission-critical if you want to convert website traffic to repeat sales in the new year.
Transactional emails have 800% more opens and clicks than any other type of email, and can generate 600% more revenue.
In short: Email campaigns drive revenue.
One way to convert prospects into leads on your website is by enticing visitors to subscribe to your email list. To drive email subscriptions, you could offer:
Free shipping
A percentage or dollar amount off of a purchase
Entry into a contest, drawing or giveaway
A sneak peek at new content
Exclusive email-only offers and promotions
Website popups, when used properly, can be an extremely effective way to grow your email list.
The science and psychology behind the efficiency of popups has to do with the reptilian brain or “lizard” brain, which is also known as your limbic system. Our reptilian brain is in charge of fight, flight, feeding, fear and freezing-up.
In this case, when a pop-up appears on a website, it triggers our fight or flight response. Do we engage with this thing that just interrupted our user experience or do we close out the webpage to preserve our overall web surfing experience?
Once you’ve collected an email address, don’t forget to instantly greet your new email subscribers with an automated welcome email.
Welcome emails are powerful; averaging more than 70% higher open rates and 152% higher click-through rates than “business as usual” marketing messages. Welcome emails provide instant gratification, delivering a campaign instantaneously in your lead’s inbox.
As you design your welcome email campaign, keep in mind that the average prospect opens about 18% of the emails that they actually receive — so you need to be impactful and timely.
With that in mind, be sure to use a catchy subject line to differentiate yours from the other countless emails in the inbox.
With the average person spending 2 hours and 22 minutes per day on social media, you definitely want to make sure you convert your website traffic into social media followers.
Some would argue that your follower count is a vanity metric — that it means nothing in the grand scheme of things. On the contrary, followers do matter.
Followers equal trust. The more followers you have, the more customers trust your brand.
It all has to do with the psychological phenomenon of social proof.
The Social Proof Theory maintains that a person who does not know what to do in a certain situation will look to other people to imitate what they are doing. Therefore, if more people are following your social media pages, then more prospects and leads assume that you’re the right business for their needs.
In addition to social proof, social media provides you with a way to interact and engage with your prospects, leads and customers.
At the core of social media for small businesses is the opportunity to connect with customers and grow your influence over their purchasing decisions.
Nearly three-quarters of business owners and marketers believe that social media marketing has been “somewhat effective” or “very effective” for their business.
Through social media, you can:
Highlight new products or services
Invite customers to events
Promote sales or special offers
Answer questions about your products or services
On your website and in your email campaigns, you should include links to your social media channels.
Be sure to include your social links in either the header or footer of your website and always include your social links in the footer of your email marketing campaigns.
Don’t be afraid to be shameless here: You need those followers to buy from you in the new year.
A recent survey by Oracle found that if you can increase your customer retention rate by just 5%, you’ll see a potential increase of profits from 25 to 95% depending on your industry. That’s powerful! In order to convert your holiday website traffic to repeat sales, you’ll want to consider retargeting.
Retargeting allows you to reconnect with holiday visitors even if they don’t share their contact information with you.
At a very simple level, retargeting works like this:
You add a line of code to your website that puts a cookie on a user who visits your site. Most often, the code comes from Google, Facebook, Twitter or other platforms that show ads to their users.
The code creates a list of people who visit your website.
You create an ad that will only show to the list of people who have visited your website.
You can implement retargeting campaigns with different services including Facebook Ads and Google Ads. When you use Facebook Ads retargeting, you’re showing ads to Facebook Custom Audiences.
Be sure to use lots of different ad formats and keep it interesting.
Google’s retargeting ads show up on the Google Display Network, which is a group of over 2 million sites, apps and videos that reach more than 90 percent of the world’s internet users.
To build a successful retargeting campaign, you will want to follow these best practices:
Segment your audience by behavior, time and existing customers.
Add a burn pixel to untag users who have made a purchase.
Set a frequency cap, so your audience doesn’t suffer from ad fatigue.
It’s one thing to drive email subscriptions, but to convert those subscribers into customers, you need to turn to email automation.
At its core, email automation enables marketers like you to send scheduled or action-triggered emails containing content and offers about your products and services.
When you use email automation, you can increase your email open rates and click-through rates without having to be at the computer continuously clicking “send.”
Since you’re trying to convert holiday website traffic to drive sales in the new year, your goal with these email campaigns is to drive clicks. The more clicks, the more potential sales you get.
Your automation will begin with the automated welcome email, but it can keep going with a drip marketing series.
A drip marketing series is a series of email campaigns that you pre-schedule. An example of a drip marketing series would be:
Automated welcome email (Day 0)
Introduction to the team (Day 4)
Highlight of products and services (Day 8)
Customer testimonials (Day 12)
Special offer to drive sales (Day 20)
This series can be spread over eight days or 80 days depending on the type of products and services you sell. Since you want to convert holiday website traffic to customers in the new year, your series would most likely last for 20 to 30 days.
The beauty of a drip marketing series is that you can always change the campaigns, add new campaigns or delete campaigns.
What you do with your series will be dictated by the performance (namely metrics) you measure.
You also have the option to create action-triggered emails. When a subscriber clicks on a link in your email campaign, they can automatically be added to a new email list where they begin receiving a drip marketing series.
For example, let’s say you send an email about Adirondack chairs, and the subscriber clicks on one of the links. By clicking, they are demonstrating their interest in the product, and thus, should receive more emails informing and inspiring them to make a purchase.
Depending on what they do with those follow-up emails, they can receive other email campaigns to drive purchase behavior.
Both drip marketing series and action-triggered emails are powerful tools to have in your marketing toolbox.
Attracting visitors to your website is important during the holiday season. Bonus points if you can get them to buy a product or service while they visit.
The true name of the game is to convert your holiday website traffic into sales in the new year.
In order to drive those repeat sales, you’ll want to:
Know how to turn prospects into leads.
Convince more people to subscribe to your email marketing list.
Showcase your social media channels on your website and in your emails.
Use retargeting on platforms like Facebook Ads and Google Ads.
Rely on email marketing automation to sell while you focus on your business.
After the snow melts, the chestnuts have long since been roasted and prospects have visited your website, you’ll want to follow the above tips to convert your holiday website traffic to new year sales.
You’re probably familiar with setting annual goals for your business. This year, you might want to consider making realistic New Year’s resolutions in addition to your yearly goal setting.
Resolutions can help you make more holistic changes in your business or in yourself as a leader.
What is a resolution?
First, let’s talk about what a resolution actually is. We spend all this time at New Year’s making (and quickly breaking) resolutions, but do we really even know what they are?
A resolution is nothing more than a firm decision to do or not to do something.
A resolution is different than a goal since we don’t apply “SMART” factors to it. SMART goals were first named by the journal Management Review in 1981. SMART goals are:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Time-bound
Your goal could be to increase revenues by 20%, while a resolution might be to improve profits.
A resolution is often harder to measure since it’s something that you want to do (or stop doing, as the case may be).
But your resolutions should have something in common with your goals; they should still be realistic and attainable.
After all, there’s not much more disheartening than realizing that you’re not going to achieve what you set out to achieve.
Opportunity resolutions vs. problem-solution resolutions
There are two types of resolutions: opportunity resolutions and problem-solution resolutions.
Opportunity resolutions are those that help you grow and achieve and leverage your strengths. They put more wind in your sails.
Problem-solution resolutions are those that help you overcome weaknesses and resist threats. They help you plug the holes to keep your ship from sinking.
How to create a realistic New Year’s resolution for your business
The first step in creating a solid resolution for your business is to document all those thoughts that start with “Man, I should really…”
These might also show up in the middle of the night or when you’re rushing between meetings. I also look at the businesses and leaders I aspire to be like, and identify actions they’re taking (or avoiding!) and adding those to my list of possible business resolutions.
To get you started, here’s a list of sample business resolutions.
I will learn how to manage my cash flow more effectively.
I will take steps to improve my digital presence.
I will improve my social media presence.
I will get focused and become more productive.
I will charge what I’m worth.
I will grow my team and delegate more.
I will become a better communicator.
I will find a business buddy.
I will share my expertise.
I will take time for professional development.
I will develop a culture of learning.
I will reduce our environmental footprint.
I will contribute more to causes I believe in.
Then, ask yourself why each resolution made it on your list. Why is it important? What effect will it have on your business or your leadership?
For example, if you want to take time for professional development, what methods will you choose to leverage? Perhaps you want to read more or take courses. Are there specific skills that you’d like to improve, like project management?
Once you have your list, it’s time to prioritize your resolutions.
Consider which of your potential resolutions will make the most significant impact on your business and open you up to accomplish more of your goals.
It’s often really tempting to focus on positive opportunity resolutions — they just feel better.
But often, the problem-solution resolutions are the ones that are going to help you grow even faster. After all, unrecognized (and untreated) problems can derail your business even more quickly than your fastest wind can help you grow.
When the time comes to move toward achieving your resolution, that’s where your goal setting and project management skills come into play.
If a resolution is simply a firm decision to do something, then leveraging specific goals and our best project-management skills is how we get it done.
Without goal setting and treating your resolutions like projects, you will likely end up relying on willpower alone to make these things happen. Well, willpower or hope.
We know that hope isn’t a strategy, and willpower is a muscle that tires quickly. (After all, you’re probably also using your willpower to avoid that new donut shop after getting yourself to the gym at 5:30 am to fulfill your personal resolutions and goals.)
9 tips for setting realistic New Year’s resolutions
Now that you’ve narrowed down your list of potential business resolutions, here’s how to put them into action.
Ready to learn more about how to put your realistic New Year’s resolutions into action? Read on.
1. Pick just one
The easiest way to ensure you achieve your resolution is to pick only one resolution to focus on at a time. Just because New Year’s is the most popular time to kick off a resolution, doesn’t mean you can’t establish a new resolution when you’ve accomplished another.
Narrowing your choices down to one resolution is where your prioritization and impact assessment are essential.
Which of your resolutions are achievable, influential and impactful?
You may have two potential resolutions: to reduce your environmental impact or to pay more attention to financial statements.
They’re certainly both achievable and important. Still, only you can decide which of them will have the most significant impact on your business.
2. Align your resolutions with your goals
Your resolutions and goals don’t have to line up on a one-to-one basis. You’ll undoubtedly have goals that don’t support your resolution (especially if you only pick one resolution).
You might need to add new goals to support your resolution.
When you resolve to improve your social media presence, some of your goals that might align with that is to increase the volume of inbound traffic from your social media posts, to gain followers, to develop brand advocates, or to drive sales from your social posts.
Editor’s Note: Resolve to get new customers and keep existing customers coming back through social media — with help from GoDaddy Social. We can help you elevate your social media marketing strategy and save you valuable time.
3. Be specific
Whichever resolution you are focusing on, be as specific as possible about the desired outcome. You might have a single result or a combination of results that add up to the final desired outcome.
If you’ve resolved to grow your team and delegate more, your desired outcomes could include:
Spend less time creating content
Stop wasting time scheduling meetings
Hire a social media assistant
Use a bookkeeping service instead of doing our books myself
When you look at the specific outcomes, it’s much easier to see how all of these outcomes contribute to your overall resolution — and give you direction for how to achieve it.
4. Make a plan
Make sure you have the resources available when you need them.
If you’re going to get better at managing your business finances, you need access to your financial statements and time on your calendar every month to review them. You might also need to brush up on what all the terms mean, from comprehensive income to debt-service coverage ratio.
If your resolution is to find a business buddy, then you’ll want to start by identifying places to expand your network. You’ll also want to think about the qualities you’d like your new business buddy to have.
When you’re planning, also plan for problems that might come up while you’re working toward your resolution.
For example, you might become discouraged when you see how far you have to go to accomplish your resolution.
Use the “small number technique”
A 2012 study published in the Journal of Consumer Research introduced what they called the “small number technique.” When you use the small number technique, you focus on the smaller number in your goal. The small number might be what you’ve already accomplished, or what you have left to do.
For example:
I’ve increased my hourly billing rate from $20 to $25 for existing clients.
I need to increase my hourly billing rate by $20 to be paid what I am worth.
According to the small number technique, you’re better off using the first example to achieve your goals.
5. Keep it small
Small, incremental changes are easier to maintain and keep than broad, sweeping changes.
It goes back to our willpower muscle.
It’s much harder to implement and maintain a huge change all at once.
It’s best to think of strengthening your willpower muscle through doing high reps, low weight than just a couple of power lifts.
When you resolve to minimize your business’s environmental impact, you might start by implementing recycling in the office. Once the recycling program is in place, then you can begin to source compostable, biodegradable sustainable packaging for your shipping department.
These smaller, incremental changes are much easier to implement and sustain than banning all plastic starting January 1.
6. Make it real
One of the best ways to make your resolution real is to phrase it as if it has already happened.
“I will learn how to manage my cash flow more effectively” becomes “I manage our cash flow effectively.”
“I will improve my social media presence” becomes “I have a great social media presence.”
“I will grow my team and delegate more” becomes “I have a strong and empowered team.”
Write your commitment statement and put it someplace where you’ll see it regularly, like in your wallet or on your desk. If you journal or are a planner, you might also choose to write your commitment statement each day to keep your resolution at the top of your mind.
7. Build rewards
In her book, Good Habits, Bad Habits, Wendy Woods highlights the role of rewards in helping build habits.
You can change your behaviors by planning rewards when you reach certain milestones.
For example, you can have a company celebration when your new website launches as a step toward achieving your resolution of improving your digital presence.
Rewards don’t just have to be for your whole team. You could take yourself out for ice cream after completing an online course in Excel to improve your professional development.
8. Communicate your resolutions
A public commitment to your resolution helps set it in stone.
Don’t just keep your resolution to yourself — let your team know about your resolution, and, if possible, get them on board. If you’re working to improve your company’s social media presence, you could recruit members of your team to support your efforts and give you feedback.
Depending on your resolution, you might also want to share your resolution with your customers. After all, it might affect them, too.
Sharing positive resolutions, like increasing your philanthropic activity or reducing your environmental impact, can help you build stronger relationships with your customers, suppliers and partners.
I get it, running and growing your business is hard. You head into the new year with the best of intentions, but after a little while, you start to head back into business as usual.
Maybe you hit a couple of small goals right off the bat that felt good, but keeping up the momentum is hard, especially as the goals got harder to reach. (It’s easier to lose the first 5 pounds than the last 5!)
Schedule regular resolution check-ins, either every couple of weeks or at least once a month, to ensure you’re staying on track to accomplish your goal.
You picked your resolution because it has the potential to have a significant impact on your business.
Having the right follow-through makes sure that outcome happens.
Keeping your resolutions beyond January
Most Americans fall off the resolution wagon pretty quickly — whether it’s a mere 15 minutes into the new year or 15 days. But picking the right resolutions, developing a plan, adding rewards, and sharing the enthusiasm with the team, can help you and your business grow.
As the year rapidly winds down and we set our sights to a quickly approaching January, it’s time to begin thinking about those shiny New Year’s resolutions. Nearly everyone has the same goals in mind: go to the gym more often, try a new diet, learn a new language, or start a new hobby. However, entrepreneurs and business-minded people might have a different approach.
In addition to a few personal resolutions, chances are they’re thinking about how to build their brand in 2020. It’s a good idea to start the new year motivated, right?
What better way to stay invigorated as an entrepreneur than to set some goals?
In order to make New Year’s resolutions that stick, each goal you make must be S.M.A.R.T. Make sure every one of your resolutions are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely.
With the S.M.A.R.T. standards in mind, entrepreneurs can better achieve their resolutions or any goal they set their mind to.
This year we’re bound to see endless possibilities for all kinds of brands as industries and consumers are shifting, updating and demanding more.
So what resolutions are modern entrepreneurs making? Here are 20 New Year’s resolutions that are trending for 2020. In truth, they are timeless for any business owner. Plus, these resolutions are broken down by category to keep you on track and your goals organized.
Use the start of 2020 to analyze all your online platforms, but especially your website. Dust off any cobwebs by updating stale content and take the time to read every line of text. Take your website page by page and check that links and buttons are still working, too.
Need a website that really works for your unique venture? Check out GoDaddy Websites + Marketing. Pick from designs tailored for your industry, send out emails with email marketing, manage your business profiles on Google, Instagram and so much more.
2. Engage with your audience
Your goal when marketing should be to create conversations, not just impressions. You want people to talk about your brand with their friends.
This is easier than ever thanks to social media.
Take your presence further by engaging with your audience through commenting, liking, and sharing others’ posts. Simply posting isn’t enough anymore because social platforms’ algorithms prioritize engagement and online conversations.
Don’t just post and ghost your followers. Dedicating just a few minutes a day to true one-to-one online interactions will make a big difference for your marketing in 2020.
When you’re brainstorming this year’s marketing content, try to narrow it down.
Often times, marketing campaigns are vague attempts at reaching a wide audience. Rather than casting a large net to the masses, try marketing to a niche instead. That way, you can create targeted content for specific audiences. Not only will your marketing be more successful, but it allows you to have more fun!
Focus on the pain points of this niche and how you offer a solution. Use their language and play with your content and messaging.
4. Experiment with video marketing
The internet is exploding with videos and any successful, modern marketing strategy includes video content in 2020.
Any business can profit from video marketing regardless of budget or time.
Thanks to social media, tools like Instagram Stories, Instagram TV and Facebook Live make live streaming seamless (and free!). Live streaming is a great gateway into video because it doesn’t require planning, scripts, multiple takes, or editing.
Take customers behind the scenes of your business, host a Q&A, interview a customer, or film a day-in-the-life video. Your followers will enjoy seeing a new side of your business.
No matter what stage you’re in, startups or established brands can all benefit from improving client satisfaction.
The launch of a new year is a great time to send a survey and ask your audience what they want. This questionnaire will help shed light on areas where you can improve and could spark ideas for new desired services or products.
Another way to boost customer satisfaction is to try sharing some gratitude. Start sending thank you emails, offer exclusive deals to loyal customers, and try your best to go above and beyond helping customers this year.
The start of a new year is the perfect time to take a step back and analyze who exactly your customer is.
Has your audience changed? More often than you think, they do!
Take a look at purchasers last year and try to find commonalities among them. Do they have similar demographics, professions, gender or other factors that can help you define a new target audience?
By reevaluating your customer, you’re sure to run more successful marketing campaigns as you can target the needs of these specific people more closely.
Unfortunately, we’re not talking about fun beach reads — we’re talking financials.
Take the beginning of 2020 to really dive into your books. If you’re not financially savvy, invest in finding some help or hiring someone to aid you in understanding the numbers behind your business.
Once you acquire this important knowledge, it’s time to think ahead. Map out future financial predictions using last year’s data and be aware of any unnecessary spending. The launch of 2020 is an opportune time to trim the fat and lower your overall expenses.
8. Watch your competitors
Some companies are smart enough to keep a close eye on their competitors, but do you? If not, 2020 is the year to start.
Follow them on social media, sign up for their newsletters, and subscribe to their blogs. Set up a Google alert to notify you if they make headlines or publish any big announcements.
You can’t compete if you’re in the dark. Be smart this year to keep tabs on anyone who is stealing market share from you and your business.
Use 2020 to reignite some failed attempts. If you find yourself at a roadblock, try assigning a new person to the project with fresh eyes. This new perspective might be just what you need to get it off the ground once and for all.
10. Offer something new
A new year means new beginnings.
Is there a product or service that your customers have been asking for? Is there an add-on that compliments an existing offer that might have gone stale?
Updating your brand and what it can offer will excite customers and attract new ones. It’s also a great reason to reach out to past clients and encourage repeat business.
One way many entrepreneurs are ringing in 2020 is through continued education.
Share the wealth and make it a resolution to invest in your team.
Make more productive employees and cultivate a culture of growth by hosting lunch-and-learns, hiring a guest speaker, reading a book collectively, or funding an online class or course.
Keeping your team sharp doesn’t only let you reap the benefits, but it shows appreciation and respect to your staff that you care about them personally.
12. Stick to a to-do list
It’s better to work smarter, not harder, right? The most successful entrepreneurs focus on productivity to maximize time at the office.
If you don’t already, start assigning yourself a daily to-do list. Write down every task in your queue and circle three that must get done that day. Focus on those items first and foremost.
The “Bullet Journal” method is a popular productivity hack many follow. If you prefer digital options, try a to-do list app.
If your whole team could use some help, try a project management tool that everyone can benefit from while at the office. By enforcing deadlines and showing accountability, 2020 is bound to be a more productive year for everyone.
As opposite as it sounds, saying “no” can help you get more done. Why? By allowing yourself the flexibility to say no, you stop loading your plate with any unnecessary tasks.
While helping others is crucial, it’s equally important to politely deny demanded aid when it puts you under stress.
You need time to complete everything you’ve prioritized, so this year, don’t be afraid to brush off requests and focus on your priorities.
14. Utilize time-blocking
Another way to ensure productivity is the popular method of time-blocking.
Try the Pomodoro Technique, where you set a timer for 25 minutes and allow yourself a small break of less than five minutes afterward.
By working in sprints, you condition your brain to stay hyper-focused and steer free of distractions. Then, rewarding yourself with a small break makes the work easier to grind through.
If this technique doesn’t make sense for you, try more traditional time-blocking by reserving a few hours a day with zero interruptions. Dedicate yourself and hold yourself accountable if you do not respect this time to get things done.
15. Learn to delegate
A popular resolution for this coming year is seeking help from others by delegating more of your duties.
Many bosses or type-A personalities, aka the typical entrepreneur, find it difficult to parse out tasks and seem to tackle massive projects themselves.
Rather than overloading your own plate, experiment to learn what parts of your business you can trust to others.
Give your employees more responsibility, hire a freelancer to complete a temporary project or find a part-time staffer or intern. You’re bound to accomplish more when you learn to delegate.
Personal
16. Be a better boss
Who doesn’t want to improve themselves this year? Invest in yourself and dedicate 2020 to becoming a better leader.
Better yet, take time this year to truly connect with your employees. Schedule a team-building experience, host one-on-one interviews to pick their brains and show your team how you’re pushing yourself to be the best leader possible.
17. Make healthier decisions
What is a New Year’s resolution list without a health goal?
Kiss your bad habits from 2019 goodbye and look forward to smarter and healthier decisions in all aspects of life. Health and wellness is more popular than ever and their importance is growing, especially as it relates to productivity.
With habit tracking apps, meal delivery services, virtual gym classes and other technologies making health easier, many are jumping onto the bandwagon and looking inward.
Encourage your staff to make better decisions by ordering healthier snacks for the break room or subsidizing gym memberships. Many health insurance companies actually offer benefits to businesses who offer healthy options.
18. Take a vacation
Use your Instagram feed as some motivation to get out of town and plan a proper vacation. That means leaving your laptop at home and spending some quality time enjoying all that’s around you and not on your iPhone screen.
Set an out-of-office email alert and make it a point to leave work behind.
While it’s nerve-racking to go off the grid, you’ll come back fully recharged and ready to jump back into work.
Take some time in early 2020 to reflect on last year. Think about both the wins and losses and why those outcomes came to pass. Could failures have been avoided? Were some of your successes due to unrealized factors?
Find ways to replicate the good and enforce strategies to steer clear of the bad. Don’t make the same mistakes twice!
Ring in the new year
No matter what business you are building, all brands have some common goals leading into 2020.
Entrepreneur New Year’s resolutions are a fun and effective way to accomplish this year’s goals if you do your best to plan them accordingly.
The best resolutions are attainable.
A little progress every day quickly adds up, so start small and soon you’ll be smashing your resolutions this year!
Minecraft has virtually (pun intended) become a household name. At some point over the last decade, gamers around the world have tried this popular, pixelated, platform of digital delight.
Non-gamers aren’t immune to the Minecraft madness either. No one can open an internet browser, visit a streaming service, or walk into a store without seeing some mention of Minecraft or its merchandise.
Minecraft was first released to the public in 2009 by the Swedish game developer, Mojang. Over the past decade, Minecraft has grown into one of the most popular gaming platforms in the world, with Microsoft reporting more than 112 million monthly users as of September 2019).
With that kind of player base, as a Minecraft game server owner, you need to know how to get your piece of the pickaxe pie.
Regular gameplay includes strategy, story, building and community interactions on a server chosen by the player. On the reverse, you can also own and manage your own Minecraft game server and create a world of your dreams and invite players to participate.
Technically, you’re not allowed to make money from Minecraft gaming, but Mojang — the company that develops Minecraft — has made an exception for Minecraft game servers.
Before you start dreaming of payday, it is imperative that you review the Minecraft Commercial Use Terms to understand how to legally profit from your server.
(Always read the terms from the Mojang. As of this posting date, some of the information and rules may have changed.)
1. Set up your business
Before you can make money, you have to spend money.
With any business, you need to set yourself up for success with a name and a brand as well as the server itself.
First, your online branding efforts will require you to choose a domain name. Since your business is virtual, a domain name will allow your players to find you online and visit your website.
Next, brand yourself with a professional logo. A logo is a way for gamers to recognize your server and is the foundation for the visual identity of your server.
With a game server business, you need to not only set up the game server, but you will need to create a website.
Your website is how gamers will find and learn more about your server, your server’s community, and the gameplay your server offers.
Your website also allows you to make money through affiliate advertising, or an eCommerce store for purchases made outside of the game platform.
If you are comfortable setting up your own server, you are probably capable of building your own website. We recommend using WordPress for a game server business.
If you’re not interested in building the website yourself, you may choose to have a professional build your site while you are busy setting up your Minecraft world.
Making a profit is serious business when developing an enormous, beautiful Minecraft world that requires a fast and reliable server.
It’s like a game of Monopoly — you have to pay to buy the property (server) before you can charge rent (server access).
Mojang allows you to charge a fee — any fee — but it must be the same for all players. All you need to decide is if you will charging Baltic Avenue discount rates or Boardwalk premium access fees.
The time spent on setting up the server must be considered as well. If you construct a large unique gaming world with beautiful structures, mini-games and expansions, charging access is necessary. Even for a small game server owner looking to cash in, there are building costs that must be covered.
Collecting membership fees is not so different from collecting server access fees, except with memberships you can give your players choices of access duration.
You can offer weekly, monthly or annual membership fees based on how long the players want to access your Minecraft game server — but you still must charge the same for all players.
With most memberships, the annual fee is almost always the least expensive option when netted out, but a weekly fee might work best for those wanting to try the game before committing to a longer-term or those needing the fee to be easier on the wallet.
But whatever you charge, again, it must be with the same prices and terms to all players.
Why would anyone give away money when they don’t have to?
Some people feel an obligation to pay for things they use, while others give to people or platforms they like so the developer can continue providing them with incredible gameplay.
Most donors understand that their donations fuel timely updates and continuous expansion. Donations also allow admins to focus on the game server and not treat it like a side-gig.
For the Minecraft game server owner, donations may be more rewarding than a flat server access or membership fee.
You may alienate players if they are locked into a specific amount to play that may not be in their budget. However, on the reverse, generous players may take this opportunity to contribute larger amounts that far exceed a set rate.
Taking a chance that many won’t donate to play can be worrisome. However, if you have an attractive world, put in the time, and make timely updates and fun features, donations might be a big payoff.
While Mojang doesn’t allow for profits from the Minecraft game itself, you are allowed to sell in-game items as long as it doesn’t affect gameplay.
Mojang has some very specific rules. Selling capes is not allowed, for instance, as this is an item only awarded by Minecraft and requires players to meet specific conditions.
You are allowed to sell in-game items as long as it doesn’t affect gameplay.
To sell in-game merchandise, you need a way to accept payments and create your digital inventory.
Minecraft Marketplace
One popular option is Minecraft Marketplace. Minecraft Marketplace allows you to sell skins, textures, mash-ups, adventure packs, mini-games, track purchases and foster a community.
Tebex
Another favorite is Tebex, formerly known as Buycraft. Tebex was originally developed as a platform for the monetization of Minecraft, but expanded in 2019 to cover other games. It’s still one of the leading Minecraft eCommerce plugins available that offers many digital inventory options.
Sponsors can fund your Minecraft game server in exchange for something, like promoting their product or service to the players on your server.
Finding the perfect sponsor can take some research.
Searching on Google shows that there are many companies that are in place to sponsor Minecraft-related activities.
This is where your website comes in handy. While Mojang doesn’t allow any advertising in the gaming platform itself, you can post promotions and advertisements on your website.
You could create sponsor packages laying out exactly what sponsors get, and for what price. Alternatively, you could create a custom arrangement for individual sponsors.
Whatever the case, a sponsorship may be the best way to get your Minecraft game server turning a profit in no time. Again, check the Mojang commercial terms of use before committing to a sponsor.
Sailing in your boat, mining for diamonds, building your dream house and minding your crops aren’t just fun to do, they are fun to watch. Damaging Enderman and avoiding creepers can build excitement and suspense that others want to watch.
Per Mojang rules, you are allowed to put footage of the game on YouTube or any other website, but you have to stay within their Essential Requirements — you may create, use and distribute videos of you playing or using the game for any lawful reason, provided that you don’t make any money from them.
So what can you do? You must add your own unique content to the video, like audio commentary. The amount you add must also be enough for you to make money, and worthwhile for someone to pay for it.
You’ll have different options for monetization, depending on the platform you choose. You may need to hit a specific threshold of subscribers or viewers before you can make money on ads. You could also add affiliate links to your profile, or find sponsors for your stream.
The important thing with game streaming is to do it often.
You’ll need to have a consistent schedule, so viewers know when to watch, and your stream will need to offer something interesting/different enough to bring people back.
Want to take a different approach to New Year’s resolutions this year? Let’s consider actually doing a thorough online presence audit of our business for the past year. By doing so we can then put in place the practices and policies that will actually contribute to improving our business in the year ahead.
In this article, we are going to cover basic online business and website practices that you can review and apply. These details need your attention and can help or hinder your success and ROI.
This requires you to take an honest self-assessment in regards to how you spend your time, what choices you’ve made, how you run your website and online business. Only then can we determine if these variables produced the desired results and if not, why not.
So grab a notepad and let’s get to work!
Starter questions to review the past year
Begin by asking yourself the following questions:
What were your biggest online successes?
Jot down the things you know you did well and why. Look at ways of solidifying those processes and how you can build upon them.
Where did you fall short?
You know where you fell short — write that down as well. Only then can we make the appropriate corrections.
What were your online goals for 2019?
How did you do? If you didn’t note any specific goals for 2019, let’s make sure we identify what we want to accomplish in 2020 in as much detail as possible. If we don’t know where we want to go, how can we expect to get there?
Which goals did you meet, miss and why?
Any honest business owner knows the answers to these questions. Being forthright during this process will only serve to push you towards success.
This quick overview serves to help you quickly identify the pillars you want to concentrate on moving into the new year.
Jotting down the answers to the above questions will allow you to easily set the groundwork to build upon your successes and avoid unnecessary setbacks.
You also want to take note of what business activities and practices you enjoyed most.
If you are like me, coincidentally that is where you’ll find you were most successful. You’ll then have a better idea of what you truly want to do yourself and where to seek outside help or assistance to better compensate for your shortcomings or lack of enthusiasm.
Technology keeps steamrolling ahead with or without us. You have to make the effort to keep up or you will be left behind.
This requires you to review your website visuals, layout and functionality.
How long ago did you update the look or feel (theme) and images on your website? Visual trends are being set all the time.
Site visitors travel around the web and get accustomed to how websites should appear and operate. And with that expectations are created.
Here are some questions to guide you:
Does your site look contemporary? Does it provide the impression it was set up in 2019 or 2009?
Are your content and photos (including your profile photo) current or outdated from years ago?
Do you have the features visitors expect?
Does your site include the functionality that makes doing business with you a breeze?
What year is the copyright notice at the bottom of every page? Be sure to change it to 2020.
Do not overlook your website’s actual performance metrics. When was the last time you ran a speed and performance test on your website? GTMetrix.com is a good place to start.
We are so busy working on our businesses and building out our sites that the days fly by. We create, add, modify, and add some more. But it’s easy to neglect to check to see if any of those additions or changes may have had a detrimental effect on our website’s overall performance.
If you are using WordPress, do a thorough review of your theme and plugins to make sure they are all up to date and tested with the current version of WordPress.
Site navigation is also something that can grow to the point of taking on a life of its own. Did you know there is a thing called the choice paradox? Too many choices can actually lead to indecision and fewer sales or contacts.
Review your navigational structure and pair it down to be simple, concise, and more importantly, intuitive for your site visitors.
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SEO considerations
I’m not going to get into a search engine optimization (SEO) tutorial here; there are excellent resources online for you to review for that. However, at the end of every year, it makes sense to analyze what we have in place and if our current efforts are adequate.
Site speed
Those performance metrics that I mentioned previously are part of optimizing for search engines. Speed matters. Test, then tune.
Relevant content
SEO isn’t just a matter of adding keywords here or there or creating content for the sake of adding content. It’s about keyword research, knowing your market, and creating content your current and potential customers desire.
Review your content and either update or delete thin content that is not producing.
Use Google Analytics to explore your website’s statistics to learn how your visitors are finding you. This data can give you clues as to what’s working well and where you need to improve.
Google considers your E-A-T (Expertise, Authority, Trust) factor. You can read about that in more detail in Google’s Site Quality Rater Guidelines here. Then take the appropriate actions.
Inbound and outbound links
When auditing your SEO efforts, also review your inbound and outbound links and repair any broken links. Once you review that data you then know where you need to improve or can build upon what’s already working.
At the end of the year you want to review your policies and procedures to determine what, if any, of your policies require updating. You’ll want to review your policies that cover:
Review each to determine if they are good as is or require additional clarification.
During this exercise you may be surprised to discover outdated statements or verbiage that needs to be clarified.
It may also be a good idea to have a legal expert review all your policies to limit any potential unforeseen liabilities that may exist.
Email organization
Email takes a lot of our time, many times unnecessarily. Not keeping up with your email responsibilities can have a negative impact on your business in so many ways.
A solid audit can save you time and increase your opportunities.
Prompt and professional responses encourage those you communicate with to do business with you. Lack of responses with poor grammar or a lax tone can have the opposite effect.
Look for ways to organize your email activities to make you more efficient.
Folders and templates
Create folders to keep your emails organized in a way that works for you. Include a To-Do folder that you can file emails into and then follow through and do what needs to be done.
If you are being asked the same questions over and over via email, create templates or add those topics to your website’s Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page. This applies to your product and service offerings as well.
Beef up your core pages to make sure all the details you know customers are seeking are included.
This approach will help to minimize your email volume.
Going into 2020, one would think this to not be an issue — but I see sites that are not secured or have mixed content errors every day. So it is worth a mention.
We want to make sure that we have everything covered so that there are no browser warnings that can affect how your site displays and inhibits contacts or orders. Mixed content errors cause the user’s browser to note that the “Connection is Not Secure” and that “Parts of this page are not secure…”.
If you see this message when on any page of your website, you want to check all your URLs within your content on that particular page. Most likely you have an HTTP where you should have an HTTPS.
Images that are larger than needed are one of the primary contributors to slow site performance. Generic product descriptions do not encourage sales or set you apart from similar products on other websites.
Not every social channel is a match for every business. And being on social media can be a time sucker.
Determining where you get your best bang for your buck is imperative to using your time efficiently.
Here, again, look to the data to expose where you are getting the most traction — and why. Then concentrate on that platform a little more, build upon what works, and try new things.
For your branding efforts to be successful we want to make sure that there is a consistency in look and feel across all our social platforms. Same colors, logo and personality.
Review all your social accounts to make sure they have the same banner and profile images, too.
The end of the year is the perfect time to scope out the competition as we lay out our plans for the year ahead. We all have competition, at least at some level, and know who our primary competitors are.
Check out the other businesses in your niche to see what they are up to, what they may be doing differently, and what you can do better.
Look at their website, product offerings, social media activity and marketing efforts.
Think about how you can differentiate yourself from your competitors. What can you do to make your business stand out from all the rest?
Your competitive blueprint should not be based on pricing alone. The race to the bottom isn’t always the best path to attain ROI unless you want to be viewed as a “budget” brand. If your pricing is higher, discover ways to offer value along with your higher price to work toward building a premium brand.
Put on your customer hat and think about what they want and what makes the process of doing business with you easiest for them. Then scope out what your competitors are doing to fill that need.
This exercise also helps you to discover potential competitive weak points.
So much of our success is dependent on reviewing what we’ve done thus far and what we need to do to continue moving forward. Then pushing through each challenge as it appears in front of us. That and the discipline to follow through on the issues we know will contribute to our ongoing success.
Now that you have documented and reviewed all of the above, it’s time to make your plan for 2020.
You want to write down your goals and how you are going to make them happen. The more specific the better.
Make checklists, spreadsheets or just take handwritten notes. Developing a system that works for you means you’ll be more apt to stick with it to reach your goals.
There is no ambiguity when it comes to online success. It’s in every little detail and choice in regard to what we decide to do or not do. Here’s to a prosperous year ahead!
Planning to start a business in the New Year? Chances are, you’ve likely completed your prep homework. You’ve determined what your unique selling proposition (USP) is, and defined your business model. Your business likely has a business plan that takes an in-depth look at your competition, target market, and financial plans for future profitability. Before your new venture is fully off to the races, don’t forget to check these startup legal items off your to-do list.
6 legal issues for startups
Determine which business formation structure is best.
File for trademark protection.
Register for necessary licenses and/or permits.
Obtain an employer identification number (EIN).
Get a registered agent.
Complete annual filing maintenance.
Let’s take a look at each item in more detail.
1. Determine which business formation structure is best
Some startups may prefer to stay small and maintain flexibility. Others may be on a fast track for major growth and expansion.
Once an entrepreneur understands which type of business they plan to run, they may incorporate it as one of these common business entities.
Limited liability company (LLC)
Aside from establishing credibility and providing a flexible business structure, incorporating as an LLC provides entrepreneurs with liability protection.
This creates a separation between their professional and personal assets.
Should something unforeseen impact the business, the owner’s personal belongings (like a house or car) would not be affected. Forming an LLC also provides entrepreneurs with a pass-through tax structure. This allows entrepreneurs to choose how they would like to be taxed, typically as a partnership or S Corporation election.
Corporation
Much like LLCs, corporations also provide entrepreneurs with liability protection. However, a corporation is much less flexible than an LLC.
The structured nature of the entity makes it possible for a startup to issue shares of stock and work alongside investors. This allows the company to significantly expand and even go public with an IPO.
General partnership
Many entrepreneurs choose this entity if they decide to go into business with one another. Profits and losses are split between partners in a general partnership. Additionally, partners are also held personally liable for their business debts.
Chances are highly likely that your startup has a creative mark associated with the company. This may be a business name, design, logo or tagline. These are trademarks, which work to distinguish your business and its originality to the world.
What happens if you do not protect these unique assets? In the worst-case scenario, a competitor may attempt to copy and pass these ideas off as their own. Your business would be helpless to stop them because the marks had not properly been trademarked.
The good news is that you can protect these assets through trademark registration. Even better news? It’s a relatively simple two-step process.
Conduct a name search. Before you file for a trademark, you need to make sure that the mark is available.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) provides startups with a trademark database. This tool will show you if there are any registered and/or pending applications for your specific trademark. If you find there are not, you may move forward and file a trademark application.
File a trademark application. Now that you know the trademark is available for use, file a trademark application and pay a filing fee to register it.
You may monitor the application with the USPTO’s Trademark Status and Document Retrieval (TSDR) system. Once your paperwork has been approved, you officially have exclusive rights to use the mark in all aspects of your business.
3. Register for required business licenses and permits
The types of licenses and permits your business needs will vary depending on industry and location.
It is generally advised that entrepreneurs check in with their local Secretary of State before beginning the application process. The Secretary of State may provide a list of business licenses and permits your startup is required to have, based on the field your business is in and the state.
This ensures you will be able to apply for the proper licenses and permits as needed.
What is an EIN? An employer identification number is also referred to as a federal tax ID.
EINs are a nine-digit number issued by the IRS in order to identify a business entity.
The IRS is able to track the activities of the business through its EIN. Some aspects tracked include ensuring the company collects payroll tax and stays compliant with state laws.
Why would your business need to file for an EIN? Let’s take a quick look at why EINs are so frequently obtained by startups.
Hire employees. Filing for an EIN is a requirement for any startup that plans to hire and pay employees.
Open a business bank account. Many banks require EIN paperwork before a bank account may be opened under a business name.
Establish a credit profile. This will be your business credit profile, which is separate from your personal credit profile.
File annual tax returns.
Form an LLC or corporation. EINs should be obtained if you incorporated the startup as an LLC or corporation. (Partnerships also fall under this category.) Once the company has been incorporated, you are technically considered to be an “employee” — even if you do not hire any employees. As such, an EIN helps track your activities.
Plans to change organizational structures. Let’s say you initially incorporate as one entity and decide to switch to a different one. You will need to obtain an EIN because of the change in organizational leadership.
Another benefit of EINs is that this tax ID number is less sensitive than a Social Security number (SSN). Many entrepreneurs use SSNs to identify their startup on legal paperwork and documents. Using an EIN may help safeguard against identity theft, and is often used in lieu of an SSN.
5. Designate a registered agent
Entrepreneurs have a choice when it comes to designating their registered agent (RA).
Registered agents receive service of process on behalf of the business.
RAs act as the point of contact between the startup and the state. A designated registered agent may be either an individual or a third-party service.
What’s the difference between acting as an RA and working with a third-party registered agent?
Individual RA
It is completely acceptable for an entrepreneur to designate themselves as their own registered agent. However, you should be prepared for the role and its requirements.
Registered agents must be available during general business hours — from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.
They must have a physical street address and be a resident of the state to accept service of process.
Registered agents should also be highly organized, as they will need to stay on top of various bits of paperwork and their associated deadlines.
If you find that you are unable to act as your own registered agent, that’s perfectly fine. You may enlist the help of a third-party RA.
Third-party registered agent
If you work alongside a third-party RA service, you can be assured that they have been carefully vetted to meet the requirements listed above.
Third-party registered agents are physically available and highly organized. Additionally, they are highly discrete.
The downside to designating yourself as your own RA is that businesses might receive a negative service of process, like lawsuit paperwork, in a public space. This can be embarrassing for entrepreneurs and customers to witness.
Third-party registered agents act as an impartial receiver of this kind of paperwork. They do not judge what arrives in the mail. Instead, they collect the documents, organize them, and privately deliver them to the entrepreneur.
This gives startups peace of mind in knowing the third-party RA will manage their paperwork for them so they may focus on their work.
6. File an annual report
Did you incorporate as an LLC or corporation? If so, you will need to file an annual report to stay in compliance with the state.
This report is not too difficult to file or fill out.
Inside every annual report is basic information about the startup. This includes the name of the business, its address, and its registered agent.
If any changes have been made to the business throughout the year, they must be documented in the annual report. These changes must also be recorded in the LLC’s operating agreement and the corporation’s bylaws.
Annual reports must be filed on time.
If not, the business may face involuntary dissolution from the Secretary of State. Keep in mind when filing your annual report that deadlines vary depending on the state of filing and the startup’s entity.
Let’s see what the deadlines look like for a few states and their business formations.
Florida requires all corporations, LLCs, limited partnerships (LPs) and limited liability partnerships (LLPs) to file annual reports on an annual basis. The filing deadline with the Florida Secretary of State is May 1.
This is also true of the state of Georgia, with the exception of the filing deadline. In Georgia, the filing deadline for annual reports is April 1.
The same goes for Maine, which has a filing deadline of June 1 for all annual reports for corporations, LLCs, LPs, and LLPs, which are all due on an annual basis.
Minnesota requires corporations, LLCs and LLPs to file on an annual basis. The filing deadline with the Minnesota Secretary of State is December 31.
Iowa annual report deadlines are very specific. For corporations, their annual reports are due biennially — on even-numbered years. LLCs have their reports due biennially as well but on odd-numbered years. April 1 is the deadline for annual reports, and if you are unsure as to which year to file you may contact the Iowa Secretary of State to find out more information.
New York has a very specific set of annual report filing rules with their Secretary of State. Corporations and LLCs must file on a biennial basis. LPs do not need to file an annual report. LLPs must file an annual report every five years. The due dates for filing are based on the company’s anniversary.
Annual filing rules are also somewhat similar in the state of California. Corporations and LLPs have annual reports due on an annual basis. LLCs must file biennially while LPs do not need to file their reports. These documents also have due dates based on the company’s filing anniversary.
Some states do not have annual reports filed through the Secretary of State. For example, annual reports filed in Alabama are filed through their Department of Revenue.
In the state of Texas, filings are completed through the Texas Franchise Tax Department.
Washington state requires annual report filings to be submitted through its Department of Licensing.
Do not presume that all filings go through the Secretary of State, but do ask the Secretary of State if you have any questions or are unsure as to where your filings should go next.
It’s easy to get these deadlines mixed up, so it’s always a good idea to check in with your local Secretary of State before filing if you have any questions.
Once you’ve completed the above checklist, you can confidently start 2020 off with a bang. You’re ready to take on the New Year and decade with a booming business!
The above content should not be construed as legal or tax advice. Always consult an attorney or tax professional regarding your specific legal or tax situation.
You got here to see a comparative article about Calendly vs Acuity, but how did we get here to need these tools?
In today’s world, it is more important than ever to know how to manage your time wisely. While you are trying to make and keep appointments with others, they are also trying to make and keep appointments of their own, and this can be challenging. Usually, this simply results in an agreement never being reached and can include more time wasted on calls and messages than producing actual results.
However, these obstacles can easily be overcome with the use of appointment scheduling software, which can help you manage your time and make your life easier. In this article, we will be discussing two programs that aim to do just that.
Although both Calendly and Acuity were created to help better coordinate our time, each offers its own unique characteristics that make deciding which to use a challenge in itself. Fortunately, we have done our research, and in this article about Calendly vs Acuity created by our team at Amelia, we will share with you what we’ve learned so that you can make the decision yourself.
What are Calendly and Acuity about?
Calendly is an online tool that has the ability to connect with up to six different calendars, allowing customers to accommodate their itinerary while the software takes care of organizing it. Calendly does not require you to send emails in order to notify you of our plans, and you will also not receive emails with other people’s plans.
Additionally, Calendly can be integrated with Twenty Over Ten, expanding its possibilities even further.
Acuity, on the other hand, is more like a personal assistant than calendar scheduling software. Acuity supplies you with a range of tools perfect for business administration, including allowing you to accept payments, create customer reservations, and more.
When comparing Calendly and Acuity, we have found that executives who have big plans and goals for the future find that Acuity is much more suitable to assist in accomplishing these goals.
What audience each software is aimed at
Calendly stands out for its ability to make scheduling meetings simple and efficient. Calendly’s options are not overly complex, but they are more than enough for companies and booking sites that are just starting out.
With a little expertise, Calendly can also be used to contact clients interested in your services, especially since it offers a simple interface that works with outbound links that can be shared with everyone.
Calendly also works best when looking for an integration with other add-ons, such as Zapier, which also increases compatibility with more applications. The result is a more cohesive, complete piece of software.
Acuity is intended more for big companies due to the facilities it provides to receive payments from users. At the interface level, it is simple to understand, which allows staff to efficiently manage reservations. Although additional plug-ins are not necessarily required, as you can also choose to use its open API supports, which allows customization of its features.
As mentioned, Acuity is similar to that of a personal assistant in that it handles reservations, shows all times available, and schedules them on the calendar. The application can also accept payment immediately if the client wishes to reserve a space.
Calendly vs Acuity: Which One Is Easier to Learn?
Between Calendly and Acuity, the learning differences are minimal. Calendly requires a basic knowledge of online navigation since the windows of the program make creating various reservations simple.
However, the Acuity developer team has done its job in facilitating the learning of its tool. The heavier parts are already set by default, so all that is needed is to make some small changes to suit personal preference.
The ability to message and receive notifications comes already included in Acuity, as well as the self-programming of reservations. All that is needed is to activate the different add-ons that allow the use of external applications such as Google Calendar, MailChimp, or iCloud. Luckily, this task is also very simple.
Management of Available Spaces and Calendars
We cannot accurately compare Acuity and Calendly without mentioning the calendars. Calendars are the main function of Calendly, and it allows up to six external calendars in order to schedule meetings. The programming of these can be done in different groups, such as work networks or for clients. Schedules and rules that you have already scheduled will not be affected by plan changes.
If the staff you are organizing meetings for is outside the company, you can simply share a link to the scheduled event. From there, everyone will be able to see the information and rules that you provided to the whole group.
Acuity Scheduling offers more complex options for organizing appointments and reservations. Both the client and the site coordinator can see the schedules available in real-time. Also, to ensure that no one misses an appointment, the software will send the corresponding notification.
One advantage of Acuity is that it can be used from any smartphone, so it can be checked at any time, no matter where you are. If you are not sure of the time zone in which a reservation was scheduled, Acuity uses the local schedules of each client so that they know exactly when they are due, and you can register it in your local time, which is especially useful when there are reprograms.
Customization Options and Rules
Calendly works similarly to Microsoft Online tools for editing documents. This provides you with a URL, which indicates what types of people can access it. For example, if a meeting is scheduled for prospects only, this link will only be accessible for them.
With Calendly, you can also determine certain rules so that meetings can be scheduled, such as minimum time in advance so that no one can create last-minute meetings, a maximum number of meetings per day, and even a time buffer for before and after the event.
On the other hand, Acuity does not share a link to the public, but directly shows the calendar of events to those it is provided to. This can be shared through multiple social networks (in addition to email), and we can even get a code to publish it on our website. Regardless of where it is placed, it will always be updated.
The rules for appointments are very similar to those offered by Calendly. You can place time in advance, an interval between appointments so as not to overload yourself or the staff, and a wonderful option that allows blocking available schedules of the calendar with the pretext that you are “busy”.
Compatibility and Complements
Calendly offers integration with the world’s most used calendars, such as Google, Outlook, Office 365, and iCloud, in addition to Zapier support. This means that we can install CRM advisors like RedTail and Wealthbox. With the Pro version, you can also use Salesforce.
Although it is not its main strength, the Calendly software can accept payments through PayPal and Stripe. You can also schedule automatic meetings by using the GoToMeeting software.
Although it has no option to publish a calendar, you can place scheduling forms on different websites, such as your personal or business page. Since the software is responsible for organizing meetings, it will not matter if you place the form in different places, as reservations cannot be superimposed.
Acuity is not far behind in terms of compatibility. The Acuity software also has integration to the main digital calendars in the market. However, compatibility with external applications goes much further, having dozens of extensions to choose from. Acuity is unique when it comes to adapting to the user. While the base software is already quite complete, there are always options to improve it.
Among the platforms with which it can be integrated are online conference services, such as GoToMeeting and Join.Me, payment processors like Square, Stripe, and PayPal, messaging and mass email services like MailChimp, ConvertKit, and Aweber, and compatibility with CRM advisors.
How is Customer Service?
The customer service aspects of both Calendly and Acuity play a fundamental role, especially if you do not have much experience with computers. Calendly offers basic customer service, where you only receive a manual explaining each of the functions of the program, as well as some questions we may have about the configuration process.
Calendly also has specialized personnel to answer your questions and help you use the software. This works through a request system, so you must wait for your turn, which could belong since users who pay for the Pro subscription will have priority over the free ones.
Each one of Acuity’s windows has an explanation of its operation, as well as links to related articles that can help solve your issues, making it an intuitive software to learn. Of course, all this is offered in a large catalog of information, but since there are direct links within the same software, we can resolve any doubts we may have as we use it.
If you do not want to read through an abundance of information, you can always watch some of the helpful videos or live seminars offered by the developer team. If all this still does not solve the problem, you can also send a form to the support team.
Calendly vs Acuity: Prices and Promotions
When comparing two different services or products, the comparison would not be complete without mentioning the price of each.
Calendly is more accessible if you are looking to pay. The free plan is perfect for learning how to use the tool, in addition to offering one calendar template, integration with all calendar services, unlimited event programming with one type of event, a custom URL, notification system, basic technical assistance, and the possibility of adding Calendly to our website.
For $8 per month, the Pro Plan includes all the above, in addition to an increased number of calendars. It allows scheduling more than one type of event among a large number of options, both group and individual, event statistics, integration with Zapier, Zoom, GoToMeeting, different webhooks, and the technical service guarantees a response in less than three hours.
Finally, there is the Premium Plan for $12 per month, which increases the number of calendars to six per user, adds SMS notifications, allows you to redirect guests, and adds support for payment processors and SalesForce.
Acuity, on the other hand, can be more expensive, but from its free version, it offers the basics to start, such as an automatic programming calendar and the possibility of creating unlimited services.
With the $15 monthly plan, you gain access to the vast majority of software options, such as compatibility with payment processors, email reminders, conversion of reservations to the corresponding time zone for customers, the ability to add your logo, colors, and personal texts, integration with Zapier, synchronization with external calendar applications, and much more.
The $25 monthly plan allows calendars for the staff, in addition to including worldwide text message reminders, as well as the possibility of offering gifts, subscriptions, and promotions.
Finally, the most expensive plan, costing $50 per month, allows up to 36 calendars, all of which will adapt the time zone to both customers and staff, personalized API access, and includes a BAA signature for the HIPAA compliance.
Do You Want An Alternative To Both Of Them?
If you find yourself unsatisfied with the options offered by the two presented in this Calendly vs Acuity article, we also recommend that you try Amelia, a WordPress booking plugin that allows you to easily organize bookings and reservations. Not only does this booking plugin include everything mentioned in this article, but because it is adapted to WordPress, it is much more intuitive and universal.
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You’re here because you want to start a new business. You might have an idea of the type of business you want to run, but you’re not entirely sure. Or you might even be asking, “What is a business model?”
That’s perfectly understandable, starting a new business is filled with uncertainty and excitement.
However, to improve your chances of success, there are a few things you’re going to need to nail down:
A deep understanding of the problem that you’re solving for your customers.
A market where your customers can actually pay for what you’re offering.
A business model that actually makes your business money.
For the entirety of this post, we’re going to dive deep into that third point — finding a business model that aligns with your market and brings in revenue.
Below you’ll learn what a business model is and isn’t, the most common business models out there today, and finally, how you can choose the right business model for your new venture.
What is a business model?
Put simply, a business model is an approach that you’re taking to make money. It’s how you deliver value to your customers, via products or services, in exchange for a set cost.
A business model is an essential element of any new startup, as it’ll help you understand your value over the long term.
Remember, your business model isn’t set in stone. Instead, think of it as a way to experiment and test different ways to monetize your business.
It’s more the revenue model you’re following.
For example, think of a company like Facebook. They started by making the platform completely free, and once the audience was large enough, they began monetizing via advertising. And that’s just one model they could have taken.
Others would have included charging a monthly subscription fee, or selling products and services.
Often, the business model you adopt will depend upon your market and what they’re willing to pay for. There’s a good chance that you might not end with the same business model you started with.
Take Amazon, for example. Today, Amazon AWS is one of Amazon’s biggest revenue generators by providing scalable cloud infrastructure solutions. But, when it was initially created, it was for an entirely different purpose.
It’s important to note that a business model is not a business plan.
Your business model is the revenue-generating approach you’re taking, while a business plan is an in-depth document that outlines your future and how you’ll go about achieving that future.
You can help to streamline the process of choosing and evaluating a business model via business model templates and canvases.
There are dozens of different business models out there. Typically, businesses will rely on an overarching model and refine it to their own business needs.
The route you choose will depend upon your industry, but even more so, by what your customers are willing to pay for. So what are some of those business models?
Advertising business model.
Affiliate marketing business model.
Franchising business model.
Freemium business model.
Razor blade business model.
Reverse razor blade business model.
Subscription business model.
Agency business model.
Ecommerce business model.
Here’s a look at nine of the most common business models available to you today.
1. Advertising business model
The advertising business model has been around for a long time. Although print used to be the leading advertising medium, this has drastically switched to online and mixed-media formats.
The approach is simple: You create content that people want to consume and use display ads to monetize your business. You’re not charging your readers or visitors, but instead, are monetizing their attention by selling advertising space.
If you’re running a website, there are all kinds of advertising networks you can partner with to run ads. In this scenario, you usually get paid by clicks or views.
The affiliate model is another incredibly common and lucrative business model, especially online. With affiliate marketing, you’re recommending products or services in exchange for a commission.
One super popular affiliate program is the Amazon Associates program. Once you join this affiliate network, you can promote any Amazon product in the world in exchange for a commission.
Beyond Amazon, there are thousands of additional products and services you can recommend depending on your niche and audience.
Most of the examples here apply to the online space, although they can still be translated to the offline world as well.
However, the franchising business model is primarily an offline model.
Nearly every single 7-Eleven, McDonald’s, and other fast-food restaurant chain is a franchise. In the case of McDonald’s, over 90% of its locations are franchised.
This model works incredibly well if you’re focused on expansion.
The franchisor will license most aspects of it’s business to a franchisee, which then sells those products or services for a royalty.
The freemium business model is another one you’re probably very familiar with. This is where you give away an aspect of your product or service for free, then you charge for the premium version or for add-on features.
The critical distinction with freemium is that it’s free forever. You could essentially have a large group of users who never upgrade to the premium version.
There are a ton of different examples of this, especially in the software space.
For example, Sumo is a suite of free apps to help your website generate more revenue. The free tools are packed with some serious power and will be more than enough for a majority of website owners.
But, there’s also a sliding scale of premium options that provide website owners with more advanced features.
Another great example is Evernote. The organization and planning app has a freemium version that will suit most users’ needs, while the Premium and Business plans are equipped with higher-level features.
The razor blade business model is named after the product that basically invented the model. I bet you can guess what it is?
The business model is selling a particular aspect of your product at below cost — basically giving it away — to sell high volumes of another component of that product.
The most famous example of this is, of course, disposable razors. They give away the razor handle for free and make their money back on the high volume of blades you buy over the lifetime of the product.
Another common example of this is a printer. You buy the printer once, and you have to buy replacement ink cartridges time and time again (probably more often than you’d like).
This business model flips the above approach on its head.
Instead of selling a low-margin product at the outset, you sell a high-margin product upfront and offer sales of low-margin products down the line.
With both of these products, you’re joining a product ecosystem.
For example, let’s look at the Apple ecosystem of products. If you buy a new MacBook, there’s a good chance you’ll end up buying apps from the App Store, songs from Apple Music, and maybe even an iPhone.
This model ensures a single (or multiple) high-end purchases, followed by a series of smaller purchases over the long-term.
The subscription model goes back to the day of magazines, newspapers and even milk bottle home delivery.
No doubt, you already have a handful of subscription products you pay for every month.
Netflix, anyone?
The process is simple. Your customers pay a monthly fee to continue using your product or service. This is incredibly common for SaaS and content-driven businesses.
For example, The New York Times has a paywall where you can read four free articles per month, after which you’ll have to pay a monthly membership fee to keep reading.
Netflix is a classic example of the subscription model. You pay your monthly subscription and get access to the entire streaming library.
The agency model involves generating quality leads and selling them on services and marketing campaigns. This model has been alive and well for more than 200 years. The first advertising agency was founded back in 1786 by William Taylor.
The modern agency is obviously quite different from the first agencies, and the “Mad Men” days, but the process and work are similar. You manage marketing-related projects for several different clients.
Ecommerce is the fastest-growing retail sector. When most people think ecommerce, Amazon typically comes to mind. But, with beginner-friendly tools like GoDaddy’s Websites + Marketing Ecommerce and WooCommerce, starting your own ecommerce store is only a couple of clicks away.
There are countless success stories in the ecommerce space.
For example, Dollar Shave Club was able to bring the age-old business of selling razors to the modern world. They sell individual products, along with recurring product subscriptions delivered right to your door.
Or how about, Minaal, which was able to take their massive Kickstarter success into developing a highly successful ecommerce brand.
They sell backpacks and other travel gear that’s designed with digital nomads and full-time travelers in mind.
Some markets will be challenging to monetize. If you have a content-driven website that gets a high volume of traffic but doesn’t convert well to product sales, then the advertising model is probably your best bet.
Do your customers often make high-end purchases? Or, will they be more receptive to a recurring subscription or a low-end product?
Spend some time analyzing your market to see how other companies are generating revenue. If they’ve been in business for a while, then they’ve probably found a model that can be replicated.
However, there’s always space to innovate and disrupt in a given market.
So don’t feel like you’re stuck doing only what’s been done before.
As you can see, some business models have stood the test of time and are hundreds of years old. Others are much newer, but scaling rapidly and taking over the marketplace.
Overall, there is no best business model, but instead, the best business model for your business. Let your market and customers dictate how you’ll generate revenue.
Finally, remember that your choice of business model isn’t set in stone, most businesses rely on multiple models and refine their approach with time.
This article includes content originally published on the GoDaddy blog by Robin Walters.
There’s a ton of conflicting information out there, and it’s difficult to know where to turn for the best advice.
To help cut through some of the noise, we’ve put together a comprehensive guide with everything you’ll need to become a web designer.
Your comprehensive guide on how to become a web designer
The guide covers what web designers do, and why web design is a great career choice.
You’ll learn where you can get the training you’ll need to become a web designer, as well as what essential skills and tools you’ll need to master.
Finally, you’ll discover everything that goes into building a successful freelance web design business, and the exact steps you can take to get started.
We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so let’s dive right in!
What is a web designer?
Web designers hang out at the intersection of creativity and commerce. They combine their creative knowledge and technical expertise to build websites and web pages that are functional and aesthetically pleasing for visitors and help businesses reach their goals.
Web designers hang out at the intersection of creativity and commerce. Photo: Marvin Meyer on Unsplash
“Designing websites” might sound simple on the surface, but there’s a lot more that goes into each unique design.
A web designer begins every new project by asking the following questions:
Who is this website for? What audience are you working to attract?
What information do we need on the website?
Which design elements will work together to convert the target audience?
How does the website support other marketing, like social media or email?
How well does the website reflect the unique branding of the client?
How will this website help the client reach their business goals?
Who’s responsible for ongoing maintenance and updates on the site?
Skilled web designers know how to find the answer to these questions, and how to use those answers to create an attractive and effective website for their client.
Web designers employed by an agency don’t have to worry about running the business, but they have less freedom in choosing what to work on.
The type of work the web designer does will depend on the agency’s services and how the team is set up.
In-house web designers
In-house web designers typically work on a single or small number of websites for a company. They might be responsible for a specific feature or a specific section of a larger website.
No matter where you work, most web designers find themselves wearing a lot of different hats.
Many companies use their website as a kind of “home base” for their online marketing efforts — a place to which they can direct potential customers to find out more about the companies’ services or make a purchase.
This central role means modern web designers need a solid background in different aspects of both design and marketing to be successful.
A few key areas web designers should understand:
Graphic design. Web designers use different colors, fonts, layouts and imagery in their designs to tell a story and convey a specific feeling to their target audience.
User-experience design. Web designers can benefit from studying user experience and user interface (UX/UI) design.
Conversion-focused web design. Web designers need to know how to design a site that drives results, like increasing conversions.
Web development. Although some designers limit their work to designing sites, many also take on some of the coding, especially front-end development.
Digital marketing. Web designers often work in or alongside marketing teams. An understanding of digital marketing concepts — such as SEO, social media marketing, and copywriting — comes in handy.
Maintenance and management. Many clients will need help to manage their entire online presence, meaning web designers could spend time updating and maintaining websites, not just building them.
Of course, you don’t need to become an expert in all of these areas to be successful.
Web designers often choose to specialize in a single area, like Member Up does with consulting and management of membership sites.
Other web designers cover all areas but specialize in a specific design style, like how Forefathers Group creates vintage-inspired websites for clients.
Some web designers also narrow their services down to a specific industry, like Golf Web Design, which creates websites exclusively for golf courses and golf professionals.
Forefathers Group creates vintage-inspired web designs for clients. Image: Forefathers Group
We’ll dive further into choosing a design niche later, but for now, let’s look at why web design can be a wonderful career choice.
Compared with other design fields, web design is still relatively new. It’s only been in the past decade or so that web design has become such a trendy career choice.
The work is fun and creative, and you’ll get the opportunity to work with a wide range of clients and organizations looking to boost their online presence.
There’s no shortage of work for skilled web designers
As more and more people rely on the web for everyday interactions, such as shopping, social interactions, and business, the demand for talented web designers continues to rise across every industry.
There’s no shortage of work for talented designers — according to the BLS, employment of web developers is projected to grow 13% from 2018 to 2028, much faster than the average of 5% for all occupations.
Web design often works around your schedule
Flexible schedules and the ability to work from anywhere are a huge boon for web designers, whether you’re working as a freelancer or at a fully remote or remote-friendly company.
As a freelance web designer, you can arrange your schedule around family and other personal commitments, and you can pick and choose clients and projects to balance your workload however you like.
Many companies who employ in-house designers are also realizing the benefits of remote work — over the last 10 years, remote work has grown 91% — making it easier than ever before to find a remote-friendly web design job.
What training do you need to become a web designer?
No one becomes a web designer overnight.
Learning the required skills and gaining the experience necessary to design high-value websites and build a sustainable stream of freelance clients can often take a few years.
“I picked up a copy of HTML for Dummies in 1999 to learn how to create a website to share photos of my then-toddler son with family. I couldn’t put the book down. I had studied graphic design in college and had just left a computer database-related job in corporate retail. This was the perfect combination of both!
I found classes in 2000 at my local community college and enrolled. In 2002, I registered my business licenses and got my first client a year prior to wrapping up school. Once I received certification, I started volunteering for community groups and organizations in my neighborhood. This led to more paying clients and word-of-mouth referrals.”
A formal education can help — most colleges and community colleges offer degrees in web design — but you don’t need a degree to become a successful web designer.
The cost of obtaining an associate’s or bachelor’s degree in web design can be prohibitive for many people, and it can take years of education to receive your degree — time you could be spending working with clients and gaining experience.
Learn how to become a web designer with your own informal education.
There are plenty of options available for aspiring designers to learn web design, ranging from intensive in-person boot camps down to free online courses, books, blogs and online education tools.
You can check out more info on the best resources for learning web design in this post — but first, let’s go over some key competencies required to become a web designer.
The skills and tools you need to become a web designer
Even the most extensive education won’t automatically turn you into an in-demand web designer. You’ll need to practice your design skills and learn the latest tools to build a successful career or business in web design.
Now, there are a lot of tools out there, so to help you out, we’ve broken them down by area, listing the top skills and tools you’ll need to master in each area to become a web designer.
Design theory and visual design
Both graphic design and web design are visual mediums with a ton of overlap between the disciplines.
Web designers should have a strong handle on the following visual design principles:
Layout. You’ll need to understand how to lay out sites using grid systems, as well as how to adapt those designs for smaller screen sizes — known as responsive design.
Typography. Choosing consistent, easy-to-read font combinations helps attract ideal visitors to your web designs. Stick to one or two main fonts, and aim for consistency in your designs.
Color theory. Color can be used to elicit different psychological responses from visitors. Learning how different color combinations can create different feelings is an essential part of web design.
Visual design is too wide a topic to cover in detail here, but you should check out some of the following links to learn more:
Great websites need to be both beautiful and functional; web designers are responsible for both.
User experience (UX) design is the art and science of designing products (or websites, for web designers) that provide users with the best possible experience.
Many of the visual design elements we’ve already looked at play into visitors’ experiences with a website, but UX design also encompasses how products make visitors feel.
UX designers are less concerned with the technology behind a website, and more concerned with users; creating experiences that cater to users’ needs often involves extensive user research and a general understanding of psychology and interaction design.
Web designers need a solid foundation in the following user experience and user interface (UX/UI) design skills:
User personas. Creating detailed personas that summarize your target audience and their needs can help ensure every design decision you make is targeting the right people.
User research. You should know how to use tools like Hotjar to generate heatmaps, user surveys, and more to understand the behavior and motivations of website visitors.
User experience testing. Testing your web designs with real users can both help uncover areas where visitors might get stuck or confused and help identify opportunities for making your designs more valuable.
Information architecture and navigation. It might sound complicated, but information architecture is simply the design of how information is laid out on a website.
Understand how to create a straightforward structure for your designs so users can navigate the site without feeling overwhelmed.
Wireframing. Just as you wouldn’t build a house without a blueprint, you shouldn’t design a website without a plan.
Wireframing lets you nail down the key elements and layout of the site without needing to fully design every component, image and text section. Tools like Balsamiq make wireframing websites quick and easy.
Web designers need to design websites that motivate visitors to complete a desired action, from signing up for an email list to buying a product and providing their contact details.
This means web designers need to know how to design for increasing conversions — the number of visitors who complete a desired action on a website, like signing up for an email list, buying a product, or entering contact details for business leads.
Some web design skills and tools you’ll need to learn:
Site design tools. For designers looking to create beautiful and functional sites for clients, without the headache of coding them directly, WordPress plugins like Divi or Beaver Builder can be a great option. Even if your coding experience is limited, you can still create beautiful sites.
Graphic design tools. You can always use heavyweight tools like Adobe Photoshop to create beautiful web graphics, but newer, dedicated tools like Figma and Sketch are simple to use and make it easy to collaborate with other designers and developers you work with.
Prototyping tools. It’s far easier to make changes to designs early in the process before you’ve started developing the site. Once you’ve created your designs, you can use tools like Justinmind, InVision or UXPin to bring them to life and get feedback from clients and other stakeholders before starting the expensive development process.
Figma is a powerful tool for web designers. Image: Toptal
Web development
Although some designers limit their work to only designing sites, many also take on some of the coding and development work associated with launching a new website.
Having at least a working knowledge of web development languages like HTML, CSS and JavaScript can be a boon for aspiring web designers.
Here’s what you’ll need to know about web development:
Basic web programming languages.HTML, CSS and JavaScript are the basic building blocks of every website.
HTML code defines the core structure of a web page, while CSS defines how that structure is shown in a user’s web browser. JavaScript enables users to interact with your designs.
Even if you don’t learn these core languages in detail, you should understand how they work together and how to make basic changes to client sites.
Front-end development frameworks. Frameworks like Bootstrap or Genesis (for WordPress designers) include an arsenal of HTML, CSS and JavaScript components you can piece together to significantly speed up the web development process and ensure consistency and quality in your designs.
WordPress themes. Themes handle the layout and appearance of a WordPress website. WordPress powers about 35% of the internet, so it’s worth learning how to develop and update WordPress themes.
Site management. After you complete a project and your client is happy, many clients will want you to continue managing their new site for them.
Tools like GoDaddy Pro make this easy; with a single login, you can access all of your clients’ accounts, as well as applications including WordPress, domain names, email and more.
Web designers can use the Genesis framework to create endless design variations. Image: StudioPress
Essential business skills and tools for freelance web designers
As a freelance web designer, you’ll draw upon a variety of skill sets in your day-to-day duties.
On top of managing the actual production work, you’ll also be responsible for project management, marketing, bookkeeping and accounting, sales and more.
In fact, you’ll probably find that you’ll end up spending just as much (if not more) time managing your business as you do actually designing sites for clients.
Business and client management skills are essential for web designers. Photo: Kobu Agency on Unsplash
These business skills aren’t something you’ll pick up from an online course — most come from experience and lessons learned as you grow your freelance web design company.
But you can learn the essentials of running a sustainable and profitable freelance web design business.
Let’s look at some of the key business skills and tools you’ll need to master.
Client / Project management
As you pick up more clients and projects, keeping everything in your head will become impossible.
That’s where project and client management can help.
For freelance web designers, project management and client management tend to overlap.
Project management is about improving the project experience, streamlining your design workflows, and reducing stress on yourself.
Client management is concerned with improving your clients’ experience of working with you and with meeting (or even exceeding) their expectations.
You need to manage deadlines, meetings, and client onboarding efficiently and effectively in order to run a successful web design business.
An example project dashboard in Basecamp. Image: Basecamp
Customer relationship management. Even if you only have a handful of clients at a time, a lightweight customer relationship management (CRM) platform ensures that your sales process remains predictable and manageable and can help you keep in touch with current and past clients to boost referrals.
Client onboarding. Bringing new web design clients up to speed with your process and gathering content and other materials take time — but, luckily, it’s a process ripe for automation.
Time tracking. When you’re responsible for managing your own time effectively, you need to make the most of every hour. Time-tracking tools like Harvest, Toggl and Timely make it easy to track which projects you’re working on when, and which projects are the most profitable.
Finances and invoicing. After all, you deserve to get paid on time for your work. Tools like Bonsai and FreshBooks are designed to help freelancers stay on top of their business finances and make it easy for clients to pay invoices.
If you hate managing money, you can eventually upgrade to a done-for-you accounting service like Bench.
Editor’s note: Have a Microsoft Office 365 account? Check out Microsoft Invoicing.
Legal. For every client project, you need to make sure you’re covering yourself legally, in the unlikely case that the project goes south. LegalZoom makes setting up an LLC straightforward, and tools like HelloSign make it easy for clients to electronically sign contracts and proposals.
Digital marketing
Being a successful web designer isn’t just about creating beautiful sites for your clients; it’s also about using your design chops to create business results. That means going beyond just site design.
A strong understanding of digital marketing helps you drive more leads and sales to your clients’ businesses and charge more for your services.
Here’s what you should know:
Social media marketing. Social media is one of the best ways to attract potential web design clients.
You can also leverage do-it-yourself design tools like Canva to quickly create engaging graphics for your clients’ social media posts.
Tools like Buffer help freelance web designers manage their social media marketing. Image: Buffer
Email newsletters. Setting up your web design clients with a regular email newsletter is a great way to help them build trust, educate their audience, and nurture them toward becoming clients or customers. Tools like GoDaddy Email Marketing make it easy to set up a consistent and attractive email newsletter.
Search engine optimization. Ranking in Google searches is one of the most consistent ways of attracting high-value clients and customers, no matter what industry your clients are in.
Search engine optimization (or SEO) is a huge topic we don’t have time to cover in detail here (check out our comprehensive guide to learn all about SEO), but free site audit tools like Woorank can help identify outstanding issues on existing client sites that could affect their rankings.
Plus, WordPress plugins like Yoast can help you optimize the sites you design.
Last but certainly not least, it’s important that you maintain open lines of communication with all of your web design clients.
Make sure they’re always up to date with the status of their projects and gather regular feedback on your designs and how you could improve your overall web design process.
The key to effective client communication is to keep it efficient: set clear boundaries with clients on your availability, and always follow up with notes and next steps.
Here are some tools to help you manage your client communication:
Real-time chat. Tools like Slack can be wonderful for letting clients ask questions and get quick answers but aren’t necessarily something I’d recommend for early freelancers; doing so may build an expectation that you’ll be available every hour of the day.
Email.A professional email address linked to your website domain can instantly boost your credibility — most clients will feel more comfortable emailing you@yourcompany.com instead of yourcompany@gmail.com.
Meetings. I suggest trying to keep in-person meetings to a minimum and managing questions and communication with clients through email as much as possible.
When the inevitable need for a meeting does arise, though, scheduling tools like Calendly make finding a time that works for both you and your clients a breeze, without all the back-and-forth.
If you’re working remotely, you can also integrate Calendly with Zoom to automatically schedule remote video chats — video is a powerful tool for connecting with clients, and it speeds up the process of them getting to know you and your business.
10 freelance web design stories to inspire your journey
Quality web design projects don’t spring forth fully formed; web designers always lean on those who came before them for inspiration and ideas.
Stories from others who became web designers are a wonderful resource as you start down your own path; you’ll pick up tips on managing clients, design ideas to help you improve your web design game and tactics for meeting each clients’ unique needs.
Here are 10 inspiring stories we’ve published over the years:
What I’ve learned since starting my own web design business, by Genevieve Tuenge. After getting the itch to start her own web design and digital marketing business, Genevieve dove in by moonlighting with clients on the side before leaving her day job. Her story has some great lessons for new freelance web designers.
The making of Mode Effect, a WordPress development agency. Cody Landefeld spent seven years learning web design before branching out to start his own web development business in 2009. His interview includes plenty of advice on the tools he used to start his business and how to balance a growing business and personal life.
Collective Discovery: Growing a web design business. “Web Diva” Lisa Stambaugh is a frequent contributor here on the blog. Her story of transitioning from IT to freelance web design is inspiring and packed with valuable advice for new web designers.
Q&A with web designer and social media strategist Pepper Makepeace. Pepper left the corporate world in 2008 to start her own business as a freelance career coach before transitioning to teaching website management and social media for women entrepreneurs. Her story includes some great lessons on transitioning your business to meet the changing needs of your ideal clients.
Webcami Site Design: From WordPress to business coaching. Since starting her business in 2002, Cami MacNamara has steadily grown her client base and is transitioning into business coaching and launching her first online course. Her story covers her business model and the obstacles she faced as she dove into the freelance web design world.
Innovative marketing strategies to make brands memorable. What started as a volunteer project for Karen Etchells’ son’s fifth-grade class blossomed into a full-fledged digital marketing consultancy. Her company, Innovast, now offers an array of marketing and business consulting services for clients of all sizes.
Pittsburgh’s Z23 Studios grows and thrives with focus on talent. Anthony Holzwarth didn’t plan to become an entrepreneur, but when his dream of a secure job with an established company right out of school fell apart, he started his own multimedia business.
After freelancing and niching down his services, his company, Z23 Studios, now focuses solely on animation, production and visual effects.
One Day Labs: Affordable website design… in one day. Affordable web design doesn’t have to mean low-quality — this Santa Rosa, California-based web design agency works closely with their clients to tailor a website to their individual needs at a low cost, and in only a single day.
How OSC Web Design found its niche. Jesse Fowler’s story of founding his agency, OSC Web Design, is a great example of narrowing your web design niche to focus on a specific audience. OSC designs websites and offers sales consulting for the oil industry.
Beyond educating clients about web design, Lily also covers the mental and emotional aspects of conquering your mental blocks and building a successful web design business. We also followed up with Lily in a separate story that’s worth reading.
Take your first step toward becoming a web designer
So, there you have it — the roadmap on how to become a web designer.
Now, don’t get me wrong — becoming an in-demand web designer isn’t something that you can pull off overnight. There’s a lot to learn, and much of that learning and wisdom will come from your experiences, successes and failures along your journey.
Take your time, and absorb the material we covered here. Dive into the linked articles for further information, and start crafting your plan to become a web designer today.
Here are a few extra links you should check out with more information on how to become a web designer:
Learn web design: Includes more info on education and career options for budding web designers
Web Design Business Startup Kit: Our ever-growing collection of tips, tools, guides, and resources for anyone who wants to start or grow a web design business
And when you’re ready to take your web design business to the next level, GoDaddy Pro offers client management tools that help web designers and developers grow their business for free.
GoDaddy Pro makes it easy to manage all your clients and sites from one dashboard, with secure access to your clients’ GoDaddy accounts and the ability to send your clients GoDaddy products to buy, or you can buy the products on your clients’ behalf.
High school athletic director requirements usually include both education and experience. Explore how to become an athletic director, and learn what these professionals do and how much money they make each year.
WordPress is one of the greatest technological wonders that make using the internet today easier. Thanks to WordPress, creating web pages is very simple and intuitive, and it allows you to adapt them to do everything you need, from simple news sites to sales pages. There are even perfect options for creating appointments and reservations. However, for the latter, it is necessary to get the ideal plugin. But what is the best WordPress booking plugin for you?
Booking spaces and appointments online is essential for different professions and companies, such as hotels, parties, and even private practice doctors. Among the advantages that these digital mediums offer is having everything in order and not worrying about not so important tasks. Forget carrying a notebook everywhere with you for writing on your calendar and checking your availability!
But just as it is easy to install this function in WordPress, it is also easy to get lost among the many options of similar add-ons available. In this article created by our team at Amelia, help make the decision a little easier for you, have compiled a list of the best WordPress schedule plugins to help you.
While it may seem like a simple calendar is all you need when it comes to a WordPress booking plugin, it will not be long before you realize that this tool is not the only thing you need for an optimal system.
Depending on the nature of your business, you may need certain, specific tools. A gym, for example, may need something that can organize the many activities that are controlled by the staff. There may be group classes that require a list of how many clients will attend, or you may want to offer personal trainers services, but their availability must be considered.
However, a dental office may require a different form for detailing the services offered by doctors, and at what times they are available.
Before choosing a WordPress scheduling plugin, consider that these must meet some basic requirements:
The form must allow customers to request appointments from a calendar with all the available schedules.
The form must have compatibility with smartphones since most users must be able to access it from anywhere.
The form must be connected to a database that stores appointments, such as Google Calendar or the WordPress server itself.
The software should allow you to place a visible calendar on your website where the available and busy schedules are indicated.
If your staff requires having individual calendars (for example, personal trainers), the software must be able to manage multiple schedules.
In most cases, the software should allow you to work with a payment processor so that the customer can pay for the appointment in advance. You must also have a reimbursement plan.
The user interface must be intuitive, provide clear instructions, allow booking appointments easily, and users must have a space to review and edit their requests.
It must include a notification system for the client and you. This will usually be done through emails, as well as the user’s appointment and any changes that may arise will be recorded.
A filter system to allow an advanced search of the different reservations.
Pick the Best WordPress Booking Plugin from These Options
Amelia – For robust problems
When it comes to complex problems, Amelia is a powerful WordPress booking plugin that can solve them. Amelia stands out thanks to the possibility it offers to manage multiple commercial locations, and with a single account, you can create calendars for each of your branches. This is especially useful in clinics, allowing patients to select the branch of their choice.
Amelia is specially designed for WordPress, so all its features, including visual ones, will adapt perfectly to your website.
Some of the qualities of this WordPress booking plugin are:
The possibility of adding multiple employees and vendors.
The system works for different commercial locations, allowing you to register appointments in specific places.
Forms for a group and individual appointments.
Multiple forms customization options, such as the duration of the appointment, the interval between them, and the cost of the service.
You have the possibility of adding additional services to the form.
Thanks to the extensive integration of StartBooking with different add-ons and devices, you can fully control your appointment calendar. This plugin allows you in a few steps to create multiple forms that you can add anywhere on your website simply by using a shortcode.
StartBooking can also be customized with other add-ons, and you can even make it work in conjunction with other management tools, such as Google Calendar, which will synchronize calendars between all devices with the same account.
In the same way, this WordPress scheduler plugin allows you to create calendars specifying the working days, the rest hours, the available staff and the services it offers. In summary, the main functions of StartBooking are:
Be able to create personal appointments for classes or groups.
The inclusion of calendars to see the available schedules, in addition to integration with other calendar applications.
Personnel management, the services offered, and the branch where it is reserved. A database with customers is also created.
Compatibility with multiple add-ons and smart scheduling.
It offers to customers a channel to contact you in case of any inconvenience.
WooCommerce Bookings – The most popular
When it comes to trade in WordPress, the WooCommerce plugin cannot be missing. Much of its popularity is because you can access all the main features for free, although there is the possibility to customize this plugin through plans, which will allow you to use the payment processors you want, with a few exceptions.
WooCommerce includes an extension especially made for reservations and appointments, but it is limited, so you cannot request online payments. Although this is not especially negative if you did not plan to add a payment processor.
With the WooCommerce extension, you can do the following:
Create detailed calendars, which the client can manipulate using blocks of fixed time intervals, as well as the ability to control certain aspects of appointments, such as the number of people allowed, or offer special discounts.
Reservations are ordered in a control panel. From this, you can see the status of each one, and you can approve or reject the requests if you wish.
With a single payment, you will have full access to everything WooCommerce can offer, such as payment processors. Before buying the extension, you can try it for 30 days.
If you need to create more complex forms, WooCommerce offers many extensions (all paid) with which to customize the system to your liking.
WP Simple Booking Calendar – When we only look for the basics
If you only require a plugin to organize reservations, then WP Simple Booking Calendar is one of the best. WP Simple Booking Calendar allows you to create everything you need from its free version, including creating calendars in the form of widgets where you can show the availability of your services.
This calendar can schedule appointments intuitively and in multiple languages! Its only downfall is that, even in the Premium version, it does not accept payment processors, so it is intended exclusively to function as an organizer.
With the Premium version, you can obtain these benefits:
Synchronization with calendars of other companies such as Airbnb, Booking.com, HomeAway and more, perfect for promoting vacation plans.
We can create multiple calendars, and each one can show several months, not just the current one.
Offers mass editing options for dates, saving you time in manual programming. You can also customize the calendar’s legend with colors, texts, and shapes that you want.
User management tool.
The option to change the beginning of the week and the year. Besides, each week will have its corresponding number.
You can hide the reservation history.
For the publication of the calendar on your site, you can generate a shortcode that you will place on the page you want in WordPress. Also, you can export calendar dates in CSV format.
Bookmify – For growing companies
Bookmify is a WordPress booking plugin that is easy to use. With it you can easily organize any type of business, be it health, entertainment, sports, or any area where you need to order staff and a clientele.
Bookmify not only offers you as an owner a series of organizational advantages but also can create accounts for employees so that everyone can create their schedules.
This software allows you to experience multiple tests of its frontend and backend in WordPress to be sure that the plugin is what you need for your company. And in case you need technical assistance with any of Bookmify’s features, you can contact the support staff at any time.
The main qualities of Bookmify are:
Online appointment scheduling, in addition to having the possibility of receiving payments from the network.
Accounts for employees with calendars and custom forms.
Integration with Google Calendar so you can review and modify your itinerary at any time and from any device.
Email notification system.
BirchPress – Any payment method
If you do not want to be limited only to online payment processors, then BirchPress is a great alternative. This WordPress reservation plugin can configure payments by credit cards, in addition to being able to receive payments by multiple means available in WooCommerce.
Like the previous alternatives, the BirchPress calendar allows you to create different schedules and reservation forms, but all this is available for free.
Among what makes BirchPress a candidate on this list, it highlights:
Multiple predetermined templates with which to start working immediately (we can even include the price of your services in the forms).
Possibility of adding unlimited fields in your forms.
Multiple alternatives for online payment. As a basic option, PayPal is available, but the add-on is compatible with WooCommerce, so you can add any means you want.
Synchronization with Outlook, Google Calendar and much more. Also, you can receive specialized help to activate these services.
Modern Events Calendar – A colorful WordPress Booking Plugin
If you want your appointment calendar to stand out and not be a simple grid with numbers, then you need a tool that allows you to alter its design as you wish. Modern Events Calendar has several formats in which you can place your itinerary on the page you want.
You have access to a grid view, agenda type, list form, like a handy Widget, and other interesting features. Once you select your template, you can change the base appearance as you wish.
Obviously, aesthetics has not displaced functionality, since this plugin retains everything you need to organize reservations, and other unique features, such as:
Repeat a specific event multiple times.
Create countdowns for each event.
Include maps detailing the location of events.
Receive payments through different payment processors.
Booked – Customize and register to your liking
With Booked, you can enjoy a wide range of customization options, while providing excellent communication between the frontend and the back end of your site.
A shortcode will oversee showing your clients the calendar in the form of a widget with all available spaces. This code allows you to change the color of the schedule so that you can adapt it to your website.
One remarkable feature of Booked is that customers can create accounts within the site, which will be required to make a reservation. From this account, each user can manage their reservation. As the site owner, you can also control this from the WordPress interface.
This scheduling software, in addition to having its graphic interface, has functions that you already know, such as:
Be able to integrate it with WooCommerce to install payment processors.
Each reservation made will be sent to a profile depending on the request. From this profile, you can manage each of the appointments.
Messaging and notifications service. It even allows you to send personalized messages if you require it.
Unidirectional synchronization of all your calendars such as Google Calendar, Outlook, Apple Calendar, among others, so that the schedule is always updated.
Events Calendar Registration and Booking – Perfect for a world tour
While the comparison may seem exaggerated, we assure you that the Events Calendar Registration and Booking plugin will make organizing any type of event for large audiences easy. This WordPress booking plugin is specially designed for large events, such as classes, conferences, seminars, and even concerts.
Regardless of the cause that brings your customers together, you can manage assistance and payments directly from the network. The Software is compatible with processors such as PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.Net, which gives you some freedom to withdraw your funds.
Additionally, Events Calendar Registration and Booking includes these interesting features:
Multiple languages for the creation of events and the interface.
Possibility to add maps for events thanks to Google Maps.
Shortcodes for individual calendars and events. You can even add a countdown in the form of a widget.
Confirmation system by email, providing an additional security step.
EDD Bookings – Expanding digital stores
EDD, or Easy Digital Download, is a WordPress plugin that allows you to manage a digital product store. That is, you can sell any electronic goods, such as music, PDF documents, e-books, games, and much more.
The EDD plugin is simple; the customer buys a product, and it arrives for download to their registered email.
However, many may not know that EDD has an extension that allows the sale of services online, such as reservations and appointments. It works like many of the previous plugins in this list but has direct integration of EDD, so that if you already work with it, you should consider installing it.
Some of the features of the EDD Bookings add-on are:
Basic customization. You can edit colors, labels, and even the time zone of calendars.
System for managing appointments and reservations from the back end of your site.
Simultaneous notifications for both customers and site administrators when a reservation is created.
Compatibility with much of the repertoire of EDD extensions, in addition to the basic functions offered by the platform to sell products.
Generate sales reports and payment records.
Book an appointment online PRO – Integration with your site immediately
With this WordPress booking plugin, you will not have to worry about making complex modifications to your website. Book an appointment online PRO works on what you already have built, integrating perfectly with your design.
This add-on works especially well for individuals, such as doctors, lawyers, stylists, trainers, or any other job on their own.
Among the functions that you can highlight of this plugin are:
Ability to adapt the calendar clock to a 12-hour or 24-hour format.
System for requesting appointments in several steps.
Compatibility with PayPal to receive payments.
The plugin is translated into multiple languages. If you do not find the language you need, the tool also allows you to translate what you want.
Notification system via email and worldwide text messages.
Unidirectional synchronization with Google Calendar.
Team Booking – For a better teamwork
In WordPress, you can also find reservations plugins that allow you to work together with other people by editing a group schedule.
Team Booking makes communication between team members easy, as well as complex enough. You can edit calendars where different categories, employees and types of service are divided. Each event will be assigned a schedule, and if this is available, customers can book it.
Additionally, the services can be paid for directly from the booking site using PayPal or Stripe. This entire process will be recorded in a database, which you can use to verify all reservations, and the customer can review its appointment.
What makes Team Booking work exceptionally is that:
It is fully integrated with Google Calendar, so you can edit the itineraries from any site. Also, you can program everything from the Google application, without entering WordPress.
Each created event will be automatically added to the calendar and free space will be assigned. If a reservation is made, it will be updated immediately in Google Calendar.
Booking Calendar – Simple but complete
Do not let the appearance of Booking Calendar fool you. Although you are facing a tool that easily adapts to beginners, in the background is a powerful free software to organize reservations.
This WordPress booking plugin has enough documentation and guides to configure it without technical assistance, and if you want to take advantage of some of the more advanced features, you will only have to read a little.
Among all that Booking Calendar offers, the following stand out:
Captcha to avoid spam and false reservations.
Synchronization with multiple tourism sites, such as Airbnb, TripAdvisor, and Booking.com. It can also be integrated into Google Calendar to keep the schedules synchronized.
You can block schedules and dates if you do not want to receive appointments.
The interface is easy to understand, and customers will have no trouble booking thanks to its Widget format.
Notifications by email.
Possibility to customize its appearance using CSS code.
HBook – Especially for accommodation
Those who manage hotels, vacation plans, or any accommodation service, may require specific reservation systems that allow them to coordinate all reservations made.
The HBook plug-in offers you a system very similar to that used on sites like Airbnb, a page that specializes in vacation plans. In fact, HBook has integration to this site, as well as others with similar characteristics.
As the job of managing accommodation is complicated and requires a constant check, HBook allows you to synchronize all data with external calendars such as iCal and Google Calendar, so you will have all the itineraries and reservation maps in your hands with a Smartphone.
With this WordPress booking plugin, you can:
Have a constant view of the reservation calendar and its current availability.
Add or review additional information in each of the reservations, as well as edit the current data of the accommodation, send notification emails to customers, or change the amount of the invoice if necessary.
Synchronize your website with other tourism sites such as HomeAway, Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com
Select multiple payment processors to receive online transactions, such as PayPal, Stripe, Cardlink, Mollie, Square, etc.
WooEvents – Personally sell tickets for events
As its name makes clear, this is a WooCommerce plugin, which among other things, gives you the advantage of having many options for buying and selling from WordPress.
In the case of WooEvents, you can sell tickets to events as if it were a virtual box office. Besides, you can add additional instructions to the events calendar, such as a map for people to get the location.
With WooEvents, you can also coordinate how the event will be, how many people can attend, schedules, and much more. Each ticket sold through this add-on will be registered in a database for later verification.
These are some of the features why you should give WooEvents a chance:
Possibility of creating events of all kinds and selling tickets for them through WooCommerce. Available payment methods include digital processors and credit card.
Complex customization options thanks to compatibility with Visual Composer.
Invoice system. When placing an order, WooCommerce will send a digital invoice to the customer’s email, which will include a unique barcode.
Webba Booking – For any situation
Whether a single reservation or something for extended periods, Webba Booking allows you to create all kinds of appointments. The interface is simple for both you and your customers, and it provides all the information you both want.
The forms in this WordPress booking plugin have up to 80 customizable fields to create a unique form adapted to what you offer. Although if you want to start using the plugin immediately, you can work with one of the default forms.
Other features offered by Webba Booking are:
Integration with Contact Form 7.
Possibility to edit the texts of the forms.
The reservation form and its calendar will automatically be responsible for confirming appointments. Also, you can receive online payments through PayPal, as well as synchronize the information received with Google Calendar.
Notification system for both the client and the administrator.
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With the eCommerce industry on the boom, marketers are looking for newer ways to better engage their audiences and build a successful online brand. If you’re looking for a similar solution, you probably know that optimizing the tiny details can have a magnanimous impact on your brand’s overall success.
That said, knowing which aspects of brand building are important is only one part of the equation. Getting them right is a whole other ball game.
For example, the domain name of your eCommerce store plays a key role in the success of your business in the long run — but do you know what it takes to find the best eCommerce domain names and select the perfect one?
This eBook is meant to help you with exactly that.
It will clear up any doubts you might have about why domain names are important, what not to do when choosing a domain name for your eCommerce site, and how to make use of your domain name for business growth.
Before we get into that, let us first look at the real issue at hand: the availability of desirable domain names or their lack thereof.
Neither of these scenarios is helpful for an eCommerce business just starting out.
What to do if your perfect domain name is taken
It is common practice to make a compromise to get the domain name that is closest to the original domain name you had wanted. For example:
Add a filler word such as “the,” “now,” “app,” “hub,” etc. (e.g. theyogamerch.com)
Add a hyphen (e.g. yoga-merch.com)
Add a number (e.g. yogamerch7.com)
None of these strategies are effective solutions.
Don’t settle for an eCommerce domain name that is less meaningful and harder to remember.
The best eCommerce domain names reflect your offerings at a glance.
They are short and easy to type and remember. They add credibility to your venture — and trust is critical if you want customers to transact on your eCommerce website.
Look for domain names with newer eCommerce domain extensions
To get a short, sleek domain name that is also credible, you can find your domain name on a new domain extension meant for the eCommerce and retail industry. The upside is that you are likely to get a domain name that is memorable and keyword-rich.
The other obvious benefit is that when your customers see your website on a domain name that ends in an extension like .store, they know that it’s a store.
Choosing the best eCommerce domain names for maximum impact
You’re probably thinking that you still don’t know enough to make a decision about your domain name just yet. This eBook will help you unpack all of those layers to choose your eCommerce domain name.
Some of the questions that you will find answers to in this eBook are:
What are new domain extensions and which one is right for you?
How do new extensions help in branding, marketing and positioning?
Who else is using new domain extensions?
How do domain names influence consumer psychology?
… and so much more!
So, check out this free eBook now to get all the information you need to choose the best eCommerce domain name for your business today!
If you have ever had to deal with the inner workings of the administration of a salon, spa or hotel, you know how important it is to have a salon booking system, and how it facilitates the management of reservations.
Basically, a salon booking system is a system that takes control of your clients’ reservations. Until recently, everything was written down in notebooks, and you would have to always monitor and be aware of those who paid and how much they should be charged. With the digital era, this is a thing of the past. If you utilize a digital salon booking system, you will not have to remember to write down everything on a piece of paper.
One of the most common, reoccurring issues with the traditional method is that sometimes the schedules, and the organization in general, could be confused. With digital sheets, this does not happen, since they are kept tidy at all times and customers can see the available spaces and schedules.
Even the task of accepting payments can be done online, so the system will tell you if the services have already been paid. All this without having to make personal calls to the administration.
Today, in this article created by our team at Amelia, will teach you how to create an online salon booking system using WordPress. The process is easy and intuitive, and once it is done, it will save you a lot of headaches.
Reasons to Create a Digital Reservation System in WordPress
Whether you own a beauty salon, or just rent rooms, having everything organized on a website can help you perform better. Additionally, today, anyone can make a management site simply using WordPress, so there are no excuses for not having one.
Currently, 30% of the world’s websites use WordPress as a base platform to be designed, as it offers an easy-to-understand and editable interface for any user. Due to WordPress’s great fame, you can find many add-ons to adapt web pages to your needs. Whether you need to create a billing system, image galleries, links to social networks, or any other section you can think of, it is likely that it already exists for WordPress, and you simply have to download and enable it.
Small and medium-sized business owners can use WordPress to create a high-quality page without having to design a fully customized platform that could be very expensive. Also, if at any time you want to renew the appearance of the website, you can do it yourself.
If you are seriously considering designing a website specialized in managing reservations, certain aspects cannot be left out.If you want your system to be as independent as possible, it should not only be able to manage reservations but also must accept several payment options for them.
With WordPress, it is easy to make a payment system using accessories such as WooCommerce or Easy Digital, which include a shopping cart on the page. This complement is also responsible for processing the payment.
Reservation calendars are the fundamental pillar of any reservation system. A calendar allows you to keep track of the availability of spaces, in addition to informing your customers whether or not they can get the time and day they request.
Accompanying this calendar should be an automatic availability verification system so that the computer is responsible for accepting or rejecting the user’s request. In this way, it is guaranteed that there will be no scheduling errors, and that two people will not occupy the same time slot.
A notification system is also very important. Once the reservation is made, the salon reservation software must indicate to the client that the entire process has been completed. An optimal notification system will also send a message to the client’s email that can be used as a record, in addition to including the reservation data so that they can consult them later.
Changes in plans can occur, so it is always necessary to have a system of reimbursement and cancellation of appointments. Having this in place will save you legal and accounting issues.
Providing your clients with information about your salon is very important.It is normal for people to want to see the place they are going to book, so you should add information and some photos on the reservation page. This is also a great way to draw attention to your service.
Steps to Create a Salon Booking System
Step 1: Acquire the URL
The very first step before you can set up your salon booking system is to acquire the domain that your customers will visit, as well as the data hosting site where your content will be stored.
A domain, also known as a URL, is the address of a website, such as google.com. Once users have the domain location, they can visit your page to make reservations or learn more about what services are offered. Of course, before all this, it is necessary to install the correct complements, which is the next step.
Step 2: Install WordPress and useful plugins
After getting a domain, you need to install WordPress, the best CMS out there.
Next, you need to get a plugin that is responsible for all the reservation functions you require. Although there are many options available for a WordPress site, there are various annoying things that will simply waste your time: slow learning curve, difficult installation, add-ons needed for further customization and so on.
Now that you have your plugin of choice installed; it is time to create your forms. The first thing to do is to tell the system what the work schedules are.
Once the calendar is set, it is time to add detailed descriptions of the services you offer. Amelia allows you to create unlimited services, even in its free version!
Create a Form
For your clients to make reservations, they must first fill out a form. What you require for the form may vary depending on what your company is, so you can always customize one of the default templates, or even create one from scratch. Remember to indicate on which page Amelia will use the form.
Secure Payment Methods
One of the most important things to ensure when running a business is that your customers know that their money is safe. That is why it is essential to use a reliable platform when it comes to processing payments.
Amelia allows you to manage payments quickly and easily, only requiring you to fill in the required information so you can receive the transfers directly to your account. Do not worry, the site where you are given the payment information and the money you have works separately from WordPress, making it more secure.
Remember to add the Service’s Staff
No salon can survive without staff. On your website, it is a good idea to mention who the members of your staff are, as well as the services offered in your salon. You can also add their work schedule, which is a very useful feature for those who are personal trainers or doctors.
Amelia Notification System
Amelia has two options that you can use to customize your page to your liking. The first is the basic email service, which has no additional charge. The other option is found in the SMS notification tab, which sends text messages to the customer’s phone. However, this service comes with an additional surcharge.
Customize Amelia as You Want
From the add-ons tab, you can add new plugins to change the appearance of your site, such as adding tabs, decorative elements, among other interesting shortcuts.
It Has Never Been Easier to Create a Salon Booking System
Nowadays, creating a salon booking system is a simple task, and is practically necessary if you want to be efficient in your management and scheduling. In this article, we presented you with an option that will make your programming even easier, without having to search through the entire plugin store for a solution.
Amelia will perfectly complement your WordPress page, allowing you to create a fail-safe system and a way to accept payment from users securely.
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