The Power of Storytelling: How a Great Website Can Amplify Your Non-Profit’s Mission

In the realm of non-profit organizations, where every word, image, and action holds the power to inspire change, a website is more than a digital footprint. It’s a storyteller, a narrator of your mission, painting the world you envision. At MarvelousWeb Media, we recognize the monumental role a website plays in echoing the voice of a cause. This article delves into the art of storytelling through web design, highlighting how a thoughtfully crafted website can become a beacon, illuminating your non-profit’s mission.

Crafting a Digital Narrative

Your website is the digital narrator of your story. But it’s not just about what you tell; it’s about how you tell it. In our approach to web design, we focus on weaving a narrative that resonates with your audience. It’s about creating a journey that guides visitors from awareness to action. Every color, every layout, and every word is chosen to echo your mission and values. When someone visits your website, they aren’t just browsing information; they are stepping into your story, experiencing your vision and passion.

Visual Storytelling: More Than Words

A picture speaks a thousand words, and in the case of non-profits, perhaps even more. Utilizing compelling imagery and videos, we create a visual tapestry that tells your story even before a single word is read. These visuals aren’t mere decorations; they are powerful tools that evoke emotions, build connections, and spur actions. Our team at MarvelousWeb Media understands the delicate balance of aesthetics and message, ensuring your cause is portrayed in the most impactful way.

User Experience: The Path of Engagement

An engaging story is one that is easy to follow. The same goes for websites. User experience (UX) is pivotal in our design process. We ensure that navigating your website is intuitive, informative, and inspiring. From seamless navigation to interactive elements, each aspect is curated to keep your audience engaged and moving towards the desired action, be it donating, volunteering, or spreading the word.

Content That Connects and Converts

Words have the power to move mountains, and in your case, hearts and minds. Our content strategy intertwines with design to ensure your message is not just seen but felt. We craft content that speaks directly to your audience, conveying your mission in a language that they understand and relate to. It’s about creating a conversation, not a monologue.

SEO: Amplifying Your Voice

In the digital age, being heard amidst the noise is a challenge. That’s where SEO comes in. We optimize your website to ensure it reaches the right ears. By enhancing your online visibility, we make sure your story isn’t just told; it’s heard far and wide.

Conclusion: Your Mission, Our Canvas

At MarvelousWeb Media, we believe that every non-profit has a unique story deserving of a grand stage. Your mission becomes our canvas, and together, we paint a digital masterpiece that not only tells your story but also invites the world to be a part of it. Let’s collaborate to amplify your mission through the power of storytelling in web design.

Don’t Build a Website Until You Have a SOLID Web Strategy

I would LOVE to get right into the meat of this article because everything in here is absolutely essential to building a site that will get you sales, calls, and leads — but it may be important to start with the what and why first if you don’t mind. So…

What is a Web Strategy?

Web strategy is not discussed often enough in web design. The truth is most designers you encounter don’t have much knowledge of what this is and no intent on doing anything after your site is built. But web strategy is essential, otherwise you might as well not build a website.

A web strategy is a plan of action to get your website out. To get qualified traffic coming in and then get that traffic to take a specified action. A web strategy involves your website first and then everything else you may need outside of that. So for example, you need to make sure you have the right keywords on your website and you also need to setup the appropriate social media channels outside of your website.

It is a complete plan of action for leads through the site after it is built.

Why Bother?

Well, if you care to get any business or customers, it kind of matters. You see, many people think they can build a site and people will just come. It is important to keep in mind that a new site is just one of the ten million made that month. I don’t mean to get you down, but that is the truth. The good news is that most of those websites do what I mentioned previously. They just build it and that’s it. Most will not get their site out there by implementing a website strategy. So read on to learn exactly how I do it here at MarvelousWeb Media. Follow this plan of action and you will EASILY make your website stand out amoungst millions!

Let’s Dive In

Your site has to be built for your audience

Traffic doesn’t mean a thing if you can’t convert it. Before you do anything outside of the site you must make sure it is something your audience will like. Learn what your audience values when it comes to your services. Understand their motivations and what they are looking for when they browse for your services.

Let’s say you are a roofer in this example. What would your customers value? Let’s explore:

  • Someone who needs a roof on their house is looking for something that will last a long time and not degrade and cause damage in the long run. It needs to be solid and long lasting.
    • What do you do? Show warranties on your work within the website (preferably the home page). Make it clear in the copy that you do a solid job and all your roofs stand the test of time.
  • In most home services, trust is a big deal. You have someone coming to your house, you don’t want it to just be any random person. Establishing trust is very important to your customers.
    • What do you do?  Show that you have been doing this a long time. Show any reviews you may have from past customers. Show any accreditations you may have from popular companies like BBB.
  • Your customers may wonder if you offer what they need and if you do a good job.
    • What do you do? Display photos of past work. Explain clearly who you serve and what you offer. Do you only work on commercial roofs or do you serve residential and commercial? Make this clear right off the bat on the home page. We don’t want to waste anyone’s time if you don’t offer what they need.

Take this example and apply it to your own business. Really think hard about your customer and what they may find important. You can even think over frequently asked questions to get a good idea of what people are concerned about when it comes to your service. Then take the answers and address them on the website.

Other key elements to making a high converting site are having a nice readable font, a clear call to action, and an easy to navigate menu.

When I build a site here at MarvelousWeb, I ask specific questions to my clients that help me get all these little details out. If you were interested in starting a project with me you could get a taste of those questions on the Get Started  form.

Getting Those Keywords Just Right

When I say keywords in this sense, I am referring to keywords as they relate to Google but also as they relate to your customers. We’ll start with customer keywords.

Customer Keywords

Customer keywords are what I call keywords that mean a lot to your customers. Since I just got finished with a home remodeling website that will be the example for this bit.

If you were a home remodeler what are some words your customers may use. You would find that “dream kitchen” or “dream bathroom” are really big ones. So you would want to play on that in your copy for the site.

Other phrases they may relate are “transforming your space”, “perfect family area”, or “extra space”. These are all important phrases for someone who is remodeling their kitchen or basement so you will want to use them throughout the site to show them that you understand and can really deliver on what they need.

So know your customer, understand what they recognize and relate to, and use that in your website. That’s an essential key to conversions.

SEO keywords

Recognize and use high volume search terms on the website. This will get it on the search engines radar so they know what you offer and can rank/index you accordingly. Make sure to use your company name in the actually text of the site, not just the logo. Google can’t read an image. Also use the name of your services where it is sensible. All this will ensure you rank for your own company name and can get indexed for the right services.

You’ll find that just doing this is usually enough because the majority of search terms revolve around the name of your service. So going back to our example, if you were a bathroom remodeler, you would use that term on the website and that is also what people might search to find you.

Moving Off Site and Getting Traffic

I’ll make this section simple with three key ways to get traffic. People may try to complicate this but it doesn’t get any harder than this. These are the three ways to get traffic to your site

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

SEO is an excellent way to get traffic to your site. It is actually what I consider the best way to get traffic to your site. I love SEO because it is the modern billboard. If you were the leader in your industry in the 80s you would have billboards everywhere. That is how people would know you are the top dog in the area for your service offering. You would have those cheesy commercials on every channel and everyone would know who you are.

But in the 21st century that is not how things work. People are looking online to find what they need.

If you really are the dominate business in your industry you will rank high on Google. Especially in your local area. And you will reap all the benefits that come from it. If someone is on the first page, I promise you they are paying for it and getting that money back ten fold. So that is why SEO is the number way to get traffic. The only issue is that it takes time, financial investment, and patience. This makes it harder for some small businesses to take the leap but they really shouldn’t let that be a barrier because it all pays off big time in the end.

For SEO, you need to decide on your keywords and find places where you can post your link.

Social Media

Most social media channels are perfect for building a brand and getting people talking about you. Even though it may not translate to direct sales or traffic, getting people to talk about your business is a big deal. It seriously helps in growing your authority online.

If web traffic and sales are your goals, I think Facebook might serve you well. Not just a Facebook page but also Facebook ads. Get in on it while it’s hot!

Other social media like Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and LinkedIn can really help you to boost your business depending on what you have to offer.

If you aren’t feeling you need social media, at least get a Facebook page up. Like, come on man.

Ads

Google Ads, Facebook ads, Youtube ads — when used correctly, these can be the lifeblood of your business. People may want to complicate PPC (pay per click) but it is rather simple. Focus on ROI. Ensure for every $10 you spend you get a minimum of $10 back. But that’s a poor goal. You should look to get at ten times your investment back from your ad spend. If you spend $100, you should get $1000 back in return. If you can get this result consistently, all you need to do from there is scale. Invest more and get more back. That is literally it (but not really. you need to be able to handle all the business coming in properly and then leverage that new business to get more business and have the team ready to handle even more and scale accordingly, then review and innovate to make sure your business lasts and doesn’t move backwards, then……..but that’s pretty much it.)

But there has to be more to it right?

Well, yeah. You of course need to put in the work to get those results. You need good ad copy and more important than that you need to know who your target audience is. You can run great ads with wonderful copy all day but if you are targeting someone who isn’t in your audience, your money will be for naught.

Other great free methods

Don’t have a lot of money to invest in your business? That’s fine for a while.

If you really can’t put any money into ads or SEO or social media, there are some other options out there for you.

The first thing I recommend to my clients is a Google Listing. Even if you don’t have a physical location, a Google Listing is a must. I have multiple clients who get most of their business just from a Google My Business Listing. It pretty much counts as free SEO in my opinion. Slap some reviews on there and you could take over locally!

If you need any help with this, I’d be more than happy to assist. Head on over to my Contact page and let me know you’re interested.

Chances are you already have a listing for your business but it hasn’t been claimed yet. If that’s the case, you need to claim it right now. Anyone can claim it in the mean time, taking away your access. You really do not want that to happen.

Offline guerrilla marketing

I may be young but I still know the importance of word-of-mouth, cold calling, and hanging up some flyers in your neighborhood or reaching out to some friends so they can spread the word. You can place business cards in books at the library, or walk right into a place where your ideal customer is and put up your business card somewhere. Good old fashion guerrilla marketing never hurts. It can actually be fun.

And the final free method is learning.

You can learn SEO and how to properly use social media. If you learn it, you can implement it yourself. It mostly comes down to whether you have the time or not but it is totally an option. One of my favorite sites for online learning is Udemy!

Wrapping it all up

This is it and don’t forget it.

When it comes to growing your business, this is it. This is how you get your name out there. This is how you get traffic to your site. This is how people can start to find you on Google. This is it.

So if you are wondering, “hey, my new site is up now how do I get traffic and sales?”, this is how. You need a Google Listing, you need social media, you need SEO or ads running. That is how you will get sales and traffic. Get an awesome website designed to be the center of it all and you will take off.

If you have any questions let me know. I love being able to help out whoever I can and give free advice to those who ask. Just let me know your name, business, and what you do.

Must Know Marketing Strategies For Your Small Business

The reason for doing any kind of advertising is to get the message out to your community of both the existing clients and potential customers. Proper small business marketing strategies are the backbone of any business and for you to register increased sales, you need to adapt proper strategies in your marketing campaign. This has always been the case for offline advertising such as television and radio ads, newspaper ads and direct marketing. Experience has shown that the approaches to on-line advertising are no different to those traditionally used for off-line advertising.

Small business owners often start advertising online before they try any advertising offline but the reality is that a combination of both can be especially effective. There are plenty of ways to advertise online and your main focus for all of them should be building your brand. Here are just three of the ways you can advertise online. Below are the basic approaches to successful small business marketing:

SEO Marketing

Having a website is an essential part of advertising online. It’s your hub. It’s where people can find you, and it’s where people can flock to give you money. One of the best ways for people to find your website is to have it ranking in search engines such as Google and Bing. Proper SEO (or Search Engine Optimization), as the term suggests, will enable search engines to find you easily when someone types in a search phrase that matches very closely with what your business website offers visitors. If done right, it can give you an endless amount of free traffic to your website.

PPC Advertising

SEO Marketing provides traffic that is often called organic because it does not cost you anything. However, if you want to get people onto your site quickly, especially while you’re waiting for your SEO to improve (It takes hard work!..but is totally worth it), then Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is the fastest and easiest way to bring targeted traffic to your site. This includes things like AdWords, Facebook advertising and anywhere else where you pay a set amount of money for each visit that ends up on one of your web pages.

Email Marketing

You can create your own mailing list to keep in touch with all of your customers (and potential customers) by providing an opt-in box on your website. Email marketing is then a process by which you use a series of emails to your list with the aim of building a relationship with them, often by providing further free but valuable information. Research has shown that it can take a number of such contacts for you to build sufficient trust with those on your list that they then choose to buy from you. Email marketing is an effective and low-cost way to sell and should be a part of the on-line strategy for every business.

Summary

A new trend in small business marketing strategies involves online advertising. The advertising should be based on a user’s local area and demographic information. As a small business owner, you need to have something that makes you stand out from the crowd. Consistently, apply these tips in your marketing strategy and the results will be rewarding.

What It Takes To Run A Successful Business

Run a successful business

Everyone has recognized the benefits of starting a business. The advantage of time flexibility and control over your destiny is a major draw. Creating your own business can take some planning, though.

So you thought that being your boss is easy? You have an excellent idea, put in the capital you can afford, get a few knowledgeable people, then go full speed ahead to the bank? Not quite. Running a business – much more a successful one – takes time and effort, skill and patience. So how do you do it? There are no fail-proof pointers, but there are a few tips you can use.

What do you want to achieve? It would be pointless to start a journey without knowing where you want to go. Same with a business. Do you want to work in your own time? Do you require to make control of your talents? Or do you want to make lots of money? Knowing and defining what you want gives you a sense of purpose – a direction as to how to run your business.

Identify your market and your competition. Sometimes, you plunge head-on into a business without knowing who your competitors are, and what they’re doing to get an edge over your business. Research, then think of a response Better yet, formulate ways of counter-attacking your competitions’ tactics. Also, another good technique is asking your target market about what they want and wish to get from a product or service – instead of you whacking your brains out to think of ways to please your potential clients.

Review and then re-work. A lot of businesses fail because owners don’t take the time to review and see if their businesses are doing well. If it isn’t, then identify the areas where improvement or reworking is necessary – then start acting. Complacency and overconfidence are some of the evils of running a business.

Get help.

Whoever said that one sole person is capable of running a big booming business must be in denial. You cannot expect to cover all the bases if you are the lone employee in your company. You cannot be a jack of all trades – an accountant, bookkeeper, auditor, messenger, publicity person – and be thorough at the same time. Seek for help from the experts. You don’t need to hire the hotshots, but you need people to help you make time to attend actually to run the company.

Learn to distinguish company time from personal time. To be happy at work, your personal life must be happy, too. Attend to the needs of your family. Go out occasionally with friends. Who knows, they may turn out to be your best customers, or they may be able to refer you to their friends, as well. Don’t discount the power of socialization – it will help you to make more sound decisions in your business.

Lastly, believe in yourself. If you have a defeatist attitude, do you think your business will do well? Believe that you can do it… because with a positive attitude, problems and challenges are easier to solve, and success and fulfillment are easier to achieve.

6 Steps To Finding Your Ideal Customer

Everybody is in the business of customer satisfaction somehow. The most significant movement of any entrepreneur is to apparently recognize the ideal best customers for your product or service, and after that concentration, all marketing, promoting and deals endeavors on this particular sort of customer.

Here are a 6 Steps to Finding Your Ideal Customer:

1. Define your product or service from the customer’s perspective. What does your product accomplish for your ideal customer? What issues does your product explain for your customer? What requirements of your customer does your product fulfill? How does your product enhance your customer’s life or work?

2. Define the ideal customer for what you offer. What is his or her age, training, occupation or business? What is his or her wage or financial circumstance? What is his or her circumstance today in life or work?

3. Decide the particular benefits your customer is looking for in buying your product. Of the considerable number of advantages you offer, which are the most vital to your ideal customer? What are the most squeezing needs that your product or service fulfill? Why should your customer buy from you instead of from another person?

4. Decide the location of your right customer. Where is your customer found geographically? Which place does your customer stay or work? Where is your client when he or she buys your product or service?

5. Decide precisely when your ideal customer buys your product or service. What needs to occur in the life or place of work of your client for him to purchase your product? What season of the year, period, month or week does your customer buy?

6. Decide your customer’s purchasing strategy. How does your client buy your product or service? How has your customer purchased comparable goods or services before? What is your client’s buying strategy? How does your customer approach settling on a purchase choice for your product?

Your capacity to naturally define and decide the absolute best customer for your product or service will determine your success in business. How might you discover perfect customers for your product? How might you make new customers for your product? Define your extraordinary offering proposition and convey this critical advantage in each client contact.

If you really need to get inside your purchasers’ heads, customer interviews are a viable apparatus. Pick a couple of your present customers and set up a time to talk. Ask the correct questions, and you’ll realize what they adore about you, what they don’t care for about you, and additionally what propelled them to pick you over your competitors. That information straight from the steed’s mouth is priceless.

Tragically, numerous businesses wrongly put constantly and look into it, and afterward simply giving that information a chance to stay there unused. If your goal is to target those particular customers with a specific end goal to keep enhancing your business; you have to dependably keep the information you assembled at the highest point of mind. It should impact each move and decision you make.

Regardless of who the customer is, consider where they are in the purchasing cycle. It is safe to say that they are only investigating or is it time for them to settle on a decision? Recognizing your optimal customer requires a forthright time duty, however, will pay off over the long haul.

The more you think about the perfect client, the better you can tailor your attempt to sell something. Special reward: Unless your business is quickly developing or transforming, it won’t be important to search out the profile of the perfect customer again soon. It’s time to move on searching out your optimal customer. Envision what number of more gives you could close if each you addressed were intensely inspired by your item.

 

I find that here at MarvelousWeb Media, we do all we can to bring more leads to our clients but it is up to them to close the deal. There are certain aspects of the process we cannot control. That is why we have this blog here. We want to teach the most effective strategies that lead to a more successful business outside of design and marketing for small businesses. Stay tuned for more.