Digital Partnerships for the 21st Century

by Mark Bloom | Feb 19, 2019 | Agency Advice

Business Websites Require Specialized Services

Today’s website developers do amazing work. They often design, build and support their clients’ websites — as well as train clients on how to maintain their own sites — all while trying to hit a moving target. The internet keep changing, tastes keep evolving and business clients have become notoriously difficult to please.

So it’s no surprise that successful web developers either hire specialists or contract out specific work. No one can do it all by himself anymore. The types of specialties required include:

• Website design
• User experience (UX)
• Graphic design
• Website content
• Search engine optimization

Website Developer as Project Manager

As a result of this specialization, website developers — even well-connected, highly skilled web developers — often find themselves becoming project managers. Even if they still do the coding, they have to manage others to do the rest. Industry changes have been forced on developers because clients are demanding those services along with the actual website.

And it’s become a successful business model. Many website developers are becoming freelancers themselves, sticking with the work they love and hiring out to do project work. Others have seen the writing on the wall and established agencies that can do it all, even if the website developer can’t do it by himself. There are many examples of this either/or business case playing out across the globe.

Digital Agencies Are Flourishing

If you need a web designer, you can find hundreds online. The same is true of every other specialty, including website content providers. Niche professionals exist, and the smart ones are aligning themselves to form digital agencies. They may have never met in person, yet they can work together to satisfy demanding clients.

It’s a new business model for a new millennium. Digital businesses have an address, but it may be the owner’s home address, a P.O. box or a co-working space. Experts come together through online apps like Skype or Basecamp, where conference calls are pulled together from around the country and project tasks are laid out for all to see. It’s exciting and challenging. But it’s working.

Ray Access as a Business Partner

At Ray Access, we’ve seen the changes too. We align our team with website designers, web developers, SEO firms and UX professionals to offer website content, blog posts, press releases and more. When we deliver to the client or to the agency — since we’ve done both — we become an arm of the agency we work for or through.

Ray Access is a specialist for online content. But we don’t offer web development services or graphic design or SEO. We have allied partners for that. And when we work through a website developer, we make that agency seem like they’re the experts in website content, even though we’re doing all the work.

Find Your Digital Partner

So if you’re a website developer, SEO firm, web designer or UX pro, find others you trust to do the work you can’t or don’t want to do. Develop a partnership, so that no matter which one of you brings in the client, you all get some work to do, each to his own specialty. Everyone wins in this scenario, especially the client, who gets the best of all worlds!

Ray Access is still actively seeking partners for web developer, SEO and design services. If that’s you, contact us and let us know what you do and what you’re looking for. Together, we can all astound our clients and deliver functional websites that streak to the top of the search results. And isn’t that the point of our efforts?

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.

The Biggest Website Trend in 2019

by Mark Bloom | Feb 12, 2019 | Agency Advice

Get Ahead of the Curve with this Website Tip

Websites continue to change, but what will be the website trend in 2019? Website content? Blog posts? Nope.

This deer knows the website trend in 2019.

Over the years, as the internet itself has evolved, websites have served a variety of purposes. But regardless what your website is supposed to do, every effective site shares several characteristics:

• Inviting design, which uses text, graphics, colors and styles, as well as effects to entice visitors to stay on the site
• Ease of navigation, which makes navigation on the site intuitive, so even new visitors can find their way around and get to the information they’re seeking
• Load speed, which determines how quickly your pages load in a visitor’s internet browser and device

Which Is the Website Trend in 2019?

Ray Access doesn’t employ website designers, so we can’t speak to how designs are changing online, except to note that new designs are breaking down the boxed-in framework. If you want to learn more, go here.

Navigation hasn’t changed that much. Menus are listed at the top of the page, along the side of the page or collapsed into a so-called “hamburger” — three short horizontal lines, stacked one on top of another. Click the hamburger to open the menu. Your navigation choice is part of your site’s style, but it has to be consistent across your site.

Load speed is one area that has been evolving quickly and has made a huge difference in the effectiveness of websites. There are many factors that affect your load speed, and we’re predicting that improving your site’s speed is going to be the biggest website trend in 2019.

Why Page Load Time Is Important

How fast your website loads directly relates to its success. According to Unbounce.com, nearly three-quarters of consumers admit that a slow page speed stops them from buying something. The prevailing attitude is summed up in this quote by Andy Crestodina of Orbit Media:

“Web pages don’t have loading bars. So when the page is slow, the visitor doesn’t know if the delay will be another 500 milliseconds or 15 seconds. Maybe it will never load. And the back button is right there.”

Additionally, Google recommends that your site load in five seconds or faster at a standard connection. So if you have a slow site, the search engine giant may penalize you. While Google’s algorithms are secret, it’s no secret that they want to deliver positive experiences for their users, and they consider slow load speed a poor user experience.

Factors Influencing Your Site’s Load Time

You may think connection speed is the determining factor for how fast your site loads, but that’s incorrect. If you’re browsing the internet on your 3G cell phone, every site loads at about the same rate, relatively speaking. It’s other factors that can influence the relative website speeds.

So the website trend in 2019 is to make your site load as quickly as possible. Factors that influence how fast your site loads include:

• The image sizes on your site
• The complexity of your site’s code
• The number of operations going on in the background
• Your website host’s capabilities

How to Improve Your Website Speed

You have some control over the factors that slow down your website. A little background work can do wonders for your load time. For example:

• Resize all your images so that they’re no bigger than the size they’ll be displayed on your website. Then upload them again to your site, using the same filename. The goal is to make the file sizes as small as possible.
• Use mobile-friendly templates for your website and clean, concise code. Ask a programmer for help if you need it. Getting your pages to load quickly is the top website trend in 2019, and totally worth the expense. Slow sites lose visitors, engagement and sales.
• Make sure you don’t have clunky plugins or other apps running in the background when a visitor comes to your site. Your pages will load faster without all that competition for bandwidth.
• Pay what it takes for a website host that can handle all the traffic you’re going to get. It’s about computing power on your host’s end and (again) competition for the bandwidth coming into your website. One recommended host that can handle this website trend in 2019 is HostPapa.

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.

How Your Web Developer Uses Website Content

by Elle Ray | Feb 6, 2019 | Agency Advice

Good Website Content Delivers SEO Results

Building a website from scratch takes time. Even a redesign is time-consuming, involving a number of necessary steps. The website designer and developer you hire require your timely input throughout the process. All website professionals strive to ensure that the style is right for you and that your site includes all the pages necessary to inform your visitors and rank you high in search results.

Your web designer creates a map of your site, called wireframes, before handing the design to a web developer for coding. You must sign off on each stage of development. Meanwhile, other ingredients of the site can be prepared. Web developers typically rely on you to provide the website content.

Why Is Website Content Important?

According to Techopedia, “Web content refers to the textual, aural or visual content published on a website.” Most designers include graphics specifically for your site, based on a chosen theme, which often incorporates your own company photos. The actual content, the text of your site, isn’t always included in your website package. But it’s that website content that’s critical to your site’s success.

The content not only drives search engines to your site, but it also tells your story. It encourages your visitors to contact you and buy what you have to sell. The content is your last chance to close the sale. it’s the last push in your sales funnel to help your website visitors make a final purchase decision.

Website Content and SEO

If your developer doesn’t offer content-writing services, the task of creating website content often falls to you as the business owner. Unless you have the time, talent and inclination to write all the content for your site, we recommend that you hire professional website content producers like Ray Access. If you have writers on staff, however, make sure they:

• Understand the basics of SEO
• Appreciate your company’s goals for its website
• Know how to create compelling calls-to-action
• Have a decent command of the language

Alternatively, you can hire an SEO firm to handle the content. But an SEO firm can cost thousands of dollars per month, even after the set-up charges, while an SEO-savvy writer costs a fraction of that.

The Inevitable Breakdown

As your web developer works to produce a beautiful yet functional website for your company, the deadline for your content looms. If you promised to deliver the content, you have to deliver on time, or your entire project screeches to a halt. Your developer needs the content to drop into the site’s pages before it can go live. And you can’t just use anything; your website requires written, polished and proofed text.

If you’re like most business owners, writing content is pretty far down on your to-do list. Even if you delegated the task, it still needs your final approval. What do you do if it doesn’t meet your expectations? What are your options if your deadline arrives and you’ve only just begun writing?

And there it is — the logjam that holds up many website launches. It’s called a content delay, and it frustrates web developers everywhere. Remember, they don’t get their final payment until the project is finished. If you wait too long to deliver, your project may get put on hold, where it will stay until the developer finds the time to devote to it. By then, the whole project has lost some momentum.

Consequences Abound

By this time, you have no timely alternatives. You may pull something together. You may find early versions of your marketing material and vision statement you can use. But what you end up with is a beautiful new site with sub-par text.

While you can ask your web developer to add newer content later, after your website launches, you’ll pay for the service. Meanwhile, who knows how many potential customers you’ll lose? Your best bet is to hire Ray Access to get it right the first time, on time. If you insist on doing it yourself, however, here are a few tips for you:

• Write your text in a word processing program, one document for each website page.
• Make sure to pass your writing to at least one other person for review. It’s best if this editor knows your company and what you’re trying to say. Your editor can catch errors and remind you of details you may have missed. You can always hire Ray Access to edit it for you inexpensively.
• Sleep on it. Never send copy immediately after you wrote it. Even if you have to postpone your launch, you won’t regret a fresh read to find things that you could say better.
• Include limited notes on each page about where you want the text to appear. A good web developer knows how to make the text work within the design. If the copy goes in a pop-up, for example, note that at the top of your document.
• Be authentic. Your site must reflect you and your company’s personality — but to a point. You won’t do yourself any favors by including too much industry lingo or corny jokes.
• Maintain consistency in all your pages. Stick to one style and tone throughout all your writing.
• Provide the word count for each page. Many web developers know that 1,000-word pages get better SEO results than shorter 250-word pages.
• Send pictures separately so they maintain their integrity and don’t get lost in translation. Make sure every image is yours to use.
• Stick to your web developer deadlines as closely as possible to stay on track for the launch of your stunning new website.

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.

10 Reasons to Choose a Local Website Developer

by Mark Bloom | May 22, 2018 | Agency Advice

Online Services Can Be Anywhere, Even in India

The world is changing. The business world may be changing even faster. Think about all the things you used to go down the street to buy that you can now purchase online:

• Groceries
• Cars
• Books, even used books
• Movie rentals
• Movie tickets
• Flowers

But even in this grand global economy we share, certain jobs — specific services, especially — must remain local. For example, you have to go local for:

• Haircuts
• Landscaping
• Home and office cleaning
• Gasoline
• Dental work
• Car repair

Local and Online Services — Choose Wisely

Services for your business present a whole other dimension. Many business services are available locally, regionally and internationally. Common services you might find in your town or remotely include:

• Writing services
• Accounting
• Social media marketing
• Advertising
• Human resources
• Website development

The Skinny on Local Website Developers

When you need a website for your business, you need professionals to design it, build it and create content for it. You can’t do it all yourself; you have a business to run. Plus, when you leave these services to the pros, they do it right. Admit it — professionals do it better than you ever could.

Local website developers go through a process to get your website up. There are meetings, drawings, wireframes, navigation charts and more. While you can hire a firm in another part of the country or even overseas in a country like India, you’re often better off finding a local firm for so many reasons. Here are 10 of them.

10 Reasons Why Local Matters

When you hire a local website developer, you get something you can’t get from a distance:

1. A local website developer has a local office. You know where he works. You can have face-to-face meetings, look him in the eye and ask the important questions.
    
2. Once he’s passed your interview and audition, you still need to follow up. Ask for references from past clients. Get their contact info and call them up. You actually may know some of them if they support local, too.
    
3. If your business serves locals, it only makes sense that you should hire a firm that knows your neighborhood and your clientele. Locals know what’s going on. Locals are connected to the community. You’ll get work that’s appropriate for your business and connects to your audience. You’ll be totally connected to the local community in more ways than one.
    
4. Being local improves the communication between you and your website developer. You’re both not only in the same time zone, but maybe even in the same ZIP code. Emails, calls and texts are returned promptly.
    
5. Do you network locally? Even if you’re an informal networker, the type of person who doesn’t do networking meetings, but always says hello people around town, you can benefit from hiring a local website developer. Word gets around, and doing business locally means you’re networking without even working at it.
    
6. You have a thriving business, which is why you need a new website. Your local website developer takes pride in his work too. If he surpasses your expectations, delivering everything he promised and more, you’re more likely to recommend him. And as he gets to know your business, he’ll do the same. It’s an added advantage of local work.
    
7. Hiring locally keeps your dollars in the community. When you pay him, he pays his local staff. And you all probably shop in the same grocery stores, clothing boutiques and tattoo parlors.
    
8. When you hire locally, you’re both putting your reputations on the line. Many communities — like Asheville, which Ray Access calls home — are tight-knit. If your local website developer does a poor job, you won’t be able to stop the flood of bad reviews. But a great website draws raves for both of your businesses.
    
9. The cost of living in New York City is higher than most anywhere else. If you’re not in NYC, why hire a New York firm? You can probably find less expensive options in your local market than you can from afar. Now granted, that may not apply to website developers in India, but then you’re dealing with different issues. Shop around locally for the best talent at the best price.
    
10. With a local website developer, add-ons are easy. Once the website’s done, maybe you want to start a blog or an ecommerce store. Smaller projects are easier to complete after the main site has been delivered. When they’re local, you can just pick up the phone or stop by.

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.

Like Attracts Like

by Elle Ray | May 13, 2018 | Agency Advice

The Law of Attraction Works in Business, Too

Oprah talks often of the secret law of attraction. Singles looking for love, for example, work on the physical, emotional and mental aspects of the law of attraction to get a new partner. The whole world went crazy over the 2006 book by Rhonda Byrne called The Secret, which again heralded the law of attraction.

In fact, the law of attraction is no secret. For centuries, great minds have been writing about and talking about the power of the mind to attract what it thinks about. From Jesus to the Buddha and Confucius, the notion has been in play through all major religions and spiritual paths.

In Business as In Life

Too often, though, we categorize and compartmentalize our lives into different, disparate boxes. And twain they all shall not meet. Spirituality is for Sundays, yoga classes and early morning meditations. Family gets the evenings and weekends, when possible. Friends get fit into social boxes of varying colors. And of course — business is business, and it fills up the rest of the calendar.

If, however, we combine all the boxes into one big present called “life,” we can employ the metaphysical laws of the universe just as swiftly and effectively as we apply the physical laws. Gravity, for example, crosses all borders of life and keeps us connected to the earth. The human body requires fuel to exist, regardless whether it spends most of its time in church, at home or in the office.

Good Clients Don’t Grow on Trees

If you want to build a business that serves good customers who pay their bills on time (or pay them at all), who meet agreed-upon commitments and who give you honest feedback, the law of attraction requires you to be an honest business person. When you charge a fair price, meet promised deadlines and provide a quality work product, you’re more likely to attract the same.

Just as the single gal who wants a loyal husband must first become a loyal partner herself, so you, as a business owner, must first become the customer you hope to attract. That’s the law. Just as gravity keeps your chair firmly planted on the floor, so the customers you attract reflect the kind of business person you are.

How to Apply the Law of Attraction in Business

Many of the same steps that you employ in your religion, family and social interactions also work well in business. And the law of attraction is no different. It all begins in your mind. What your mind can conceive, you can achieve.

Napoleon Hill wrote Think and Grow Rich in 1937. By 2015, more than 30 million copies had been sold. And it’s just as relevant today as it was groundbreaking then. It’s all about your thinking. So be careful what you spend your days thinking about, because just as sure as the sun rises each new day, you will invoke the law of attraction to bring into your business the sunshine — or darkness — that you’ve spent your days mulling over.

Do It Now

To help, if you haven’t yet heard “the secret,” or have forgotten its power, here are a few concrete steps to get you back into the positive stream of consciousness required for success:

• Make every thought count. Right now, change your mind. You can’t afford to let any negative thoughts intrude, especially when you’re really making an effort to attract new, quality business clients.
• See the future. Visualize clearly what your business looks like when it’s running efficiently and when you and your entire team are happy and prosperous. Picture what your office looks like, imagine your bank account overflowing and see your clients just as pleased as you are.
• Give thanks for your success. Gratitude speaks volumes about your attitude. Be grateful for the success that is yours for the taking — or attracting. When you give thanks as if it’s already happened, then the universe must comply.
• Fill your open slots with positive people. As the owner or manager, you have the power to surround yourself with positive thinkers. Give those Negative Nellies a chance to change their ways or let them go find their own kind if they refuse to get on the law of attraction train you have set in motion for your company’s success.
• Write down your goals as if they’ve already happened. Make sure you include a timeline. Think of it as your diary for success.
• Post affirmations around your office. They’ll remind you of the law of attraction and the power of your thoughts. They’ll help you channel your thoughts toward positive reinforcement and future achievement.
• Sign up for positive emails. When you surround yourself with positive thoughts and vibrations, your mind stays focused and your will, with the universe’s help, makes your positive thoughts come true. Set reminders on your calendar to think and grow rich!

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.