SEO Tips

Is Your Website Slow? Try These Tips

Nobody online today is slow. Nobody. Everyone wants the quickest experience possible, and if they don’t get it, they opt out. Imagine the last time that you were trying to download a page and it took more than five seconds. Did you freak out? Did you assume that your phone was broken? You probably exited out of the page. That’s what’s to be expected when your website is slow. For many, this is a single factor that leads to negative impact on sales. You’ll lose conversions and sink to the bottom of the internet in no time; so what’s to be done?

When it comes to changing the speed of your website, you need to be on top of several factors. There are plenty of ways to turn your site into The Flash, but we’re going to focus on a select few. In order to maintain a site that’s up to par with Roadrunner, you’re going to need to upgrade your hosting package, optimize your videos and images, and implement a page-caching plugin.

Upgrade

Sometimes, this isn’t an option. We’re sympathetic to the fact that some businesses don’t have the money to spend. However, any website that’s gaining a ton of traffic is going to have the money to do so. If you have that much traffic, we can assume you’re doing okay. If you’re doing okay, there’s virtually no reason to save money on your grid or shared hosting platform. You need to focus on a serious web hosting platform that utilizes the resources necessary to keep your site at top speeds. If you don’t, you’re actually losing the same money in sales that you could be spending on it.

Images/Videos

You need to consider both the size and amount of videos/images that are on your page. When that amount exceeds necessity, you sacrifice speed. To a certain degree, this can actually be the largest factor that attributes to your slow load time. That’s right, pictures can be the main culprit. How do you change this? Well, there are a few aspects that you need to assess.

For one, your images need to be sized accordingly. There’s no reason for you to upload a 4000 pixel x 5000 pixel image if it’s going to be downsized to 400 x 500 on your actual site. Change the file size by changing the actual size. JPG is a fantastic way to do this, as it compresses the image in order to use the least space. PNG is only relevant when transparency is involved. BMP and TIFF are utterly useless in this application. No matter what, when you’re done, compress the photo. The end game is to change the file size, and even if you change the actual size, you can further diminish it with compression. The same goes for videos. The one thing that we recommend for videos is to embed them with a third party platform, like Vimeo.

Last, but not least, limit the amount of media on your page. If you have 100 images, it’s going to impact your page no matter what. Don’t go overboard; be concise.

Caching Plugin

You don’t have the time or experience to lend to your page speed. That’s why there are plenty of plugins that do the work for you (at least the harder parts). With page caching, you can immensely improve your page’s load time. We won’t bother with the details; it’s easier to explain it this way: A cached web page is going to load faster than other web pages. Plugins that cache pages for you are easy to download, especially if you’re a WordPress user. We highly recommend this as a number one strategy.

Byra Can Help

Does any of this sound like a daunting task? We’ve barely gone in depth on any of these processes, and that’s because they’re only a few of the ways to increase your page speed, and there’s much more to each. Byra can easily do this for you, and we highly recommend you give us a call. We’ll make sure that your site is up and running at full capacity, and if not, we’ll get it there in no time. Contact us today, and let’s get started on a brand new speed-oriented website!

Email Campaigns: A Conversation With Your Customers

7 Tips for A Victorious Email Marketing Campaign

It isn’t easy to connect with your audience; it’s a hefty feat that demands serious talent and experience. A frustrating aspect of running any business is that, even if you have impeccable products and service, you won’t get anywhere if customers don’t know who you are. While an SEO campaign and PPC can put you on the map, reeling in returning customers is another battle. Once someone makes a purchase, you should have a system set up that convinces them to move on to your other products and services.

An email campaign serves as an educational reminder to your customers and potential customers that your company is the best at what you do. You want your customers to feel that your products are an absolute necessity, and a friendly reminder is the best way to do so. However, without the correct methods, you could end up doing more harm than good. The last thing you want is to badger your customers and have them unsubscribe. That’s where Byra comes in! Below are seven different tactics to running a tried and true email campaign:

Flawless Design

Graphic designers are employed for a reason. Your design needs to cater to the reader; point them towards the important sections and make sure that your email is visually pleasing. Emails that are muddled by busy information are likely to be ignored, so you want your email sleek and simplistic. Think of how you’ve branded your own business and website: that’s exactly the flow that you want to keep for your emails. After all, they represent the voice of your company!

Set the Stage

Wildly sprinting into your campaign with no concept in mind is a huge mistake. Many obsess over the subject line, but what’s the point of a stylish subject line if it doesn’t match the content inside? What you want is a uniform thought distributed evenly throughout your email. If you plan on offering a promotion, make that apparent from the start and to the finish. Be honest, be concise, and have a real objective in mind. Don’t ever mislead your customers; they will unsubscribe.

Engaging Copy

A critical mistake that many businesses fall into is underestimating the importance of a copywriter. There is virtually no purpose to an email campaign if the content is written poorly; you might as well just slam your head on the keyboard and click “send.” Consumers are plagued by marketing emails day in and day out. If you want to grab their attention, your emails need to be authentic and well written. Convey your message with clever language that’s fun to read but remains relevant to your email’s purpose. Don’t know how? Hire a copywriter!

Applicable Subject Line

Don’t lie. Period. We cannot stress this enough; a subject line that does not express what is inside the actual email is an absolute deterrent. Nobody wants to feel duped, and you certainly don’t want to give your customers the impression that your business is insincere. Aside from honesty, you want to invoke curiosity from your readers. Create an enticing headline that truthfully displays what’s inside your email and match that headline with a seductive call-to-action within your content.

Responsive is Imperative

How many people do you know that check their email on their phone? Everyone? Exactly. Mobile is no longer a new phenomenon, it’s a marketing necessity. You cannot tap into your campaigns fullest potential if you don’t create responsive design for your emails. This isn’t a suggestion; this is a must.

Automated Responses

Technology is a beautiful thing, and you’d be foolish to ignore the technological prowess that surrounds today’s emails. With automated responses, you can be sure that your customers are taken care of 100% of the time, every time. Not at your computer? Well, how about a response that explains to a particular customer that you’ve received their email and plan on responding within the next 24 hours? It’s the little things that keep people interested, and this is just as much a customer service tactic as it is an email campaign tactic.

A/B Testing

Having trouble deciding between two concepts? Well, we applaud you for conceiving two stellar ideas, and we have a solution. Send out your two favorite concepts to smaller email groups, and test how each one does. When you see the results, go with the higher performing email. This can save you.

Bonus Tip: Hire Byra to Run Your Email Campaign

Byra has the privilege of working with the best designers, developers, and copywriters around, and our team has brought huge success to a plethora of businesses. Our email campaigns are run through the finest programs and we’ll take the time to customize your campaign to fit your needs. If you think that your business and sales could benefit from a dialogue with your customers, then contact Byra today.