Day: October 23, 2019

WordPress Vs Magento: Which Platform Will Work Best For You?

Do you want to shift your online store from nowhere to everywhere but you’ve failed fast and, unfortunately, often; it’s the right time to think again about which platform will work best for you: WordPress or Magento. If you want to create an interactive, highly presentable and features-rich website;WordPress, Magento- These are the best platforms that have full capacities to turn your plain ideation into realization. Beyond a question, they are incredibly user-friendly, easily customizable, very intuitive open-source CMS that will assist you to incorporate eCommerce functionalities to escalate your online business progress across the digital landscape. Even though there are synonymous to each other in the basic features, there are some key differences that set apart to both Content Management Systems (CMS) from each other. Finding a reliable CMS out of WordPress and Magento is tough-nut-to-crack. Well, to help you come up with the right decision, I’m presenting a comprehensive comparison between two world famous platforms. Surely, it will help you to find one best option for setting up a user-centric eCommerce site. Let’s dive in! 1- Introduction a. WordPress No one can deny that fact: More than 70 million websites are built on WordPress. It shows WordPress is a fantastic Content Management System(CMS), that contains thousands of top-notch themes, plugins, and other inbuilt tools to help you build anything: personal blog, e-portals, portfolio websites, or just an eCommerce website. It comprises of user-friendly interface, highly customizable options and loads of feature that encourage users to create and customize website, with zero need of having a technical knowledge. So, if you’re not a tech geek; be happy, you won’t have to bother at all. WordPress would do everything for you. All-in-all. WordPress is one-stop-solution as it has everything to meet your requirements with ease. WooCommerce is one of the key plugins of WordPress, and it’s become a leading plugin since 2011 in the small and mid-sized online merchants due to easy of downloading and most importantly, it’s free. b. Magento On the other hand, Magento is also the most popular eCommerce platform equipped with a collection of eCommerce feature to help you create minimal yet professional-looking websites from scratch. Over 100,000 eCommerce stores are built on this platform; start-ups to giant brand- every business leverages the power of rich features of Magento to create eye-catching and most responsive online stores. Undoubtedly, Magento is everywhere. This platform consists of everything to help you become robust online storefront. From top-notch customization and functionality support to advanced features i.e.Shopping cart, multi-store management, product catalog and One-Page checkout, Magento has everything to make your dreams come true. 2- Ease of use a- WordPressIf you’re concerned with unique selling proposition(USP) of WordPress, three words should pop up: Ease of Use. Yes. WordPress is easy to use and it does contain intuitive user-interface. Along with being easy-to-use, it houses best eCommerce plugins in abundance. Actually, having plugins is indispensable for any CMS for eCommerce as they help store owners to not just create, but also tweak and customize a web store for the purpose of generating high leads for your online business. Another best thing about WordPress is that you don’t need to be highly skilled in coding and programming because this platform is built in a way that anybody can create, add, edit and delete pages and posts of a website in minutes. b- Magento Well, for beginners and online merchants with little or no coding abilities, Magento could be a tough choice. You might face complications when it comes to managing multiple product categories, product pages and check out processes etc. Whereas, you might need to hire a professional Magento development company to help you build a successful web store, without needing you to do heavy lifting. 3- Flexibility a-WordPress As far as flexibility concerns, WordPress completely win the race as it offers a full range of plugins (premium and free), to help you convert plainly simple website into fully-thriving online stores. A user can extend the functionality of online store and can add incredible eCommerce features e.g. Event listings, Inventory, Shopping cart integration, Product catalog management, credit card integration, contact forms, live chat box functionality and so much more to give hassle-free and rich shopping experience to your customers. It’s flawless functionality isn’t just limited to eCommerce plugins, even, WordPress has various other best plugins such as speed optimization, social media integration, caching, and SEO etc. Plus, it ensures safe and secure integration with widely known payment services worldwide i.e. Paypal. b-Magento Since WordPress offers wider collection of plugins covering all purposes. Whereas, Magento focuses mainly only on eCommerce features. It is purely eCommerce platform but out of the domain of online commerce, this CMS fails to fill the requirement of a user. It is a second good choice for you to create your online store because of its core features and handy capabilities and Magento really helps its users to stand out in the competition. Also, a user can integrate to some of the most powerful extension to escalate overall functionalities of your web store, arrange your product catalog, build highly responsive and mobile-friendly designs and lots more with ease. 4- Security Photo Credit: Pixabay a-WordPressSecurity is one of the major concerns for an eCommerce site owners. That’s because people are making payments online and they want a safe and secure environment. From security standpoint, WordPress is not a good choice. Lately, it has been vulnerable to hacking attacks and various other security threats. Its vulnerability increases when more eCommerce plugins are added into it. Better evaluate CMS before adopting it because any third-party plugins might cause you harm because they are insecure and can affect the security of your website greatly. Security perspectives of WordPress make it tiring experience for online merchants as they have to update plugins, themes and lots of other things to keep themselves secure from hackers. So, if your intention is to double the revenue of your storefront without getting under the radar of hackers

5 Foolproof Ways to Generate Leads for your Business

Forget about your product right now; it doesn’t matter how revolutionary your product is, if you have poor or no lead generation strategy in place. Because it’s true that an average product can outclass big names with failproof lead generation strategies and can transform itself into a brand that persuades, satisfies, and it all happens just because of one thing: A well planned system to generate Leads. Therefore – keep in mind – you need to have well-thought lead generation strategies to make yourself stand out in the competition. Otherwise, you’ll be on a road to become one of those startups and businesses that fail to grow, even though they’ve best products. You don’t need to worry at all as I am going to share 5 fail-proof ways to generate more leads for your business. Let’s unpack them now: 1- Invest in new technology Beyond a question, new technology is a trend-setter in the market. From browsing a website to connecting your friends on social media, we use either smartphones or tablets because this emerging technology is user-friendly and mobile. So, leveraging new technology is inevitable for businesses to skyrocket lead generation and help take product to the next-level. Therefore, it is indispensable to invest in new technologies to drive your leads. They help you to reach to the customers in a short period of time, that’s impossible using traditional methods for generating leads. As a matter of fact, it is hard-nut-crack to come with relevant targeted audiences for lead generation. But technology here solves this problem quite effectively. Take an example of Facebook Custom Audiences at this point: it eases up targeting users matching buyer personas of your existing customers, allows you to generate high quality leads and increase ROI, and believe it; possibilities are endless with emerging and disruptive technologies. Alike finding relevant targeted audience, predicting customer behavior is complicated task for marketers. Again, investing in new technology surfaces as a saving grace as Artificial Intelligence uses predictive analytics to help companies, businesses and marketers to predict customers’ behaviors quickly and effectively. 2- Tap into Big Data Big data is an emerging industry that is estimated to go bigger than $100 billion by 2020 has a great potential to help marketers in lead generation. It’s incalculably handy tool that provides quick and flawless insights related to anything: From personalized targeting to native marketing. A big data is huge domain for marketers where they can benefit from loads of data analyzation and management tools to understand and apply strategies using data to escalate lead generation. Data virtualization is also revolutionary approach that help marketers save their time and cost without compromising on their lead generation targets. Technically, it conveys immediate, relevant and factual information about targeted audiences in charts, animations and graphs. Undoubtedly, data virtualization really does ease up lead generation efforts for marketers. If you’ve difficulty finding potential leads for business, you should try Data.com- a huge database that maintains a list of companies with complete contact information. Plus, it will help you in identifying relevant and reliable leads in a brief period of time. Rest assured: Data.com offers a broad set of data which can contribute to increase your overall sales and lead generation. 3-Retargeting Marketers come at ease to interact with people who showed their interest previously with retargeting technology. Retargeting shows custom leads as made as per their behaviors. Happily, this new technology has a moderate impact on collective behavior of consumers because they know the brand and they have visited it before. However, it depends up a brand or marketers how empathetic their lead generation is. Retargeting Is Like DatingLet’s take ‘Retargeting’ as a date. You can’t propose for a marriage to someone strange and random you saw minutes ago but you can ask for a date because you want to build an understanding first. This analogy of ‘Retargeting is a dating’ means that you should first build relationships with your customers, let them know you and they will definitely come back to you. May someone comes to your website and goes away without buying anything. But it’s normal. However, you should keep retargeting them empathetically and help them find the best solutions. As a result, they will like you as you know them and are aware of their needs. Bear in mind: Retargeting is a two-way street. You shouldn’t overstep boundaries and compel targeted audiences towards conversion right after a single website visit. Don’t act like stalker, be professional and don’t retarget them incessantly. Therefore, with little effort and hands-on retargeting plan, we can improve and increase your lead generation. 4- Use Email Marketing Email marketing contributes to direct engagement. It’s really result-driven in current online marketing scenario. It’s straightforward, quick and cost-effective method to generate and maintain qualified leads. However, there are few things which must be kept under consideration while constructing email content for lead generation: A- Subject Line: Your subject line should be enticing, so that it could make the recipient ready to read. It should address genuine problems which potential lead is facing. Important Note: Always write a humanistic and real subject headline, don’t let your email land into ‘Spam Folder’ of lead with phony headlines. B- Concise: Prospects have limited attention span now. They don’t want to read gibberish email. Write concise but engaging emails and save your prospects’ time without compromising on the quality of a message. C-Social Media: Don’t forget to incorporate social media links in your email. Because, a brand or product that is visible is quickly salable. Let them know and understand you by inviting them to your social media pages. D- Images: Images are storytellers. 1000 words can’t describe a story which an image can deliver. It’s a good idea to incorporate images into your email. Hint: Always include lightweight images so that they couldn’t affect loading speed) E- CTA: An email without CTA is like a ship without direction. A CTA (Call-To-Action) sets direction which is lead generation. Always incorporate CTA.

8 Top Strategies to get a Solid Online Presence

Since this world is evolving at a rapid pace; you, your brand or any business owner shouldn’t stay static because time has already come to show your presence everywhere. Yes, and it’s incalculably easy by leveraging hidden power of ‘Web.’ It doesn’t cost a fortune to build the strong presence, all you need is an internet connection, yourself or your brand, impeccable strategies. Beware: If you’re not tech-and-web savvy, building an online presence could be tiring experience for you. Well, if you’re smart at handling complexities, loves to deal with challenges, and can learn things easy or hard way, congratulations: victory is all yours. So, to ease up this entire journey of getting a solid online presence, here I’m going to share 8 strategies that will help you and will make everything as easy as A-B-C. Let’s start immediately: 1- Determine your message Before you look for strategies to get visible online presence, an important thing should be done first: Determine your message. In order to determine a message of your brand’s or your presence, you need to do the following things: a- Write down your plan.b- Categorize your set goals, aims and objectives as per urgency.c- Strategize on how fast you can achieve your goals. Once, a message of your brand is clear to you, it’s a time for you to break into smaller bits. Because your goal should be to achieve online presence timely. Reasons? Because, they are not the only one in this race of quick visibility, you will see tens of thousands of people and brands working their tail off to become the next ‘Big Hit’ on landscapes of Internet. Apply holistic approach to SMART (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, Timely) goal, and break your One Big Goal into smaller sub-goals with actionable steps and add deadline to each sub-goal because you can’t improve your productivity and efficiency of your sub-goals without tracking time. Determining your message is really helpful as it eases up your goal- to achieve online presence. Along the way, it boosts your confidence and keeps you motivated to stay persistent in the time of disappointment and temporary failures. 2- Provide Value If you want to make your online presence visible; better provide value to people across the internet. Share knowledge, and help them make good decisions. Consequently, it will make you a valuable source of information online.Always remember: Don’t preach unless you bleed. So, experience things first for yourself and then communicate your message. A value which you will provide through a content either it’s a video or podcast or a blog, it will bound to affect the lives of your followers living across the globe. And, they will realize quantifiable change in their daily doings because you’ve walked what you had talked. You are guaranteed to become a voice of trust, empathy and authority because you share real, reliable and relevant experience to people. So, if you’re strategizing for solid online presence; keep value-centered information in mind and you will find yourself in top-5 of your niche. Try it and you’ll enjoy it. 3 – Invest in your Growth Expecting to build solid online presence without investing in your growth is merely fallacy and folly. Nothing worthy can be achieved without improving one’s self. On the other hand, investing in your growth doesn’t mean monetary investment. It can be anything that makes you useful, that makes you stand out in the herd. It can scope out flaws in your strategy, or finding mistakes which you’re committing when it comes to making your internet presence widely recognizable on internet. A better understanding of this idea of ‘Invest in your growth’ is possible by analyzing competition. Measure deeply where your competitors are outdoing you in this race of rampant virality. Try to comprehend that why big chunk of internet traffic goes to your competitors when they’re stuck in a problem. Believe it or not; investing in your growth is handy strategy as it will take you to the right tools, will connect you to the right people and taking your internet presence to the next-level will be as easy as A-B-C. 4 – Be Consistent Majority of brands, companies and humans are addicted to the single biggest and most unhealthy habit called ‘Inconsistency.’ Yes. This common phenomenon is present everywhere. Especially, when it comes to online presence, people and brands go insane and this insanity creates more roadblocks instead of putting off hurdles. Therefore, everybody trapped in a rat-race of online stardom expects to reach ultimate goal of virality overnight but real success takes long nights. So, if you’re strategizing to get solid online presence, make sure to have ‘being consistent’ in your list. As a matter of fact, this world of internet is fickle. It changes at a rapid pace and keeps changing. So, it’s very important for you to be fully aware of the ins-and-outs of this game of online presence. I’m going to share two handy tips to stay consistent for building solid presence in 2019: a) Sign up for Google Search console- this free web service will help you monitor, maintain and troubleshoot your websites searches in Google search results, and b) A Content Calendar- it helps in keeping your online presence in shape because you’re offering content( video, audio or text) of value to people on the internet. So, I would recommend you to brainstorm consistently, plan consistently, and act consistently. This consistency will build solid internet presence for you or brand. 5 – Make Videos for Real Interaction Since, internet is swamped with all types of contents; attracting relevant audience has become excruciating. Plus, the availability of low quality, duplicated and nonsensical content proved to be the last nail in the coffin of quality content creators. However, this is not the end. Still, there are plenty of opportunities available for brands and individuals to make their marks on the internet. Guess what, you’ve already a tool to increase your brand awareness and reach your targeted audience with