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Three Mobile Friendly Website Design Tips

Every day, 92.6 percent (4.32 billion) internet users use a mobile device to browse the web among the 4.66 billion active internet users worldwide. A lot of people use mobile devices to access the web, that’s why you need to have a mobile friendly website.

User experience is the most important part of every site when it comes to converting, it also has a factor with how Google ranks your site. Here are five mobile-friendly website design tips for creating a great mobile web design.

  1. Pick a mobile-responsive website or blog theme.

A website plays a vital role in your site as it is the preconfigured framework that defines how your website looks. Mobile responsive themes are pre-coded for both optimal desktop and mobile navigation.

Much of the work of a website would depend on its visuals and design. A good design on your website that serves its purpose and matches with your brand identity should impress your visitors and be a deciding factor for them to stay longer on your site. It also serves as a way to set you apart from competitors.

Mobile-friendly WordPress sites are the new norm, but despite how common they may seem, it still creates a beautiful and responsive site. Make sure that you also have an effective website landing page as it is the most vital foundation of lead generation.

  1. Simplify your website content.

When creating copy and design elements for your mobile website, the important rule is to simplify everything. Making a website look sleek and reducing navigation confusion helps in achieving an effective site.

The website that we create, from articles, business plans to user interfaces are all important. Simple actions like putting your focus on essential elements for your website’s success will eventually pay off. Get rid of unnecessary pages, pop-ups, and design ideas, and opt for the quick and simple.

  1. Prioritize site performance.

Ultimately, having a fast-loading site can benefit both you and your customers. Page speed has been useful for a long time in terms of how your sites are ranked in Google desktop searches.

Good responsive website designs adjust to the screen of the viewer whether they are reading from a desktop computer, a tablet, or a phone. The first step is to simply see how fast your site currently loads — if all is working correctly, you might not even need to do anything else. You can evaluate your page speed with a tool like Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

The majority of visitors prefer viewing websites via their smartphones and this has brought into popularity the concept of designing mobile-friendly versions of websites.

As more and more people use their smartphones or tablets to access the internet, site designers have to adjust to address those usage patterns. Is your site ready for your mobile visitors?

With 25 years of experience in the industry and as a certified Digital Agency in the Philippines, iManila is ready to help you with your website development, hosting, digital

marketing and technical support needs. Inquire now and message us today!

The Importance of Community Management

Community management of social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram has become a crucial part of brands’ operations in this day and age. 

Community management is entirely about building relationships. How your brand or company utilizes opportunities to interact with your community online has a direct effect on many aspects of your brand efforts. If you hope to build a long-term business and a strong, relevant brand, community management is one practice that you must take the time to invest in. 

Community management whether it be on Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn is crucial because of the following reasons: 

Retention of existing customers. Community management plays a significant role in the retention of existing customers who are then likely to be involved in repeated brand interactions;

Attracting new customers. One of the major characteristics of communities is that it helps information flow faster. Therefore, effective community management can help in cultivating new members through positive word of mouth;

Enhanced brand reputation. Instead of focusing on the short-term benefits and increasing sales, community management focuses on strengthening the position of the brand in the long-term by building a good reputation online. 

Here are more reasons why you should consider community management as part of your marketing efforts today:

It Builds Equity and Brand Advocacy

Keeping your brand’s current users and customer base engaged is arguably just as important — if not more — than acquiring new ones. Like many aspects of life, the more time or effort an individual invests into a product or service, the more they come to value it. And the more connected and involved someone feels with a brand, the more likely they are to become an advocate for you and sing your praises to their friends and family.

The most difficult accomplishment to achieve in the brand equity pyramid is resonance. 

Resonance is a term used to refer to building deep customer relationships. True resonance is a difficult task and can only be achieved once your customers have formed a deep psychological bond with your brand. These are the customers who continuously make repeat purchases, and feel an attachment to your brand or product that goes far beyond that of the general public.

It Empowers Your Customers and User-base

Most online communities who are doing social right and are successful in their efforts leverage an abundance of user-generated content. When you enable your community to speak up by enticing them with questions and content that inspires a reaction, you are stimulating engagement and a sense of empowerment for your customers and user-base.

This empowerment often allows users to self-police themselves in the event that you have a rogue user who seems to be stirring conflict within the community. It also provides your brand with educated ambassadors who have the ability to answer each other’s questions and concerns first hand, without the involvement of your brand. While you should always be active in addressing the needs and concerns of your community, it’s certainly a major benefit having these ‘foot soldiers’ of sorts helping to brige the gap and reinforce a positive brand sentiment.

It Creates A True Sense of Community That Humanizes your Brand

The reach of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other major social media platforms is equal to or greater than what we can do with television, in terms of getting content out to the masses; especially your target audiences. But unlike television, social media gives you the opportunity to establish a direct and personal connection with your audience. This makes your brand much more approachable.

It Allows You To Tap into a Built-In Audience

If the channel you’re on gives you access to a large audience or you’re speaking to someone with a sizable following, it might even be worth it to go the extra mile and tap into that audience. Leveraging a built-in audience allows brands to save some money with their marketing efforts through owned and earned media.

Analyze your brand’s networks and determine which channels your community is the most active on, and which networks you’re most likely to satisfy your main objectives with. Take note of good online business resilience this 2021. Whether it be to build brand awareness, drive traffic, or simply maintain your reputation, those channels are the ones your organization should prioritize with your social efforts, and the ones that will allow you to tap into your audience most effectively. 

iManila With 25 years of experience in the digital industry, has the skills and the experience to help you with your brand’s digital marketing, website development, hosting, and technical support needs. Send us an email at [email protected] or contact us through our facebook or website to learn more! 

How to Drive More Traffic to your Website?

Every time we see successful campaigns online, we often ask ourselves – why can’t I drive traffic to my website like this? Believe it or not, there are ways to gain more traffic to your website – you probably just haven’t figured out the best strategy to use to attract visitors.

If you’ve been struggling with driving traffic to your website these past few months, well, you’re not alone. Based on 2019 research conducted by the Content Marketing Institute, 61% of content professionals are having trouble with knowing what is most important to their audiences, while 50% are challenged with knowing the goal of the audience at a particular stage of the customer’s journey, and 49% are finding it difficult to predict the steps in a customer’s buying journey. 

From writing a new blog post, posting on social media, and strategizing for a new email marketing campaign, there are a lot of strategies that can be done aside from those that you may know about. Lucky for you, in this blog we will give some tips on how to utilize different strategies in order to hit your KPIs. 

Website Analysis 

Before you start setting up your campaigns, you might want to know the status of your website. Of course, what better way to understand what your site needs than by conducting a website analysis or audit. Before you drive traffic to your website, it’s imperative to learn more about your audience and what can be done to improve your website. There are paid and free digital marketing tools to use which will show you what can be improved and worked on in your existing website. By conducting a website analysis, you’ll be able to find out which aspects of your website may need improvement or if there are any current security concerns on your site. In this way, you can be sure that once you start getting traffic on your website, you can be assured that users will not instantly drop out or leave your site due to security vulnerabilities or broken links or even bad user experience. 

Paid Advertising 

You can drive traffic to your website immediately with paid advertising. Through the use of search engines, you can run pay-per-click ads or run remarketing campaigns through different types of ads. Using your social media, you can also run display ads or sponsored posts. Your approach will most likely include a combination of different types of advertising. To add more assurance, according to the 2020 CMO Survey, firms expect social spending to rise by 62% over the next five years. 

Organic Social Media 

Organic social media is not a new strategy. That is why marketers should take this into consideration. Aside from posting on social media platforms, you can also use Instagram Stories, especially the swipe up feature, live video, IGTV, or Facebook Messenger – anything that will let your customers take them to your website. The strategy with organic social media is to be an early adopter of new features. 

For deeper understanding of social media, Facebook is releasing an automated lead generation feature on Messenger which allows businesses to create an automated chatbot experience within Messenger to link to content offers on your site. This is a great feature for driving traffic to your website. Read through our blog to know how Social Media can help grow your business.

Contests and Giveaways 

This is by far the simplest yet most effective way to drive traffic to your website in an instant. Running promotions or contests can give your website a quick boost, while also rewarding your followers. You can start by hosting giveaways on social media, through your email list, or both. 

To implement this effective strategy, you must first decide what platform on which to host your giveaway. Then choose a prize such as free tickets, discounts, etc. Then you can select your criteria. And then you can now write your ad copy, create your graphics and now post and promote your content. 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

This type of service is very important as this is one of the ways to determine the visibility of your website across search engines. Through SEO, you can upload your blogs related to your products and services to keep your customers updated with the latest offerings. 

On-Page SEO 

As mentioned above, SEO in general is very important in website traffic. On-page SEO can definitely let your website rank higher in search engines and bring in more traffic. Make sure that your on-page SEO elements are included such as page title, header, meta description, image alt-text, and the URL. Showing up in top positions in search engines will generate more traffic for your site. To learn more about SEO, check out our blog here. 

Video Marketing 

Gone are the days when static images were the best weapon to attract customers. The rise of user experience where customers need to see beyond the image of a product is within us now – thus the increased popularity of video marketing. In fact, Cisco’s report states that video will account for 82% of traffic by 2022. With this, it’s best to start implementing video marketing into your strategy as soon as possible because these days, this is the content people are clicking on. 

If you’ve surpassed those struggles to get traffic to your website, congrats! Implementing the tips above can help you increase your traffic as soon as possible. But once your traffic has started to improve, it’s time to talk about conversions. iManila, with 25 years of experience in the industry and as a certified Digital Agency in the Philippines, is the right agency that creates highly-functional websites, provides top notch hosting services, digital marketing and technical support services that can support your business objectives, whether that means driving traffic, lead generation, or even sales. To transform your ideas into a digital trend, message us and we’ll lead the process towards success!

5 reasons why you should run google ads for your business iManila

Five Reasons Why You Should Run Google Ads for Your Business

If you’re interested in reaping all the amazing opportunities and benefits of the massive number of searches occurring in Google daily, or getting the boost of a brand that you need, then you should invest in Google Advertising.  

Google ads is Google’s advertising program that allows marketers and millions of businesses around the globe to triple their revenue and get the attention that they need from people searching for them or those who are still in the search cycle. If we were to be asked why you should be on Google, the real question is: why shouldn’t you? If thousands of the biggest and most successful brands are visible on Google search, then the real question is, what’s stopping you from doing the same thing?

If you’re curious to learn more about Google ads, read further to see how Google ads can benefit you.

Google’s reach is astronomical  

Google has become more than just a brand. It has become a norm that people have adapted to so quickly.

If you’re doing research about your math assignment, your mom will probably just tell you, “Google it!” with major eye rolls.   

If you forgot the movie you just watched or you want to know the best films of all time, or the actors behind your favorite movies, you just Google it.  

Instead of saying “search for it!”, or “look online!”, we just normally say, “Google it”. It’s amazing how a brand can become everyone’s normal thing.  

The popularity of Google is backed up by straight enormous facts. The search engine gets around 2+ trillion searches every year which is insanely around 5+ billion searches every day!  

This massive reach by Google can guarantee you the best possible turnarounds if you ever plan to jump in the game. Still not convinced? Read our previous blog to learn why Google is worth your investment.

Broad range of targeting  

If you allow your brand to be visible on Google, you can target the most qualified people if you bid on keywords you want to rank in.  

For example, if you are in the clothing industry, then you may choose to bid on keywords like “clothing brands near me”, “best clothes online”, or “clothes for girls”, while also cross referencing them to Google’s all-time search data so you can know how many people are actually searching for those keywords.

You also have the option to select your audiences depending on your target market. If your target market is primarily girls aged 20-45 years old, or parents, newlyweds, parents with infants – then that is something you surely can just easily set in a few clicks.  

Google’s advanced algorithm will make sure that you get the best and most qualified clicks so you can get the results or the revenue that you need. 

Google Harnesses Intent  

The main difference of Google versus other advertising platforms is intent. Unlike on social media where brands reach out to their consumers, with Google, the consumers come to them.  

The algorithm on social media is played differently. For example, when Facebook tracks that you just searched for an item on the app using the search bar or in the marketplace, or you happen to have interacted with an item you found amusing, you’d notice a series of ads on your timeline showing similar products you just searched or interacted with. While on Google, the intent is what really makes the whole algorithm work. The audiences on Google are already in their consideration or buying stage, while on social media, it starts with awareness.  

On the Google search network, you are basically advertising to people who are already interested and are ready to buy anytime.  

You are in full control of your campaigns 

Back then, advertising was tough. Some needed to bust through red tapes, climb the highest billboard, or record a 15-second radio ad for days. That’s the old times. Now, you can just stop and run an ad campaign in one click. 

Google ads is a programmatic kind of advertising where you can just easily set up and leave your ads running and then come back to monitor and optimize them as often as you can. 

If you want to change the budget you previously set up, you can just easily edit it. Or if you want to remove the audiences or keywords that are underperforming, you can just effortlessly delete away.  

With Google, everything’s made easy.  

Get quicker results with SEO 

Many advertisers believe that organic is the key to successful website ranking. That may be true because if you happen to be ranking first on Google’s search engine results, you should be congratulated for the hard work you have done.  

But remember, ads outrank organic so it’s still best to work it alongside your SEO campaign. If you are not on Google yet, now is the time to start your Google journey. If you want to learn more about SEO, read through our previous blog. 

Kickstart your digital marketing journey with us at iManila. With 25 years of experience in the IT industry, iManila has the skills and the experience to help you with your website development, hosting, digital marketing and technical support needs. Drop us an email at [email protected] or contact us through our website to learn more! 

How to Generate Sales using Social Media

The growth of Social Media usage is a huge factor in why social selling has been adopted. The process of engaging with potential customers through the use of social media is continuously emerging. Your goal is to turn your target audience into loyal and paying customers.

If you are ready to move beyond brand awareness and engagement, here are some ways to generate sales using social media: 

  1.   Choose the most relevant Social Media Platform.

When it comes to social selling, the first step is to first determine the right platform where your target audience is most active. Don’t get caught up in the huge world of social networks. Make sure that you consider your audience demographics.

How do you know which one is right for your business? Should you focus on one platform? What about all of them? Choosing the right platform to sell on is similar to choosing the right platform to use as your social media outlet.

If you’re selling products to a more youthful audience, use Facebook and Instagram. If you sell products or services aimed towards businesses and professionals, then we would recommend you try Facebook and LinkedIn. You may also consider YouTube and Twitter.

Take note as well that, the more places you are, the more exposure your brand will have. The more options you offer to consumers; the more customers you will attract.

  1.   Provide Value by sharing relevant content.

Today, content marketing is the favorite method of most marketers. It is always effective to raise brand awareness, build entire communities around a business and, in the end, drive incremental sales. There are also a few pros and cons when it comes to user generated content.

More than 50% of B2B buyers seek out information on products and services on Social Media. Therefore, every business has a great opportunity to create quality content, and once successfully achieved, it becomes the most powerful way to convince prospects to become customers.

  1.   Advertise on Social Media.

One of the fascinating things about social advertising is that there is virtually no limit to your ability to scale. We’re here to tell you that advertising and selling on social media is here to stay.

Social Media Advertising will increase your brand’s visibility by widening the audience of your educational, engaging, and entertaining content. It helps boost your leads and sales by reaching people that are more likely to be interested in your products and services.

There is no better marketing strategy for e-commerce sites than social media ads. No other avenue can deliver consistent and quality leads and gain customers than by creating engaging with your direct clients through social media. It’s important to choose your platform, run your campaign and get the most out of social media ads.

Your future customers are already on social media shopping at exactly this moment. If they aren’t looking for your products and searching for your services, then it means they are probably being served by your competitors. Don’t allow that to happen. 

We at iManila, with 25 years of experience in the industry, can help you set up your Social Media business account, assist you with social media management, social media ads, and your other digital marketing needs. We can help you create, generate and maintain business by engaging with your customers through your different social media platforms. 

iManila is committed to providing our clients with innovative digital solutions. We are a full-service website development and digital marketing agency ready to help you with your website design and development, hosting, and digital marketing needs. Inquire now and message us today!

Benefits of Managed Hosting for Businesses

In the past few years we’ve seen the growth and popularity of the cloud as a channel for businesses to host their data. However, for those who want more control over their data, deploying more traditional means of web hosting is still a viable option. A lot of businesses have a misconception that because they want more control over their data that they would need to invest a large amount for dedicated IT technicians to manage their hosting requirements. This is where our managed hosting services comes into the picture. 

What is Managed Hosting?

Much like dedicated hosting, Managed Hosting is where a web provider (ISP) owns servers that single or multiple customers rent and utilize. With Managed Hosting, it is the providers who manage the hardware and operating system on behalf of their clients. This lets companies concentrate more on their own website maintenance and other business activities as they let the provider do the hosting for them. 

Cost effectiveness 

This is the best benefit you can get from Managed Hosting. Having a managed hosting service contract saves you a great deal of money for having dedicated IT technicians in your company. The right provider can carefully assess what your company needs and cater their service only based on what you need at the very moment. 

Because businesses would be paying for a service, they would need to just incur a monthly fee. This means that the costs are predictable and easy to manage. With the provider doing the hosting for them, any issues that would arise on their side, especially when it comes to uptime and availability, would have to be handled by the provider.

Savings in time and effort 

Fixes such as maintenance of the server, software updates, and data storage would not be the concern of the business as they let their provider manage all of these. This lets the business focus their time and attention to running the business operations and do what they do best. For businesses with no existing IT department, this is a huge benefit as they do not need to hire people or spend time mastering the technology and networks. If you’re wondering if it’s finally time to upgrade your hosting package, you’re right! 

Managed Hosting also means that the company would only need to interact with one party which is the hosting provider, instead of taking matters into their own hands. This frees up the time spent evaluating many different parties involved when managing IT technology. 

Security 

The security of your server is one of the biggest priorities of any business. One of the hallmarks of a good hosting provider is one that can guarantee security. This can range from anywhere to security audits, spam filtering, firewall configurations, and OS updates. The hosting providers should be equipped to have all the tools and experience to deal with any issues related to server security. It is part of their job to cover for any security vulnerabilities and prevent any kind of attack. By having a managed hosting service contract, you can be assured that whenever your server is experiencing vulnerabilities, you have a team you can run to who will easily be able to address these issues. 

Guaranteed Uptime

Because the responsibility of managing the system as well as its troubleshooting is now placed on the provider, this means you are guaranteed of your system’s uptime. Server monitoring is an important aspect for any organization and because constant attention is needed for this, having a hosting provider can go a long way in making sure the network is up and running and is available for your business and your clients. 

Backups 

Data loss is something many companies wish to avoid altogether. This is why regular data backups are necessary to keep your server secure and intact. A Managed Hosting provider can give you that peace of mind because of the measures and processes they have to ensure that your data is properly backed up. 

For any business with a web or online presence, choosing the right hosting package is only the first step. Ensuring that you have an in-house or outsourced personnel to oversee your web and email hosting is another. Don’t lose precious business hours simply trying to figure out how to manage your hosting or server. Ask for help and secure a managed hosting service contract to ensure that your data is backed up properly and your hosting is properly secured and running. 

With 25 years of experience in the industry and as a certified IT company at its core, iManila is ready to help you with your hosting, website development, digital marketing and technical support needs. Learn how iManila can help manage your business’ hosting requirements. 

5 Social Media Strategies for Branding

Did you know that social media has been around for over 41 years now? But it wasn’t until Facebook launched its app a little over a decade ago, when businesses realized that it is actually a great tool for marketing. 

Social media bridges brands to the world. With almost 84% of today’s Internet users already on social media, it is no surprise how it came so easy for brands to build awareness and triple in revenue. On the onset of a business venture, what many experienced marketers and advertisers would suggest is to prioritize building your branding and later on your social media presence.  

To consistently communicate your brand across all the marketing touchpoints is already a lot of work, let alone social media. As a marketer, you should make sure that you communicate the same messaging tone in your email marketing campaign as well as in your social media platform. But how do you speak the same tone across different platforms? And how will you easily capture someone who’s a stranger to your brand? 

The answer is strategic branding. 

Branding isn’t only about fonts, logos, texts, imagery, or colors. It’s an emotion that you want your audiences to feel about you. These are basically unspoken feelings that speak so much about you. If your branding is tacky or messy then people would assume that the product might be messy too. But if you communicate your brand with professionalism and sincere intent, your branding will communicate that for you.  

What is branding? 

What a normal person would think if asked about branding would probably be a brand’s logo, its images, and such famous brands such as Coca-Cola, McDonalds or Apple. Well, people are not exactly wrong about that because these brands have made past the parameters of branding and marketing.  

Take it from Coca Cola. Did you know that 94% of the world’s population recognizes the brand? On top of that, it’s the second most understood word, next to “Okay”. That’s how powerful branding and marketing can be.  

The goal of branding is to create a character for your brand – what it values, what it serves, and how it is beneficial to people. It is generally how you want your brand to be seen. Your brand may not exist forever, but consumer’s perception will.  

Branding goals 

Upon creating your social media strategy, you should think of your objectives and what other things you want to accomplish. These are some common goals you should take note of.  

  • Driving awareness and consideration 
  • Building brand loyalty and trust 
  • Generating leads  
  • Increasing sales 
  • Providing high-standard customer service 
  • Increasing the value of the brand

Common Social Media Strategies 

Once you set up your goals, you should start strategizing your social media, set your target audiences, and start creating content fit for them. 

The following are the top social media strategies that you may refer to in creating yours:  

  • Start with the basics 

Color palettes, lines, shapes, texts, and imagery are your basics. Make sure that these basic requirements for branding swarm across your social media platforms.  

You may play around your banner photo or video on Facebook or twitter, and make sure to make your logo as your profile picture on all your platforms. This is important to allow people to instantly recognize your brand even only by staring at your cover image or reading your bio.  

One tip is to try to create a brand book which will serve as official documentation of your brand requirements as well as the correct usages and applications of your branding elements. It’s crucial that you create a brand book especially if you are working with an agency who manages your social media pages or website. 

Once you’re done with the basics, you may now move on to the intermediate stages.  

  • Improve your visual branding 

If your target markets are the Gen Z and the millennials, it’s apparent that you should extend your visual branding to a higher level. These groups of consumers are visual predators; they do not just settle for lackluster visuals.  

While getting high-quality visuals for your imaging is a good move, being consistent in using images that reflect your brand is also a must.  

Make sure that all the images that you use apply your brand colors or the type of graphics that you usually use. Doing so helps people to easily recognize your brand as the one using those unique styles.  

For example, Apple is known for its monochromatic black, white and gray visuals. While Louis Vuitton is popularly known for its brown-leather canvas with quatrefoils and the LV monogram that is immediately recognizable. While of course, Coca-Cola is very famous for its Christmas polar bear commercials. 

In short words, try to be unique and take time to shape your visual branding.  

  • Develop marketing personas 

Vary your marketing personas in each platform so you can easily resonate your message to them. You may have already set your target audiences in the beginning, but still try to create different personas to capture all different markets. For example, your audiences on Twitter could be millennials aged 22-30 while on Instagram your audiences could be the professional types. This way, you can narrow your content ideas depending on the people who mostly engage to your social media pages.  

  • Establish your brand voice 

This is pretty important especially that messaging is one great factor in a consumer purchase. Your voice should reflect the principles and attributes your brand is trying to build. For example, if your market is families or parents with kids then your brand voice should be tailored for them. Make your messaging more passionate and let it evoke a sense of concern for your target consumers.  

On the other hand, if your target market is the youngsters or children, then make your brand voice fun and relatable. And if they are the elderly, then you may need to be straightforward, honest, and should sound practical and valuable.  

These are only a few of the most important tactics in creating good branding for your social media campaigns and for your business. In this present time throughout the global pandemic, there are also different Social Media Strategies to consider. Whether your goal is to spread awareness or increase your sales, your branding should always reflect who you really are as a brand. 

Having difficult on where to begin? With 25 years of experience in the industry, iManila is dedicated to creating innovative digital solutions through its range of services such as website development, hosting, and digital marketing. Let’s work together to help get you started in moving your business online! Inquire now and message us today.

The Importance of Tech Support for your Business

All businesses are generally composed of individuals who specialize in different fields that add to the value of the company. One such team that many companies usually miss out on is the technical support team. 

Having a technical support department or team is fundamental especially if your business has been highly reliant on online tools and if your brand has been building its online presence. Having a technical support department basically ensures that there is a dedicated team to maintain your hardware and software systems, addressing your employees’ technical or connectivity concerns, and resolving all office-related technical issues.

There will be no perfect situation, especially in the digital realm. In this digital age when everyone is now online, the possible online security issues that you, your website and your emails can encounter is endless. So, if your business has a dedicated technical support team, it will be easier for your team to receive support not just when it comes to troubleshooting common problems, but it will help them get back to their tasks at hand with minimal technical issues and downtime. 

Here are some reasons why a technical support team is very important to your business:

Maintenance 

The main reason why a technical support team is much needed for your business is because hardware and software systems need maintenance. For many companies, if you have a website and you advertise your business online or rely on a system for your daily operations, you need to have a technical support team to assist in addressing common connectivity and technical concerns. Your technical support department is a dedicated team that should be responsible for resolving technical problems, working on technical aspects of a project, or implementing changes on a system as needed. Having a technical support team to lean on or utilize can be extremely useful for your business and helps minimize downtime in an otherwise working operational environment. 

Assistance 

As being said, a technical support team can resolve any technical or technological issue you are facing. Doing so helps other employees complete tasks efficiently and frees you up from doing menial work that may interrupt your usual tasks, business projects or in assisting client and customer concerns. The reality is, in this day and age, your company needs a dedicated and knowledgeable technical support specialist to assist you in handling your network, operating systems and connections. Imagine a whole office with network connectivity issues or with hardware and software concerns – and no knowledgeable person to help out with the situation! What kind of a chaotic office environment that would be! 

Partnership

Speaking of partners, in all businesses it is important to have a partner to help grow your business. So, when you sign a support service contract, you effectively sign a business partner. You have invested in them, and in return they invest in you. A support service builds a relationship with you and is there to assist you and help you grow. They want you to succeed and continue with your usual operations without much distractions. In addition to the business relationship, a personal relationship is also established. The personal relationship with you allows a support technician to tailor their work in a way that is most beneficial to you based on their knowledge and your company’s needs and objectives. 

You may also read through our blog about Tech Support benefits for your business.

Share your goals with us and be our partner in building your brand. With 25 years of experience in the industry, iManila, is an IT company at its core and is now a full-service digital marketing agency ready to help you from your technical support requirements to your website development needs, your hosting requirements to taking your business online through digital marketing. Visit our website at www.imanila.ph to learn more or drop us a message at [email protected].  

10 Tips to Boost your Website’s SEO

For someone who’s foreign to SEO, they say that it’s a slow burn. It’s true that SEO is indeed a slow burn, but regardless, it’s still the only way to rank higher in search engines organically. SEO is vital in making sure that your website is not only visible but also up to date.

There are lots of ways to know what is SEO and how to run a search engine optimization campaign. In this blog, we’ll provide you some tips on what to do to help boost your website’s SEO. 

Don’t Disregard your About Page

When you visit a website’s homepage, the next page most visitors click on is the About page to learn more about the brand and what it can offer. After all, the About page is the second most visited page, while the homepage remains to be the most visited one. Making brief yet understandable information about your brand keeps your visitors staying longer – which tells search engines that your website is of high importance and should be taken seriously due to many visitors staying longer on it.

To add more dazzle on your page, why not add a picture of yourself or your team members and at the same time, detailed information about what you do and your company’s mission and vision. Don’t forget to add important keywords related to your business to let search engines better understand what your brand is about. 

Your Homepage is also important

As important as your About page is your Homepage. Just like the detailed information in your about page, your homepage should also be filled with words relating to what you can do and the services or products you are most known for. While images may not be enough, make sure to have some written copy on your homepage. You can add a short description or a preview of your about page that will help increase visits to your inner pages.

Images need to be Optimized too

You’ll notice that most creative websites are filled with images. Aside from it being a part of their creative brand, having optimized images on your website also helps for ranking. Make sure to optimize those images to avoid having a slow website loading time, which affects the website ranking in Google searches.

Our tip: upload files that are not larger than 2,500 pixels. That’s enough to have high resolution images on any screen.

Fix your Titles and Descriptions

In Google Search, keywords are powerful, and so are your titles and descriptions. Use keywords that are relevant to your target market as visitors will click when they scroll through search results. But take note – not everything should be in your titles and descriptions. Pick out the most important words that will stand as your keywords. And make sure to keep it between 30 and 60 characters for titles and between 70 and 140 characters for descriptions.

Get your website certified with an SSL Certificate

More than putting the right information on your website – your website must be protected and security must never be a last priority. As visitors, we want to make sure that when we visit a website, it is protected from harmful problems and viruses. It is also important in search engines to have an SSL certificate to know that your website is secured and protected.

To secure an SSL certificate, iManila offers different packages depending on your needs. This ensures that the data shared between your website and your visitors are secured, encrypted, and safe from any hackers or intruders. This is apparent when the “padlock” symbol is present before the website’s URL and the https protocol becomes visible on the client browser.

Add a Blog Page

Having a blog page is one of the most essential needs prior to starting an SEO campaign for your website. This page will give you the opportunity to add more content and photos related to your brand. Much more is that you can write articles and hit targeted keywords for better ranking. Just choose the best blog content you want to feature to keep your visitors interested and coming back to read more. Having updated articles and blogs will greatly boost your website ranking in search engine algorithms.

Research on the best Keywords

As ‘Keywords’ are being mentioned several times in this blog, it is because it’s very important to research on the best keywords related to your brand to keep your website visible and in high ranks in search engines.

To intensify your keyword research, you can use Google Search Console to look at what keywords people are typically searching when they find your website.

Build your backlinks

Backlinks are links from other websites to your own. It is like a form of promoting a website from another website. Backlinks from other reputable websites with lots of traffic adds validity to your website in search engines. Backlinks typically happen organically when you publish great content on your website. Great content usually gets recognized by other websites and is organically shared without incurring additional costs. For websites that are very eager to rank higher and get backlinks immediately, you can contact high ranking websites directly to request for backlinks, or in some cases, pay for a guest post. Just make sure that you request a backlink from a legitimate and valid website that is related to your business. Otherwise, getting a backlink may just result in a higher bounce rate to your website. 

Avoid 404 pages

A lot of marketers often forget that as they focus on perfecting their SEO campaigns, that there are some 404 pages on their website – which is the page where your visitors end up when visiting a page that does not exist. 404 pages are basically roadblocks to visitors. This stops the flow of traffic between pages and often users who experience 404 pages drop out of the website immediately. Make sure to check on all of the pages to see that everything is working smoothly. 404 pages essentially does not help your website increase in ranking. 

Always connect your website to Google Analytics

This is highly important especially for someone who relies on results. Google Analytics lets you understand everything you want to know and all the data results you need for better understanding and future recommendations.

Google Analytics won’t help improve your SEO, but it will give you the chance to understand your users better and tell you what you may need to improve on in your website to help you rank better on search engines.

Now that we’ve mentioned these tips to help you get started on your SEO campaign, the next step is to stay updated with the latest trends to be visible and be on top of search results in the long run. As we said earlier, SEO is a slow burning process but well worth it in the end once you are ranking versus all of your competitors. 

iManila is your next big partner when it comes to website creation, website maintenance and website optimization. With 25 years of experience in the industry, iManila is a full-service website development and digital marketing agency ready to help you with your website design and development, hosting, and digital marketing needs. Let’s start your online journey now!