TOP 7 STATISTICS THAT SHOWS YOUR BUSINESS SHOULD INVEST IN DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION TODAY

Digitalization has brought numerous changes to the way we do things. Today, digital technology plays a vital role in the success of your business, regardless of your industry. In fact, to excel in the marketplace, there is every need to embrace emerging technologies, trends, and cultural shifts.

Digital transformation is the new way of excelling in business. So if you need to secure your financial future, you need to invest time, energy, and money into the digital transformation of your company, not tomorrow, but today. With a robust digital transformation strategy, you’ll be equipped with every resource you need to be ahead of your competitors.

We at Haelsoft understand the positive effects of leveraging digital transformation for your business, and we’ve put together these top 7 statistics that shows your business should invest in digital transformation today. These stats are sure to convince you.

Smart Companies Are Already on their Path to Digital Transformation

According to Converge technologies, 76% of companies feel their relationship with technology and digital transformation is on the whole, average, or above average. What does this mean for your business? This means the majority of other companies are already trending towards the bright side (your competitors inclusive). When you fail to embrace the gift of technology in your business, you could fall behind your competitors.

A Great Number of Your Customers are Online

Index Mundi states that more than 50% of the world’s population is under the age of 30. With over half of the world population being under 30, there have been more digital savvies and budding savvies than ever before. Because this generation is more likely to make decisions based on information gotten online, and purchase products and services online, there’s significant reason to invest in digital transformation continually.

More Cost-Effective and Available, More Results.

According to CMO Center, 39% of today’s marketers plan to boost their digital budgets without increasing overall marketing spend, essentially allocating their current budgets into digital channels. This widespread adoption of digital channels is because they’re abundant and cost-effective and have proven to yield more results more than traditional means of marketing.

Digitalization is the Future of Business

Forrester highlights that by 2020, 47% of all revenue will be influenced by digital. The went ahead to report that 47% of execs expect digital to influence more than 50% of sales by 2020, This basically means that digital technologies will become all the more sophisticated in the nearest and distant future. With more technologies introduced, embracing the power of digital transformation is the only way to remain relevant and grow faster.

Digital Innovations are already Yielding Results

In a survey carried out by Gartner, they discovered that 56% of CEOs feel that digital advancements have already led to boosts in revenue. With digital transformation proving to be a primary goal of business growth and acceleration, it’s crucial now more than ever to invest in digital transformation as a way of facilitating your company’s growth.

Top Class Digital Solutions are Pivotal to many Digital Business Strategies of Today

Hidden Brains has reported that 61% of enterprises said that the Internet of Things (IoT) is crucial in their digital business strategies, with manufacturing and high-tech leading all other sectors. Though these concepts are yet to become known in the Nigerian market, by investing in IoT and other latest innovative tech solutions, you stand to be ahead of others.

Digital Video Consumption is becoming more popular with each day.

Smart Insights highlights that 80% of today’s consumers’ content consumption is video-based. This means that although print media is relevant, it’s now less potent than it used to be. Today’s customers have advanced and even prefer visual contents and other forms of advanced content formats. To engage with your audience, you need to go digital and provide engaging marketing materials that are video-based or more consumable.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it’s evident that digital transformation and adoption are the most sustainable means of staying successful in the market today, tomorrow, and long into the future. If you’re yet to adopt digital channels in your business strategy, now is the best time to embrace the unrivaled power and potentials of digital transformation before it’s too late for your business. One of the easiest ways you can get started is by adopting digital marketing as a way of increasing sales and business growth. We wish you the best in your business endeavors.

ARE YOU A NEW ONLINE BUSINESS OWNER AIMING TO HAVE A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE? READ THIS!

Do you have an idea or working on developing your idea into a new business, but wonder if there’s too much competition in the industry for you to succeed? One thing is sure; the presence of other businesses in your niche doesn’t mean your business won’t make it. When you have a healthy competition, it means there’s a market for what you’re planning to offer.

Competition is normal, and the key to helping your business break into the market with a competitive advantage is to offer something your competitors don’t, do what they don’t do, or reach out to customers in a way that your competitors don’t.

However, for you to know the angle to capitalize on, you need to understand your competitors’ weak points. In this blog post, we x-ray some of the ways you can seek out your competitors’ advantages and weakness so you’ll know how to approach the competition.

Explore Your Competitors’ Sites

This is one of the biggest steps you should take if you mean to know what your competitors are up to. Set aside time to visit the competitions’ website and go through every page and link to ensure you cover all areas. Some of the things you should be looking out for include;

• Which products or services do they sell and where do they feature them?
• How easy did you find their products?
• Does their website allow you to filter through product categories for you to make a selection?
• Which call to action do they use to encourage customer conversion?
• What neighborhood do they serve? You should know this for you to be able to recognize your immediate competition and your indirect competition.
• Which form of contact process do they use? Contact form, contact details or both.
• Do they have an easy to navigate check out and shipping process?
• DO they have shipping/return/refund policy and how easy is it?
• Is there website professional and organized or amateurish and cluttered?
• How fast is there website?
• Is there website mobile responsive?
• What payment methods do they accept?

Take notes on each website you visit. You’ll get a sense of which areas they’re weak in and how you can offer a better customer experience in those areas. When you carry out an in-depth website analysis and make strategic decisions based on your findings, you’re sure to have a competitive edge.

Keep Tabs on Your Competitors’ Social Media Accounts

This is called Social Listening. Social Listening, which is keeping tabs on your competitors, followers, and industry on social media, helps you stay informed on what your competitors are doing on social media. As you may know by now, social media is a great tool when it comes to capturing leads and engaging with customers. You can look out for what they’re promoting, how their followers are responding, and what types of conversation they have with their customers on social media.

You can either do this manually (which is stressful) or use social media tools like Hoot suite to follow and analyze competing companies and brands and also follow conversions around specific keywords. With active social listening, you can find out areas where you can outperform your competitors based on the things they don’t do right.

Always Check your Competitors’ reviews

Reviews are comments/appreciation dropped by customers after buying a product or getting services delivered to them by a brand. Scoping out your competitors’ reviews can give you a sense of what customers like most about your competitor’s product or service delivery. It also tells you what they’re dissatisfied with and what they’ll like to see from a business in the industry.

With this information, you can make necessary adjustments to your own business as to give your customers the best customer experience which will lead to them leaving you an excellent review, coming back for more, and referring others to you.

Carry out a competitive SEO Analysis

A competitive SEO analysis can help you find out ways to outrank your competitors in search engine result pages (SERP). This goes beyond the normal studying of the competition’s website explained above. It includes;

• Identifying keywords that customers search for that your competitors don’t focus on.
• Researching, ranking and comparing keywords
• Incorporating the most relevant keywords in your SEO strategy and website content.
• Developing relevant contents which include keywords and answers popular questions among customers.
• Optimizing your pages, section titles, tags and meta descriptions with relevant keywords.

SEO analytics requires a full-time commitment and most times you’ll need appropriate tools to get expected results. Depending on the web hosting plan you choose, you may get SEO services as part of your hosting plan.

Conclusively, monitoring your competition takes time and effort, especially when you’re just getting started. In addition to the avenues mentioned here, there are other channels to monitor your competition. Though it takes your time, effort and resources, the time you invest in it is worth it as monitoring your competition will equip you with the information you need to make strategic decisions for your business.

When you know what your competitors are missing, you’ll know how best to meet your mutual customers’ needs, earn their loyalty and as every business owner wishes, grow your business to greater heights.

8 IMPORTANT THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE BUILDING A WEBSITE FOR YOUR BUSINESS

Probably, you’ve read about the importance of having a business website for your business from our blog, or you’ve heard it from friends, family and business associates. Or maybe you’ve decided to get a website for your business to help you reach a wider audience and intensify your marketing efforts, among other benefits of having a business website.

Kudos! That’s a first step; the decision phase.

One thing you should know though is that though it’s a rewarding experience, building your own website takes more than clicking away on your mouse. In this piece, Upperlink.ng, an experienced and reliable web hosting provider in Nigeria intimates you with the top eight things to consider before building a website for your business.

What do you wish to achieve with your website?

This is a vital part of creating a website; the aspect where you mentally design your website according to what you wish to achieve. However, many business persons or would-be website owners fail at this phase because they do not truly understand what they want out of a website, especially when you have no expert guidance. Any are known to get it all wrong and create an unsearchable blog when what they need is a functional website that’s capable of accepting booking and payments.

A common mistake made by inexperienced individuals who try to set up a website themselves is choosing the wrong WordPress (WordPress is the most popular and most used Content Management System (CMS) on the web). There exist wordpress.com and WordPress.org. While the former is hosted by WordPress and acts more like a blog, the later allows you to host your own website or blog, upload the CMS and add desired plugins.

If you wish to get a business website, it’s natural you consult with an expert. It’s right that if you want something done correctly, you consult experienced and skilled personnel in that industry.

What do your customers want and how do they behave online?

So you’ve made your decision and know what you wish to achieve with your website. You move to the research phase of setting up a site for your business. You try to answer questions like, “Who are your customers?” “What are they looking for?” “How do they search for information online?” “Do they prefer written content or photos?” etc.

Though research is an iterative process that you should never stop doing, it’s important to conduct one at an early stage of the website development process. This will help you design your website according to your customers’ need. With time, constant monitoring and updating of the website according to your customers’ behaviour is also advised.

Domain Name

Yes, your business name is fantastic and is peculiar to you in your area. However, on the internet, it’s a different ball game. You might not be the only one utilizing the exact name and you might not be the only one to have thought of such an amazing name.

Focus on getting a domain name that’s creative, saleable, unique, interesting and memorable. With this, your customers can trace you online and refer your website to friends without much hassle. A good web hosting company like Upperlink.ng can inform you of domain names that are free and those that are not and can also give you domain name options based on your business name.

Go for a professional, but ensure the person/company suits your style and budget.

It’s normal for you to be tempted to employ an unprofessional but cheap service to help you develop your business website. That your friend, relative, spouse or partner might have helped you set up a social media account, but it’s not the same as a website. He has the idea, doesn’t mean he will do it well. At the same time, some web development agencies charge thousands to set up a small website that’s more generic than peculiar to your business.

Bottom line is; find someone that understands what you want and suits your budget.

Sitemap

A sitemap is a map that comprehensively shows all the pages in your website. It’s like the blueprint of your website. Just like an architect wouldn’t start building a house without a plan (blueprint), that’s how a professional web developer won’t start developing a website without a sitemap.

The sitemap is vital for your SEO because it makes it easier for search engines like Google to find all of your web pages and rank you higher than your competitors on Search Engine Result Pages (SERP).

Content and Design

The nature of your business will determine the type of content you have on your website. If you have people in your business that can write contents, you can decide to go with them. However, you may want to contract expert website content writers and designers to attend to this professionally. Almost know that if you follow shortcuts and unprofessional routes, you might not get what you desire.

Website Development Takes Time

Building a website is not something that’s done in a hurry. It takes a while to finish even for seasoned pros who have been in the industry. Even after finishing it, it takes a lot of testing time to fine-tune it to what can be used on every device. Only after these testings is the website ready to be hosted on the internet.

Surely, you don’t want to give your first website visitors an ugly experience that will lead to them leaving you a bad review.

Maintaining A website Requires Commitment

Once your website is live, work has started. Many make the mistake of assuming all work is finished immediately the website is up, running and receiving traffic through different channels.

NO!

Never leave your website stagnant. Search engines are attracted to an active website with contents and feature regularly added and updated for the benefit of the users. It shows the website is alive and can be a source of assistance to the numerous customers searching for information and where to buy products and services online.

Conclusively, spice up your marketing strategies with SEO efforts, social media and email marketing that’ll help drive traffic to your website and create more awareness about your business, what you stand for and how you operate. People will not locate your website by magic if you don’t put effort.

As a premier website hosting agency in Lagos with years of experience in the industry, Upperlink.ng has helped numerous small and medium scale businesses set up and run their websites effortlessly through providing saleable, unique and reliable domain names and web hosting. We’re still in the business and are always eager to support your brand and help your business reach out to a broader audience.

Contact us any time for assistance.

Good luck with your business website!