That time of year has rolled around again.  The holidays are in full swing.  We’ve stuffed ourselves to the gills over and over the past two months and now, as we loosen another belt notch and try to squeeze into our new clothes that just fit last week, we make a couple resolutions.  We start each year with high hopes for the changes that we believe we can make in ourselves.  We resolve for more dieting, more exercise, working harder, studying more, spending more quality time with family, etc. etc. etc.  What about your business resolutions?  What are you going to do this year that’s going to help your business get that little extra boost it needs?  I’ve got a few ideas if you’re not quite sold yet on what your business resolution should be:

The wonderful world of websites is a lot of things, ‘impossible’ is not one of them.  So, you’re in the market for a website and you’re not sure what route to take?  Well, that’s no cause for panic.  A totally personalized from the ground up, fits like you wish your favorite jeans would fit, brimming with all the bells and whistles kind of site might be what you’re dreaming of, but not necessarily what your dusty wallet can afford.  First off, that’s OK.  Your business is not going to end.  You can unpack the getaway car, there’s no need to run.  You can DIY.  I repeat, you can DIY.

With Black Friday coming up the day after tomorrow and Cyber Monday just around the corner, I thought I’d let you all in on a sweet little deal I like to call Merchant Warehouse.  Before starting on my Sprocket journey, I had no clue who Merchant Warehouse was or why it was super important to have such a great company for payment processing.  Now I realize it makes all the difference in the world.  Forget, for a second, about the loads of other benefits MW offers –let’s skip to the obvious benefit, they guarantee that they will save you money.   Literally, if they can’t save you money by switching to them, they will give you $100 for your time.  I’d be hard pressed to find a company that works that hard to make sure that the customer is happy.  One thing that I’ve found when dealing with them, they care if the customer is happy.

This article has been updated on 3/21/2019 with the article entitled “Keep Your Website Content Fresh to Stay Searchable"

When planning out how you’re going to pull your website together (and even after you already have it all together!) remember something very important, the content on your site is absolutely one of the most important components.  I’m not going to pretend that all of you know what SEO means, because I didn’t know what it meant before either.  SEO is search engine optimization.  Basically, search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. are out there scouring the web trying to find some relevant, fresh, and substantial content to fill their searches with.  What does this mean for your business website? UPDATE YOUR CONTENT, do it often, and keep it relevant to what your customers are looking for. 

Think you’re ready to take the jump and design your own website?  What’s next?  Choosing a color palette!  This is a much more important step to designing your website than you may think.  Arguably, one of the most important aspects of any design is its colors.  Sure, you want to gain some attention with your color choices but, you also want to make sure that it’s positive attention.