In the digital age, one of the most important aspects to growing your business is having a strong online presence. Social media is key to promoting growth, but it all ties back to one place: your website. Without a strong website as your foundation, your online presence will remain stagnant and it will be increasingly difficult to get your company seen online.
At EZ Inflatables, not only do we want to provide you with high-quality products, we want to share our knowledge and experience in the inflatables industry with you. In this blog series, we will cover some key features for building/ improving your website so you can develop the know-how to maintaining a successful site.
In this first blog of the series, we want to talk about the basics of getting started: how to plan ahead and the options you have when building a website.
1. Strategize
With any project, it is essential to plan ahead and know the direction you want to go. Do not jump into site building blindly. Learn about your customers, understand what their journey will be when visiting your site, and use that as a starting point for the type of content and designs you’ll have on your website.
What exactly are they looking for? What are they interested in reading? What words and designs will draw them in? Keep these questions and more in mind when approaching your site design and take the time to research your customer base. Potential customers are on a journey when visiting your website, so make sure it is one that is to the point, convincing, and makes your company look like the best option for them.
2. You Have Options
If you’re new to the website design world, creating your own site may seem daunting. Coding?? Hosting?? SEO??? It can all sound like a technological headache. Luckily, there are so many programs, sites, and people out there who can help you succeed.
Understand that you have lots of different options. If you feel comfortable taking on the task of designing your own site, go for it! If you want to hire an in-house web designer to maintain your online projects, more power to you! If you want to hire a freelance web designer to get your website started, make that happen! There are so many ways to get your business online and they all just take a little bit of research and understanding what will work best for your own business.
If you decide to go the route of building your own site, look into your options. If you’re not an experienced coder, programs like Wix, SquareSpace, and WordPress provide easy drag and drop templates that allow you to design your site with ease. There are also programs like Event Rental Systems (ERS) that are catered to the event industry specifically and allow you to edit your site through their software while it tracks and books orders/ reservations. We’ll have more information on ERS at the end of this article.
If you decide to hire a freelance or in-house web developer, be sure to take the time to educate yourself on some web design basics so you can better articulate your ideas for your site and understand your web developer’s work. This makes the job easier for your web developer and you get the results you’ve been looking for while also understanding the steps it took to get there.
The most important thing to remember when getting started is that you have options and there is an infinite amount of resources out there to help you along the way (including this blog!) Don’t let the vastness of the internet intimidate you. When you get down to the core of website design, it’s not too difficult!
This was our first blog to kick off our series on website improvement! Stay tuned as we release more articles in the coming months about design, SEO, and more!
About Event Rental Systems
We asked Rob Weinstein, Owner of Event Rental Systems, Inc. to tell us a little bit more about his software. If you’re in the event planning/ rental industry and have been considering revamping your software, check out ERS! Here’s what Rob had to say:
Event Rental Systems known as ERS by their users is the leading software system for the inflatable industry with over 1300 companies and close to 10,000 user accounts worldwide. Chosen over 5 to 1 over their closest competition the system allows for real time ordering and smart suggested add-on sales. They release over 120 new updates and features per year and even hold their own industry conference called ERSCON. Here are some of the key benefits included in ERS:
Real time ordering
Automated sales and marketing
Automated truck routing.
Real time vehicle tracking
Automated paperwork and contracts
Digital paperless options
Free mobile app for drivers
Automated surveys
Tax reporting
Integrations with QuickBooks, leading email marketing packages such as Constant Contact, Google Analytics and Gmail, etc.
The system also comes with a customizable CRM and if that wasn’t enough, an SEO friendly, state of the art website with click and drag editing also comes included with the system.
They have a 30 day free trial and a Facebook Users group with over 700 active users able to help out day and night. Finally their customer support is over the top. Check them out at www.eventrentalsystems.com or call 505-435-9731.
