#wordpress specialist

The most efficient way to cut down on time and money. Alter the existing WordPress theme to fit your design rather than creating one entirely. We are here as a wordpress specialist

The selected website template must generally be according to your concept of the site's function and design. In general, changing the colors is simple. The overall look and feel are a bit more complicated. It requires even more time and effort to include E-commerce widgets already available in plugins or WordPress. Do not have or transfer data from another platform or incorporate third-party applications. When the required plugins aren't in use or are not functional enough. Our Wordpress Experts Provide you best services.

How To Customize a Theme

There are many ways of customizing the look of a theme.

Manually, using the WordPress customizer.

With code

With Elementor

How to Manually Customize a Theme

You can alter the theme you prefer by using the built-in WordPress customizer. 

Before we get into this, we'd like to note that if you modify an existing theme using WordPress, it's recommended you choose an additional theme instead of the theme that you're using as your parent. We are best at  wordpress theme development

WordPress Child Theme

The child theme can alter and modify the theme without impacting the parent theme and without losing the capability to upgrade it. 

WordPress Theme Customizer

Let's discover how to personalize themes using The WordPress customizer. To get access to it, choose a theme from the theme repository. Go to your dashboard, click the Appearance tab on the left side, and then select to customize the theme.

The Pros and Cons of a Custom WordPress Theme

There are at most two significant benefits. The first is that you are free from the constraints of a template. With a custom theme, you can create your unique WordPress website and incorporate any particular feature to satisfy the needs of your business. An original design and layout can aid in making your company distinguish itself from your crowd. This is why it's essential to use a custom-designed web template.

The most common objections to a website are the potential costs and time impact. As time passes, the components may become old. The used WP features can prove to be weak, too. These vulnerabilities will likely be simpler to fix in the theme by deactivating the function or creating an equivalent version rather than waiting for WordPress to correct it. Also, don't forget to consider the extra costs of hosting for WordPress, website maintenance, and support following your customized WordPress theme delivery.

The time to develop and the cost will depend on the required design, functionality, and style. Research, write down your needs and then prioritize the conditions. A clear understanding of your project's extent can help make a more precise quote. Cut down on the number of changes required, and avoid any cost for changes later. And then expand your WordPress site as the company needs to grow.

There's a wide range of professionals and businesses that offer WordPress design and development. Custom-built themes need at the very least a designer and developers to develop. Full-service agencies with two types of experts in their teams are typically extra costly. 

Sometimes, an experienced WP developer turns out to cost higher than an outsourced company. Whatever you choose to do with your project is essential that you know their work and its reason. For example, developing a WordPress custom plugin might be inefficient when an existing plugin could be used. However, custom WordPress plugin development may be helpful for a particular part when there isn't an available solution. It is also necessary to know how your new site is developed, starting with any WP themes frameworks. 

WordPress Frameworks

Frameworks are an organized set of terms and functions designed to serve in the creation of themes. It provides the basic features, which can include drag-and-drop features and sliders to SEO widgets and more. 

Theme frameworks can be misunderstood as parent themes. The truth is that any theme can be converted into a parent theme and then employed as a different child theme. However, a framework must include many more features, including templates files and options screens, various add-ons or APIs owned by the developer, built-in widgets, and other tools such as design layouts that can decrease the necessity for plugins.

Frameworks drastically reduce the development time for developers, as they eliminate the requirement to write everything by themselves. 

WordPress is a framework that promotes: WordPress framework also encourages:

Flexibility If the needs are changed, the designer can     quickly return and make the required design changes. The regulated     commented and well-documented code enables you to grasp the function and     to increase it if needed.

Robustness When you pick an item from a trusted     WordPress framework, you are confident that it's robust and quick-loading.     Frameworks that can adhere to WordPress code standards and can be used     with plugins that are well-written. Frameworks further help you stick to     industry standards and best methods.

Security: You will receive 24/7 assistance from     experienced developers and community members that support the framework.     When you have issues or need to change your WordPress website.

 There are many WP frameworks, both paid and free, available. Some frameworks for business use are a one-time cost. At the same time, others have a yearly fee to continue receiving upgrades and help.

Genesis Framework Genesis Framework is the biggest and most well-known premium framework designed for forward and intermediate developers. 

It's secure, well-coded, and search-engine-optimized right out of the box. Its designs are responsive to mobile devices. It's loaded with the essential WP page elements. Like headers, layouts for pages, templates, backgrounds, and customized widgets. The choices for customization vary from changing the color palettes to removing or adding elements to the page. Genesis is agreeable with the majority of available plugins. Its flexibility and versatility make it ideal for all kinds of WP websites.

Conclusion

Email marketing isn’t dead. Heck, it’s not even dying.

In fact, it can be one of the best marketing tools for engaging leads and converting them into customers, especially during this weird COVID time.

You’re probably thinking, “That’s a BIG statement.” It is, but it’s also a true one. And we’re prepared to prove it to you.

Email Marketing is Alive and Kicking Butt

2020 has been quite a year. And we haven’t even reached election time yet (gosh, that’s a scary thought). When COVID-19 hit, we all cringed as we watched the stock market fall. But not all was lost during that unprecedented time.

According to data collected by Mailchimp that compared email engagement during March and April of 2019 versus 2020, the averages this year were better than last year. Click rates and open rates were up, and unsubscribes were way down.

Mailchimp also found that people wanted to hear from their favorite businesses more frequently – like every week. And smaller companies saw a more dramatic increase in engagement than larger firms. How cool is that? We’re all about encouraging small businesses as much as we can right now because, let’s be honest, this year’s been ROUGH.

If you still think email is dying out, check out Adobe’s 2019 Email Usage Study. They surveyed over 1,000 people in the U.S. and found that consumers spend about five hours a day checking email. FIVE. HOURS. A DAY. They also said people prefer receiving offers via email over social media, direct mail, and other popular marketing types.

Why Email’s Still One of the Best Marketing Tools for Growing Your Business

In 2019, the average adult spent around 3½ hours using the internet on their phone. Just imagine how much that’s increased during the pandemic. I know it has for me because my iPhone sends me regular phone usage reports. Ouch.

While this can feel depressing and unhealthy in a sense, it creates a big opportunity for email marketers and online businesses. Here are six reasons email is still at the top of its game.

1. People will check their email anywhere at any time, several times a day.

Let me ask you a question. When was the last time you checked your email? Or better yet, how many times have you checked your email today so far? And where all have you checked it? LOL.

If you’re an average American, the answer is a lot and pretty much everywhere – at work, during a Zoom meeting, at the dinner table, in the bathroom, in bed, even behind the wheel. Email has become an integral part of our daily lives.

Our job, as marketers, is to be in our customers’ inboxes regularly with messages that grab their attention. Figure out the best send times (when the most people on your email list are opening and engaging), then send them content they’ll love.

2. You can build trust through authentic relationships.

Engage with your audience. Be sincere and authentic. Personalize your emails so your contacts feel valued. Spend some time allowing your audience to get to know you – your personality, your quirks, and what you care about in the world.

Later on, when it comes time to sell your product or service, you’ll have a list of loyal followers who are ready to buy from you! That’s good stuff.

3. Email is cheap and has an amazing ROI.

Seriously, the ROI is insane. For every buck you spend on email marketing, you can recoup $42. That’s a 4200% return on investment!

4. You can segment your lists.

Mailchimp found that segmented campaigns have a 14.31% higher open rate and a 100.95% higher click rate than unsegmented campaigns. Unsubscribes are 9.37% lower, and bounces are 4.65% lower, on average. Those are some pretty dope reasons to segment your lists.

When you split up large contact lists into smaller segments, you can make your emails more specific and engaging for different groups of people.

5. You can automate emails to magically send on their own.

Need to send out a “welcome series” to new subscribers? Want to remind people who abandoned their shopping carts to finish checking out? Do you have blog posts you’d like to send to a specific list regularly?

Email automation allows you to engage with contacts in your sleep. You can create a workflow that sends out a series of emails or a single email to specific people based on certain criteria. Automation has the power to save you time while increasing engagement and sales.

6. Track, analyze, test, and improve performance.

Another awesome benefit of email is the ability to track and measure results. Watch your open and click-through rates to see how you should tweak send times, subject lines, body copy, calls to action, and contact lists.

A/B testing allows you to test two versions of the same email to see which one performs better. This insight can then help inform future campaigns.

Does Your Email Marketing Need a Little TLC?

Are you frustrated, confused, or at a loss when it comes to email? You don’t have to do it alone.

If you need help with email marketing setup, strategy, or implementation, Fingerprint Marketing would be thrilled to help. Book a consultation with us today!

The post Why Email Marketing is Important for Business Leads and Conversions appeared first on Fingerprint Marketing.

When you first create your website, everything is working and it’s all shiny and new. But then, it starts to get older, it’s not as exciting anymore, and you likely stop giving it the TLC it deserves.

Much like a car that needs regular servicing and oil changes – your website needs that too! (Well, not the oil change, but the maintenance.)

If you don’t keep up with your website maintenance, your website is going to stop working and no one wants that! Regular maintenance on your website keeps your website working and in good condition. 

Here are some things I recommend when it comes to keeping your website healthy that we do for our clients:

Backup your website daily and in full. Many hosting companies will tell you that they back up your website in full but in truth, they only partially back it up. If your website goes down, you want to be able to restore it quickly and restore all of it. You don’t want to lose your blogs, images, or content – that would be such a pain to start over. Full backups on a daily basis are important. 

Plugin Update Compatibility. Make sure any security updates for WordPress or any plugins for your website are playing well together. Your website is made up of different parts and functions and sometimes they work against each other when they are updated. Even though you may start out with everything being compatible, that doesn’t mean everything stays compatible. One example is Chrome and Explorer. When the browser is updated, it can affect your plugin’s ability to work the same as it did before the update. If you have a website maintenance service company like Fingerprint Marketing, one of the things they’ll do for you is test each plugin every time there is an update and make sure that your website is still functioning properly. It’s not uncommon to update a plugin and have it affect your website’s ability to load quickly or show all the features. Testing it beforehand and then checking that everything works well after the update – it’s going to give your website longevity. 

Monitor 24/7 that your website is up and it’s working. You never want to be the one who discovers your website is down. Leaving it to chance can mean it’s down for a considerable amount of time unless you are clicking on it frequently (and even then ANY downtime is bad!). If someone goes to your website and they get an error message, that’s lost sales opportunities. People rarely return to a website that was down, they think it’s a broken link and move on. It’s beneficial to have someone keeping an eye on it 24/7 and be able to restore it quickly should anything happen (see: The High Cost of First Impressions). We know that many of you rely on sales from your website. Don’t neglect to make sure it’s always up and running! 

Site updates. Make sure you add new content consistently. Google indexes websites that are active, but stops going to websites that don’t add new content. If you are not active on your website, it ultimately affects your SEO negatively. Think about how you can add new content in the form of blogs, podcast summaries, announcements, etc. so that you maintain your traffic. Many of our customers hire copywriters or appoint content creators to make sure they are consistent about adding quality, SEO-friendly content to their websites. Google rewards this!

Maintaining your website is going to pay off. 

If your site gets hacked, think of how much money it’s going to take to reproduce that content and rebuild your site if there’s no backup. It’s going to be a lot more time and money than it would be for a monthly fee to a website maintenance service company.

User experience is equally as important, keeping customer’s top of mind. You want to make sure to stay on track with what is trending. For example, when Google made the decision to push mobile-friendly websites up in the search rankings, people who weren’t staying current didn’t make any changes to their mobile experience and lost traffic. Paying attention to the trends keeps you from missing out.

Website maintenance is truly as important as the oil changes and routine service on your car. If your website is not functioning properly, if you have a broken link, or if something is missing, the person who’s looking at your website and deciding if they’re going to choose your business, is going to bounce. 

You never want a potential customer to close your website and not return. 

Make sure you have a web care process in place or hire someone who knows how to do it for you.

Book a free strategy call for a live audit of your website and how regular WordPress maintenance can help you land more customers. 

The post Why You Need Maintenance on a WordPress Website? appeared first on Fingerprint Marketing.

If you’ve ever visited a website that was so visually overstimulating that you instantly felt the need to escape it, you’re not alone… and if you’re a business owner with a website, it’s time to take a hard look at your own piece of virtual real estate and make sure you’re not serving up a dish of hot mess to your site visitors.

Welcome to the first in a series of posts where we’re going to share some of our biggest secrets to getting your website found, keeping your visitors interested, and turning looky-loos into loyal customers.

    The Good Ol’ Days

We all know that the internet has changed the way we do business. We can no longer expect that our customers are so loyal to us that they would never even think of doing business anywhere else.

Also gone is the decade where a one-page website with a little info meant you were solid in cyberspace.

Times have changed — have you changed with the times?

  What We Want

It’s common knowledge that IF a potential customer can find your website, that you only have a few seconds to “wow” them or they’re outta there.

We want so badly to make a good impression and to let our website viewers know everything we do, how we do it, why we do it, how much we want to do it for them, why they need to hire us to do it, and how to contact us so we can start doing it, that we might just be giving them too much information. Worse yet — giving them the WRONG information.

And that’s just the homepage!

  What Our Customers Want

Neat, tidy, attractive, informative, secure, easy to read, simple to navigate.

That’s a pretty short list — sounds manageable, doesn’t it?

True – the list is pretty short. And yes, very manageable — IF you know what your homepage needs to keep your site visitors interested and interactive.

  Fashion Faux-Pas

There are fads in website design just like there are in fashion, furniture, and facial hair. If your website is stuck in the 2000s, your competitors are going to eat you alive.

And in this day and age, it’s about so much more than just design — you must consider the content. What is on each page of your website and is it serving its intended purpose?

Let’s take a look at what should be on your homepage so that you can attract your ideal customers who want to come back to do business with you again and again — all while ignoring your competition.

  Homepage Essentials

Just like the importance of curbside appeal when selling a house, your homepage is where your visitors are going to decide to stop and look inside or just keep driving by.

  Who You Are, What You Do, and Who You Do it For

The best way to capture the undivided attention of a website visitor is to quickly speak directly to them about what is already on their mind.

Your company name, logo, what you do, and who you serve should be the first thing they see so they instantly connect your business to what they are looking for. Let them know they are in the right place to get their problem solved, their needs met, or their desires satisfied.

      The top of your homepage should be a LITTLE about you and a LOT about them.

Design matters here: Make sure your colors, style, branding elements, and info is clear and what will be used consistently throughout the site. They see it here, they’ll see it there, they will see it everywhere… so make it good.

Words are important, too. Remember, this is critical curb appeal so keep the word count low, the value high, and the read easy. PRO TIP: Even your most educated, affluent, or sophisticated site visitors appreciate a quick and easy read.

  Let Them Get More Info

Invite your viewers to opt in (sign up) for something that is very valuable to them in exchange for sharing their e-mail address. Then, keep your promise — send them good stuff: reports, videos, e-mails… whatever. Capturing these leads gives you the opportunity to continue to communicate with them so they will come to know, like, and trust you.

    Video and Images

Some like it, some don’t. There are people who prefer to watch and listen while others would much rather read it for themselves.

Video is a powerful way to deliver information and compel people to take action. If you use it (and we encourage you to!), be sure to include good copy (words) to describe what the video is about and then some highlights from the video (not a full transcript). Adding the copy will keep the attention of someone even if they choose not to watch the video.

Select your images very carefully. Avoid stock photos — you never know where else your site visitors have seen them (and what they were representing). Even a couple of high-quality images will go much further for your business that dull, boring stock images.

Remember that people process information differently so include a little of everything so you can appeal to a wider audience.

  Your Story

Consumers aren’t just looking for the lowest price on a product or service. They might think they are at first, but what will really get them to connect is to form a relationship with YOU and your business. They will buy into WHY you do what you do, not just the “thing” that you sell.

It’s this simple: Details tell, stories sell.

Even if you have an “About” page on your site, tell a bit of your story on the homepage to let your site visitors get to know you. It’s important to them… and it’s important to your business.

No, you don’t have to tell everything about you and your life — this is about how and why you do what you do. What got you into this business. What is your own story of transformation?

This part of your story can be mixed with your credibility builders.

  Make It Easy For Them

Make it so easy for this person to do business with you, that they’ll take immediate action. Be clear about what your site viewer needs to do to call you, come in, order, find out more, get questions answered, etc. Answer the questions before they even pop into the viewer’s mind. This will keep things simple for them and also hold their objections down. Don’t depend on a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page to answer all of their questions — the most pressing info and questions should be provided or pre-answered on your homepage.

  Content and Copywriting

There’s a difference between content and copywriting (check out this blog post on the subject) but for now, we’ll just say this about that… Content serves to inform, educate, entertain, and build relationships. The purpose of genuine copy (copywriting) is to compel someone to take action. That action might be to sign up to get your free newsletter or it could be for them to press a button and spend thousands of dollars.

On your homepage, be sure to use some of both. Provide value and build relationships with good content (something that will really help the site visitor) and also use great copywriting that will compel them to do the next thing, whatever that is, so that they are taking a step in the right direction to get their problem or pain point solved.

If you have a blog page (and you should!), you can have starter content for a new blog on your homepage and then link to the blog page to access the rest of the article and see other blog posts. Post blogs regularly — don’t let your readers see that the latest post is from 2013, this makes you very out-of-style! PRO TIP: Don’t add dates to your blogs.

  Build Your Credibility and Social Proof

Tell your visitors why you are the expert. What is your education, training, and experience? Why should they listen to you? How have you helped other people? Remember, this is the homepage, though, and you want to keep it brief and relevant. You can add these credibility points in with the homepage portion of your story and put more details on your “About” page.

People are inherently skeptical and will believe what other people say about you before they will believe what you say about yourself (you are trying to sell them something!)

Having a couple of testimonials on your homepage is a great way to have satisfied customers speak on your behalf. If you don’t have testimonials yet, start gathering them and use them throughout your site. Even if you have a dedicated testimonials page, it’s good to have them sprinkled around so your visitors see them even without visiting that specific page.

    Navigation

We can’t say it enough. Your website should be clean and simple, even if you go with high design and even if you run a very complex business. Clutter is just that… clutter.

Be sure to include a menu on your homepage where your website viewers can easily click to get to other pages and information. Make it easy for them to get back to another page.

Include your social media links and invite them to meet you there. Don’t worry if you don’t have 10 social media networks going — whatever you do, do it well and post on it frequently.

  You May Only Have One Chance

Overall, keep in mind that your homepage may be the ONLY chance you have to connect with a website visitor. It’s always good to gather feedback on your website from your customers so don’t be afraid to ask them to fill out a quick survey or provide comments. You may have looked at your own site so many times that you’re no longer seeing the clutter so you MUST look at it through the eyes of your ideal customers.

Need a little help with your homepage? Contact us — we would love to meet you and show you how we can help you do better business with a better website!

  The post What Your Website Home Page MUST Have to be a Valuable Asset to Your Business appeared first on Fingerprint Marketing.

What your website needs NOW to Attract & Convert Business?

Here are some tips I have for you. Check them and I’m sure you’ll attract more clients!

Make sure all the directory listing are up to date

Claim your business.google.com directory listing

Content – Follow the answer formula by Marcus Sheridan

Mobile Ready Website (making sure you have that you have a secure https on your website)

Adding photos and videos on your website

Put a phone number or live chat for easy communication

Google yourself and google your competitors so you can stay ahead of the game

Making sure you have someone outside of your business that can give you honest feedback, this is really helpful!

  The post What your website needs NOW to Attract & Convert Business? appeared first on Fingerprint Marketing.

Social Media for your Manufacturing Business

Social media should be included in every marketing budget. Social media channels are the places where your company can attract attention, share technical content, and engage with customers who are looking for guidance, updates, and solutions to their technical problems. Considering the importance and the variety of all the marketing channels of social media: Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Blogs, it’s no wonder marketing through social media is so critical to growing your manufacturing business.

Let’s take a look at how manufacturers can use some of these social media channels:

YouTube: Creating videos is not only a fantastic way to spread the word about your product line but also a great way to up your rankings on Google. Everyone is familiar with the ongoing marketing campaign of GoPro; They are pros at encouraging their fans to create videos using their product. The result is a memorable campaign that spreads the word about their product line and gets customers involved and excited about the product.

Instagram: with over 700 million users, Instagram is one of the biggest social media networks. Businesses around the world use Instagram to raise brand awareness, generate leads, and increase sales. Sven Alwerud, the founder and CEO of Jelly Skateboards, said, “it’s a powerful tool to display what we’re all about and how customers live that lifestyle. Instagram is invaluable—if you want to get more customers, you want more engagement, or you want more conversions”.

Blog: Using this channel allows manufacturers to provide relevant and dynamic content that their buyers want. Providing information like updates on industry trends, technical specifications, applications, and solutions, will appeal to the types of buyers in the manufacturing business and help form a solid vendor partnership. Because a manufacturer’s blog is an opportunity for technical keyword-rich content, it can also improve your search engine rankings.

LinkedIn: This is another well-known and respected channel that companies are using to advertise to professional audiences. LinkedIn has a wide variety of advertising products to promote your Company, including; ads that send direct messages to your target audience, advertisements that appear in the LinkedIn news feed, text ads, and more. Businesses are successfully using LinkedIn to increase their lead-generation campaigns and conversion efforts.

Pinterest: According to Marketing Week, there are 100 billion pinned images and 2 billion boards on the site. As an advertising platform, Pinterest can be used to share information, pictures, and customer testimonials. Manufacturers would be wise to make quote boards and videos on their Pinterest accounts to increase customer engagement.

Twitter: Using Twitter effectively can provide customers with quick bits of information about your company, industry news, and events. Twitter is excellent for communicating with your customers, make sure you respond to their comments and questions to build trust, and lasting professional relationships.

Digital marketing through social media channels can increase sales from existing customers, bring new customers to your website, and help build lasting professional relationships with your customers.

Keep navigating through our next series posts:

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