After several weeks of work, and crashing the site the night before go-live *DOH* I am excited to announce the launch of the new Cassius Blue Consulting website. For those of you that have followed our blog since the beginning you’re probably wondering why I have chosen to update the site so soon. A key to running a successful business is agility, if your business dictates change you must act in order to continue to grow.
There are 3 key reasons why I chose now to upgrade the website. 1) More options, 2) New Services, 3) Metric Analysis.
More Options
I decided to move the site to WordPress. WordPress offers a lot of features and plug ins that add functionality to your website that would require hours of development work to incorporate on a traditional website. Here are my top 5 plug-ins for word press:
- Better Author Bio: This plug in adds a cool author bio {like mine below} after every post automatically. Great for when you have multiple bloggers or guest bloggers.
- Related Posts Slider: There are oodles of related posts plug-ins that proposes additional content for readers to view. The related posts slider formats these suggestions into a cool slider.
- PopUp Domination: This is a paid plug in, I haven’t implemented it yet but I have seen it used all over the web and it is a key plug in for building lists. This plug-in prompts users to sign up for your list in exchange for a freebie of some kind. The templates are sophisticated and easy to implement.
- Disqus Comment System: It is rare that people will sign up for your blog in order to comment. Disquis comment system replaces the WordPress comments and gives users the ability to comment using their Facebook, Twitter, Disqus or other accounts.
Ultimate TinyMCE: The WordPress WYSIWYG editor is very limited this plug in gives you more control over the look of your blog posts and comes with these really awesome smiley’s.
New Services
In 2011, I launched with just consulting services in order to gain exposure for Cassius Blue Consulting and build a solid reputation. During the past 6-months I have asked questions of my clients and social media followers to get a good understanding of what their needs are beyond consulting. So I’m elated to launch the new marketing execution service.
- Marketing Planning: We now offer the benefit of a professionally written marketing plan, and because your marketing plan is not meant to be a static document we swirl in a little consulting to ensure that you understand the contents of the plan and how it is used to grow your business.
- Social Media Management: Social Media Marketing allows people to connect with your business, your brand, and you. Through social media you have repeated interaction with prospects so that when a need arises for your product or service you are top of mind and that prospect quickly converts to a paying customer. Allow Cassius Blue Consulting to help you to ‘unlock’ the power of the social media.
- Website Evaluations: The Cassius Blue Consulting Website Planning & Evaluation service provides you with an objective analysis regarding what changes you need to make TODAY to turn website visitors into paying clients, ways to integrate your website into your other marketing initiatives.
- Sales Process & Relationship Management: Implementing a relationship marketing approach to sales and customer service you can capitalize on these benefits for your small business. We can help you to develop sales & customer service process that save you time & make you money, implement a customer relationship management (CRM) system that simplifies your day & builds relationships, and plan & launch your customer appreciation program to increase referrals & improve customer satisfaction.
Web Metric Analysis
I always remind my clients to consistently review their web analytics to see what is working and what isn’t. Based on a decreasing time on the site and the fact that most of the links that visitors clicked on required them to scroll down I knew it was time for some changes to create a better user experience.
So what do you think of the new site? The new services? When was the last time you updated your website?
