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As a small business owner, having a website is crucial to your success in today's digital age. If you don't already have a website, or if your current website is outdated or hard to use, it's time to consider investing in a new one. Here are 5 reasons why your small business needs a new website:

1. Reach a wider audience: With a website, you can easily share information about your products and services with potential customers from all over the world. This can help you expand your customer base and increase sales.

2. Improve your credibility: A professional-looking website can establish your business as an expert in your field, which can help you attract more customers and build trust with potential clients.

3. Save time and money: A website can streamline your customer service process by allowing customers to find answers to common questions on their own. This can save you time and money, so you can focus on running your business.

4. Stay competitive: In today's market, having a website is increasingly important for small businesses. Without a website, you may be at a disadvantage compared to your competitors.

5. Gain valuable insights: A website with built-in analytics can provide valuable data about your visitors, such as where they are coming from, how long they stay on your site, and what pages they visit. This data can help you understand your audience better and make informed decisions about how to improve your website and marketing efforts.

In conclusion, a new website is a crucial investment for any small business looking to stay competitive in today's digital age. With a new website, you can reach a wider audience, improve your credibility, save time and money, and gain valuable insights about your customers. Don't let your small business fall behind, take the first step towards a modern and effective website today by scheduling a demo with Webware. Our team of experts will work with you to understand your business needs and create a website that will help you reach your goals. Don't wait, schedule a demo with Webware today and take your small business to the next level!

Digital marketing is constantly evolving, and as we move into 2023, there are several trends that small business owners should be aware of.
 

Video Content:
One of the biggest trends in digital marketing is the continued rise of video content. More and more businesses are using video to engage with their audience, and this trend is only set to continue in 2023. Whether it's live streaming on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, or creating engaging videos for YouTube and Vimeo, video is a powerful tool for reaching and engaging with potential customers.

Personalization:
Another trend to watch out for in 2023 is the increasing importance of personalization. As consumers become more savvy and more selective about the content they engage with, businesses will need to find ways to tailor their marketing messages to individual customers. This could involve using data and analytics to create personalized email marketing campaigns, or using AI and machine learning to personalize the customer experience on a business's website.

Influencer Marketing:
In addition, the use of influencer marketing is also set to grow in 2023. Influencer marketing involves partnering with social media influencers who have a large following in your target market and using their influence to promote your business. This can be a powerful way to reach a large audience and build trust with potential customers.

Chatbots:
Finally, the use of chatbots is also set to increase in 2023. Chatbots are AI-powered software programs that can simulate conversations with customers in real-time, providing quick and convenient answers to common questions and helping to improve the customer experience.

In summary, digital marketing in 2023 is all about video content, personalization, influencer marketing, and chatbots. Small business owners who want to stay ahead of the curve should consider incorporating these trends into their marketing strategies.

Need help with website and digital marketing for your small business? Join over 4000 business owners like you that are a part of Webware. Book a Growth Session with us and let’s look at your current efforts and if Webware is the right fit for you.

How AI is Driving Growth and Success for Webware Clients
Webware is excited to announce that it has already launched over 100 websites using its latest AI-driven website content creation feature, powered by ChatGPT. Leveraging the power of AI, Webware has been able to create high-quality websites and digital marketing content that is more likely to attract and convert target customers.

How AI Content Creation Can Improve SEO and Attract the Right Customers
Using AI-driven content products can give websites greater results with SEO and target the right challenges that are being searched for by the most likely good-fit customers. This means that businesses can attract the right customers and see an improved online performance.

The Benefits of Using AI for Website Content Creation to Save Your Time
In addition, using AI content creation means less work for business owners. Instead of spending time and resources on producing content, businesses can let AI handle it for them, freeing up time to focus on other aspects of their business.

Webware is thrilled to have launched over 100 websites using its AI-driven content creation feature powered by ChatGPT and looks forward to continuing to use AI to drive growth and success for its clients.

For more information about how AI can benefit your business, request a demo with one of our digital marketing experts at Webware today.
 

Once upon a time, LinkedIn was only known as a job-related social media platform "for professionals". Now, with over 700 million active users, LinkedIn has become the second most used platform for B2B marketers.

As a small business owner, LinkedIn marketing should be another priority on top of having an active Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram presence. However, in order to do that, you will need to understand how LinkedIn works to make sure your presence is felt.

Unlike with other social media platforms, obvious sales tactics and spamming your business will not work on LinkedIn. People are not expecting you to sell products or services on LinkedIn. What they are interested in is the information and expertise you have to share. Marketing on LinkedIn requires a different approach if you want to get results.

To help you add one of the world's largest professional networks to your marketing toolkit, we've listed some tips and tricks to help you scale your business.

1. Complete Your LinkedIn Company Profile

Did you know that Company Pages with complete profiles receive up to two times more visitors than those with incomplete page profiles?

For a complete profile, it’s essential to have the following items:

• Logo
• Company description
• Website URL
• Company Size
• Industry
• Company Type
• Location

To fully complete your LinkedIn profile, head to your Company Page and select “Overview.” There you can upload a high-resolution image for your company logo as well as a cover image that represents your brand. Along with that, filling out the "About Us" section will provide your visitors with more information.

Beneath the "About Us" section, you will find more fields to complete your profile by entering your website URL, company size, industry, type, and location. All of this helps make your business' LinkedIn profile look more legitimate and professional, giving potential customers the opportunity to connect with you.

2. Get A Custom URL.

As part of your LinkedIn marketing package, you can claim a custom URL for your business. This makes it easier for people to remember your brand if they want to contact you, especially when they search for your company online. This is especially useful in the B2B sector where people use LinkedIn regularly to learn more about a business.

3. High-Quality Content = High-Quality Returns

Content is king and the more you post, the more likely you are to get tangible results for your business. LinkedIn helps improve their user experience by integrating content natively into their platform, videos included. All content you post should accomplish either of the following goals: teach people to solve a problem or how to do their job better.

Not only will this make you become a thought leader in your space, it will lead to more business by delivering more value to your customers.

It is also important to brand your LinkedIn profile the same way as your website and other social media accounts for consistency. This includes imagery, colours, content tone, and more.

4. Create A Regular Posting Schedule

According to LinkedIn, businesses that post at least once per month gain followers 6X faster than those that don’t. However, you should aim to post at least once per week to keep your followers engaged. To help you post consistently, create a scheduling template so that you can easily plan your posts each week.

We’ve found that LinkedIn content performs really well if you include a descriptive caption, eye-catching images, and relevant hashtags. As a bonus, you can add emojis, questions, and bullet points to switch up the look and feel of your content.

5. Every Connection Can Lead To A Business Relationship.

LinkedIn is a social network for professionals to connect with other professionals. As a business owner, you can connect with prospects, partners, and other business owners to reach your goals. You will also be able to reach your target market with the ability to nurture them through the buyer's journey.

Once these connections have been strengthened, you can decide which should be developed into business relationships and which can continue as connections.

6. Join Groups And Stay Active.

By joining relevant groups, you will be able to participate in relevant discussions to better reach your target demographic and learn what your competition is doing. Groups are an excellent way to listen to what your audience is talking about and answer any questions they might have. On top of that, being a part of a group gives you access to more connections than ever before.

7. Boost Your Email Marketing List.

Linkedin lets you communicate with fifty people at a time, a feature that should be taken advantage of to increase your email list. You can include a link for them to sign up for your emails directly along with a special offer. Offer to look at something of value for them in order to generate goodwill and get some replies.

8. Target Specific Segments With Sponsored Posts

Unlike other social media platforms, LinkedIn offers a very specialized advertising platform that is unparalleled. You can zero in on the exact industry, company size, and job roles to reach the people who typically buy your products or services.

For example, if you are selling translation software to small businesses in Canada, you can set your campaigns to only show for businesses with under 100 employees, that are based in Canada, and only to executives at those companies.

9. Promote your Company Page Beyond LinkedIn

A LinkedIn marketing strategy on its own will not get you results. It is essential to promote your presence across different channels in order to maximize your growth.

For example, have a link to your LinkedIn profile in your marketing communications, email signatures, blog posts, and more. You can also add a LinkedIn “Follow” button to your website and make it easy for people to share content at any point throughout their reading experience. By adding a LinkedIn “Follow” button to your landing pages or using sticky social media sharing buttons in your blog posts, you set yourself up for long-term success.

LinkedIn is an untapped market for many small business owners. As one of the top digital marketing service providers in Toronto, Webware.io wants to help you take advantage of every tool there is to help you grow your business.

If you’re a small business owner and know that you need to take advantage of social media platforms like LinkedIn, but don’t have the time to learn and manage these tools on your own, we can help you. Webware.io gives you the expertise, tools, and support to help your business navigate your digital channels. To learn more about our services and how we can help maximize your business’ exposure online, please click here.

If you have any questions about how we can help with your digital marketing needs, we’d love to hear from you. Please contact our experts here.

Dear valued customers,
 
In light of the escalating situation regarding coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic Webware is taking various steps to manage and respond to the evolving circumstances around this pandemic, while following the guidance of local health agencies who are monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
In order to assist in the prevention of further spread of the virus, Webware is currently undertaking social distancing measures to ensure the safety of our employees and continuity in service to our customers through employing a ‘work from home’ strategy. 
 
Webware will strive to ensure that these measures cause little to no disruption in expected service levels, but ask for your patience as we transition into this temporary working arrangement.
 
The team at Webware also requests that our customers and partners look to see how they can be good corporate citizens going above and beyond to assist your customers and partners to the best of your ability in these challenging times.
 

View a message from Cory York, CEO & Co-founder - Webware

At Webware our greatest asset is our people and in an effort to be of greater assistance to our customers, we are going to unleash the power of our people through the COVID Support Hotline.
 
In the last 24 hours we have established a 24 hour/7 day a week hotline for Webware customers who may require assistance during this time. If the service can be performed over the phone or internet, we are here to help. 
 
Whether it’s arranging a doctor’s appointment, getting updates on the Covid virus in your area or waiting on hold to change travel arrangements we are here to assist. If you have any questions or require our assistance, please feel free to reach out to covid19@webware.io or on our Toll Free Support Line at 1.844.WEBWARE ext. 5
 
As circumstances evolve, please know that Webware is doing everything we can to manage and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the safety of our employees, customers and partners in mind. At Webware our goal is not only to deliver the same level of great service that our customers have become accustomed to, but to go above and beyond to assist you.

Webware is always working to improve our Digital Services Plan to help our clients reach more potential customers and improve their bottom line through Digital Marketing.

This week, we are excited to announce Instagram images for your blog posts.

Starting in March 2019, all Webware Digital Service clients who participate in the blog program will receive social media images they can use on their Instagram account.

The Instagram images will include a professionally designed social media image that includes the title and the main points of the blog post. We will provide one main image for a post and subsequent images breaking down the blog post points for your Instagram story. For example, the image seen below.

By adding this feature to our blog program, you’ll be able to reach a larger audience by posting your blog link on Instagram with an eye-catching image and share your blog post through Instagram stories. Click here to view an example of how this new feature will look on your Instagram.

This new blog feature is included for all Webware clients participating in the blog program as part of the Digital Services Plan.

Webware will start rolling out Instagram images over the next couple of weeks so keep an eye out for them in your blog draft email soon!

If you haven’t taken advantage of our blog service, now is a great time to get started! Once you receive your monthly blog email, choose a topic and fill out the form to get started!

This feature is only available to Digital Service customers. If you are not enrolled for our Digital Service Plan, click here to join.

If you have any questions, please email support@webware.io

At Webware, we create and send out thousands of email campaigns a month for our customers. After building newsletters on the usual email marketing platforms, we felt the options available out there were too complicated. So we decided to make our own. 

Today, we are announcing the launch of "Newsletter".

"Newsletter" is the easiest email marketing platform you have ever used and it's available for free to every Webware customer right now!

Say goodbye to using those other complicated email marketing tools. Webware’s Newsletter platform makes it easier than ever to send out beautiful, engaging email newsletters. Stay in touch with your customers using our user-friendly newsletter platform right from the Webware dashboard.

First and foremost, it's simple to use. With "Newsletter", you can select the customers you would like to send an email to, write your email, upload images, style your text and click send. You can use an existing template or build your own format with "click and drag" boxes. Or if you know HTML, you can customize away. 

Once you've sent out the email, you can track the success of your newsletter. With Webware’s Newsletter, it’s simple to see if your newsletter is reaching clients and how effective it is. Easily keep track of how many people have opened your newsletter, clicked on the content in the email, or unsubscribed. Easily create a follow-up campaign to customers who showed the most interest by creating a new list based on clicks.

To learn more about how to use Webware's "Newsletter" email tool, please click here. To learn more about Webware's complete digital toolkit for business, please click here. 

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Webware.io is now integrated with Fedex, the world’s largest express transportation company. Webware customers now have access to Fedex’s shipping service right from their Webware workspace.

Enabling Fedex with your Webware website allows you to manage your entire online business from a workspace you already use.  Track and fulfill orders right from the same place, your Webware workspace.

Setting up Fedex with your Webware site saves you time too. You won't need to add any shipping rates or setup weight slabs (for example, 1kg = $2.99, 2kg = $4.99, etc). The shipping rate is automatically integrated into your shopping cart during checkout, based on the weight of the items and the zip/postal code entered. This shipping rate includes delivery fees and pickup fees.

Activating Fedex on your Webware website makes shipping easier and streamlines your e-commerce process. Take advantage of Webware’s newest integration and simplify your shipping today!

Since our release of Webware 2 in February, we’ve gotten so much great positive feedback on our new platform. We’ve also received requests for even more features from our customers, and we’re listening!

Our team of developers are hard at work improving our platform and adding features.  Here are some new features that we’ve recently implemented.

Photo Uploader Enhancements

Now it’s easy to upload beautiful photos to your Webware, even from your mobile phone!  We have two great improvements to our photo uploader that make the process simple and the outcome stunning.

1) Upload your image from anywhere. When you’re uploading a photo, you can now grab your photos from anywhere, including Dropbox, Instagram and more, and easily import them to your online store. Have a great pic on your mobile phone or on Facebook that you want to use? No problem!

2) And edit your photo right there. Once you’ve uploaded your snap, you can make it look beautiful in seconds with stunning filters, frames, stickers, touch-up tools and more from Aviary.  Edit your image right there -- including cropping, resizing, and special effects – and your image will be updated automatically.

More Currencies Supported

We’ve added support for two new currencies, the Singapore dollar and Hong Kong dollar.  As we’re expanding our customer base across the world, we will continue to add support for more and more currencies.

We now support all of these currencies for purchases on Webware online stores:

• Canadian Dollar (CAD)
• Euro (EUR)
• Hong Kong Dollar (HKD)
• Indian Rupee (INR)
• Russian Ruble (RUB)
• Singapore Dollar (SGD)
• US Dollar (USD)
• United Kingdom Pound (GBP)

New Themes

We have three new responsive themes: Sushi Delight, Contemporary, and Fashionist.  Each of these themes is mobile-responsive, so your online store will look great on all devices and screen sizes. We’re continuing to add new themes every month!

Webware customers, it’s easy to change your store’s theme. For complete instructions, read our support article on Changing Your Theme.

Automatic Upgrades

As always, all software upgrades are done seamlessly and automatically and do not require any action on the part of our merchants. It’s all part of why Webware is so great!

Our #1 priority is to help our customers create successful online businesses.  We hope that these new features help you to get there.  And thanks for your support!

Mobile internet is a big trend we are seeing today, especially in Asia where computers are a luxury. Webware is taking mobile very seriously! Today we are announcing our first major step towards becoming a mobile-first product company.

A few days ago, our core dev team pushed our mobile upgrade live! This is a hugely important landmark that we’ve been working towards for over a year.

With the newest Webware release, here's what went mobile:

1. Three new mobile responsive themes (with more on the way)

A “responsive” website means that the page layout changes as the screen size is changed from narrow to wide and back again. Each of our new themes has been created with a smaller screen size in mind, and the ability to scale to a large screen as well, to ensure a great experience for all.

See how this page has reconfigured itself to 3 different screen sizes: 

Isn’t that cool? For those of you who already have a Webware, in order to make your site mobile-ready, you need to upgrade your theme to a responsive theme. Check them out here. It’s very easy to change themes. For a tutorial on this, click here.

This is a totally new framework that we have introduced to enable this awesome feature! For our techie users, you will want to know that we have enabled "Foundation" as the selected technology.

2. The entire checkout (payment) process

When a user is shopping on your responsive theme they will enjoy a completely mobile friendly checkout payment process. This is really important for helping your customers complete a successful transaction right from their mobile device!

3. All standard system pages 

When you create a new page in your Webware, you select from a library of page layouts and templates. All of these page layouts are now mobile friendly. Simply change the content as you wish and all changes will reformat for the tablet or mobile experience, as long as you are using one of our responsive themes. We have already seen a few customers quickly convert to the new responsive themes. Check them out with your phones!

Scott Morgan Fine Art - http://www.scottmorganfineart.com/

Tia & Tan - http://www.tia-tan.com/

With our new responsive mobile-ready designs and system pages, you can make your Webware available to anyone on any device.

From the home page all the way through to checkout, visitors can now browse and buy products on Webware websites with their computers, tablets, or mobile phones.  In this new mobile world, you can have a huge advantage over your competition.  Get started now!

View our Responsive Themes

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