KNOWLEDGEBASE

CHOOSING AN ADVERTISING METHOD

A big question when choosing your advertising method is:

• What is my budget and length of commitment?
  Marketing shouldn’t be perceived as a quick test. Marketing is always driven by data and the marketing tends to improve gradually as the data factors are absorbed and reacted to.


• Who is my market?
  do they seek my products/services (pull marketing) or do I need to push my products/services in front of them (push marketing)? Pull marketing is Google Ads or Search engine optimisation where people looking for you seek to find you and can successfully find you there. Push marketing is billboard advertising or social media advertising where you put information in front of a broad group and test results against different outcomes across different locations, ages, expected net incomes etc.

CHOOSING A WEBSITE TYPE

HTML vs WordPress vs Shopify

• HTML
  - Clean sheet of codes that are flexible for anything you can dream of or may need down the track. HTML codes are universally available snippets of code and structural coding systems to customize anything.
  - Pre-existing designs are available to take ideas from.
  - Fast performance, reliable, low maintenance.
  - Largely-easy, self-editing solutions available.
  - Similar timeline to build, as Wordpress or Shopify or other type.
  - Can host on Sumo Media hosting and retain access for editing, or host elsewhere in which case we will send you the files so you can set that up elsewhere.


• Wordpress
  - Pre-existing designs available to take ideas from.
  - Relatively easy self-editing for new-comers.
  - Similar timeline to build, as Wordpress or Shopify or other type.
  - Can host on Sumo Media hosting and retain access for editing, or host elsewhere in which case we will send you the files so you can set that up elsewhere.


• Shopify
  Shopify is great for businesses with many products that want a full scale ecommerce solution with “save to favourites” features, “you may also like” features and dynamic shipping with different rates for different locations and the like. Shopify carries a subscription fee with it.


• Others
  Generally the other options on the market should be avoided as there are many unknowns It's best to work with professional developers/marketers. For support go to www.quote.sumomedia.com

WEB/APP VS MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT?

• A web app is like a website but on a mobile device it can look and feel like an app. It will not sit in the Google Play or Apple stores though, only mobile apps can. It cannot access some features that a mobile app can, such as the list of contacts in your phone or other data and access that is only available from connecting to your phone's hardware; which a mobile app does. A website/web-app is connected to the browser not the device, however technology is fast solving some solutions to bridge the gap but we are not there yet.
• For more information on developments go to https://sumomedia.co/services/development/

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION

Search engine optimisation boils down to 2 core factors.

• On-Page Optimisation
  - This is the structure, design, content, incentives, functions, researched-application and meta-data construction of your website. This step is critical for Google rank to acquire free traffic. What we are looking to achieve is time on a page + a click after that time. The time only counts if there was a click afterward so that Google knows you were still engaged that whole time and that the website is offering you deep content.


• Off-Page Optimisation
  - This is, indexing with Google, backlinking and blogging. Backlinking is when you get other websites to link back to yours. You only want high quality backlinks of 50+ domain score or to balance the time generating backlinks in the most favourable format, so if those high value backlinks are taking too much time to generate then you might like to compensate by lowering that score a little and gathering more links accordingly. There are countless tips and tricks to backlinking effectively. And the system can change at a whim, meaning the most careful backlinking team will normally win at that point.

BLOGGING

Blogging is how you generate more and more keywords that become targeted. But you need to be careful not to create junk content. You want valuable content and be sure to use a professional to assist with adding some backlinks to that blog.

When writing your blog, focus on first creating as many headings as you can to paint the journey of the blog. Then try to fill the content between headings such that each blurb leads gracefully into the next heading. This will help to build a strong, lengthy blog, rich with information but also to retain that reader for longer. Entice clicks by inserting links inside the content. These links inside content are in fact the most valuable according to Google.

SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING

Targeting is insanely good with Social media ads. These social platforms are all about gathering data so that they can on-sell services attached to that data. That’s where you come in, and utilise that platform to market your products/services. After that targeting occurs though it is in the hands of the end-users to decide how far and wide your marketing lands, so this is where the targeting weakens from the perspective of exclusively showing to who you want and strengthens in terms of reach if your promotion is good enough. Use ADS platforms not organic social marketing. By using proper paid ads you get access to functions that you otherwise wouldn’t and it can pay off.

For more information go to https://sumomedia.co/services/social-media-marketing/

NURTURING

An enormous oversight of a lot of businesses is the lack of nurturing built into their “after-lead” processes or in nurturing their “existing client base”. At Sumo Media we build systems fit for purpose such as CRM’s, SMS and communications systems and more. Follow us to learn more https://www.facebook.com/sumomedia.co

For more information go to https://sumomedia.co/services/messaging/

HOSTING

There are essentially 4 types of hosting that concern most people:

• Domain hosting
  - where you buy your website address. We recommend going to https://domains.google.com/registrar to purchase this subscription.


• Website hosting
  - This is separate to the domain hosting and we recommend using Sumo Media for this as we have high-end hosting, benchmarked against, cheaper hosting solution competitors.


• Mobile App
  - Generally when you build a mobile app you host it on the stores. If that isn;t possible you can host with Sumo Media and just point your customers to the download to their devices, via your website by a link. It will cost around $180 per month though for this type of custom hosting


• System hosting
  - This is when your website or software has complexities, integrations, databases and so forth. Your typical cheap website hosting solution may have trouble hosting a “system” for you. At Sumo Media we try to benchmark against the cheap website hosting providers but provide more flexible hosting solutions.

PAYMENT GATEWAYS

HTML, WP and Shopify all have the ability to integrate various payment gateways. Such as Paypal to Paypal, and for credit cards; Paypal or Stripe or Eway or Square. We think all payment gateways except Paypal require a commercial bank account.

Businesses choose to work with different payment gateways for different reason. Here are some popular options and their standout differences that we have find while working with them.