Red Kite Creative

CRM

Weekly Links Roundup – Top CRMs, Polling Plugins, Nonprofit Content Strategy, Local SEO

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The top website and online marketing links of the week.

Do you currently use CRM (customer relationship management) software for your small business that you like? Tell us about it in the comments below!

But if you don’t, and you’re looking for one, here’s a review of 9 top CRM software tools for businesses. CRMs help you track notes, leads, contact info and much more for each of your customers. I use Freshworks for my helpdesk so am looking into Freshsales by the same company.

Would you like to collect visitor feedback or run surveys on your site? Of course there are plugins for that! Learn how to use a WordPress polling plugin on your site. The linked post contains reviews and usage info for a number of popular polling plugins.

If you run a website for a nonprofit, this is for you – learn about content strategy for nonprofits, including the planning, development and deployment of your site’s content.

Finally… Brightlocal (a company that provides services geared to improving local SEO) did a big study of the Google Analytics data of over 11,000 local businesses to look for trends. Although over 92% of consumers search for local businesses online,what’s “normal” traffic for one industry may be completely different for another. As you might have guessed, car dealerships, restaurants, hotels, entertainment and local stores got the most inquiries, while cleaning, marketing, and landscaping companies were at the low end of traffic.  How did your company’s Analytics stack up against the others in your industry? Let us know in the comments below.

Did you find this information useful? Please share with your friends and colleagues! And comment below with questions or observations.

Weekly Links Roundup – Site Structure, CRMs, Membership Sites

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The top website and marketing links for this week.

Starting your website off with a solid site structure (or Information Architecture if you want to get a bit more technical) is important and usually not too hard to do. But keeping that structure as your site grows can be more difficult – check out those huge menus and category lists you see on some complex sites! Note the lack of breadcrumbs that can help you see where you are at any given point. Learn how to recover that great site structure and improve UX as well as SEO.

Are you using a CRM (customer relationship manager)? If you’re not, consider doing it: it will help you consolidate all the information you have on clients and contacts all in one place. They can also help you manage the sales process and communications. Read reviews of 9 CRM services all under $25/user. I’ve used Insightly in the past with success and am currently trying out Capsule.

And finally… if you’re running a membership site, how do you make it more engaging and more interesting for members so they’ll keep coming back for more? Here’s a guide to 11 methods for increasing interactivity for your membership site. It’s geared toward WordPress but the ideas will apply to any site (even if the implementation is different).

Be sure to check out our Start-of-Summer specials at WP Minder. If you like peace of mind, that is.