On Friday, January 8, 2016 we launched a Business Finding Directory from our Valparaiso Indiana office. We felt and know that the only way to grow was to make a difference by changing what businesses have done in the past. We knew there were dozen, possibly hundreds, of companies that were doing the same thing. We saw they all were focused on either charging the business or the consumer. We felt both should be allowed to get their good and positive words out there without having to spend a fortune. For those that wanted greater exposure they could advertise to get that exposure but at a cost that even the smallest company could be part of.

Based on customer and our sales team requests we needed to find a solution for our restaurants to get them increased exposure without adding costs to our restaurant clients (currently the largest part of our business). To do this we needed a solution that could provide value to them without increasing their already tight operating costs. As we built our system it expanded from being specific to restaurants to being built for any type of business. Rather than just listing coupons businesses can now offer products, services, and coupons.

We are starting the year off about how to prevent abandonment issues with your eCommerce site. Abandonment issues are the true killer of any eCommerce site. We are going to cover the major issues that we've seen in regard to visitors coming to an eCommerce site and abandon their shopping cart.

We send out monthly emails like most businesses that have a marketing strategy to stay in constant contact with their customers. Email is extremely effective in getting your information in a person's inbox. Text marketing will take your email marketing to a new level that is read more often, more quickly, and is great for time sensitive information.

As a web design, eCommerce, and software development company we are obviously biased that a company needs a website to be successful. We will do our best in this article to step back and explain why your business truly needs one and why just having a Facebook page (or no page at all) is not a good business decision.

In 2016 we see a continued growth from what started out in 2015 with a true emphasis on the customer experience. Whether this is the interface of your website or the personalization to provide content rich information for consumers. We do see some shifts in the way the Internet works with the improvements in computer algorithms (had to say we are programmers after all). These are due to the major players (Google, Microsoft, Apple, Twitter, and Facebook) taking on more personas to make the Internet a more personable experience for users.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is becoming a big item lately and for good reason. Social media alone will only get you so far in the engagement process with your customers. Social media isn't your "brand", you have no control over the look-and-feel, colors, layout, etc. Companies are quickly learning that social media is important to engage their customers and their website and eCommerce sites are equally important to help close the sale. Companies want to get out the good word about their products and services and they want the search engines to work for them to get that good word out.

As we get closer to the end of 2015 we are often asked why we blog, why should I blog, what is in it for us, and why should I use it for my business in 2016? For us there is no better way to answer this than to answer why we blog as a company, what we gain from blogging, and what are some of the reasons we see that blogging is important. By explaining why and how we blog you can take that information and compare it against your business model and see if it is something that works well for you.

In our 2015 Website and Social Media Predictions we made several predictions that would happen in 2015. As the year comes to a close we are going to dig into what we predicted and what actually happened in relation to those predictions. Every one that is an industry expert whether nationally or in their local area will make such predictions.