Author: Lisa Bodine

The Wonderful World of Web Apps

Posted on June 27, 2023 by Lisa Bodine - News, Website Development

Web applications are an essential, yet inconspicuous piece of the puzzle that ensures a website functions efficiently. But what exactly are web applications and how can they support and improve your business operations? We cover all this and more in our blog on the wonderful world of web apps.

Welcome to the wonderful world of web applications, a wide range of smart yet complex, process-driven websites hidden in plain sight.

We can almost guarantee you’ve used a web application before. They’re specific types of website functionalities that allow users to complete actions online.

In business, web applications take many forms to facilitate product purchases, manage inventory, process orders, track shipments, record time or complete billing processes.

Customer relationship management (CRM) tools are some of today’s most robust web applications. CRMs help businesses keep track of their interactions with customers, manage customer databases, store purchase history, provide better customer service and create, execute, fine-tune and report on targeted marketing campaigns.

The list of great examples of web applications goes on. The bottom line is this: building out your own customized web application could streamline many of your business processes and functions.

Let’s say you’re an OEM manufacturer that would like to add e-commerce capabilities to your website so customers can purchase the products and parts they need quickly and easily.

There are many web applications on the market that could fill this role. Or, you could invest in your company’s future to customize a web application that does exactly what you need it to do.

No forcing your company to fit into a predetermined process. You outline what you need, and a skilled web application developer delivers a product specific to your business.

It sounds too good to be true, but it isn’t. Web applications effectively ‘super-size’ traditional web development to create functional tools that customers and employees can use to drive business, support sales goals and create operational efficiencies at every level.

Web Apps Offer Limitless Potential

Entrepreneurs don’t start their own businesses because they want to uphold the status quo. They branch out independently because they have a unique product or offer, a new way to approach complex challenges, and a desire to forge their own path. Web applications support that entrepreneurial mindset with several key advantages.

Improved Accessibility

Today’s web users are sophisticated, and if they encounter difficulty accessing a website, they’ll simply move on.

Additionally, people of all abilities must be able to access the internet with ease. Sites that don’t meet ADA compliance requirements earn poorer search engine results and less traffic than their compliant counterparts.

Web applications can help transform a traditional website into a powerful tool that provides the necessary information and adds functionality allowing users to complete specific tasks.

Cost-Effectiveness

There are thousands of web applications on the market today, many of which are excellent. The only problem is that commercially-available web applications are designed to be general enough to meet the needs of most users.

But what if your company operates a little differently than others in your field? What if you subscribe to a particular web application but only use it to 50% of its capacity because it just doesn’t fit your business model?

The capital spent on unused functionality would be better spent on a custom-created web application that suits your business needs more closely.

Increased Efficiency and Productivity

Teams working on a project might use a web application to keep track of their tasks and deadlines, and they might use a separate messaging app to communicate with each other in real time.

They might also have separate tools for manual inventory management, customer orders tracking, shipping, payment processing or billing. A custom-created web application can help automate and integrate all of these business functions into a single piece of technology.

By streamlining labor-intensive processes, employees will have more time to focus on strategic, revenue-generating tasks that increase productivity, pursue career development opportunities and ultimately drive business growth.

Improved Customer Engagement and Retention

Many businesses already use web applications to track and facilitate customer engagement.

CRMs like Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, HubSpot and ClickUp (and many more) are all designed to help businesses manage customer relationships and interactions to help prospects convert into customers and brand advocates.

These CRMs are incredibly robust, with layers upon layers of great functionality and some elements many businesses will never use.

Instead of forcing your business into a pre-determined box, investing in a custom-created web application transforms into an investment in the future of your business and results in a more natural, on-brand experience for your customers.

Unleash Your Competitive Advantage

If you’ve tried out-of-the-box web application solutions and found them lacking or that you have to enact too many workarounds to make them make sense for your business, we want to talk.

The Giant Voices team is ready to explore real web application solutions with you. We want to elevate your business with a custom-created web application that fits your business just right.

Ready to take the next step?

Let’s Get Started

5 Reasons to Rebuild Your Website in 2024

Posted on February 22, 2023 by Lisa Bodine - Website Development

Is your website meeting performance expectations? If not, it may be time for a website revamp! Take a look at our five powerful reasons why a redeveloped website can amplify your business and help foster long-term success.

The new year is here! After the chaos of year-end, our Giant team is always excited to embrace the fresh feeling of a brand new year.

It’s the right time to set an ambitious course for success and growth, and your website can (and should) be the foundation that supports your strategic marketing and sales efforts throughout the year.

If your website isn’t meeting your performance expectations, it’s likely time for a revamp. No time like the present to address and resolve challenges. Investing in a new website in 2024 can help increase your company’s competitive edge, uphold your brand and support your overarching business growth goals.

As you put your goals for 2024 into action, consider these five compelling reasons to redevelop your website this year.

1. A new website stays competitive on search

Google’s search engine algorithm changes frequently—approximately every six months—so the target for performance is constantly moving. Today, Google prioritizes things like high-quality content and page load speeds.

Publishing helpful and reliable content is key. There was a time when content was written for search engines, with loads of keywords stuffed into paragraphs in the hopes it’d rise through the ranks showing first on results pages.

The outcome was awkward-to-read, unhelpful content that didn’t inspire users to engage. Google has recently turned the tables and now prioritizes content written by humans for humans. If your web pages contain easily readable content designed to help readers solve problems or access information, your site will likely rank higher.

Search engines also value websites that load quickly. Why? Because people do not want to wait for content. They’ll quickly move to a website that provides information faster. Modern web development practices factor in page load speeds across all device types to create a better user experience.

Continuing to use older, unsupported themes, plugins or technologies (like Flash, Page Builder or PHP) will slow down your website and frustrate users. Better to streamline with a complete rebuild. Check out how your website performs on Google’s PageSpeed Insights, and consider upgrading in 2023.

2. A new website will be more secure

Cybercriminal activity is rampant. It’s become a part of our everyday lives, and it’s something that every business owner should factor into their plans and strategies for growth.

If your website runs on an old, unsecured platform or uses unsupported plugins, you’re at a much greater risk for a data breach. Don’t give hackers easy access to your IT environment through an insecure website.

Instead, invest in adequate security to ensure all the technology supporting your website is always up to date.

Building and hosting a new website on a trusted, leading platform—like WordPress, Shopify, Marketo, HubSpot, etc.—is a solid strategy for ensuring your website stays safe, secure and updated at all times.

3. A new website will amplify your brand

Your website is a tool that should function as an extension of your team. It should look, feel and sound like your brand. It should guide users through workflows designed to convert visitors into customers and help your company be a thought leader in the marketplace.

If your company is considering a rebrand in the coming year, a new website should be part of the brand launch. A rebrand is a perfect time to solidify your company personality, voice and values, all of which should come through loudly and clearly on your website.

If you’ve already developed a strong brand, it is important to make sure your website exemplifies it. Does your website content and imagery accurately speak to your target audiences, using phrases and terminology that are understood by both your team and your customers? Does the look and feel align with your brand standards?

It definitely should! A new website can help take your existing brand to the next level with a modern look, feel and functionality that leaves a great impression on every user.

4. A new website offers a flexible user experience

Today’s consumers browse the web on many devices, sometimes simultaneously. HubSpot has some interesting insights into how consumers are using their devices and understanding how your audience browses can help inform your website’s design and functionality.

How many times have you pulled up a website on your phone and had to dig out your laptop to complete the task at hand? If users have to zoom in to be able to read or click the exact right spot, they’re likely frustrated with the experience and less likely to visit again.

Websites designed today incorporate multiple breaking points, so elements can shift into places that make sense on various screen sizes. When you pull up a site on your phone, tablet or computer, each version will display the content in the most user-friendly way for each device.

This is a fantastic solution to create a seamless experience that upholds your brand and delights your visitors, no matter how they access your website.

5. A new website supports your business growth goals

Q1 is well underway, and any of us are thinking about how to grow our respective businesses in the coming year. Here are a few ways that a strategic partner can tailor your new site to support your sales, market and product goals:

E-commerce functionality. E-commerce features allow users to purchase products quickly and easily from your site.
Updated design and content. Incorporating strategically crafted visuals and content will appeal to specific target demographics and audiences.
Public relations. Launching with a supporting PR push will help increase awareness and buzz for your company’s new site.

It all fits together if you do it right.

At Giant Voices, we take the time to intimately understand our clients’ business growth goals so that we can support them with every aspect of their new website builds.

We build every site from the ground up, and you won’t find us executing cookie-cutter websites. We customize each website to meet our clients’ needs and measure our success with analytics aligned to specific KPIs. We’re here to help our clients run successful business operations.

Transform your website with us!

If you’re ready to transform your web presence in 2024, we’re prepared to help your business succeed. For a snapshot of our website work, check out our website portfolio.

Reach out to our office any time to schedule a discovery call so we can better understand your project and goals.

3 Essential Strategies to Keep Your Website Compliant

Posted on September 22, 2022 by Lisa Bodine - Website Development

The digital world is evolving quickly, and it is increasingly important to make sure all users have a great experience on your website.

With competition growing daily and new technologies constantly emerging, creating an excellent user experience is a smart strategy for increasing website engagement and strengthening your brand.

Does your website meet industry standards? Giant Voices can help in several key areas to ensure your website adheres to best practices while attracting and converting visitors.

3 Essential Strategies to Keep Your Website Compliant | Giant Voices

Embrace the Block Flow

WordPress is currently beta testing a new site editor, and it’s fantastic. Instead of a complicated backend that is difficult for anyone but a web developer to navigate and use, WordPress has created a streamlined and simple way for users to edit their websites.

WordPress’s new site editor has embraced the idea of building web pages with a series of blocks. Much like the small, interlocking bricks we all loved as children, blocks are a straightforward way to arrange different types of content sections on a web page.

This is not a replacement for the Giant Voices web development team–not by a long stretch. We custom-create sets of interchangeable blocks for our clients, taking special care to uphold brand standards and provide a wide variety of block styles.

The best part is that all the blocks fit together beautifully to create a visually appealing, easy-to-navigate page—and once the blocks are designed, clients can add sections and move things around as needed.

For example, if a featured product isn’t performing well because it’s buried at the bottom of the page, simply use the editor to move the block up to a more prominent position.

The Giant Voices web development team is well-versed in creating block flows, and we’re excited to share the many possibilities with our clients.

Prioritize SEO and Google Analytics 4

It should come as no surprise that Google is changing things up with Google Analytics 4 (GA4). The differences between Universal Analytics (UA) and GA4 are pretty significant.

Everything from SEO implementation to data collection and dashboard views will be different. According to Google, GA4 will:

Collect both website and app data to better understand the customer journey
Use events instead of session-based data
Include privacy controls such as cookie-less measurement plus behavioral and conversion modeling
Offer guidance with predictive capabilities
Offer direct integrations to media platforms

It’s essential to incorporate GA4 onto your site before it fully rolls out in July 2023. UA will stop collecting data in July 2023, but will be available to access legacy data for approximately 6 months.

However, you can run both simultaneously as you get comfortable with GA4’s analytics. The sooner you implement GA4, the better. Without it, you won’t be able to pull accurate metrics on your website’s performance and user activity.

The Giant Voices web development team can help set everything up correctly, so you’re ready to rock next summer. Reach out to our team or browse Google support for more more detailed information.

Accessibility is Everything

Website accessibility is covered under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which provides qualified individuals with disabilities equal access to programs, services or activities. Ensuring your website is accessible to everyone elevates your brand and improves searchability and search engine rankings.

That’s right: ADA-compliant sites perform better on search engines. Web accessibility is in everyone’s best interest.

The Giant Voices team develops websites that incorporate several key accessibility factors, including (but not limited to) image alt text, flexibility with colors and fonts, video captions and a simple design.

1. Image Alt Text

Visually impaired users depend on image alt text (short descriptions) to decipher and understand photographs, charts, color-coded information or other graphic elements on a webpage. Making sure all visual elements are accompanied by a short description is critical.

2. Flexibility with Colors and Fonts

Not everyone sees the world the same way. Many people can navigate websites better if the font and background are highly contrasted or if they can increase the font size or change the style. Ensuring your website can be modified on individual users’ machines means that more potential customers can access your content and interact with your brand.

3. Video Captions

Video has become an essential component of the web, and videos with full captions or descriptions are infinitely more accessible. Whether someone is hearing impaired or simply in a location that isn’t conducive to playing audio, captions make all the difference.

4. Busyness Creates Distractions

Busy, interactive websites can be very fun, but they can also be frustrating to navigate. Studies estimate that 15-20% of the population is neurodivergent, which means they process media differently.

Flashing, blinking, moving elements or congested web pages can be distracting and can drive prospects away instead of closing a deal. Developing with simplicity in mind creates a better experience for all.

Take your website to the next level by implementing these web development best practices. Reach out to the Giant Voices website development team to get started.

President’s Perspective: Work-Life Balance and Long-Term Success

Posted on May 26, 2022 by Lisa Bodine - Business Tips, Productivity

Do you often find yourself struggling to prioritize between your personal and professional activities? Take a look at this blog written by our Giant President, Lisa Bodine, on how fostering a sustainable work life is key to reaching your highest potential.

I’ll be frank: my calendar is pretty full. I like it that way!

I love being deeply involved with my clients, our team and my business. Being a central part of the work we do at Giant Voices every day brings me satisfaction and joy. In fact, it’s precisely because of how much I love my work that I find I need to remind myself to take a step back from time to time.

Sometimes this means asking hard questions.

Am I still effectively coaching and mentoring our team when I am booked in back-to-back meetings? Am I exercising, eating, and sleeping? And what about my family; are they receiving enough of my time and attention?

When I’m deep in the grind, I’m not always thinking about the long-term impacts. But I should be. After all, having a rich, healthy, balanced life is what allows us to bring our best selves to the work we love so much—not only in the short term, but for years to come.

On Superhero Self-Care

We all know the image of the entrepreneurial superhero. Up at the crack of dawn for a ten-mile run, in the office by daybreak and still there at midnight. We love the grind!

So is it really “overwork” if you feel happy with what you’re doing in the moment? Unfortunately, yes.

Chronic overwork—working more than 55 hours per week—is common for entrepreneurs and business owners. It can also have serious health consequences.

What I’ve learned over time is that the most successful business owners habitually prioritize self-care, even while pouring their passion, energy, and love into their work. That’s what gives them that superhero glow—and what positions them for long-term success.

Thankfully, it really is possible to do it all. You can master your jam-packed schedule and still remain the awesome, passionate, driven leader you were born to be. It just takes a little help and a lot of determination.

Work-Life Balance, Pandemic-Style

We are all aware the pandemic has drastically changed the way the world works. At Giant Voices, we went almost fully remote during the initial lockdowns, and we learned a lot:

We learned that we can be Giant from anywhere. When you love the work, it doesn’t matter where you are. Flexibility has been key to surviving the pandemic from a business perspective.
We learned we can maintain relationships without seeing our coworkers and clients in person.
We learned we’re extremely productive, but our new hybrid environment comes with drawbacks. We can take more meetings, but that leaves us with less time to decompress and shift gears between clients.
We also learned employees will follow leadership’s tendency to overwork unless we are clear with our expectations—and practice what we preach.

All this learning has led to small but powerful shifts in our company. By embracing a flexible work environment, we’ve been able to help our employees take care of themselves and their families, without sacrificing their work.

We’ve also empowered our employees to raise their hands when they feel overwork creeping in—especially when we don’t physically see each other as often. This increased transparency surrounding workloads, workplace burnout and mental health has been a positive shift for our team.

Rest and Recharge

Over the last few years, I’ve made progress in achieving a sustainable work-life balance. Here are some of the things that have worked for me.

1. Relying on our team

There are things only I can do, but there are also tasks in my client roster that our team is beyond capable of handling. Whenever possible, I delegate. This lightens my workload, and it brings me joy to see our team advance in their skills. It also effectively increases our organizational capacity by eliminating the bottlenecks that can occur with us all.

2. Taking time away—truly away

I prioritize exercise that forces me to focus on the task at hand. If I’m running a trail or mountain biking, I’m present in that moment—and that moment only. It’s meditative. I also take time with my family. Coaching soccer and family vacations allow me to truly unplug.

3. Prioritizing relationships

I wouldn’t be able to do what I do without the support of my partners, our team, my husband, kids, mom and extended family. The village around me also includes close friends, my work network, and my spunky pup, Poppy—Giant Voices’ newest office dog. Sustaining these relationships makes me a stronger business owner and leader.

It’s not bad to be tempted to work around the clock. In fact, it’s probably a sign that you love what you do!

As a leader, however, I can’t afford the consequences of overwork. Our team needs me to show up fresh and ready, every day. They also look to me to model an approach to work-life balance that aligns with our values. These are both responsibilities that I take seriously.

Over the last few months, more of our clients have come to us with questions about promoting healthy work-life balance in their companies, and we’ve evolved our services to help our clients grapple with company culture development, values creation and recruitment/retention strategies in the post-pandemic world.

Questions? Just drop us a line. We’re here to help.

Value Creation and Risk Reduction: Why ESG Matters to Investors (and Business Leaders)

Posted on March 29, 2022 by Lisa Bodine - ESG Marketing

If you own a business (or work in organizational leadership), you probably have some questions about ESG. Is it really new? Is it just a fad? And, most critically, is it something that matters for your company?

The answers, succinctly put, are yes, no, and definitely.

More questions? Don’t worry. We’re here to explain the what, why, and how of implementing an ESG strategy in your business—as well as why the investor community is sitting up and paying attention.

ESG, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Corporate Sustainability

Environmental, Social, and Governance (or ESG) is not the first framework to audit and evaluate organizations using the lens of social responsibility.

ESG is in many ways a direct descendant of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Sustainability (CS). CSR took hold in the US in the 1970s and famously advocated for the “triple bottom line” of people, planet and profit, and CS became popular in the late 80s and emphasized reducing environmental harm.

Both of these frameworks have facilitated important discussion around the fact that corporations are powerful social actors, and their decisions have consequences that extend far beyond their fiscal bottom lines.

These frameworks also share critical weaknesses. CSR and CS both rely primarily on an ethical appeal to justify their existence and tend to focus on voluntary or subjective reporting measures, limitations that have ultimately prevented these programs from becoming fully embedded in operations and limited their utility for investors and organizational leadership.

What Makes ESG Different

Two main things that distinguish Environmental, Social, and Governance programming from its predecessors. The first is a focus on trackable KPIs, and the second is a critical value-creation orientation.

Instead of measuring financial performance and treating non-financial performance as an amorphous and hopefully positive set of unknowns, ESG sets out to quantify and track non-financial performance metrics in order to identify strengths and opportunities and optimize across all variables.

One result of these sophistications is that ESG ratings are of particular interest to organizational leadership and investor communities. Used strategically, ESG can help evaluate the overall health of an organization and develop a roadmap for reducing risk and increasing investment returns in the long term.

ESG KPIs, Metrics & Reporting

It’s often said that we should measure what we care about. It can also be said that in many cases, we are unable to care about the things we don’t measure.

Meaningful, actionable KPIs distinguish ESG from its predecessors. Because ESG is designed to address all aspects of a company’s non-financial performance, the list of metrics employed is long and should be tailored to both the industry and company in question.

Although there is no one body that officially holds the authority to conduct ESG audits or issue ratings, many major funds including MSCI, Sustainalytics and S&P Global, have begun to publish ESG ratings that investors can use to judge their risk exposure, and companies are increasingly making disclosures in their annual report or a standalone sustainability report.

ESG and Value Creation

The forerunners of ESG tended to rely solely on altruistic urges to justify their existence, assuming that stakeholders share an external value like protecting the environment or raising the standard of living for employees.

This appeal to external values is not a bad thing; indeed, shared purpose (and a grounding in shared values) is a critical part of any company culture.

What previous frameworks tended to leave out, however, is that commitment to ESG initiatives is not only about a sense of responsibility or a commitment to social good—rather, attention to ESG concerns is absolutely critical for long-term institutional viability.

ESG isn’t the icing on the cake—it’s the eggs, the flour, the pan, the cook and the oven.

Not convinced? Companies with strong ESG performance:

Have an easier time attracting and retaining talent
Can avoid or reduce regulatory pressures
Are positioned for a changing energy future
Reduce material and energy costs
Avoid risky investments
Are structured to reduce liability and increase resilience

Although the connection between these advantages and the bottom line is clear, ESG is the first framework to quantify these aspects of corporate performance and link them explicitly to improved long-term financial outlook.

In other words, ESG is distinguished by the understanding that environmental performance, social health, and governance structure inform and reinforce each other—and that all three have a critical effect on a company’s immediate health and long-term risk exposure.

ESG Metrics & Investors

There are many reasons for business leaders to engage an ESG framework when structuring their business operations—and it turns out that these same reasons are proving attractive to investors.

Increasingly, investors see strong ESG performance as a measurement of overall company health.

In fact, some fund managers predict that merging the world of asset management with the world of sustainability will be a huge driver in how companies build and maintain their assets moving forward, with the objective to reduce exposure to investments that pose greater ESG risks or to influence companies to become more sustainable.

This means that for business owners, the benefits of investing in ESG also include an increased ability to attract investors.

Getting Started with ESG Programming

At Giant Voices, we are experienced in helping clients facilitate discussion around ESG priorities.

We can also help you identify alignment between your business objectives and ESG offerings so that any new initiative you undertake helps you move towards your business ambitions.

Questions? We’re here to help. Just contact us to get started.