A recent report by Forbes.com indicates that 97% of business owners within the hospitality and travel industry feel that reputation management is critical to the success of their business.

The article goes on to illustrate that a single negative review or negative feedback appearing on the first page of search results for your business can result in a 22% loss in business, while multiple negative reviews can lead to a nearly 60% decline.

Bright Local, a global user experience platform focusing on local business, published a 2019 study indicating that 84% of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal referral and 49% of consumers are seeking a 4-star rating before choosing a service or product.

The evidence is mounting that regardless of your size or industry, your online reputation has the power to “make or break” your business. Today’s digital world allows prospects, customers, competitors, friend and foe to tweet, post or review about your products, services and even employees.

The CTS user experience team strongly believes that social media monitoring and management as part of online reputation management are integral components of your success. Our team has put together a shortlist of proactive online reputation management practices that can benefit your business.

Who Writes Reviews?

Know thy platforms

As Google is the most widely used web browser, defining the standard in search queries and page rankings, a business can begin to build its brand by creating a Google My Business listing. A verified business account on Google is free and it allows you to link your website to the listing and include key information for consumers such as contact information, business hours and location. Optimize your Google My Business profile with a description of your business, photos, and post while encouraging engagement through messaging and reviews.

Helpful Hint: Be sure that the contact information – email address, telephone number, physical address and hours are accurate and consistent across social media.

YELP, Amazon, Trustpilot, Angie’s List, Better Business Bureau (BBB) and Manta are a few of the most widely used review platforms for products and services. But don’t overlook reviews in the forms of comments within social platforms including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

Build Positive Brand Image

Digital communications provide a vast reach to your target audience within your local region and across wider demographics. Social media presence now plays an integral role in increasing the visibility of your business and reaching a larger audience.

Creating a strategy to develop your brand identity for your business and its products is just one step in defining your digital presence. By defining your brand identity and the personas of your target audience, you are more likely to attract like-minded audience members to engage with your posts, leading to additional dialogue and conversions.

One of the most effective ways to illustrate the positive culture of your business is by encouraging your employees to post and interact on your social media platforms, further reinforcing the positive profile of your business.

Respond to reviews (Negative + Positive)

We recommend to our clients that they respond to all reviews. However, a negative review should to be responded to immediately. Being able to recover from a negative review helps repair the customer experience.

Reputation management helps build trust and credibility for your business. Responding to your reviews can help restore your credibility. If a customer sees unanswered negative reviews, it will give your customers a bad impression of your business and drive them away.

For all reviews, we encourage our clients to respond to their customers in a positive way.

Understand the reviews

It’s also important to go over your reviews to help improve your online reputation. During our monthly meetings with clients, we thoroughly examine their reviews and strategize how to best respond from an internal organization standpoint. We listen to the reviews and summarize them to our clients so that they understand what their customers are saying.

Helping our clients understand what their customers are saying out there to optimize their business and run their business better is a large piece of reputation management. Reputation management isn’t only learning from past mistakes and poor reviews, it’s about paying attention to customers and continuing to understand to optimize their business.

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Our Web Design & Development team at Capitol Tech Solutions has years of experience building award-winning websites that are custom, fast, and scalable. Whether you need to build a website for a small or large business, government agency, or nonprofit CTS has the resources and experience to build you a winning website.

At Capitol Tech Solutions, we keep updated on the latest best practices for web design and development to ensure we are providing the best value for our clients. The internet is a constantly evolving space and at CTS our designers and developers are constantly evolving as well. As trends change, so does our approach. Although we have years of experience under our belts, our team is always focused on learning and exploring new paths to success on the web. You don’t have to take our word for it, our awards and recognitions speak for themselves!

Best Broadcasting Mobile Website

Top Web Designers in Sacramento

Three Best Rated recognizes Capitol Tech Solutions as one of the top Web Designers in Sacramento.

“We are honored to be recognized as one of the top 3 web designers in Sacramento,” said Bobby Reed, CEO, and founder of Capitol Tech Solutions. “The web developers at CTS work countless hours ensuring our clients’ websites are top-notch. This recognition is a testament to the hard work they put into designing and developing websites. I’m very proud of the team, they’re outstanding!”

Every year, Three Best Rated selects the top 3 local businesses, professionals, restaurants, health care providers, and everything in-between in several cities. Three Best Rated employees make their decision by checking a business’s reputation, history, ratings, costs, trust, general excellence, reviews, and more using their 50-Point inspection.

Website design and development resources? You need them, we got them!

Having an online presence is the most effective way of reaching more conusmers for your business. Reach out to us today if you are ready to take your website to the next level with the help of our award-winning CTS team. We invite you to read our blogs on 4 tips for creating a successful website and how much a website costs in Sacramento to help get you started!

We also recently became a WP Engine Partner, which demonstrates our expertise in developing a website, improving a current website, and managing hosting. Please visit our WP Engine Partner blog for more information.

Ready to create a website? Our friendly and professional User Experience team is happy to help!

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We would like to announce that we are officially a WP Engine Partner!

“We are thrilled to officially be a WP Engine Partner. We now have access to even more tools and resources as we continue to offer our clients fast and scalable websites,” said Bobby Reed, CEO, and founder of CTS. “Our developers use WordPress every day, so it made sense for us to become a partner and get access to all the perks. Our team works efficiently and effectively to ensure our clients’ success. This partnership will only increase the value we are able to bring to every one of our projects.”

What is WP Engine?

WP Engine is the world’s leading WordPress digital experience platform. It is the gateway for all the tools needed to create and deliver breakthrough digital excellence and ensure success. 30% of all websites on the internet are built with WordPress and 60% are built with a Content Management System (CMS).

Why do we use WP Engine?

All hands are on deck at WP Engine 24/7/365. Their award-winning teams are passionate about providing exceptional support and secure WordPress hosting.

Here are their core values we admire:

Many business owners use WP Engine as their managed WordPress host because of the real-time security it provides. If your website were to get hacked for any reason, WP Engine will cover the costs to repair no matter the size of the site. We know we can trust WP Engine to deliver exceptional results!

Benefits of partnering with WP Engine

There are three levels within the WP Engine Agency Partner Program: Member, Advanced, and Strategic. CTS is an Agency Partner Member, which includes:

• Access to WP Engine’s partner portal
• Advanced developer tools
• Co-branded landing page
• Partner communications
• Free staging account on WP Engine
• Genesis Framework
• Partner directory listing

Capitol Tech Solutions is a proud partner!

Being a WP Engine partners demonstrates our expertise in developing a website, improving a current site, and managing hosting.

At CTS, we work countless hours ensuring our client’s websites are performing well and we thank WP Engine for that opportunity. Their platform is extremely user friendly and it has been designed to help developers build faster therefore allowing us to work more effectively and innovatively with our clients.

WP Engine helps CTS grow and develop as a company by referring over 1000 customers to our agency directory each month. Contact CTS today to receive exceptional web hosting, functionality, and creative web design from our User Experience team!

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Last Summer, a few of our CTS team members, Marik Knapp, Lyna Vu, and Robert Haney attended the Public Relations Society of America Summer Mega Mixer, where we won the Habitat for Humanity Team Build in a raffle!

There were many raffle options, but we specifically chose the Habitat Team Build because it allowed us the opportunity for both team building and community involvement. Whether its building homes or participating in a charity bike ride, our team is always happy to get together and give back to our community!

The Team Build Project

Our Team Build took place in South Sacramento and we were lucky enough to work alongside the future owner of the home, Sandra Granados. Sandra is a single mom of 3 teenage daughters and has struggled to find housing after being displaced by rising rents in San Francisco. After spending time in transitional living homes, on friends’ couches, and in a cramped home with a family member, Sandra and her girls are thrilled to finally have a place to call their own.

The home we worked on is part of a unique partnership between the City of Sacramento and Habitat for Humanity in which former illegal cannabis grow houses are rehabilitated into affordable housing. Building a brand-new home typically costs about $200,000, but rehabilitating a grow house costs less than half of that. The updated houses not only give deserving families a places to call home, but also improve the overall quality of the surrounding neighborhood.

Learn more about the new former cannabis grow home rehabilitation program from a story by our friends at CBS13 here

Our experience was great!

We brought 10 of our CTS User Experience and Software Development team members out to the Habitat for Humanity Greater of Sacramento construction site. Our busy CEO, Bobby Reed, even came by to lend a helping hand.

Bobby had this to say about his experience at the team build, “It was a great day of team building and house building for Habitat for Humanity in Sacramento. The weather was perfect for us to roof, install windows, and hammer some walls. I’m proud of our team!”

Our site supervisor, Yim, did a great job delegating tasks and making sure we knew how to safely use all the equipment on the site. Habitat provided us with all the tools needed to work on the construction site, including hard hats, safety glasses, and ear protection. Habitat for Humanity did a great job managing this project and we look forward to working on more builds in the future!

Habitat for Humanity of Greater Sacramento

Habitat for Humanity of Greater Sacramento is a global non-profit housing organization founded in Americus, Georgia, USA, in 1976. They are dedicated to eliminating substandard housing locally and worldwide through constructing, rehabilitating, and preserving homes. Habitat welcomes volunteers and supporters from all backgrounds and also serves people in need of decent housing regardless of race or religion.

For more information, please visit the Habitat for Humanity of Greater Sacramento website!

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We are proud to share that our User Experience Specialist, Kevin Olson, recently earned his Facebook Blueprint certification as a User Experience Associate. Facebook Blueprint certifies professionals who demonstrate advanced-level proficiency with Facebook products.

Facebook has transformed user experience and online advertising, with Facebook advertising being one of the most effective ways to reach a target audience. Olson’s Facebook Blueprint’s certification demonstrates the proficiency of CTS’s User Experience Team, as well as our commitment to staying up to date with all user experience avenues.

What is the Facebook Blueprint Certification?

Facebook Blueprint offers the highest level of resources for everything related to Facebook advertising. In order to earn Facebook Blueprint certification a professional must demonstrate advanced-level proficiency with Facebook’s family of apps.

The exams required to earn a Facebook Blueprint certification are difficult to pass without advanced knowledge of and experience with Facebook advertising. This is what makes the Facebook Blueprint certification highly respected. Each exam costs $150 but there is also a 30-question practice exam available for anyone who wants to test the waters before paying the exam fee. The test is taken by the professional in the comfort of their own home or office, but it is monitored by an offsite proctor. Once certified, the certification is good for one year, with a recertification test required each year, because of the rapidly changing nature of user experience.

There are seven exams available:

• Facebook Certified User Experience Associate
• Facebook Certified Media Planning Professional
• Facebook Certified Media Buying Professional
• Facebook Certified Ads Product Developer I
• Facebook Certified Ads Product Developer II
• Facebook Certified Ads Product Developer III

What does it mean to be Facebook Blueprint Certified?

Since the launch in 2015, over two million digital advertisers have enrolled in Facebook Blueprint’s learning platform. The Facebook Blueprint certification verifies that our User Experience team is truly qualified and skilled in all aspects of advertising on Facebook platforms. It sets us apart from our competitors because we are proven to have the experience and expertise needed to build brand awareness, generate more leads, and monetize content using Facebook tools.

Being certified also allows us to expand our professional network while assuring our clients that we’re on top of the advances in digital advertising. When you partner with CTS, we utilize our verifiable experience and expertise to implement a winning ad strategy that meets and exceeds your business goals.

Capitol Tech Solutions is proud to offer certified expertise in Facebook Advertising and we will continue to look for opportunities to enhance our services to better serve our clients.

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It’s finally here! After months of hard work, we are proud to officially announce the launch of the redesigned CTS website. The main goals of our website redesign were to improve the overall user interface and user experience of the site.

In addition, we wanted to increase the flexibility of our site, streamlining the editing process for our web developers. We moved our site over to WordPress, a change that has cut down the time it takes for content to go from a word document to a live web page.

Beyond functionality, our new site also has a refreshed look that better reflects who we are as a company and highlights the expertise that has led to our rapid growth.

What’s New?

We’ve added a ton of new features to provide our site visitors with an easy way to find the information they need about our services and solutions.

• New mega menu design making it incredibly easy to navigate from page to page. The menu makes navigating the website much more straight forward and greatly improves the user experience.
• We have added more images and incorporated more animation to increase movement within the overall design.
• Compatible with all web browsers and is optimized for mobile viewing on both tablets and phones.
• Better optimized content
• Incorporated descriptive sub-headers that effectively summarize the service described on the page.
• Parallax images that act as a scrolling background behind the call to actions, etc.
• Added industries we specialize in including dental, legal, political advocacy, and non-profits! Stay tuned for more industries soon.

What value can our viewers gain from visiting our website?

Our website provides a lot of information to our visitors. Although our previous design had a lot of content, it was hard to digest, which left visitors lost in content clutter. The content on the new website has been edited down to better focus on relevant information that answers visitors’ questions about our company and services. We have also optimized all of our content to maximize its reach via search engines.

Our new site pages focus on assisting potential clients through their customer journey by highlighting our expertise, experience, and overall success. This will help the visitor make an informed decision when it comes to choosing a service. Even if a visitor does not use CTS for their project our pages still aim to provide helpful information that can be used for independent marketing efforts.

CTS stays updated!

The new site will be monitored daily by our user experience specialists. We have also added a Content Strategist who will be constantly updating our content with brand new blogs, press releases, case studies, and much more.

We invite you to view our new website and let us know what you think! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Please send us a message and let us know what we can do to make your experience even better!

Thank you for supporting Capitol Tech Solutions!

Thank you for supporting our company. We look forward to continuing to serve our clients with the best user experience and software development service in Sacramento!

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Join us in Sacramento on November 28^th, 2019 for the 26^th annual Run to Feed the Hungry!

Rain or shine, the Capitol Tech Solutions team will be there running and walking to raise awareness about food insecurity in our community. CTS team members Bobby Reed, Steve Reed, Alex Wright, Dinh Le, and Zach Hatton have already signed up for the event and we are inviting you to join as well!

Run to Feed the Hungry makes a great addition to any family Thanksgiving Day itinerary. It’s a healthy and fun way to start the holiday and an excellent opportunity to burn some calories before tackling the vigorous Thanksgiving eating requirements later in the day. Our CEO, Bobby Reed, will be attending again this year with his wife and three children.

The event also gives runners and walkers the opportunity to help those in need, with funds raised going towards providing food, clothing, and education to our community. Individuals come from all over Northern California to participate in this event to have fun, be a part of a huge community event, and give back to those in need. It’s a great way to start Thanksgiving!

Tell me more about Run to Feed the Hungry!

The first-ever run was in 1994 with 796 participants and the race has grown tremendously with 27,169 participants in 2018. Run to Feed the Hungry is not only the largest run in Sacramento but the largest Thanksgiving Day fun run in the nation.

KCRA/KQCA will be presenting Run to Feed the Hungry which supports the efforts of the Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services (SFBFS). SFBFS owns, plans, and hosts Run to Feed the Hungry and all proceeds directly benefit the organization. SFBFS programs provide food, clothing, and education to 150,000 men, women, and children each month. SFBFS is thankful for the generous sponsors who help keep the costs low for putting on the Run to Feed the Hungry, which in turn maximizes the amount of money they are able to raise.

For more information on registration prices, please visit the event registration page.

We hope to see you on Thanksgiving Day!

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Before you start your next website project, Capitol Tech Solutions invites you to learn more about the different web development choices available in Sacramento. Make sure you get the most bang for your buck by understanding what determines the cost of a website and what options might be best for your unique project.

How much does it REALLY cost to build a website?

In Sacramento there are several different options when it comes to web design. You can either create your own website, work with a freelancer, or hire a fully stacked agency like Capitol Tech Solutions! Keep reading to learn about the budget and benefits of each of these options.

DIY – Do it yourself

Freelancer

Hire an Agency

How much does it cost to build a website with Capitol Tech Solutions?

We know that every business is different, and therefore, we do not take a “one size fits all” approach to website design. The cost to build a website with Capitol Tech Solutions depends on what you are looking to develop.

Our website projects range from essential ten-page designs all the way up to government and corporate sites that have thousands of pages and unique functionality requirements.

At CTS we provide your business with a depth of knowledge and unparalleled results. When you work with CTS, you are working with an entire team of skilled professionals, each ready to contribute to the overall success of your website. Our team includes award-winning designers, developers, content writers, and digital advertising experts.

Converting your web visitors into customers is our goal, and that is what sets us apart from the competition. We don’t only want to design you an attractive site, we want to utilize our expertise to get that site working for you and your business.

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Who is Bobby Reed?

CTS is a leading digital development agency providing a full range of design and development services. In addition to CTS, Bobby also manages a few businesses on the side. All of Bobby’s companies are run with the core values of hard work and providing quality service for clients and partners. Bobby’s companies leverage the most advanced technology available to improve business experiences and produce unparalleled results.

CTS is one of the fastest-growing companies in Sacramento, and Bobby takes pride in the ever-expanding team of professionals who contribute to the company’s success. The CTS team is made up of seasoned tech veterans as well as local graduates who are gaining valuable experience with plenty of room to grow.

Bobby is also active in the Sacramento community, with regular participation in charity events and volunteer opportunities such as Run to Feed the Hungry, Sacramento Century Challenge, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, and many more.

Thank you, Sacramento Business Journal for honoring Bobby!

The SBJ selects its 40 under 40 honorees based on their professional achievements, leadership qualities, and contributions to the community. These young professionals help drive Sacramento’s economy forward and are leading the way for future generations of business leaders.

Congrats to the 40 Under 40 Class of 2019!

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A website will help your business grow by utilizing your online presence to target and engage with new customers. A website is the backbone that supports all of your other user experience strategies, such as SEO, social media marketing, paid online advertising, and content marketing.

But putting together a website for your business can seem like a daunting task. You want your site to be an engaging and informative representation of your brand and company culture. You need images, content, and structure. But where do you start?

The user experience team at Capitol Tech Solutions has years of experience creating award-winning websites for large and small businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies. We partner with our clients to create eye-catching websites that fit their unique business goals. At the beginning of every project the CTS team outlines the different pieces that are needed for a successful website.

No matter the size of your company or your unique business goals, these four tips will get your website going in the right direction.

1. Graphic Material that catches the eye

Strong graphic material can stimulate aesthetic senses and increase connections with your viewers.

Logo: Your business identity starts with your logo in the highest resolution possible – preferably an .ai or .eps file type.

New images: People respond to professional and engaging imagery, so gather as many high quality images as you can and give them descriptive filenames. No images? No problem, check out istockphoto.com for countless royalty free image options.

Color scheme: Everyone loves a great color scheme. Do you have particular colors you like? Provide the CYMK or RGB colors. If not, describe what you want, or find images that demonstrate your preferences.

Are you inspired by other websites? Put together a list of websites you like and make note of what you like most about them. This gives a visual representation of what you like and can provide a good starting point for design ideas.

2. Create a strong website structure

As you begin thinking about your website and how your content will be distributed, it’s important to focus on a site organization that will help visitors easily find what they are looking for.

Sitemap: What content pages will your website contain? We call this your sitemap. Most sites have some unique and some common pages. Think about what needs to be on your site.

Homepage: A modern website homepage has 4 -7 sections of content. Think about short content and descriptive images that can go on your homepage.

Call to action: Once people get to your website, what do you want them to do? Contact Us, Register Now, Call Us, Sign Up, Learn More, Get More, and Buy Now are a few options.

3. Create engaging website content

Now that you have your images and website structure, you need to create the content for your website. Here are some helpful ideas:

Value statement: First impressions go a long way. What is the first message and imagery a site visitor will see when they see your website? Think about your elevator pitch and what your business does that will help you stand out and be more memorable.

About Us: Answer the critical questions of the who, what, why, where, and how of your organization. The prospective client should conclude from the About Us content that your organization is qualified to solve their needs or fill their requirements.

Services/Products: What services or products do you offer, and why are they better than your competition? Describe with common industry terms what you do, get specific client testimonials, and elaborate on why you are better than competitors.

News/Blogs: What has been happening in your business or industry? Come up with some ideas for recent stories and write them for use on your news or blog page.

Testimonials: Get real people to say in their own words why you are so great. If you can get permission to use their name, title, and photo, it makes the testimonial even more powerful.

Other pages: There is no limit to the number of pages on a website, so if you have more content, add it to the site.

4. Get technical with details

Our user experience agency looks forward to going on this journey with you

Creating a successful website for your business doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task. The award-winning team at CTS has years of experience partnering with businesses of all sizes to create engaging websites that convert visitors into customers. If you are ready to grow your business and expand your online presence reach out to CTS for a free website consultation.

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