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How To “Big Brother” Your Own Website?
How Well Do You Really Know Your Website?
If you’re like most webmasters, you have probably spent years building your site. You have spent years adding content, building links and cultivating traffic – but how well do you really know your website?
How well do you know the intricate details of your website’s traffic? Where do your site’s visitors come from? How long do they stay on your site? Just where do they go to on your site and how well do they convert into buyers or subscribers?
Do you know your site’s rankings in the major search engines? What are your site’s top keywords? What’s your site’s Google PageRank? Who are your IP neighbors? What your site looks like in other browsers? How much is your site worth?
These are just some of the questions you should know, mainly because the more knowledge you possess about your site, the better equipped you will be at improving it. So here’s a simple list of free site checking tools/sites that will let you “Big Brother” (monitor and watch) your site:
1. Google Analytics
Perhaps one of the most helpful analytical tools you can use on your site. Google Analytics will give you a wealth of information about your site’s traffic. Where it comes from, how long it stays on your site, where it goes on your site, how well your content converts… invaluable information every webmaster should have in their possession. ( www.google.com/analytics )
2. NetMechanic Toolbox
Check your site’s mechanics – find broken links, check browser compatibility, find bad HTML code, spot slow-loading pages, and check your spelling… all by using the NetMechanic Toolbox: ( www.netmechanic.com )
3. Keyword Suggestion Tool
This free keyword suggestion tool will tell you how many searches are done in WordTracker and Overture for your site’s keywords. Extremely valuable information since much of web’s traffic and ecommerce is keyword driven. ( www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/)
4. Iwebtool
This is another free site which offers many valuable webmaster’s tools that will give you information about your/any site. Google PageRank, PageRank Prediction, Link Popularity, Search Engine Positions for Keywords, Backlink Checker… also Visual PageRank where you can see all the PR values of all the links on a given page – both internal and external. ( www.iwebtool.com )
5. Alexa Traffic Rankings
Alexa tracks the web’s traffic by using the Alexa bar in a surfer’s browser. Most people know it is not an accurate assessment of the traffic on the net but is a handy measuring stick, nonetheless. It is also a handy tool for comparing sites and seeing the long-tern traffic trends of different sites, including your own. ( www.alexa.com )
6. Your Site’s Traffic Logs
Most webmasters know your raw traffic logs are worth checking and reading. It contains valuable information about your site. Especially helpful if you’re checking for broken links on your site, you don’t want to see those 302’s everywhere. Close examination and regular checking of your traffic logs and stats will point out the profitable keywords on your site.
7. BetterWhois
You can use this site to find out the domain information about your site. Do you have control of your domain? Many webmasters buy their domain name thru their web hosting company, while this is not a problem in itself, however, if any dispute should arise who has administrative control of your domain; you or your hosting company? Can you change hosting companies? ( www.betterwhois.com )
8. Google Alerts
Another valuable tool from Google which notifies you by email when your link or site is found anywhere on the web. Great for keeping track of any new links your site is getting. Many webmasters also use this handy tool to keep track of their competitor’s sites. They also use Google Alerts to keep track of whenever their own name is mentioned anywhere on the web. This one would even make Orwell proud. ( www.google.com/alerts )
9. IP Neighbors
Many webmasters have their site hosted on shared hosting plans, which means there can be hundreds of sites sharing the same IP address. This site lets you discover who your IP neighbors are. Why would you want to know your IP neighbors? Well like neighbors everywhere; there are good ones and there are bad ones. For example, if you have a neighboring site that uses email to spam, it could get your IP address blocked or shut down. ( www.myipneighbors.com )
10. Any Browser
Use to this handy site to discover what your site looks like in different browsers; you could be in for a real shock. ( www.anybrowser.com )
11. Google Toolbar
The Google Toolbar can be placed on your browser so that when you’re surfing you can see the Google PageRank of each page/site you’re visiting. Many SEO experts believe Google is not giving us the true PR of a page and this bar is rather useless. However, like the Alexa rankings it is a handy measuring stick, nonetheless. ( www.toolbar.google.com )
12. What Is Your Site Worth?
Please take this last analyzing tool with “a large grain of salt”, but it is fun to use and to see how much your site is worth. Measurement here is done largely by the amount of links you have coming into your site. ( directory.sootle.com/website-worth )
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5 Resources Every Copywriter Must Have
Copywriting is one of the most vital elements of effective online marketing. The art and science of copywriting includes strategically writing words that will promote a person, a product, business, opinion, or ideas with the ultimate intention of having the reader take some form of action.
Whether you are looking into selling something over the internet or in building traffic by earning links from others, you will need to tell moving stories that will grab attention and will connect with people so that they will respond in the way that you want.
There are many copywriting tutorials and great online copywriting course that you can find online. Some of these online copywriting courses and tutorials are packed with comprehensive lessons and tips in doing the job properly. Some even include in-depth copywriting training complete with references and recommendations from professionals. An online copywriting course that is available in the internet can be downloaded or be bought in a DVD format.
Among the many topics discussed in an online copywriting course are the things that every aspiring copywriter should know how to write. Such topics are:
1. Print Ads
Since most copywriters land in advertising jobs, rookie copywriters should spend some time learning about print advertising. When you understand what makes a print ad effective and sellable, you can then move into learning about other medium such as flyers, yellow pages ads and newsletters. Writing print ads can also be a good way to start creating samples for your own portfolio.
2. Brochures
It is not enough that you sit down and try to write to brochure. You should learn the fundamentals in writing one – how the brochure fits into the buying process, if the brochure will stand alone or be tied in with other mediums and what the selling points will be. You have to know the different types of brochures and then start finding your niche among them.
3. Direct Mail
Writing direct mails broadens your knowledge of writing brochures. Every direct mail package is different. Some may include a sales letter or a response card. Others could include a sales letter and a brochure. Being familiar with direct mails helps you be exposed to a different side of advertising that some advertising agencies specialize in exclusively. This can be a great tool to have if you find out that you enjoy writing direct mails.
4. Commercials
Television commercials will help you learn how to write a matching audio and video output. Creating a 30-second TV commercial script can already be a very good exposure in the world of copywriting. Your script needs to have perfect timing. And while you incorporate audio and video, you will also learn about the use of fonts, graphics and will learn how to play with other effects in the commercial. You can also check out writing for radio commercials as well, while you’re at it. You can make use of both TV and radio commercials as additional materials in your portfolio.
5. Websites
Being able to write copy for websites is a necessity for every copywriter. Even large companies that do not sell products online need a website, so having someone maintaining the company’s website is something every company should do. And this is where you being the copywriter comes in.
8 Reasons Why You Need Audio on Your Website
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Friday, December 23, 2011
8 Reasons Why You Need Audio on Your Website
1. Customers remember what they hear more than what they read. Did you know that people remember only 20% of what they read while they remember an astonishing 70% of what they hear? That’s three and a half times more! Your audio message will help you to stick into the minds of your customers longer.
2. Audio boosts your credibility. The sound of your voice adds personality to your website and helps customers identify with you. Customers buy from people who they feel they know and trust, and using audio can help you achieve this.
3. Audio keeps customers on your site longer. Audio can keep customers on your site longer and you give you more time to make the sale. It can be used as an additional resource or tool for customers to familiarize themselves with your product or service while browsing your site.
4. Audio increases your subscription rate. Using a personal audio message to get customers to sign up for your newsletter can raise subscription levels by up to 400% more than using traditional subscription marketing techniques. You can also use audio as a part of an online course that people can subscribe to. The lesson that includes an audio in our free online meditation course gets opened most, leads to the largest number of sales and receives the best feedback.
5. Audio enhances newsletters, ezines and blogs – which leads to profits. You can spice up your newsletter, ezine or blog by using audio to provide special tips or product updates that keep customers interested and motivated to buy.
6. Audio puts you light years ahead of your competitors. Using audio successfully on your site gives you a competitive advantage. Most internet businesses overlook using this effective marketing tool so be sure you’re not one of them!
7. Audio is easy to use. Being able to put audio on your website isn’t limited to just techies – anyone can do it! Many of the programs available don’t even require you to know HTML or flash. They’re designed to be user friendly so you shouldn’t have any problems taking your website to the next level.
8. Audio is cheap. You can add audio to your site for as little as $19.95. More advanced audio solutions will only cost you around $97 – a small price to pay considering the many benefits it provides to your website and your customers.
In short, audio gives you an edge over your competitors and allows you to build a personal bond with your customers in a way that’s not possible with traditional websites. When customers feel they know you and can identify with you, they will be more likely to buy from you.
Writer’s block
Writer’s block is the scourge of all writers: whether authors of popular fiction, factual content writers or journalists. It’s seemingly random descent can cast doubts on the feasibility of meeting deadlines and cause general unrest. This strange affliction often comes on unprovoked and seems to strike at the most inopportune of moments. Although there is no cure as such (most notably because it is not an ailment per se) there are certainly things that can be done to stimulate the creative zones of your brain back into action to get you back on track.
In many cases, writer’s block is simply an absence of motivation or a prevalence of distractions. Spending too long poring over a written task or spending an inordinate amount of time attempting to re-work or rewrite existing passages can really drain the will to work. Quite simply, writer’s block is generally a side effect of boredom, lack of urgency or pre-occupation. In order to counter this there are a number of techniques, the effectiveness of which is dictated as much by the nature of the individual as it is by the situation.
If you’re unable to complete a piece, article or chapter due to a temporary inability to focus then the first thing to do is step back from the work. Quickly assess your emotions: are you tired, hungry, worried, excited? Although such a seemingly simple, even silly thing to do: by distancing yourself from the task at hand you are more able to focus on the underlying issue. Having established the root of the distraction action can be taken to remedy the problem and regain focus. Obviously time constraints are important here: if you’re exhausted but have a strict deadline then unfortunately short-term remedies such as a boost of caffeine or a brisk walk may be on the agenda. Equally if your distraction spawns from worry about something else then you may not have time to fully address this external problem. A sound alternative in this instance would be to spend a few minutes planning how you will remedy the issue responsible for the distraction once you’ve finished the more urgent writing task- giving you at least some relief and a little more focus.
Some people react well with tight deadlines: others react in the exact opposite manner. The key is to mentally organise yourself in the manner which is most effective for you. If you have no set deadline for completing a task and work best when you do have a deadline then set yourself one! Conversely, if you have a tight deadline but are dwelling on the pressure of completing in time then set yourself smaller deadlines with incremental rewards leading up to completion in the set time.
Writer’s block is a purely mental phenomenon and can be resolved by learning as much as you can about the circumstances in which you work best. Once you know the ideal environment and form of motivation for you then it is easy to go about tailoring the situation to induce maximum productivity.
5 Steps to a perfect review landing page
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Friday, December 16, 2011
5 Steps to a perfect review landing page
The reason a review page works so well is because it doesn’t just hard sell you on a specific product but instead gives you a choice, based on actual reasons why or why not a product is worth the money/time/effort and whether or not it is any good.
So if you’re thinking of making more money as an affiliate marketer online, then I suggest you not only incorporate review pages into your sales process, but make sure you do it right using the following blueprint:
Step 1. The Headline
The headline will draw people in and create excitement and desire to continue reading. The headline must include a clear benefit and address the reader as personally as possible. Always state what they will be gaining from reading on, based on the specific problem that they are experiencing.
Step 2. The Body
The entire body is elaborating on the headline and getting the reader involved. This might include telling a short story (only needs to be a paragraph here), in order to connect with the reader, and give a clear reason why you’ve bothered to do a review of these particular products.
Step 3. The products
Many people still do a review on one product and leave nothing to compare it against. I think this is a big mistake, because a comparison of similar products will help prevent the reader from leaving your page to compare the product you’ve reviewed with similar products elsewhere. In other words, why not get them to do their entire research on your page instead?
Step 4. Believability
If you make out as if the winning product is perfect in every sense, then you’ll lose sales. Why? Because people will believe a balanced review over a blatant sales pitch any day of the week. Pick out a few minor bad points and contrast them with the good points so as not to kill the sale.
Step 5. Call to action
Once you’ve written your reviews of each product, make the winning product the most prominent on the page, at the top before the fold. This will prevent visitors clicking away and will be able to clearly see which product is worth looking into. Make all of your links stand out, even on the losing products and be sure to use phrases that ask the visitor to take action, such as “click here to get rid of x..”.
If you apply these techniques to your review pages, you can expect to increase your conversions significantly. What you really need to consider is that more people are doing review type pre-selling every day, so in order for you to stand out; I would highly recommend you do a proper review and not just a “fake” review where you are talking out of your behind! So, you would do well to actually buy the products you are reviewing and make balanced points good AND bad and simply let the visitor make the decision, not you.
If you follow this advice, I can assure you that you’ll always be ahead of the competition by giving your visitors valuable help in buying through affiliate links. Trust me, your visitors will actually appreciate this more than you’d think, and you’re still going to be picking up the affiliate pay checks at the end of the month too.
Increase Landing Page Conversions with These Subtle Tricks
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Increase Landing Page Conversions with These Subtle Tricks
Most landing pages are often way too cluttered for their own good – hence the low conversions and high bounce rates. Consumers have shortened attention spans online so overly complicated landing pages with pop-ups, animations, and too much to focus on will only lead them to click away. The following subtle tricks should help you create a more effective landing page that boosts conversions and sales.
* Don’t Forget to Provide a Clear Call to Action
Too many people dismiss the importance of a clear call to action. After reading your landing page, users should know exactly what they are supposed to do, whether it is to fill out the form or click “Buy Now.” Adding a call to action to a landing page where one is lacking or making your current call to action much clearer and more prominent can have a dramatic impact on conversions.
Make sure that you only provide one call to action on your landing page. If you provide several different conversion options, people will get confused and your sales message will get diluted. Your prospects just want to sign on the dotted line so make it easy for them to do so.
* Keep it Simple
The majority of landing pages are cluttered and overwhelming. Make sure the design of your landing pages is as simple as possible. Get rid of the distracting audio, animation, and bright colors. Make the visuals of your landing page so simple that visitors are guided to the call of action without interruptions.
Text should also be minimized when you are simplifying the design and look of your site. Make the content on your site easy to read and digest by dividing it into sections, using bullet points, and keeping things concise.
If you’re using a form to capture leads on your landing page, try to keep it as short as possible. If your form has too many fields, you will end up losing sales because your prospects won’t want to spend time filling it out. Getting your prospect’s name and email is usually enough in most cases.
The use of simple language is also important. If a sixth grader wouldn’t be able to understand it, don’t use it. Jargon and marketing speak don’t increase sales. If your landing page is too complicated or wordy, your visitors will lose interest quickly.
* Convey Your Credibility
Not only should your website be simple, organized, and professional looking, it should also convey your credibility. People have to trust you first in order to purchase something from you. In order to earn that trust, you can list the names of reputable companies you have worked with, provide testimonials, refer to awards you have won, list memberships you have to relevant professional associations, etc.
Take a look at your current landing pages. Are they simple, professional, easy to follow, and organized? If not, make some changes while keeping these tricks in mind. A landing page with a clear call to action and credibility will help you boost conversions dramatically.
Using Articles To Build URL Backlinks
If you’ve got an internet business and interested in making more revenues, URL backlinks may be the secret to your success. Before anything else, what are URL backlinks?
Essentially, these are hyperlinks from other sites that point back to your site or blog. Because of backlinks, other people’s sites are going to be connected to your own. This short article presents the importance of inbound links for your online business and in what way article marketing can help you create backlinks.
It’s recommended that you receive in-links from first-rate web pages because these would boost your site’s ratings. A good illustration of a top-notch web page is authority websites. Authority sites contain plenty of content and people frequently visit these websites when they look for certain information. Needless to say, it is difficult, if not impossible, to challenge authority websites, so you should rely on them in order to pull in more page views and have more earnings.
You might be anxious to know exactly how you can achieve this without shelling out lots of money. Have you heard about article marketing? If you haven’t, then you are totally missing out on an excellent opportunity. Article marketing is a zero-cost as well as effective strategy to let everyone know about your web page, services and products. It involves the production and also submission of content pieces to various article directory websites to publicize your internet business. Unlike other tactics, you won’t waste your time and money with article marketing. As expected, there are some qualifications that you need to adhere to in order for this to be conceivable.
To begin with, this particular method is cost-free so long as you craft your articles yourself. If you choose to write your articles all on your own, be prepared to devote a great deal of time doing it. What you should do is to implement a schedule for content creation; this is important since you also require time to handle the other elements of your internet business. You should reserve a specific number of hours to craft your content pieces, and you should abide by that schedule without fail. You’ll need many content pieces on a single theme in order to be effective, and you can’t go around this requirement.
This might appear to be an unattainable task for many web-based business operators, including yourself. If you have no time to carry this out on a regular basis or do not have the self-assurance to craft impressive content pieces, you could give this certain activity to independent content writers or content creation services. Their rates are tremendously lower than those of regular ghostwriters, and they can create a significant amount of write-ups in a short time. It’s important that you contract skillful, experienced and also dependable copy writers to write your content pieces; the popularity as well as level of traffic that your site will have would rely on them, so make certain that you engage folks who really know what they are doing.
Each time your articles are posted on the web, your website or blog brings in more publicity. The link that you include at the conclusion of your content pieces would serve as a mini-advertisement for your online business. Article submission websites do not charge you whenever you put in incoming links for your site, so it is a win-win situation: you receive more publicity, page views and profits while article directory sites would have more users for their service.
You’re free to send as much write-ups as you wish. In fact, sending many content pieces is highly encouraged. Just make certain that you abide by each and every online directory’s author as well as sending protocols, peruse their list of frequently asked questions and stay away from trouble. Otherwise, your account is going to be suspended and your content pieces would not be posted. As with everything, you have to get used to the different policies, but the whole routine becomes simple after a few submissions along with a brief adjustment period.
If you are not employing article promotion to create URL backlinks, then you’re surely missing out. Why do you think there are countless write-ups in all those article directories? The answer’s obvious: most of the articles posted there are done by internet marketers. When you implement article promotion, you will see why many folks depend on this strategy to generate URL backlinks.
Write For Your Readers Or Search Engines?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Article Marketing Tip: Write For Your Readers Or Search Engines?
Should you write for your readers or for the search engines? That is a really good question to consider.
Search engines are still the best sources of warm and targeted traffic. They aim to provide online users with quality content.
That is why they put much weight on articles that are informative and content-rich. If you can offer these kinds of articles, you can be assured that the search engines will help you better connect with your potential clients so you can boost your sales and revenue.
Here’s how you can improve your article marketing by writing for your readers and letting the search engines benefit from it:
1. Write for your readers
You need to know how to impress online users so you can maximize the benefits that you can get from your articles.
Start by giving them content that they will find useful and relevant to their lives. Offer answers to their most frequent questions. Empower them to do things on their own by offering them step-by-step guides.
Offer solutions to their pressing issues, and share information that can help them better understand their problems and their areas of interest.
Then, ensure that your articles are easy to understand, easy to skim through, and concise. Remember, you do not want to waste the time of your readers as they have short attention span.
2. Talk about your products and services
Article marketing is one of the best ways to promote your offerings without burning your pockets.
You can highlight the benefits and features that your products can offer and communicate how they can help your potential clients improve the quality of their lives.
You just have to make sure that you don’t fill your articles with marketing hype and sales pitches. You need to do the selling in a subtle way so your copies will not be rejected by the publishers. And the search engines will love you more as well.
3. Create a killer resource box
You would want your readers to click on your resource box as this is the only way to get them to visit your website or your squeeze page.
You can get them to act on your favor by making sure that your resource box is benefit-driven. Tell your readers what they can expect to get from your website or offer them with exciting freebies like vouchers and free e-books.
When people know that they will benefit from something, they will surely do it in a heartbeat. This can lead to enormous conversion rate that can help in growing your e-business exponentially.
Follow these article marketing tips and write for your readers. The search engines will find you too.
Is Your Website Springing a Leak?
Imagine that you own a beautifully designed yacht. It looks great on the surface of the water, with superb lines, gleaming decks, a well-appointed galley… but you’re having real trouble getting out of the harbor and you can’t figure out why!
You investigate, and you find that beneath the surface your beautiful boat has a number of slow, silent, leaks. None of them are big enough to sink you on their own, so there’s no obvious immediate crisis – just a constant drain on your efficiency and your speed.
I’ve been reviewing Web traffic reports for over 10 years, and I believe that this analogy applies very well to almost all business websites. Very few sites are so terrible or have something so wrong with them that they’re clearly a disaster. Yet just about every site has some area where it’s quietly losing traffic, losing potential business or the opportunity to create relationships – or failing to attract visitors in the first place.
If you’re not regularly reviewing your traffic analysis, you can’t know for sure if your site is leak proof. In this article, I’ll show you a few of the most common areas where you can look for – and fix – those silent leaks:
1. Leaks in your Brand & Positioning
The excellent folks at MarketingExperiments online research laboratories have shown that clearly articulated and differentiating value propositions have a critical effect on Website conversion rates. (The conversion rate is the measurement of visitors fulfilling your desired outcomes – which might include calling you, buying a product at your site, signing up for your newsletter or blog feed, etc.) Your value proposition should be front and center on your home page. It should answer the classic question: “Why should we do business with you instead of your competition?”
Although this question isn’t a Web strategy issue in itself, it is one that many people struggle to answer. But the lack of a compelling opening message can be a major impediment to your online success.
How to check for this leak: Even if they don’t enter your site at the home page, most visitors who don’t know you will go there as the second page they look at to find out more about you and your business. If visitors are taking a quick look at your home page and then immediately leaving, something is wrong. Your copy is failing to pique their curiosity or to answer their questions: “Can this company meet my needs?” and “Should I explore further?” You have a leak!
2. Leaks in Visitor Engagement
Popular theory says that you have 10 seconds to engage a visitor – i.e. convince them to stay on your site before they click away in search of something more interesting.
While I don’t believe that it’s quite that simple, there are some definite ways to get rid of visitors fast before they’ve had a chance to really check you out. The best of these is probably the infamous splash page – the entry page to your site that your Web designer persuaded you to have because it “does cool stuff”. Hopefully there’s a “Skip Intro” button somewhere on the page! In all my reviews of traffic reports I’ve seen a consistent leak of up to 30% of visitors leaving from this page alone – before they’ve ever seen who you are or what you offer.
How to check for this leak: Easy – look for the splash page in your traffic reports and see how many visitors exit at that point. If it’s more than a small percentage, you have a leak – take the page out today!
The other major area where you should watch for leaks in visitor engagement is in what are called “landing pages”. These are inside pages of your Website which turn out to be the first page that a visitor sees, usually because you have some well-indexed content that they’ve found in a search engine.
Here it’s absolutely critical to understand the visitor’s mindset. Each visitor is at your site looking for something specific, they may well have found you by accident, so they may have no idea who you are – and worse, no interest in you.
The first page that they see on your Website must engage them immediately in accordance with their needs, and it must have enough context to draw them into other areas, and to want to find out more about you. It’s not enough to give great information on this page – they’ll soak that up, and then leave.
How to check for this leak: Hopefully your traffic reports are sophisticated enough to show you which keywords bring visitors to each specific page of your site. This shows you each visitor’s “mindset”.
If visitors are leaving a page very quickly, then it probably isn’t satisfying their informational needs, so you should review the content.
If visitors are reading the page (your traffic reports should show the time spent at each page) and then leaving, you’ve given them what they wanted but failed to draw them into the rest of your site. This can be fixed with more compelling navigation and calls to action.
Either way, you have a leak!
3. Leaks in Directions & Outcomes
I’m constantly amazed by the number of Web pages that give great information and content – and then just end abruptly – perhaps with some navigation tabs if you’re lucky!
Steve Krug in his excellent book “Don’t Make Me Think!” describes how crucial it is to direct visitors to the next step that you want them to take. If you don’t do this, and rely on your visitors to figure this out for themselves, there’s a strong chance that they’ll make a different choice than the one you want – or they’ll leave your site altogether, creating leaks in your potential revenue stream.
Every page of your site needs strong calls to action that stand out visually and click directly to where the visitor can fulfill the outcome that you want (e.g. “buy now!”, “sign up for our newsletter / RSS feed”.) Pages can have more than one call to action, and there’s nothing wrong with repeating them on longer pages so that they’re always within eyeshot.
And by the way, “Back to top” is not a call to action!
How to check for this leak: If your traffic reports show this information, look at the paths that visitors take through your site – where do visitors go next from each page? If many of them are exiting the site and / or they fan out across many pages with no clear pattern or direction, you have a possible leak.
4. Leaks in your Credibility Building
MarketingExperiments research has also shown that powerful, specific, and authoritative testimonials can have a major impact on your site’s conversion rates.
Consider this statement: “Documented results show that just a few hours with [ expert ] can increase lead generation by 125%”. Imagine how much stronger that assertion would be if there were some examples of the “documented results” and some customer quotes to that effect.
However, including a page on your site called “What Customers Say” doesn’t do it – I can safely say that visitors don’t go to those pages. And it’s not just traffic reports that tell me this – whenever I ask a live audience “Would you click this link?” there’s always a resounding “No!”
How to check for this leak: This is a much more subtle leak to detect, but it’s an important one. The question here is whether you are potentially losing business because your site fails adequately to establish your value and credibility.
My recommended approach is to review your site for credibility-building content such as client lists, testimonials and case studies. You need to spread your testimonials through your site, using short one or two line excerpts that are relevant to the content of each page – whether it’s about a product or a service, or the value of subscribing to your newsletter or blog.
Make sure that all of this material is linked to from other pages so that it’s easily found by visitors. If you then experience an increase in calls, or in the quality of your leads, then you might have just fixed a leak!
10 Useful Tips To Attract People To Your Web Site
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, December 1, 2011
10 Useful Tips To Attract People To Your Web Site
Combinations of two or more of the tips below are being used by many successful sites today. Use your imagination and see what you can do with them. Because there are so many web sites on the internet today visitors are spread quite thinly and web traffic is one of the scarcest commodities on the internet today. Without it your online business does not exist:
1. Give people a free subscription to your newsletter
Almost everyone is publishing a newsletter nowadays so it is important to give something extra with the free subscription. You need to set yourself apart from the other internet marketers out there. This might be done by offering a gift or free advertising when people subscribe.
2. Provide visitors with new and original content
Your content will be more attractive to your visitors if it is up-to-date or original. You could also offer people the option to reprint the content in their newsletter or web site. You will need to change your content frequently if you do this. But the benefits are worth the effort. The search engines will love your site and keep coming back. Your site will rank highly in their results and your visitors will keep coming back for the latest updates.
3. Use PPC directories
You can advertise in pay per click directories. With PPC you only pay when some one clicks on your link. If no one clicks you pay nothing. This method is very good if you are selling a product at your site. It is easy to assess the cost of each sale and measure you success.
There are lots of PPC sites out there now. Google and Yahoo! are not the only ones. You can often get a better deal at these other sites depending on the competition for the keyword you are using. Shop around. There is probably a site out there with your keyword going cheap. But, Make sure that it can deliver the traffic. You can do this by checking its Alexa rank. If it is not getting much traffic itself, how is it going to direct traffic to you?
4. Give visitors a free ebook
You could write your own and include an ad in the ebook linking to your site and allow other people to sell it or give it away. If you don’t want to take the time to write one, you could ask other writers permission to use their articles and assemble an article eBook. Or commission an eBook. There are plenty of writers around willing to write a fresh eBook for you at a fair price.
5. Hold free online classes or seminars
They could be held in your web site’s chat room. The idea of “live” information will entice people to visit your web site. You will become known as an expert on the topic.
6. Offer free consulting to your web site visitors
You could do this via e-mail or by telephone. People will consider this a huge value because consulting fees can be very expensive. Use a separate business line if you use the phone or you will have calls coming in to your home phone around the clock as the world turns. If your site becomes known for this service you may need to employ people to help keep up. If this happens you can bring in a two tier system whereby you have a free service and a paid service offering something extra.
7. Give visitors a free entry into a contest
The prizes should be something of interest or value to your visitors or relevant to your site’s topics. Most people who enter will continually revisit your web site to get the results. Do not be discouraged if the first one or two contests do not set the world on fire. The word has to get out. People will talk to their friends about this site that is running this great contest, and before too long your site will have a name for running contests. There are people out there who really go for that sort of thing and will visit your site regularly.
8. Let visitors download free software
It could be freeware, shareware, demos etc. You could even turn part of your site into a free software area and let other people sell it or give it away from this area. You do not need to produce the free software yourself. There are plenty of sources on the web. All you have to do is link to them. If you gather a significant amount of software of a type relevant to the topic of your site you will make your site a valuable resource for your visitors and they will keep coming back to get more.
9. Offer free online services or utilities
They could be search engine submitting, copy writing proofreading etc. The service or utility should be helpful to your target audience.
10. Give your visitors a free membership to an online club
People like to feel that they belong to something, why not your online club. You could also give away a free newsletter for club members only. The members will very likely want to contribute a large part of its content making it easy to source articles. If you offer them a link back to their own site your members will be queuing up to put content in your newsletter.
It goes without saying that all of the above should be relevant to the topic of your site in order to be of interest to your visitors. Do not keep changing the topic of your site. I see this happening all too often. The webmaster has a site for three months or so and becomes disheartened because his site not taken off as he hoped, so he decides to try a different topic.
Doing so he / she loses the regular visitors he / she had and has to start at the beginning again in the new topic. Also, the search engines will very likely be slow to change to the new topic, confusing everyone who visits from there. It may also affect the PR of the site as the new topic may initially be viewed as unrelated content.
The Ten Most Effective Ways To Promote Your Website
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
The Ten Most Effective Ways To Promote Your Website
In a nut shell, this is what I’ve found that will help promote your website. These methods are very effective. Keep this blog post as a reference and make sure you are doing all these things. Ok here it goes:
1. Adwords (or any search engine ads at all)
Of course we all know that Google is the top dog but there are many other decent search engines that will get you the same good traffic. For $40 bucks a day I get over 100 unique hits on my website. Every little bit helps
2. Blogging
Even if hate to write, just post relevant information regarding your site just make sure you give credit to who wrote your blog post. Oh and link on your blog post like crazy. I didn’t believe in this method at first but trust me I have learned the ways of the blog.
3. Mailing List
This is a tough area. Its like you need money to make money. But in this case you need email addresses to send emails. Do your best in trying to provoke your customers into signing up for your mailing list. Offer something for free (not a free newsletter) something legit. This will help you by encouraging repeat visits. Its better to keep the same visitor than trying to get new ones, plus it’s easier. Oh and it’s good for word of mouth (which is still the best way to advertise)
4. List, Register & Sign Up!
Spend at least one whole day signing up for every freaking search engine, directory and relevant search site you can. The more you name and website are out on the internet, the better you are ranked by the search engines
5. Links
Ok this is tricky, yes you want your link on as many websites as you can but even better than that is getting your website linked on a website that is really big. If you are officially linked to a big website that will look very good to search engines. Think of your link as a vote to get you to the top of the search engine. And think of a big website and your link like a campaign contribution. That’s right, get the big guys behind you and they’ll help you climb your way to the top. It’s all about who you know.
6. SEO
If you don’t know what this is, then learn. SEO (Search Engine optimization) is very important. The whole point to internet marketing is to get to the top or as high as you can on search engines. They are the number one way people find things on the internet. So in order to help your chances make sure you website is riddled with good keywords, relevant ones. If you are having a hard time with this, follow this logic: If you are online and you wanted to find a website like yours, what would you do? What would you type into a search engine. Ask yourself that question and then ask that question to everybody you know. That way you get a better understanding on what people are searching for.
Also add meta tags like keywords, descriptions and alt tags to all your pages. You can do this all at the end if you want.
7. The No Brainer
Just make sure your site looks good. If you have a crappy looking website then chances are no one will want to stay. For instance if you never cleaned your house do you think new guest will want to sleep over. Nope. And if you suck at making a website look awesome enlist a professional or someone with a clue to help.
8. The Little Things
Do these little things to your site: Add a “Tell A Friend About This Site” Button (For word of mouth, the best marketing), Add a “Bookmark Us” button to your site, give away free stuff, lure customers with contests, make jokes, get an RSS Feed (if you don’t know what that is, then learn, if you are a website designer then you should already know), put some fun things to do on your site to get people to stay. Case in point: Your having guest over for coffee but your TV is broke, all your board games are missing and you just recently started not talking to anyone, your guest will want to leave because it’s boring and it sucks.
9. Get On Myspace or Facebook
If your website is looking for a younger audience then get on anyone of these site and make friends will as many people as you can. Spend hours a day doing this. Make sure your page is chock full of ways to get to your site. This will boost traffic like nobody’s business.
10. Last But Not Least
Be consistent. If you want to have a high traffic website ,then you need to dedicate yourself to the cause. You need to be on the internet doing these things every single day. It’s just like exercising or dieting, if you don’t stick to it everyday, you will fail. But I have faith in you, do as the Romans do.
Outsourcing: Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Outsourcing: Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
As a busy Internet marketer, you will be most likely be swamped at some point with the amount of work involved getting your websites designed and online. You will be desperate to find quality help quickly.
* Some of the major tasks you have to deal with include:
1. Creating your own products to sell.
2. Marketing your products in ways that drive traffic to the site.
3. Building your online reputation and constantly networking to build your online presence…to name a few.
The truth is that you are likely to get buried in details and get lost along the way.
At some point, it might occur to you that you do not have much free time nor are you having much fun and you’ll start thinking that you are unable to work from home and tend to the other aspects of your life, like family and a job.
Overloaded to-do lists are a common problem with new marketers facing all the labor-intensive details you never thought about when you first got involved in creating an online income.
The most popular solution to this common dilemma is to outsource those tasks that you either do not have time to complete yourself or tasks that are not appealing to you.
* Outsourcing is transferring some of your tasks to external service providers
Those tasks can include:
1. Ghostwriting
2. Help desk management
3. Customer service
4. Site design
And that’s just a short list. Literally, it can include any task that you want to outsource.
It is very common in the information marketing niche to escalate viral marketing results with articles submitted to article directories or ebooks written by ghostwriters.
As in any business transaction, problems can arise and mistakes will happen. One of the most critical is lack of clear and frequent communication between you and your Outsourcer. You, as the client, have to make your goals and expectations very clear and ensure that you are being understood.
Since outsourcing often occurs with agencies that are located in countries other than your own, you must interview your prospective outsourcer as completely as you can.
Check the company or service agency just as closely. Look for online reviews of their service and get referrals, if you can. Additionally, its a good idea to ask for samples of their work.
Another problem that could cost you a lot of money is a poorly managed budget for the work you want done. Decide how much money you want to spend and make your budget accordingly.
Not all outsourcing contractors or service agencies follow the same payment plans for projects. Some charge by the project with a one-time payment, while others expect retainers on a time frame, like monthly for long projects.
There should be a specifically written contract with all expectations, delivery deadlines and payment schedules outlined in detail so there’s no angry misunderstandings later.
Another mistake you could easily make that would be a costly one would be to avoid building a relationship with the people tending to your business, particularly the business owner and the contractor you’ve hired.
When you are outsourcing you need crystal clear, two-way lines of communication. Although your contractors are working for you, do not make the mistake of treating them like normal emplyees.
You might not be their only client, which means they are not working exclusively for you. Setting up milestones for your project will help to keep you to keep track of your project’s progress as well as allowing you to keep an eye on any possible delays to the scheduled delivery date.
One final caution is to remember that you are hiring a professional to do a professional job for you and your business. When you have a contractor you can work with, use them for as many other jobs as they are qualified to do for you. They will know what you want and expect and you will know what type of support you will get in return.
When you establish a business relationship with a contractor, you might be able to negotiate lower rates if you are a frequent client.
If you’ve found a reliable Outsourcer that completes projects correctly and efficiently, be loyal and give them as much work as you can afford. Most likely you will also earn their loyalty…and, that’s a good thing.
Four Powerful Ways to Keep Your Customers Informed
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Monday, November 28, 2011
Four Powerful Ways to Keep Your Customers Informed
These days, it’s hard to walk down the street without seeing some sort of news headline or hearing about the latest story. With instant messaging, internet on our phones, and simply talking to our friends, we are constantly bombarded with the latest updates. However, when it comes to your website, you need to act in the same way. Though you might not be able to report on anything catastrophic on your website, in order to be memorable, you do need to start looking at ways to keep your customers informed:
1) Mailing Lists Do Work
Though many websites have eschewed the use of mailing lists to inform their customers, when done right, these are highly effective reminders for customers. The key to doing these mailing lists well is to get the mailing lists on your own – don’t buy them from marketing groups. While it’s true you will get longer lists from the marketing groups, you might also be getting a lot of negative feedback from people who didn’t want to receive your information in the first place.
On your website, create a way for interested visitors to sign up for a weekly email from you. All they should need to do is to give you their email address and their first name and they can find out what’s new with your site each week. This email shouldn’t be a sales letter, but more of a note about what’s going on and what people might want to stop by your site to see.
2) eZines are Still Going Out to Customers
To extend on the idea of a mass email list, you might want to look into making a magazine for your mailing list, or an ezine. This piece of information should be longer than your weekly email, but it should also contain some sales language about things that are coming up for your business.
This is the perfect way for you to update and inform your visitors about your market, while also showing that you are knowledgeable about your chosen business. Try talking about new findings in your market, for example, if you are selling nutritional products. Think about ways to give your site visitors something that they might not have learned on their own.
3) Daily Blogging is a Fun Avenue
Of course, if your business is a little less formal, you might want to opt for a business blog. This can be from the point of view of yourself or perhaps a fictional worker in your company. By simply talking about the latest news and what it means for the site visitor, you can create a modern dialogue that allows you to show your casual side, while still being informative.
You can also talk about loyal customers or about new innovations to products that are in the works.
4) Try Sending Out a Press Release
If all else fails, the press release is still the best way to rest the maximum amount of potential visitors that want to see your site. However, since these releases are generally send to a larger audience, it’s harder to target the customers you really want to target. If you can, you might want to try to submit the press release to publications that your target audience will be looking at as well as posting it on your website to help spread the word about a new product or service.
When it comes to informing your customers, you need to make sure you explore as many possibilities for doing this as possible. While you don’t want to be the only thing on your customer’s mind, you do want to be one fo the top ten.
7 Killer Ways To Make People Click on Your Ads
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, November 27, 2011
7 Killer Ways To Make People Click on Your Ads
Fed up with wasting money on ads that don’t work? Here are some killer ways to turn things around and get writing ads that pull in the clicks, visitors and sales in droves:
1. Reverse Psychology
This is where you encourage people to do the opposite of what you really do want them to. For instance, if you want them to sign up for your marketing newsletter say something like “If you’ve got all the sales, visitors and profits you need, don’t sign up for our SuccessNewsletter”. Just remember that people don’t want to be told what to do, or what not to do, so out of sheer cussedness, and a helping of curiosity they will click.
2. Use exciting and appealing words
People respond best to words that appeal to their emotions and to their desire for money, so use words that aim at these two aspects of the human psyche. Use words such as You, Ultimate, Free, Master, Power, Discovery, Easy, Guaranteed, Love, Money, New, Scientific, Profits, Proven, Results, Incredible, Discover, Breakthrough, Secret, Private, Cash, Shocked, Shocking, Revealed, Uncovered, Hidden, Exciting, Sizzling, Hot and so on. Be careful not to overdo it as less is more when it comes to emotive words.
3. Offer a discount
The Internet started out as the place to get things free. Usually this meant information in the early days, so capitalise on this basic human instinct of wanting ’something for nothing’ and offer your visitors a discount if they buy NOW! Alternatively off a free bonus. Make it compatible with the product you’re selling so that they both form a useful combo.
4. Include testimonials
If you have people write or email you thanking you for your product, get back to them and ask if you can quote them in your advertising. Mostly they will be happy for you to do so. This lets prospective buyers know that a real person has got a real benefit from your product or eBook etc. Don’t be afraid to ask for a testimonial. Send buyers a follow-up email to see if they have benefited from your product and ask them to tell you why (if they have). Testimonials are one of the most persuasive tactics there are.
5. Use a guarantee
Always use a strong guarantee in your ad. One guarantee you often see on downloadable products is ‘Try this eBook for 8 Weeks’ because this is now the length of time ClickBank will offer an automatic money back facility. Other payment providers may differ. Include the guarantee in your headline: ‘Our eBook Will Save You Money – Guaranteed!’
6. Tell your customers what to do
People will often act on an instruction such as ‘Click Here Now’. It may be stating the obvious but this is again the psychology of the prospect. They often need just that little nudge to make them take action.
7. State the major benefit of your product or website
Make sure you tell people what the major benefit of your product is. Even in a classified ad you must answer the question ‘What’s in it for me?’ With some products this is not difficult. For instance if you product is a cure for acne, make you can say something like ‘Our product can cure your acne in 21 days’. If you are selling something less obvious you could say ‘Our Nirvana CDs will soothe and relax you after a hard day’. Make it clear what benefit your product or website has to offer.
Now take a good look at your current ads and apply one or more of the tactics given above and you will begin to see some real results. When you do, why not email me and let me know? I like to get testimonials too!
The 10 Best Ways To Promote Your Website
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, November 26, 2011
The 10 Best Ways To Promote Your Website
To make money on the internet you need an effective marketing plan. So here are the best marketing tips that you must follow to make your website a powerful magnet for traffic and sales:
1) Banner Advertising
Although many marketers already know about pay-per-click advertising, very few are purchasing guaranteed banner click-thru’s that are available on hundred’s of sites. Look for sites that cater to your target market and look for, or ask for, their advertising rates. Slowly but surely most of the sites that sold banner impressions are starting to offer performance advertising in the form of pay-per-click.
2) Write articles
Writing Articles is an excellent way to promote your website and best of all you can get recognize as an internet business expert. You can submit your article to ezine or article directory.
3) Exchange links
Exchanging links is one of the best method for getting web site traffic and ranking higher. When you start a site you should exchange many as possable links with sites that are Related to Your site. Robots are eager to find new links and fresh information.
4) Mailing List
Having a mailing list can bring wonders to a web site, not only will it help bring old visitors back , but they will send the newsletter to their friends (If they like it).This is like gold for you. The only real purpose for a consumer website is to capture leads and to sell products. Send out a monthly e-zine that offers FREE valuable information and mentions similar products they may be interested in. Search Engine Optimization It is no secret that search engines are the number one traffic generating method for driving visitors to web sites. Search engines are very useful in helping people find the relevant information they seek on the Internet. The major search engines develop and maintain their own gigantic database of web sites that can be searched by a user typing in a keyword or keyword phrase in the search box.
5) Search engine optimization
(SEO) is the process of studying the search engines in an effort to determine how to get your web site to rank high on user searches. Depending on the statistical information reviewed, search engines account for over 80% of the visitor traffic to web sites.
6) Free online forum
One forum can be about “Online Business”. Another forum can be about ” Joint Ventures”. When people join those forums, make sure that they need to come to your site first and log in from there, if they want to log on and post on the forum.
7) Market Statistic
You can use features on your website such as visitor polls, online surveys and your website statistics to find out what your customers like more and how they feel about certain aspects of your business to determine how you can improve your product and the way you do business.
Free Advertising
There is alot of Free Advertising on the Internet. There is Classified Ads. Free For All Pages (FFA), Ezine, Article Submission and Newsgroup of course and many more.
9) Blogging
Blogs are a relatively new and popular way to publish content on the Internet. They allow the blogger to publish content; very quickly and get feedback from the people that read it. Because they are new and content is created regularly, search engines love indexing them – and if search engines love them, you should too.
10) Real Syndicated Content
RSS marketing is a tool used by many on the Internet to deliver articles, advertisements, emails, customer support responses, ezines to clients and potential clients.
Constructing A Website That Works
Before you even consider starting to build your first website, you need to think very carefully about what you are going to include in it. For instance, you should not create a site that promotes numerous unrelated affiliate products. As you can imagine, a potential customer will not want to wade through fishing tackle supplies when she came to your site looking for handbags! What’s more, the search engines won’t approve of it either; they won’t be able to distinguish what it is you are trying to sell and therefore won’t rank it well for any of your products. The more products you have on your site means that they have to compete with each other to be viewed when what you really want is a fewer amount of related products that complement and enhance each other.
Here is a basic list of things that you must consider when creating your first and each subsequent website.
* The website needs to be clearly laid out, with separate pages for different topics within the overall subject matter.
* The site will need to focus on a specific subject which is aimed at a distinct audience.
* Both outgoing and incoming links to and from worthwhile and excellent top quality websites should be included.
* Diverse pages should link into each other where relevant.
* There should be plenty of superb content packed with useful information.
* Any affiliate or referral links need to be sprinkled throughout the web page in the relevant places; they need to be tested to see what works the best.
* The correct use of keywords and phrases which will help attract visitors and improve positioning within the search engines need to be used.
* And finally, you must include an internet site map to make it less difficult for visitors to move around the internet site and find what they need. This is often considered redundant in the process of building a website, and that is indeed the fact if you made a sitemap just for the sake of having one.
A sitemap literally acts as a map of your site. They can always refer to your sitemap to see where they are, and navigate through your pages with the utmost ease. There is no need to get the “big picture” of your site by reading through each page, and by doing that you will be saving your visitors’ time.
When you create a sitemap, you are actually creating a single page which contains links to every single page on your site. Imagine what happens when search engine robots hit this page — they will follow the links on the sitemap and naturally every single page of your site gets indexed by search engines! It is also for this purpose that a link to the sitemap has to be placed prominently on the front page of your website.
Don’t get overwhelmed by the amount of things on this list, they may take a little time to put together but they are not difficult by any means. Once they are in place, you can tweak and test your site and add new content to keep it fresh and interesting which in turn will keep the search engines and your website visitors very happy indeed!
Using a 302 Redirect in Place of a 404 Error is a Bad Idea
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Using a 302 Redirect in Place of a 404 Error is a Bad Idea
If your site is currently treating unavailable pages (404 errors) like temporary redirects (302 redirects) you may not have any problems with the search engines but your site is losing out on some important advantages of a proper 404 error.
- The Way a 404 Normally Works
This is how a 404 normally works on a website when a search engine, let’s use Google, visits a URL (i.e address) on your website that cannot be found that was previously spidered/indexed as functional:
1. The visit produces a 404 error from the server. A 404 error is provided by your server when an Internet client (i.e. a browser, search engine, etc.) reaches a URL on your site that can not be produced by your server because it is no longer there or it is incorrect.
2. The first time Google encounters this 404 error, it does not remove your URL but it takes note the page is not available and the broken link/missing address will be mentioned in your Google Webmaster Tools dashboard for you to fix ASAP.
3. The second time Google encounters the 404 error it is a good bet the page will be removed from its index and the error will remain in your Webmaster Tools dashboard for fixing. Google will continue to find the broken link until it is fixed, at which point any associated rankings you had for this page can work their way back up to where they were.
- Using a 302 Redirect Response Instead of a 404 Error Response
Here is the situation: when a search engine visits a URL that no longer exists, your server delivers a 302 redirect response instead of the proper 404 response. The 302 response is essentially this – “this page is being temporarily redirected” to a page you defined (i.e. your home page). As a result, Google does not see the 404 and Google will retain any search rankings the URL may have because it is expecting the old URL to resurface. In theory, that sounds like a good thing because you get to keep your old ranking (temporarily) while Google visitors are redirected seamlessly to your home page (the page you chose to redirect to).
- Why Isn’t this a Good Idea?
1. Visitors end up being rerouted to your home page oblivious to the redirect and end up on a page that may or may not have any relevance to their original search. Not only is this likely to cause an undesirable reaction but it also makes Google look incompetent… something the search engine is not likely to favour you for.
2. Since a 404 is not triggered, there is no way to determine if pages are broken on your website (unless a custom report has been created).
3. 302 redirects do not pass PageRank – so unless the original page is restored, much of the benefit from the links to your old content will evaporate with time.
4. If this practice is utilized site-wide it is conceivable your website rankings would diminish due to the myriad of confusing “temporary” signals provided by your site.
- What is the Best Solution?
1. If you have been using 302 redirects in place of a 404, then I strongly recommend restoring the 404 protocol.
2. Create a custom error page for 404s which will give visitors that encounter your error page an indication of how to get back on track. Once Google finds the 404 errors on your site they will be reported to you in your Google Webmaster Tools.
3. Whenever you, as a webmaster, encounter a reported 404 error on your website it is best to quickly 301 (permanently) redirect old URLs to content that is closely relevant to the past content. Not only will this help you to keep visitors to your site happy but 301 redirects will pass forward the critical PageRank (ie. Google credibility) that may have been built on the old URL.
- Additional Relevant Content
Here are some tools and articles that are relevant to this article:
* Server Header Checker Tool: using this tool you can see what responses particular web pages on any website are providing to Internet client (i.e. a browser, search engine, etc.)
* Permanent 301 versus Temporary 302 Redirects: read Scott Van Achte’s article on how these two redirects differ and when each is best utilized.
* Increase Your Links with Google Webmaster Tools: here is a simple trick to use the reports in Google Webmaster Tools to increase your site’s chances for success.
* How to 301 Redirect Non-WWW to WWW URLs: This is a tutorial on how to redirect your non-www domain (http://yourdomain.com) to your www version (http://www.yourdomain.com) in order to consolidate PageRank and minimize one form of duplicate listings/content in search engines.
* How to Redirect an Old Domain to a New Domain
* A page full of Free Web Site Marketing Tutorials and SEO Tips
* Our Recommended Web Marketing Tools: tried and true tools for search engine optimization (SEO), competitor analysis tools and even useful programs like a powerful password manager we couldn’t live without (direct link), can all be found here.
Tips for Increasing Online Sales
I’m going to let you in on a very dirty secret:
There is one question that is being dodged by experts in EVERY market. Answer that question and you’ll corner the market, be worshipped forever and get more customers and sales.
If it was that easy, why aren’t other experts answering these questions?
It’s because they fear an informed audience. That’s outright silly! But, we’re not going to tell them that. While your competitors run scared, you’ll be getting more sales since you’re going to follow the steps I outline in the article below. You will educate your targeted audiences, get more website traffic, teach people how to buy from you and increase your sales.
Now, are you ready?
Step 1: Find the questions that are being dodged by other experts in your industry
I can’t tell you what these questions are. It will vary from industry to industry. . So, how do you find these golden questions to answer?
* Go to Yahoo Answers and type in your keyword. Examine the questions carefully and see which ones keep popping up. If people are asking the same questions, that means that people have the same questions. There’s a need that’s NOT being fulfilled.
* Go to forums and watch what your audience is discussing
* Survey your clients, customers and list of prospects
Step 2: Answer the questions in as many formats as possible
For each question create a blog post. Do NOT date these blog posts – you will see why later on. Once you create your blog post, expand it into an article. Then, turn your article into a video, special report, podcast and audio interview. You should also create online press releases. If you need help with writing your articles and blog postings, I have templates that will help you write your articles in 30 minutes or less. Just go to http://www.StartWritingArticlesFaster.com
Step 3: Answer the Questions in As Many Places As Possible
* You should submit your blog posts to as many RSS feeds as possible
* You should bookmark your blog posts using Digg, Technorati and De.li.cious
* You should submit your articles to the top websites, ezines and article directories that accept article submissions. We can do this for you at http://www.IWantMoreProspects.com
* You should submit your videos to YouTube and Viddler. You may even want to think about investing in the TrafficGeyser.com video submission service
* You should post links to your blog, articles and videos on Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and Linked In.
* You should post your articles on social marketing websites sites like Scribd and Squidoo
* You should submit your press releases through PR Web or Webwire. If you use Webwire.com, all you have to pay is $20. But, I do suggest comparing the two services and see which one matches your needs.
* Videos teaching people how to buy from you or how to use your product should be on your website.
* When people opt-in for your special reports, ebooks or other free offering, you should have an auto-responder series that gets people to go back to your blog or website. If you have lots of blog postings that answers your prospects’ top questions – all you have to do is create a summary for each blog posting and send people back to your blog every day. This way each blog posting will get the visibility it deserves. And, by not showing the date, these postings become evergreen.
Follow these steps and you will increase website traffic and get more sales, because you’ll be educating your prospects, answering their questions and teaching them how to buy from you.
How to Optimize your Website for Local Search
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Friday, November 18, 2011
How to Optimize your Website for Local Search
As the search engines take “search” to next level, more and more people are beginning to narrow down their searches to their cities or neighborhoods. This is because of the rising need among visitors to know who they are dealing with. They want to personally visit your business location. Thus, targeting local visitors along with global visitors does help your website get the best of both worlds.
* 3 Reasons to Optimize for Local Search
1. Build Brand Awareness
Optimize your website for local keywords to increase brand awareness geographically.
2. Leverage Trust
If local visitors trust your brand, this can translate on to the web and capture the attention of global visitors. This superiority will set your website apart from your competitors.
3. Increase ROI
A recent survey shows that, local seo tends to convert more often, is cost effective and leads to increased ROI.
* How to Optimize your Website for Local Search?
Optimizing a website for a locally oriented business includes all the steps of on page and off page optimization along with a few tweaks and additions. The following steps will ensure that your website marks its presence in the local results.
1. Add Your City Name to the Meta Tags
It is highly important to add the name of your local city to your original keywords and place them accordingly in the title, keyword tag and description tag of the web page. While crawling and indexing the website, the searchbots interpret the emphasis on the name of the city; then use the city name for the search engine results pages from the database.
2. Use Other Localized Metadata Available
There are various other Meta Tags present in HTML which favor local website optimization. Some of them are present under the Meta name as ‘country’, ‘geo position’ or ‘ICMB’. Meta Name – country can be used to input the name of the country where your target visitors reside. Meta Name – geo position or ICMB can be used to input the latitude and longitude coordinates of your business city. Every country has its own unique ICMB code. These details give the search engines more favorable data to rank well locally.
3. Submit Your Website to Google Local Business Center
Google lets you submit your business listing free of cost to its local business center. You can add business details like address, area of operation, contact number and hours of operation to the listing. All these details are available on the screen with a snapshot of a map which shows the detailed location of your business. All you have to do is add the listing in the local business center by going through a quick verification process and the visitors will find their way to your business website.
4. Build High Quality Backlinks
Link building is the most important aspect of search engine optimization. Search engines give a lot of importance to incoming links and consider it as a measure of a website’s popularity. You can build quality backlinks by submitting your site to high PR search directories, internet yellow pages, local search engines and Google webmasters tool.
5. Select the Correct Service Provider
If your business is based in UK and your domain (.com) is hosted with a service provider whose servers are based in its Australian data centers, then chances of your website ranking well in Australia are more. This is because; the search engine will interpret your website to be an Australian website making it harder to rank well in UK search engines (.co.uk). Thus, hosting your website in the country where most of your customers live is a practical decision.
Website optimization for local search is a must for websites with service based businesses to increase lead generation, sales and ROI.
Top 10 Firefox Addons Essential for Web Design
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Top 10 Firefox Addons Essential for Web Design
Doing your site’s design is not only strenuous and exhausting but may be confusing as well when switching between your browser and designing software. Furthermore, looking at other website’s design can be a good inspiration – the design, colors and fonts can give ideas certainly for our own.
So there’s a reason behind the popularity of Firefox with designers across the board: it offers a variety of add-on plugins that make the designer’s (and the design lover’s) life easier and more productive. The following are 10 of the best add-ons out there – click on the links to go directly to the download page:
1) Codetech
With this add-on you can edit your files without leaving your browser. Works like a lite and handy avatar of Dreamweaver, with all essential functionalities built in.
2) Web Developer
An all-in-one plugin that lets you write code, edit CSS, try new styles and troubleshoot problems easily.
3) FireShot
If you like bookmarking inspirational designs, you’ll like Fireshot, a tool that allows you to grab screen captures and add notes and graphics directly on to it, and then save the capture on your computer, FireShot’s own servers, and/or email it to yourself or others.
4) Colorzilla
Want to use a specific color from a different website? Colorzilla makes it easy to find the exact value of any color on a web site with the use of an eyedropper tool. You can also quickly find CSS rules for a given color, analyze different colors and measure distances between different points on a page.
5) MeasureIt
This add-on overlays a ruler on any page you want and enables you to quickly measure the width, alignment and height of various elements.
6) Browser Window Resizer
Curious on how your designed page would look on different screens? With the use of this little add-on, you can test as many screen sizes as you want without having to use many computers!
7) CSS Validator/HTML Validator
Does what it says right in the title, but remember that the page you’re trying to validate must have a CSS file associated with it for this tool to work.
IE Tab
Given that lots of web users still use Internet Explorer, this is a great tool to test how your site works in IE without having to switch browsers.
9) Font Finder
With this add-on you can find out what font is being used on any site. Simply add to Firefox, highlight the text whose font value you want to know, and right-click to select “Font Finder”. Very handy for font-lovers and designers alike!
10) CSS Viewer
Easily view the CSS properties of any element on a page.
8 Steps to a Customer Focused Website that Turbo-Charges Sales
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
8 Steps to a Customer Focused Website that Turbo-Charges Sales
For any serious, professional, website investment, the user testing phase has become an integral part of the path to making more money online. Before your site is published, usability testing gathers feedback from the very people it is intended for -, with its main objective to ensure you’re creating a website that has an intuitive and easy to use interface, targeted to all users. But how do you reap the fullest benefits from your user testing sessions?
1. Choosing Your Subjects
The results of your session well depend largely on the people you test it on. Do not get people who may be biased, such as family, friends and workers from your company. People who have prior exposure to your project may yield flawed results and rate your site high in web accessibility when in fact, it is not. Assemble a focus group, people who fit a specific profile, to be the subjects. You can ask a market research firm or a temp agency to source out your participants. Subjects must not know the name of your company or other details to maintain objectivity.
2. Before Starting the Usability Testing Session
The atmosphere of the web usability study session must be as normal as possible. To achieve the best results, participants should be at ease and feel like they are using the site at home or work. Make sure the participants know the exact location of the testing session; if necessary, meet them at local stations. Do not use technical terms such as “usability testing” or “market research’ as these will only cause confusion and create tension. Inform your subjects beforehand of the length of time the testing will take and the type of tasks they are expected to do. When the participants have familiarized themselves with the environment, it is time for the signing of legal documents. Use simple English language that is easy to understand and make your forms as short as possible. Legal papers can add to a subject’s nervousness. Assure him that the tests are completely confidential and you only need his permission to use the information generated during the test as part of the results.
3. Starting the Usability Testing
Acquaint the subjects with their surroundings before going to the main tasks. Tell them the name of the website and the URL and get their initial thoughts, like what they expect from the site or what they would like the site to be. Record the terms or phrases they use; this shows you value their opinions and feedback. These terms may also be used as pointers for future references in functionality and navigation concerns. Next, let them visit the business website they’ll be testing. Find out what their initial reactions are before allowing them to get familiar with the site. Such inputs may give you ideas on how they evaluate a site for web credibility. Assure the subjects that their tasks will not be difficult and, most of all, that they are not the ones being tested.
4. Choosing Tasks
Choose tasks that your potential customers will consider important to their decision of whether to purchase or not. These play a significant role in ensuring the success of your business website. Such tasks are: Buying productsPaying billsContacting the client Encourage the participants to give suggestions of other tasks they want included. You can determine their expectations and requirements from their suggestions and set new functionality and priorities.
5. How to Express Tasks
People respond and perform in more natural way if they are given scenarios instead of instructions. In phrasing the tasks, it is more effective to say “Scenario A has occurred, and you need to ring the company urgently – find the telephone number” rather than “find the contact us section of the site”.
6. Presentation of Tasks
Give participants one task at a time. Simultaneous tasks may intimidate them, or alter their normal approach to the testing. If you require the subjects to use inputs from outside the test (e.g. an email giving them a password to the site), give them these inputs in the form they will be presented. This will provide useful feedback on all elements of the process, rather than simply the site.
7. What Your Behavior Ought To Be During Testing
Always keep in mind that the object being tested is the website, not you or the participant. All input is treated as important; this needs to be clearly pointed out to the participant. If there’s a step or a task that participants struggle with, it’s really important to tell them it’s not their fault. During the test, it’s important not to be “seen or heard”. You must not do the following actions: provide clues, suggest directions or react to what they say or do. These could alter the test results. So keep your actions neutral, even a shaking of your head or huffing is a no-no. The only time participants should hear from you is when they need help in giving an opinion or clarifying a response. Because they have invested much time and money in the project, clients often find it hard to keep quiet during tests. If your client wants to be present, put him in a separate room and provide an audio/video link.
8. When the Usability Testing Is Done
Upon completion of all tasks, gather and document as much information as possible. Ask for overall impressions of the website and detailed feedback on each task. You will be able to measure their experience, whether expectations were met and if their views have changed during the process. Always welcome suggestions- they will be useful in providing insights to improve web usability and accessibility and creates goodwill between you and the participants. Finally, ask the participants what they remember about the site structure and its functions. If they remember these clearly, it is a confirmation that the site is structured logically and this will help identify any labeling issues you may have missed.
Ways To Drive Free Targeted Traffic To Your Website
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Ways To Drive Free Targeted Traffic To Your Website
It’s a sad thing to know when you have a website developed at great cost and then it doesn’t get any visitors. When the launching party is over, then you begin waiting for any good signs, but soon you find out that the visitor counter remains at zero. If you’re one of these unlucky website owners, there is no need to despair. It’s probably only because you do not know how to drive free targeted traffic to your website.
The very first step you should take is to submit the URL of your website to the many search engines and search directories on the web. Overtime, most of the search engines will pick up your site, but this can take quite long. Search directories do not really crawl the web, so they won’t find your site. You have to manually submit it. The general search directories are important for another reason as well – quite a lot of the small search engines use directory listings for their search results.
Then you also get niche directories for specific interest groups. Should you for example have an affiliate website where you try to sell website hosting, you will find a large number of web hosting directories where website owners can submit their URL for free. Even if you are a blog owner, there should be more than one specific directory to which you can submit the URL.
Social bookmarking sites are becoming more and more popular. Many people are nowadays using them to locate what they’re looking for instead of the search engines, simply because the results are more targeted. With social bookmarking sites, you rely on your fellow web searchers to provide you with websites they deem important enough to visit.
A further great way to drive free targeted traffic to your website is by publishing a press release. There are a surprising number of free press release services where you can submit a press release about your company for free. They will not only publish it, but also submit it to other sites in their group.
Article submission is another way of promoting a website that is fast gaining popularity. The way this works is that you write an article about any subject, but preferably something that relates to your own site. You’re allowed to add a link to your own website at the bottom. You then submit this article to one or more of the various free article directories found all over the net.
Last but certainly not the least, there are the growing number of social media websites. Getting your own page at one of these means you can promote your blog or website for free. You can also network online and meet many potential customers. And what is very important is, your page will be included in their website’s search results, making it possible for potentially millions of visitors to find you – surely an excellent way to drive free targeted to your website.
Why Your Legitimate Online Businesses Websites Need to be Self-Hosted?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Why Your Legitimate Online Businesses Websites Need to be Self-Hosted?
To establish a presence on the web it is vitally important that your legitimate online businesses websites are maintained. Unfortunately there are many small businesses who don’t realize the necessity of having self-hosted websites and they tend to use the free alternatives instead.
So let’s take a look at why self-hosting websites are so much better for establishing your own online presence.
1. You Get Your Own Domain!
With free hosting you do not get to use your own domain and owning your own domain is vital in establishing a good web presence. Some of the reasons why this is so are; you don’t ever need to worry about the content on your website where as when using free hosting, if they stop operating for any reason at all or go out of business you will lose everything on your site.
They also have the right to dictate what you put on your website and this includes the advertisements, plus they can put their own ads on your website and they don’t need your permission to do it. When the ownership of your domain name is yours then you have total control over where people can find your website.
2. Freedom of Functionality
When using self-hosting the choice of software is yours alone and that means that you can make the decision about what type of software will best serve your needs. This includes the kind of software you choose to use on your blog to connect to possible customers through social media. With free hosting you do not get this choice.
To have the flexibility to run your legitimate online businesses the way you want, never even consider using free hosting, in fact you need to ascertain that the paid hosting company you decide on is of good quality if you wish to have flexibility with the way you operate.
3. Your Online Businesses will look more Professional
If you expect people to take both you and your online businesses seriously then YOU must also take your business seriously. When you use free hosting what you are saying to anyone who visits your website is that it really is not worth their time. Free website hosting companies are using your website to advertise their own products and this will automatically detract from your own business opportunities.
Once people leave your website chances are pretty good that they are not going to return to take advantage of any of your services or products that you have on offer.
In case you haven’t noticed yet, everything we have discussed up to this point comes down to one thing – Control.
Why would you want any other company to have control over your legitimate online businesses website? Self hosting not only gives your website a more professional look but it also allows you to make your own choices to create the website exactly as you want it to be.
Unless you are willing to treat your business seriously don’t expect that anyone else will do so. Free hosting will never give you the same advantages that self hosting will and in order to brand yourself and your online businesses you must have a professional and flexible website.
Five Essential Elements Every Business Website Should Have
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Friday, November 11, 2011
Five Essential Elements Every Business Website Should Have
Although business owners and marketer’s are coming to recognize the importance of having a website for their business, how those websites are being designed and built is still very much a problem. In most cases, a website that replicates an online brochure is what most businesses have. The result thereof is ultimately a poor return on investment for the (often large amounts of) money they have spent on the site. Here are five essential elements that every business website should have:
1) Sign-up Form
Having hundreds or thousands of visitors to your website every month is no use if you are only capturing the details of a small percentage of them from people who actually inquire. What you need is a sign-up form that offers a freebie (a free report of interest to your visitors), a newsletter or something similar. This way, you are able to capture the details (name and email address) of the visitors to your site, as well as build your list of prospects.
2) Highly Visible Contact Details
The purpose of your a small business website is generally to encourage inquiries, which will ultimately lead to sales. It is therefore essential that your website has your company’s contact details clearly displayed on every page. Ideally, you should place the contact details in the header, or in the top right area of the page. Also, try to provide as many contact formats (telephone, fax, email, Skype) as possible.
3) Dedicated Sales Pages
This one is a little tricky, depending on your business. Ideally, you should try to have a separate page for each product/service, or group of products/services. This allows you to focus on marketing each product or service’s benefits, features, and so forth to its specific target market. It also gives you the freedom to provide extensive information on each product or service, as opposed to merely providing a product name or model number. Furthermore, this additional content assists in terms of search engine optimization (SEO).
4) Testimonials
Why should anyone who visits your website trust what you have to say about yourself? You are, after all, trying to sell yourself online. It is therefore always wise to feature testimonials on each sales or product page. Ideally, you want to place testimonials about each product or service on their respective page. I usually recommend placing them down the right-hand side column of your page, but it all depends on your layout.
5) Blog
You may think that blogging is some weird, new age concept that only the “arty” and creative people of this world indulge in – you’re wrong. Setting up a blog allows you to write about anything related to your business, for example: new products or services, events, how-to’s, insights and opinions. Be sure to feature a “subscribe” option on your blog, so that you can build that database of prospects as well. Blogging also assists from an SEO perspective, by continuously adding fresh, original content to your website, which Google loves.
As an added bonus to these five essentials, I always recommend using an analytics or tracking program, such as Google Analytics (which is free), to track the goings-on of your website and assess how much and where your traffic (visitors) is coming from. As with anything, commit to learning about the topic, in this case, internet marketing, and keep an eye out for new trends that may benefit your business’ website.
Top Tube Video Downloader Tools
YouTube has become a household name for entertainment and anything else involving videos, which is why a tube video downloader is such a useful tool. Everything from short goofy clips to involved online tutorials is available through the popular website with the only minor drawback being viewing access. You have to be on the internet, log in to find your favorites or search for the video and hope that your bandwidth is running at optimum performance so you can watch the video uninterrupted. But now you can enjoy the convenience of downloading videos on to your computer, this is made possible through a few different devices.
First off, the logical solution to this problem would be for YouTube to make the content downloadable. YouTube is in the testing phase of giving video uploaders the option to make their videos downloadable for a price or for free. This will eliminate any outside problems of copyrights or law breaking since no matter how videos are shared after download they will still contain the original users YouTube source. This will most likely become a standard option, instead of just a test, in the not so distant future.
For now though, other options are still available for downloading pleasure. One well known option with unknown abilities is RealPlayer. Most RealPlayer versions can be used as a tube video downloader to download YouTube videos directly from the site. When you move over the video screen an option appears to download the video straight to your RealPlayer library. RealPlayer is also capable of burning the files to DVD, but this usually requires a version available through upgrade, meaning it isn’t free.
Other software options such as Savevid.com or Keepvid.com will still let you download the videos just not directly from the site. The process is slightly more involved but still not complicated. Simply copy the video URL or web address onto the toolbar and hit download. There are two different quality options, the higher MP4 version or its original FLV type. The FLV or flash format usually isn’t supported by normal video players so a converter will have to be downloaded as well if this option is chosen. You can find one easily by searching the web for an FLV converter.
One of the easiest to use is the Tube Video Downloader add-on. It’s compatible with Explorer and Firefox, which are the two most popular browsers. Once installed for free, you simply go to the video you’re interested in and hit save. That’s it!
After downloading your favorite videos it’s easy to unlink from your computer by simply downloading the video onto a media storage device or mp3 player with video playback. As discussed, some programs will even enable you to make your own DVD from the content. Beyond browser compatibility and certain attached fees, it’s a cut and dry process anyone can do in a matter of minutes. You can now watch hamsters do a back flips as many times as you want without even connecting to the internet!
The Top Time Tracking Tools to Use for Outsourcing Your Web Development
Outsourcing is a valuable tool if you hope to succeed as a small business online. The simple reason behind this is that outsourcing to trusted freelancers will cut down dramatically on labor costs, leaving you the extra time and money to better spend in promoting your business through marketing and product development.
Of course, you must make wise decisions as an online company when it comes to outsourcing by using outsourced employees for the more menial tasks, like writing content, administration, web development, link building, and blog management, while leaving the more important projects for yourself and your top staff members, like market research, managing social media profiles, and networking with other companies in your niche.
Once you have hired several freelancers as your outsourced staff, using the best tools will cut down on serious stress, disorganization, and potential pitfalls within any project that you embark on. In fact, it is not recommended to outsource without using these time tracking tools under any circumstance, or you could risk long-term problems in the productivity and success of your company:
* RescueTime
RescueTime is an ideal tool for outsourcing that helps you to control and better understand how your outsourced staff spends their attention and time. One of the best portions of this tool is that it does not require any data entry, and all you have to do is install a small application that will track what websites and software are being used by your employees. This is best to manage a team of several people, especially if they are not working in a physical office with you. This tool alone will keep your staff accountable for their time and work within any project that you hire them for.
* ClockingIt
This tool is a free hosting application that will help you to keep track of time and tasks for any freelance project. ClockingIt offers project management features so that you can plan, see the project schedule, and know if any outsourced employees have fallen behind. The Time Tracking alone is a valuable feature that will give you reports to offer to your clients on which tasks were completed within a project in a certain amount of time.
* BaseCamp
BaseCamp is helpful software for outsourcing to several employees, which will offer features like web based documents, milestone management, to-do lists, time tracking, file sharing, and a messaging system. This tool is, in fact, perfect for outsourcing to people all over the country or outside of the country so that they can collaborate, communicate, and upload their work within a project for further editing or feedback.
* ProjectPier
This is a free PHP application that is used for managing teams and projects with a user-friendly web interface. This tool needs to be downloaded and installed into your own server, and it will help your staff collaborate, facilitate communication, and complete tasks in an organized manner as an outsourced team. For any small businesses starting out in outsourcing, this is an invaluable free tool that will give you the freedom to manage several employees within other areas of the country.
* ActiveCollab
ActiveCollab is fantastic project management software that allows you to collaborate within your own server or local network. You can work with your own staff and outsourced employees in a simple environment that will help you control and manage all project data. Some of the features of ActiveCollab include tracking progress on projects, assigning tasks, team communication, e-mail support, shared files, notifications, time trackers, milestone management, and the ability to invite new freelance employees to a project.
The truth is that as a small business, there are no better tools that you can use to manage freelance or outsourced employees. Outsourcing has its own slew of benefits when done properly, and these tools will make the process much more organized so that you can delay or even prevent using a physical staff for years into the future. Speaking of future, outsourcing is truly a modern concept that is becoming more and more popular as small businesses turn to freelancers online for many of their day-to-day tasks and support. In the same manner, numerous skilled professionals are turning to freelance careers in work-for-hire so that they can outsource to online companies based on their specific skills and qualifications.
With the multitude of skilled professionals available for outsourcing, this is the perfect resource to enhance the success and productivity of your small online business!
The Long Tail: Opportunities and Threats
In 2004 Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine, Chris Anderson, popularized the long tail theory in an article called “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More.” In retail terms, the long tail describes a niche strategy of selling a large number of unique items in relatively small quantities.
The increasing popularity of online retailers presents an interesting opportunity for artists and suppliers alike. Because it doesn’t cost ecommerce sites like Amazon.com any more money to list a marginalized book title then it does to list a bestseller, they can afford to do so. A brick-and-mortar shop however, with rent and overheads to pay, cannot. The advantage of this to the supplier (Amazon) is that they are making another sale. The advantage to the artist (novelist) is that their book is being sold and potentially recommended by the websites various recommendation channels and features.
With regards to web content providers, the long tail theory suggests that smaller web sites, focusing solely on a niche area, might come to threaten larger search engines that cover a vast array of subjects.
Social media and marketing expert Seth Godin warns us against getting too comfortable in the theory of the long tail. In his blog post entitled “When the Long Tail is Underwater” he acknowledges that the long tail is real, and that given the choice, people will find what’s perfect for them. However, he rightly points out that there are still millions of songs on iTunes that are never bought and millions of blogs on the web that are never read. While he encourages us all to continue to think outside of the box and design our business plans slightly outside of the lines, he warns against going too far, to point where people are no longer interested.
When designing a business plan a company should always look at the competition. What similar things are currently available, how are they being marketed and how successful have they been? If it turns out there is a market for your product or idea, then by all means, launch it and input your own twists. If there isn’t a market though, it might be worth asking yourself why. There is likely to be a good reason.
Similarly, when you market a product or design a website, consider how your competitors have done it. Marketing strategies, website designs and content are the time to be unique and create a sense of company individuality and avant-garde thinking. So if you’re going to splash out, splash out there.
7 Strategies for Reducing your Website Development Costs
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, November 5, 2011
7 Strategies for Reducing your Website Development Costs
Completing the following steps prior to starting a new website development or enhancement project can ensure that your project stays on budget and on schedule:
1. Identify the person(s) that will assist you in developing a detailed plan for your site
Before starting your project, ensure that you and your team are on the same page concerning the final vision for your site. This will minimize (eliminate) any mid-development confusion between your team members and ensures that once the development/design activities begin, they can proceed with a clear definition of the end product. Website projects that are less defined can incur unexpected expenses due to “scope creep”. Generally, scope creep occurs when unexpected tasks are added to a project. This leads to higher than planned project costs and an extension of the project deadline. When new tasks are added to your project, determine if these are necessary items to complete during this phase or if a second phase is needed. If you decide to increase the scope of your project, be sure to ask your website developer for a printout of the additional costs and an indication of how the new task will affect your deadline.
2. Identify the person responsible for communicating with your website developer
Also, identify how often you need to communicate with the developer during the development process. Generally, the more meetings you have with your website developer the more it will cost you. If you have a well defined project, your meetings will be shorter meetings to determine if you’re on schedule. Particularly with short web development projects or projects with budget constraints, you want to avoid ongoing requirements gathering meetings. If the project is not well defined, you risks staying in the “requirements gathering” phase for the duration of the project. This is always more costly than identifying, approving and finalizing your requirements before any work is performed. For larger (and longer) projects, you should identify a requirements gathering phase at the onset of the project to ensure that the deliverables and phases are well defined.
3. If your website project involves a site design or redesign, have a vision before you contact a website designer
Having a vision of your preferred site design reduces the number of revisions required. Design revisions can add to the cost of your site if you are unsure of what you want. Starting a design project with an “I’ll know it when I see it” approach can increase your project cost and timeline due to an excessive number of revisions or increased scope. If you absolutely do not have a vision, make a list of comparable websites that appeal to you. Be sure to note any required elements that you’d like to include on your website.
4. Finish writing your content or have someone write the content just as you would like it to appear on the site
You can not (should not) launch a website with incomplete content. If your content is not ready, consider a brochure site (one page) website instead of investing in a larger inadequately defined website project. A website is meaningless without effective content. If your content is not ready, your website is not complete.
5. Once your content is written in web-ready format, organize your content by function or section (e.g. company information, services, testimonials etc.)
This will help determine the scope of your project (i.e. # of pages, navigational items etc.).
6. Identify how you would like your visitors to interact with your website
This ensures that you and your website developer have a clear understanding of the overall scope of the project. A five-page static website is much different than a five-page website with interactive or dynamic features or a five-page website integrated with a third-party shopping cart. Generally, any feature that requires advanced scripting, programming services or integration with a third-party application will add to the cost of your project. Therefore, it is important for you to be clear about your requirements prior to signing the contract.
7. Before you request or approve any new features, revisit your original scope and answer the following questions:
- Does this new tasks fall within the original scope of the project?
- How does this addition contribute to my final product? Is it important?
- How does this affect my deadline?
- What are the additional costs?
- Do I need to include this activity in a second phase?
- How does this addition affect other tasks? Does this eliminate another task or duplicate a previously completed effort (e.g. going back to drawing board on a completed and approved redesign)? If you find that the new task is a duplicate of an already completed effort, before any further work is done, take some time to rethink your project and ensure that money is not being wasted on an ill-defined product.
Performing these activities ensures that everyone at the table shares the same vision, allows your web professional to provide an adequate quote for your project and helps everyone stay on schedule.
24 Essential Pages to include on Your Website
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, November 3, 2011
24 Essential Pages to include on Your Website
Wondering what pages to include on your website and why? Here is a list of important information that should be included on your site.
Before you start thinking about what to write, it is important that you create a plan, which outlines what each page will contain. That way you won’t repeat yourself or forget vital information. The most common pages on successful websites include:
1. Home Page (First Page)
This is your “sales” page and should provide information about what you can do for your customers. It should also give your visitors a brief overview of what they can find on your site.
2. Products / Services
It is useful to have a separate page for each product/service and write as much detail about each as possible. Start each page with a brief summary of the product/service, then provide whatever information you can. When people are searching for information on the internet, they want to know it NOW. They don’t want to wait until tomorrow when they can speak to you on the phone.
3. Contact Us
Place contact details in as many places as possible. Make it easy for your customers to contact you. Create a special “Contact Us” page, include your details in “About Us” page and also at the bottom of each page. Information to include: business name, physical address, mailing address, telephone, fax, email, emergency number, website address.
4. Pricing
Whenever possible include the price of your products/services. Even if you can’t be specific. It is helpful to put at least a range of prices, eg. Carpet cleaning ranges between $40 – $60 per room.
5. Testimonials / Product Reviews / Before & After
Include testimonials from your current customer to show your potential clients that you are trustworthy, reliable and that you offer great service and/or products. Make sure the testimonials are real and if possible provide contact details of the person who supplied you with the testimonial. If you don’t have any right now, get them! Simply email your customers and ask for their feedback on your business and service.
You could also include before and after photos. Show the problem picture and beside it show the picture of resolution, with an explanation of your product’s benefits.
6. Frequently Asked Questions
This has proven to be a great time saver for many companies. Instead of having to answer the same questions over and over again, place them on your website and keep adding to them. The more information you have on your website, the less time you will need to spend answering questions by email or phone.
Frequently Asked Questions should address your customer’s concerns that may otherwise be an obstacle to making a sale.
7. Response form such as “Subscribe” or “Enquiry” form
An absolute must if you want to build a mailing list. Most people don’t like giving out too much information, so ask only the basics, such as Name and Email Address. Then keep in touch with your customers on a regular basis by sending out information that may be of interest to them. You may even wish to develop your own on-line magazine (ezine). There are many fantastic free or inexpensive programs that can handle this for you.
8. On-line Magazine or Newsletter
This is a great marketing tool. Not only does it help you keep in touch with your customers, but provides your website with fresh content. You can set up your Ezine in 2 different ways:
(a) Email subscribers on a regular basis or (b) Publish it on your website.
Or both. Include information about your business, industry or anything that may be of interest to your customers.
9. Resources/Articles
Add value to your business. Provide information that is complementary to what you do. For example, if you sell wedding dresses include information about reception venues, wedding planners, wedding cakes, flowers. By adding extra information you encourage more hits.
10. About Us
This is a very important page as it tells your customer about who you are and why they should buy your products, services and/or trust your organization. It can also feature your business hours (if you have a bricks and mortar store) or when they can speak to someone on the phone. Many companies also include their mission, details of their staff (photos, biographies, qualifications), recently completed projects, ACN or ABN, logo, directions to your store/office. It is also useful to include details of trade associations you belong to, trade and insurance certificates and any awards you may have won.
11. Guarantee
Offer a money back guarantee. The longer the guarantee, the more effective it will be. It could be 30 days, 60 days, 1 year or lifetime.
12. Survey
Find out what customers think about your website, business or product.
13. Events Calendar
This can relate to your business or industry. If you are an artist, you can feature dates where and when your art will be displayed or if you are a singer, where you will be performing.
14. Search My Website Feature
Some visitors to your side may not know exactly what they want but if you include a search function on your site, they can look for it very easily. Like search engines, this feature will allow your visitors to type in a word or phrase and then search for it on your site. It’s like having your own mini search engines, only instead of it searching the world wide web, it just searches your website.
15. Return/Refund Policy
To make your customers feel more comfortable when making a transaction at your website, you should provide then with your return/refund policy. Ensure it is easy to understand and spelt out step by step.
16. Privacy Policy
Privacy continues to be a major issue for customers shopping online. Concerns about how their information is going to be used is a major barrier when making a sale. Internet shopping experience is built on trust and privacy is the number one ingredient in trust.
17. Site Map
A site map is similar to a contents. It shows visitors how the site is laid out and which sections are where.
18. Copyright Information
Your website should carry a copyright notice to protect its intellectual property. It is generally in the form of “Copyright © 2004, Your Company Name”.
19. Links
Here you can place links to the manufacturers of your products, trade associations or complementary services. When you place links to other businesses, you can request they do the same for you. This will not only bring you more visitors, but may improve your search engine ranking.
20. Media Information
Include any information, articles, photos of your products, staff etc that have appeared in the media – print, TV, radio or internet.
21. News
This can include news about your products/services or about your industry.
22. On-line store
An on-line store allows you sell products directly on the internet 24 hours a day/7 days a week. When building an online store it is important to take in a number of key concepts.
* Make sure that when visitors arrive at your store the navigational mechanisms are simple and effective
* The actual process of placing the order must be simple
* Make sure you accept common and convenient methods of payment
* Continually test your store so you understand your customer’s shopping experience
23. Blog
A blog is a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.” Blogs are typically updated daily or weekly using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Blogs are a great tool as they help with:
1. Communicating with your customers. Blogs provide a way for you to communicate with your customers directly. And it is a two-way communication. You can post a message on your blog and your visitors can easily respond.
2. Search Engine Marketing Blogs give you an increased presence on search engines, like Yahoo! and Google. If you use Blogger (Google’s Blogging Tool), every message you post creates a new page on Google so in a very short time you could have lots of pages pointing to your website
3. Stay Ahead of Your Competition Blogs are relatively new and chances are your competition does not yet use them. So you will be seen as an expert in your industry when you post your knowledge and expertise.
4. Media & Public Relations Blogs are excellent PR tools. You can post your Media Releases and articles and have them picked up by the media.
5. Free or Low Cost
24. Photo Gallery
Even if you do not wish to sell your products on-line, you may wish to showcase your goods or services in a special photo gallery – show how your products or services are being used by your customers. They say “pictures speak a thousand words” and on your website it is particularly important.
Ten Tips For User Friendly Online Registration Forms
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Ten Tips For User Friendly Online Registration Forms
Have you ever registered or attempted to register for an event and spent half an hour trying to figure out what you needed to do? Or have you used an online registration form that lost your data or was so complicated that it seemed like more work than faxing the form?
When used properly, online registration is an extremely powerful tool that makes registration easy for event participants. If used improperly, event participants can be left extremely frustrated and in some cases reluctant to attend the event.
We have put together a list of ten design tips to help you create user friendly registration forms and give your event participants a positive registration experience.
1. Make the registration form easy to access
Make the link to the online registration form very obvious. Event participants may not be familiar with your website and will become frustrated if they have to hunt for the registration form. If you are sending a URL (web address) in printed material make the address as simple as possible so participants aren’t entering a long string of characters. Also, only put a registration form in a password protected part of your website when absolutely necessary. People often forget their passwords, which will cause more frustration and possibly generate calls and emails to the event planner.
2. Make your form familiar and secure
Event participants need to be reassured that their data is secure. A good way to do this is to brand the online form to match your website. This way, the transition to the online from is seamless and event participants will remain comfortable with the process. Also, make sure that appropriate security icons such as the lock symbol in your browser appear when collecting credit card numbers.
3. Make the registration form clear and easy to use
A well laid out and visually appealing registration form encourages event participants to register. On the form, keep text to a minimum and make it clear what you want participants to do. Use logic to guide participants through the form and give warnings if something is wrong.
4. Have appropriate payment options
If you have a fee associated with your event, make sure the payment methods you offer are appropriate for the people registering. For example, large companies may require an invoice before a check can be issued and some groups of people may not have credit cards.
5. Make sure it works
There is nothing worse than entering all of your registration data and then getting an error when you click submit and losing the data. Before going live, be sure to test your form several times selecting all of the different options to be sure everything will work for the event participants.
6. Display your privacy policy
Many people are concerned about who will have access to their information and how it will be used. Make sure you have a privacy statement available on the online form to reassure participants that you are protecting their information.
7. Anticipate questions participants may have
Don’t overload the form with information (tip 3), but have information on the form that you think may be useful when registering such as prices, dates or special instructions. It’s inconvenient for participants to have to click back to search for the information on your website and in some cases clicking “back” will delete the data in a partially complete form.
8. Only request necessary data
The less information people have to provide the more comfortable they will be with the process and the quicker they will be able to complete the form. If you are asking for personal information such as birthdate it helps to add a note saying why you are requesting the information.
9. Don’t over use mandatory fields
Mandatory fields help to get fully complete registration forms, but too many mandatory fields can frustrate an event participant. This is especially true if there is information that is not readily known such as the fax number for someone else in their group.
10. Avoid making participants sign up with another company before they can register for your event
Some online registration companies require that people registering for your events first sign up as a member with them. A system like this has its place, but many event participants will be turned off providing information to a third party.
Top 5 Signs That Your Website Sucks
Small business owners may not have the resources to invest heavily in their web presence and finding solutions to problems can be like finding a needle in a haystack. You know something’s wrong but don’t have the faintest idea how to fix it. Is it a technical issue? Are your ads not performing well? Don’t know what kind of traffic you’re getting? Website problems can fall into a myriad of categories. So if you think your website sucks, a) it probably does, and b) you should read on.
1. You Aren’t Getting Traffic
You’re excited about the big, expensive job the design team just finished on your site. It looks like a million bucks! Well it’s a shame it isn’t making you a darn cent. Just because it exists doesn’t mean people know about it. Announce it to the world by submitting it to reputable directories and sharing your useful content with others on social bookmarking sites (you do have useful content, don’t you? If not, I’ll cover this later). You can even do some link exchanges — provided the sites you exchange with are reputable — just to get your site crawled early on. Further optimize it for search engines by following good SEO practices, building quality content and generating inbound links from other sites. Once you do that, you’ll need to monitor progress with web analytics software. Google Analytics is free and it has a slick interface. And we know you like pretty things seeing as how you broke the bank on your web site design.
If you’re looking for high ROI, invest your own time in learning search engine marketing. Better yet hire a qualified SEO firm if you have the budget for it. Don’t settle for quick-fix promotional ideas. Build long-term exposure and a solid reputation by attaining high rankings, keeping email/newsletter lists, targeted ad placement and social media participation.
2. You Have Worthless Content
What defines worthless content? Without knowing what topic your web site covers it’s tough to say, but if you have nothing that sets you apart from your top competitors then I’d say you aren’t in good shape. If you don’t know what kind of content people are looking for on the Internet today, take a peek at what’s popular on social bookmarking sites. Observe some of the story titles on the front page of Digg.com:
* “Guinness Stout Beef Stew Recipe for St. Patrick’s Day”
* “In Move to Digital TV, Confusion Is in the Air”
* “Kim Jong-Il Interprets Sunrise As Act Of War”
* “Automatic bacon dispenser?”
* “The 5 Best Obama Photomosaics on Flickr”
Words I would use to describe these topics, in order, are: seasonal, informative, satirical, comical, and trendy. This information is popular because it’s appealing in its uniqueness and is relevant to today’s market. To set yourself apart from your competition, you need to get creative. If you’re the kind of person who had trouble painting by numbers, then hire someone creative. Professional copy writers can be well worth the investment. Create free tools your customers will want to use; write funny or interesting commentary in a blog about your industry; put a new spin on a traditional product or service or offer seasonal discounts. Create a comprehensive F.A.Q. on your site that covers topics your competitors don’t.
Take the time to beef up your content. Be innovative – don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Use the top competitor in your field as a measuring stick.
3. You Have No Call-to-Action
Poor promotional language can have a sabotaging effect if visitors aren’t drawn to your conversion pages. A conversion page is any page that acts as the final step in a visitor submitting a form, making direct contact or purchasing a product online. Obscuring those pages or confusing the visitor on where to go next can make them leave your site. Internet users have a short attention span – give them a clear direction when navigating your web site.
Use your web analytics software again to find out what pages visitors are landing on first. If your home page gets the most traffic, make sure there are clear links to your sub-topics. If inner pages are your most popular landing pages, find out if the traffic is targeted. Once you know the type of visitor and the specific page they land on, then you can start marketing your content more accurately.
The bottom line is to always make clear why, and how, visitors can buy your product. Don’t get too cute with multiple steps, options or convoluted language.
4. You’re Getting Traffic But No Sales
Are you sure the traffic is relevant? If you’re running a pay-per-click campaign, ensure your ads are geo-targeted properly and your ad text or landing pages appeal to your customers. For organic search engine placement, have you done keyword research and analysis before optimizing your content? Look at your web stats and see where your visitors are coming from. What keywords were they searching for when they landed on your site? Are the referring sites relevant to your industry or topic? How much time does the visitor spend on each page? Sales won’t come if your visitors aren’t interested in what you’re selling. This is why preliminary keyword analysis is so important to search engine marketing.
If you’re running ads it’s always good practice to experiment with different ad campaigns. If you put all your eggs in one basket you run the risk of losing out on potential revenue. Elements of your ads that you can change are:
* Ad text
* Landing page
* Specific network your ads are shown across
* Topics on which you focus the campaign
* Geo-locations targeted
Remember, it doesn’t pay to skimp on initial product/market research and analysis.
5. You’re Getting Relevant Traffic But No Sales
This problem could signal a technical error or navigation problem with your site. Make sure you thoroughly test all functionalities on various web browsers and systems. Submit test forms. Do a link check to spot possible broken links. Is your web hosting service reliable?
If you’ve ruled out technical issues as the cause then turn your attention to the content and customer base. Has your market taken a downturn? Can the lack of sales be attributed to the poor economy? Have you fallen behind your competition in product quality, selection or pricing? Does your web site’s navigation system confuse users? Your web site is the first line of contact between the business and potential customer, but it’s not the only step you need to worry about. Telephone operators or online payment systems can present their own issues.
14 Steps to Good Business Website Design
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, October 29, 2011
14 Steps to Good Business Website Design
How important is Website Design? Your Website needs to look professional and trustworthy in order to create buyer confidence. A poorly designed Website will cost you sales.
So where do you need to start ?
1. Choose a Domain Name
A domain name is the web address of your website (i.e. www.bizhelp24.com). All websites must have a domain name before they can go live on the Internet.
If you have an advertising budget to promote your business, then it is beneficial to choose a domain name that is the same as your business or gives people an idea of what you sell. Alternatively, if you do not have a large budget, it may be more beneficial to use a domain name that includes a ‘keyword’ so that when people search for something specific your site has a better chance of being found.
For example if your site is about relieving back pain, a domain such as ‘www.backpainrelief.xxx’ will be more likely to show up in searches.
Either way, you need to use a name that benefits your long-term business aims, and not something that is restrictive. E.g. ‘wellheeled123.com’, might be a clever name for a business that sells exclusive shoes. But if that business then diversifies into other products, the website name is no use anymore.
2. Design Your Home Page
The Home Page is probably the most important page. It’s the first page your visitors will see, so you need to make a good impression. On this page, you should communicate who you are and why you have a website. You want to make sure that your message is clear and not lost in many long paragraphs. Try to divide your text into sections that you can mark with headers in a larger font or using bold text. Don’t underline text as this can make it look like a link.
One of the most important aspects of the text on your home page is the “Call to Action”.
“Call to Action” is the text that tells your visitors what you want them to do next. Do you want them to call and schedule a consultation, visit your shop, or just browse the other pages in your website? Make this command prominent by changing its color or increasing the font size.
Also consider uploading an image or two onto your Home Page. A colorful image will help to captivate your visitors and they will be more likely to continue browsing your site.
You need a simple Home Page that clearly communicates your website’s purpose and goals.
3. Design Your About Us Page
The About Us page of your website should be used to reveal a little more about yourself or your business. Consider any additional details that might be important to your customers.
You should also consider having a Map of where you are located. Having a Map on your About Us page creates a very professional feel for your website and makes your small business look big.
If you do not operate out of a physical location, think about other things that your customers would find interesting about your business. Perhaps you have an exciting company background that you could share or more details regarding the services you offer.
Whatever you decide to write, remember to keep the text in short paragraphs.
4. Design Your Contact Us Page
You are now getting very close to having designed a good 3-page site. The last element that all websites should have is a Contact Us page.
Include the best way to contact you directly on this page. Make your phone number or email address prominent on the page, perhaps with different font styles.
Make sure to keep this page simple though, as you don’t want your customers to get distracted by other content. Ensure each page in your site has something valuable to offer. Don’t design ‘Pretty, But Useless’. Let’s step back and realise that a web page exists to provide something that’s useful or interesting to visitors. If your page doesn’t have that, then you must fix that problem before you worry about how to present it.
What are you offering to your visitors? Why is it worth their time to visit your site? Focus on that before you move on to how it should look.
5.Keep Advertising Ratio 25% or Less
Amazingly, I see some sites that are almost nothing but ads. We know that no one would turn on the telly if it were just adverts, or buy a magazine if it were just ads and no articles. By the same token, a website also has to have more than ads if it’s to be successful. If you are running ads on your website, then you should ensure that the ratio to editorial is no more than 25% to 75%. Your visitors came to your site to see what YOU had to offer.
If you have affiliations and partnerships that are relevant to your site, then by all means include them. Don’t do what I saw recently on a website for a large fabric retailer where the web designer had put her friend’s Aromatherapy Massage practice in as a link. It’s not professional.
6. Don’t Distract With Blinking/Scrolling Text Or Auto Play Video/Audio
Animation and sounds are distracting. How can anyone concentrate on reading what’s on your site when there are things flying around the page? It’s like trying to read a newspaper when someone’s poking you in the shoulder repeatedly.
Scrolling text does nothing to serve the visitor. If it’s on a site it’s because the site owner thought, “Let me show how cool I am.” Don’t design the site for yourself, design it for the people who will actually use it.
If you have relevant audio or video on your site, make it so the visitor can play it when THEY want, not at start up.
7. Don’t Use Image Backgrounds
Full Image backgrounds mean “amateur”. A site like this can also have extremely slow page-loading times. This is NOT a professional image, and will turn visitors away.
8. Put Thought Into Organization
Think about what content you have and how it should be organized. This is just as important as what your site looks like, so spend time on it. You are not doing your visitors a favour if everything is thrown up higgledy-piggedly, and they have to leap about the site looking for what they want instead of being informed.
9. Minimize Clicking!
This is so important. Put as few clicks between the visitor and the information as possible. Clicking around will make the visitor abandon the site and go elsewhere
10. Limit Page Length To 2 Screens
This is where it gets a bit difficult. While you should put a lot into the design to limit clicking, you should also avoid going too far in the opposite direction by putting too much on one page.
You should normally limit a page to 2 screens. Articles by their nature, like this, are exceptions to that rule.
11. Include a Navigation Menu on Every Page
Always include a menu on the page. This allows the visitor to start all over again at ‘Home’, or to click on another page that interests them.
Don’t put navigation links only at the bottom of pages, because then users will have to scroll down to the bottom to get to them (unless your pages are very short).
12. Website Readability
A line of text should be no more than about 600 pixels wide. What does THAT mean ? Well it means that your website page should be no wider than say the middle two thirds of your monitor screen. The reason that newspapers and magazines are printed in columns is to make the lines short, so after you read one line, it’s easy to find the start of next one when your eyes flick left.
The problem with wide layout is that the content will be too wide to read easily for those visitors with really large screens as the content expands to fit the screen (or window).
13. Use Contrasting Colours with Text
It is hard to read light text if it is on a light background, or dark text on a dark background.
There are also some combinations that just don’t work. For example I came across a website just yesterday that insisted I try to read a bright green font on a bright red background. I persisted only because the company owner was seeking my advice and help.
14. Seek Advice
If all this seems too much to take in, remember you can always call in the professionals. A good designer will take all of the above into account, and much more if he or she is considering the area of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for your website. He wants it to work for you. There are many companies around who will do all the above and much more; for just a few hundred pounds.
5 Useful Website Design Tips For A More Reader-Friendly Site
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
5 Useful Website Design Tips For A More Reader-Friendly Site
One of my favorite things I like to do when I’m online is browse the Internet, and check out other marketing websites. I’m an avid reader, so when I come across a well-designed website that appears to have an abundance of quality content, I’ll usually spend a few minutes on the site reading that content.And if the site provides a pleasant reader experience, I’ll bookmark it and visit it again.
However, it takes a very special website to capture my attention. And unfortunately, most sites fall far short of my expectations. As a result, I rarely bookmark websites. No, more often than not, when I visit a website, I click away after just a second or two.
Why? Because in my opinion, many websites just aren’t what I would call reader-friendly. In fact, they’re just the opposite. They provide a lousy reader experience.
Following are five things that ruin my reader experience:
1. Too Busy Web Pages
Have you ever visited a web page that was so busy and overcrowded your eyes didn’t know what to focus on? The tragedy of these types of web pages is some of them probably have content that readers would be interested in.
But the web pages are so doggone clutttered and disorganized, visitors can’t find what they’re looking for – or are too frustrated to even try.
When you design your website, arrange items in a neat and orderly fashion. Space things out. Because when it comes to website design, a little white space is a good thing.
Also, if you don’t already have one, install a sitemap. The following website will allow you to quickly and easily create your own sitemap right online:
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com
In addition to a sitemap, installing an internal search box will also improve your visitors reading experience, as well as assist them in finding the information that they’re seeking. This is especially important if you have a large website with lots of pages.
If you would like to learn more about installing an internal search box on your site, TechSoup has written an excellent article on the topic, titled Adding a Search Engine to Your Site Is Easier than You Think:
http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/webbuilding/archives/page9353.cfm
2. Reverse Type
I’m absolutely amazed at how many websites I’ve visited that are written in reverse text. What’s reverse text? Reverse text is light colored or white text on a dark or black background. If used correctly, reverse text can produce an impressive visual impact.
The problem is many websites don’t use it correctly. And if you have a whole web page of reverse text, it’s extremely difficult on the eyes.
Why? Because according to readability studies, reverse text is not suitable for reading because of its poor legibility even in normal lighting conditions. It’s hard on the eyes, and just not reader-friendly. That’s why newspapers, books and magazines have always been printed on white paper with black text.
When designing your website, it’s best to use black text on a white or light-colored background, for optimum readability. However if you decide to use reverse text, use it in moderation.
3. Huge Blocks of Text
Internet users are notorious scanners. They’ll scan your text first, before deciding whether or not to actually read it. That’s why you should always break up your text into short, reader-friendly paragraphs.
When I come across a web page that has these huge blocks of text, (ie, paragraphs that never seem to end), I won’t even waste my valuable time trying to read it. I’ll just click away, and leave your site.
And if I feel that way, you can bet other visitors to your site feel the exact same way. Again, always break up your text into short paragraphs. In addition, use bullets and subheads whenever possible. They help break up your text, so that it’s easier to read.
Remember what I said earlier? Internet users are notorious scanners. That’s why subheads and bullets are so important.
4. Tiny Font Sizes
Do you remember the nearsighted cartoon character, Mr. Magoo? He always walked around with his eyes in a permanent squint, trying to visually decipher things that were right in front of him.
Well, that’s exactly how I feel when I visit some websites. I find myself squinting like Mr. Magoo, because the font size is so tiny. When that happens, guess what? Click…I’m outta there.
Do your readers a favor, and stay away from tiny font sizes. Stick with the standard 12-point font size, whenever possible.
Conversely, it’s not a good ideal to use overly large font sizes either. It’s just not reader-friendly. Another thing, use ALL CAPS and fancy fonts in moderation.
5. Excessive Bold Type and Highlighting
The other day I was browsing the Internet doing research, when I came across something that caught my eye – but not in a good way. It was a web page, and it was absolutely hideous. So, what made it so hideous?
The entire web page written entirely in bold type, which is a crime in itself. But even worse than that, the page was highlighted in yellow from top to bottom.
Can you imagine that? It looked like a big mustard sandwich with ants.
Unfortunately, I see this all too often on websites. You should always use bold type and highlight in moderation, and only to emphasize certain words, sentences or paragraphs.
In closing, I hope you’ll take these reader-friendly website design tips to heart, and apply them to your website, if applicable. After all, you only get one chance to make a first impression.
Because if your visitors have an unpleasant reader experience, chances are, they won’t be coming back.
14 Website Design Tips That Will Help You Convert More Prospects Into Buyers
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, October 23, 2011
14 Website Design Tips That Will Help You Convert More Prospects Into Buyers
1. Make sure your website loads quickly
Nothing is more annoying to visitors than a website that take forever to load. You may have the greatest website in the world, but if it takes too long time to load, visitors aren’t going to hang around to see it.
2. Have a crystal clear identity
Have you ever landed on a website and didn’t know what it was about? How did you feel? You didn’t like it did you? And I’ll bet you probably clicked out of there pretty quickly. Well, your visitors don’t like it either. Don’t let your visitors have to try and figure out what your website is all about. Make it crystal clear, right from the beginning. Having a big, descriptive headline on your home page is an excellent way to announce what your website is about. Also, choose relevant keywords for your pages, as opposed to trying to trick people just to get eyeballs. Keep your keywords relevant to your web pages.
3. Keep it simple
Don’t worry about trying to impress with all kinds of unnecessary whistles and bells. (Does anyone really need flash?) Focus on usability, sales and conversions. Simple website designs convert.
4. White space is a good thing
Stay away from clutter. Have a clean, user-friendly site that makes it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for. Remember, white space is a good thing. Also, if your website has a lot of content and/or a lot of pages, add a search box, to make it easier for your visitors to find what they’re looking for.
5. Have compelling copy that sells
Ultimately, conversions come down to sales copy. If you don’t have the ability to write effective sales copy that sells, hire someone that does. It’s well worth the investment.
6. Don’t give prospects too many choices
While variety can be a good thing, giving your prospects too many items to choose from can often backfire. Why? Because giving prospects too many items to choose from can confuse them. And confused prospects don’t buy. Limit product options to no more than three choices.
7. Make it easy for people to subscribe to your content
Remember, out of sight, out of mind. Keep your website in the uppermost of prospects minds with your content via newsletters, RSS feeds, etc.
8. Update your content regularly
Give visitors a reason to return to your site with regularly updated content. Besides, search engines like fresh content also. So updating your content regularly will help with your SEO efforts as well.
9. Use strong call to action language
Tell your visitors what you want them to do. If you want them to subscribe to your newsletter, tell them. If you want them to buy something, tell them. Don’t ever make your visitors have to guess what you want them to do. Tell them.
10. Make your website readable
Do you remember the nearsighted cartoon character, Mr. Magoo? He always walked around with his eyes in a permanent squint, trying to visually decipher things that were right in front of him.
Well, that’s exactly how I feel when I visit some websites. I find myself squinting like Mr. Magoo, because the font size is so tiny. When that happens, guess what? Click…I’m outta there. Do your readers a favor, and stay away from tiny font sizes. Stick with the standard 12-point font size, whenever possible.
Conversely, it’s not a good ideal to use overly large font sizes either. It’s just not reader-friendly. Another thing, use ALL CAPS and fancy fonts in moderation.
11. A picture is worth a thousand words
If you sell physical products, make sure you have clear pictures of those products to help close the deal. People enjoy looking at pictures of things they’re considering buying. More importantly, using pictures ogf products has been proven to increase conversions.
12. Avoid reverse type
I’m absolutely amazed at how many websites I’ve visited that are written in reverse text. What’s reverse text? Reverse text is light colored or white text on a dark or black background. If used correctly, reverse text can produce an impressive visual impact.
The problem is many websites don’t use it correctly. And if you have a whole web page of reverse text, it’s extremely difficult on the eyes. Why? Because according to readability studies, reverse text is not suitable for reading because of its poor legibility even in normal lighting conditions. It’s hard on the eyes, and just not reader-friendly. That’s why newspapers, books and magazines have always been printed on white paper with black text.
When designing your website, it’s best to use black text on a white or light-colored background, for optimum readability. However if you decide to use reverse text, use it in moderation.
13. Make the buying process easy
Make it easy for prospects to get from your home page to the product page or the checkout page. Don’t make your prospects jump through hoops, clicking thru page after page after page to give you their money. Or else you’ll lose them.
14. Display your contact information
The trustworthiness of your website – or lack of will have the greatest impact on your sales conversions, and ultimately, the success or failure of your site. If you sell products directly from your site, it’s important to display your contact information, as opposed to using a contact form. If privacy is a concern, you can use a service like The UPS Store for a physical shipping and mailing address.
Seven Things That Customers Look For in a Website
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Seven Things That Customers Look For in a Website
If you are doing business online, consider your website as your main product and your readers, your customers. You can’t always think that people really spend their time and money on your website so it’s essential that you make a periodic audit to figure out if your customers have really meet their needs and not just reach out to them through social media and blogging.
People are diverse but when it comes to the internet, we all look for a few things in selecting who to follow, trust, and patronize. The following is a list of seven essential things that every web site should have:
1) Ease of use
Your website should not be confusing or hard to navigate. Web customers typically look for simple things: your products, information about you, your blog, your contact page. These should always be prominent and easy to find, as should any other information or links you want people to follow. The font should be easy to read and the links should be keyword-rich and easy to spot.
2) Clarity of content
Your content, including the call-to-action, should be easy to understand. This applies to every single page of your website. If your readers can’t understand you, they will leave.
3) Credibility
First, your website should definitely have a dedicated contact page with a contact form, e-mail address (avoid free email addresses like @gmail or @yahoo) and a physical location and phone number. Credibility also includes not only on-page content like testimonials and comments, but also third-party validation in the form of Twitter followers, Facebook fans and awards or certifications. The quicker readers are able to discover that you are a thriving business vouched for by other people, the sooner they can make the decision to trust you.
4) Uniqueness
This applies to your site design, to your product and to your content. If your site doesn’t look interesting, people are not gonna waste their time looking on it. If you’re like every other business in the market, why should your readers listen to you?
5) Participation / Ability to give feedback
If your customers can’t reach you easily, they’ll give up. If they contact you but don’t receive a speedy respond, they’ll leave and either forget you or damage your credibility. So provide an easy way for customers to interact with you and give them as many options as you can
handle: phone number, social media, contact form, and blogging are some of the most popular ones. People will likely trust and be loyal to you if they see that you are open and are always available.
6) Personalization
Remember that every single person you interact with or sell to is unique and has his or her own expectations from your product and services. No one likes to be referred to as “Dear Customer” in an e-mail, and everyone likes offers and products about subjects that are of special interest to them! So get to know your customers, store the individual information they share with you and use it to build personal and lasting relationships.
7) Security
Readers and customers want to be sure that any and all personal information provided to you will stay confidential and not be sold to third parties or misused. If you are selling products, this means SSL security. If you are asking for e-mail addresses for a marketing list, this means respecting your readers’ privacy. If you are connecting with people on social media, this means discretion on your part about any and all personal interactions.
User-Centered Design for Homepages
The first impression customers get of your website and your business is geared by the impression made by your website homepage. It has a major effect on its success or failure.
Your website homepage can be the determining factor in the reader’s choice to delve further into your site or bounce off after a cursory glance, to go back to the search engine and look for something more relevant.
Despite this, many websites miss this great opportunity to lure in its readers, simply by having poorly targeted or poorly displayed homepage content that does not immediately inform them what the site is about.
You have just 4 brief seconds to convey to a potential customer what your site has to offer. Each moment wasted where visitors try to decipher your website, is a moment lost to create the right impression.
To create effective, compelling homepage content, here are some easy to follow guidelines:
1. Your homepage serves as the introduction to your company. You should be seeing to welcome your visitors – throwing out the red carpet for them.
On entering your site, the reader should be able to know immediately what you and your website offers, without having to click around or scroll. In your introduction, or your website header area, do not assume that the reader has previous knowledge or understanding of your site’s products or services.
It’s a good idea to add a breakdown of how it works if you’re offering something innovative, and new to the market to help customers understand your online offering. If you want to, it’s a good idea to add in a link or two about your company. (But be careful not to make your homepage all about your business! Customers find that really dull!).
2. Your homepage should contain contemporary content. Fresh homepage content, if suitable, appeals to the reader as it shows that your sit e is current and up to date.
Change the content as needed by displaying popular or hot features that are relevant while keeping the design consistent. Doing this will attract more readers but does not alienate your regular audience. If your homepage looks dated, customers will question the validity and credibility of that information – worse still, if it looks really old they might think you’ve gone out of business!
3. Your homepage should have a set of unique selling points (USPs).
Your USPs must explain the benefits of your site to prospective clients or customers and should be in a prominent position on your homepage. They also tell your reader why your site is better than others similar to it and what you can offer them that others can’t.
* Summary
Remember, you only have a few seconds to encourage your website visitors to find out more about you. The customers whole browsing session at your site is determined by how they rate the experience of visiting your homepage and learning more about your business (or not!).
Before you invest in any offline or online advertising campaigns, like pay-per-click (PPC), make sure your prospects are going to understand, and value, the place you’re directing them to – otherwise you’ll be wasting money.
3 Things You Should Do When Your Search Rankings Suddenly Drop
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Monday, September 5, 2011
3 Things You Should Do When Your Search Rankings Suddenly Drop
Anyone who depends on search engines for traffic – which is just about all of us – has a common disorder. It is our preoccupation with our rankings. It only makes sense that this be so widespread. After all, those rankings often ARE our business. At least as far as supplying those prospects we so desperately need.
It’s safe to say that all of us have woken up to see our rankings drop from page 1 to a status that can only be compared to being enrolled in the Federal Witness Relocation Program. You can’t be found. And that’s bad news.
Here’s what you should do when this happens. You may not be able to fix the problem quickly, but you’ll at least be in a much better position to address it and deal with it.
1. Don’t panic
This is very important to remember. Take it seriously, but don’t lose it. There are many reasons why rankings can drop. Sometimes it’s due to one of Google’s famous algorithm shake-ups. This might be a temporary shift that will see your rankings restored in short order. The key here is to avoid the urge to do something that will only hurt your site, its long-term rankings & your business itself.
Many people will jump to work and make large-scale changes in their site. They try to bring it in line with what they think the search engines want now. This can actually hurt their standing in the search engines as they alter the structure and layout of their pages.
It confuses the search engine bots and creates an impression of confusion, a lack of cohesion in the site. That’s bad for rankings. So, remember – Don’t Panic. The drop may be temporary. If it isn’t, an impulsive Bulldoze & Rebuild job is not the way out.
2. Think Back: What Have You Changed Recently?
Sometimes your rankings plummet because of something you did. For example, I’ve had rankings drop because I screwed up the code on some redirects I did in my .htaccess file. Did you add some new pages lately? Check that the links in them, and to them, are pointed correctly. If you write the destination URLs wrong you’re feeding the search engines a bunch of 404 Error pages. They don’t like that.
There are many things that could cause the rankings to slip. Keep in mind that you should look at changes you’ve made as long as 2 weeks ago, just to be safe. Search engine bots vary in how often they come by your site, so they may be reacting to an alteration that is old news to you, but new to them.
3. Keep Going
It’s tempting to turn to the dark side of SEO, become a Black Hat when you see your rankings drop. Especially when you see a weak site, or a totally irrelevant one, outrank yours. We’ve all been there. But you know what the right choice is, even if it’s hard to resist doing a little cloaking. What you must do is continue building a solid site: adding relevant, targeted content, working on your site structure so that all content can be found & indexed by the search engines, working on links to your site. A little boring? Yes, sometimes. But it’s the best choice, especially for those of us looking to be in business for the long-term.
Keep in mind these 3 steps next time you see rankings fall. It’s okay to be frustrated. It’s okay to be confused. It’s even okay to be a little angry. Let it out, constructively, and then get back to work. It’s the surest path.
How to Get Search Engines to Pay Attention?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, September 4, 2011
How to Get Search Engines to Pay Attention?
The days of putting up a website then waiting for it to show up on the first page of any search engine are long gone. Today it takes time and effort to see your site on the first page of results. However, most site owners do not know where to begin. By following these 10 steps you can increase your website’s natural search optimization and get the search engines to take notice.
1. Optimize for keyword content
To get listed in the search engines, each page of your site needs to be optimized to the best of your ability. Since the keywords you choose will be used throughout the optimization process, choosing the right ones is essential. If you choose the wrong keywords you will not be found in the search engines. If you are not found in the search engines how will anyone find your site? Pick one core term for each page and write the optimized text around it.
2. Write unique title tags
The title tag of your page is the most important factor to consider when optimizing your web page. This is because most engines place a high level of importance on information in your title tag. The title tag is used for the title of your listing in the search results and appears as the description at the top of your browser’s window. It should be a complete sentence and include your term(s) for that page. Do not overstuff this tag or your website will be penalized in the search results!
3. Implement quality Meta content
Meta is a part of the html code human visitors to your site rarely see. It is used by search engine visitors (robots) to help them determine what the page is about. Description Meta should be one or two core-term enriched sentences that do not exceed 250 characters. Keyword Meta is a list of terms relating to your page. The core term should appear at the beginning and end of this list. Limit the number of characters to 1,024, including spaces.
4. Content is king
Page content is one of the most important factors to letting visitors and search engines know what it is you are offering. Improve your content and you will improve your listings in search engines. Each page should have at least 200 words of copy and include your keywords. Write for the human visitors, not the search engines.
5. Use image alt text wisely
Each image on your page can include a keyword that relates to the image. This text will also help visitors that have their images turned off when visiting your site. This text can be included in the “alt” attribute of the html code for an image. The important thing is to describe the image first and then work in key terms.
6. Use a Robots.txt file
This text file is a roadmap of your web site. It should be placed in the root directory of your site, and it tells the search engine robots which sections they are not allowed in. It is one of the easiest tactics you can use to help ensure your site gets crawled. It’s also one of the most overlooked opportunities.
7. Use a Sitemap.xml file
A sitemap file tells engines the location of all the sections and pages of your website, how important each of those sections are to your site, and when those sections were last updated. When you change your content, update your sitemap file!
8. Get rid of duplicate content
It’s easy to use the same content for multiple pages on your site, especially if you’re a retailer and the manufacturer has already provided content for you. However, every time you use the same content you are taking a chance that the search engines will throw your site out of their results, thereby negating all of your hard work to get there in the first place. Take the time to rewrite each page, regardless of how similar it may be to another page. Get rid of mirrored sites or completely rewrite these as well. Also, rewrite an article at least twice for use in article syndication.
9. Create custom error pages
It is very easy to set up custom error pages that have the same look and feel as the rest of your site. They will help keep visitors and therefore search engine robots from reaching a dead end in your site and leaving.
10. Get validated!
First, validate your code for well-formed HTML. The rules of HTML have changed quite significantly over the years, and it is no longer optimal for you to generate messy, broken mark up. Although not a requirement, both Google and Yahoo mention it in their guidelines for webmasters. Second, validate your entire website through Google and Yahoo. This is a simple task that involves uploading a file to your site’s root directory or adding information to your meta tags. You can find more information on this process in the search engines’ Webmaster guidelines.
Key Wording Your Web
Ever since the beginning of search engines there has been the discussion of key wording. Obviously your web page has to be about something and you want the search engine to reflect that in its results. In the early days of search engines you could put words or phrases anywhere on a page and show up in the results. People who just wanted traffic would get list of the most popular used keywords and just put them on a page. The page could have been about toilets but show up in search results about Hollywood celebrities. In those days finding what you wanted was a daunting task. So the search engines started looking at natural language. Each year they have become more sophisticated about how they look at natural language.
The first thing they did was to stop looking at keyword meta tags. Too often people were putting keywords in that did not match their page. Next they started punishing people for putting strings of key words together, such as baseball baseball baseball. Next they paid attention to whether or not they were used in a sentence. Then they started evaluating the content of the page to see what it was about. Buy this time they were getting really accurate in their search results. But as long as there are search engines people with try to fool them. For the last couple of years search engine optimization people have promoted keyword stuffing. This is where you put the keyword in the text as often as you could fit it in.
A new generation of natural language algorithms has been developed by the major search engines to combat this. Now for the first time we are hearing the use of the term natural language. Now search engines look at the way that a term is used. They compare the use of the term in the context of how it is used. This example is a little extreme but we have all seen pages written like this.
“I bought baseball cards for my friend the baseball card lover. He was so happy to get the baseball cards and he looked at baseball cards. Then he showed these baseball cards to all his friends that had baseball cards.”
This is an example of how the term baseball card was used outside of natural language. In natural language you would not refer to your friend as the baseball card lover. In later uses you would have used the term “them” to describe the baseball cards. The sentence would look like “He was so happy to get them that he took the time to look at each one”.
It is still important to get your keywords or keyword phrases on the page regularly. Care needs to be given on how they are used. It is important to have them in compete sentences and not in an abnormal place in the context of a paragraph. Here are some guidelines you might consider. No one knows the exact algorithms that the search engines use and they all have different ones. But one is to presume that they are based on the natural use of language so the following recommendations are based on basic grammar and the normal use of language.
Here are some examples of natural use of key words:
1. It is natural to have your keywords in your title and description meta tags. These tell what your page is about and your page should be about the same thing as your keywords are.
2. It is natural to have your keywords in your heading tags. Heading tags should be used as chapter headings to different sections of a page.
3. In is natural to have your keywords in the first sentence.
4. It can be natural to have your keywords appear one in most paragraphs.
5. It can be natural to have your keywords appear more than once in a paragraph but not every paragraph. You need to make sure that it fits well and does not sound like it was just stuck in there.
Here are some examples of non-natural uses of keywords:
1. It is not natural to have your key words more than once in your title or description.
2. It is not natural to have your key words to show up more than once in a sentence. There are times that this could be natural but it would probably be better to make it into two sentences.
3. It is not natural for the same sentence to appear in several different paragraphs.
4. In a short paragraph it is not natural for your keywords to show up more than twice. In a paragraph over 6 sentences long this may not hold true. (I publish health related web pages and read hundreds of health articles a month. There are times that I will see a term used 3 times in a long paragraph and almost never in a short one.
5. It is not natural to have keywords used back to back in a sentence. It is not typical to have one sentence end in a word and the next sentence to begin with it.
6. It is not natural to have every sentence begin with the same word or phrase.
Following these guidelines may help you with the search engine positioning but it will definitely make your page more enjoyable for your visitors.
7 Tips to a High Ranking Site
So you would like your site to rank higher in the search engines. Below are some tips to help you achieve your goal.
1. Before building your website decide on which keywords you want the site to rank high for. Keywords are words or phrases that people type into search engines to find websites. Your keywords need to be related to your product or service so that you get targeted traffic ( There is no point in having “buy flowers online” as a keyword if you sell “houses”) Your keywords should also have as many people searching for the keyword and as fewer websites competing for the high rankings. I would not get overly worried about this. There are several tools out there to help (Just google “Keyword Effectiveness”) but I would concentrate more on the relevance of your keywords.
2. Once you have decided on your keywords you can start to build your site. The look of the site needs to be good to convert visitors into customers but will not help with getting a higher ranking. I would concentrate on getting a high-ranking site and then worry about the look and feel of the site later. (There is no point in having a site that looks wonderful if nobody can find it and it therefore has no visitors). Remember when you start to build your site that what the search engines are looking for is content. The content you have also needs to be rich with your keywords.
3. A very common mistake people make is the links between pages on their own site. The links need to be “spider friendly” i.e. a spider needs to be able to follow them easily. A graphic button with a rollover effect using an active X control might make the site look wonderful but a spider will be able to follow a text link far easier. This is important, as unless the spider can follow the links only your Index page is likely to be included in the search engine.
4. There are certain important elements of your site that can be added after the site is built. Title Tag – H1 Header Tag – Keywords – Meta Description. All of these should include your most important keywords and phrases. Your Meta Description should be a short paragraph about your site including your keywords and phrases in the text. It should also encourage people to take a look at your site.
5. Alt Image Tags – These are tags that you attach to an image so that when the mouse hovers over an image the text is displayed. So any images on your site should have Alt Image Tags that are rich with your keywords and phrases.
6. Links – One of the ways that a search engine decides which pages are to be located at the top of the rankings or be a higher ranking page is that it looks at the links that are pointing towards the site. It is not just the number of links but also the relevancy of the links and the type of links that point to the site. Also the type of site that is linking to your site is important. In other words a text link from a high-ranking site that uses your keywords in the link is a far more important link that a picture link without keywords from a low ranking site. – So you want to have as many relevant links from high-ranking sites as you can. There are several ways to achieve this and the more links that you have the more important the search engines will believe your site to be and therefore the higher your site will be ranked in the search engines. The search engines are working on the presumption that if you have lots of high ranking sites that want to have a link to your site then your site must have some valuable content otherwise they would not want to link to it and potentially send their visitors onto another site.
7. You can also help to keep your site high in the rankings by adding new content to your site and updating the pages as the search engines are looking for current content. Not a site that has been built and just left.
Once you have built your site and got some links to it you will need to tell the search engines about it (This is called submitting your site). You can manually submit your site to the search engines but there are several good programmes you can buy to do this for you. Just do your homework before you decide which one to use. ( I use addwebb but its quite expensive)
How to Play Russian Roulette with the Search Engines
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, August 27, 2011
How to Play Russian Roulette with the Search Engines
Want to play Russian roulette with the search engines? Try these techniques:
1. Link Farming
You have probably seen those sites with a directory page that contains hundreds of links. The problem is they bear no relation to what the actual website is all about. Putting up links about mortgage loans, acne, the history of wastebaskets etc when your site is about the quality of fishing in Great Falls Montana would be an example of link farming. There was a time when the search engines were okay with this but as is usually the case, people went overboard with it.
Make sure the links on your directory page relate directly or indirectly to the content on your website. In fact save yourself the time and effort by focusing on getting one way links to your site. A couple of quality one way links are worth way more than thousands of links unrelated to your niche.
2. The Sybil Attack
One of the most famous TV movies of all time is Sybil: The Girl with 16 Different Personalities starring Sally Field. This is the blackhat foundation for setting up mirror sites.
By creating multiple web sites with the exact same content but different domain addresses, blackhatters are able to trick the search engines into ranking their main website higher. Sybil attacks can also turn quite nasty and take control of large scale computer networks including peer to peer systems which are quite vulnerable.
3. Cloaking
Cloaking software was an underground rage a few years back. The concept is to present two types of content: One for the actual visitors to your website, the other was for the search engine spiders that crawl your web pages looking for updating content that has been keyword optimized. This was an elaborate way of getting the search engines to show a page they normally would not.
All of this may sound ridiculous and totally unnecessary. Yes on both counts. The easiest way to stay on the good side of the search engines is to give them exactly what they want; namely a website with good content (preferably unique) that grows at a more natural pace.
This maybe a slow way to success for some people but it’s safe and it works. You are building a business which hopefully will be successful for a very long time. Do not let anyone talk you into putting it at risk by using blackhat techniques.
10 essential components you need to create an effective squeeze page for your ezine
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Monday, August 22, 2011
10 essential components you need to create an effective squeeze page for your ezine
1. Domain Name
Pick a compelling domain name that accurately describes the result of opting into your list or the nature of the list to which the visitor is opting into. You’ll want to forward this domain to a hidden page on your site that is not accessible via your navigation menu. Don’t mask the domain when you forward it (i.e. hide the internal URL to which the domain is forwarded — your domain registrar usually offers this as an option). If you use this domain in your resource box when you syndicate your articles, you want to reap the rewards of strong inbound links from high-traffic article directories, and that won’t happen if you mask the domain name of your squeeze page.
2. Client Attraction Device
The most effective way to entice a visitor to opt into your list is by giving something away. Typically this giveaway, or what I call a Client Attraction Device, is in an electronic download format and helps solve a major issue faced by your target market. Many savvy online business owners put several electronic downloads together into a kit (audio, ebook, and checklist, for example) for their giveaway, as the expectations have increased as to what visitors expect when exchanging their contact info for free information.
3. Graphic of Giveaway
The adage of “a picture is worth a thousand words” rings quite true in the Internet marketing world. Have a graphic representation created of your giveaway, as that increases the perceived value of what you’re offering.
4. Value of Giveaway
Placing a monetary value on your giveway is another strategy to enhance the importance of this free item in the eyes of your visitors. Don’t be outrageous in your pricing — determine what you might actually charge for your giveaway if you were selling it as a product on your site.
5. Compelling Headline
A headline that grabs your reader’s attention will go a long way in convincing them to hang out long enough to finish reading the content on your squeeze page. Appealing to some emotion of the visitor is the most effective way to construct a compelling headline, like fear of loss, greed, vanity, lust, pride, envy, laziness…you get the idea.
6. Captivating Copy
It’s no longer sufficient to simply invite a visitor to opt into a list. Most visitors have become too savvy for that. In order to convince them to opt into your list, you must answer the “WIIFM” question, or “What’s In It For Me?” This means that you need to take a page out of the copy writing playbook and essentially create a short sales letter on your squeeze page. Outline the benefits they’ll receive if they opt into your list for the giveaway.
7. Enhance with Audio and Video
It never hurts to appeal to all information intake styles of your visitors. Record a quick audio or video that convinces your visitors that your giveaway is something that they cannot live without. Verbally instruct them how to opt into your list, as well.
8. Testimonials
Reading (or hearing) glowing reviews of how others liked the giveaway will often serve as the deciding factor to get a visitor to take action. Request written, audio, or video testimonials from others who’ve received your Client Attraction Device or from those who’ve purchased other products and services from you. Testimonials go a long way in convincing visitors that opting into your list is worth their time and energy.
9. Opt-in Box
You need an email marketing service to help you create an opt-in box to capture your visitor’s name and primary email address. If you plan on doing direct mail marketing in the future, you may also request their mailing address and phone number as optional fields. You’ll be surprised at how many visitors will complete the entire form with all of their contact info, even if the name and email address are the only two required items.
10. Informed opt-in
Let visitors know that they will also be receiving a complimentary subscription to your ezine when they opt into your list. Don’t hide this fact from your visitor. Give them a bit of info about your ezine, like how often you publish it. You may want to create a graphic image of your ezine to add to this page, as well.
A squeeze page for your ezine is an effective way to triple the opt-in rate to your email marketing list. Follow these 10 steps to skyrocket the size of your list today!
How to Get Your Article to the Top of the Search Engines
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, August 20, 2011
How to Get Your Article to the Top of the Search Engines
There are millions-if not billions-of articles on the internet. No matter the topic, people have already written about it online. So it can be difficult to get new articles to the top of the search engines. But, it can definitely be done.
It isn’t enough to select a topic people about which people will want to read. Let’s say that you went over to Google’s AdWords (or another website that determines which keywords are the most popular search terms at the moment) and then decided to write about one of the latest trends. While this does improve your chances of ranking higher on the search engines (and it is, in fact, a worthwhile step to take), it alone will not guarantee success. Instead, you will need to make your article stand out somehow.
- Tips on Writing Your Article
Writing about the current buzzwords and trends-also known as viral marketing-is a great start. But you can definitely take other steps to make sure that your article rises to the top of the search engines. These are some ideas that you might try:
* Choose your keywords wisely: Let’s say that you did research and found that a certain brand of candy bar was a big trend that a lot of people were talking about because of a contest that was going on. Keywords for your article could very well be ‘candy bar’ and ‘contest.’ The brand name could also be a keyword. Don’t, however, choose something extraneous, such as ‘chocolate’ or ‘nougat.’ For this type of article or articles, you won’t need to describe the candy bar.
* Select keyword placement wisely: You should include your keywords in the headline of your article. You should also make certain to include them in the body of your article several times, toward the beginning and the end.
* Keep keyword density in mind: Keyword density is the number of times your keyword appears relative to the number of words in total. Your density should be no more than 5% to 7%. Any more than that, and most search engines may regard your article to be spam.
* Include links to high-ranking websites (or other articles on your own website): Links will help you to achieve high search engine rankings, especially if they are links to popular websites.
* Remember: Content is King. If the quality of your article isn’t good, no one will read it-and, therefore, no one will click on any of the links. Make your article interesting and readable.
- What to do After the Article is Written
Once you have finished the article, there are still a few ideas you can try that can help to get your article to the top of the search engines:
* Submit your articles to the several article directories.
* Submit your article to ezine editors that accept articles on your topic.
* Look for blogs related to your topic, and ask if they accept outside articles for submission.
* Post a link to the article on Twitter and Facebook.
* Submit the article to social bookmarking websites, such as StumbleUpon and Digg.
Easy Ways to Improve Search Engine Ranking and Drive Traffic
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Monday, August 15, 2011
Easy Ways to Improve Search Engine Ranking and Drive Traffic
To learn how to increase search engine rankings and drive website traffic you need to understand the concepts that govern the way the search engines work.
Without an understanding of these principles and a system to incorporate them into everything you do online, you will not get the success you are seeking.
On the other hand, learn how to effectively utilize them and you will start dominating niches all over the Internet driving thousands of visitors to your site on a daily basis.
So what are the principles that rule search engine rankings and how do I improve mine? Here they are:
1) Relevancy
Relevancy is something defined as having relationship to. For example if your website was about golf, related content would include information about such things as golf clubs, golf courses and golf lessons.
Content about anything other than the topic of the website or related topics would not score for relevancy, thereby having no chance of ranking in the search engines. Search engines check your site for relevancy.
You need to be right on topic for whatever it is you are targeting with the content you create. A final word of caution about relevancy: Relevancy alone will not rank your site. You could have the most highly relevant, best original content ever written posted at your site, however if there are no sites pointing to it, it will never rank in the search engines. Relevancy does not work without the concepts of popularity and original content.
The first step is to choose the keyword or keyword phrase you want your content to target. Let’s say you’re trying to get a higher ranking for this keyword phrase, the topic I am currently writing about, “Improve Search Engine Ranking”. First, you would want to find what people are searching for and specifically target that keyword if you want your content to rank for that phrase.
Make sure you include the keyword phrase in the title of the article. For example, your title could be “Strategies To Improve Search Engine Ranking”. Always try to put the keyword or keyword phrase as the first few words of the article title. Always remember to use the keyword phrase, several times throughout the article. Finally make sure your content remains 100% relevant to the keyword phrase.
2) Popularity
Popularity works together with relevancy to improve search engine rankings. Popularity is based on two key measures:
a) How Many Sites Link to Your Site
A site’s popularity is measured first by the number of sites that directly link to your site.
To demonstrate popularity let’s take a quick look at YouTube. YouTube is one of the most popular sites on the Internet, Why? All links and embed codes taken from YouTube and embedded on other sites, whether on Facebook, Myspace, a blog, a sales page or a website, create automatic links back to YouTube where the video is hosted. Every time someone shares a YouTube video a link is created.
With the number of videos shared, Youtube gets thousands of new incoming links daily. This is one of the reasons why YouTube videos rank very highly on the search engines. Their site is super popular.
b) The Popularity of the Sites Linking to You
The more popular the site linking to you is, the better the score given by the search engines.
The more incoming links to your site the more popular it is. It is therefore always important to syndicate the content of your site (with a direct link to the content on your site), to as many sites as possible. The Internet presents a host of sites where you can post your content for free to increase your search engine rankings, including popular high ranking sites like article directories, blogs, social bookmarking sites, video sites, press release and social network pages.
c) Originality
Originality basically refers to unique content. In simple terms the search engines ask the question, is this same piece of content all over the Internet? As an example, if I took a highly relevant and popular article from my site and posted it to hundreds of sites it would not rank high in the search engines as it would no longer be deemed unique.
There is no doubt that spreading your unique content across the Internet is important for driving traffic to your site. The secret is to make several unique versions of the same information all with a backlink to your original article posted on your site. Spinning is a popular term used to describe the process of changing the titles, key words and phrases throughout your article to make several unique versions. Placing these all over the Internet with a back link to your site will improve rankings.
Follow the steps above and I promise you will see an increase in the number of visitors to your site.
Create Professional RSS Feeds
More and more companies are using RSS as a means to communicate, so having an RSS feed that is professional and well polished will help differentiate your company from your competition. What makes an RSS feed professional? Follow these simple steps to polish your RSS feed and take it to the next level…
1. Feed Image
Add an image to your RSS feed. The image will be displayed by many feed readers each time your feed is displayed. This will help build and reinforce your brand or image in the minds of people who read your RSS feed. Adding an image to an RSS feed is relatively easy, and adds a level of professionalism.
2. Images And Links
Add images and links within the RSS feed. The process of adding images and links to the description field of an RSS feed is really quite simple if you are using software to manage your feed, while it may be somewhat complex if you are hand-coding your feed. Incorporating images or hot links in the feed’s content will allow your readers to explore further and dig deeper into your content. The added benefit, of course, are the additional web links back to your site from any sites that choose to syndicate or display your feed’s contents.
3. Validate
Properly formed code is important, in order to ensure that all RSS readers can read and display your feed. But it is also very important for another reason… nothing is more embarrassing or unprofessional than an RSS feed that is broken or stops working. Use software to manage your feed creation, and validate your feed on a regular basis.
4. Easy To Subscribe
Make your RSS feed easy to subscribe to. Include the traditional RSS icon, or an indicator site-wide, so that website visitors can easily locate and subscribe to your RSS feeds. Include basic directions on how website visitors should subscribe to your RSS feed.
5. Auto Discovery
Add “auto-discovery” code to the HTML header of your website. Many RSS aggregators include an auto-discovery feature, which allows them to automatically detect when a website offers an RSS feed. So, if your website visitors are using one of those aggregators, they will instantly know that an RSS feed for your content is available from your website.
Instantly create auto discovery code – http://www.feedforall.com/autodiscovery.htm
6. Favicon
Add a “favicon” to your website. Favicons (short for “favorite icons”) are typically a tiny version of a company or Web site’s logo, and appear in the URL bar of the user’s web browser. When a user bookmarks a specific Web page that includes a favicon, that Web page loads the customized icon into the user’s browser. Because the favicon is usually displayed next to the web site address, it can act like a small logo or an icon that visitors can use to remember the web site or the site address. Feed directories and RSS Search Engines will often use a favicon beside an RSS feed’s listings. So be sure that you have one on your website; otherwise, you’ll have nothing but a generic icon beside your feed. Webmasters can establish branding by creating a favicon for their website. Here is a free service from HTMLKit: http://www.html-kit.com/favicon
7. Subscribe To Your Own Feed
Always subscribe to your RSS feed, so you can see what your website visitors are seeing.
While it is not essential to incorporate the above elements in your RSS feed, the additions will result in a more professional and polished RSS feed that stands apart from competitors in news aggregators and RSS directories. Spending a few extra minutes here could easily draw more attention to your feed.
RSS Revisited – Why You Still Need RSS On Your Site?
One of the very first articles I ever wrote on Internet Marketing had to do with RSS and it was entitled “10 Reasons To Put RSS On Your Site.” That was in 2004 and RSS was somewhat new and many webmasters were just beginning to place blogs and RSS feeds on their sites. If you do a search in Google, you can still find that article on around 2,000 sites.
Most people now refer to RSS as “Really Simple Syndication” – although it originally stood for “Rich Site Summary” and was a very simple way of summarizing and syndicating your content in real-time to all interested parties.
RSS had its early beginnings with Netscape in 1991 which introduced the first version of RSS (RDF Site Summary). Later versions would be introduced and made popular by Dave Winer of ScriptingNews and Userland fame who is considered by many to be one of the major founding fathers of RSS.
Most people today associate RSS with blogs and blogging. You can read RSS content by using an RSS feed reader or “aggregator” which can be desktop or web-based. Some common feed readers include FeedDemon, My Yahoo!, iGoogle and Firefox (Live Bookmarks). You subscribe to your favorite RSS feed by clicking the small icon on your favorite blog or site and then when fresh content is published via RSS your reader can immediately retrieve and display it for you.
RSS is a very simple way of keeping up to date and in contact with your favorite site or topic. It makes staying informed easy to do and it provides site/blog owners a simple way of distributing their content.
* One can’t but wonder has RSS lived up to all that early hype?
Perhaps that question can only be answered by looking at the popularity of blogging and the role it now plays on the web. No one can deny blogs and their accompanying RSS feeds carry tremendous weight, no matter which way you measure it. Can anyone now imagine the World Wide Web without blogs?
But the importance of RSS goes beyond just blogging, we tend to forget how important it is for all the new social media sites like Digg, Technorati, Reddit… and not to forget fast growing applications like Twitter.
People also forget RSS feeds play a major role in online retail and affiliate programs. For example, you can get an RSS feed of all the latest Amazon products to place on your site. Many major online companies now have these product feeds to help promote and sell their wares.
XML and RSS have blended so seamlessly into many browsers and operating systems most users are blissfully unaware they’re even using RSS. Maybe that’s how things should be; with RSS, the ever-present workhorse, quietly doing its job behind the scenes.
RSS is just as important now as it was five years ago – actually its influence and presence has only grown stronger over the years. If you have not fully embraced RSS and placed it on your site and in your online marketing you’re missing out on one of the best opportunities to spread your message on the web.
RSS is here to stay and even has its own advisory board to help with the technical and programming side of RSS. They also list a very handy “RSS Best Practices Profile” for any webmaster wishing to create their own XML-based RSS documents. http://www.rssboard.org/
* Why should you use RSS?
Well, the list of reasons is quite long but RSS can help you: syndicate your content in real-time, sell your products, build your list, gather fresh content, promote your company and boost that one vital element everyone needs more of on the web – traffic. For those who have taken full advantage of RSS it has delivered in more ways than one for it has truly turned into that Golden Goose with the Midas complex. RSS has simply proven beneficial to those users who have fully embraced it.
Publishing Your RSS Feed Internet Wide
So you’ve created an RSS feed and it contains current cutting edge information in your field of interest. Now how do you get the word out to other webmasters who might be interested in putting the content from your RSS feed on their site?
Just how easy, or hard, is it to publish your feed and have other webmasters pick it up and publish it on their site?
If you’ve created your feed and validated it then most of the hard work is complete. Now you’re going to get the word out about it being available.
* So what should be your first step?
I think I would first give the search engines the easiest path to find your feed and index it. To get the search engines to do this you should add this short piece of html code to between the tags on the webpage that has a link for your feed.
Be sure to replace http://www.yourdomain.com/rss.xml with the URL to the RSS feed.
Next, I would be sure to display the Feed on your website using a graphic. The basic RSS or XML graphic in bright orange rectangles, will lead people visually to the feed.
Here’s an RSS graphics tool that will allow you to customize a graphic for your site:
http://www.feedforall.com/public/rss-graphic-tool.htm
Now that you have it on your site I would begin submitting your feed to all of the RSS directories and search engines you can find. The last time I reviewed them there was well over a hundred (that I could find).
There is a large list of RSS directories located here: http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm
By submitting to directories and search engines you will be helping to increase the link popularity of your feed and your site.
You can also use email to promote your RSS Feed. Simply include the feed url in your sig file on all outgoing mail. If you have an ezine be sure to include it in each issue. I would also go so far as to provide a link to a either or both a desktop RSS reader and a website reader for those webmaster who may want to use your content on their site.
Another way to promote your feed is to include the feed on a personal my.yahoo or my.msn home page. This is probably the fastest way to have your feed spidered by Yahoo and MSN. If you don’t already have an account and a personal webpage go to each site and create one. After you have created your account add your RSS Feed. In Yahoo, go to your personal page click on Add Content, then add the URL of your blog RSS feed into the Find Content box.
A good point to keep in mind is to have content available in your feed before you add it to either of your personal webpages on the SE’s above.
To keep the search engine spiders coing back you can implement a simple strategy to let them know you have posted new material and it’s time to come back. This strategy is simply called ‘pinging’.
You can let the main RSS/blog directories know you have placed new material by “pinging” them. Now you could go to each of the directories individually or you could automatically ‘ping’ all of them at once by going to this site:http://www.pingomatic.com
You type in your rss/blog URL, Click Submit and Pingomatic will send your ping to all of the large directories available on its page. Doing this will bring the spiders back to your site almost immediately!
Be sure to add relevant content to your RsSS feed as often as you can as the more often you add new content the more likely you will be to develop more traffic.
Once you’ve started implementing these ideas and strategies you should be well on your way to getting more recognition for your RSS Feed.
Pros and Cons of Using RSS Feeds
If you are struggling with the decision of whether to implement RSS feeds or not, consider the following pros and cons for webmasters who use RSS feeds as part of their content and communication plan…
A) Benefits (Pros Of Using RSS)
The benefits for a webmaster who opts to implement RSS feeds on their website are numerous:
1. Saves Time
RSS feeds save time. RSS subscribers can quickly scan RSS feeds, without having to visit each and every website. Subscribers can then click on any items they are interested in, to get additional information.
2. Timely
RSS feeds are timely. RSS feeds will automatically update themselves any time new information is posted, so the information your subscribers receive via their RSS reader or news aggregator is timely.
3. Spam Free
RSS is free of spam. Subscribers don’t have to worry about wading through huge amounts of spam in an attempt to get to the information they are actually interested in.
4. Opt-In
The RSS subscriber chooses what they want to see, and what information they wish to receive. Knowing they have full control, and that they do not have to provide any personal information to subscribe, they will be more likely to opt-in.
5. Unsubscribing Is Easy
It is also easy to unsubscribe from an RSS feed. If they do not like information contained in an RSS feed, they can simply remove the RSS feed from their RSS reader or news aggregator in order to unsubscribe.
6. Alternate Communication Channel
RSS provides you with an alternate communication channel for your business. And the more channels you provide, the more opportunities you have to connect with your customers and potential customers.
7. Expands Audience Through Syndication
The very nature of RSS is that it is designed specifically for syndication (i.e. publication by others). And wide-spread syndication can expand a company’s reach and strengthen the company brand.
8. Can Increase Backlinks
When an RSS feed is syndicated, it can increase the number of links back to the original website. And additional incoming links will often help a website rank better in organic search rankings.
9. Increases Productivity
RSS increases productivity, allowing people to quickly scan new posts and headlines, and only clicking through and spending time on the items of interest.
10. Competitive
Whether you decide to implement RSS feeds or not, your competitors likely will. So one way to remain competitive is to implement RSS feeds and other web 2.0 technology, and not allow your competition to get ahead of you.
B) Negatives (Cons Against Using RSS)
1. Not Widely Adopted Yet
Outside of technical circles, RSS has not yet been widely adopted. While it is becoming more and more popular, it is still far from being a mainstream technology.
2. Content Can Easily Be Copied
Content contained in an RSS feed can easily be copied and replicated, regardless of whether you want it to be or not. Few aggregators respect the copyrights of content contained in an RSS feed.
3. Tracking Subscribers Is Difficult
It is very difficult to accurately track the number of subscribers who read an RSS feed or the items contained in an RSS feed. This is due in part to the fact that at its heart, RSS is all about achieving the widest syndication possible.
4. Source Origination Difficult
It is sometimes difficult to discern the origin of an RSS feed item. When an item is syndicated, the source is not always indicated. The metrics available are not always reflective of the traffic received.
Weigh the pros and cons of implementing an RSS feed as a communication channel, and determine whether the benefits outweigh the risks in your own situation.
7 RSS Traffic Tips for Small Business Owners
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, August 4, 2011
7 RSS Traffic Tips for Small Business Owners
If you have a blog, you have an updates feed, most likely in the flavor of RSS feed, but quite possible in Atom feed. This is the file that’s linked to the weird-looking orange button you see on many frequently updated websites, such as blogs. These tips apply to both types of feeds.
Your feed’s job is to talk to other machines about your site on your behalf. Those bot to bot conversations increase your traffic and help more people see your site, either directly through feed reader subscriptions and listings, or indirectly by helping your search rankings. Do at least these basics to take care of your feed.
1. No one loves RSS, okay? I never actually liked it much, but I always understood that it was necessary to grow my site. Stop trying to hug it, and start having a basic understanding of how it helps your business.
2. If you don’t have a site newsletter, you can use RSS to make your blog posts into email newsletters, then put the email subscription box at the top right of your site, or otherwise unobtrusively remind people to subscribe. Aweber will create both the newsletter and the web form for you automatically.
3. About once a week, make sure your feed is validating. Sometimes all it takes is a rarely used character in the title to break your feed. FeedValidator.org will help you with that for free.
4. Submit your feed to the top RSS search engines and directories. There aren’t hundreds of them as there once were, but for the good ones remaining, like Syndic8, the links can’t hurt you.
5. RSS is what helps your site speak to social media sites automatically, but what if you aren’t sure what is helping and how often? Try FeedBurner. It’s my opinion that the service has been on the decline since Google took it over a year ago, but before you judge by that, take into account the height it was at when the fall began.
It’s still does a pretty decent job of tracking your traffic, and there’s no need to direct ALL your traffic through FeedBurner if you don’t want to, just use it to track sites that you give permission to repurpose your feed, like Twitter and Facebook.
6. Google Reader. Yes, that’s the whole tip. Of the minority of people who use a Feed Reader to follow blogs rather than email, Google Reader is the top choice. Stick the button on your site, glance over your headlines in Google Reader now and again. Wouldn’t hurt you to share some items over there too.
7. Should you use full-feeds or partial-feeds? It’s a controversial issue. I won’t go into as much detail about how my private findings differ wildly from conventional wisdom, just suffice it to say this. My solution with new sites is to offer both, and let readers choose when they come to your site, and allow the short feed to be syndicated by anyone, with a link at the bottom of each short feed post letting readers know you offer full text as well.
Learning about RSS may not be as big a deal as it once was, but don’t forget that your site’s feed is instrumental in helping your site grow.
What Strategic Link Building Means To You?
Strategic link building can gratify your desires to make it big online. Despite the fact that you might find that even a minor tweak in your site can get you enough traffic through search engines, there are other more sensible procedures to use your time and money to ensure a high influx of target traffic. For one, you could incorporate your link building campaign with competitive intelligence and see the change. Achieving this will not only double, but triple your conversion rate.
* Strategic Link Building: How To Use It?
We all know that link building is related to SEO. This is why many web users also fail to see that link building can have a separate strategy away from search engine optimization as well. By itself too, strategic link building can get you a lot of traffic for your website. Let’s discover how:
The first approach is straightforward to use. Go browsing the on the internet and zero in on the sites you like. If you like them, in all probability your visitors will like them too. Once you have a list of some great sites, set them in priority and choose the number of sites you’d like to link with.
Request a reciprocal link or a one-way link from these site owners. As all websites might not respond favorably to your request, it’s advisable to request links from a number of sites. With time and effort, you’ll notice that websites won’t refuse your requests as often.
While you’re sending requests for links, be certain you let those sites know that you’ve visited their site, liked what you saw, and find that a link with them would benefit both parties. This will make your e-mail sound more sincere and not a spammish.
The second strategic link building method involves submitting articles to free content sites. By doing this, you’ll reach those sites, e-zines and newsletters where you’ll get a amazing chance to market yourself though the utilization of your resource box at the end of each and every article you write.
With each article that you write, you can do some strategic link building by placing your website URL into the resource box. Your prospective clientele will read your articles, and if they like what they read, should click over to your website and view what you have to offer.
The third strategy involves writing a press release. If it’s very good and gets publicized on numerous websites, you might even get to publicize your work and website on TV or even in a nationwide magazine. You could begin with writing press releases for the community media in the beginning.
The fourth strategy entails posting to forums and news groups. It’s an easy and fun way to make strategic links. While going about it, be honest. Seek to post in only those forums that you like, and those that deal with topics you believe in.
The fifth strategy is to use competitive intelligence to give a boost to your strategic links. You could use the Google toolbar to know the keywords that your competitors are using, and also to know the websites that are sending target traffic to your competitors.
You’ll have to use the link called “Backward Links” on the tool bar for this work. Many of such competitive intelligence tools could help you to monitor your competitor’s traffic sources. All in all, strategic link building can make you a favorite with search engine spiders, and enable your website pages to enhance in the rankings as well.
One Way Link Building Can Help You Gain Higher Site Visibility
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, January 30, 2011
All site owners want to be ranked at the top in the search engines. The top ten on the result pages are prime real estate. When you hear the old theme of ‘location- location -location’ it’s very much like that with result pages.
Whenever you hit the number one slot, it means a lot more traffic for your site. This is what the whole game is about. You have to get lots of traffic if you want to be successful with your site. And targeted traffic is the only kind to deal in, they’re the ones who are already interested in what your selling, and will result in more sales for you. One proven tactic for getting yourself to the number one spot on the results page is one by way of one way
links.
Page Ranking Goes Up From Traffic Sent From High Page Ranking Sites – This is one of the beautiful things about getting one way links from quality sites.
Page ranking is an essential part of the game when it comes to search engines.
Whenever a high page ranked site links up with your site, your page ranking goes up. But it’s not just a one-shot deal. You need to acquire as many of these as possible, because not just the quality of the link is considered, but so is the number of them you have, the relevance they have, and how popular your article marketing sites are, will all factor into the equation.
So a site that has a page rank of 35 will beat out one with a page rank of only 5.
Know That Traffic Increases Traffic – You want to link up to sites that are already getting a good amount of unique traffic. If you link yourself up to one that’s generating a couple million visitors every month, the search engines will see the high volume of traffic as a sign of relevance, because so many people go there. And people will show up if a site keeps good fresh and relevant types of content on their sites. That’s what brings them in. You can get much more traffic from this type of site if you can manage to get your one way link from there.
Ensure You Get Relevant Types of Links – It’s good to get a link from a popular site, and it will always increase your traffic, but if it’s not relevant to your site, it won’t send you ‘targeted’ traffic. If you are
selling pet supplies, then a link from a dog trainer could help you out. But if you are selling pet supplies and get a link from a car mechanic site, even if it’s a good one, the traffic from there won’t net you much. And the search engines don’t like sites that don’t match up, and you could get penalized for doing it. So it’s not a good idea.
If you’re not well-versed in SEO, then sometimes it pays to hire professionals to do this type of thing for you. Find yourself a reputable link building service to launch your campaign for you.
Cool Combination: Internet And TV
Households without internet and a television set are hard to find. How about the advantages of a combination of the two? Try internet and tv.
It sounds logical to combine internet and tv. Let’s face it, everyone has internet and very few people don’t own a tv. But it’s not so clear for many what exactly the combination of internet and tv really is. Let alone how you can get it and what it takes to install it. It really isn’t that complicated. Promised!
* What are the advantages?
Internet and tv is nothing more than a combination of the two in one package. With a lot of cool perks! For example, you’ll get to know the superb sensation that is digital tv. It’s possible to choose the channels you want to watch. Less costs. But you do need to make sure you’ve got a decent (or at least the one that suits you best) internet connection.
* Can I select the channels myself?
No and yes. With internet and tv you can dedide which channels you want to watch. But they come in packages (choose between two) so you won’t be able to pick out the channels one by one. There’s two packages to choose from; a standard package and a premium package. The standard package contains all the channels you’ve got on your tv right now. The premium package extends the channel offer. Pick for example Eredivisie Live (all the Dutch football games live on tv) a theme channel (travel, cooking) or HD TV. With HD TV you’ll watch tv in a whole new way. Thanks to a higher resolution the colors are brighter, the sounds are better (depends a bit on your stereo though) and everything is sharper.
* What do I need for internet and tv?
One of the most important ingredients has got to be a phone line. Not even a connection to that line (so you don’t need a phone at home) but just the line itself. It should be hidden in your house somewhere, just look for a little box. Then of course, you’ll need an internet connection. But you definitely don’t need to get the fastest, most expensive connection. That depends on what you do online.
* Which internet connection should I choose?
There are severel internet connections to choose from. Make sure you get the right one, in other words the one that isn’t overprized. For internet and tv you don’t necessarily need an expensive, rapid connection. Just think about how you use your internet. Are you online to look up stuff and to send emails? Then the standard connection will do. But are you one of those downloading freaks with several computers at home (several people using the same connection) you should opt for the connection with high download speed.
* What about the installation?
It’s possible to install internet and tv yourself. The user guide is clear and convenient and with a bit of knowledge you should be able to fix things yourself. However, there are always adjusters available if you do need any help. Try it yourself first though! You don’t want to pay a guy that fixes things you easily could’ve done yourself.
Ten Reasons Why Interactive TV Is A Must
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Ten Reasons Why Interactive TV Is A Must
* Not as complicated as it seems
Interactive tv? Sounds complicated but really it isn’t. Interactive tv is a form of digital tv and that means nothing more than razor sharp images with lots of details.
* Better quality and sound
Because interactive tv actually is digital tv, you’ll experience a unique way of watching tv. Brighter colors and a killer sound: everything is clear and it feels like you’re right into the middle of it all. With interactive tv you’ll have the same kick ass quality as digital tv.
* You get to choose
With digital tv you no longer depend on your tv guide. It doesn’t matter anymore if you miss a show or two. With interactive tv you can watch whatever you want, whenever you feel like it. Just the way you like it.
* Create the ideal tv evening
You can now create the perfect evening of television. Just select your favorite shows and/or movies and watch them in the order that suits you best. There’s always something on with interactive tv!
* Pause
You’re the one who’s in control with interactive tv. Walk the dog while your watching? Just pause it! Interrupting airings is possible when you feel like it and you can resume watching. when it suits you. You no longer need to miss parts of the programs you were watching. Just pause and continue, whenever you’re ready.
* Record
Does your partner want to watch the big game but you actually want to watch a movie? No problem, just tape it! You can watch it when the time’s ready. Your time. When you’re ready. That actually goes for that big game as well, but is might be more fun to watch is you don’t know the score.
* No more commercials
Because you can fast-forward through movies and programs, you no longer need to endure those endless annoying commercial breaks. Toilet paper, tampons, shampoo…from now on they’re only in your own bathroom, not on tv!
* Movies on demand
With interactive tv you’ll get the video store right into your living room. Just press the button and there’s a wide selection of new, cool movies. Apart from movies you can choose from the best and most popular tv series as well. No need to go outside on a rainy day. Sit back, relax and watch some movies!
* Missed airings
Although you create your own tv guide with interactive tv, it can still happen that for some reason you miss something on tv you actually want to watch. With interactive tv it’s possible to watch programs that have already aired and you forgot to tape. The main three stations offer their programs from today and yesterday. You can also watch aired programs from other channels, but you need to arrange this yourself. Just adjust your subscription details.
* Participate on tv
With interactive tv you can actually be part of what’s on the tube. Give the answers in a game show, guess the questions during a test; just use the remote control to vote or to select your answer.
Email Overload? Gmail Priority Inbox Can Help!
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Email Overload? Gmail Priority Inbox Can Help!
I have been using Gmail for quite some time now and it’s been really a great help. I especially love Gmail Labs! As if that wasn’t excellent enough, Google’s creative ideas now has another innovation for a lot of us who are overwhelmed by too much email: Gmail Priority Inbox.
* What is Gmail Priority Inbox?
You know how our inboxes are often flooded with a lot of messages daily? There’s mail our colleagues, from our subscriptions, from family and friends, and spam. Some of these emails need to be answered right away, some can be ignored and deleted and some may need responding at some point later. It can be very difficult keeping track of it, right?
If you’re having trouble dealing with your mails daily, then this is the perfect solution. It can be really time-consuming to figure out which mails need to be read or deleted and what needs a reply ASAP.
What if your mail could predict what’s really important for you without you having to sort through everything one by one?
This is what Gmail’s Priority Inbox does. It’s a great new way to handle information overload in Gmail. It helps you focus on the messages that really matter, without any complicated rules.
* How it works
In the words of Google itself, “Priority Inbox splits your inbox into three different sections: “Starred,” “Important and unread,” and “Everything else.” When you activate Gmail Priority Inbox, as your messages come in, Gmail automatically flags some of them as important. Amazingly, Gmail uses a variety of signals to predict:
Which messages are important, including the people you sent an email the most (if you email Jack a lot, a message from Jack is probably important); and
* Which messages you open and reply to!
Your daily use of Gmail should “teach” it to categorize your messages for you! How cool is that?
Also, by clicking the plus or minus buttons at the top of the inbox to properly mark a conversation as important or not important, you help Gmail learn your email reading and replying pattern! What’s more, you can:
- Set up filters to always mark certain things important or unimportant; or change and customize the 3 inbox sections!
The Gmail Priority Inbox is undoubtedly a great system, and easy way to quickly see what needs immediate responding and what can wait – great for your time management techniques!
Try it now and let me know what you think!
12 Reasons Your Website Is Failing
1) The Site Has No Focus
A website should be designed with its primary purpose in mind. You should have ONE thing that you’d really like most visitors to your page to do. Almost everything on that page should lead the visitors toward deciding to take that primary action. Nothing on the page should distract them and “lead them off down other trails.”
Common primary actions that you’ll want your visitor to take are to join your list, buy your product, download a free trial version, or join an online community. Make sure that you know what you want your visitors to focus on, and get rid of the other distractions. It’s been proven that if you give your visitors too many choices, or confuse them, they will simply choose to leave!
2) The Site Has No Email Capture Mechanism
Most honest copywriters will tell you that in most Internet marketing type niches, a 1-2% response rate to a sales letter is VERY respectable. You’ve worked very hard to get visitors to your site, and if you completely ignore the 98% who don’t buy you’re not going to be in business very long.
Incorporate a form into your website that gets them into an autoresponder so that you can follow-up with them. Offer them a free report, access to an MP3 on the topic, or access to an exclusive community. Get them to opt-in, and then you can follow up with them on their topic of interest.
Your opt-in form can be set up “in-line” as a part of the webpage, and even take them back to the point on the webpage where they were reading before they stopped to opt-in. You can also have an exit popup, or pop- under, that offers them a freebie as they’re leaving your site. Once they’ve decided to leave, you’ll probably NEVER see them again unless you have a way to invite them back. An autoresponder is the perfect way to do this automatically.
3) The Owner is “Hiding Behind the Website”
Web surfers are skeptical and distrusting. You need to let them know that there is a real person behind the site. Give them contact information, show them your photo, and even let them hear you. You can easily add audio or video to your website, and allow it to “touch” your visitor on such a deeper level. When people hear your voice or see you talking, and get to watch your body language, you communicate so much more effectively than just the written word.
To add audio to your website, all you need is a microphone plugged into your computer. To add video to your website, all you really need is a webcam plugged into your computer. There are services that will take this audio or video, allow you to edit it with a few clicks of your mouse, and then stream it from their servers or upload it to your server.
A totally amazing service that I use is called Audio Acrobat. I use it to have customers, subscribers, etc., call in and leave testimonials. I use it to record some teleseminars, interviews, product recommendations, and for dozens of other purpose. I do record video from my webcam to this service too. You can also upload video recorded on a regular video camera to this service, and then stream it from their website.
As I said, I Love Audio Acrobat. If you want to check it out, you can get a free 30-day trial from here: http://williec.audioacrobat.com/ It’s where I have dozens of testimonial lines, dozens of audios, and a few videos. It’s also how I save on my web hosting bandwidth 
4) The Owner of the Site Offers No Credentials
The very first question I ask when reading a magazine article, watching a television show, or reading a web page, is “What makes this person qualified to teach ME this topic.” Most web surfers don’t trust you, and believe that most Internet sites are out to rip them off. You need to show them that your experience and training makes you qualified to teach them the topic. In addition to formal credentials a professional looking website also shows that you are a serious business person. Don’t skimp on your website’s design!
5) Not Offering Proof of Statements
It’s natural for you to say how great you and your product are. That means nothing to potential customers. Get others to share how your product improved their lives. Use media interviews, and statements by officials in professional organizations, to provide third-party validation.
Testimonials with photos, audio, or video, are very powerful. Testimonials with just a set of initials, or with just a first name, have NO credibility.
6) Offering the Wrong Payment Options
The majority of Internet users prefer to pay via credit card. If your product allows you to do it, and still make a satisfactory profit, consider taking orders through an answering service or call center, via fax, via snail mail, and through third party processors such as Paypal as well. Evaluate each of these options and decide which of these make sense for you. As an aside, I once considered even offering my customers the option to order C.O.D (cash on delivery). My local postmaster strongly suggested that I NOT do that and also pointed out that it’s almost never done these days. He convinced me that it was more trouble than it was worth.
7) Using the Wrong or Too Many Fonts
When you use different sizes and colors of letters on your webpage you need to have a real reason. When you highlight or underline text on your webpage you need to have a logical reason.
As your site visitor reads your webpage, he will subconsciously ask himself why you emphasized a certain word or sentence on the page. If you had no logical reason, you pull him out of your message as his mind “wrestles with the why.”
Your page should be structured such that a “skimmer” could just read the headlines and sub headlines and get the message. He should be able to read just the highlighted text and get the gist of your webpage. He should be able to just go to the bottom of the page, read the “P.S.” where you’ve restated your offer, and order without being forced to read the rest of the page… if he’s in a hurry.
Using Header Graphics that Distract from the Message
Your header graphic should spell out or emphasize the main benefit of your product. It should be simple enough that the visitor is not forced to waste time trying to decipher its meaning.
Sometimes, it’s better not to even have a header graphic. This is something you should test. You want to get your visitor reading the text on your page and discovering how your product can help him, as soon as practical. This is what will sell him… not cute or fancy graphics.
9) Not Focusing on Benefits Rather than Features
Don’t tell your visitor how great the product is, tell him how it will improve his life. Your testimonials should also provide concrete, and very specific, examples of how it improved someone else’s life.
10) Focusing on “I” Rather than “You!”
Look at your webpage and make sure that it talks about the customer and his problem more than it talks about you, your company, and your products. Your customers don’t really care about you. They care about how you can help them! Read through your copy and make sure that it answers that question. Make sure that you’re not talking about yourself too much, and that when you do talk about yourself, it’s answering the question of how you can help the reader.
11) Not Emphasizing the Guarantee
When a customer purchases with a credit card, or through certain third-party processors, the guarantee is implied anyway. So, why not make your guarantee a selling point? If a customer goes to Visa or MasterCard and states that they are unhappy with their purchase from you, they will get their money back in most cases… and you’ll pay an extra fee for the “chargeback.” If a customer goes to Clickbank or Paypal with a complaint, they will end up issuing a refund in many cases.
Make it easy on yourself by offering and honoring a guarantee. It will increase your conversion rate, and unless your product is total JUNK, it won’t increase your refund rate.
12) Not Using a P.S.
Many busy surfers will jump right to the end of your webpage and read the P.S.(s). If they were somewhat pre-sold before they arrived at your page, many will go ahead and purchase at that time. Use the P.S.(s) to restate your offer, emphasize the guarantee, showcase your bonuses, and to emphasize any scarcity factor in the offer.
15 Important Web Design Tips
Here are 15 important website design tips that you might not be
aware of or have overlooked. Consider taking advantage of them
if you haven’t already done so…
1. Custom 404 Pages
Create a custom 404 web page, so that any time your website
visitor mistypes or misspells a URL on your site, they will
still be provided with navigation options for your site
(instead of getting nothing but a “Page Not Found” error
message, which is neither friendly or helpful).
2. Redirect Non-www. To www.
Website visitors will often leave out the “www.” portion when
they type a URL or link to your website. Set the website up so
that it automatically redirects any non-www version of your
domain urls (http://domain. com) to the www version
(http://www.domain. com) of your website.
3. Properly Sized Graphics
Size and define all graphics and images on your web pages
properly and correctly. Web pages will load quicker if the
graphics contained on each page are properly defined so they
don’t require the web browser to re-size them. Properly sized
and defined images can reduce the web browser workload and speed
up the page loading time.
4. Favicon
Add a Favicon (favorite icon) to your website, so that your
company or product logo appears in the URL box. This icon will
also show up in a bookmark list, and gives the web site an added
level of professionalism.
5. Include RSS Auto-Discovery
If you offer an RSS feed for any content on your website, be
sure to include auto-discovery code in the header of your
website. This will allow many browsers and RSS readers to
automatically detect the presence of an RSS feed and alert the
visitor that it is available.
6. Alternate Domains
Domain names are relatively inexpensive, so you should register
multiple domain versions and extensions in order to protect your
brand. The varied domains can be parked on the main website,
simply to prevent others from obtaining them. Registering
alternate domain versions will help protect your brand.
7. Consistent Navigation
Navigation should remain consistent on a website. As a website
visitor moves through the website, the navigation bar should
remain in the same place on each page. This will make it easier
for visitors to navigate your website, and become more
comfortable as they move through your site.
8. Home Goes Home
The main graphic, company logo, or “header” at the top of the
site should be included on every page in the site, and should
always return the visitor to the home page of the website. This
has become a web standard, and most visitors now expect to
return to the main page of the site simply by clicking on the
main top graphic from any page within the site.
9. Copyright Notice
Include a copyright notice on the bottom of each page contained
on the website, and keep it current! It may seem trivial, but an
out-of-date copyright notice can send a message to your visitors
that the website and its content may be out-of-date as well.
10. Meaningful File Names
Use meaningful file names for any files, graphics, or web pages.
Many search engines look at file names as part of their search
algorithm, and using keywords in file names may help to improve
search engine rankings.
11. Hyphens vs Underscores
When naming files and webpages, use hyphens
(i.e. web-page.html) rather than underscores (i.e. web_page.html)
for the file names. It is much easier for search engines to
separate and index the keywords when hyphens are used.
12. Alt Tags
Use ALT tags to describe what images represent on web pages. ALT
tags not only assist visually-impaired visitors in knowing what
the images are, but they also help with search engine ranking.
13. Spell Check
Use a spell-check feature on the text of all web pages in a
website. A website that contains mistyped or misspelled words
just shouts “unprofessional”. Take the extra few minutes
necessary to check the spelling of text on each page of your
website.
14. Test
After making changes to a website, test it! Many times, a
webmaster will upload changes, confident in their abilities,
only to later discover that in their attempt to fix one thing,
they have “broken” something somewhere else. Make testing a
habit after making even the most minor changes!
15. Keep It Simple
Simple is good. Remove unnecessary clutter and distractions
from a website and navigation menu.
Landing Pages: What You Need to Explain to your Website Design Company
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Monday, August 23, 2010
Landing Pages: What You Need to Explain to your Website Design Company
The definition of a landing page is simply “the first page
that visitors hit on your site,” so it is not strictly a
certain page but any page that a user “lands” on. All
websites have landing pages, whether they like it or not,
even if it was not specifically designed as such.
Landing pages can have a substantial impact on your e-
commerce website. A poorly-developed one can hasten its
breakdown just as an effective landing page can drive
traffic to your site, respond to calls to action and make
your business website a success.
One vital measure of the effectiveness of your website is
the “bounce rate,” or the percentage of visitors who
immediately leave your site without making any other click.
The bounce rate is inversely proportional to the
effectiveness of the landing page. Basically, this means
that a high bounce rate indicates that your landing page
isn’t compelling enough for the visitor to pursue his
interest or take some other action.
Normally, the home page is the primary landing page of most
typical websites. But more and more, site owners are
designing landing pages outside of the home page, and for
good reason.
Most users prefer to skip information which is irrelevant to
their needs. They want to get directly to their search,
hence the need for a landing page that delivers just that.
They can avoid the delays caused by having to click through
pages and pages of information when they already have
something in mind.
Landing pages serve their purpose when the site owner knows
the kind of visitor they are targeting. This is determined
by knowing what the visitor clicked on to arrive at your
site. A visitor who clicks on an ad for your product would
not want to go through other pages to get the information
about the product. Webinars, other event registrations and
special offers make use of this same principle.
Not all visitors are looking for the same information. One
may click on your link after reading an article you
submitted to a consumer review site while another may arrive
at your site after viewing your infomercial ad.
For each specific visitor, you can design a landing page
that will cater to his needs and contain the information he
is looking for. For example, infomercial viewers can be
directed to www.yoursite.com/infomercial, while visitors who
clicked on your banner ads for this month’s special will be
directed to www.yoursite.com/specials.
These landing pages should be evaluated for their
effectiveness. The bounce rate is a key measurement for
determining the effectiveness of landing pages.
Another measure for landing pages is the success of a “next
action.” It might be purchasing the product, requesting more
information, signing up for a free trial, etc.
Determine your conversion rate by dividing the number of
action takers into the number of visitors. A typical
conversion rate is 3 to 5 percent for lead generation pages
and 1 to 2 percent for e-commerce sites. If your site is
successful, you should be getting twice those numbers.
A concept that is intrinsic in creating effective landing
pages is “alignment.” This is the connection between your
source (where the visitor came from) and your landing page.
The more connected they are, the higher the success of
conversion.
A good example is a banner ad for a specific product from a
beauty products company. Clicking on the banner ad and being
directed to a landing page showing the exact same product
yields a higher conversion rate. If the alignment is not
present, on the other hand, there will be a significant
reduction in conversion rates.
In general, a landing page must stir these positive emotions
in a visitor for it to be effective:
Credibility
Your page must be able to capture the visitor’s trust by
presenting a credible appearance. Remove anything that can
cause a negative effect in the minds of your visitors, such
as a lack of contact information, grammatical errors and
typos, buzzwords, “marketese” and jargon, fuzzy or blocky
graphics and too much use of serif fonts, like Times New
Roman.
Recognition
Your page must provide your visitor a “This is what I’m
looking for!” moment upon landing.
Persuasiveness
Your page must be able to convince visitors that your
product or service can help them achieve their goal. Keep in
mind what attracted the visitor to your product in the first
place so you will understand what he is looking for.
Action
You must highlight an action for the visitor to take while
he is on your landing page.
Techniques to Use with Landing Pages
Here are some major principles to guide you in the process
of developing an effective landing page:
Make the Visitor Feel an Instant Affinity With Your Page.
The top half of the first screen should be effective in
making the visitor feel that he has come to the right place.
The use of the right taglines, images and a position
statement (usually about 12 to 15 words) can help to
establish your declaration and inform your visitor what the
site is about.
Use Specific Headlines and Sub-headings.
Throughout your page, include relevant headings and sub-
headings so that as the visitor skim reads the page they can
see what a particular paragraph or section is all about.
This helps him decide whether he will read the text or which
section he is interested in. The longer the page, the more
you should be using sub-headings. The headline should be
aligned as closely as possible with the banner ad or
whatever the visitor clicked on to arrive on your landing
page.
Focus on a Primary Goal.
A landing page can achieve only one primary goal. Examples
of these goals are a lead capture mechanism, such as a free
demo or product trial, or to lure the visitor to go further
and view your main site. The best results come about when
you focus on your goal. However, a secondary goal is possible
in a landing page. For example, if your primary goal is to
make the visitor purchase your product, your secondary goal
would be to entice them to sign up for newsletters or emails
to receive special offers.
Use Multiple Calls to Action.
Using multiple calls to the same action supports the one
primary goal principle. This holds true on a long landing
page. A page that doesn’t go below the fold may need only
one call to action. Overall, one call to action above the
fold and another at the bottom of the page are good.
Pay Attention to Your Layout and Graphic Design.
To make them easy-to-read, keep text columns narrow – about
80 characters or so wide – and left-aligned, not centered.
Place an image of the product (commonly called the “hero
shot”) and make sure the quality and clarity are good.
Images are attention-getting, so put your key text, such as
your offer, below the product image or other appealing
graphics.
If your offer requires the visitor to fill out a form, it
will be more effective if placed on the landing page rather
than needing a click-through to another page.
Layouts and graphic designs depend on the products and their
market and can be very diverse. In spite of the variety,
however, they can all use the same design principles to help
them be effective in achieving their goal.
Driving traffic to your site will require an investment on
your part, so it is only sensible to maximize the impact of
that traffic for a quicker ROI. Increasing website
conversions is also an important consideration.
Developing effective landing pages for your business website
only requires the simple implementation of changes, yet their
impact is significant to the success of your business and
the user experience of your website.
Web Design FAQ – 10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Designing a Website
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Friday, July 30, 2010
Web Design FAQ – 10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Designing a Website
Many site owners make the mistake of building a website
without laying out a clear plan for their online business.
This is a sure set-up for failure. There are 1000s of
abandoned sites on the web due to lack of careful planning.
Before designing your website you should ask yourself some
questions to avoid making mistakes down the road.
10 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) About Designing a
Website
1. What Are Your Business Goals?
It’s easy to say, “I want to make money,” however, this is
not a great motivator. Think of a deeper motivation that you
feel passionate about e.g. “I want to have the financial
freedom to spend more time with my kids as they are growing
up.”
2. What’s the Purpose of Your Website?
This is the question most visitors will ask when accessing
your website. Your home page must clearly explain the
purpose and benefits of the products and/or services you are
offering.
3. What Type of Products or Services Will You Sell?
Research the marketability of your products or services by
doing keyword research. Use the free Google Keyword Tool to
find out how many searches your main keywords receive every
month. If there are no searches, it means there is not much
demand and therefore not worth marketing.
If it is a very competitive market (millions of searches per
month), it may be difficult to stand out from your
competitors and create a profitable online business.
4. How Many Products Will You Sell From Your Website?
This will determine how many pages your website will have.
If you’re only selling one product or service, you may only
need 4 web pages e.g. Home, Product (or Services), About,
Contact. If you’re selling 100s of items, you will need a
database driven site to store and manage all of them.
5. How Many Variables Does Your Product Have?
Variables may include size, color, type, sku#, shipping,
tax? Make sure your shopping cart allows you to include
these variables.
6. How Will You Accept Online Payments?
To accept credit card payments online, you will need a
shopping cart, merchant account, payment gateway and SSL
certificate for secure transactions. This means you will
have monthly fees and processing fees every time a customer
purchases something from your website.
A less expensive option for accepting payments online is the
Paypal shopping cart. You don’t need to purchase a separate
merchant account, shopping cart, payment gateway and secure
certificate. For a small processing fee it takes care of all
this in one place.
7. Do You Have a Web Hosting Plan?
Your website needs to be hosted on a server for it to be
available online. Select a hosting plan that has sufficient
space for all your files and bandwidth to receive 1000s of
visitors each month. Make sure you have the flexibility to
upgrade your plan should you need more space and bandwidth.
8. Will You Need to Maintain the Website Yourself?
Asking this question before the design will determine what
software your designer will use to build your website. If it
only consists of a few web pages which don’t need regular
updating, then use software such as Dreamweaver to build it.
It creates clean code and you will have only a few files.
If your website has 100s of pages, consider a content
management system such as WordPress, Joomla or Zen Cart.
They all enable 100s of items to be stored in a database.
The website can be managed (add, edit, or delete items or
pages) by logging into an administration area.
9. Do You Have a Marketing Plan?
To create a profitable online business you must create a
plan to promote it. Some methods may include, search engine
marketing, pay-per-click, article marketing, press releases,
social media, video marketing, etc. Website promotion needs
to be done frequently and consistently to be effective.
10. How Will You Monitor Your Website Statistics?
Check if your web hosting plan includes site statistics
(e.g. AW Stats). If not, create a Google Analytics account
and insert the code on your web pages. It will track how
many daily, weekly, monthly, yearly visitors you receive,
where they are coming from and what keywords are being used
to find your site in the search engines.
If you answer these 10 questions first, you’ll avoid the
pitfalls of designing and building a website and increase
your potential of creating a profitable online business.
We believe you don’t start the design of a new or revised website by sitting down with the designer and coder of the website. Rather, we recommend you review the approaches, ideas, processes and other methods listed below to determine if they apply to your situation.
Think about your audience. Are they looking for immediate answers and solutions? We bet they are. Most likely these visitors to your website are very much like you. Chances are you use the Internet more than other types of media to search for information. If a web page doesn’t “grab your interest” within 8 – 10 seconds after landing on it… you move on!
As a “first step” we suggest that you start by reviewing the questions listed below. We are convinced that once you get to the last question… you will have a list of action items identified that will greatly improve the productivity of your current website. The success or failure of the site and/or business may very well depend upon the decisions you make after reading these questions.
What Do You Know About Your Clients and Prospects State of Mind?
When visitors land on your website, they have very little time to read what you say. They have a need for information or a product and don’t want to listen or read verbose descriptions and comments. You have about 8 seconds to engage them and get them to take action. Do most visitors land on your website wanting:
1) information,
2) a “quick fix”,
3) a bargain,
4) a large selection,
5) or a telephone call, etc.?
It is imperative to know the answers to these and many other questions BEFORE you design the pages within your website.
Do You Make Website Visitors Feel You Can Satisfy Their Wants and Needs?
Landing on any page within your website [especially the Homepage] must make the visitor know that you understand their needs, business, wants, and desires. The more you put yourself into the “mindset” of the website visitor, the better chance you have of converting their visit into something you want to happen i.e. buy, complete a contact us form, bookmark the page, pick up the phone and call you or any other method of measurable conversion.
What Approach Do You Take When Developing Pages Within Your Website?
What do you think you would want from your website if you were the prospective visitor or client? Assume you don’t know as much information as you want in order to make an informed decision. Talk to these visitors in a language they will understand. If visitors want more insight or information, tell them to click on the more info link or give you a call. They will follow your direction ONLY if you have built some level of trust or understanding.
What are You “Selling” to the Website Visitor?
Are you focused on telling them about your product or service or are you making them understand that choosing your firm will deliver that special feeling they are seeking by making the purchase? Are you sure that you made the visitor know that you understand their needs, wants, problems, etc.? What techniques did you implement to get your points across?
How are You Going to Get the Visitor to Stop and Think About Your Service or Product?
Remember… they are ready to pass by your website in a blink of an eye. What are you going to do to engage them? The answer you come up with will be critical to the success you have in gaining their confidence enough to buy or call you. Make sure what you say is NOT the same old thing they are used to seeing or reading on other websites. Be boring and you lose! Address the issues that appeal to the visitor and they WILL STOP! This is hard work… but worth the effort.
What Kind of “Call to Action” Statements are You Placing on Your Website?
Turning a visitor into a prospect or client is one of the most critical actions of your website. How will you engage them? Once they know that you understand their needs and wants, they are more inclined to follow your CTA direction. Call to Action statements are critical to the success of any website’s conversion. Guide them in a manner that is more telling, rather than selling. Don’t be afraid to be assertive.
How Does Your Website Address the “Who Are We” Issue?
Again, it is about making the website visitor feel confident that they are choosing a reputable firm or organization with which to do business. They need to read about your success. This can be done by exhibiting your affiliation with associations, awards won, satisfied client statements, client success stories, examples of your work, etc. Show them you are a “player” in your industry.
Are You Prepared to Answer: “What Makes You Different”?
What have clients and prospects said about you and your company? Have they applauded you for your approach to doing business? Did they say you made them feel like you understood their needs and wants? Think back to the reasons clients buy from you. How did you meet their needs and wants? Give your prospective clients reasons to do business with your firm.
A final thought…
Make it your primary goal to understand the potential client. Look at your website through that client’s perspective. Who are they? What makes them different? What do they individually want and need? Be informative… do more telling than selling. They will “get it” and appreciate that you have made them an educated buyer. Finally, tell them what you want them to do next. Get them to take the first step and be ready to deliver on the expectations you have set throughout your website!
Finally, be sure to hire Internet marketing professionals to do the job if you don’t have the capabilities in-house. Too much is at stake to leave this part of your business to chance! We are pleased to provide you the insightful comments contained herein.
Better Ads, Better Clicks, Better Money
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:35 PM
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Online video ads are not as popular as perceived with only 11 percent of consumers saying they were likely to click on video ads, according to a recent study. Simple text ads were found to be the most likely to receive clicks with 25 percent of consumers doing so, followed by display ads at 20 percent and banner ads at 12 percent.
It seems the video audience is mostly young people under the age of 25, a group that accounts for nearly one-third of the video-ad viewing audience.
Having a website that effectively communicates your image can be a rewarding and profitable experience if you follow five basic concepts:
1. Know you Audience, you can be proud of your site but remember, it’s the customer who buys. You are designing your website and logo for your customers, not for yourself. Your likes and dislikes may be similar to your clients’ likes and dislikes, but since they come first, your website and logo should reflect what they need and will respond to.
There are no tricks here, just a bit of work and some time. So let’s get started by reading the following list of SEO Techniques!
1. Domain & File Names: Choose your site domain name that contains words from your primary keyword phrase.
2. Keyword Phrases: Use keywords that are being searched for.
Having a game plan can get your site up and running without all the headaches. At the end of the project, the outcome should be measured by, “Did we get a good-looking, usable Web site deployed in a reasonable amount of time?”
Initial Web site design and redesigns of existing sites may each face a few different challenges, but overall, they are similar. Experience shows that these problems are not technical issues, but project management and cultural issues. Here are some of the things I’ve learned to do that will help make any Web site design project go smoothly.
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