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25 Tips for Creating a Great Website Part 5
21. Get quality hosting for your website.
Do not sacrifice your website in exchange for cheap hosting. For a business-class website, go for a host that will provide quality service as well as 99.99% uptime.
Cheap web hosting problems are usually about the downtime. If you have constant downtime due to your hosting service, your sales may be affected. Always use a quality hosting service.
22. Always include support for your website.
A great website as well as a great company can usually be determined by the quality of their customer support. Be sure that you have great support to assist your visitors with their questions. If your visitors are happy, they are more likely to become your regular customers and they can refer possible clients as well.
23. Make sure you get the right training.
A website should also be considered a part of managing your business. Besides hiring a team to work on your website and its content, you also have to know something about how it works. Most content management systems, such as WordPress are easy to learn and master.
24. Promote your website and business on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is a business community-based social networking website. Since LinkedIn is focused on professionals, business to business oriented companies can gain valuable contacts. Be an active member of LinkedIn by communicating with business-related professionals, joining group discussions and also becoming active in LinkedIn answers.
25. Make full use of email marketing methods.
Email marketing is very powerful, especially when you want to build a list of your prospects to stay in touch with. Start with email marketing by having visitors subscribe to your website updates. You can send weekly or monthly e-newsletters to your subscribers with a goal to convince prospects to take the next step with you.
Remember that email marketing should not be about spamming. You should practice the etiquette of respecting your users’ privacy. Do not send emails to people who do not wish to receive them. Focus on those who are interested and maximize your email marketing method by sending quality and relevant content.
Part 5 of 5.
Read More...25 Tips For Creating A Great Website Part 4
16. CISP compliance.
CISP stands for Card Information Security Program, which is designed for all e-commerce websites that process or transmit credit cards data. There are certain standards to acquire CISP and they are available online. If you accept credit cards for any aspect of your business, you must be in compliance with CISP standards. Check with your website vendor or your merchant account provider to ensure your company is compliant. Large fines can be levied by law otherwise.
17. Pay-Per-Click advertising.
PPC or pay-per-click is a form of paid online advertising. There are tips to effectively come up with a successful PPC campaign and convert click-throughs to sales. Some effective PPC campaign tips include:
- bid for both broad and exact terms as much as possible
- be sure you include singular and plural forms of your keyword(s)
- separate your research on content and search data
18. Be sure you have a contact form on your website.
A contact form is very important especially when you are trying to sell something or acquire leads online. Be sure your contact form is easily found within your website. In most cases, a contact form page should be clearly labeled in your menu. Structure your contact form page or even your contact details via SEO so they appear visibly in search results.
19. Provide clear navigation on your website.
Navigation is something you should always consider when designing your website. First of all, make sure that the buttons and navigating systems are well laid out, meaning they are easily identifiable to users. All navigation should be visible from all web pages.
20. Get specific domain extensions for foreign websites.
Aside from the .com domain, you can make use of different country domains to let users know where your target market is located. Once again, your domain tells your location so if your website only targets visitors in your local country, it is good to use a local domain.
To be continued…. Part 4 of 5.
Read More...25 Tips For Creating A Great Website Part 3
11. Maximize traffic from Twitter.
Twitter has been proven to be one of the most powerful social networking sites to target your market. Many businesses use Twitter to drive unique traffic to their website. A daily dose of tweets from your account can help you find you unique followers everyday and eventually convert them to customers.
12. Update your website security.
Hacking and phishing attempts are rampant today so it is very important to protect your website from intruders. You don’t want to be dealing with major problems in the future like data loss, credit card identification theft and the likes. Be sure any content management systems like Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal are kept updated.
13. Keep your web content fresh.
Do not let your website contain only the same content. It is a good idea to constantly update website content at least once every week. The more content you post, the better the chance of increasing traffic to your website.
14. Have a two-way conversation with visitors.
Make your website easy for your visitors to communicate with you. If you have a blog, allow visitors to comment on what they think. You can also make your contact page easily accessible for users to contact you through email or phone. Depending on your content management system, Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal platforms offer widgets or plugins to make use of and maximize user communication with your website.
15. Use Google Analytics for keyword optimization.
Google analytics is a free web statistics tool that provides near real-time information about visitors to your website. It offers information about how visitors arrived at your website, how many minutes and seconds they spent on each page and what content is important to them. Google Analytics is an invaluable tool and should be used for every small business website.
To be continued…. Part 3 of 5.
Read More...25 Tips For Creating A Great Website Part 2
6. Perform SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies.
It is essential to do SEO for any website today. This web marketing tactic will help you find your target market and drive visitors to your website. The basics of SEO include from finding the right keyword/s for your website. Usually, “long tail” keywords are more effective than the general or generic terms. So target the long tail keywords that are related to your website.
In addition, these keywords should be used as anchor text linking back to your website. Back linking is another SEO term that means collecting links that should be directed to your website. The more back links pointing to your website, the better you will rank on major search engines’ pages.
7. Consider Local Search Optimization.
Local Search Optimization is an area of SEO that emphasizes local SEO tactics. These would include optimizing your website for local search such as adding your website to Google Maps or Yahoo Local. You can also submit to local online classifieds to allow local visitors find your website.
8. Do Facebook marketing.
Facebook has become one of the best places to promote your business. You can easily start using Facebook by creating an account, adding interested friends, and posting updates about your business. Facebook has become very popular for business owners since it is a community-based website with networking capabilities. So when you post something on your wall, your post can be seen by your friends and their friends’ friends.
9. Create a version of your website on mobile.
With mobile devices increasingly in demand and 3G access everywhere, it is also practical to invest in creating a mobile version of your website. Mobile browsing is growing quickly and you need to target potential visitors who use mobile devices to access the Internet. Adding a mobile version of your website can be a low cost method to easily add additional traffic to your site.
10. Create a website for iPad browsing.
As of the writing of this post, over 3 million iPads have been sold. There are some things to keep in mind when designing for iPad visitors. Below are some quick tips for proper iPad web design:
- Be sure your site is viewable in a 1024 x 768 pixel display
- Resize your links to be sure they are visible
- Include hover effects to increase maximum usability for iPad users
- Stay away from Flash – the iPad doesn’t have it
To be continued…. Part 2 of 5
Read More...25 Tips For Creating A Great Website
Your website is an excellent tool to build your business. Today, an effective website can provide you with advantages in terms of marketing, competitive advantage, as well as sales compared to businesses that do not have an effective web presence. Therefore, it is imperative to have an effective business website in order to make your business grow and and be competitive.
Below are 25 surefire ways to build a successful website:
1. Choosing a domain name.
This is the first thing to consider before jumping in to the process of creating web content and design for your website. You may be surprised that choosing the right domain name is also crucial for the very reason that your domain name bears the identity and nature of your business. It must also be recognized by your target market and the major search engines.
A domain name should be kept short, with 63 characters max. You have to consider a domain that people should easily remember and can easily be entered on their browsers. In most cases a .com (dot com) domain is a necessity as that is what most most people naturally type and there is evidence that search engines give the .com domain preferential treatment.
2. Defining goals for your website.
Goal setting is all about getting your business on the right track. You have to lay out the things that need to be done like web content, web design, your logo, as well as important web pages that need to be added. A timetable can help keep you on track once goals are set-up.
3. Consider design and usability for your website.
A good website is something that is attractive to the eye. Quality graphics can attract and engage visitors. However, not all graphics are necessarily good for your website. You also have to consider the usability of your website once the design process has begun. Usability means your website should meet the following criteria:
- clear navigation
- fast browser load time
- accessible buttons
- easy and readable content
- reach all web pages in one-click
4. Quality coding.
Most experts recommend that your website code be web standards compliant. Search engines also give well coded websites preferential treatment when indexing content. Wordpress is known for excellent code as well as great search engine “indexibily” right out of the box. But whatever code you choose for your website, make sure that you get the coding right and that it is readable by search engines. The rule of the thumb here is “less is more”.
5. Add relevant content.
Content is another way to also make your website attractive to visitors. You have to take note that people are searching online because they are looking for quality content about things they are interested in. Therefore, you should supply exactly that. Be sure that the content you create is relevant to your website and never ever post content that is not original or written by you. Search engines, including Google will ban websites that contain duplicate content from another web page. Provide well written, original content and establish yourself or your company as an expert in your field. Quality content can also help you to gain readers as time progresses.
To be continued….. Part 1 of 5
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