Category Archives: Featured

Beat the Recession – Learn How to Build a Website  

Build A Website, Featured

If you’ve been thinking that your business needs a website but you can’t afford one then think again. Whilst it can be expensive to hire a team to build your website, and even outsourcing isn’t as inexpensive as it seems, learning how to build your own website and then maintain it can be inexpensive and it’s not that hard – really! And for those of you who would like to maintain their own websites; once you’re learned how to build your own website you are no longer beholding to a webmaster or web development company.

Before I learn how to build a website, do I even need one?
The short answer is yes! Back in the day when phones were invented, I’m sure many businesses wondered if they needed a phone, and then if they needed to pay to be in the yellow pages. The companies that jumped on board first gained a competitive advantage, then as the technology became more mainstream, everyone else followed, just to stay in business. Today you’d never consider doing business without a phone!

Well the internet has reached the mainstream stage. People are using their PC’s to find businesses and going mobile on their phones, iPods, blackberries and other devices. If you’ don’t have a website you are at a disadvantage. People are using the internet not only to find a business, but to find out what they offer and where they are. Guess where the first place I go to get directions? Yup the internet. Then I can print off the directions and go the business I’m looking for. Convinced that you need to learn how to build a website? Good, let’s move on.

How difficult is it to learn how to build a website?

That’s a great question! I’ll be honest, it does take a little time and some effort, but there are some great tools, tips and tricks that can help you along the way and it’s really not as difficult as you think. You’ll need to master a few technical details, such as understanding what a domain is (you can think of it as the address of your business on the internet) but once you’d done that then the rest should just fall into place. Don’t feel intimidated, millions of people have learned how to build a website, you can too!

So where do I start?

It’s back to basics. Before you jump into learning how to build a website you need to plan it out. And before you can plan your website, you need to know what the objectives of your website are. Do you plan to sell products from your website, or perhaps allow customers to get in contact with you on your website, or take orders, or is it just an extension of your business card that allows people to find your business?

If you’re starting out I’d recommend just setting up a simple website that tells people who you are, what you offer, where you are and how to get in touch with you. When you have mastered that, you can move on to some of the more complex areas, such as selling products. Even so, there are a lot of tools to help, so when you have learned how to build a website, adding new functionality will not be a difficult task.

Time to do some research

Before you commit your plan to paper, go on to the internet and do a quick search for other websites in your business area. Take a look at the websites and note down what you like and don’t like about the sites you look at. Then narrow the search down to your geographical area. Now you get an idea of what your competition looks like. Do the same again. This should give you some great ideas for your website. Don’t worry if they all seem complex, once you’ve learned how to build a website, adding to it will pose no problems at all. Also take note of the domain names of the websites as you’ll need to get a domain name for your site too.

Plan out your website

It’s time to write out on paper, or word or excel the pages that will make up your website. The things you’ll need to consider are:

– The page name

– The objective of the page

– The contents of the page

– How all the pages link together (Site navigation)

At a minimum you’ll need pages for:

– Your home page – This is the main page of the website and all other pages will link off from here

– A contact us page – How visitors can get in touch with you

– If you have a physical location, where you can be found with some directions

– An about us page – Tell visitors who you are (preferably with pictures)

 

Choosing A Website Designer  

Featured, Website Design

Now that you have decided that it is time to create a website for your business there are many questions you must answer. One of the most important questions is “Who should create my website?”

I like to use the analogy of playing music; in as little as a few hours, some people can strum a few chords on the guitar and play a song. But to really play the instrument and make your instrument sing requires experience and understanding. Likewise, although there are tools which are readily available to assist in the process, effective website design requires experience and understanding of many diverse areas including: marketing, Internet graphics options and limitations, effectively creating a site from the perspective of search engines, the differences and limitations of different browsers and computer platforms as well as knowledge of the software and coding required to move beyond simple static html pages.

It is also vitally important that your designer understand you and your business and know how to most effectively communicate you and your uniqueness to your Internet audience. To answer our question, we’ll look at some important pieces of information that you’ll need to find out before you choose your website designer.

What do you want in a website? What are your needs and intentions for having a website? Does the prospective designer listen to and understand your needs and intentions? Have you checked other similar businesses to see what they are doing on the Internet? Can a prospective designer offer any suggestions for improving upon what others have already accomplished? The more clarity you have about your intended results for having a website, the more accurately you can communicate your needs to your designer and the more likely it is that you will achieve these results.

Is the designer experienced in website design? How long has the designer been creating websites? What is their background? How long have they been using the Internet? Three years is a long time in Internet terms. More than four or five years is a seasoned veteran. Ideally, your site designer has a variety of experience.

What are the designer’s strengths and weaknesses? The range of skills required for creating any type of website is more diverse than you can imagine. If a designer tells you they have done or can do any project, I’d suggest you take that statement with a grain of salt.

Is the designer easy to work with and talk to? Is she/he able to communicate technical information so that you can understand it? The process of creating a website can often be an overwhelming process for some people. Consider hiring a designer with whom you have a good rapport and find communicating with easy.

Look at some of their previous clients sites. Do they all look the same? Do they load quickly? Are they easy to navigate through? Do you like their previous work? Do they accurately reflect their clients’ business? Does the designer custom create each site or would they have you select from a list of prepackaged sites?

What is your budget and what is the typical cost for the designer’s projects? As a generalization, the larger the company, the more they charge for their services (and often the more elaborate the sites they create.) Companies which create sites from a prepackaged template often cost less but don’t provide you with custom solutions which may more closely meet your needs. Site designers who are getting started will often create your site for a lower fee, essentially using your project to develop their skills.

Your decision should be based on many of these important questions. Also use any other questions you find useful when hiring any other service business for a project. Comparing website designers is sometimes like comparing bananas to bicycles instead of apples to apples. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. You might consider writing pros and cons for each designer on a sheet of paper to develop a more objective point of view.

The selection of your website designer is an important step in the creation of a successful website. With time and patience, you too can join the thousands of businesses with successful websites.

 

A Website for Small Business Is an Important Necessity  

Featured, Websites For Small

A website for small business is essential in today’s marketplace. The days are long gone when having a website for your small business is an option. It is now a necessity to have one.

You may say that you are doing just fine without a website, but not having one will continue to hinder it from reaching its fullest potential. There are several reasons why your small business needs a website.

Customers now utilize the Internet in searching for products and services. Many customers solely use the Internet for their search. The yellow pages are dead.
Customers want you to have a website so they can easily educate themselves on the products and services that you sell. People want instant access to information. A website gives them this information any time they wish to access it.
A professional looking and easy to update website gives your small business important credibility. Customers are more likely to patronize businesses with websites than those without. Why? A professional looking website with up-to-date content shows your customers that you know how to convey information in the most effective way possible.
Smartphones are changing the way customers use the Internet. They no longer need to wait until they are back at home or even within range of a Wi-Fi connection. Again, people are now expecting instant information at their fingertips. If you do not provide it, they will go to your competitors who do.
Prices for website design, creation and hosting have dropped significantly in recent years. Cost is no longer a barrier or excuse for not having a website. Today, you are now at a disadvantage to your competitors by not having a website for small business.

Using WordPress is a great way to manage your website. WordPress is a content management system which allows you to easily create new updates and pages for your website. Keeping your website updated with fresh content is important both for pleasing human visitors to your site along with ranking favorably in search engine results. You want customers to be able to find your website after they have searched for products or services you provide.

 

 

An Introduction to Websites For Small Businesses  

Featured, Websites For Small

These days most people appreciate the importance of websites for small businesses but many people lack the experience to decide exactly what a small business website should feature. To many small business owners, so long as they actually have a website then they consider that enough, however such an attitude would be a mistake.

Not only are some websites very difficult to get listed in the free search engines if they are built wrongly – meaning that you will struggle to get many visitors to your website – but they also fail to turn browsers into buyers. With so much competition online, it is no longer enough to just “have a website”. You need a website that attracts visitors morning, noon and night and turns those people into customers for you.

So should you build the website yourself or get a professional web designer to build your website for you? Well there’s no real right or wrong answer. Some people have the software and the patience to learn how to do it all themselves and while it is a struggle, it is certainly possible. And this is of typically cheaper than hiring a professional.

In contrast, while hiring a professional will cost you more, the money is often well spent. Not only will a professionally-built site typically looks better and get better results but it will also be completed far quicker than if you had to learn how to do everything yourself.

 

The Best Website Builder for a Newbie  

Best Website, Featured

What is the best website builder for a newbie? It’s one of those eternal questions. You may have many and varied reasons for wanting to build a website; you may want your business to have a website, for example, or it may be a personal site so you can keep in touch with friends. There are as many reasons as there are stars in the sky. The best website builder, in my opinion, is the one that works for you.

So how do you determine what works for you best? You could go to some website builder forums and pose the question to people in the know. It seems like a good idea, right? The problem is that most of these people have experience, and have forgotten what it’s like to start out. Most of the technical terms used by experienced website masters are beyond the newbie, so there’s a steep learning curve. So, maybe it’s not the best idea. When you have some experience under your belt, maybe these forums are the place to turn to.

If you don’t have a lot of time, or a lot of patience, you could get someone else to build the site for you. This costs money. Not only for the initial set-up but for any ongoing maintenance of the site. If you haven’t got a lot of money then this is most probably not an option. So, you’re back at square one, looking for a program to help you out in the process.

The first thing to do is make a list of what you need to be able to build a website quickly and painlessly. Here’s an example of things I want to be able to do have:

Low Cost – I don’t want to pay an arm and a leg to build a website.
No Coding – I don’t know more than the basics of HTML and I don’t have the time to learn it from scratch.
I want the program to do all the work for me – What I mean by that is that I want the program give me results, and I don’t want to have to deal with the nitty gritty.
Something to help me with all the graphics.
A program that will upload the website for me – that is an inbuilt FTP program so that I can do it all in the same time, and not muck about with different programs.
A professional looking site at the end – I don’t know much about graphic design, but I want it to look like I do.
Customisable – I have got to the stage where I can tell a website that’s been built using a template. There’s something manufactured about them. I want my website to be individual.
I don’t think any of those things are too much of an ask. Your list may include other items not listed here, or not have these items at all. It’s all about being an individual, after all.

 

Best Websites – A Look Into What Makes A Website One Of The Best  

Best Website, Featured

What makes the best websites the best? Searching the internet, you will find out that there are common things that the best sites have. This is an important point that every website developer should look into so that he can also be able to make a website that can compete with the top websites online.

Listed below are several qualities that a really good website should have.

1. Great Design
A really good website is one that does not bore visitors that come to visit. It must have a design that is creative and unique enough to gain notice from both online visitors and advertisers. It has its design harmonious enough, its colors complementing each other, and its fonts very readable and easy-to-understand.

2. Easy-To-Use Navigation
A great website must have easy-to-use navigation keys, tabs, menus. Visitors who come to the website must find it easy to look for whichever information they came for. No one has the patience and the time to look into every nook and cranny just to find the information they want. If they can’t find it easily in your website, they will surely exit your website and find other websites that can offer the same information easily.

3. Links Do Work
Links should always work. A good website has all its links working and no blind ends. A website developer must be able to make sure that all the links placed in a website work in order to give way to continuous browsing and visitor satisfaction. The best websites make sure of this.

4. Valid And Reliable Information
Really good websites have become popular among its many users because of their validity and reliability in terms of giving out information. They make sure that their information is up-to-date and that anything that is placed in their website is interesting and informative enough.

5. Browser And Device Compatibility
It is important that a website can be accessed via any device and any browser. Not everyone has access to the internet via the personal computer. Therefore, it is important that you make your website accessible in every way. HTML is not supported by other devices. It is better to use both HTML and plain text so that you are made sure that anyone can access your website whichever way they prefer.

6. Linking With Other Websites
A really good website is one that can be linked with other websites. Many online users want to link things into their social networking sites or email. Therefore, make sure that you can provide them with the ability to simply click a button to be able to link things from your website into other sites.

 

5 Business Reasons to Build a Website For Free  

Build A Website, Featured

Building a new business comes with many challenges. And, in today’s technological marketplace, you have to include the necessity to have a business website to showcase your products and services. Building a website is much like building a business. You must determine what you are excellent at and how much you can invest in the project and at what point you should let someone else take the reigns. But, for most business owners, time and ambition is readily available in abundance. Funds, however, are more scarce. Thus, many business owners opt to initially build a website for free for their new business.

Let us now look at the top five reasons a business should initially build a website for free:

1. No Risk to Try

When you use an online website building software tool, you can begin building your website within minutes. With a clear and concise direction, you can quickly add pages and content. Using the many different types of templates available, you can switch out & try out different templates looks to get the perfect reflection of your business’ look and feel. For some website builder systems, your content will stay in tact when you switch from one template to another. The free option comes with many useful tools and features, so without any money up front, you can try it out & get a simple website up on the web.

2. No Technical Skills

Because online website building software tools have been created for the novice user, there is very little technical skill necessary to build a website for free. All you really need to have is a game plan on how to layout your information, in which template, using a specific set of pages and where you’ll feature some pre-built elements on your website. As you add text, pictures, tables or heading, you’ll be able to see what you’re editing. Before publishing to the web, you can preview your edits. So, nothing is made live until you’re happy with the way it looks.

3. Website Customization & Control

Online website building tools have a large collection of features that can be used and customized to be exactly what you like. It’s just a matter of conquering the small learning curve. All systems have their challenges in how much you can change elements, but most of quite compensating. In fact, only certain online website building systems offer the ability to have your own custom design implemented into a template format. Of course, you would be the only one using that template, but your own design can be used with the online website building system. Key features like galleries are quite important. Many software building systems allow you to change the look of the images in the gallery, the scrolling function, the quantity of images shown on a page and the boarder colors. All those custom controls help to make your website look integrated and make the elements feel a part of the overall website.

4. Access to Make Changes

With a growing business, you are sure to have changes. And, the uniqueness of building your own website is that you have the ability to make changes to your website at any time. In fact, even if you get busy, you can save your changes, but not publish them right away. If you need to step away, you have the flexibility to make changes as fits your schedule.

5. All inclusive

The key advantage of using a website building tool online is that you can get the hosting for free.

Many online options offer a free website with free hosting. However, you do not get to choose your own domain name. But, that does not need to stop your progress. For a small fee, you can opt to get your own domain name and start directing your leads to your own website. As your business grows, you can grow into an upgraded membership which would include additional features, elements and in many cases, a shopping cart. With all those features, and 24/7 control to make changes and customization to your website, it is an investment to build a website for free.

Free Website Traffic – 3 Easy Ways to Get Traffic to Your Website Free of Charge  

Featured, Free Website

Internet marketers are constantly faced with the challenge of getting and increasing traffic to their websites.

In order for your website business to stay profitable and competitive, you might choose to draw visitors to your website with the use of low cost online advertising, or put in some effort to get you free website traffic.

Beginning Internet marketers are sometimes skeptical about the effectiveness of some of these methods that generate free website traffic.

However, some of these free methods can be just as effective as paid website traffic methods in helping you make more sales, generate email leads, or simply to get additional visitors to your website.

Here’s a little nugget of truth about getting free website traffic: Although you will not need to pay money for such free traffic to your website, you will actually be paying with either your time, energy, or your attention, or with all of these limited resources that you have.

However, the benefit of generating website traffic for free is that you will not need to spend any money.

Another benefit is that such traffic going to your website can also be more stable, predictable, and targeted. Consequently, these website visitors might be more receptive to making a purchase or performing the most desired action (such as signing up for your newsletter) when they arrive at your website.

Here are 3 of the really effective bread-and-butter techniques that can help get you tons of free website traffic:

1) Using SEO or search engine optimisation to get more website traffic:

One way of getting consistent and free website traffic, is to apply sound SEO or search engine optimisation principles when designing and building your webpages for your website. Such principles involve having appropriate title tags, meta tags, keyword tags, and meaningful keywords in your body text. Another key thing to remember about SEO is to have high quality content that are written for people. Such content should include relevant keywords and keyword phrases that people are looking for.

Baffled and confused by SEO terms and techniques? Just check online by typing “seo methods” in the search engines for some of these easy-to-apply methods. Alternatively, you can pick up a good SEO book at your local library, read, and simply apply them.

2) Getting Links from other websites for free traffic to your website:

Getting links from relevant websites that have website content or themes that are similar or compatible with yours, can help boost visitor traffic to your website.

To do this, you can simply go to the Google search engine, type in the keywords that your website uses and look at the search engine results.

Contact those websites that are on the first 3 pages of the search engine results and ask the site owners if they would be agreeable in posting your website link on their website. Try to request links from websites that have a similar or preferably, a higher page rank and search engine rank than your own.

3) Multi-task and do market research and website traffic generation at the same time:

Participate in forums and blogs that have content themes related to the content on your website. Not only can you do some market research and assess what your potential customers might want or need, you can also actively participate by making useful, relevant and meaningful posts to such forums and blogs.

In your forum or blog posts, you can either make a reference to your website or provide a short email signature that includes a web address or URL that can guide people to visit relevant webpages in your website. Remember that it is important for you to post useful and relevant content or information in such blogs or forums.

 

Get Yourself Free Websites  

Featured, Free Website

Nowadays, anyone who wants to get a place in the Internet can simply do so with the help of various tools provided by countless website builder companies. Some even offer free websites creation packages wherein you can personally build and design your own website. More than creating free websites, some companies also offer free webhosting, free web sub-domains, as well as free web space. Each company offers great advantage over others thus you need to be meticulous in picking free websites service. For those who don’t have any background in building websites, there is really nothing to worry about since most website services offer easy-to-follow and user-friendly instructions.

Two Things You Need to Start a Website

Before you can jumpstart your own free websites, there are two basic things that you need to have – a domain name and a webhost. A domain name is simply the primary name of your site. Choose a specific name that relates to what your website is all about. Is your website going to be tackling about kids, dogs, sports, writing, or politics? Whatever it is; be sure to clearly emphasize it on your free websites domain name. As for the webhost, you need to define your free websites category or type so as to pick the right kind of webhost that will fit your needs. After defining your domain name and you have got yourself a web host, you can start building your free websites. The process of creating your site may not be as complicated as you think it would be. You will be provided with step-by-step instructions, keeping you guided all the way. Once you are on the actual process of building free websites, you will be amazed at how simple and practical it is. You yourself will feel like a pro. The idea of creating and designing free websites are commonly addressed to only the knowledgeable ones. But as you go your way to building and engineering your own site, everything is plain simple.

Free Websites Facts

First off, the word “free” already has an impact. However, you should know that not all sites that offer websites will really not oblige you to pay and the thing is, you don’t have to pay in hard currency, but one way or another, you do have to pay. This may sound intriguing to you, but this is a fact. Not all sites that advertise websites will offer totally free service. While some websites service charge a little amount, some don’t charge anything but will post ads or banners in your website.

 

Good Website Design – Why Looking Good Is Never Good Enough  

Featured, Website Design

The majority of website designers focus wrongly on designing websites that appeal to their clients. This leads to websites that are poorly designed to serve the needs of the visitor or the client. After years involved in website design and evaluating and optimizing websites, I recently concluded that the vast majority of today’s websites are no better designed now than they were 5 years ago.

Yes, websites designed in the past 5 years certainly look a lot better and have more wow features like impressive effects, stunning graphics and clever videos. But that doesn’t mean as websites they perform any better in satisfying the needs of the visitor or the website owner. In fact very often all these effects, graphics and flash videos while enhancing the visual appeal of the website actually make the website worse in terms of performance. By performance I mean how well the website satisfies the objectives it should have been designed to meet.

When you are looking to have a website designed or redesigned the first thing you need to establish is what are the objectives of the website?

What is the purpose of the website?

Is the purpose to:

Stun visitors with a jaw dropping graphics and effects?
Get good reviews for your website from other website designers?
Inform and educate visitors?
Attract the right visitors interested in what the website has to offer?
Sell products or services?
Capture leads or subscribers?
If you want evidence of the extent to which web designers focus on the visual appeal of a website rather that being fit for a purpose, you only have to look at the dozens of websites that showcase what they consider to be good website designs.

These showcase sites for good website design feature 1,000’s of websites submitted by web designers that get reviewed and voted for largely by their peers, or so it would seem. Examples are siteinspire.net, unmatchedstyle.com, csselite.com, beautiful2.com, webcreme.com, creattica.com, divinecss.com, foliofocus.com, cartfrenzy.com and bestwebgallery.com. Some, but not all of these showcase websites state what they regard as good website design in their submission guidelines.

Unmatchedstyle.com are dedicated to acknowledging those who have made exceptionally gorgeous web sites by employing web standards and good usability practices.

Foliofocus.com is a web design gallery that exists to showcase the best collection of portfolio sites from web and graphic designers, photographers, and other professionals.

Cartfrenzy.com is a design gallery for the most well-designed e-commerce and shopping websites.

Bestwebgallery.com features a wide range of quality design websites (Flash & CSS). They go on to declare what quality design means to them, which is:
Quality Design = Visual + Technical + Creativity
Note here the emphasis is on the visual appearance, technical wiz bangs and the creative merit.

Based on my own experience auditing and evaluating websites and those featured on showcase sites like the ones above, is why I have concluded that web designers focus too much on creating good looking websites that appeal to their peers.

Case Study

As if to prove the point I carried out a detailed case study of a highly rated website featured on unmatchedstyle.com. In choosing the website for this case study I was also looking for the site of a web design firm since that should represent all that’s best in good web design. The site received a 9.1 out of 10 rating for good design from the showcase site and a video review.

Following my detailed case study evaluation of the website I determined the web design quality rating of the home page to be 3.9 out of 10 and the website as a whole was rated 4.2 out of 10. Of course, I used different criteria for my ratings for good quality web design than did the showcase website that gave a rating of 9.1.

For the home page I used a checklist that evaluated 12 categories of design, with 135 elements of page design and for the whole website I used a checklist that evaluated 91 aspects of site design.

Any of the 226 aspects of web design that were not found to be present were also given a severity rating. This severity rating was based on the level of impact the missing aspect had on the design and on the frequency with which it occurred.

The number of aspects on which the web page or website passed combined with the level of severity was used in a formula to determine a rating of good quality web design.

What was clear from this case study is the site used in the study received a high 9.1 rating for good design from the showcase site based on a very different assessment criteria to my own, that gave the site a rating of only 4.2.

So, the question is, which rating for good website design is the right one, a showcase site rating of 9.1 or my rating of 4.2?

Well, that depends on whether you want to base a rating for good web design largely on looking good, or on a detailed assessment of 226 aspects of good web design I expect to find in a well designed website.

Deciding on what is a good website design also depends on whether you want a website that looks good or one that’s designed for a purpose and to satisfy some clearly defined objectives. If you want a website that does more than just look good then you need to look a bit more closely at the design of your website, because just looking good is never good enough, at least not for me.

 

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