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Archive for the ‘website development’ Category
Saturday, June 25th, 2011
One of the most important decisions any small business owner will have to make when building a new website, particularly one that offers services to local clientele, is whether or not to add outbound links to the site. Of course, not all outbound links are equal. Some can make you money.
There are two schools of thought concerning affiliate links. One school of thought says they are exit holes. You don’t want your site visitors to leave your website so you shouldn’t give them exit holes. The problem with this school of thought is that some visitors are going to leave no matter what. No need to hold them hostage.
That leads me to the second school of thought, which is this: Since some of your visitors are going to leave anyway, why not make money on them when they do?
And that’s the basis for using affiliate links on your small business website.
I leave it up to you to decide whether you should do that or not. If you do, here are a few things to keep in mind about your affiliate link offerings.
- Use them sparingly – Too much can be a big turnoff. You really want your business and your services to be the focus of your website, so if you do use affiliate links, make sure you do it sparingly.
- Use products that are related to your site’s services – Don’t just choose any affiliate products. Make sure the products you promote are related to the services you offer.
- Make your web design attractive – You don’t want your website looking like an affiliate product bookshelf. Make it look like a small business website and place your affiliate links, widgets, etc. in a strategic location on your web pages where they won’t detract from your main content. You don’t want every visitor leaving through your affiliate links so make sure they don’t receive too much attention.
Affiliate links can serve as an additional source of income for your small business website, but if they make you more money than the services you offer, then either your service sales pages aren’t written well enough to close the sale or your affiliate links are too prominent. Time to make a change.
Tags: affiliate marketing, small business, web design
Posted in website development | 1 Comment »
Saturday, May 14th, 2011
I won’t name names. There are plenty of them out there. You might have used one in the past. I’m talking about the free web-based website hosts.
If you remember a website by the name of Geocities where you could sign in and build a website, then you might remember that it was just a couple of years ago that Yahoo! decided to shut the site down – for good. And all those people who had websites hosted by Geocities had to move their sites, or lose them. So sad.
Some of these web-based hosts provide services like analytics, a blog platform, forum add-ons, and their sites even show up in the search engine rankings so the SEO is good. All of that is wonderful, but I mean it when I say “some of them.” Not all of them.
Still, even if you use a web-based host that provides all the services that you need and some SEO, you’ll still run the risk of losing your website if the host shuts down. That’s a big risk. Your business is in someone else’s hands.
It costs less than $20 per year for a domain name and less than $15 per month for good hosting. In many cases, you can have a domain name for $10 per year and hosting for less than $5 per month. And the SEO benefits to owning your own domain name and building your website on a traditional host are proven. Is it more work? Yes. But it’s well worth the extra cost for the added security.
Don’t use the free web hosts. Go with traditional hosting instead.
Tags: free hosting, web hosting, web-based hosting
Posted in website development | No Comments »
Saturday, May 7th, 2011
Since 1998, the widely accepted generation of HTML in use has been HTML 4. Lately, HTML 5 has been in development and will likely see a public release within the next couple of years. Every now and then I stop by the W3C website and see how it’s going, checking on the latest developments and the direction of the Web’s most prolific programming language.
One of the more interesting developments is in the categories of content that HTML 5 editors are offering. Here they are in a nutshell:
- Metadata
- Flow Content
- Sectioning Content
- Heading Content
- Phrasing Content
- Embedded Content
- Interactive Content
All of these types of content are in current use, of course, but HTML 5 provides definitions for them and specific protocols for deploying them within the HTML code. Some of these, with HTML 4, require the use of other programming languages such as CSS and JavaScript.
While HTML 5 will still require the use of other programming languages, it is intended to enhance the use and deployability of these content types within those languages. In that regard, it’s a huge step up from HTML 4.
I see the most potential for HTML 5 being in the embedded and interactive content categories. With Web 2.0 fully entrenched and almost every website these days taking on social features, these content categories will likely become more widely used as HTML 5 makes it easier for web developers to incorporate them into their site designs.
Tags: content, html, HTML 4, HTML 5
Posted in website development | 1 Comment »
Monday, March 14th, 2011
Do you have a healthy website? Does it do what it was meant to do?
Every small business website has a function. The job is to sell your services and attract new business. Of course, there are different methods and strategies for accomplishing this goal. But the bottom line is, your website must perform, and if it is a healthy website, then it will perform its necessary functions in a healthy manner.
Small Business Mavericks offers a website check up as a part of our regular service. During our check up, we look for specific things that tell us whether or not your website is healthy. These include:
- Does your website target the right keywords?
- Are you attracting good links or bad links?
- Are you beating your competition?
- Are you maximizing all of your traffic sources?
- Is your SEO localized enough?
- Is your website getting crawled often enough?
- Is your website attractive or is it turning customers away?
This is just a smattering of the things we look at when we conduct a small business website check up. We perform a full top-to-bottom check up to see if there are missed opportunities in your marketing and, if so, we’ll tell you what they are and how to fix it.
There’s no reason you can’t have a healthy small business website. How about a check up today?
Tags: inbound links, keywords, small business, traffic, website
Posted in website development | 1 Comment »
Friday, January 28th, 2011
Most small businesses, when they decide to go online and establish an Internet presence, just build a website then muddle their way through marketing that website online and off line. If they achieve any successes it is usually an accident, or a planned happy occasion. The real essence of their Internet presence is only ever considered as an afterthought. But I have identified 5 key questions to ask before you build your website or establish any kind of Internet marketing presence.
The 5 Essential Questions Every Small Business Owner Should Ask Before Building Their Website:
- Why Do You Want A Website? This might seem like a basic question and somewhat unnecessary, but I assure you it is very important. Do you want a website for branding purposes? Do you intend to use it for lead generation or take in subscribers for your newsletter? The purpose of your website will determine how it should be designed.
- Who Is Your Target Market? Your target market is important. Your website will be designed with your target in mind so be sure you define it accurately.
- Who Is Your Competition And What Are They Doing? Do you know who your competition online is? Your online competition may or may not be the same as your off line competition. But you need to know. And find out how they are marketing online. Should you follow them or search for a hole in their plan?
- What Is The Ideal Structure For Your Website? Yes, you’ll need to determine how many pages you’re going to need, how your site will be navigated, and so on before you build your website.
- What Keywords And Social Media Will You Target? Your website, just like your business, will need to be promoted. There are two primary channels of website promotion online – search engines and social media. You’ll need to research your keywords and determine how you will target your search engine marketing, then you’ll need to research social media channels to determine which channels show the most promise for your website’s promotion opportunities.
After you’ve performed the proper website planning, then you can start building your small business website.
Tags: Branding, internat marketing, search engine optimization, small business, Social Media, website design, website development
Posted in website development | 3 Comments »
Monday, January 24th, 2011
Every once in a while, veteran SEO Aaron Wall writes a blog post that is more than relevant and hits at a core issue of the Web, particularly search. His post “Google Gearing Up For Relevancy Changes” is such a post.
Many readers may miss a certain nuance to this post so I’m going to call it out. Aaron says,
The tricky part with vanilla spam is the subjective nature of it. End users (particularly those who are not web publishers & online advertisers) might not complain much about sites like eHow because they are aesthetically pleasing & well formatted for easy consumption. The content might be at a low level, but maybe Google is willing to let a few of the bigger players slide. And there is a lot of poorly formatted expert content which end users would view worse than eHow, simply because it is not formatted for online consumption. (bold emphasis mine)
What is this saying?
I think it’s saying that your site design could be a savior or a pariah, nevermind the content. But is that something we can agree with?
Unfortunately, yes. If you haven’t seen eHow – and now there are several other websites similar to eHow that produce low level content but that look, design-wise, like top-notch websites – then you should probably take a look at it. The content is nothing special. It’s written for a fifth grade audience.
So what’s the point? The point is this: Regardless of your content, if your site is still using 1995 design conventions or you haven’t updated its look and feel in ten years, then you could be in for some real hurt if Google changes its relevance algorithm. Why? Because your site may be deemed a low quality website or, God forbid, a “content farm.”
I’m not talking about your small business website, and neither is Aaron Wall. What we are talking about is your 10,000-page encyclopedia on corrugated boxes. You know, that to-kill-for industry reference.
While Google has been pretty good in the past about distinguishing websites that pass on user value, it’s important to point out that they haven’t exactly been perfect either. Don’t leave it to Google to make your website relevant again. If you’ve seen traffic dips, search ranking dips, or other valleys in the last couple of years, take the time to redesign your website – you may not even have to touch the content – and see what that does for you. Make your site look professional and you may see it become more sticky.
Tags: content, google, relevance, site design
Posted in website development | 3 Comments »
Monday, December 6th, 2010
Should you have auto play media on your business websites? For example, music or video.
First, I think most people in business object to landing on a website with music automatically playing. This can be for one of several reasons.
- They don’t like your particular brand or style of music
- They could be listening to something else and your music is an interruption
- The music could annoy others within the same hearing vicinity as the person who just landed on your website
Auto play music is generally considered an interruption or an annoyance, particularly if your website visitor is in a professional setting. What if he or she is in the middle of a webinar and goes to your website to place an order only to find that your music interrupts their webinar?
While music does have its advantages (there are pros, in other words), I believe the disadvantages make auto play music less desirable for a professional website. But what about auto play video?
Video is less objectionable. After all, a well done video can be an interactive element that draws people into your site and gets them to stay longer. If someone does not want to see or hear your video, they can click the pause button and go on browsing or reading your content. The video, with its moving images, is more of a welcome entertainment factor that could also inform and, if done well, could keep your visitors on your site longer.
Auto play media should be considered according to your audience, your website marketing strategy, and the promised benefits to you if that media is favorable to your audience. Weigh the pros and cons before deciding.
Tags: media, music, video, website development
Posted in website development | 2 Comments »
Sunday, October 3rd, 2010
The internet of today is considerably faster than that of ten years ago. This has been helped along by much faster internet connection speeds and then pushed further by improved web page coding. Search engines like Google are now getting in on the act as well. Google’s new Instant is one example and there’s no doubt now that page load speeds are being factored in when determining search rankings.
Hang on to your hats because Google would like to take page load times to new heights. What is the one common factor that slows most web sites down? Graphics, or at least, images. Google have now developed a new image format, called WebP, that significantly reduces the size of an image while not creating any noticeable loss in quality.
This could be a real boost to web developers that like to include complex headers into web sites. If the load speed of that image can be reduced, and Google are talking about 75% reductions in JPEG images, then we could see a rise in the aesthetic appeal of many websites.
Another advantage to improved image load times is that more sites are likely to include images. It will be interesting to see if this comes to fruition. The biggest sticking point will be getting browsers to read this format, and for web developers to start utilizing. You can read more on this new format here.
Tags: google, graphics, page load speeds
Posted in website development | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010
In the old days of the Web, if you said anything about content you were likely talking about words and graphics. Not much else. And the graphics weren’t really all that sophisticated. In fact, it was during those days that the phrase “Content is king” came into being.
But the idea of content has changed quite a bit since then. Content is anything that you can put onto your web page. Anything.
Videos are content. Audio files are content. Photos are content. Graphic design is content. Even widgets can be considered content. Articles are content. Links, even, are content. Did I leave anything out?
This brings up the obvious question: What will be considered content in the future? You never know what new technology will come along and change the face of the entire Web, or at least a part of it – perhaps that part of it that you are responsible for building up. And whatever that technology may be, you can bet we’ll call it content.
Tags: content, website
Posted in website development | 1 Comment »
Monday, June 14th, 2010
Website development is part science, part art. The science part is in the coding and developing your marketing strategy based on solid historical and trending data that you know to be true. For instance, we know that user eye tracking studies have demonstrated the hottest part of a website are in the top left corner of the page and the bottom right, with lesser hotspots in between in a zigzag fashion from left to right and down.
The art part of website development is the web design. You want your site to be attractive. You want it be functional, but attractive.
So how do you achieve both functionality and attractiveness and can the aesthetic aspect of website development (web design) increase your revenue? You bet it can.
There’s an old saying among web developers – “An ugly website that makes money is more attractive than a pretty one that doesn’t.”
That may be a true statement, but even more attractive than an ugly site that makes money is a beautiful website that makes money. And you’d better believe that your visitors will judge your business by the attractiveness of your website just as they judge your business by how you dress.
So when it comes to ensuring that your website is profitable, make sure that you plan its functionality well and don’t leave out its attractiveness. Make sure your web designer is in his best form.
Tags: web design, web development
Posted in website development | 1 Comment »
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