Web Design Discussion

Do you currently interact with your website visitors?
What are the ways to make your website interactive?
How can you keep visitors to stay longer on you site?

Several years ago websites didn’t involve much interaction with visitors. They simply visited the website read the information, purchased a product or subscribed then left. Nowadays visitors want more interaction. This is one of the reasons blogs became so popular. Large offline stores such as BestBuy, Macys etc are now using social media applications.

Top 10 ways to make your website interactive

1. Add a blog

A blog can easily be added to your current website by placing it in a sub domain or a subdirectory. Visitors can interact with your blog by leaving a comment, subscribing to RSS feeds or newsletter.

2. Forum

Forums enable visitors to ask questions and receive answers from people who have similar interests. Sometimes a conversation can start on a thread that continues for weeks. A forum can easily be added to your main site as a sub domain or in a subdirectory.

3. Chat

Chat windows are often seen on ecommerce sites to help the visitor to immediately engage with customer service without leaving the website.

4. Ezine or Newsletter

This helps establish long term relationships with your website visitors. If you offer valuable information by consistently sending out your ezine, weekly or biweekly your customers will get to know, like and trust you. They will be then be more open to your product recommendations.

5 Autoresponders

It’s a general rule that your customer needs to be contacted at least 7 times before they purchase your product. An autoresponder allows you to automatically send email messages every day or every few days. The beauty of this method is that you can set it and forget it.

6. Mini ecourse

Ecourses are like a small tutorial where you send a new lesson every few days using an autoresponder. By educating your customer over time they will be more inclined to purchase your products.

7. YouTube

Not all people like to read text online. Some are visual learners. Adding a video to your website enables visitors to listen and watch your content.

8. Podcast

A podcast is an MP3 file of your content that a person can download from your website. They can listen to it on their computer, download it to their ipod, listen to it in the car or while they’re exercising.

9. Twitter and Facebook

These 2 applications can easily be incorporated into your website so visitors are automatically added to them by clicking on the icons. Whenever you have new content visitors signed up for these sites get instantly notified.

10. Social bookmarking

Social bookmarking enables website visitors to save content to their favorites or recommend it to others. If your article is very popular you’ll experience a huge traffic surge. Add social bookmark icons to your website to make it easy for visitors to bookmark your content.

If you wish to generate more traffic, subscribers and/or make more sales add interactivity to your website by incorporating some of these 10 methods.

Related Articles
Top 7 Benefits of an Interactive Website
7 Factors Affecting Website Performance

Get an Interactive Website Designed
for your business by visiting
Maryland Website Design

People buy from people they know, like and trust. If you don’t invest in building relationships with your customers they are less likely to do business with you. For example would you hire a contractor recommended by your neighbor or use the phone book to find one? Obviously you would choose your neighbors recommendation because you trust them.

For most websites, people visit the website once or twice then leave. An interactive website enables you to build relationships with your visitors. Instead of only visiting your website once then leaving, you interact with your visitors several times.

Top 7 benefits of an interactive website

1. Build long term relationships

Business people know they need to contact a person several times before they purchase their products or services. It’s easier to sell products to people who have already bought something than finding a new customer. An interactive website enables you to start a conversation with your customer that develops into a relationship.

2. Branding

Every time a visitor interacts with your business online it builds your brand in their minds. For example if they interact with your business on your website, on Twitter, FaceBook, YouTube, in your newsletter and with email, your brand will stand out from your competitors.

3. Become recognized as an expert

Expert status in your niche is gained when people interact with your website, social media applications and read your publications. You become known as the “go to” person in your niche.

4. Build backlinks naturally

If you offer great content and answer peoples’ questions they’ll refer your business to their friends who may then link to your website. Instead of artificially building backlinks you build them naturally by engaging your customers.

5. Increase search engine rankings

One of the most important factors that determine rankings is the number and quality of links you have pointing to your website. An interactive website encourages others to link their website to yours thus increasing your link popularity.

6. Attract web traffic

If your website doesn’t attract traffic your online business will die quickly. It’s the lifeblood of your website. An interactive website attracts and retains traffic because you’re communicating with them. By integrating social bookmarks, Twitter, RSS feeds, YouTube, etc on your website you create multiple methods of interaction and generate traffic from high traffic web properties.

7. Generate more sales

Making a sale is like dating someone. You wouldn’t marry a person that comes up to you and says “marry me.” Dating helps the person get to know, like, trust and eventually love you enough to marry you. You’ll generate more sales by interacting and building a relationship with your visitors.

If you don’t have an interactive website, begin by adding a blog, forum, e-course, or newsletter to it, plus create conversations in your niche using social media applications.

Get an Interactive Website Designed
for your business by visiting
Maryland Website Design

Are you happy with your web site’s performance?
Does your website convert visitors into buyers?
Do visitors stay on your website or leave immediately?

Your website won’t convert visitors into buyers if it it’s not designed correctly, loads slowly is not optimized for the search engines or doesn’t have effective web copy.

7 factors affecting website performance

1. Amateur website design

An unprofessional design will drive professional business people away. Some businesses have not redesigned their website for years. It’s obvious from the appearance they have not kept up with new design technologies. Make sure your web site has a clear navigation menu, the colors are coordinated on the page and there is plenty of white space between all the elements.

2. Slow loading web pages

A web page should load within a few seconds with a high speed connection. Many sites have a flash introduction but visitors must wait for it to load before it is displayed. Large images (or too many of them on one page), JavaScript and Video are just some of the elements that will slow the loading of web pages.

3. Place CSS and Javascript in external files

Instead of including the full cascading style sheet (CSS) or Javascript within your page code place it in an external file. This speeds up load times and keeps your code mean and clean.

4. Cross browser compatibility

Your website may look fine in your own browser but may look terrible in other browsers. Test how your website displays in the major browsers e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari.

5. Screen resolution

Computer users these days use various monitor sizes. Most of them have a width over 1000 pixels so design your site between 900-1000 pixels. A small width of 800 pixels means there’ll be a lot of white space on both sides of your web pages when viewed with a large monitor. If the width is over 1000 (e.g. 1500 pixels) a person with a small screen size will have to scroll horizontally to view your web pages.

6. Validate html code

Code errors prevent your pages from rendering correctly on all browsers and slows the indexing of your web pages by the search engines. Google “html validator” to find the website that will validate your pages then repair the code errors.

7. Web copy

Content is what keeps visitors on your website. Your header graphic, titles, subtitles, paragraphs, bullets, images and navigation should work together to easily and quickly provide the information visitors are seeking. The first paragraph should clearly outline the purpose of your website followed by paragraphs explaining the main benefits. The navigation menu should link to deeper information. Don’t try to cram too much information on the home page.

Your web copy should include a few of the main keywords people use to find your website on the search engines. Include these keywords in your meta tags, headings, file names, internal links and navigation menu.

If you optimize your web pages by implementing these 7 factors your website will be ready to receive visitors and search engine traffic. Use web site promotion strategies to generate a continuous flow of traffic to your site.

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Attract a continuous stream of NEW visitors to your website by picking up a copy of 101 Highly Effective Strategies to Promote Your Web Site .

Herman Drost is the CEO of http://www.iSiteBuild.com Web Design, Hosting, SEO.

The design of your home page is the most important part of your website because it’s what visitors see first. If it grabs their attention they’ll explore other areas of the site. It’s often the first view they’ll receive of your business so you need to create a good impression. If your home page doesn’t have a professional design your visitors will go elsewhere.

Let’s look at the 7 crucial elements of home page design:

1. Design

There are 100s of different designs that can be applied to the home page however there are common elements that should be included in all of them. Some of these include:

• Headings
  The top heading should include a brief description of your business e.g. Web Design, Hosting, SEO and/or include the name of your business e.g. iSiteBuild.com. Include a tag line if it helps define your business ie “helping businesses get online”

• Header graphic
  This attracts attention to the top of the page. Some alternatives include, a flash or video introduction, an introductory audio message and music.

• Subheadings
  These help split up the content into easy to read portions. Most website visitors scan web pages so subheadings draw attention to the content.

• White space
  This increases the readability of your home page. Use white space around images, content and navigation. A cluttered home page prevents the visitor from focusing on your content.

• Short paragraphs
  Use short paragraphs of 10-20 lines and keep the lines short. Include plenty of white space on all sides of your content so it is easy to read.

• Bullets
  Bulleted points enable visitors to quickly scan your web page and capture the essential content.

2. Navigation

Top navigation provides more space for content because it can occupy the full wide of the page. You can also use drop down navigation links to help visitors navigate your website.

Left navigation is the most popular because people read from left to right however it reduces page width.

Right navigation is used by some site owners because the html code gets pushed under the main content (left navigation code typically comes before the main content). It also focuses visitors on your content instead of the navigation.

Bottom navigation helps visitors to return to the top of the page or visit other pages. If the home page is long they won’t have to scroll back to the top.

Navigation design may use images, javascript, flash or CSS (cascading style sheets). The most user friendly is css because you can use text links and still create colorful background images that change color when hovered over by your mouse. Text links are the only links that can be spidered by the search engines.

3. Visuals

• Images
  Only use images that contribute to the content. Don’t use images that don’t relate to the content. Too many images will slow the load times of your web page.

• Video
  If you create a video presentation, keep it short and stream the file from another server such as YouTube so it won’t slow down your home page loading time. Flash presentations should also be kept short because the visitor has to wait for them to load.

4. Cross browser compatibility

Make sure your web pages display correctly for all the major browsers particularly the tow main ones internet Explorer and FireFox.

5. Screen resolution

Gone are the days of small monitors so make sure your web site displays correctly for 1078×764 pixels and larger. Most websites have a width around 1000 pixels so it will fit into any screen resolution. Be careful if you use a flexible width as often the page elements get stretched on large monitors making your website look out of shape.

6. Clean code

Clean coding practices will help to correctly display your web site across all the major browsers, improve load times and help search engine spider to index your content. Validate your code before your site goes live.

7. Use cascading style sheets (CSS)

CSS enables content to be separated from the design. This makes it easy to change the layout or colors without affecting the content. For example if you want to change the colors or alter the size of the navigation links just edit the CSS.

Keep in mind even if you have the most beautiful design it still doesn’t guarantee your website will be profitable. You also need to create a marketing plan that will constantly attract new visitors.

Need a new design for your website?
Visit…Maryland Web Design

Herman Drost is a Master CIW Designer,
owner and author of:
http://www.isitebuild.com/portfolio.htm
http://www.drostdesigns.com

Do people visit your web site to view your graphics or read your content?

People seek information when surfing the Web therefore content is the most important aspect of your web site. Without it your web site will not attract visitors or retain their interest. Graphics are used to enhance your content. Even if you have a very simple design but have great content you’ll attract lots of interested visitors.

For example an offline store allows visitors to see, touch, smell, taste and hear their products whereas online the content on your web site must persuade visitors to buy your products mostly with text and images but may also include video and audio.

Types of content

Text
The written word is the most commonly used type of content. Expert copywriters write copy that captures the thoughts and emotions of their readers. It prepares the mind of the visitor to subscribe to a newsletter or purchase a product. Keywords placed strategically within the content attract the search engine spiders thus boosting your web site traffic.

Audio and video
Some of your online audience prefer to listen and/or watch content rather than reading it. Most people are familiar with watching television, listening to music or playing video games. Using audio or video content will attract a wider audience.

Images
You’ve probably heard the phrase ” a picture is worth a 1000 words.” This is also true on the Net. Images are used to add value or illustrate content. Site owners use images to create slide show presentations, portfolios or photo galleries.

How to correctly display content on a web page

Design

• Use headlines, sub headlines and bullet points to organize your content
• Use the same font for the main content of all your web pages so it looks consistent throughout the web site.
• Only use commonly used font found on most computers ie arial, times roman, georgia, verdana
• Use large or bold font for headings and subheadings
• Arrange your content in short paragraphs of 5-10 lines
• Keep your lines short (15-20 words) it makes them easier to read
• Use plenty of white space between components on the page ie text and images
• Don’t allow visitors horizontal scrolling..it annoys them
• Don’t make your page too long so visitors have to scroll down several pages to read it.
• If your page is gets too long link the content to another page

Navigation

• Use text links instead of images, flash or javascript so the search engines can spider your content
• Place your navigation bar at the top or side of your web page
• Include navigation at the bottom of your web page if it’s a long one to visitors won’t have to scroll back up
• Navigation links should change when moused over so visitors know it’s a link
• Don’t make the link colors the same color as your content
• Use textual links within your content to navigate to other areas of your website

Search engine optimization

• Include your main keywords the meta tags, headlines, navigation, links and content
• Use h1, h2, h3 tags for headlines and sub headings
• Use anchor text to link to other sections of your web site
• Use the alt tag to optimize your image descriptions
• Reduce page loading times by reducing image size and amount of images on the page
• Validate your code to check for html, xhtml errors
• Repair broken links
• Use cascading style sheets (CSS ) to style your content

Tip
To attract a constant stream of visitors to your web site, add fresh, unique content on a regular basis in the form of articles, blog posts, comments, video and/or audio.

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Need a new design for your website?
Visit…Maryland Web Design

Herman Drost is a Master CIW Designer,
owner and author of:
http://www.isitebuild.com/portfolio.htm
http://www.drostdesigns.com

How do you choose a web designer when you know almost nothing about web design, what you need, how to build it and where to go to to find good one.

This article will help you make an informed decision instead of just selecting the first one you find.

Steps for choosing a good web designer:

1. Know the purpose of your website

Before searching for a web designer it’s a good idea to know what you want your website to do for your business. It will help the designer to know your needs. Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Do you want to generate leads?
• Do you want to an online presence for your offline store?
• Do you wish to sell products and/or services?
• Do you want to interact with your customers?
• Do you want to build long term relationships?

2. Experienced professional

There are many amateur designers who want to become professional. The problem is they don’t have many years of experience. For example they may create a pretty design but don’t know how to build search engine friendly pages. Look for a designer that has several years of experience, the longer the better. Visit their website to see the portfolio of websites they have already designed.

3. Qualifications

By viewing their portfolio you have a good idea of the types of websites they have built, however some amateur designers will simply get a template, modify it a little then charge you for a complete design.

A professional web designer should at least have these skill requirements:

• html/xhtml
• cascading style sheets (CSS)
• javascript
• graphic design
• ecommerce design
• php script installation and customization
• search engine optimization
• email marketing
• FTP

Other design qualifications
CIW (Certified Internet Web Professional) is the world’s leading Web technology certification and curriculum program. The Master CIW Designer Certification shows the designer has taken the time and made the investment to become a Master Designer. You can’t go wrong if you find a designer that has been awarded this certification.

5. Testimonials

Reading the recommendations from satisfied clients shows they trust in the designer’s services. Visit the designer’s website to read the testimonials. Ask for them if they are not displayed.

6. Pricing

This is going to be all over the map because it depends on the complexity of the work involved and who is doing it. An online store containing 100s of products is going to cost more than a 5 page html website. A corporate design firm with many employees is going to charge more than a freelance web designer because they have to pay salaries. Ask for a preliminary proposal from the designer before hiring him or her.

7. Ask for a contract

The contract should clearly state what’s involved in the design of the website, prices, maintenance and hosting fees. It should also include who owns the website and the timetable for completion.

If your web designer fulfills all these requirements, is friendly, helpful, polite and easy to work then hire hime/her. You’ll be glad you made the right choice.
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Hire a professional web designer for building your website by visiting
Professional Web Designer

Herman Drost is a Master CIW Designer,
owner and author of:
http://www.isitebuild.com/portfolio.htm
http://www.drostdesigns.com

Is your website looking a little stale and not performing well for you?
Do you want it to look more professional?

If so, it’s time to redesign your website so it will clearly reflect your business image, attract more visitors and generate more sales.

Let’s look at the top 7 reasons to redesign your website

1. Out of date design

If your website was designed several years ago it probably has an old design that no longer appeals to your visitors (or yourself). Even if you get lots of visitors they are not purchasing your products or services. Your website should provide the best experience for first time visitors so they’ll want to do business with you.

2. Out of date content

If the content no longer grabs your visitor’s attention you need to rewrite it. Why not redesign your website while you rewrite the content so your design will harmonize or enhance it.

3. Ineffective navigation

If your visitors can’t quickly and easily access the information they’ll go to your competitor’s site. Your information should be within 3 clicks from the home page. Old navigation menus use images which search engines can’t index. Convert your pages over to a CSS (cascading style sheets) navigation system. It loads fast and is search engine friendly.

4. Slow loading web pages

Google has added loading speed as a rankling factor for the search engines. If your website doesn’t load fast you may not only lose rankings but lose impatient visitors. Some of the factors that affect load times include:

• flash objects: flash introductions or flash images
• large images or too many of them on the page
• code errors: javascript or html errors
• slow server: not enough space or bandwidth or too many sites on one server
• multi media: video and audio take up a lot of server resources

5. Not optimized for the search engines

Your web designer may not have designed your web pages to be search engine friendly so they won’t attract much traffic. Many web designers know how to design a website but are not familiar with promotion strategies. When redesigning your website be sure to select a web designer that knows about search engine marketing.

6. Converting static website to content management system (CMS)

If your static html website contains hundreds of pages that need updating you’ll have to edit them one at a time unless you use server side includes files. Many site owners are now using content management system because of these features:

• separate content creation from design
• easy to update/add/edit/delete pages from backend administration panel
• create unlimited pages
• no html knowledge needed

Two popular CMS editors are WordPress and Joomla. Both are open source and freely available

7. Creating an interactive website

Most static html websites are not built for interaction with your visitors. For example with a CMS such as a blog the visitor can leave comments, subscribe to RSS feeds, create multiple editors to add content, plus a blog automatically alerts the search engines of new content.

If your current website fits any these criteria consider a redesign. You’ll have the opportunity to create an up to date professional design that is search engine friendly, fast loading and attracts more visitors and sales.

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Get a professional website design or redesign
for your online business by visiting:
Professional Website Design Company

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com

There are many websites on the Net that are highly ineffective in terms of attracting business because mistakes were made in the original design. You may have paid a lot of money for a beautiful design but it’s useless if it’s not profitable.

Top 12 mistakes in web design

1. Unclear purpose

You may have been pressured to build a website for your business but failed to clearly define its purpose. Here are some questions to ask yourself in order to clarify your website’s purpose:

Do I want to generate leads?
Do I want to display or sell products and services?
Do I want to interact with my visitors?
Do I want to build a relationship with my website customers?
Do I want to offer tips, articles, coupons, etc from your website?

2. No long term plan

You may have heard the saying “if you fail to plan your plan will fail.” The purpose of your website should integrate with your business plan. For example if you want to generate leads, determine how many new leads you want each month, how you will acquire and build a relationship with them. You’ll also need to create a marketing plan.

3. Unclear navigation

Visitors need to easily access all parts of your website from the home page. If not they will click away to your competitors. Avoid using images, flash or javascript if possible. Search engines can’t index these files. Use CSS navigation instead. It contains clean code, loads fast and can be spidered by the search engines.

4. Cluttered pages

Web pages filled with images, videos, flash objects and text makes it difficult for visitors to read the page or understand what is most important. Web pages should contain plenty of white space between all the objects and be clear what you’re offering. The images should enhance the value of the content. Separate your content into short paragraphs. Use numbers or bullets to clearly define your ideas.

5. Inconsistent appearance

All web pages should have a consistent appearance so the visitor is not distracted from the purpose of the website or thinks he or she is on a different one. All the website components (ie images, text, navigation) should be in harmony with each other.

6. Poorly written web copy

Visitors arrive at your website to read what you have to offer. For example your home page should clearly state the purpose of your website. If you sell products, write good descriptions about them. If you sell a service try to pre-sell the visitor by talking about the benefits of your services.

7. Not optimized for the search engines

Most site owners want to generate traffic to their websites. One of the main strategies for achieving this is to optimize the web pages before the site is active. People find your website by entering keywords in the search engines. These keywords should be included in the content, meta tags, links, heading and subheadings of your web pages. Do your keyword research first so you can incorporate them into the design before the site goes live.

8. Slow loading

Typical visitors will only wait 3 seconds for your website to load. Many site owners want to fill their pages with lots of images, videos, flash objects and javascript. This may dramatically slow web page loading times and cause you to lose visitors. Reduce the amount of content on your web pages if your site has slow loading times.

9. Too much scrolling

Avoid horizontal or long vertical scrolling. Horizontal scrolling shows the site was not created professionally and will annoy visitors. Most visitors do not want to scroll down 10 pages to view information. Instead use links to direct them to another page. This helps break up the content and makes it easier to read.

10. Code errors and broken links

Errors in html, xhtml, php, javascript can influence the appearance, usability, loading and indexing of your website by the search engines. Make sure the code correctly validates before uploading it to the server.

11. Broken links

Broken links prevent visitors from correctly navigating your website. Search engines will not be able to find your content. A large site contains lots of images and links. It will be easy to miss some of them. Run the website through a link checker and repair them before it goes public.

12. Doesn’t render well across major browsers

Your website may look good in the browser on your own computer (ie Internet Explorer) but look terrible in browsers (ie FireFox, Safari, Google Chrome) your visitors are using. Check if your website renders well in all the major browsers before uploading it to the Web.

If you want to build a successful long term business online you need to get a professional website designed that doesn’t contain top 12 design mistakes. Use this list when hiring a web designer to help you make an informed decision before spending your hard earned money.

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Get a professional website design or redesign
for your online business by visiting:
Professional Web Site Company

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com

How do you decide what option to choose for website design

• Free Template
• Do-It-Yourself
• Web Designer

If you don’t know the pros and cons of each option you could make a big mistake that will affect your long term business success. Often the easiest and cheapest method is not the best one. It may work well in the short term but you’ll run into problems later.

Let’s look at the pros and cons of these three design options:

Free template

If you search Google you’ll find hundreds of free templates available to you but how do you know if these are any good?

Pros

• Easy to build a website
• Inexpensive
• Easy to customize
• Freely accessible

Cons

• Contains proprietary or bloated code
• Code errors ie html/xhtml code doesn’t validate
• Must not remove links to template owner’s website
• Doesn’t present unique image for your business
• Template may look the same as 100s of others sites

Do it yourself

The do-it-yourself kind of person likes to learn, get their hands dirty and makes time to do the work themselves.

Pros

• Build a customized website
• Learn how to code html/xhtml, css, javascript or learn how to use html software ie Dreamweaver
• Easily update, modify and/or maintain the website yourself
• Save money
• Attain skills that can be used for future projects

Cons

• You’re not a professional web designer who has many years of experience
• Learning curve: it can take weeks or months to learn how to code or master html software
• Create an unprofessional looking website
• Create a website that is not search engine friendly

Professional web designer

Although a professional web designer costs you money you have the satisfaction that you’re getting a design from a person or company that designs websites for a living. They live a breath website design (and probably website marketing) every day.

Pros

• Experienced professional
• Has extensive knowledge of current design technologies and how to use them effectively
• Knows how to design a website that is search engine friendly
• Knows how to design a website that is profitable
• Obtain a unique custom design that reflects your online business
• Receive ongoing technical support
• Design flexibility: easy to make design changes in the future
• Takes care of website maintenance so client can focus on attending customers and building the business.

Cons

• Initial design costs can be expensive
• Takes time to build a professional website the client is happy with
• Ongoing maintenance costs if you don’t maintain it yourself
• If the designer disappears or closes down you’ll need to find alternative solutions

My recommendation

• If you don’t need a unique design or simply want a blog to add content to…get a free template or use WordPress dot com to get a free blog.
• If you can afford the time and money to learn the skills needed to build a professional website select the do-it-yourself option.
• If you’re looking for a unique design that you’ll be happy with and want a person who knows all the intricacies of designing and marketing websites, hire a professional web designer. You’ll be glad you did.

***************************************************
Get a professional website designed for your online business by visiting:
Professional Web Site Company

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com

If you’ve driven around your local city area you’ve probably noticed some businesses have closed down because they couldn’t afford to keep them open. One of the main problems for local businesses is to generate enough leads to stay in business. If there are no new leads business soon dries up.

Local business owners traditionally rely on yellow page or newspaper ads. These can cost 1000s of dollars a month and have become ineffective because customers are now using the Net to find local products and services.

Benefits of online marketing strategies for local businesses:

• Inexpensive
• Ability to track amount of visitors
• Build customer trust and loyalty
• Attract business from multiple geographical locations
• Create an online brochure (website)
• Display ads or coupons that can be easily updated or changed
• Create an online newsletter to notify customers about sales

• Online strategies to generate local business leads

1. Create a website

A website can serve as an online brochure to display your contact information, photos, offer tips and coupons plus add content that will pre-sell your customers. Once your website is online you can easily refer customers to it when you contact them. They can also access the website from their homes or cell phones.

2. Write a newsletter

If you place a subscription form on your website it enables you to capture leads then send them new information on a regular basis. This helps win their trust and builds long term relationships. Whenever you have a new promotion or sale you can send it to them with one click of your mouse.

2. Article marketing

Offering content that shows the benefits of your products and services, how to use them, frequently asked questions, troubling shooting tips, etc will help your customers make more informed decisions. If you send these articles to online publications in your niche they’ll generate new leads.

3. Press release

Sending out a press release to publications in your area can generate a ton of leads. For example if one local newspaper writes about your business it will potentially reach 1000s of new customers.

4. Geo-targeted pay per click advertising

This method generates immediate traffic. Google AdWords are ads that are displayed down the right side of the search engine results pages. Simply create a Google AdWords account then write an ad that targets keywords related to your business (ie cities, counties, towns). When a person clicks on your ad they get directed to your website. The costs will depend on how much you pay per click. The more clicks your ad receives the more you pay.

5. Interactivity using social media applications

Nowadays many people use Blogs, Twitter, FaceBook and YouTube to stay in touch with their friends or show off their latest creations. Some of the large stores (e.g. Sears, Macy’s, BestBuy) are now using social media applications to interact with their customers. Through this interaction they develop relationships which enables them to promote and sell their products.

6. Video marketing

Online video marketing is effective because most people grew up watching television or playing video games. Some of the ways to use videos to generate leads include creating:

• video sales page
• videos that show how to use your products
• video testimonials

Videos can easily be added to your website so people can view them anytime.

7. Search engine optimization

If people find your website by entering a keyword in the search engines you’ll receive free ongoing traffic. By optimizing your website for the search engines you can achieve top rankings in the search engines for keywords related to your business and receive ongoing traffic to your website.

Start an online marketing campaign for your local business before your competitors learn how to do it or your business dries up. You’ll capture business that may normally go to your competitors because you have extended your wider audience.

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Get a professional website designed for your local business by visiting:
Professional Web Site Company

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com

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