Web Design Discussion

I was on holiday with my family one summer and came across 2 fruit & vegetable stands on the side of the road. Visitors mostly gravitated to one stand but not the other?

Why?

The busy fruit stand simply displayed the fruit and vegetables in an attractive way so customers could quickly and easily select what they wanted.

The other stand was not organized. The fruits & vegetables looked cluttered because they were bunched together. This made it difficult to quickly make a good choice.

This comparison also applies to web sites. Try to see your web site through your customers eyes or get someone who doesn’t often use the web to navigate your site. If it’s difficult for them to know your site’s purpose or how to make a purchase, it will be the same for your customers.

If you’re serious about improving your web site conversion rates read this article on:

Why you MUST become fanatical at testing and tracking

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Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Site Design, Web Hosting, Search Engine Optimization

I recently installed the WordPress Default Kubrick Theme (1.6) and discovered it only displays the sidebar on the home page. This means visitors who land on any other page besides the home page will not see the links in the sidebar. They also can’t return to the home page (unless they click on the title in the header which most folks are not aware of).

Modifying the default (Kubrick 1.5) theme to provide a sidebar at all times:

After a little searching on the WordPress Forums I discovered a modified theme that suits my purpose.

Download this file:

http://guff.szub.net/wp-content/default_allsidebar.zip

To use, unzip to the directory/folder “default_allsidebar”, upload this to your wp-content/themes/ directory on your blog’s site, and select “WP Default - AllSidebar Edition” under Presentation in WordPress.

Display links and login info in your sidebar at all times:

Here is a modified version:

http://guff.szub.net/wp-content/kubrick_sidebar.zip

To use extract sidebar.php from the zip and replace your current one (either in default or default_allsidebar) with it.

Create a link to the Home Page from other pages

Login to the admin panel
Blogroll-Categories
Add category called MAIN PAGE
Click Add Category

Click Add Link
Add Name and URL of Home Page
Click box on far right named MAIN PAGE
Click Add Link

Example of WordPress Default Kubrick Theme Showing All Side Bars

By making these modifications to the WordPress Default Kubrick Theme you can now display the home page sidebar (with links) on other pages, plus create a link that takes the visitor back to the main page (home page).

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Receive fresh, in-depth articles articles on how to design, optimize and promote your web site by subscribing to my “Marketing Tips” newsletter at: http://www.isitebuild.com/

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Site Design, Web Hosting, Search Engine Optimization

Finding a theme for WordPress is relatively easy because you can select one from thousands offered at the theme viewer

What if you can’t find one you like and wish to create your own customized template?

WordPress Theme Generator

The beauty of this online generator is that you don’t need to have any HTML knowledge to create a unique WordPress theme.

Here are some of the things it can do:

Change the colors for the background, foreground or individual sidebars.
Change the layout e.g., have one or 2 sidebars.
Change the body size to a fixed width or percentage
Place page tabs at the top or bottom.
Create different styles for your text.
Preview your customized template
Save your theme as a zip file.

If you can’t find a theme that matches your business, create a customized template with the WordPress Theme Generator

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Receive fresh, in-depth articles articles on how to design, optimize and promote your web site by subscribing to my “Marketing Tips” newsletter at: http://www.isitebuild.com/

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Site Design, Web Hosting, Search Engine Optimization

Have you ever lost all your computer files because you didn’t back them up?

It’s a sickening feeling when you can’t restore thousands of files collected over several years of work. The same thing can happen to your forum, blog or CMS web site that uses a mySQL database to store information. One of the easiest and most full proof backup methods is to use phpMyAdmin.

How to use phpMyAdmin

Go to cPanel->mySQL databases->phpMyAdmin and choose your database.
Click on the Export link.
Choose Select All to select all the tables.
Select “SQL”->for output format.
Check “save as file”
Select gzipped and hit Go to download the backup file.
Save it to a folder labeled “backupFeb08″ so you know when you created the last backup.

Create a backup the first of every month.

How to restore a backup of a mySQL database

Click the SQL tab
On the “SQL” page, unclick “show this query here again”
Browse to the backup of the database on your computer
Click Go.

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Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Site Design, Web Hosting, Search Engine Optimization

Receive fresh, in-depth articles articles on how to design, optimize and promote your web site by subscribing to his “Marketing Tips” newsletter at: http://www.isitebuild.com/

If you have installed a blog, forum or content management system (CMS) such as Joomla on your server you will have installed a mySQL database. One day without warning your server may crash and you’ll lose all your files. This is why it is important to create a backup of database and files.

If your web site only contains html files it’s very easy to restore them because they are stored on your computer. You simply need to upload them to the server.

Methods of backing up your SQL database

1. Web hosting providers - Most web hosting providers backup all files on their server. My server gets backed up daily, weekly and monthly. Check with your web host to see how often they do backups.

2. Backup software for your forum, blog or cms

Most CMS web sites that use databases have their own backup system software. e.g.,

a) WordPress has a plugin (http://www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/wp-db-backup/) where you can select how you want the backup to be delivered:

* Save to server : this will create a file in /wp-content/backup-*/ for you to retrieve later
* Download to your computer : this will send the backup file to your browser to be downloaded
* Email : this will email the backup file to the address you specify

b) Joomla has an extension called JoomlaPack (http://www.joomlapack.net/). It’s a component that creates a backup of your whole site (files and database) in the form of a single archive. In order to help you restore this, it also adds an installer. All you have to do to restore your backup is follow the regular Joomla! installation procedure: unpack the archive, upload files, point your browser to the installation script, follow the installation screens and you’re ready.

c) Simple Machines Forum (SMF) allows you to create a backup of the forum database within the admin panel.

3. Cpanel backup

Use the MySQL Database Wizard to download a zipped copy of your entire site or parts of it onto your computer.

The following are backed up and included in a zip file:

* Home Directory
* MySQL Databases
* Email forwarders configuration
* Email filters configuration

To access the MySQL Database Wizard login to:

www.domain.com/cpanel
files
backup wizard
save the files to your local drive

4. phpMyAdmin

read my next post

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Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Site Design, Web Hosting, Search Engine Optimization

Receive fresh, in-depth articles articles on how to design, optimize and promote your web site by subscribing to his “Marketing Tips” newsletter at: http://www.isitebuild.com/

Most online marketers talk about increasing traffic to your web site but few talk about how to get visitors to click through to your offer. If you receive thousands of visitors a day but none of them click through to your sales page you’ll soon be out of business.

Definition of Click-through rate

According to Wikipedia (an online encyclopedia)

CTR is a way of measuring the success of an online advertising campaign. A CTR is obtained by dividing the number of users who clicked on an ad on a web page by the number of times the ad was delivered (impressions). For example, if your banner ad was delivered 100 times (impressions delivered) and one person clicked on it (clicks recorded), then the resulting CTR would be 1 percent.

The CTR measures what percentage of people clicked on the ad to arrive at the destination site; it does not include the people who failed to click, yet arrived at the site later as a result of seeing the ad.

CTR does not necessarily mean your ad or web site was successful because it does not measure conversion rates. A customer may click on your ad, read the information but still not buy the item.

How to Increase Your Click-Through Rate

There are hundreds of ways to improve your CTR. Then most important aspect is to test one factor at a time. If you change too many things at once, it will be hard to decipher which one had the greatest impact.

Start off by making one change to see if it increases your CTR, then change something else. If your CTR decreases simply undo it and try something else. Always work on moving up your CTA until you are happy with it.

4 ways to improve the CTR of an online ad

Online ads may include Google AdWords, banners or ads on web sites.

1. Test the headline

Create different headlines by placing yourself in your customer’s shoes. Try to see the headline from their viewpoint by asking “what’s in it for them.” This means you need to include a benefit in the headline.

2. Try different fonts types, sizes, colors.

One small change often creates a large impact, therefore try capitalizing the first letter of the headline or all first letters of each word in the headline. Experiment with common font types e.g., times roman, arial, verdana. Colors also have different effects on people so test other text colors besides black.

3. Use action words or phrases

Action words and phrases are more powerful than passive words and phrases.

Some good words to use include:

get, discover, secrets, powerful, read, how, how to

Questions also get your customer to check out your offer e.g.,

How do you write an article a day?
What are the 7 secrets to getting your article read?

4. Use short sentences

When writing an ad you are limited in the amount of words you can put into it. Your sentences need to be short and have an impact on the reader. Leave out filler words such as the, on about

If you want your headline to be spidered by the search engines include the keywords at the beginning of the sentence e.g.,

Instead of writing:

“The Top 7 Ways to Lose Weight in 7 days”

Write

“Weight Loss - Top 7 Ways to Lose Weight in 7 days”

Conclusion

The most important aspect of increasing your CTR is to test everything but test one thing at a time and do it consistently. It will take some time to see substantial results so be patient. If so, you will have the satisfaction of knowing you have the best possible ad. and don’t have to rely on the opinion of others.

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Receive fresh, in-depth articles articles on how to design, optimize and promote your web site by subscribing to his “Marketing Tips” newsletter at: http://www.isitebuild.com/

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Development, SEO, Hosting

If you write a lot of articles you want them to be read and acted upon so you will have a high conversion rate. Many folks are very good at writing articles but fail to provide a “call to action” in their resource box. They either leave it out or promote themselves at the beginning of the resource box then follow it with a CTA.

Why this not the way to do it?

After reading a well written article the person is prepared to take action. Your call to action (CTA) should immediately follow your article body while the article content is fresh is their minds.

Don’t follow your article with a pitch about yourself and all your wonderful accomplishments.

Examples of effective CTAs in the resource box:

1. Receive a Free Report on 10 Effective Ways to get your articles read by visiting http://www.domainname.com

2. Sign up for a Free Bi-Weekly Newsletter to receive more marketing secrets at http://www.domainname.com

3. Visit my web site at: http://www.domainname.com to discover how to lose weight in 7 days.

When writing your CTA place yourself in your customers shoes and think of the benefits they’ll receive. Make the customer feel they can’t do without the knowledge they’ll get when they click through.

Test different CTAs

Every article doesn’t need to have the same CTA. Write out several CTAs to test which one gets the higher conversion rate. CTAs with high conversion rates mean you will make more sales, and get more subscribers. You also won’t have to write as many articles thus giving you more time to spend building your business.

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Receive fresh, in-depth articles articles on how to design, optimize and promote your web site by subscribing to his “Marketing Tips” newsletter at: http://www.isitebuild.com/

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Development, SEO, Hosting

When you submit your article to an article directory you often set it and forget it hoping that some ezine publisher will include it in his ezine or newsletter and gets indexed by the search engines. This is only a partial view of what happens. You often receive an immediate boost in visitors when you send in your article.

Here’s a description why this occurs:

A day in the life of a new approved EzineArticles.com article:

1. You send in an article.

2. We approve and publish it.

3. We send it to our RSS feeds in real-time and your article gets read by folks who view our site in their favorite RSS reader. A select group of approved RSS publishers publish your title, summary and a link back to the full article, giving it more traffic.

4. We make it available to our new XML keyword search partners that return keyword search results of the most recent articles submitted as we can only display 10-25 usually for them… hence, the newest articles get listed first.

5. Your article gets included in the recently submitted articles in the category you selected until it gets bumped out of the list. That means other articles from your fellow authors help bring traffic to your article for about 20-35 position movements.

6. Your article get promoted to our proprietary email alert lists and this brings more traffic to your articles.

7. The search engines discover your article and give you an initial ranking. A few days to a few weeks later, your position in their indexes settles due to intense competition for the top.

8. In our category views, we list the newest articles on top and the oldest near the bottom. This is designed to encourage you to send in a continual flow of articles while giving our web surfers the freshest content.

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Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Design, SEO, Web Hosting

Receive fresh, in-depth articles articles on how to design, optimize and promote your web site by subscribing to his “Marketing Tips” newsletter at: http://www.isitebuild.com/

It’s been proven that submitting to Article Directories will guarantee an increase in web traffic to your web site. If you only submit an article once a month it’s not going to help attract traffic. You need to submit several articles on a consistent basis to build a continuous stream of traffic.

Article Submission Frequency

1. If you have a bunch of articles stored on your hard drive it’s more effective to submit them all at once rather than spreading them out over a period of time. My experience shows I get more visitors if I submit 3 articles at the same time instead of one at a time.

2. If you want to receive a lot of traffic, submit a minimum of 5-20 articles per week, every week. If you can’t produce this many articles write 1-5 articles per week for the first 3-4 months. Evaluate the results at the end of this period. The top article directories (i.e., ezine articles) produce statistics that show how many people read articles. If you find this strategy effective you can then boost your results by increasing your submission frequency.

3. If you own many web sites it will be difficult to write many articles for each niche. My recommendation is to focus on one niche unless you have lots of time and are a fast writer. Focusing on one niche allows you to concentrate your thoughts better and make it easier to generate multiple articles.

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Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Site Design, Search Engine Optimization, Hosting

Receive fresh, in-depth articles articles on how to design, optimize and promote your web site by subscribing to his “Marketing Tips” newsletter at: http://www.isitebuild.com/

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been busy designing the front and back ends of a new web site: MidAtlanticHarness.com

The front end had to be database driven because the owner wanted to edit the content himself.

I used WordPress to create the static pages so the site doesn’t even look like a blog but the content can be edited from the admin panel.

I made the news page into a blog so he can add as many news stories as needed plus have them archived as well. The blog also
allows him to create different news categories.

I installed and configured a powerful forum for the backend of the web site.

I’m telling you this, because it shows how a regular site can be built using a content management system such as WordPress and retain all its benefits.

To read the benefits visit: The Top 7 Reasons to Choose Wordpress

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Contact iSiteBuild.com if you want a WordPress web site created or have a powerful forum installed/configured for your business.

Receive fresh, in-depth articles articles on how to design, optimize and promote your web site by subscribing to the “Marketing Tips” newsletter at: http://www.isitebuild.com/