August 5, 2011 by 2 Comments

Website Design: 4 ways to come up with a beautiful design for your business website

Designing a professional website for your business should not be taken lightly because first impressions count. When visitors first see your website they only take a few seconds to decide whether to stay or leave. Your best solution is to hire a professional website designer because it’s what they do every day and have probably been building websites for many years. They will match the design with your business and build it in such a way that it will be search engine friendly.

But what if you want to design your own website?

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Web Design Tagged With: ,
February 7, 2011 by 2 Comments

Build a Business Not Just A Pretty Website

Many business owners are told to build a pretty website to market their business so they pay 1000s of dollars to a website designer then wait for the business to pour in. After several weeks or months of receiving no new leads from their website they conclude it was a waste of time and money.

Where did they go wrong?

They built a website not a business. For a site to be profitable it needs to be functional. A great design doesn’t mean you’ll attract visitors. For example, you’ve probably seen flash websites displaying a dramatic flash presentation before you enter the site. They usually give you the option of skipping the introduction by including a link that says “skip introduction.” The problem with this type of site is that the search engines don’t spider flash content. They only spider text. This means your site won’t attain high rankings resulting in little traffic and leads.

Build a business not just a pretty website

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Web Design Tagged With: , , , , ,
March 27, 2010 by 11 Comments

WordPress Web Design: Top 12 benefits of designing your website with WordPress

WordPress Web Design

There are many options for designing a website for your online business. A content management system (CMS) allows you to easily maintain your web pages by logging in to an administration panel. WordPress is one of the most popular CMS on the web because it is easy to install, customize, manage and maintain. Let’s look at why you should choose WordPress to design and build your website.

Top 12 benefits of WordPress Web Design
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Web Design Tagged With: , ,
March 19, 2010 by 17 Comments

Website Design FAQ: 10 questions to ask yourself before designing a web site

Website Design FAQ

Many site owners make the mistake of building a website without laying out a clear plan for their online business. This is a set-up for future failure. There are 1000s of abandoned sites on the web due to lack of careful planning.

10 frequently asked questions (FAQ) before designing a website

1. What are your business goals?

It’s easy to say ” I want to make money,” however this is not a great motivator. Think of a deeper motivation that you feel passionate about e.g. “I want to have the financial freedom to spend more time with my kids as they are growing up.”

2. What’s the purpose of your website?

This is the question most visitors will ask when accessing your website. Your home page must clearly explain the purpose and benefits of the products and/or services you are offering.

3. What type of products or services will you sell?

Research the marketability of your products or services by doing keyword research. Use the free Google Keyword Tool to find out how many searches your main keywords receive every month. If there are no searches it means there is no demand and therefore not worth marketing.

If it is a very competitive market (millions of searches per month) it may be difficult to stand out from your competitors and create a profitable online business.

4. How many products will you sell from your website?

The number of products will determine how many pages your website will have. If you’re only selling one product or service you may only need 4 web pages e.g. Home, Product (or Services), About, Contact. If you’re selling 100s of items you will need a database driven site to store and manage all of them.

5. How many variables does your product have?

Variables may include size, color, type, sku#, shipping, tax? Make sure your shopping cart allows you to include all these variables.

6. How will you accept online payments?

To accept credit card payments online, you will need a shopping cart, merchant account, payment gateway and SSL certificate for secure transactions. This means you will have monthly fees and processing fees every time a customer purchases something from your website.

A less expensive option for accepting payments online is the Paypal Shopping Cart. You don’t need to purchase a separate merchant account, shopping cart, payment gateway and secure certificate. For a small processing fee it takes care of all this in one place.

7. Do you have a web hosting plan?

Your website needs to be hosted on a server for it to be available online. Select a hosting plan that has sufficient space for all your files and bandwidth to receive 1000s of visitors each month. Make sure you have the flexibility to upgrade your plan should you need more space and bandwidth.

8. Will you need to maintain the website yourself?

Asking this question before the design will determine what software your designer will use to build your website. If it only consists of a few web pages that don’ need regular updating, then use software such as Dreamweaver to build it. It creates clean code and you will have only a few files should they need to be updated.

If your website has 100s of pages consider a content management system such as WordPress, Joomla or Zen Cart. They all enable 100s of items to be stored in a database. The website can be managed (add, edit or delete items or pages) by logging into an administration area.

9. Do you have a marketing plan?

To create a profitable online business you must create a plan to promote it. Some methods may include, search engine marketing, pay per click, article marketing, press releases, social media, video marketing, etc. Website promotion needs to be done frequently and consistently for it to be effective

10. How will you monitor your website statistics?

Check if your web hosting plan includes site statistics (e.g. AW Stats). If not create a Google Analytics account and insert the code on your web pages. It will track how many visitors you receive daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, where they are coming from and what keywords are being used to find your site in the search engines.

If you answer these 10 questions first you’ll avoid the pitfalls of designing and building a website and increase your potential of creating a profitable online business.

Related Articles
How to Build an Ecommerce Web Site Using the PayPay Shopping Cart
7 Essential Web Site Maintenance Strategies

And now I would like to invite you to claim your FREE report titled:
7 Habits of Highly Effective Traffic Generation

Herman Drost is the owner and author of
http://www.DrostDesigns.com
Web Design, SEO, Article Marketing

Filed Under: Web Design Tagged With: , ,
March 4, 2010 by 19 Comments

The Importance of a Website For Your Business

website design

The writing is on the wall for business owners still using print advertising to market their products and services. Most people now search the Net from their computers or cell phones to find a local or national business. It’s easier, faster and often more accurate plus you also receive listings from businesses that never could afford a yellow page ad.

7 Reasons to Build a Website for Your Business

1. Accessibility

Customers can easily find your business online at any time, from anywhere (as long as they have an internet connection). For example smart phone users can instantly view your products and services while in the car, plane, restaurant or even while walking around town.

2. Provide unlimited information

A website allows you to display your products and services using text, photos, video and audio (podcasts). You can add as many pages as you like plus edit the information at any time.

3. Inexpensive

A website will lower your advertising costs. For example a yellow page ad costs you 1000s of dollars and you can’t edit the information once the ad is published. The initial cost of your site may be $1000.00 or more depending on it’s size and complexity but your maintenance costs will be very small ( only yearly domain name registration and web hosting).

4. Interactivity

These days customers want to interact with your business before making a purchase. Ways to add interactivity to your website may include adding a Forum, Blog, RSS Feed, Contact form, Newsletter, Twitter, Facebook, Videos, Podcasts or Chat box. For example a Blog enables visitors to leave comments to your posts. You can answer their questions by replying to their comments.

5. Not limited by geographical areas

Your website can be found locally, nationally and even worldwide if it is marketed to those areas. If you want it to appeal to different countries you can even translate it into different languages.

6. Attract a wide audience

A website can attract 1000s or even millions of visitors if marketed nationally or worldwide. This is in sharp contrast to a yellow page add which only serves your local area. Attracting a wider audience generates more sales thus making your business more profitable.

7. Market to a targeted audience

If you use Google AdWords you can create online ads that target customers according to a geographic area, time and day. For example if you know your product only sells on Saturday nights in a specific town your ad can be targeted for those parameters.

Now that you understand the importance of building a website for your business, make a plan for your website needs and how you will market it. Discuss your plans with a professional web designer before hiring him/her to design it.

**********************
Get a professional website designed by visiting:
Affordable Website Design

Filed Under: Web Design Tagged With: ,
February 3, 2010 by 4 Comments

Web Page Design: 7 factors affecting website performance

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.

**********************
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.

Filed Under: Web Design Tagged With: , , , ,
January 23, 2010 by 14 Comments

Website Design Options: Free Template, Do-It-Yourself or Professional Web Designer?

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

Filed Under: Web Design Tagged With: , , ,
« Previous Page