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Tips for Black Friday & Cyber Monday

Wednesday, November 21st, 2012
Advertisers and publishers are gearing up for the Black Friday/Cyber Monday shopping bonanza.

There is still time to work on your affiliate marketing strategies and your content/promotions for the upcoming shopping season. Shop.org expects online sales to possibly reach $96 billion.

When you look at last year’s trends and this year’s forecast, there are seven critical data points to keep in mind. Below are affiliate marketing strategies for the holidays that are aligned with these seven driving forces in e-commerce.

Here is a strategy to consider — if you already have been running holiday promotions, create a new campaign specific to Black Friday and boost incentives for publishers during the 24-hour period.

Consumers shop before and after work on Cyber Monday. Research studies found during Cyber Monday 2011, consumers did their shopping before 9:00 a.m. then started again between the hours of 5:00-9:00 p.m. So you should consider running limited-time promotions during the heavy online traffic cycles of Cyber Monday.

Click here to be one step closer to a professionally designed website.

In 2011, almost 25% of online consumers purchased a gift from a daily deal website. Retailers should offer their own daily deals and work with publishers to promote them. Also, make certain your business is included in their listings. You can appear on coupon site listing even if you are not offering a coupon.

A recent study found when customers select a retailer, 87 percent say they are looking for value while 85 percent say they are looking for price. Even though value and price are almost equal in terms of importance for consumers, retailers should leverage their brand name and emphasize the quality of their goods over the price.

Consumers are making more online purchases from more product categories than ever. You will build loyalty if you have a good eye for selecting and highlighting the best products. Put a strategy in place for finding, sourcing and identifying products that fit the unique tastes of your audience.  It is easy to focus on price and discounts, but value can also mean finding just the right product with the right features. Customers will be appreciative if they feel they are continuously discovering unique gifts and other items on your website.

Contact us today to speak with an Account Manager

Research finds that smartphones will account for three percent of ecommerce this year, and that number will increase to seven percent by 2016. Meanwhile, tablets are expected to generate more Web traffic than smartphones by early 2013. So even though mobile commerce is not yet the dominant ecommerce platform, you should ensure every path to your website accommodates the needs of the shopper whether they are on a traditional computer, smartphone, or tablet.

For mobile commerce shoppers, make sure your current website is able to support tablets and smartphones. This may require additional adjustments given the different screen sizes of smartphones and the high-quality visuals you are able to display on tablets.

For your traditional website, be sure you clearly define your call-to-actions, for your holiday deals and promotions. This will improve search engine results and accommodate the specific interests of shoppers.

A survey conducted by Shop.org after the 2011 holiday season found the top three marketing tools that drove sales were promotions and free shipping. To differentiate your business, consider offering free returns as well and extending how much time a customer has to return items after the holidays. Also, be sure to be thorough when explaining your shipping policies to entice customers.

So it is not too late to make some minor adjustments and reap the benefits of your marketing efforts this holiday season.

*Did You Know? The term Black Friday originated in Philadelphia, where it was used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic which would occur the day after Thanksgiving. Use of the term started before 1961 and began to see broader use outside Philadelphia around 1975. Later an alternative explanation began to be offered: that “Black Friday” indicates the point at which retailers begin to turn a profit, or are “in the black”.

Cyber Monday is a marketing term for the Monday immediately following Black Friday created by companies to persuade people to shop online. The term made its debut on November 28, 2005 in a Shop.org press release entitled “‘Cyber Monday’ Quickly Becoming One of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year”.

Ways to Make Exceptional Websites

Thursday, November 8th, 2012
It is time to explore some of the recent trends in website design.

The days when designers were limited to typefaces available on users’ computer are gone. Web font foundries, such as Google fonts and Typekit allow you to use an unlimited number of fonts in your web designs, thoroughly enhancing their appeal.

You can use rich typography in almost every web design project. Make sure to check if there is a cost associated with a particular font – there are many free web fonts out there. Typekit offers great choices but there is a charge.

Use one font for headlines and a different, contrasting one for body text. This provides a strong visual appeal. In most cases, you need to make the body text a bit larger than normal in order to get the best results.

Click here to be one step closer to a professionally designed website.

Blocking has been around for awhile, and it basically introduces a brick-like design grid which features blocks of solid color coupled with blocks carrying photos or text. It offers a quick, organized overview of the site content, with minimum distractions. Contrast between blocks of solid colors and blocks with content usually stimulate a visitor to explore more.
Avoid a common look by adding your own touch to the design. Solid blocking works for homepages but inner pages need to hold larger pieces of content.
A “homemade look” is about simple and modest designs. This is achieved by combining subtle textures and colors, and relaxed typography. It makes the site look friendly and inviting. This style works best for service industries which need to look inexpensive and agreeable. A subtle quality is essential for this particular type, but readable typography is just as important.
Large, bold headlines are nothing new in graphic design, but they are a comparatively new trend in web design.  More companies are using this approach to generate visitor’s interest.

You can employ oversized type when you have a solid offer or announcement to make. This is an attention grabbing tool, so use it for headlines only and regular type for everything else.

Contact us today to speak with an Account Manager

A background with photography design approach is being used in all industries with a vast degree of success. Clients and users like it because it is aesthetically pleasing.
A photo background approach is great for branding and presentational purposes when your main objective is to make a strong visual statement. Use only top quality, high resolution photos. To make the design more interesting, try laying out the content so it interacts with the photo.
Infographics are graphic visual representations of information or knowledge. They present complex information quickly and clearly, such as in maps, journalism, technical writing, and education.

These can be used to describe a process, a set of numbers or statistics, a cause and effect, and more. Good infographics adds clarity to the information being presented.

If you are doing a highly technical project that needs originality, this is a good concept to contemplate.

Design trends are here to stay. There is no evidence showing people are abandoning them. When you want to design a website that will last, consider the information above, because these design approaches are less likely to become outdated, and you can combine them in a countless ways to make exceptional websites.
*Did You Know? Responsive web designing is a way to code websites in such a way that they fit on all resolutions. Websites rearrange their elements to look good, regardless of what resolution you are using. This makes the same website look good from large screen monitors to mobile phones.

It is Time to Optimize for Mobile

Friday, October 12th, 2012
A website design optimized for web and mobile browsers is necessary to successfully reach more viewers. Your website should be compatible to any type of platform and should be able to distinguish mobile visitors. This increases the possibility of attracting potential customers. Failure to optimize your website for mobile browsers could result in a loss of leads, conversions, and business profits.

Some are concerned about the cost to have their website design optimized for mobile browsers; but the reality is you must have a mobile optimized website.

The mobile market is consistently growing, so you need take the advantage of those who do not comprehend its importance. You need to make the shift now, before the market is saturated. Optimizing your website for mobile users may come with a cost, but it is worth the investment . The benefits will increase your traffic and help your target audience find you anywhere and anytime.

According to the International Data Corporation, most websites are not optimized for mobile access. It has been estimated that only 21% of all websites have been optimized. The other 79% will (or should) be considering mobile website optimization as well. Google has recognized this shift among mobile users and has added mobile tags to search results coming from mobile devices.

Review the following statistics about the mobile customer:
Mobile search queries have grown 5X in the past two years.

95% of Smartphone users have searched for local information and 61% call a business after searching.

90% of Smartphone searches result in purchasing, visiting a business, etc.

74% of smartphone shoppers make a purchase.

Mobile customers will likely account for $163 billion in sales worldwide by 2015.

40% of mobile users have turned to a competitor’s site after a bad mobile experience.

The final stat above means almost half of your customers may be lost to competitors if you do not have a mobile-optimized website.

The rise of mobile browsing is evidence that mobile optimized website design is necessary; if you want to reach the millions of mobile users who log on to the internet daily. Consider your Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You may have had strong SEO in the past, but everything is evolving. If you are not correctly mobilizing the results, you are missing a significant amount of prospects.

Once you have made the decision to optimize your website for mobile, you need to understand the behavior of mobile users.  The actions of mobile users are different from desktop users, when it pertains to your website. You have to take into account what people will be using the mobile site for and organized it intelligently. An example, from the design perspective, is to incorporate large buttons and simplicity. You want to make sure the site is not discouraging to users who are viewing it on a mobile device. If someone accesses your website on a small, mobile screen and is forced to continuously scroll, zoom-in, etc., they will take their business elsewhere.
Here are some additional tips when considering the design of your mobile website:

Keep it Simple – Users are visiting your mobile website trying to get information quickly. Think about why they are going to your site and design accordingly. An example – mobile users may want to call you, so make sure your phone number is prominent and offers a Click-to-Call feature. Also, your address should be located at the top of your page. Make sure you keep as much of the call-to-actions above the fold.

Employ your Images Wisely – Do not slow your homepage down with tons of useless images. Eliminate any pictures or graphics that are not essential and use smaller versions.

Get Feedback – Your target audience will provide the most worthwhile feedback. Take note of any compliments and address any complaints you receive. Your website should function quickly, and the result you want is for clientele to act.

It is time you optimize for mobile, so let the professionals do the work , and watch your company capitalize by being in front of mobile users.

Did You Know? The shift to mobile Web access has been accelerating with the rise since 2007 of larger multi-touch Smartphones, and of multi-touch tablet computers since 2010. Both platforms provide better Internet access and browser- or application-based user Web experiences than previous generations of mobile devices have done.

Focus on Landing Pages to Increase Your Sales

Thursday, August 23rd, 2012
Once again it is time to discuss Landing Pages.

A landing page should be based on a single idea.

Your landing page should be focused, offer no distractions, and it should guide a visitor to completing the goal you had in mind when creating the page.  You need to help the visitor digest what you are offering quickly and easily. With a quality landing page, the visitor should be convinced to take action.

The problem with most websites is they do not direct the traffic they get from searches to a special landing page. Instead it is directed to a homepage which is ineffective in converting visitors into leads and buyers. A homepage offers too much interaction, and this diverts a visitor’s motivation.

Visitors who perform online searches for specific services and then get redirected to a homepage that does not reflect their search will immediately go elsewhere, and they will not return. This is why you need to understand the visitor’s motivation.

How did they arrive on your landing page? Were they properly guided or mislead? Do not frustrate the visitors with deception or require too many steps/clicks to get them to their desired destination.

Remember, you want to engage the visitor. When someone does a search they are typing a series of words or thoughts and pressing enter. You want to optimize the visitor’s thought sequence; so it is as if you are you entering into a conversation. Then you want to steer the conversation toward a valuable exchange.

You need to evaluate your landing page to accomplish the aforementioned. You need to concentrate on numerous factors:

Value Proposition —

Value proposition is the vehicle that provides the potential for the conversion rate.

Relevance
Does the landing page relate to what the visitor thought they were going to see?

The relevance of the value proposition and context is critical. Your page must use terms your visitor relates to and be consistent with the incoming link or your visitor will leave the page. Do not confuse your visitor with multiple calls-to-action; or make them do a lot of thinking before a successful conversion can be made. To achieve a conversion you must provide a relevant incentive to the visitor.

Clarity
Does the landing page clearly articulate the value proposition and call-to-action?

The two aspects of clarity that must be analyzed are design and content. The design should be unobstructed. The content should ensure the images and text combine to provide an easy-to-understand purpose.

Urgency
Is there an indication that the action needs to be taken now? The tone of the presentation, offers, and deadlines can all influence urgency.

Anxiety
What are potential worries the visitor could have about undertaking the conversion action? If you provide credibility then you have established trust with the visitor, and then the anxiety is relieved.
Distractions:

Are there items on the page that could sidetrack the visitor away from the goal? The more visual inputs and action options your visitors have to process, the less likely they are to make a conversion decision. Minimizing distractions like unnecessary product options, links, and irrelevant information will increase the conversion rate.

Here are some additional quick tips to consider that may lift your conversion rates:

  • Design larger call-to-action buttons
  • Include your value proposition in a high-contrast, left-justified headline of two-lines or less
  • Cut your copy in half
  • Reduce the number of form fields
  • Minimize the number of layout columns

Knowing how to design or redesign your landing pages is vital to your success. Contact us today to directly affect the success rate of conversions from landing pages.

*Did You Know? There has not been a landing page invented that will develop your value proposition for you. However once you have selected your value proposition, a landing page is one of the best ways to achieve success with it.

Keyword PHRASES Can Mean Higher Conversion Rates

Thursday, July 12th, 2012

Should you be focusing on keywords for your SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?  No, you should be concentrating on your keyword phrases.

A keyword phrase is a significant phrase in the title, subject headings, contents notes, abstract, or text of a record in an online catalogue or database which can be used as a search term in a free-text search to retrieve all the records containing it.

A keyword phrase describes keywords that consist of multiple words. All terms used in the search engines are referred to as keywords; however in most instances the keyword is made up of more than one word and therefore it should be referred to as a keyword phrase.
Keyword and keyword phrase are used as synonyms, because most searchers use more than one keyword to search. As the search engines index continues to grow the searchers ability to specify what they are looking for by using lager keyword phrases increases.

When it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SMO), the term keyword is extremely misleading. You are not (or you should not be) focusing on a word. In the interest of accuracy, what you should be doing is determining what keyword phrase or phrases will be most effective. The strategy when doing keyword research and selection should not be about a word.

More specific keyword phrases are going to have a significantly higher conversion rate to purchases on your website. You want to focus on the hundreds or even thousands of specific keyword phrases that closely match the services, products, brands, and locations you sell or serve.

Take notice of how long the keyword phrases you are using and the length of your keyword phrases that gives the best results when you search.

So how do you find the long keyword phrases people are using? You need to develop a large seed keyword list and put it into the search engines to get related keyword and keyword phrases that searchers have used.

It makes good sense to target long keyword phrases that search precisely for what you provide. Search engines are building the search results on user interaction. You can therefore get the search engine to send you more searchers if you can get the people to stay on your website longer, bookmark it, buy your product, return to your website, etc. With todays search engines it is difficult to compete with the big websites if you have a small website, because quality and quantity means a great deal. One of the ways to get an advantage on a larger competitor is to work more efficiently by optimizing for the long keyword phrases that bring potential customers who are ready to buy.

Is it beneficial or harmful to repeat keyword phrases? The answer is repetition is fine, as long as the meaning of the phrase as a whole is sufficiently varied. The more important concept to keep in mind is you want to choose keyword phrases that best relate to the content present on a web page and on a website. If you do not have a comparison matrix, then do not bother including comparison-related keyword phrases. This is misleading your users, and it is not fooling the search engines.

Keyword phrases should guide your overall content strategy. When you think about strategy think about a process. Your keyword phrases should reflect what users are seeking and the way the search engines “think” about keyword phrases. This should drive your content strategy. Know your keyword phrases then you search and then you optimize your website. Make it your primary focus to optimize for long target keyword phrases.

Here are the places you should be using your keyword phrases:

  • The title is important and should include your primary keyword phrase.
  • If your description contains the search term people enter, and it is the first text that the Googlebot comes across, then you have a good chance that Google will display your description in the results.
  • The tags used throughout an article should contain keywords.
  • The writer should understand what the keyword phrases are and use them in natural language on the page.
  • The words used in live links tell the search engine what “this page” is about and also what the “linked-to page” is about.
  • For every image, write an alt attribute tag; this is good for accessibility and optimization.

*Did You Know? Webmasters and content providers began optimizing sites for search engines in the mid-1990s, as the first search engines were cataloging the early Web. Initially, all webmasters needed to do was to submit the address of a page or URL, to the various engines which would send a “spider” to “crawl” that page, extract links to other pages from it, and return information found on the page to be indexed.

The Truth about Landing Pages

Thursday, May 17th, 2012
Landing pages should have a simple design and one primary purpose. Landing pages should never give customers too many choices, (like websites often do), because this results in the customer being confused and leaving without purchasing anything. This is why you only want to have the necessary information on your landing pages.

Let us begin with some basic guidelines for a good landing page:

  • Once again — keep your landing page simple.
  • Avoid using too many of images and a lot of copy.
  • Make sure your landing page does not have eye-catching elements that are not your direct call to action.
  • Always place the important information at the top or above-the-fold. When you place your critical information towards the top of the landing page, you show your visitor you care about their time. Your visitor should never have to scroll down to find pertinent information.
  • Be smart with your images; do not go to extremes with your font style; and keep your images to a minimum. This will help your page load faster and make it easier for your landing page to be read on mobile devices.
  • Get your message across using the least amount of words possible.
  • Remember, a clear call to action will increase the likelihood that your visitors will purchase.
Now it is time to build your landing page.  You will need to consider the following:

  • Decide the purpose of your landing page before actually writing it. In other words decide what you want the visitor to do.
  • Send the user to pages that load quickly.
  • Do not use pop-ups.
  • Do not make your visitor wait.
  • Highlight the benefits you are offering.
  • Describe the product or the service you sell.
  • Always make it obvious how to order or get more information.
  • Test different versions of copy.
Let us discuss writing your landing page/the way you shape the users experience and what you should do to have a landing page that converts better. To start you must focus on the copy (text) first and the design second. All search engines understand text, but above all else people understand copy. The only way to tell people what you want them to do is through copy.

You should start by making your goal obvious — having more than one goal per page will confuse your visitors. Everything you write must converge towards the same purpose.

Choose Your Keywords — use your keywords with balance. Make them come naturally, in other word do not over-optimize.

When you write your content — be helpful, offer reliable information, put the benefits of your service ahead of its features, offer real solutions to real problems, create the urge to buy, and always make it easy to order/act.

You sell solutions. If you know about something else that may help, do not hesitate add relevant links.

The biggest mistake you can make is to send traffic to your homepage. Each ad in your campaign should work for its own landing page. By customizing them, you make them more effective, so match your ads with your content.

If an audience is given multiple options, they tend to choose nothing at all. So, an effective landing page should only entice the audience to perform one single action – i.e. sign up, purchase, etc.

Your headline either makes or breaks your landing page. You must create compelling headlines which your audience automatically identifies with. After an effective headline, your audience should be enticed by a brief explanation, which is where your sub-headline comes into play. Your sub-headline will provide specifics on what they will receive when they complete the action. Make sure it is concise and to the point.

We keep saying this, but remember to provide a clear call to action for your audience and tell your visitor what they need to do. Include at least two calls-to-action in a short landing page and three-to-five in a longer landing page. So since most visitors are going to scan your page before they act grab their attention with your best stuff up front.

Let us recap and touch on some of the most important items discussed in this newsletter:

  • Above the fold — keep your message above the fold. The less your audience has to scroll, the higher your conversions.
  • Make sure your page loads quickly — do not lose out on conversions because your page does not load fast enough. Keep this in mind when you are working on the aesthetics.
  • Draw attention to the call-to-actions — test different text, font sizes, colors, layouts, and shapes to find the optimal conversion rates.
A great landing page does not just produce better conversions it can also save you money on your advertising costs. It will help with your conversion rating and increase your ROI. Your ads will drive customers to your website, but if it is not good enough to convert those visits to your website into sales then you are wasting money.

A powerfully written, well-designed, and scientifically tested landing page is the one tool that can convert traffic to leads and sales.

*Did You Know? There are two types of landing pages: reference and transactional. A reference landing page presents information that is relevant to the visitor. For many reference landing pages, effectiveness can be measured by the revenue value of the advertising that is displayed on them. A transactional landing page seeks to persuade a visitor to complete a transaction such as filling out a form or interacting with advertisements or other objects on the landing page, with the goal being the immediate or eventual sale of a product or service.

Search Engine Optimization Is Not Dead

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is not dead, but it is part of larger ideas and concepts. The new terms are content marketing, inbound marketing, digital marketing, or online marketing. An SEO practitioner’s tasks encompass much more than they once did.

There were a few strategies that were popular a few years ago that simply do not matter today. Keyword density more or less does not matter anymore. A few years ago, experts recommended trying to keep your keyword density somewhere around 3% to 6%. Today, it truly does not matter as much. Also in the past experts recommended bolding your keywords in places or using your keywords in your subheads. Again, this does not play as vital a role as it did in the past.

Using videos, audio and web presentations is becoming an increasingly effective way to gain rankings in the search engines. The more often you can publish the better. High quality videos and audios generate a lot of back-links, especially once you have a strong reputation.

Google is using more and more metrics to try and determine whether or not your site is a high quality website. Here are some metrics it looks at — how often people come back to your site; how often people stay on your website; and the ratio of content to advertisement on your site. It is very hard to fool Google’s artificial intelligence. The best way to rank in the new world of SEO is to offer high quality content and relationship connections. Search Engines will look more and more to humans for ranking, in the short and long term. This means social media and using more human relevancy quality testers.
Also, almost all search engines have been known to at some point use quantity of pages to mean the quality is high. Today, more focus is on the quality and freshness of the content.

SEO’s will become more SMO‘s (Social Media Optimization), with a broader focus on the off-site marketing with social integration.

Whether it is through talking to your phone, using social networks or tapping a search into your phone, you can expect a significant expansion in the mobile search market. No longer is digital marketing for those who have a computer. Mobile search is here to stay.

Quick Response or QR codes will be ubiquitous online and offline in the U.S., to easily send people with mobile devices to online destinations. QR codes are increasingly being used on billboards and various signage as nearly 50 percent of U.S. mobile users have a smartphone. Mobile devices themselves are everywhere with their owners and are used often in tandem to using other media, such as print and television. Ultimately, QR codes will then replace or will be used in tandem with URLs on all offline advertising and even online. This will cause search engines to rely less on text links and factor in interest from QR code use.

There will be reduced dependency on text for search and logins, especially on mobile devices. Voice actions have provided users a more direct way of getting answers and producing actions on their mobile devices.

There will be further personalization in search results as search engines know what you are searching for, where you are when you search, what you like, and who your influencers are.

*Did You Know? Lawrence Page is the inventor of PageRank, which became the foundation of Google’s search ranking algorithm.

It is Time Your Website Stands Out

Wednesday, March 28th, 2012

FIRST THINGS FIRST you must have a strong design. Clean and simple is all you need. Bells and whistles can be effective, but when it comes to websites and especially your homepage — less is more. You do not want your design to be congested. You want to differentiate your website from your competitors, so you make a good first impression to prospective clients.  This initial introduction can be one of the keys to your success. An attractive design alone will not keep visitors on your website, however it will capture their attention long enough to take a look around.

Contemplate your user interface — the user interface is the foundation of a high-quality, fully-functional website. Remember you must take into consideration those who will visit. Who is your principle customer? Are they technological? It is imperative to create an image of your ideal visitor and have them in mind when preparing your design. Be sure you offer everything on your site they want to discover. Make sure your navigation is easy to find and consistent throughout your entire website. Make it obvious where the user should click in terms of your primary navigation, as well as for links within your content areas.

Keep it above the fold — on an easy to navigate website the crucial menu options, (in other words the links to the important areas of your site), must be placed above the fold. You must consider today’s larger computer monitors and increased screen resolutions when determining where the fold will be. Features to include above the fold are your logo (which you should link back to your homepage), as well as links to the main sections of your site. Here is a simple example – put Home | About Us| Products | Contact in an easy to find location at the top of your website.

Consistency is essential — be sure to place your primary and sub-navigational links in the same spot throughout the various pages of your website.

Include navigation in the footer — if you use/include images for your main navigation, it is vital to offer a duplicate set of navigation links in your footer. Even if you use text links at the top, the duplication is still helpful. The footer should link to additional information, things that should be easy to find but not necessarily something you want taking up space in the primary navigation area of your website.

Content — when writing the copy for your website, it is critical to provide helpful, knowledgeable information about your company, products, and services. It is important to sell your company, but do not oversell.  Your customers want to know how you can help them.

Make your about page relevant — people are curious. They want to know who is behind your company. Include information about how your background pertains to your own business and expertise. The about page can help establish a more personal connection. You want to create a connection and have your clients relate to you on another level, rather than just becoming a faceless organization.

Contact information — if you want to frustrate a prospective consumer then make it hard for them to find your contact information. If someone is interested in your services but cannot find a simple contact page with a quick way to get in touch and employ you, they will go to the competition. You want to provide more than one method of contact. You must include and email and contact form, as well as a phone number and (if possible) a mailing address. People will see a phone number and physical address as an added sign of stability.

Search feature — if you have a large website providing a search field is very helpful. If a potential customer cannot find something easily on your site, they are going to go find a site where the content is easily searchable.

Sign-up and subscribe — if it applies, you want to make it as easy as possible for people to sign up for updates. If you want to offer subscriptions to an email newsletter, for example, you need to setup and manage a mailing list. You want to be able to collect email addresses of potential prospects.

Sitemap — there are two kinds of sitemaps, one for humans and one for the search engines. A PHP sitemap meant for visitors to your website can be an invaluable tool for finding just what they are looking for. Creating a structured list of all the pages on your website — (which is what a site map is) — is practical. A good sitemap will list out every page on your site in an arranged format which will clearly show the relationship of pages in terms of primary pages with sub-pages, etc.

Separate design from content — with the separation of content from design, the search engines no longer have to wade through all of the excess code to find out if your content is relevant. With separate files the content can load quicker, which is always a positive for visitors.

There are numerous websites available that appear to be amazing and feature the most recent styles in design; however they frequently fall short of the true goal, which is perfectly combining design with functionality. In the end, any website project involving qualified designers and developers will pay for itself a million times in return.

*Did you know? Even though there is not a definite answer, according to researchers as of March 2012, there are 644 million active websites on the Internet.

What is Ecommerce Hosting and Why You Need it

Friday, November 18th, 2011
Ecommerce hosting is used when you want to display your products or services on your website, while providing a way to accept payments for the services or products.
Ecommerce web hosts, offer the ability to design and employ a fully-featured, fully-functional website for selling these products and services. Therefore, when you select an eminent ecommerce web hosting provider you do not need to worry about any of the technical details of web hosting, the software, etc.
Ecommerce hosting providers offer plans with preset bandwidth limitations and storage limits.
Everyday more people perform business on the Internet. Consumers are opting to avoid going out; choosing to save money on gas; and wanting to reduce the paper generated by mailings. They are using the internet for their shopping and bill paying.
Your business must afford this solution to consumers.  The only way to accomplish this is by having a resource that accepts payments, and guarantees the consumer’s information is secure and private. Ecommerce web hosting is the answer.
When deciding on an ecommerce hosting provider you should consider all the requirements you will need. Here are some significant necessities regarding ecommerce:
Security— Your customer’s personal information has to be protected. Credit card numbers, addresses, usernames, and passwords are customarily the types of information you deal with on an ecommerce website. Since you can risk the identity theft of your customers, it is imperative the maximum security options are available.
Uptime— If your website is slow or unavailable your customers will leave because they are aggravated. They will view you as unreliable. Your ecommerce web hosting account should have an uptime guarantee. 99.9% uptime is the standard and you should look for this range.
Email Addresses and Sub-Domains— Each ecommerce hosting package will offer you email and additional sub-domains. Make sure they are providing enough to meet the needs of your business.
Ecommerce Tools — Ask your potential provider which languages their platforms support. Will there be an auto-responder on your email accounts? Do they use a reliable shopping cart?
SSL and Encryption — Which security solutions are offered?
Technical Support — Reputable ecommerce hosts provide 24/7 technical support.
Shopping carts –These allow your customers to choose your products or services and then provide a checkout when they are finished. If you already use a shopping cart make sure your new host is compatible with the one you have. If you do not yet have one, see which shopping carts are available.
Payment systems– Make sure to verify your payment gateway is compatible with the payment means you accept. As an example, American Express is not always compatible with certain ecommerce packages. Your chosen ecommerce hosting company must be compatible with the major payment gateways so you can accept PayPal and all major credit cards.
Purchasing an ecommerce hosting plan is a fantastic way to become more visible. Remember, professional web hosting providers allow many customers to save money by providing the tools you need – hardware, software licenses, bandwidth, backup systems, and more – GET STARTED TODAY!
*Did You Know— The term “ecommerce” was first coined in approximately 1996, shortly after the internet opened for public use. In the pre-historic days (pre 1996), the internet was mainly used by universities and other non-profit organizations to share research, general information, and for email.  It is believed IBM’s marketing department coined – (or at least popularized) the term.

Best Business Hosting for your Company

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

Before you choose a hosting company for your business hosting needs it is imperative you do your research. There are numerous companies who provide exemplary business hosting options, but you must determine what is best for your company.

A website business hosting service is not just storage or bandwidth. There are many factors that determine a quality hosting company. Review the tips below to get on the right track.

·         A top-notch service is useless without customer support. Your hosting provider needs to be there for you 24/7 and give you the instant support you need to solve your problem, so you do not lose customers and money.

·         There is no host which is safe against different types of technical failures, so make sure the hosting company runs scheduled backups.

·         There is no unlimited bandwidth, nor unlimited web space. Host’s pay for each GB of bandwidth themselves. Hard drives also are not free. When a hosting company says unlimited it is false advertising in order to allure potential clients. The average website does not use more than 1GB of bandwidth per month. However, if you have a website using more bandwidth than an average site does, and you signed up with a business hosting company offering unlimited traffic, your host could suspend your account and inform you your site was using too much bandwidth.  For example, there are hosting companies who offer unlimited bandwidth and have a statement on their terms of service explaining that unlimited bandwidth means 40GB.

·         You should check if there is an uptime guarantee offered. A quality provider will give a money-back guarantee, offering a discount or free service as compensation for downtime. Do not select a business hosting solution promoting 100% uptime. There is no server with 100% uptime.

·         Do not sign up for a free business hosting plan because it does not provide the required features and security options necessary to operate your online business.

·         Finding a reputable hosting company is crucial. You can discover the reputation of hosting companies by searching for reviews on the internet. In addition, hosting forums are available where users discuss business hosting companies, their plans, etc.

·         Website hosting companies can have hundreds of clients per server; therefore you should check your business hosting company’s acceptable use policy. You do not want to put your business at risk and have your website hosted on the same server with illegal pornography and software websites. Hosting your site on a neglected server can result in low speed. Also, if someone on the same server sends SPAM the server’s IP address can be blacklisted and you can have problems as recipients stop receiving your emails.

·         Cost is important and you should compare different business hosting provider plans, but features and reliability should be given priority.

·         Remember for an ecommerce business, security is essential because you have your clients’ personal information – credit card numbers, social security numbers, phone numbers, addresses, etc. This means the business hosting company you select must provide superior security to protect the data from theft.

*Did You Know— A network is only as powerful as its weakest link. Running a low-end server for network management may slow your entire system. Think of a server like an extension cord, it has to be able to pass enough electricity (or allow enough data through) to run everything.