Archive for Web Design

Starting an Online Business Using a Word Press Blog

By Chad Carlton · Comments (1) · Thursday, June 10th, 2010

Are you aware how many successful online businesses started off with a Word Press blog? The fact is the numbers are staggering and still growing today. Anyone interested in starting an online business can achieve the same success by learning a few internet skills and then implement what they learn using online business software. Here is how to do it:

  1. Discover your niche. Go with what interests you and others. An example is, if you are into computer games it is likely many others are as well and this could be your niche. Chances are you already know something about this niche so you already have a connection with your target audience.
  2. Learn the skills. Also take about the same amount of time each day and dedicate it to learning online marketing skills. Don’t get caught up in any sales hype promising you the world at your feet! I had to through that in because this is total garbage and will keep you from learning how to really make money online.

    The skills you really need to learn are marketing skills. Keyword research, how to find and use keywords to optimize you’re heading tags, anchor text links and internal linking structure. This may sound complicated but honestly by taking a little time to educate yourself you will find it’s really not that difficult. Just take your time and learn these skills because how your market will likely determine your success.

  3. Next while learning skills open a free blog on wordpress.com. Use this free service and learn how to use word press, themes, plugins, widgets etc… Later after you have developed your skills you can buy your domain name (keyword business name) and a hosting account. Then your blog will be a little more professional. However there is a lot to be said about learning the tips and tricks on word press for free first.
  4. Now that you have a good understanding of how to research relevant keywords you need to start writing short articles about your niche and start posting them to your blog. Typically the more good content you post the more likely people will find your blog. You should post no less than one good article a day, more is better. If you have a problem coming up with enough quality content than outsource it with a virtual assistant. This is critical because search engines like blogs and particularly word press for consistently new content. Without quality constant content your blog will never make you any money.

When it comes to building an online business, learning how to market your niche is without question the most important strategy to learn. Word press just happens to be the perfect platform. We have a lot more free information available on our website for anyone interested in learning online marketing skills necessary for an online business to succeed.

Thomas McCormick

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Categories : Business Advice, Starting a Home Based Business, Tips For Building a Successful Online Business, WordPress Blogs
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Making Your Business Website Easy To Navigate

By Chad Carlton · Comments (0) · Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

The business world has gone digital. More and more businesses are relying on the global market, which the internet provides, in order to secure business. Obviously, this still depends on the type of business you are running. If you are a local plumber you are probably more worried about getting local business than you are about capturing a market halfway across the world. But for a lot of businesses, getting a larger audience is never a bad thing. Making your business website easy to navigate is crucial for you to be able to get more people to buy products or services from you.

The first step in making your business website easy to navigate is to make sure that it is simple. Some companies get too excited about all of the products and services that they offer and just throw everything down on the landing page. This is the best way to scare away customers and lose business. Your landing page should be simple and have clear instructions and directions on how and where to buy your products or services. Break your site up into a few different categories including the ‘Home’ page, specific product or service category pages, an order page, and also an ‘About Us’ page with your various contact details. If you have too many categories and only have a few products or services then it might be confusing to any visitor. Make sure that each page is clear about what is included in that section.

Next, you want to make sure that you have a clear navigation bar or ‘site map’ on your front page. Typically this works best when it is either on the side of the page or at the top. That way people can easily go between pages. You may also want to use a web template that offers a search feature, so potential customers can type in their queries to find out where something is on your site.

Last of all, you want to make sure that you have a call to action on each of your pages. If you are selling something, then you want to make it is easy as possible for your customers to get to the order page. The more steps that a visitor has to go through to make a purchase, the less likely they are to do it. Therefore, you should have an ‘Order Now’ button on every relevant page on your website site.
By Marco Lombardo

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Categories : Web Design
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Online Business and Your Website – What can we learn from Offline Business?

By Chad Carlton · Comments (0) · Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

We are often bombarded with facts that online business, conducted through a website, is vastly different to offline business. Indeed, if you run an online business there are many unique skills that you will need to acquire if it is going to be successful. However, there are some great lessons that we can learn from offline business which can be applied to your online endeavours.

Firstly, your web site is just like a shop window. When you look through the window it should be inviting and look attractive to your target customers. Therefore, the colour schemes you choose for your website are important and need to convey the right image. Just like an eye-catching sign above a shop, your website should have a memorable logo and mission-statement, letting your visitors know what you can do for them.

Secondly, when you go into a shop, if you are anything like me, you want to find what you are looking for quickly. Therefore, you may ask a helpful shop assistant where you can find a particular item.  Alternatively, the isles may be clearly labelled so you can find things easily. Any website you design will need to do the same thing; the helpful shop assistant can come in the form of ‘contact us for help’ tab, a ‘frequently asked questions’ section (or FAQ’s). Alternatively, you may wish to provide help to your visitors by using audio or video. A ‘site map’ on your website is the ideal substitute for the clearly labelled isles of a store; it will show your visitors where everything is on your website and will allow them to navigate their way around it easily.

Lastly, after you have found the item you were looking for in the shop, you will need to pay for it. If you have a long queue to join you may consider just giving up and leaving the store. Your website will not have queues but if your visitors have to wait too long for pages to load when they want to purchase an item, they might decide to go elsewhere.  You also need to make the buying process as simple as possible. For instance, a customer can make payments quickly via Paypal or another secure online payment system.

In summary, a business is a business, whether online or offline. The common sense ideas that you use to develop a successful offline business can be applied to your online business activities. Furthermore, at every stage of the selling process, you need to think from the customer’s or visitor’s perspective.

Marco Lombardo

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Categories : Web Design
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What Is Page Bounce Rate and How You Can Improve It

By Chad Carlton · Comments (0) · Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

What is Bounce Rate?

A bounce is when a visitor visits your website and then hits the “back” button in their browser or types a new URL to leave the website within a specific length of time. This  means that the visitor only visited one page on the site. The length of time in a session varies depending on the analytic software that is measuring your site. There is no industry standard so every search engine has their own way of determining a bounce.

To improve your bounce rate, you need to increase the number of page views that the majority of the people finding your site visits. The search engines use averages to determine your bounce rate. The formula considers the number of bounces in comparison to the number of visitors to the your web page and the number of page views.

Tips For Improving Your Bounce Rate

1. Improve your website load time. One of the biggest reasons that visitors do not stay on a page is a slow loading page. People are impatient and they will not stick around to wait for graphics, videos and scripts to load. If you must run some of these, you need to understand how to order the placement of these elements to keep the slower loading items further down your page. This will allow the text to load before your video or images. Thus giving you a way to grab the visitor’s attention while they wait for other elements of the web page to load.

2. Make your site easy to navigate. If the information your visitor is looking for is not easily found they will move on. Give them very clear ways of finding their way around your site. Make it known that there is more to your site that may interest them than the first page.

3. Divide longer articles into smaller chunks. Use a “more” link to naturally lead them to the next page or label the pages with very easy to find “Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, etc” Guiding your visitors to more related material will make it easy for them to visit more than one page on your site. Any time it is possible to break their actions down into “steps” should be an opportunity for you to divide information into more than one page.

4. Give clear instructions on where you want them to go next. One of the biggest failings of most websites is not telling your visitors what you expect them to do next. By ending an article, blog post or page with a “Visit this page to learn about…”

5. Internal contextual links.  There are many advantages to using inline anchor text links. Using text links within an article or page content leading to another page within your website on the topic will give your readers an easy way to find more information on that particular subject. It is also an effective way to gain keyword relevance for search engines.

6. Make your keywords and meta descriptions relevant to the page content. You should avoid using site-wide keywords and descriptions. Create your keywords and descriptions based only on the content of that specific page. One of the quickest ways to lose a visitor is to bring them to a page that does not contain the information they are searching for. You will receive much more targeted traffic by accurately describing what you have to offer. If you have a gardening website and your visitor is looking for information on container gardening, they will quickly leave if you bring them to a page about how to do landscaping.

Creating a positive experience for your visitors will improve your site bounce rate. Organize your site with your viewers in mind and you will reap the benefits of improved SERP and increased page views.

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