Tips & tricks to creating a gorgeous travel website

Sadly, how “gorgeous” your travel website looks is not going to rank it up through the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) on Google, but it will go some way to helping you to keep people on your website when they arrive, and may even help you to save a few holidays.

Take a look at your website from an outside perspective

Your first thought is going to be that you want to save money, but your second thought is that you are going to want value for money. For this reason, you should not sell your holidays on price. The price should be an after-thought, for after the user has decided that he/she wants to go on your holiday.

Make a list of the mistakes your competition are making

You can rest assured that your website is littered with mistakes. If that were not the case than you would not be looking at a website article for improving your travel website. However, you can also rest assured that your competitors also have travel websites that are littered with mistakes too.

You need to make a point of visiting your many, many competitor sites and listing down all of the mistakes that they have made. From things such as having images that are too dark or inappropriate images for what they are selling. Look for slow loading times or slow render times, and consider how easy it is to jump from page to page. Are the prices highlighted over the substance, etc? List all of the mistakes that you see and routinely eliminate them from your website.

Have the background match the location

This is a fairly easy trick that many travel websites ignore. It takes a little bit more web building, but is good for creating the right tone and atmosphere. For example, pages dedicated to Alaska or Greenland should have wintry scenes and a decoration on the background of the website. Similar tricks could be used for places such as Corfu or Brazil.

Lots of images of various places

Most holidays are sold on the back of the images that people see when they look at your website. This is why you need to include a lot of images on your website in order to really sell the holiday. It is also going to make your website appear more friendly and “gorgeous.”

Keep some of the images more personal

One mistake that travel websites make is having their websites too impersonal. They show all the locations, pan shots, sky shots, but fail to show people the smaller and more personal aspects. The best that most travel websites will do is show a few pictures of the hotel. But, people want to see what the holiday destination looks like from the ground level. They want to see how the beach looks when you have your back to the water. They want to see the side streets and people from the street level in a way that their own holiday photos are going to mimic.

Add in short video tours

This is a way of building on the idea above. You should show people how walking the streets and traveling around will look. They want to see the church across the water in Venice and the guinea pigs crossing the road in Peru. You should take a look at the videos that Disney World put out. They often have images from a high elevation, but they also have lots of shots of people walking around, of happy faces and happy encounters within their theme park. They do not show Mickey Mouse in a suit waving to a child because people are unaware that he is there.

Does your site lack substance?

There needs to be as much information as possible, but this does not mean create a user guide. That sort of thing (such as airport advice, money advice, etc), comes as an after sales product. What you need to do is show people what it would be like to be there right now. Do everything you can to make it very easy to picture yourself in that specific location.

Copy the things that work on your competitors’ websites

As you make your list of things that work from your competitors’ websites, you should also look for page/decorative elements that do work. Consider stealing their ideas in order to apply them to your own website. It may be anything from a web page theme to a full web page programmatic element.

About the author:  Kate Funk is a professional blogger and writer at www.speaken.net. She specializes in topics of interest to techno geeks and networking enthusiasts.

Business growth With Online Marketing

Most of the businesses reach a point in their growth where they want to expand and establish themselves as a bigger body. With the tools and applications that internet is providing, it is rapidly changing the ways in which business is carried out online. All the online media evolves by bringing in changes in marketing and behavior practices carried out online. To keep up with these continuous changes might be a little difficult for small sized and medium sized business’.

Trends in Online Marketing:

Mobile Commerce:
As the mobile and internet technology converge it is now possible for many consumers to access various websites, buy and pay for many items on their mobiles itself. Most of the manufacturers are now including QR codes to product packaging as they are looking forward to increase their mobile sales. You need to keep in mind that your company website is optimized so that it is easy for users to view it from the mobile phones if they would like to captivate the ever increasing mobile consumer market.

Social Marketing:
Social media platforms are the most forms of inexpensive ways for you to promote your business in the market. Their viral capabilities give you a lot of exposure giving you the opportunity to serve your existing customers and get in touch with your potential customers. While your presence in various networking sites will boost your business growth, some of them will have to focus primarily focus on few yet powerful networking sites like Google Plus and Facebook. Facebook now has more than 700 million users. It is predicted that it might have about a billion people by the end of 2013. Do you know that this social networking goliath is considered as the world’s 3rd populated country? So, I guess you must be able to make out how you can promote your services on such a large platform as this. On the other hand, Google plus has various marketing tools for building reputation, advertisement as an authority. It also enjoys the support of the Search Engine Herculean Google.

Rise of Social Consumers:
Online consumers these days are very much occupied in marketing campaigns, social media popularity, making decisions for purchasing items based on positive feedback from consumers. Search engines are now using the feedback from consumers of various products as search results display. Thereby, managing your brand reputation online has become even more important these days.

Online marketing strategy:

Market Research:
Having passion alone will not fetch you success in online business. You need to know if there is a market which needs the services and products you would like to offer. You need to study the market. Recognize and then target a section of the market. You will need to learn everything about your potential clients or consumers i.e., their needs and their language. Understanding the market and the potential customers clearly is fundamental for content creation and smart keyword research.

Goal Setting:
You won’t know where to head to if you don’t know where to get to. Evaluate your business’ current status, what it has accomplished till date and what should its goals be. Your business goals should be consistent with your website. You can increase conversions as you improve your sales copy and landing pages to encourage many to purchase your websites services and products. You can increase your leads by using list building methods like publishing useful content, adding a squeeze page or an email capture form or by offering freebies for email address. You can earn income by targeting better customers or by increasing prices.

Content development and content strategy:
Posting valuable content with the right keyword placement and keyword density promotes your site by flooding in visitors and the existing ones returning to your site. Quality content advances linking and sharing of the content, it stimulates follows, likes, comments and +1’s which is a crucial factor to gain search engine rankings.  An effectual content strategy when implemented consistently is liable to boost a website’s immunity against sudden alteration in search engines algorithms.

Keyword Research:
Including the appropriate keywords in websites’ text content and technical elements gains your website top search engine rankings and search engine visibility. Thereby, increasing traffic to your website. For example, if you are looking forward to start a PPI Claims Firm or a Cosmetics Firm, you will have to insert all the keywords related to it in your web content. This will surely help you boost traffic to your website.

Social Media strategy:
Generating quality backlinks to your website will also boost search rankings and traffic to your website. Social Media is useful for getting in touch with people who can share website content and create links to it and also for uncovering market problems and needs. Press releases can also help as most of them spend their time sharing, commenting and reading new articles they see on internet.

Coping with the accelerated advancements in online marketing might be a challenge. A proper digital marketing strategy must be very simple and easy to comprehend. It must be able to provide clear directions for the manger or owner to implement.

Written by: Joanna Luis. She has 2 years of experience in business in UK markets. She provides many suggestions for investors who were just beginners. In her free time, she writes articles related to business and finance. Presently, she is focusing on income support, a kind of income benefit and Online marketing trends.

What is a good interface?

When designing a website, the user interface should be one of your priorities. A well designed user interface means that content can be found quickly, and can be structured in such a way through HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to load and run dynamically without slowing down the loading times of the pages. In this context, what are some of the different areas that you should be focusing on if you want to get the most out of a website interface for your next project?

Usability should always be the focus when designing an interface, as should functionality so that a page is coded as cleanly as possible for loading. Some of the basic principles of web design, which can include using negative or white space, CSS styling for elements to increase visual style without loading up HTTP requests, and simple JavaScript to ensure that the user experience is as smooth as possible.

Good interfaces can also be customisable, whereby users have the option to adjust colour schemes, hide some content, or change the language of a page without having to rely on external browser support. Integrating interactive features and unobtrusive help buttons and chat windows can also help a page to be easily navigated without having to overload a user with extra tabs and pop-up windows.

Taking a generally minimalist approach to a website’s interface can make it much easier to future proof your basic layout; sketching out what should be on each page before coding can similarly allow you to avoid anything more than the most essential content to be included. A site map can be used to keep content clearly organised if it’s not already marked out on a page. CSS3 properties used with HMTL can also be useful if you want to increase loading times for buttons and styling elements.

Good user interfaces can be familiar without having to be bland or template generated. Remember that users will likely be viewing a site on multiple devices, so make the interface as clean as possible so that it can be negotiated on different screen sizes. Responsive design using CSS3 media queries can be particularly effective at allowing you to set minimum and maximum parameters for screen sizes and the layout of your site.

Ultimately, then, the best user interfaces are all about balancing minimalism with functionality, and creating a markup that’s not going to slow down transitions between pages. Web development companies like Webigence offer examples of how these kinds of clear but functional sites can be created, as well as how you can benefit from optimised images, responsive design, and pages that are suitable for viewing on mobile as well as desktop and laptop screens.

About the Author: Rosette has interests in multiple areas of web design and the best ways to improve site usability.She has been writing about web design for several years, and recommends using companies like Webigence if you want to receive a high quality custom development service for a new project.
 

5 Web Design Myths You Need To Forget About If You Want To Succeed

There are a lot of weird myths floating around the web design world at the minute and people are suffering because of it. Any professional designer will know the truth because they have a lot of experience, but most people who decide to throw up a website and start a business don't have a clue what they should be doing.

Maybe people are still preaching tactics from 5 years ago because they don't know any better. If you're not having great success it could be something to do with your design. I know that sounds crazy, but it's most definitely possible. Take a look at some of those horrible design myths you should forget about before they screw you over.

Nobody scrolls down anymore

This is something you should definitely be aware of because too many people are still stuffing things above the fold when it's not needed. When the internet was relatively new everyone would click from website to website without stopping to take a breath. Now that we're more experienced it's much more likely we will scroll down. Putting things above the fold still works, but you will definitely see success if something is below the fold too.

People will look for something

Nobody is going to spend a long time searching around your site looking for a sales page. They definitely won't attempt to find your opt-in box when you can't make it easy on them. I don't know why most people screw up their site's navigation because it's not easy to do. Just make sure all the important pages are within one or two clicks away from anywhere on the site. You should also stop labeling things with smart-ass names because nobody will know what page it's sending them to.

Design isn't important

Content is not king. Repeat that to yourself a hundred times and you might start to believe it. We all know content is very important, but design is important too. Some people will tell you design is more important. I'm not sure I would bother arguing over which one comes out at number one. You just need to make sure you always have a great design. You don't have to spend 10K on a professional designer at the moment, but don't go the cheap route and use a free theme. 

Learn what your readers want

There is no way in the world you will ever know what someone wants no matter how much you know them. You don't even know what your husband or wife wants when they land on a website. The only way you will ever know what someone wants is by testing it. If you perform A/B split tests you will be able to tweak your design in order to improve your conversion rate. Please test everything because guesswork will give you inferior results.

Everyone loves sexy features

I can't believe some websites still play music when you land on them. This is probably the best example of why sexy features suck, but there are a lot more. The main reason people decide to include these features is because they're not thinking straight. A website shouldn't be there to impress anyone. It should be there to make you more money, so stop being fancy and from now on you should try to keep everything as simple as possible.

Do you see where you're going wrong?

I hope you learned a lot today because it means you were doing things wrong. That is a good thing because once you make some changes to your site you will see an improvement right away. Go away and correct your mistakes then watch your profits improve overnight. 

About the Author: Michael Todd is a part of Pen Tech Consulting, a company offering SEO services and much more. Being tech savvy, he is well versed with the latest technological advancements. Click here to know more about him and his company.

SEO And Web Design - When Should You Go It Alone And When Should You Get Help?

When you create a website that you’re proud of, it can often end up feeling almost like ‘your baby’. You’ll have poured hours of work into its creation, and in many ways it will reflect your personality. You’ll feel almost protective of it and want to protect it, and that’s a great way to feel. Only sometimes this can actually be a negative thing. Sometimes being too ‘close’ to your project can end up clouding your judgement on important issues, and sometimes it can end up actually damaging your progress. 

One way this can happen is if you find yourself insisting on handling every part of your site on your own. Some web designers and webmasters will end up wanting to handle everything from the HTML, to the design, to the content, to the SEO. 

Problem is, few of us will be equally talented in all of these disparate areas and as such we can end up doing a sloppy job. If your skills are in HTML and SEO, then why would you inflict your design skills on your site and create the background image yourself? 

Even if you do an adequate job, a professional designer from Fiverr could probably do a better job and end up bringing far more visitors to your site. 

So when is it time to step back and trust someone else to work on your baby? Read on to find out…

When You Know It Could be Better

In the example of the wallpaper, you will probably know on some level that a designer would do a better job. Even if you’re good at something, you shouldn’t settle for that level and should instead persist until you get great. If you aren’t able to objectively judge your own work, then just ask a third party what they think.

Here’s a tip though: you should still create your own design too. This way you can show it to the professional designer, compare it with what they create and most importantly – gradually learn to do the work better yourself so that one day you can legitimately do it yourself.

When it Will Take a Long Time

Some jobs require a little expertise and creativity to begin with, but then subsequently involve lots of repetition and work to do the same task. An example is SEO. While your overall SEO strategy takes a lot of expert knowledge, the actual act of writing articles and sending them to guest bloggers etc. is really just repetitive. In such cases your expertise could probably be put to better use, so this is a perfect example of when to outsource a job to a company or service.

When You Need to Know the Details

Some jobs are a little too sensitive and personal to outsource. Coding can sometimes be this way if you have written a long code with little by way of annotations. To pass this on to someone who doesn’t know the ins-and-outs of your site, or the precise effect your aiming to achieve, could end up making matters worse and proving a mistake. When the data is personal, complex or sensitive, then you’re best off going it alone. Other times? When you love something, you have to let it go…

About the Author:  Mike is a consultant at Wisdek, a company that specializes in internet marketing. He likes talking about SEO strategies and helps many web designers achieve their goal. During his holidays, he likes spending time with family and friends.

5 Things To Look For In The Right Web Hosting Company

Why do you want to build a website? Most people choose to build one because they want to start a business. A business that will one day make a lot of money if they're lucky, so you can already see why you would want to take everything seriously right from the get go. Some people must forget about what they're trying to do because they don't exactly make sensible business decisions. The worst thing they can do is choose a terrible hosting company just because it's cheap.

If you decided to start a furniture making business would you start off with a plastic saw because it was cheap? It might take you a while to cut through the wood, so your business could end up being destroyed before it even had a chance to become successful. We're going to look at some of the things you should look for in a hosting company. You will then know why each thing is so important, plus what could happen if you go for an inferior option.

24/7 tech support

When you're starting out you really need someone on the other end of the phone who can give you support. 24/7 support is great, but not essential. Whenever you have a problem you can basically get it solved straight away. If a company gives you hosting for practically nothing you have to expect next to no support because they won't be able to afford it. If those companies helped everyone it would end up costing them money to host your website.

Very little downtime

Don't be fooled by all these companies who tell you they never have any downtime. They do and you need to find out about this before you hand over your money. You will end up with people emailing you asking why they can't get onto your site. Every time your website goes down it could cost you a certain number of sales. Those are the times when you finally realize it's worth paying a little more for a decent hosting company.

Decent bandwidth

You will probably start on shared hosting, but it's not the best idea in the world if you expect a lot of traffic. If you use cheap hosting these is no way it will be able to handle an avalanche of traffic coming to your site within a short amount of time. Your website will just be taken offline, and so it should be. You can't impede on other people because you're cheap. Choose a company that gives you enough bandwidth to get a decent amount of traffic before it cuts you off.

Great security

This is probably the most important thing you want in any hosting company, because nothing else matters if a hacker comes and steals your website. I'm sure I don't need to tell you how exposed some companies leave themselves. Some hosting companies will also make backups of your website at regular intervals. You can't rely on these backups, but they're definitely nice in the case of something tragic happening. At least you will be able to throw a saved version of your site back up.

A good reputation

Some companies will screw you over at every opportunity. If a random competitor emails your hosting company with a fake complaint they might take your website offline. You then have to pay them money to put it back up again. If you also register your domain name with them they might hold you to ransom. Before you choose anyone it's good to look around to find out about these little things that might crop up from time to time.

About the Author: Linda Phillips is a part of Yarra Web, a company offering complete web design packages and much more. Being tech savvy, she is well versed with the latest technological advancements. Click here to know more about her and her company.

Important Elements Every Website Should Have

Websites come in all shapes and sizes, and each should have its own unique flair. But sometimes, too much time is spent on the fancy, unnecessary parts of a website and the essential elements are lacking. This article will cover the essential elements and features your website should have, to make sure all of your readers are happy.

Simple navigation

There’s no use having the best content on the internet if no one can find the page it’s on. Users will not want to search through a jumble of badly organised web pages to find an interesting product they once saw. Make it easy to find by having a clear navigation at the top of your website, as this is where most users will look for it.

It also helps your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) by having all your web pages set out in a clear fashion. Your Site Map is not just a great place for your web viewers to find what you offer, but it also helps search engines to match your site to searches. Keep everything nice a tidy, with minimal pages hidden away, to make sure your website gets the traffic it deserves.

Mobile compatibility

At the end of 2012, it was estimated that 13% of internet traffic came from a mobile device. Considering the amount of internet traffic there is a day, it makes sense to ensure your website works on mobile devices. This includes everything from a tablet to a smartphone.

It’s best to have a mobile version of your website. This version should load up automatically when your website is accessed on a mobile device. If you can’t get a site specially developed for this, make sure that your current site resizes and looks good when viewed on mobile. Cater to all your web users and make sure it looks good across all browsers and on all devices.

Contact information

Your website may be all about buying products, but it always helps to have contact information available. Showing that you are a real person or company makes your customers feel safe purchasing from you.

This can be done in the way of contact forms, which let your get in touch with you by filling in appropriate fields to make an enquiry. Telephone numbers, email addresses, or even an office address make your users feel safer whilst on your site. 
 

Avoid the 90’s
Gone are the days of busy animations, crazy colour combinations and busy backgrounds. Although you may feel that it shows off skills to your website’s viewers, but simplicity is what’s fuelling customers nowadays. Ways to keep your website away from the 90’s mistakes include:

1.  Minimal use of animated images and Adobe Flash creations.

2.  Simple colour schemes that fit your brand image.

3. Use stock imagery rather than clip art, or better yet, your own images.

4.  Too much text. White space is just as important as content.

 Your website needs to not only attract people, but make them want to stay and read what you have to offer. These essentials can help you to tailor your site to reach and retain your target audience. To make sure that your website keeps your viewers reading, keep it simple, succinct, and up to date.

About the Author: Ryan Holmes is a freelance copywriter from London. His passions in life include art, photography, films and Mango sorbet. 

Designing A Website That Drives Traffic

Do you remember the early days of the World Wide Web? Back then, consumers were so thrilled by the prospect of communications forum that they were pretty forgiving when it came to website design. If they stumbled across a website from their favorite brand that was little more than contact information and a few pictures, they were still pretty happy - but that’s not how the Web works today.

After a couple decades online, most consumers have very high expectations when it comes to corporate websites, even when it comes to small businesses. 

They not only want websites that look great, they want websites that provide useful content. Though that’s a tall order, it’s definitely not mission impossible for a small business.

Designing a website (and web strategy) that consistently drives traffic, and boosts revenue, is a very hands on process. It also requires a certain flexibility that allows site owners to embrace news technologies as they emerge.

If this sounds like a project you’re willing to tackle, here are some things you’ll want to think about.

More Than Just a Website

Those simple websites we described earlier are what’s known as, “static sites,” and wouldn’t really pass muster on today’s Web. These days, websites require a steady a stream of both content and promotion via e-mail newsletters, social media sites, search engine optimization, and word-of-mouth references.

Though the long-term goal of the aforementioned strategies is to start making these things happen on their own, this outcome can takes months or even years to achieve. The important thing to keep in mind is that your multi-pronged web marketing strategy can’t be executed haphazardly, and needs a solid foundation.

Actually Building and Designing a Site

If you’ve ever thumbed through an HTML for Dummies Book or a Guide to CSS3, you might think you’ve got what takes build your own site from the ground up. This do-it-yourself approach is definitely doable, but you need to really understand what you’re getting yourself into.
 

The day-to-day operation and maintenance of a website can be very time consuming. You might also find out that reading about something like CSS3 and actually implementing it are two entirely different concepts. Unless you’ve really got a knack for technology, you can get in over your head in to no time.

To avoid this outcome, you might want to consider hiring a professional website designer to help keep things on track. While there’s definitely no shortage of designers offering their service on the Web, you don’t want to hire just anyone. Make certain that your designer can come up with references and a solid portfolio.

We would also caution you to enter your dealings with web designers only after you’ve done some research on your own. The last thing you want is to be sold a lot of flashy bells and whistles that distract your customers and wind up costing you money in the long run.

Finally

Building out a successful web strategy is something that takes time and patience, but offers serious rewards. If you’re willing to make that investment, you’ll see a pretty solid return.

About the Author: Kelvin Thomas has many years experience of designing professional websites and promoting websites online.

A Few Tips To Help You Launch A Home Business

Launching a home business is an excellent strategy if you want to earn a living from home. You should review the following ways to take your home business online and learn how you can get started as a home business owner.

You need a solid product or service for your business. Take the time to learn more about the audience you want to target and compare the kind of products or services you want to offer with what your potential competitors are doing. If you find your products will not be competitive enough or that your target audience is more likely to purchase products in stores you will not have access to, you should try finding another idea for your home business.

Do More Research About Your Business Idea

You should learn more about the brands you would be competing against and the prices they offer. Define your target audience and assess how many potential customers you would have. Some markets are already flooded or simply not large enough regardless of the quality of your merchandise. Spend as much time as needed researching different ideas for your home business. Talk to different home business owners who work in the field you are interested in.

Make Sure Your Business Idea Is Compatible With Working from Home

If you need to fabricate your products with some great machines, renting a shop would be a better choice. Determine how your customers are likely to shop. If you find that the customers you want to target only shop in stores, a home business is probably not your best choice. Ideally, your customers should be likely to shop online or at trade shows and conventions you can easily attend.

Put Together a Business Plan

Do a cost analysis for your business and put together a detailed business plan before launching your home business. Assess how much the equipment you need will cost you and how much you should invest in supplies to offer your products or services. Calculate the prices you can offer and how many sales you need to generate to cover your original investments. Find a way to finance your business, for instance by putting money aside for a few years or by borrowing money.

You also need to find an efficient way to reach out to your audience and assess how much you will be spending on marketing. Keep in mind that what you spend on advertisement is tax deductible, but your marketing campaign still represents an important original investment. Have a business counselor help you establish your business plan, if you need to.

Register your business with the Small Business Administration

You can easily find all the forms you need online as well as information specific to registering your business with state agencies. Once you formally register your business, you will receive a tax ID and will be able to legally operate your business. You might need additional licenses if you work with dangerous products. Look for professional organizations you can unite to build a rich network and obtain access to useful resources.

You should expect to work very hard when you first launch your home business. You will have to develop a strong online presence if you want to use this platform to reach out to your audience. If you decide to sell products or offer services in your community, you will have to work on developing your network. Do not hesitate to work up to ten hours a day to be as much done as possible. Avoid procrastination and put together lists of tasks you need to accomplish on a weekly or a daily basis.

Build a Detailed Plan to Develop Your Business

You could for instance start by launching your website and developing a strong online presence. If you do not want to use an online store for your product, start working on your network or look for events you can attend to meet potential clients. Monitor your results closely and modify your strategies if you are not meeting your goals. Do not hesitate to work for long hours or to invest more in your home business if you need to. Get some help from a business adviser if your strategies do not seem adapted.

You should be able to launch a successful home business by following these tips. However, do not give up if you are not getting the results you wanted. Get help from a business counselor and take some business classes, if you need some help. Some business programs online such as Pure Leverage even offer complete training guides to assist you learn the ropes. Do plenty of research on the market and the niche you are interested in before getting started with the project.

About the Author: John L. Bishop is a father to two daughters. He earns a living for him and his family through being an affiliate at several internet marketing businesses.

6 Things Every ECommerce Website Should Have In Place

Running an E-Commerce site doesn’t have to be difficult when you know what your site needs to work at the best level possible. Ultimately, you want sales, but in order to achieve these you need to have a few essentials in place, so you can build up a great website and encourage both existing and new customers to choose you for the product or service they require.

Logo

Your logo is the key visual of your entire brand and you should put a lot of effort into what it implies and the message it sends to customers. Your logo should be memorable and completely unique, so that your business is easily recognizable to people choosing you. If you go for a generic logo, you may have to rely on the size of your business to see you through, this may not work for a smaller business relying on new customers, so make it enticing and interesting. 

Call To Action 

As we mentioned, your site is there ultimately to achieve sales, so this needs to be reflected in your calls to action on your site. You should concentrate on optimising these for the best possible results in terms of conversions. By learning the basics of conversion optimisation you can ensure that you make the most of your banners and linking elements of your pages.

Shopping Basket 

It is crucial that your customers have a smooth service when they go to purchase products, so you should make sure that you have a good and reputable shopping cart set up. If there is any sign that your shopping cart looks iffy, or falters as your customers are browsing the site, then it’s likely that  they won’t trust that your shopping systems are secure. If you’re running your site via a Content Management System (CMS), then try installing a trusted plugin such as WooCommerce or WP E-Commerce.

Strike A Balance With Paid and Organic 

Although it is possible to attract a lot of traffic through good Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) practices, which you should be doing anyway, it is sometimes a good idea to invest a little budget into paid advertising. Although this doesn’t have to be your sole source of traffic generation, it does often pave the way to solid and targeted leads. If budget doesn’t permit, then maybe set in place a plan to progress onto paid search as business increases. 

Trust Signals 

Showing your potential customers that you are a reputable company can include a number of things. From gaining great reviews on sites such as TrustPilot, if applicable, or simply getting on-page testimonials from clients can really improve the likelihood of people choosing your business over your competition. The main thing you need to show the world is that you are a great place to buy from and that you will deliver on what you say you will. Other trust generating factors can include offering bonuses that others don’t, such as guaranteed delivery or loyalty rewards.

Linkable Assets 

The Internet is a social place, so offer content that people want to see and in turn share. This will make sure that your website gains attention from Social Media sites and not just through search engines. Connect with your customers and you will be sure to reap the rewards.

No matter what you choose to do with your site, always make sure that you focus on what your customers specifically want. This will be different for every business depending on what products and services you are offering, so make sure you tailor an individual approach.

About the Author: Katie Belliveau is an Internet marketing nut and likes helping businesses make money. She suggests you take a look at Davpack if you’re looking for reputable packaging supplies for your E-Commerce business.

What You Should Know About Web Developers?

Web developers are a unique breed. The industry in which they work literally changes by the day. The technology they use today can be outdated tomorrow. The pace at which the industry moves can sometimes be frightening. A web developer has to make research and self-training a way of life.

  

Every day they will be researching on new technologies and better ways of building the products they need to deliver. Everyday new versions of software languages and software components are released. 

Developers by definition are creative problem solvers. They need to have the freedom to create without restrictions. Giving them a certain amount of time every month in which they can build whatever they want allows for better creativity. Somewhere between 15% and 20% of their time is a good amount to allocate to this. It should be time in which the management will not have any say in what they do.

Why Is This Necessary?

This allows for creativity and exploration into new and better ways of producing the products for your business. At the end of the day your company will benefit from their innovation, they will have greater satisfaction and you will retain good developers to work for you.

Working with the Latest Technologies

Being a developer means that you are constantly retraining yourself. Part of being able to make an impact on people's lives is to be able to use the latest technologies that allow you to do that. It is critical that a developer keeps up with the latest technologies in order to remain employable and relevant to the industry.

 

Technologies and software generally have a lifespan of 5 years but that can be more or less depending on your business focus and the complexity of your system. For example, a social-media website would probably have a shorter code lifespan than a corporate financial management system. A social-media website would need to keep up with the latest and greatest where as a financial management system would be more focused on long term stability.

You Get What You Pay For

A good developer can often output better products with better quality in less time. Why? Because in web development there are many ways of solving a problem and the capability of knowing the optimum and best possible way only comes with experience. Many companies have tried to outsource their development to countries where they can have a product developed for less money. The same principle applies though. If you pay less then expect to have more problems.

Quality of the Code

The quality of a program's code is the responsibility of the developer. It is not the responsibility of the project manager, product owner or management. Quality isn't just about whether or not a system has bugs in it. It has a lot more to do with how the code is structured.

Quality of the code depends on the following factors:

How neatly is the code written?

Are there spacing's carriage returns and comments that allow for easy readability and understanding of the code?

What names have been used for different parts of the code? 

Names like Button1 and Button2 are useless to someone trying to understand the code.

Has the code been partitioned and broken down into small parts that make it easier to understand and test?

The quality of the system will depend largely on the above factors. If you take pride in what is below the bonnet, not just what is seen, then you will probably be more careful in making sure that the system works the way it is intended to.

About the Author: Jack Jenkins is a web developer from Los Angeles. If you need a web developer in Los Angeles, visit Los Angeles Web Developers.

 

Which WordPress Theme Gives You The Best Bang for Your Buck?

If you do a little research, you’ll find that there are numerous wordpress themes available throughout the web. But not all of them will give you the best bang for your buck. Most of them cost more than the average person is willing to spend to start a website or blog and many of the themes available online either come equipped with poor graphics or an unstable code. So let`s take a look at a great wordpress theme that stands head and shoulders above the competition.

The theme is called Elegant Themes. These themes are coded to perfection, have a beautiful look and give you a better bang for your buck compared to other wordpress themes you`ll find available online. With a generous price of only $39, and a 30-day money back guarantee, you`ll get unlimited access to a huge variety of themes, 83 different professionally designed wordpress themes to choose from for building an unlimited number of personal or business websites. Other sites that provide wordpress themes usually only offer one theme alone for that price.

The price and huge theme selection are not the only great things about Elegant Themes. Each of their themes also include a theme options panel that allow you to easily customize and control the graphics of a website without ever touching a line of code. You can switch on and off features, adjust the layout of your site, manage advertisements, control colors, optimize your site for search engines and more. Each theme also comes with short codes that allow you to easily insert different interface elements on your pages without the headache of having to code them in.

Finding the perfect theme is the most important step to building a successful wordpress website for you or your business. Not having to build a site with your bare hands and mess with all the different codes enables you to get your site up and running in no time flat, giving you more time to focus on the all important stuff like like adding the content and information you want to showcase on your newly designed website. All Elegant themes come with a built-in content management system, great plugin features and outstanding support that will make managing your website a much easier task. 

Do yourself a favor and take advantage of what Elegant Themes have to offer and build that website you`ve been wanting without all the hassle.

Website Design – What You Should Know Before Creating a Website?

Are you looking to create a website for your business or for yourself? If so, there are a few things that you should know before creating the website or hiring someone to create it for you. Given below are some of them: 


A logo for your company 
If you are starting a website for your company, it is important to first make a logo that captures its vision and objectives. You could make one yourself or hire a creative designer to make it for you. Either way, it is good to have one before you begin the website creation process.

Your domain name
You must have heard of companies paying millions of dollars for domain names for their website. Well, this happens to small companies and individuals too. First of all, you need to go to a domain registration company and buy your domain name as soon as possible. The ‘.com’ version is best, followed by ‘.org’ and ‘.net’. Make the domain name easy to remember and remember to check the spelling too. There is nothing worse than a misspelled domain name! Avoid abbreviations and weird characters whenever possible since they can confuse people.

Your goals from the website
What do you want to achieve with your website - online sales, better brand image, or sharing information and developing a community? Decide what you want to do with the website and consider who the target audience will be. All this information will help you make a better website in the end.

The design of your website
The simplest websites are the best, so keep your website design simple and ensure that the content is easily available and understandable. Templates and themes are useful in giving you a basic framework that you can modify. However, if you are looking for a completely unique website, a web development company is your best bet.

Decide the type of site you want
Think about the site you want for yourself or your business. It could be a blog, which should have commenting and other community-building features. It could also an informative website with valuable content for your readers. If you want a blog, you could make one using a blogging platform or a content management system. When you know what type of website you want, you will have an easier time making it.

What type of web host will you need
A website host is the entity responsible for holding all the data and files for your website. Simply put, the host is the land on which you build a house and your domain name is its address. There are many free hosts to choose from, like WordPress. However, they lack the storage capacity and security offered by paid hosting services.

Search Engine Optimization
SEO is critical to the success of your website, and you need to start thinking about it before making your website. If you have a clear SEO strategy thought out in the initial stages, you can design your website to be more SEO-friendly, which gives you better results.

 

About the Author: Amy is the guest blogger who blogs on behalf of Nariel, the leading web development and web design company in New Jersey. For more information please visit their website.
 

Is Wordpress Beneficial for SEO Success?

WordPress is one of the best content management systems and open source web design tools available to anyone who wants to start a website or blog. We often get a lot of questions about SEO and wordpress, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and its recommendations help your site to rank higher and more accurately in search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Wordpress, having both it`s advantages and disadvantages, has some good benefits when it comes to SEO. 

Now let's look at some of the different SEO benefits wordpress offers.

Google Likes and Appreciates It
It is a proven fact that wordpress websites rank very well in Google search results pages and also in competitive markets as well. Therefore, it can be said that Google supports this platform and therefore wordpress sites have a high “trust factor” in the eyes of Google.

Speedy Content Creation
The major objective of building wordpress sites is that they are built to run. They are designed for speed and the publishing of content at a continuous and speedy rate. On a static html site, the speed of content creation generally takes much longer and involves hard-coding of the article. On the other hand, using wordpress for your websites will take lesser time to create and publish your content. Using Wordpress for your site brings broadness to your keyword families and therefore makes your site much more user-friendly.

Benefits of Crawl ability
This is an important criteria, websites must be crawled by search engines in order to be indexed properly and appear in the search rankings. Therefore, Wordpress is a familiar ground for search engines as the internal logic and link structure is quite easier and familiar at the same time.

Benefits of Plug-Ins and Support
Well, even before going into the details of plug-ins and their benefits, let us describe plug-ins first. Plug-ins are third party software modules that website owners can install optionally in addition to the wordpress default installation. Wordpress has a large community and the number of plug-ins available for SEO has grown immensely. These plug-ins are very useful and provide support for manual Title Tags and Meta Descriptions at a much faster rate. Therefore, these plug-ins do hold a significant role in wordpress and SEO.

Generating Fresh and New Content
This is one of the major advantages that a wordpress site undergoes and is one of the biggest features of Wordpress. When creating or publishing new content for your site, it will initially get a boost in rankings during the first few days. This is definitely very important for anyone trying to rank high on a search results page. Your site needs to be updated with current topics and news as both Google and web-surfers appreciate fresh, unique and informative content.

Pings, Comments and Trackbacks
Pings and Trackbacks are the most interactive features built into wordpress. These effective and supplementary tools help other sites to interact with Wordpress sites thus bringing in more traffic, inbound links and visitors.

Therefore, wordpress certainly has many benefits in the field of SEO and if you are planning to build a website that is user-friendly and gets a lot of traffic, then you must opt for a wordpress site.

About Author: Aditi Datta is a leading SEO and SEM strategist who works in a Seo Company in India. She also provides effective seo tips and guidelines through her writings.