Saturday 18 February 2012

What Your Web Design Says About You (Infographic)

What Your Web Design Says About You

Font and color choices in a website say certain things about the owner of the site. Though colors and symbols may have different meanings in other cultures, this only reaffirms the notion that design choices do affect the perception of the user, which in turn affects the message attempting to be conveyed.


Here is an infographic that delves into the meanings of fonts and colors in the context of web design.

Reasons to Invest in a Well Designed Website


You may ask yourself the question, "My business is ticking over nicely, why should I pay for a well designed website?"

Your website is open 24/7

A website allows your business to be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There are millions of people, from all over the world, online at any time of the day. Many of them are looking to source products or services. If you run a conventional brick and mortar business, you can only attract the people who walk or drive past your shop, in any one day. Having a website designed for you allows you to attract new customers that would otherwise never find you - and they can do so when your shop is closed! A well designed web site also gives them a reason to revisit the site in the future.

Websites increase customer confidence

A professional, well designed website, with the right content, easy navigation and quickly accessible contact details, greatly increases customer confidence in your company. A well designed website shows people that you are forward thinking and customer focused, much in the way a well designed business card did in the past, which is an important factor in any buying decision that they have to make.

Websites increase customer referrals

What is easier to remember, mysite.com or  01215501528 ?
A website address is much easier to remember than a telephone number, so it stands to reason that having a website increases the likelihood of referrals - and let's face it, referrals are one of the most important sources of new business.

A website address increases the ROI when advertising

Including your website address on all of your adverts, business cards, letterheads, invoices, etc allows people to take action straight away, when they view an advert, or hear about your product or service. Visiting your website is so much easier than driving to your store, telephoning or writing a letter to you. When online, a potential customer can take their time and enjoy finding out about your products or services without the pressure of having a salesman floating about in the background.

Website sales

Your website is one of the most impressive sales presentations that you will ever have. Allowing your customers to buy your products or services online is a wonderful and inexpensive way to expand your business. Spending thousands on advertising, for an ad that is featured in one mag, for one month simply doesn't compare to investing in a long term sales marketing solution - or a well designed website as we like to call them!
Even if you do not offer a product or service that can easily be purchased over the Internet, a website still acts as an impressive first contact, convincing the potential customer that they need what you are offering and inviting them to contact you, via telephone, email or contact form on your website.

Websites promote future business

When a potential customer comes into your shop and leaves without making a purchase and without speaking to anyone, they are basically a dead prospect. When someone views your well designed website and doesn't make a purchase straight away, they can easily revisit anytime to make the purchase in the future. On top of that, you can use your website to collect the email addresses of visitors and send them periodical promotional emails, newsletters or updates on your product or service. So although they may not buy first time around, you have more than one opportunity to close the sale!

So there you go, what are you waiting for?
Don't waste time -get a well designed website now!

Wednesday 8 February 2012

The 7 Characteristics of Good Domain Names

by Daniel Scocco
Domain names are the real estate of the Internet. Just as a good location is vital for a bricks and mortar business, a good domain name will be the corner stone of your website’s success. But how to identify them? Below you will find the 7 characteristics of good domain names.

 

1. They are short

Good domain names are short. It is not a coincidence that all the three-letter and four-letter .com domains are already gone, and that the five-letter ones are going fast as well.
There is no definite number of characters that you should aim for, just remember that the shorter the better. If you really need some guidance, try to go below 10 characters, and never exceed 20.
As for the number of words, one-word domains are gold, two-word ones are good, three-word domains are average, and above that it is usually a bad idea.
Example: Quotes.com is a superb domain and probably worth millions of dollars. ProQuotes.com is a good two-word domain worth thousands of dollars. ProQuotesNow.com is an average domain and could be used for a website. YourProQuotesNow.com is plain worthless.

2. They are easy to remember

Many Internet users do not use bookmarks. They just memorize the domains of their favorite websites and type them whenever they wan to visit one. Guess what, if your domain is complex and not easy to remember you will lose these visitors along the way.
Example: Brcwr.com is a short domain name, but is not easy to remember at all, so it would be a bad idea to use it for your website (unless the initials represent the name of the website or a memorable message).

3. They are easy to spell

The last thing you want is visitors misspelling your domain and ending up somewhere else.
Avoid unusual foreign words, words that have complex pronunciation, strange combinations of letters and anything else that might cause someone to misspell your address.
Example: CappuccinoBar.com might be problematic for English speaking visitors. Cappuccino is an Italian word, and not everyone is aware where the doubles are placed.

4. They have a .com extension

Organizations might prefer to register a .org domain, and companies targeting very specific geographical regions might want to register a local domain (e.g. .it, .co.uk, .cn and so on). Apart from these cases, however, a .com domain is always the best way to go. This extension is the most popular around the around, and it is already stuck in people’s mind.
Visitors coming to your site via search engines or organic links will pay attention mostly to the name and not to the URL. The next time they want to visit your site it is very likely that they will just type its name followed by a .com. Guess what, if you are not there when they hit enter they will just go somewhere else.
Example: Darren Rowse created his popular blog on Problogger.net. Despite having a strong brand, some visitors were still going to Problogger.com. After a couple of years Darren decided to buy the .com version for $5,000 and redirect it to his site, so that no more visitors would leak.

5. They are descriptive

Many visitors will come to your site through the search engines and via direct links on other websites. That is, they will come if the domain that they will see will be appealing.
Having a descriptive domain name will give visitors an idea of what your site is about even before they enter it. If related keywords are present in the domain it might also help your search engine rankings.
Example: You would be able to guess what TelevisionGuides.com is about even before visiting it right?
Put it in another way. Suppose you are searching for a movie review. You make a quick search in Google. The first result comes from MikesLair.com. The second result comes from MoviesCentral.com. Which one would you rather click?

6. Or brandable

A brandable domain will have a nice pronunciation, an interesting combination of letters or simply an appealing visual effect. Sometimes they will not be descriptive, but they can be equally efficient.
Brandable domains will make your visitors associate the name with your website and its content. (Notice that brandable domains can be descriptive at the same time, but that is not always the case.)
Example: Kotaku.com is one of the most popular gaming blogs on the Internet. The domain is not descriptive at all, but the brand is so strong that gamers immediately recognize it across the web.

7. They don’t contain hyphens or numbers

Domain names containing hyphens and numbers are cheaper for a reason. They suffer the same problem of domains not using a .com extension or with complex spelling.
Consider Tech-World.com. The names that will stick in people’s mind are “tech” and “world.” Many visitors will just forget the hyphen along the way. Eventually they will try to access your site by typing TechWorld.com, in vain.
Numbers, on the other hand, will confuse people with the spelling. Suppose you registered Tech5.com. Visitors might mix it with TechFive.com, if they manage to remember the number in the first place!
Example: Coolest-Gadgets.com is an extremely popular gadget blog, with over 70,000 RSS subscribers. With such a huge readership you get people often typing the domain directly on the address bar. Needless to say that many of them would just forget to add the hyphen. The owner of the site bought CoolestGadgets.com afterwards to fix the problem.

Final remark

Do not get discouraged if your current domain doesn’t have all these characteristics; or if you can’t find one that does. These are just factors that you should consider when evaluating domain names.
There are plenty of examples of popular websites with domain names that lack in one or two points covered on the list. Just make sure that your domain has most of the characteristics and you should be fine.

Sunday 5 February 2012

Why Business Website is so Important to have?




With all the hype around Facebook, blogs and Twitter, I often get asked whether a business still needs a website. YES! YES! YES! (seriously) Having a good website for your business is even more important now that technologies like Twitter and Facebook make it easier for more people to find you. Here are my reasons why having a website for your business is still vitally important:

  1. Being Found – The #1 goto place when someone is looking for your business is your website. People search through search engines like Google or Bing, not via Facebook for fan pages.
  2. Search Engine Optimization - Websites (and blogs) are important for ranking well in search engines.  Much of Facebook is still a walled garden that is invisible to search engines.
  3. Primary Activity - People are on Facebook for entertainment or to see what’s going on with their friends or family.  They’re not there to hear about your latest promotions (which doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t necessarily have a Facebook fan page, but it certainly shouldn’t be your main online presence).
  4. Control - You need a place online that you own, where you control the information and the data. Facebook can change their site or terms of service at any time (they’ve already done that numerous times).
  5. Opportunity - A website allows for a much more robust experience for visitors than most other platforms. This means that you can be more efficient at providing visitors the information that they’re looking for, as well as the opportunity to create web applications for more value to your visitors.
  6. Branding - Websites also allow you more control over your branding. While sites like Facebook allow some customization, it’s still inside Facebook’s shell. Companies are able to control all aspects of a design with a website.
  7. Measurement - Metrics and measurements to know how well your digital tactics are working are much easier to get via a website. Facebook and Twitter do provide some metrics (as well as some provided by third-parties), but the metrics are not as business oriented, making it more difficult to measure specific tactics and promotions.
I also believe that it is vital for a company to have a website (or sometimes a blog can work too) that is working well in terms of providing potential customers with the information they want, being easy to use, and having the right calls to action to lead people down the sale funnel.

What do you think? Do you have other reasons a business website is important?