Consistency

While you might want to flex your creative muscles by including what amounts to a mini puzzle on each page…..just so the user can access the related content, forget about it. Each page should have the same navigational elements, allowing the user to quickly navigate around your site and see which sections are available to browse. Icons and section names should also be as clear as possible. You don’t want your potential customers guessing what a button or icon means, so make sure each link is clearly labelled. Studies on user habits indicate that those who are less confident with using the internet tend to avoid clicking on menus and icons which have no obvious function, so why limit your business for the sake of being overly fancy?

Highlight

The three main ideas behind a clear website design is making sure visitors to your site know where they have been, where they are now and where they can go next. This sense of positioning is an essential part of any website design if you want all of your visitors to be able to navigate your site. A sense of feeling uncomfortable with a website layout can make many potential customers feel apprehensive about submitting sensitive details such as credit card details and addresses and thus loses business for your company.

Search

Many users will often not be casual browsers, but instead know specifically what they are looking for. It is for these types of customers, that having a fully functional search form becomes a necessity. The search function should be clearly marked, perhaps appearing in the same position of each page of the website. Additionally, if your website has many different sections, providing different information and products, allow  users to streamline their search by these different categories, and increase the likelihood that they will actually find what they want.

So there you have it, a few simple tips that will help your website to become more user friendly and accessible for its visitors.

1. Provide interesting tweets before the sales pitch.

The hardest part of building a twitter following is actually enticing potential customers to click the follow button for your account. My advice, for those just beginning, would be to look at those who tweet about a similar subject and have many followers, then retweet those posts. In addition to this, look at all related trending hashtags and try to jump on related trending content.

2. Know what to expect.

The number of followers you have is obviously important, but more important is knowing how many of your Twitter followers actually follow your tweets to your company website. By investing in some quality traffic monitoring software, you can see not only how many unique visitors are coming to your website, but also which ones arrived via your tweets. If you have many Twitter followers but only a few visitors from Twitter to your website, then you know your tweeting strategy is not effective at enticing customers to click on your links.

3. Be aware of your network.

One of the disadvantages of ecommerce is the lack of interaction with customers. It is often hard to paint an accurate picture of your user base, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking all of your customers and followers are tech savvy, smartphone owning young people just because they use Twitter. Instead, take the time to review some of your followers, look at their other interests and see what they have been tweeting themselves. This will allow you to perhaps think of some creative tweets that might pique the interest of those followers who otherwise tend to disregard your tweets.

4. Beyond your network is also important.

If you invest a little time to understand the theory behind how hashtags work, then you will easily be able to attract more followers to your Twitter account. Look at which hashtags are trending and single out those which are related to your business, then add those hashtags to your tweets. This will allow a whole new network of potential customers to see your online presence, and promote the visibility of your website online.

Also, consider promoting the work of other related businesses and you will find that they will often return the favour. If customers loyal to the other company see them recommending your business, then they are more likely to trust your company too….and we all know earning the initial trust of a customer is the most prized, yet hard to achieve goal of most online businesses.

5. Create interest with your tweets.

Obviously the long term strategy of having a company Twitter account is to actually get more visitors to your website and increase your sales. The best way to get people to go to your online store is to only tweet enough information to create interest, yet leave enough information out so that they feel like they want to visit your site to get the full picture of what you are offering. Let your followers know that you have new stock or promotions available, but keep the main details of these deals on your website so that those who are interested must visit your site if they wish to know more.

Twitter can be an extremely effective marketing tool, especially for those equipped with the know how to actually use it properly. By following these steps listed above, you can expand your online network and increase the number of visitors to your website. It won’t happen overnight, but if you form a sound strategy and have a little patience, your business will eventually reap the rewards.

1) Use The Correct Format – The translation of a website can be extremely time consuming, not to mention frustrating and problematic. By employing Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), you can keep all local content separate from the actual website design. This allows you to select specific content for your foreign language website without having to create a new page each time. The flow of text can also be changed, which is very helpful if you are working with Arabic or Urdu.
2) Choose Images Carefully – Be aware that something that is funny or insightful in your native country/language, may be perceived as rude, insulting or arrogant in the culture of another country. In addition to this, don’t forget to amend the flow of the pictures when dealing with languages that flow from right to left. A before/after shot can quickly become confusing for those reading the opposite way.
3) Colour Choice Is Important – As with images, different colours can have significantly different meanings in different countries. While white is considered a pure colour in many Western markets, it is actually a colour that represents mourning in China, thus one to be avoided in that region. Try to investigate the local culture before committing to any long term design changes.
4) Language Formatting – Before designing the general layout of your website, consider all the different languages that will be using this template. Many languages have words that differ greatly in length, thus the problem arises whereby text that worked for English, for example, might not necessarily work for a website using Russian text.
5) Keep Your Domain Local – You want potential customers in foreign markets to believe that your company is specific to their region. If you have a marketing company based in the UK with the domain of “www.goodmarketing.co.uk”, then you will probably not get many business enquiries from Japan. If, however, you use the domain “www.goodmarketing.jp”, you will find that most residents of Japan will be more likely to choose your business. An additional option would be to create a sub-domain for your .com website, for example “www.goodmarketing.com/jp”. This also helps to boost you Search Engine Optimization (SEO), as Google’s algorithms take location into account when retuning results.
6) Localize Your Keywords – Optimize your website’s SEO by providing accurate keyword translations for your foreign market website. Often, direct translations of your keywords will not be effective in that language. Some investigation is required to find out the commonly used words for your products.

Today we are going to take a quick look at one of Google’s newest search technologies, Google Goggles. This new feature is built into the Google app currently found on the Iphone and Android markets and its primary function is to allow someone to take a picture of a logo, item, QR code….in fact, just about anything…..and perform a search based on that image.

Now, the question that all website owners need to ask themselves is this; How can my webpage be optimised for this new feature and take full advantage of its benefits? What do we need to do to ensure that our logos, barcodes and product images are linked to our website/company?

Company Logos

Easily the most important part of readying your website for Google Goggles is ensuring that your company logo meets the necessary requirements. If someone scans your brand logo, you would want them to be instantly sent to your homepage, yes? When you consider that your company logo probably appears on just about everything your company produces, including business cards and letters, it is without doubt an important aspect to get right.

Luckily, to save you some trial and error, I have tested some of the most effective methods for you.

1) Put text in your logo – Most company logos will go through various stages of development, and may be refreshed every few years to avoid the “brand” becoming stagnant. Regardless of which colour scheme and design you opt for, try to ensure that your company name appears in the logo. The text recognition feature of Goggles was helpful in allowing Google to identify my company logo online.

2) Make sure your logo is correctly added to your website – I always put  the company logo in the footer of my websites and use the same file name and link text, “company_name.jpg”. This once again is of benefit to Goggles’ text recognition feature and increases the likelihood of your website being identified as the owner of the image.

3) Include Google Maps - This step is simple, yet easy to forget. Locate your company on Google Maps and ensure that you add your current company logo as an identifier, making sure you use the exact same logo graphic as used on your website.

4) Add your logo to social networking/related content sites - Make sure your current company logo is displayed on your social networking homepages (Google +, Facebook etc) and other related content websites. This promotes the visibility of your logo and, if Google is unable to match your logo with your homepage, it may be able to provide the searcher with a link to your social media homepage.

Products

1) Varied pictures – Users of Goggles are probably not going to take perfectly framed pictures of your products, so help Google to identify your products by including a wide variety of pictures for your products featuring many different camera angles.

2) File names – Any significant or obvious text featured on a product image should be included in the file name. Goggles may identify the text in a search, therefore it is of benefit to have it linked to your products picture.

3) Use metadata - Add extra information to the <img> tag of your images. If you have a lot of extra information on the product, then add it. This all helps to provide Google with more information for its text recognition software.

4) Spread your images around - As stated before with the company logo, make sure all of your product pictures are included and correctly labelled on your social networking sites.

Using Barcodes and QR Codes

When possible, try to include product barcodes on your site, along with QR codes. The reason for this is simple, when a QR code was part of an image, it seemed as though Goggles automatically selects it as being the most important part of the image for search purposes. By assigning a product hyperlink to a QR code, you can maintain an amazing amount of control over where incoming searches to your website end up.

After Google rolled out their new search algorithm update, commonly referred to as Panda, the need for original content has never been greater for small businesses looking to see their websites rank highly on Google based searches.

Gone are the days where simply copying and pasting articles, packed with SEO friendly keywords, would attain a high page rank. Sites such as AssociatedContent have since lost much of their luster, with websites featuring original content replacing them. The idea behind this update is to level the playing field for small businesses, who previously found it impossible to compete with larger online companies and their armies of freelance writers endlessly recycling the same articles over and over again.

If you are a small business, now is the perfect time to refocus your online strategy and ensure your company is more visible when customers are searching for services related to your business.
Here are some tips and suggestions that we recommend:

1) Create an hCard – Use this to generate a local identity for your business and attract site visitors who live within a reasonably close geographical proximity to your company. Most small businesses, such as tailors, would primarily be focussing on clientele based in and around the same city as their shop or outlet.

2) Another tip to increase brand awareness and develop your business online is to register with Google Places and Yahoo Local. It is easier to obtain top spots in these lists and it can generate quite a bit of traffic for your website. In addition to this, make sure your companies address is visible on your website and that it is also listed on the domain’s WHOIS record.

3) Geo-targeted meta tags. With the introduction of the Panda algorithm, Google prefers businesses in local markets as opposed to global markets. This can be taken advantage of by listing the longitude and latitude of your business location in the meta tags, which promotes the visibility of your website for local searches.

4) Website Clean Up – If your website has been guilty of recycling articles in the past, then that content will be now be doing more harm than good in terms of promoting your business. Remove the offending articles as quickly as possible and replace it with some original content specific to the services your company provides.

5) RDFa – By using correct RDFa tags for your website, search engines such as Google will be able to identify that the content posted on your site is your own work. This is an invaluable advantage after the Panda update, as it strives to exclude websites that it suspects of violating copyright and content.
With a small dedicated SEO team, any small business can achieve the Google ranking they desire and reap the benefits of added custom.

Today we are going to look at some of the best mobile web browsers on the scene, many of which are derived from their big brothers on desktop computers.

Opera Mini and Opera Mobile

Probably one of the most well known and popular mobile web browsers. Using a simple, clean and intuitive interface, the Opera browsers are capable of displaying complete web pages on your mobile device, just as they would be seen on a laptop or home PC. To achieve this, Opera uses an advanced compression technology, that prepares the website at one of their servers, before it even reached your phone. Since the webpage is prepared in advance, the actual loading times experienced are up to 10x faster compared to many other browsers on the market.

UC Browser

Here is yet another widely used browser, and this time it is one that employs a very stylish user interface. The UC Browser has many user friendly features such as a built in File Manager, and a Night Mode that adapts to your surroundings and reduces eye strain. The browser also enhances downloading by supporting threaded downloading, with the ability to pause and resume downloads. For those who are conscious of their bandwidth, the UC Browser also employs compression techniques to lessen data transfer by up to 85%.

Skyfire

By converting Flash videos in a data cloud, Skyfire allows non-Flash devices (primarily Apple Iphones and IPods) to display Flash videos as HTML5. Like other popular mobile browsers, Skyfire also compresses data on its own servers, thus allowing for website to be compressed and bandwidth to be saved. On the whole, the video conversion is effective, but can be slightly choppy on occasion. Being a paid app (currently $2.99 on the App store), you would probably expect a higher level of polish, but for many, it seems the ability to access Flash videos on their Apple devices is big draw.

Bolt Browser

The Bolt browser is a free download for Blackberry handsets, and is currently gaining in popularity amongst Smartphone owners. Being able to render standard websites in full, it is much more advanced and quicker than the standard Blackberry browser, even supporting AJAX websites, so all those delightful pop-ups can be viewed. At the moment, the Bolt browser is still lacking a few finishing touches, and thus is prone to the odd crash, but overall, it is a fast, intuitive and snappy way to browse the internet on your Blackberry handset.

First of all, one of the most important things for any company is its image – how it is viewed by the potential customers. By having a fully equipped website, full of interesting features and accurate information, your company will immediately stand out from the crowd as modern, progressive and professional. Inspiring confidence in your customers, many will feel more comfortable purchasing from companies that have a strong online presence.

One of the most important new marketing features, essential for any business to be successful, is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). With a team dedicated to enhancing your companies profile online, you will quickly see your website move up in Google rankings, overtaking similar companies offering the same services. If your website is constantly appearing on the first page of Google searches, you can be assured your website traffic will increase accordingly. By employing a SEO strategy, you are also guaranteed to have up to date, relevant and quality content on your site, transforming a static website into an interactive experience for your interested customers and showing them that your company is active and progressive online.

Recent studies have shown that the old standard methods of advertising, such as TV, radio, leaflets and newspaper ads, are increasingly becoming redundant. When someone is looking for a particular service, their first choice now is to access the internet, more often than not performing a Google search directly related to the service or problem they have. With our advanced keyword integration, in addition to your SEO optimized website articles, you attract customers who have an immediate and genuine interest in your services and products.

Another major benefit of having a website is the way it allows your company to breakdown geographical walls, and attract customers from all over the world. You increase your potential customer base to virtually anywhere that has an internet service. In addition to this, your modern website will also allow customers to browse and make enquiries 24/7, 365 days a year.  Customers can access all the information they need on your website, make orders and submit email queries without ever having to communicate directly with anyone from your company.

If you are looking for a way to enhance your company, and you are keen to modernize your business and maximize your potential customer base, a new website, equipped with the latest SEO features would certainly be a wise choice.

There are two ways to better understand your current website: qualitative and quantitative.

Qualitative feedback is received by requesting comment from stakeholders and users.

This is traditionally gathered using the following techniques:

Qualitative feedback

We’ll now take a moment to focus on feedback mechanisms.

Most websites provide some method by which users can submit feedback. This is normally a contact page. However, a contact form is a passive approach and something more proactive is needed if you want user feedback. The majority of users will not think to send in comments unless they are frustrated with your site. The problem is that in such situations they tend to simply leave rather than complain.

If you want feedback on your site then specifically ask for it. This can be done with a simple feedback form or a more comprehensive survey. However, a word of warning if you are considering a full-blown survey. Few users take the time to complete a long survey, so keep your questions to a minimum. Also avoid making your requests for feedback too intrusive. They should not hinder a user from completing his or her goals.

If you are considering making changes to an existing site, it is well worth implementing a basic feedback mechanism to canvas opinion before you begin. Whether you are getting feedback from your site through user testing or via stakeholder interviews it is necessary to assess the value of the comments made. When analyzing negative comments about your site, use these four criteria to judge how seriously those comments need to be
taken:

• How often the comment is being made?
• Who makes the comment?
• What effect the problem has on the user and your objectives for the site?
• How easy the problem is to fix?

Adobe support provides a simple and yet unobtrusive feedback mechanism. The side column asks users if they found the support document useful.

The more often you are hearing the same negative comment, the more likely it is that the comment is justified and needs addressing. However, you cannot rely on numbers alone. If your biggest customer has a problem then you had better address that concern fast!

There is also a need to ascertain the seriousness of a problem. Does it stop the user from completing a task or is it simply a mild inconvenience? Does it in some way hamper a business objective? If it does then it will need addressing.

Finally, establish how difficult the problem is to fix. Even a minor problem is worth fixing if it is easy to do. Conversely, fixing a major problem might be unjustifiable if the expense is prohibitive. In such situations, look for a workaround that lessens the seriousness of the issue.

Ultimately these decisions are about return on investment. Does the seriousness of the problem justify the cost of fixing it?

Although nothing is better than feedback from your users, it can be a battle. Stakeholder interviews and user testing are time consuming, while site feedback mechanisms are often ignored. Fortunately, quantitative analysis is much less work. However, it should only be used to support qualitative feedback—not as a replacement.

Free survey service

Providing a method that allows user feedback does not have to be expensive or complicated. There are a number of services, such as questionform.com that allow you to create free surveys in minutes.

Quantitative Analysis

I am bad at assembling flat-pack furniture. Part of my problem is that I never have the right tools. Fortunately when it comes to analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of your site, there is no shortage of tools.

Let’s look at the three types of analytical tools I mentioned earlier, starting with web logs.

Web Logs Analyzers

The most well known form of analysis is carried out on a site’s log files. Log files track where a user has come from, what pages they have visited, how long they have spent on each page, and other data on users’ interaction with your site.

The problem is that log files are hard to understand. There are many tools available to help with this, from free open-source software to expensive enterprise-level products.

It is probably best to start with something cheap and cheerful. In my experience the majority of website owners won’t use the advanced features offered by high-end tools. You can always upgrade later.

Another option is to use a statistics collector that doesn’t rely on log files. One such tool is Google Analytics. This collects considerably more data than web logs, and has an easy to use interface for analyzing the results. It is free of charge and only requires a small piece of code on each page to work.

So, how do you judge if an existing site is performing? There are three basic things you can look at:

• The number of unique users and where they are coming from. If many sites are linking to you, it is a good indication that you are doing something right. Traffic levels also indicate the performance of existing marketing campaigns.
• The percentage of repeat visitors compared to first time users. If users are returning to your site regularly it is normally a sign of satisfaction.
• How users are moving around your site. How long are they spending on individual pages? How many pages are they viewing? Which page are they leaving the site from?

The final test is trickier to interpret. For example a user might visit many pages, which could appear to be a sign of interest in the site. Alternatively, it could mean they cannot find the information they require. Instead, compare the time on site to the number of pages viewed. If they are looking at a good number of pages for a reasonable time then you know things are going well.

By looking at where a user leaves, you can sometimes get an indication of potential problems. Are users just looking at your homepage and then leaving? If they are leaving without viewing other pages then you have a problem with your homepage. Are users getting to checkout on your ecommerce website and then giving up? Perhaps it’s time to user-test your checkout process.

There is a lot more you can do with web stats, but that should be enough for you to analyze you existing site.

Let’s now turn our attention to automated checkers.

Automated Performance Checkers

Sometimes when analyzing your web stats you will notice a significant number of users who leave your site after only viewing a single page. This can happen for a variety of reasons. For example, they may have simply come to the wrong site. However, it could also be because they have met technical difficulties accessing your site.

There are three tests you can easily perform to identify any potential problems.

• Check your site on as many different browsers as possible. I recommend you look at your site in at least the last two versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, and Safari. If you do not have access to all of these browsers then consider using an online service such as browsershots.org.
• Check your site’s accessibility using an online accessibility checker. These tools provide a report outlining the various accessibility problems with your site. However, a word of warning; these automated accessibility reports can be both misleading and confusing. Nevertheless, they can help you identify possible accessibility problem with your site.
• Carry out a speed test on your site. You should be looking for download times of less than 10 seconds on a 56k modem. However, up to 20 seconds is acceptable. Automated checkers have a broader role than monitoring site performance. They can also be used to track the online visibility of your site.

Online Visibility Trackers

Web stats and performance checkers provide information on site usability and accessibility, but they don’t tell you how easy your site is to find. Fortunately there are tools that do exactly that. Start with a site like popuri.us.

Popuri.us is a free web application that allows you to check your site’s ranking on search engines, blog listings, and even social networking applications. The site checks various sources to ascertain your online visibility.

If you want information about your site’s ranking for specific search terms, then a tool like GoogleRankings.comwill help. Despite the name, this free application checks all major search engines, reporting your rankings for whatever terms you specify.

There are also a number of desktop tools that bring all of this functionality (and more) together. However, for the purposes of assessing an existing site, the free online tools will be adequate. You need to monitor your site’s visibility on an ongoing basis, especially when tracking marketing campaigns. In this situation a desktop application may be more convenient.

This year is set to see an explosion In mobile devices. With the success of the iPad in 2010, it seems just about every manufacturer (Motorola, Sony, Lenovo, HP, Dell and ASUS) is preparing to release a new tablet to battle with the new iPad 2.

With this in mind, it would be a good idea to make sure your website is friendly towards these new devices, so that people on the go can still enjoy viewing content on your website.

1) Use Fluid Width Layouts

Using this technique allows your website to easily adapt to different screen sizes and resolutions; and extremely important ability due to the sheer variety offered in the next-gen tabs. Implement this feature, and your website can be dragged or pushed into just about any type of browser, from your home pc, your laptop, tablet to even your 4 inch smartphone screen.

2) Cut Down on Advertisements

If you have a high number of ads on your website, it could completely restrict the viewer and limit the amount of actual content they can easily access on your website. Extra care should also be gives to minimize the amount of actual content contained on each page, as this allows the user to see the whole page on a single go and is friendly towards slower connection speeds.

3) Avoid Using Flash

Given Apple’s stance on the subject of Flash, this suggestion seems like a no brainer. Apple have made it clear they will never support Flash on their iOS and, although Android does support Flash, the performance is definitely less than stellar.

Instead, you should focus on using more open standards such as HTML5 and Javascript. These can accomplish just about everything flash can, but also be available to a much larger audience base thanks to its wider acceptance and compatibility.

4) Mouse vs Finger

Most modern smartphones and tablets use touchscreen technology to allow users to interact with websites. This has proven to be popular amongst consumers looking to buy new devices, but many find that their favourite websites have buttons far too small for their fingers to accurately press.

Website builders should try to make buttons and other interactive elements appear easy for finger input, but not looking stupidly large for a desktop user who has the benefits of using the more accurate mouse control method.

Every business would like their website to be on top when potential customers are searching on Google. To make this possible, it is essential that your website is optimized for Google. Search engine optimization requires websites to be continuously improved and tweaked. Google is a smart search engine that requires more attention than some other search engines, and uses more sophisticated methods to determine which websites are worthy of being at the top of topic searches. By simply creating a website, adding some content and leaving it to fend for itself on the internet is not going to get your website a top ranking. Below I will outline some of the main tips for boosting your website to the top of the search lists.

1) Keywords and Phrases

When rating a website, Google will look at the keywords and key phrases associated with that site. If a user is searching for ‘computer components’ then Google will display a list of websites that contain the keyword and phrases that contain ‘computer components’. So the first tip is to make sure that you include keywords and phrases in the content of your website. Be careful not to be guilty of ‘keyboard stuffing’ though, this is when people stuff their page several times with the same keywords.

2) The Title Tag

The title tag must be a unique tag on a page and can be found on the title bar of the browser. An example of a title tag could be this – <title>Fine Custom Tailors</title>

In its search results, Google will display up to 66 characters of a title tag, cutting off the final word if the 66 character limit is exceeded. For example, the following title has 76 characters, so Google omits the last word when displaying the website in search results:

76 – Character title tag: Researching Guide For Improving Your Search Engine Optimization Effectiveness

Google Display: Researching Guide for Improving Your Search Engine . . .

3) Anchor Text

Anchor text is text that has a hyperlink to another web page. Here is an example, good quality web design. Here, the phrase ‘good quality web design’ is the anchor text and the user will click on this sentence to access the new web page. Anchor text is useful because it gives the user more information about the content of the website you are linking too. Google dictates that no more than 100 links should appear on a single page. Care should be taken to always use keywords relevant to the page you are linking too as your anchor text. Using phrases such as ‘click here’ is not really best practice and does not make effective anchor text due to the ambiguous nature of the description.

4) Header Tags

The <h1> to <h6> tags are those used to define HTML headings. The purpose of <h1> is to define the largest heading whilst <h6> is used to define the smallest heading. These headers are important as they tell Google what the purpose of the web page is; therefore they should be used whenever possible.  It should be noted that your heading tags should be extremely relevant to the content found on the page and should not appear to be spam or misleading.

5) Quality of the Content

Google is a search engine that looks for fresh content and good quality writing. Google’s aim is to make sure that the returned search results are ones that are helpful to the searcher, so make sure that your website remains updated regularly with quality content. You should make sure that you follow Google’s guidelines or you may find that your domain has been blacklisted, with Google not linking to it at all.