The 2 Most Common Web Site Mistakes

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 03:07:48 am

A lot of thought has to go into a good web site design. Here are 2 mistakes we see over and over. When we review the sites of potential clients, there are 2 mistakes we see over and over. If you are having problems with your site, make sure these 2 proble

When we review the sites of potential clients, there are 2 mistakes we see over and over. If you are having problems with your site, make sure these 2 problems aren’t killing you.

Traffic

Just because you think something is a good idea doesn’t mean the general public agrees. A web site should solve a problem that is common to some part of the population. If people have a problem, they will be compelled to find an answer to it. If they don’t, they are not going to visit your site for anything other than browsing. Browsing doesn’t pay the bills!

Do the research on Overture or your favorite tool. If there isn’t a significant amount of monthly searches for your topic, move on to another one. If you think you can both alert people to a problem and solve it, you are in for a difficult time. It can be done, but your chances of success are pretty small.

Database Parameters

If you have a database driven site, you absolutely must get control of the sub-domains. Examples of database sites include sites selling products or providing some version of a listing service such as real estate or jobs. Programmers and designers have a bad habit of putting session ids in the sub-domains. Session ids are an indication of dynamic pages, pages that are built on the fly when the domain is triggered. A dynamic domain looks something like:

http://www.your-site.com/default.cfm?sid#####LLLLaaa#####

The problem with dynamic domains concerns search engine robots. A robot is designed to recognize the meta tags and content of a page. The robot will then include the page in the search database. Robots often refuse to index dynamic pages because the robot cannot predict the content on the page. From the robot’s view, the page could show different things each time it is accessed. As a result, the search engines can’t list it under any particular keyword with any confidence that the content will be relevant to the search. If you have dynamic pages, most of the pages of your site will never appear in Google, Yahoo and MSN. That’s a disaster.

Planning is the key to setting up a profitable e-commerce site. Make sure you are solving a known problem and set your site up to be friendly to the search engine robots.

Domain Name - How To Pick One

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 03:07:21 am

Getting a domain name is like getting married. One you have it, you’re stuck. Make sure your “bride” is the right one. Picking a domain name should be easy, right? Why, I’ll just use my business name. Not so fast, Sparky. A good bit of tho

Picking a domain name should be easy, right? Why, I’ll just use my business name. Not so fast, Sparky. A good bit of thought should be given to selecting a domain name.

A Cautionary Note

Picking a domain name is like getting married. You are going to have to stick with it till the bitter end. People that use your site will come to know it by the domain name. Repeat visitors will often simply type in the domain name to get to the site, better known as “type in traffic�. As an example, do you search for “Amazon� when you want to buy a book or do simply type in amazon.com? If Amazon were to change its domain name to Desert, there would be a lot of confusion. The same goes with your domain. Once you pick something, stick with it.

Your Choices

Well, the obvious choice is your business name, but it may not be the best. There are four significant issues to consider.

First, is there something about your business name that makes using it as a domain an unwise choice? This situation typically arises if you have a long business name or have plural words. “Halstatt’s Rip’n Marketing Campaigns, Inc.� is going to be a horrible domain name. Clients are going to find it difficult to type in such a domain name.

Double letter problems are a second issue that is entirely unique to the Internet. What if Sams Salon wants to use its business name as a domain? The “s� at the end of first word and beginning of the second can cause confusion. Is the domain name Samssalon.com or Samsalon.com? Confusing your users is a bad way to run a site.

The third issue concerns the nature of your site and search engine optimization. If you are shooting for a particular keyword phrase, you may be better off using that keyword phrase in your domain name. Google, for instance, looks at the domain name when evaluating a site. If the words in your domain name are spaced with dashes, many believe it will help in the ranking process. This is why you see so many xxx-xxxx-xxx.com domain names on the net. If your business focuses on a very specific area, strong consideration should be given to using relevant keywords in your domain name.

Finally, your domain name should end in “.com� and I don’t want to hear any argument or see any rolling of the eyes. The simple fact is that when people think of sites, they always type in .com. Yes, there are other extensions and .us, .net, .biz, etc., may seem unique, but it kills your traffic. Pavlov and his dog experiments had it right. People have been mentally conditioned to type in .com, so don’t select any other ending. If you do, a smart competitor will register the .com version of your name to get some free traffic. If you are really lucky, a porn site will do it!

Take a breath before you select a domain name. Like a spouse, it can be either a good or bad choice.

Improve Conversion Rates - Load Times

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 03:07:57 am

Hard as it is to believe, roughly 45 percent of Internet users are still on dial up. Does your site load fast enough for them? Your site is getting traffic, but conversion rates are horrible. Everything seems to be working, so what’s wrong? Your sit

Your site is getting traffic, but conversion rates are horrible. Everything seems to be working, so what’s wrong? Your site may simply be to slow.

Load Times – Are You Driving A Ferrari or Moped?

Give some thought to the sites you have visited of the past few weeks. Were you willing to wait 20 seconds for a site to load or did you hit the back button? Why would visitors to your site behave any differently? They won’t.

Webmasters, designers and site owners universally access the web through high-speed connections. Because of this, it is easy to forget roughly 45% of surfers use dial-up connections. While your site may appear to load quickly on your high-speed connection, have you tried loading it on a 56k connection? The results can be shocking.

Sites that appear to load quickly on a high-speed connection can take forever on 56k. It is not unheard of to find a “fast site� actually takes 30, 50 or 80 seconds to load on a 56k. Sometimes, the load time is so slow the browser will actually “time out� and fail to show anything. If your site has this problem, 45% of the hits are worthless. Worse, those frustrated surfers are unlikely to try to access your site in the future even if you fix the speed problems.

How fast should a page load on a 56k connection? As fast as possible, but no slower then 25 seconds. If you can get 56k load times below 10 seconds, you can turn a negative into a competitive advantage. Surfers come back to fast sites.

Determining Load Times

The best way to determine the load time for your site is to actually use a 56k connection. While this solution isn’t particularly technical, it will let you see exactly what your prospects are seeing when they visit the site. You will be able to see what loads quickly and what appears slowly. This should let you isolate particular elements in need of optimizing.

Server statistics can also provide you with evidence of slow load times. Are users spending a lot of time on entry pages, but not visiting internal pages? Either you have poor content or a loading problem.

Finally, you can also use diagnostic programs to test load times. Typically, the programs will kick out estimated load times for dial-up, DSL and T1 connections. Make sure you test your home page and internal pages. Diagnostic programs are excellent tools, but don’t get lazy. Make sure you physically watch your site load on a dial-up connection. The experience will prove invaluable to improving your site and conversion rates.

Improving Performance

The steps needed to improve the performance of your site often depend on the nature of the site. A database driven site will have different issue than a graphic intense site. There are, however, universal factors that can be checked:

1. Graphics: Typically, browsers have to make a connection for each image on a page. The more you have, the longer the load time. Limiting the number and size of graphics can help.

2. Tables: If you use tables, try to break them up into smaller modules. Large tables can negatively impact load times.

3. Multimedia: If it flashes, explodes, spins or blinks, consider ditching it. Yes, it looks great, but is it worth 45% of your audience?

4. Size: Scrutinize the size of your pages. The bigger the page, the slower the load times. It shouldn’t be a problem if the page is comprised of text, but large pages with lots of code will load slowly.

Cheer up if you have a speed problem! Yes, you’ve lost a lot of business, but now you can fix it. Most of your competitors will never figure it out. That puts you ahead of the game.

How To Start An Internet Business - Designing For Usefulness

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 03:07:28 am

The first step to starting any Internet business is conducting keyword research to determine if there is any interest in your idea. Once you identify a need, it’s time to consider what your site should look like.

What Is The Goal?

In considering the look of your site, you first need to determine what elements are needed to promote your service or product. There are endless books, forums and people with adamant opinions on the subject. Some opine a site should be all about linking, while others opine creating a community through message boards is the key. A third set righteously point out a site should be slick or cool, while a fourth group will argue just the opposite. So, who is right and who is wrong? The answer is…all of them.

When developing a site, the goal is actually very simple. Your site should be useful. That’s it, the big secret. The problem, of course, is “useful� means different things for different sites.

A site that provides a service to businesses, such as consulting, should focus on content and linking. A site that promotes something related to entertainment should have an element of cool and have message boards to discuss rumors, etc. A site that sells products should focus on linking and loading quickly, i.e., a simple, clean design. The point is that each site is unique and there is no universal answer. Whatever the particular direction of your site, simply make sure it is useful to your users.

Site Examples

Let’s use Google as our example. What does Google do? It gives users the ability to search and find relevant information. So, should the home page of Google look “cool�? Should it have a lot of content on how to conduct searches? Should it have forums to create a sense of community? No, the home page would be most useful if it simply let you search without bombarding you with a lot of clutter. Indeed, the Google home page is just that.

What about a product site? Let’s use Nomad Journals – http://www.nomadjournals.com - as our example. The site sells writing journals for outdoor activities such as hiking, travel, rock climbing, etc. The site is simple, clean and loads fairly quickly. Unlike Google, the site immediately needs to convey an outdoor impression to visitors. This is accomplished with three outdoor images, a graphic of a “nomad� and images of the journals. The text is keyword dense, but compact and to the point. The page conveys the nature of the product and the “vibe� of the business.

On the other end of the spectrum, consider an entertainment site such as American Idol – http://www.idolonfox.com. The site is slick, offers polls and has community message boards where fans can post messages about the competition. This is a very good layout for this site, but would be horrible for Google or Nomad Journals.

Don’t Rush

From the above examples, you can see that there is no universally correct design for a site. Before charging off to build a site, spend at few days considering what it should look like and WHY. Visit sites that you use frequently. Why do you keep going back? What annoys you about other sites? How do these factors translate to your site?

Once you have the answers, you will be on your way.

Abandonment - Why Visitors Don’t Turn Into Customers

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 03:07:56 am

Abandonment refers to reasons why visitors to a site don’t take a desired action. See if your site has any of these problems. Every good Internet business understands the value of conversions versus hits received.

Every good Internet business understands the value of conversions versus hits received. Far too often, businesses become fixated on the hits they are receiving instead of monitoring their hit to sale conversion rate. This misguided focus is the road to ruin because it fails to take in the issue of abandonment.

Abandonment

“Abandonment� is one of those terms that has a unique meaning when applied to the Internet. The term refers to reasons why a user abandons a site before taking the action the site owner desires, typically purchasing a product or making an inquiry.

There are a number of beautiful sites on the Internet with unique innovations. Unfortunately, these sites rarely turn a profit or unnecessarily limit their profit potential. Site owners must focus on only one thing when building a site – converting visitors to customers. To avoid abandonment issues, you should focus on the following:

1. The site should always load as quickly as possible to accommodate visitors that are using 56k dialup modems.

2. The site should be designed for ease of use, not “what looks good.�

3. All advertisements must click through directly to the items that are being searched, not the home page of the site.

4. Site pages should be kept short to improve load times.

5. Information that is not germane to the product or service should be removed.

6. Flash, music and other “atmosphere elements� of the site should be removed or optional to speed up load times.

7. Signing up for the site newsletter must be incredibly easy.

8. Customers should be required to fill out the minimum of information to make a purchase.

9. Newsletters should be issued in HTML and text since some email systems do not accept HTML.

10. All images should be compressed for quick loading.

11. All links and emails must also include AOL friendly equivalents.

12. All emails must have automatic text wraps at 60 spaces so that the recipient does not receive a disjointed mess of code in their email box.

13. Email communications from the public must be responded to within 24 hours.

14. Communications made after business hours must be responded to first thing in the morning.

15. The site should offer accumulating bonus points for purchases that eventually lead to a “free gift�

16. When an order is shipped, an email should be sent to the customer telling them as much.

The list is fairly endless, but you should always view site designs and advertising from the perspective of the customer. The universal question for each project is, “How could we make this easier for customers?� By emphasizing this approach, you will bypass many of the problems you see on the net and avoid wasting your advertising dollars.

Web Site Design Mistakes � Database Parameters In URLs

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 03:07:26 am

When implimenting a database driven site, thought has to be given to search engine spiders. Placing ID sessions in urls can cause serious problems.

Creating a web site takes thought, planning and execution. Unfortunately, many designs are dead in the water before they are even published as far as search engine optimization is concerned. Whatever you do, avoid these critical mistakes.

Database Parameters in URL

Many web site designers don’t take into account the effect of database parameters in site URLs. A database parameter tells the server what should be loaded onto a particular page when a viewer tries to see it. In essence, the page is “dynamic� because it is being pulled together with each click. Robot programs that are used by search engines to index sites hate dynamic pages. Often, they will not even index the pages and the page of your site is not listed in the search engine.

Let’s look at an example using the Nomad Adventure Journals site. The home page URL is aptly, http://www.nomadjournals.com - a static page. In this URL, there are no parameters telling the server to load anything other than a static web page. All search engines will index this page without any problem.

Now, what if we changed the page to something dynamic. Let’s say we designed it to record the session identification [identify the viewer] and dynamically load the pictures on the page. We would have one parameter for the session identification and four parameters for the various pictures on the page. The URL for the home page might look something like:

http://www.nomadjournals.com/home/index.html?&DID=9&User_ID&CATID=15&ObjectGroup_ID=39

What a mess. A search engine robot is going to balk at indexing such pages. It simply can’t tell what is on the page. If you have parameters and session identifications in the URLs of your site pages, you are going to have a very difficult time getting into the search engine rankings. Obviously, that precludes you from getting any top rankings and free traffic.

Fixing The Problem

Fixing the problem often is lengthy and costly depending on the number of pages on your site. If you have over 100 products, a complete re-design may be the best answer. If you have a relatively small number of pages, there may be less brutish options.

Converting pages to static html is a definite solution for smaller sites. Essentially, one would take the page for each product and convert it into a static html page. The domain would then be converted to short sub-domain. If a user then clicked on the “buy� button for the product on the page, they would be sent to a dynamic database page. The viability of this solution is dependent upon the layout of the site. Some sites can be fixed, some simply cannot.

In Closing

The database parameter problem is surprisingly common with sites selling products. A majority of site designers do not understand search engine optimization and don’t realize the problem they are creating. If you intend to build a database driven site, make sure you bring in a search engine optimization specialist before it is created. Nobody wants to spend the money to design a site twice.

Choosing a web host based on price? Don’t!

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 03:07:56 am

With all the offers of cut-rate web hosting, surely some money can be saved there. Or could cut-rate web hosting actually cost more?

It’s tempting. There are so many companies offering cut-rate hosting – loaded with astounding post-futuristic techno-gizmo features ! – that it just makes sense to save a few dollars, right?

Think again. First, consider how much you would be saving. If you run a business site, saving $5, $10 or even $15 a month is not a big saving. No going concern will become a stopping concern on account of even $15 a month. But the wrong web host can stop a business cold.

Here are three reasons to look beyond price when choosing your web host.

1. Usability. Confession time: I chose my first website host based on price. The control panel was not easy to use, and I often found myself traveling in circles trying to enter it. I switched to my second web host based not just on price, but on usability, and I instantly became a pro. Well, not quite. But I was able to manage my email accounts and learn about CGI, and check my traffic stats and edit my html files right on the server. Not bad for a newbie who couldn’t even find his files on his previous host’s server.

1. Service. I thought my second host had great service. They even answered my emails. Until the dreaded day that some guy with a chip on his shoulder filed a phony spam complaint. I was out in the cold. In fact, they would not answer my emails or even speak to me at all. Meanwhile, my ISP responded to the same phony complaint immediately, sharing with me a copy and giving me a chance to deal with it. That ISP is now my third web host. I pay a little more, but the personal service is worth it. I have no hesitation recommending Phastnet business web hosting services to anybody who wants the assurance that they won’t be hung out to dry at the first whiff of somebody in a bad mood.

1. Reliability. When that phony spam complaint struck, my website was down for four days. Ouch! But there are many other things that can bring down a site. What is your web host’s uptime? And how reliable is its reporting? Other things can happen, like a form not functioning – meaning lost sales. Worse still, what if Google comes crawling just when your site is down? Search engines don’t like sending people to unreliable sites. Website monitoring and network monitoring companies monitor websites for a variety of measures, and the cost is nothing

Simple 3 Step Get a Domain Process

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 03:07:01 am

The Title Says it All 3 Steps to Getting a Domain Name. So You Finally Decided you want your very own Home on the World Wide Web. Many people use Free Services like Geocities or AngelFire for their first home on the Internet. Other Jump

So You Finally Decided you want your very own Home on the World Wide Web. Many people use Free Services like Geocities or AngelFire for their first home on the Internet. Other Jump in and Get their very own domain and then Set up a Hosting account.

Step 1 Decide on a Theme.
It is very important that you decide on a Theme for your web page. Once you decide on a theme you should pick a Name that works well with your Theme. If your theme is about Pets you wouldn’t want your Domain Name to be All-About-Plants. For this example we will choose Debt Reduction and Bill consolidation as our theme

Step 2 Find a Domain Name

Most Internet Guru’s recommend that you get a ‘.com’ for your Domain. It is also best to choose a Domain with Keywords that are Popular for your Theme. Again if your domain is about Pets you probably wouldn’t want plants as part of your Domain Name unless you are Selling a Vegetarian Pet Cook Book.

If You already have a Domain name in Mind then you can skip to step 3 to see if your Domain is available. If Not keep reading step 2 for helpful hints on finding that Perfect domain Name

If you do not have a Domain Name yet and if you are at a Loss at what name to use don’t despair their are a few free online tools you can use. If your web site theme is Debt Reduction and Bill consolidation then you would probably want a Domain Name with one or more of those words in it. If you need help finding Keywords to include in your Domain Name here is a free Keyword Suggestion Tool you can use http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Now that you have some Keywords Picked out you can use either of these free Online Tools to help you find that perfect Domain Name

http://www.nameboy.com/
http://www.domaininformer.com/tools/

Step 3 Register Your Domain

Before you can Register your Domain name you need to make sure it is still available. You can go to the following Whois Server to see if your domain is taken: http://www.internic.net/whois.html

Once you have found that Perfect Domain Name and verified it is indeed available Internic has a List of approved Internet Registrars Here:http://www.internic.net/regist.html

You will notice that the List of Registrars is Long and confusing, A very Popular one is Goddaddy.com Their Pricing is very reasonable and they have a great reputation. Nameboy and Domaininformer from step 2 will also register your Domains.

Host Your Domain

Now All that is left is to host your Domain. There are hundreds of Web Hosts available some good and some not so good. It is really hard to know which ones to use. Findmyhosting.com has a Web Hosting rating service where users rate Web Hosts. They also Tell you the Up time History of your Web Hosts.
Pick your Host Carefully. You may want to ask some of your friends and Associates which Hosts They use.

The Webmaster’s Assistant

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 03:07:23 am

Do people visiting your website like the layout, did they find what they wanted and was the website easy to navigate? Ask them!

There are many tools available to a webmaster to analyse website traffic allowing them to monitor the number of visitors, see what pages have been accessed and even the length of time each visitors spends accessing the website.

However, despite the considerable data available what is missing is anything to tell the webmaster what the visitor was thinking. Did they like or dislike the site? Was the layout easy to understand or just plain confusing? Did they find it easy to navigate and maybe the most important thing, did they find the information they wanted?

A website may be generating sales but why are some people that visit the website not buying anything? Was it because they didn’t like what was being offered or they couldn’t find what they wanted?

Website surveys provide webmasters with an excellent and accurate method of answering these types of questions. Direct feedback from the website visitors cuts to the chase, no need to guess, just ask the visitors themselves how they found the site and if they found what they were looking for.

With an online survey webmasters can find out:-

How often do people visit the website?
How did they arrive at the website?
Are they accessing the website for business or pleasure?
Did they find the information they were looking for?
How easy did they find navigating the website?
Would they recommend the website to others?

A good website survey will be brief and will gather information that once analysed will provide valuable information to help improve the website.

Another alternative to a traditional survey is to embed one or two survey questions within the website after specific procedures. For example at the end of the registration process the visitor can be asked if they found the procedure quick and easy; after ordering an item they could be asked if they found the ordering procedure and payment methods to their liking. To ensure that the questions don’t become repetitive to regular visitors the website can be programmed so that the questions are only asked once per registered user.

Website surveys take the mystery out of working out what visitors think of a website and using online survey websites such as www.surveygalaxy.com they are quick and easy to design and once implemented will really become the webmaster’s assistant.

How to Get Profits from Your 404 Page not Found file.

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 03:07:51 am

How to get benefits from 404 erros. This is the annoying error that we will come across every time we surf the web pages. Internet will be changing every minute and day. The web sites that were here are not found next day. The web pages that were here wit

“‘Page Not Found’ on this Server. Check the URL and try again. Or
Refresh the page…”

This is the annoying error that we will come across every time
we surf the web pages. Internet will be changing every minute and
day. The web sites that were here are not found next day. The web pages
that were here with ‘/page.html’ are changed to ‘/page.shtml’ next day.

Webmasters update their sites and change the links and content. While
they doing so most of them forget one important thing.

“What will happen if somebody bookmarked this page and try to visit
next time?”

Simple…Those people will see these ‘404 Page Not Found Errors’.

Let me tell you some tips how to avoid all these tiny mistakes and get
something from these error pages.

**Custom Error pages:**

Most of the hosting companies allow to create error pages as you like with
your own Html and upload to your website. If you don’t upload your error pages
the server displays default server error pages.

Utilise this oppurtunity. Create a page with any of the following:

1. Put links to other parts of your site. Links to main pages is enough to
navigate back in to your site.

2. Direct links to your products.

3. Promote your Affiliate links.

4. Offer something free from this page like free ebooks, free email course etc.

5. Your Ezine subscription

6. Discount on your product

7. If you are conducting some polls on your site you can keep that poll on
these pages too.

8. Keep an email link on error pages and you can request your visitor to
inform you about the error.

All these keeps your visitor some more time on your web site. Every link
above will be a benefit for you.

**Watch Your Bandwidth:**

DON’T put too much Html or graphics on these error pages. By the time they
will download your visitor might hit the back button or get out of the site.

Lot of graphics also increases your bandwidth usage. The web sites are
continually attacked by viruses. If you have a good web logger and check it
once in a while you will see some hundreds of page requests with ‘404 errors’.
All these 404 errors drain your bandwidth. So keep an eye on size of error pages.

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