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Planning Your Website – Essential Prep

By Paula Wynne in Featured

Before you dive off in your quest to find a website, you need to think about planning, researching and brainstorming your idea.

As you plan your shiny new website, you will understand the need to explore every avenue of your online business so that you are fully prepared. The work you do now will be reinforced along the way.

Naming Your Site

By now you’ll have an idea for your website; Your ideas may have been stewing away in your brain for many years or it may have only popped in for a visit recently and something made you pounce on it.

Before we go into planning your site, one of the first things to consider is the name. Many entrepreneurs have realized the viral effect naming can have on a business. When you go through the process of brainstorming a name, you will come up with all sorts of concoctions.

Domain Names

The most important thing about domain names is: firstly you MUST own it and secondly, find a name that you can use for viral and optimization purposes as well. My book has a lengthy section on how to find a successful domain name. It also explains the difference between a bog standard name and a descriptive, keyword-rich domain name. And it gives you a run down on international versus country domains. Pop over to Amazon if you can’t wait to find out more!

iMindMap

A cool tool to brainstorm is mind mapping. Buzan’s iMindMap brainy piece of software hosts a range of features designed to make you more productive and creative in the way you think.

Mindmapping is like a giant Octopus with colorful tentacles, images and icons that allow you to add notes and links to a range of files.

When brainstorming chapters for my book, I drew up an iMindMap to generate new ideas quickly and effectively and to store them in an organized way. This screenshot illustrates how it can help you to plan and record spontaneous bursts of inspiration, as well as to explore promotions for your future website.

Score Goals

If you haven’t already done so, you will need to set goals and objectives. This way you can establish the exact aim of the site or your potential business. You may have grand plans to sell this brilliant idea of yours for a cash bomb with an exit strategy after a number of years. You might want to manage a small and cozy family business over a long period. Maybe you need to run your online business while working a day job or alongside another business.

Whatever it is you want to do, you need to aspire to something in order to achieve it. Recognition of your aspirations and actually visualizing it, will lead to achievement and result in success.

Niche

Dictionary.com describes a ‘niche’ as “a place or position suitable or appropriate for a person or thing and having specific appeal.”

It’s really important to find your niche and now is the time to research it.

For example: you may be a photographer, so what’s niche about that? Well, maybe you specialize in underwater photography or newly born babies. If you’re a commercial photographer your niche may be shooting scenes such as factory equipment, food or rock concerts.

My Partner and I set up a niche job board (screenshot) that is dedicated to flexible jobs working from home. Take a peek at Remote Employment to see how we found a niche appeal to s specific audience.

Above all, you should only ‘niche’ it up if you love your chosen web concept and you know a lot about it. Don’t settle with a topic you’re unsure about just because you think it will make money. Do what you love the most, where your passion will ride waves and your energy will be unstoppable.

Testing The Market

Research is vital for any project, especially for a full throttle online business. There is a multitude of sites out there so you need to know exactly what you are getting into before you rush ahead, spending money on a fancy website, only to find there are several hundred already doing the same thing. Flip through Create A Successful Website to find a quick test on how to test the market and you’ll find a list of research examples along with loads more content.

Prepping up and setting objectives at this stage will pay off later on. Brainstorm all possible avenues of research so you get all the ‘must do’ tasks out of the way because we are now heading into some pretty exciting stuff.

Best wishes for your website!

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Paula Wynne is the bestselling author of ‘Create A Successful Website‘. She offers practical workshops to help you succeed in your online business. Read more at www.paulawynne

Learn More About Website Planning

By Jack Collins in Featured

Successful projects start with careful planning. No matter what type of project(whether building bridges or organizing world peace), ample thought needs to be given to the task. This is especially true for web development. Engineering the strategy for the site is an absolutely essential phase for both the website developer and the client.

Thorough website planning helps streamline the process for the developer while helping the client gain clarity on their vision and an understanding on the processes to come. A number of questions should be addressed and fully thought about before starting.

Here is a sampling of things to consider:

What needs to be achieved with the website?

Who is the target audience?

What “feelings” should the website design evoke?

How can we express the websites vision?

And this is just the beginning.

No need to get overwhelmed before we start – this is where the fun begins: Planning a website can be a very enjoyable and eye-opening experience when you get to think of all the ways to bring your brand to your space on the web.

Generally, there are 2 perspectives to keep in balance while in the planning stages of the website:

1.) what is your brand and how will it come across on the web to fit with the larger vision of the site? and

2.) how will your users experience the site?

It’s best to keep the original goals of the website in mind as you consider the user’s perspective and how they will use the site. All too often, websites are built entirely around the client’s goals and visions with little consideration about the end user (the customer). Often this creates a disconnect in the site’s purpose and intended function if the user isn’t quite sure how to use the website.

For example, filling the website with industry specific jargon can help build trust in the website visitor, but over doing it can leave the user confused and could ultimately push them to the competition who may talk a bit more “with” the user versus “at” them. Everyone involved in the planning phase must always keep the end user in mind. When a visitor comes to a site, they come with questions and are seeking answers:

Can I trust this company?

Do they do good work?

Are their products affordable?

Can they get my job done?

How to reserve, buy or get more info?

Through careful website planning and design, you want to have all of these bases covered. The website needs to answer these questions with haste and provide an easy way for them to take action – a purchase, filing out a contact form, signing up for your newsletter, etc.

Since the attention span and patience of a typical user is very short, this interaction process needs to be clearly called out so as to not leave them guessing. Some intrigue is OK on a site if that is part of the fun of your brand and the experience of your site, but the user should never stare quizzically at your site for more than a couple minutes asking themselves questions like this: “I just want to do X, but I don’t know how or where to go.” By the time a user has to ask that question, odds are good that they will start looking elsewhere – like a competitor’s site. Just sayin.

A well thought out website plan keeps everyone’s expectations inline and ensures that the developer, the client and the end user all walk away with a positive experience.

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Connective Web Design offers affordable web design and website development services specializing in WordPress, Ecommerce, Social Media and Search Engine Optimization. Visit www.connectivewebdesign.com to learn more!

24 Essential Pages to include on Your Website

By Ivana Katz in Featured

Wondering what pages to include on your website and why? Here is a list of important information that should be included on your site.

Before you start thinking about what to write, it is important that you create a plan, which outlines what each page will contain. That way you won’t repeat yourself or forget vital information. The most common pages on successful websites include:

1. Home Page (First Page)

This is your “sales” page and should provide information about what you can do for your customers. It should also give your visitors a brief overview of what they can find on your site.

2. Products / Services

It is useful to have a separate page for each product/service and write as much detail about each as possible. Start each page with a brief summary of the product/service, then provide whatever information you can. When people are searching for information on the internet, they want to know it NOW. They don’t want to wait until tomorrow when they can speak to you on the phone.

3. Contact Us

Place contact details in as many places as possible. Make it easy for your customers to contact you. Create a special “Contact Us” page, include your details in “About Us” page and also at the bottom of each page. Information to include: business name, physical address, mailing address, telephone, fax, email, emergency number, website address.

4. Pricing

Whenever possible include the price of your products/services. Even if you can’t be specific. It is helpful to put at least a range of prices, eg. Carpet cleaning ranges between $40 – $60 per room.

5. Testimonials / Product Reviews / Before & After

Include testimonials from your current customer to show your potential clients that you are trustworthy, reliable and that you offer great service and/or products. Make sure the testimonials are real and if possible provide contact details of the person who supplied you with the testimonial. If you don’t have any right now, get them! Simply email your customers and ask for their feedback on your business and service.

You could also include before and after photos. Show the problem picture and beside it show the picture of resolution, with an explanation of your product’s benefits.

6. Frequently Asked Questions

This has proven to be a great time saver for many companies. Instead of having to answer the same questions over and over again, place them on your website and keep adding to them. The more information you have on your website, the less time you will need to spend answering questions by email or phone.

Frequently Asked Questions should address your customer’s concerns that may otherwise be an obstacle to making a sale.

7. Response form such as “Subscribe” or “Enquiry” form

An absolute must if you want to build a mailing list. Most people don’t like giving out too much information, so ask only the basics, such as Name and Email Address. Then keep in touch with your customers on a regular basis by sending out information that may be of interest to them. You may even wish to develop your own on-line magazine (ezine). There are many fantastic free or inexpensive programs that can handle this for you.

8. On-line Magazine or Newsletter

This is a great marketing tool. Not only does it help you keep in touch with your customers, but provides your website with fresh content. You can set up your Ezine in 2 different ways:

(a) Email subscribers on a regular basis or (b) Publish it on your website.

Or both. Include information about your business, industry or anything that may be of interest to your customers.

9. Resources/Articles

Add value to your business. Provide information that is complementary to what you do. For example, if you sell wedding dresses include information about reception venues, wedding planners, wedding cakes, flowers. By adding extra information you encourage more hits.

10. About Us

This is a very important page as it tells your customer about who you are and why they should buy your products, services and/or trust your organization. It can also feature your business hours (if you have a bricks and mortar store) or when they can speak to someone on the phone. Many companies also include their mission, details of their staff (photos, biographies, qualifications), recently completed projects, ACN or ABN, logo, directions to your store/office. It is also useful to include details of trade associations you belong to, trade and insurance certificates and any awards you may have won.

11. Guarantee

Offer a money back guarantee. The longer the guarantee, the more effective it will be. It could be 30 days, 60 days, 1 year or lifetime.

12. Survey

Find out what customers think about your website, business or product.

13. Events Calendar

This can relate to your business or industry. If you are an artist, you can feature dates where and when your art will be displayed or if you are a singer, where you will be performing.

14. Search My Website Feature

Some visitors to your side may not know exactly what they want but if you include a search function on your site, they can look for it very easily. Like search engines, this feature will allow your visitors to type in a word or phrase and then search for it on your site. It’s like having your own mini search engines, only instead of it searching the world wide web, it just searches your website.

15. Return/Refund Policy

To make your customers feel more comfortable when making a transaction at your website, you should provide then with your return/refund policy. Ensure it is easy to understand and spelt out step by step.

16. Privacy Policy

Privacy continues to be a major issue for customers shopping online. Concerns about how their information is going to be used is a major barrier when making a sale. Internet shopping experience is built on trust and privacy is the number one ingredient in trust.

17. Site Map

A site map is similar to a contents. It shows visitors how the site is laid out and which sections are where.

18. Copyright Information

Your website should carry a copyright notice to protect its intellectual property. It is generally in the form of “Copyright © 2004, Your Company Name”.

19. Links

Here you can place links to the manufacturers of your products, trade associations or complementary services. When you place links to other businesses, you can request they do the same for you. This will not only bring you more visitors, but may improve your search engine ranking.

20. Media Information

Include any information, articles, photos of your products, staff etc that have appeared in the media – print, TV, radio or internet.

21. News

This can include news about your products/services or about your industry.

22. On-line store

An on-line store allows you sell products directly on the internet 24 hours a day/7 days a week. When building an online store it is important to take in a number of key concepts.

• Make sure that when visitors arrive at your store the navigational mechanisms are simple and effective
• The actual process of placing the order must be simple
• Make sure you accept common and convenient methods of payment
• Continually test your store so you understand your customer’s shopping experience

23. Blog

A blog is a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.” Blogs are typically updated daily or weekly using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Blogs are a great tool as they help with:

1. Communicating with your customers. Blogs provide a way for you to communicate with your customers directly. And it is a two-way communication. You can post a message on your blog and your visitors can easily respond.
2. Search Engine Marketing Blogs give you an increased presence on search engines, like Yahoo! and Google. If you use Blogger (Google’s Blogging Tool), every message you post creates a new page on Google so in a very short time you could have lots of pages pointing to your website
3. Stay Ahead of Your Competition Blogs are relatively new and chances are your competition does not yet use them. So you will be seen as an expert in your industry when you post your knowledge and expertise.
4. Media & Public Relations Blogs are excellent PR tools. You can post your Media Releases and articles and have them picked up by the media.
5. Free or Low Cost

24. Photo Gallery

Even if you do not wish to sell your products on-line, you may wish to showcase your goods or services in a special photo gallery – show how your products or services are being used by your customers. They say “pictures speak a thousand words” and on your website it is particularly important.

Don’t give your customers a reason to visit your competitor’s website and provide them with all the information they may possibly need or want.

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Ivana Katz of Websites 4 Small Business makes it easy for you to get your business on the internet. If you’re looking for a professional and affordable website designer, visit www.web4business.com.au and download a free website plan.

Website Transition Planning Critical When Making Changes

By Jennifer Osborne in Featured

Picture this … you’re ranking really well for an important keyword(s). It’s driving a lot of traffic and life is pretty good.

You decide it’s time to take better advantage of that traffic by giving your site a face lift.

The next thing you know, you’ve fallen out of the SERPS and you’re left shaking your head, not quite knowing what happened.

It’s an all too common scenario. To us Marketing People it was just a “face lift” a “re-skin”. We didn’t really make any major changes that should matter to the search engines.

No reason to let our SEO team know in advance that we’re making these changes. After all, it’s still the same site. or is it? Google doesn’t think so.

© Copyright 2012 All rights reserved. Jayde Online, Inc.

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