Archive for the 'Information Technology' Category
Millions of dollars is spent on market research annually, and countless hours in brainstorming and analyzing, trying to get inside the minds of customers. What is immediately apparent when you are on the buying side of a website page is not so easy to see when your perceptions are clouded by what you are trying to achieve with it.
Here, we look at what top internet consulting firms have learnt about how visitors experience your landing pages. We also look at how to build on your search engine optimization efforts and turn prospects into actual buyers, simply with the power of a good landing page.
Your web page is not going to be useful to every person that clicks on it. This simple fact of life cannot be changed by the best search engine optimization, the most thorough market research or the best web analytics on the globe. As many as 50% of visitors will leave a landing page within the first 8 seconds of viewing it.
Your website design, and all of the non-verbal cues that a good online marketing agency knows how to weave in seamlessly, will be the factor that helps your prospects make a decision about whether this page is for you. Your ultimate aim is to ensure that for people whose needs really do match your offer, the dropout rate is as low as possible.
While there are plenty more in-depth guidelines for each of these elements of landing page design, here are the main website design offenders when it comes to driving away qualified visitors from your landing pages.
Type that is difficult to read, either because it is the wrong color, size, alignment, or typeface
Perceived professionalism of the design - does the site look amateurish, and therefore untrustworthy?
Is the website design of the entire page easy to understand, or will the reader have to scan around to find the action they are supposed to take?
Relevance of headline wording to the visitor’s source - does the message of the landing page headlines match that of the banner ad, PPC ad or other source that guests clicked on?
The design of your form can negate all of your viral marketing and search engine optimization efforts. Keep your forms simple to stop people bailing just to avoid the work of filling them out
Ensure your graphics are related to the benefits of your offer, not to items that visitors do not recognize. Clipart is one of the main culprits in early dropouts, as are obscure logos.
Copywriting is one of the elements that can make or break the conversion for visitors that decide to stick around. Hire a professional, or do extensive research into copywriting for the web to ensure that what you say doesn’t send your visitors packing. Credentials are also useful at this stage, and security logos and other guarantees can help convince your visitors that conversion is safe and worthwhile.
Form design is also a specialized field of website design. For best ROI from your search engine marketing efforts, ensure your forms are error-free, and make them as short as possible. Don’t include ‘Clear Form’ buttons, as if these are mistakenly clicked instead of the Submit button, your prospect simply may not bother filling in all of the information again. Ensure you have an email privacy statement, and give alternative forms of contact with your business for best results.
InetAsia Solutions is a new breed of internet marketing consultancy.Check out our website to find out more about search engine optimization and much more.
[tags]Search Engine,Optimization services,Website analytics,WebTrends demo,Viral marketing[/tags]
Much of web marketing strategy focuses on getting your prospects to the point of conversion - where they are filling out the form - and assumes that the rest will take care of itself. Actually, a fair amount of ill-will is created towards companies when consumers try to convert, but encounter errors or other factors that stop them from converting.
Web analytics and the help of search engine marketing experts can give you a picture of what is happening on your site specifically - however, the first step is to check the general, obvious guidelines. We look at how to push consumers through the process for this small, but critical element of your website traffic.
The website design of your forms is another area of your web marketing strategy where there is no critical mistake that most people make, but a collection of small improvements can have an impact greater than the sum of their parts. Here are some quick tips for best practices in designing forms.
Some areas of website design need to stand out from the norm and provide a little personality - but form design is not one of these. Make them as reassuring, and as close to people’s expectations, as possible. This includes leaving the inside of form fields white, rather than grey, and making the text they are filled out with black. Matching the length of the form field to what people expect is also critical.
If you shorten your form fields to save space on screen, people will wonder if their data is being accepted. If you make the field too long, they will wonder what they are missing. Web analysis tools reveal slower form completion and higher dropout rates when appearance doesn’t match expectation.
Forms need to be like a concierge, or a personal assistant, according to top online marketing agencies. They should do everything possible to help your customer fill them out, holding their hand and guiding them where necessary, and doing things for them when appropriate. For example, put the cursor in the first form field when users arrive at the page so they don’t have to click on it.
When it is known that a certain number of keystrokes indicates that the field is full, have the cursor jump to the next box automatically. Allow people to tab through boxes, rather than making them click on each individually. Give your form the memory of a concierge also - ensure that details are saved if they get distracted and hit a back button, or leave the page without filling it out completely.
Required fields can be the bane of customers’ existence - top search engine optimization services and internet consulting agencies will tell you to ensure that you only ‘require’ fields that are absolutely necessary to complete the transaction. People don’t like giving out their phone number or email address because they don’t want to be spammed. If you want them to convert, try to gain this information at a later stage of the transaction.
On the technical side, drop-down boxes are best avoided - but if you must include them, try pre-filling with a popular answer, or putting the popular answers at the beginning of the box, rather than alphabetically in the middle of a long list. It is this mix of technical savvy and understanding the customer’s point of view that will help your forms convert optimally.
InetAsia Solutions is a new breed of internet marketing consultancy.Check out our website to find out more about search engine optimization and much more.
[tags]Search Engine,Optimization services,Website analytics,WebTrends demo,Viral marketing[/tags]
Laying a solid foundation is extremely important in so many areas of life. These foundations can be physical, for example in your home, but in most cases are more conceptual or metaphysical. Research, due diligence, testing and measurement are all examples of the steps involved in laying a great foundation for a myriad of business activities.
Website design, and its associated internet marketing aims, is no different to any other business activity - groundwork is critical. Before undertaking search engine marketing campaigns, viral marketing or link building, internet consulting experts will tell you to start at the start! The first steps towards creating a great landing page are defining a conversion scenario, and choosing your URL - we give you the step-by-steps.
Your definition of conversion will seem obvious to you once it is stated, but having it as a clear, stated part of the plan will help guide the website design and your online marketing agency’s actions with regards to the page.
If you own an e-commerce site, you might define conversion as adding items to a shopping cart and checking out. Receiving payment is a less immediate action (with processing times), so it is more useful to keep the action close to the time of the visit. If the purpose of your site is to generate leads, then you may define accepting a free offer by submitting a form as the conversion activity.
If your internet marketing consultancy or viral marketing campaign manager has advised that stronger branding is needed for your site, then your conversion activity might be defined as spending longer than a set amount of time viewing the page, or interacting with the site. Supplementary research, in addition to web analytics results on time spent and page view counts, may include an intent to purchase or brand awareness study.
If you are trying to build customer relationships, then opting to receive communications from the publisher may be your conversion activity. Communications may be defined as email or print newsletters, an RSS feed or irregular updates. If you are trying to gain members to your site, then the conversion process will be complete once customers have filled out the necessary membership details, and clicked submit.
Online marketing agencies know this is sometimes easier than it sounds! If viral marketing or outreach is your conversion scenario, then you might choose to measure links emailed, use of social bookmarking tools on the page, or to track blog links.
This information seems trite and obvious, but keeping this definition in mind when creating the website design of your landing pages can help boost ROI and conversions. Landing pages that are watered down with several aims, or that seem disparate from the advertising or link that led a person to click on them do not convert well.
Similar guidelines need to guide your URL selection. Your website developer will be able to help you decide whether you need a separate URL to your regular domain, whether you should personalize URLs for each target, or whether many URLs will lead to the same landing page.
If you will be advertising the URL in print, for example, it should be easy to re-type, as people won’t be able to click on the link or to cut and paste. Internet marketing experts recommend making your URL easy to remember, as much traffic comes from people typing an address directly into their browser.
InetAsia Solutions is a new breed of internet marketing consultancy.Check out our website to find out more about search engine optimization and much more.
[tags]Web Analytics ,Internet Marketing ,Search Engine Optimization,Website Design,WebTrends[/tags]
In business, it is very likely that times will come when there would be some form of trouble that would result in a loss of data by companies. A typical example is what happened during the September 11, attack on the world trade center where tons of documents were irretrievably lost. While some companies were smart enough to back some of their crucial data up, others basically lost everything.
Imagine a situation where you lose the contract form for a business contract that you really want to any form of mishap. That’s how bad it can get. Any smart business owner should know that while disasters may not be envisaged, it can happen.
Disasters do not necessarily have to be in the extremes such as floods, earthquakes and harsh weather conditions such as whirlwinds or cyclones, it could be just internal fires in the building or the mistaken shredding important documents. As a result of the potential harm loss of data can cause, it is very important to have a disaster recovery solution plan in place. This will ensure that even if all physical documents or data are lost, their soft copies can be retrieved from paces where they are stores.
To effectively plan a disaster recovery plan, certain steps need to be taken. These are:
1. Make an inventory of all potential risks: It is crucial for the IT department of a company to make a list of all potential causes of data losses and the possible solutions. Also included in this should be a list of risks that the company can afford to tale or data that may not harm the company very much of it is lost and those that it cannot with all the preventive measures and damage control measures. If the business is a small company just starting up, the best bet is to hire a team of IT experts to make a quick inventory and present the management with their conclusions.
2. Make a rating for all of these potential dangers: This is very important in enabling a company decide what is important and what isn’t. A good example of this is a web hosting company with servers locate on site. An assessment of the effects of earthquake as against power outage is likely to show that the earthquake will be ranked fairly low compared to the power outage. So, the rating for each company would be customized to that company as each has its own unique needs and problems.
3.Develop the disaster recovery plan: This includes taking note of the time it would take for the recovery plan to be executed and the length of time a company can afford to remain out of reach before losing its customers. For example, a web hosting company that goes offline for just 24 hrs is likely to lose most of its clients to its competition.
4. Test your solution: After installing or putting the solutions in place, test the services. But ensure that your clients know about it so they don’t get worried.
State of the art data centres with high-tech back-up facilities. Contact us in our facilities in Toronto and Vancouver. Data Centre in Toronto
[tags]data centres, technology, computers, it[/tags]
While much effort and research has been put into both general website design, and the content of your pages, relatively little has been published about the effect of typeface on your profit prospects.
Yet typeface design is one of the most powerful characteristics of your site, with the power to drive readers away before they’ve read a single word, or to create a user-friendly experience that allows the value of your offer to shine through. We look at going beyond the content of your type, for search engine optimization, to the design of your type, for profit optimization.
Size is the most important consideration in typeface design. Types smaller than 9pt are difficult to read even for your customers with 20/20 vision, and if your target market is under 12 or over 45, you will instantly negate any good work in your web marketing strategy by discouraging people from reading your site.
10 point or larger fonts are advisable, and where there are large or long blocks of text, 12 point is recommended. Internet consulting firms and online marketing agencies recognize some areas where smaller type is recommended, for example in captions, legal notices and copyright indications. Leaving these notices the same size as your textual type will create confusion and diffused focus for your reader.
Look at the width of your text across the screen in conjunction with your type size when planning your website design. As your typeface becomes smaller (for example, if you need to fit a lot of text onto a page without the need for scrolling), the columns that you set text in will also need to be thinner.
We have trouble reading anything more than 60 characters to a column, and this is why newspapers often have such thin columns. Your internet consultancy or website designer will need to create fixed width columns, so that their size doesn’t change automatically when someone opens your page in a wider-than usual browser window, though.
When it comes to font choice, many website design and development programs simply don’t leave you much choice. You’ll have access to Arial, Georgia, Times New Roman, Verdana and Trebuchet, and not very much else. This is because this is part of the list of web-safe fonts for Windows based operating systems.
Users need to have a particular font installed on their machine to be able to read it on your website, which is why the list of web-safe fonts is relatively small. Researching the full list of web-safe fonts online is relatively easy, and you’ll need to do different research for Mac-based or Windows-based website design.
Alignment is another significant issue that matters little to your SEO marketing strategy, but is immediately apparent to visitors trying to read your site. Centered text is very difficult to read, and while full-justified text looks neat from a distance, it can also be difficult to read.
Left-aligned text with a ragged edge is often easiest to read - although design-wise, it can also be valuable to have the clean look of full justification. Web analytics consistently shows lower conversion rates with centered or even right aligned text.
InetAsia Solutions is a new breed of internet marketing consultancy.Check out our website to find out more about search engine optimization and much more.
[tags]WebTrends,Web Analytics ,Internet Marketing ,Search Engine Optimization,Website Design[/tags]
Twitter, in case you have been living in a cave for a while, refers to the popular site of social networking that has gained the utmost of prominence recently. It has been found to be a very effective means of mass communication and many users are using Twitter to promote their services and products.
This assists people and organizations in building their online business. Twitter is an immense community of people that offers diverse interests as well as backgrounds. Twitter only offers a character limit of 140 and doing business in such a limited space can be challenging. But 140 characters with a link to your site, and none of Googles some what Adwords restrictions, can bring in a lot of results.
Before using Twitter, it is best to follow others promoting their business and see the way they are tweeting and handling things. It would also be beneficial to read all of Twitters rules, learn their limits and go slowly at first. This will give you a realistic view of things that you can and can not do. There are plenty of users hawking the latest ClickBank Twitter product that promises huge incomes and thousands of followers. Investing in these can be beneficial, but use their advice sparingly. I myself have found many fine external Twitter applications this way that makes my Twittering experience much more relaxed.
Twitter visibility has also gained popularity with politicians worldwide, ranging from promoting their foreign affairs agenda’s to reporting on their press coverage. They do this because of the spontaneous and real time nature of Twitter. Most people love Twitter as it offers the latest popular news within few minutes of the occurrence. This technically makes it possible for everyone on the planet including yourself to become a news reporter as you have the same access as everyone else.
There are many ways to gain followers and to make your self popular on Twitter, but nothing beats just everyday networking with other users. One excellent site to registure with as soon as possible is Twellow. It is like the yellow pages of Twitter. On this site once you are registered, you can search for and follow other members by extensive category lists. You can also register yourself on Twellow in upwards of 10 different categories, so other users can find and follow you as well. I get new followers everyday from people searching through Twellow.
You might want to spruce up your Twitter background through many of the excellent online sources that offer custom as well as a multitude of free Twitter backgrounds. You can add your photos and websites urls to your backgrounds, though they won’t be clickable links, they still manage to expose your websites to your visitors. Another good idea is to set up an automated welcome email to go out to the users who decide to follow you. You can do this at Tweetlater or Twitterhit.
In closing, I would suggest not to use Twitter simply to spam other people with a hundreds of tweets per day. You will probably find your account closed if you do.
Twitter is a wide open range with gaggles of Tweeters of all species, who all seemingly have a healthy capitalistic interest, but use it sparingly. Get to know some of your friends on Twitter by replying to some of their tweets and you will probably be pleasantly surprised from the interaction.
Please visit our site Twitter Apps for more information and videos and also Best Twitter Tools for more Twitter resources.
[tags]twitter,how to twitter,twitter software,twitter apps,twittering,Twitter Traffic,twitter tools[/tags]
If you are looking to build a website for your business or a website of any kind for that matter, then you want your website to look as flawless and professional as possible. You may think that there is no way that you will be able to create this type of website yourself, but fortunately, you will be able to achieve this sort of website. You can achieve this style of website by using a professionally designed template for your website.
What is a Professionally Designed Template?
A professionally designed template is a template that is already created and ready for you to use on your website. The template is a ready made layout and look for your website. There is an abundant amount of different designs and layouts that you can choose from when you choose to go with a professionally designed template.
Just because you opt to go with a professionally designed template does not mean that you can not personalize your website to fit your style and personality. The vast majority of professionally designed templates allow you to make changes to the template that suits you and your style best.
The great things about Professionally Designed Templates:
You can achieve a respectable, professional looking website. You are able to make changes in the layout in order to customize the layout to your needs.
A professionally designed template provides you with a website, quickly. You can leave all the hard work up to the professionals. You do not have to be a computer wiz to have a website with professionally designed templates. The hard work is completed for you!
There is a large selection of pre made templates for you to choose from. This allows you to select a template that you like. You can choose the template that you like and that will work best for your website.
If you are interested in obtaining a professionally designed template for your website, then you are probably wondering how you are able to get one. If you are going through an online website creator, then most of these websites have an option where you can create your template manually using HTML codes or the option of selecting a professionally designed template. If you are going through a website building company, then you should inquire with the company about professionally designed templates for your website.
Choosing a professionally designed template is a great way to create a website that looks amazing. A professionally designed template will also save you an enormous amount of time and keep you from getting caught up in any complications of trying to create one yourself. You will find that by selecting a professionally designed template, you will be able to get your website up and running in no time and still achieve the look that you had in mind.
A professionally designed template for your website does not mean that your website will look bland and boring and similar to every other website on the internet. You can customize, personalize, and edit the professionally designed template in certain ways in order to make it your own and suit your website and your style.
Todd Raymer Internet Marketer
Brought to you by Vital Webs see how easy it is to build your own website today.
[tags]websites, website design, website[/tags]
We have all had an encounter with a website before that had extremely poor navigation tools on the website. When this kind of incident occurs, we often find ourselves getting frustrated with the website quite quickly and sometimes we even leave the website. For a lot of websites, poor page navigation is an issue. Website owners need to realize the importance of managing their page and having simple, easy to use navigation tools on their websites. If a website fails to have this on their website, then they could find themselves losing website traffic which is the exact opposite of what you want when you have a website. You want to have as much traffic on your website as possible, but this is not likely if you have poor navigation and page management.
The management of your website and the page navigation of your website may not seem like a big deal, but in reality it is. It may not seem like a big deal to you, but it is a big deal to the visitors of the website since they are the ones who have to encounter the poor page and navigation management.
Page and Navigation Management
Here are the reasons why page and navigation management are important for a website and how page and navigation management should be maintained:
Website visitors want to be able to visit your website and view a well maintained and orderly website. The visitors of your website want to be able to see an organized website, that is neat and clear. It should be easy for website visitors to navigate to another section of your website, and be able to do so flawlessly and quickly. Poor navigation can cause visitors to become irritated and frustrated. This sometimes causes website visitors to leave the website completely and not return. A website who displays disorderly, messy, and disorganized pages leaves website viewers confused and also leaves a negative impression on the viewers. Having poor page and navigation management on your website leaves a negative impression on website viewers, but a website that has organized and simple page and navigation management is likely to leave a professional impression on the visitors of the website.
Achieve higher traffic
If you want to see a high or higher amount of traffic volume on your website and have your website taken in a serious manner, then you need to understand the importance of page and navigation management. However, you need to do more than just understand the importance of it, you need to put good page and navigation management to work on your website.
It may not seem like a big deal to you, but it is taken seriously by website viewers. You are likely to lose traffic on your website if you have poor management on your website. However, a website with exceptional page and navigation management is much more likely to have higher levels of traffic volume and also be taken more seriously. The page and navigation management on your website can make or break your website. Make your website better by improving your page and navigation management.
Todd Raymer Internet Marketer
Brought to you by Vital Webs see how easy it is to build your own website today.
[tags]websites, website design, website[/tags]
Just like the vast majority of websites on the internet, you want your website to be top notch. If you are looking for new ways to take your website to the next level, then you may want to consider an intuitive text and image editor for your website. You may not be aware of what an intuitive text and image editor is or what it can do for your website, but an intuitive text and image editor can be an extremely handy tool for your website.
What is an Intuitive Text and Image Editor?
If you are unfamiliar with what an intuitive text and image editor is, then do not worry. You are not the only one, there are plenty of people that are completely unaware of what this is. However, you are about to find out. An intuitive text and image editor is a tool that you can use on your website for numerous different editing purposes. Here are some of the things that you can use an intuitive text and image editor for on your website:
You can use the intuitive text editor to translate text of foreign languages. You can also use the intuitive text editor in some cases to read encryption codes. An intuitive text editor on your website can allow website visitors to read your content if they are unfamiliar with your language. An image editor will allow you to edit images on your website, such as graphics, pictures, or logos that are on your website.
There are so many uses for an intuitive text and image editor on your website. You will be amazed at how beneficial an intuitive text and image editor will be for your website. There are so many great things that you can use the tools for. It will not only help you and your website, but it will also be beneficial to the visitors of your website.
An intuitive text and image editor is a great way to give your website a great update and an edge over other websites on the internet. Having an intuitive text and image editor is an amazing tool to have for your website. The functions of the tool will prove to be extremely handy in multiple ways. You will be completely satisfied with your decision to add an intuitive text and image editor to your website.
The best thing about intuitive text and image editors is not only do they do multiple amazing things, but they are also relatively inexpensive. With the numerous functions that the editors perform, the software practically pays for itself. You will not regret equipping your website with an intuitive text and image editor. The intuitive text and image editor will prove to be nothing but helpful in so many different ways.
Purchasing software
If you are interested in obtaining an intuitive text and image editor for the use of your website, then you will be delighted to know that you can purchase the software from the internet itself, or you can purchase the software directly from a computer software retailer. The best thing about purchasing the software is that regardless of where you make your purchase, you will not be spending an outrageous amount.
Todd Raymer Internet Marketer
Brought to you by Vital Webs see how easy it is to build your own website today.
[tags]websites, website design, website[/tags]
If you are running a website of some sort and your website at some point for one reason or another requires your website visitors or users to fill out some sort of documents, then using the old fashioned, traditional method of paper forms is a tad bit obsolete in this day and age. In other cases, you may be sick and tired of filling out paper documents for your business or website and having them filed away or piled around your office or desk. The best thing to do to fix this problem in both situations is to convert over to the new age of filling out forms and go for web forms.
What are Web Forms?
Web forms are exactly what they say they are. Any document that you need filled out can be done online instead of manually filling out the form by hand on paper. The form can be filled out over the internet by using your keyboard. This is great for numerous reasons and here are some of those reasons and the benefits of web forms:
Web forms will save you from having stacks of papers or cluttered papers. You will have no need for file cabinets or file folders. Web forms can be filled out over the internet and saved on to your computer. Your website visitors can fill out any forms using web forms, which make it much quicker. You are also being eco friendly because you are no longer using paper, so you are saving trees and helping the environment. Managing web forms is much easier than manually filing and managing physical forms. You can have all different sorts of web forms, whether you need tax forms, web applications, enrollment documents, or customer order forms among many other web forms. If you have a form, you can make it available in a web form.
You will find web forms to be extremely helpful in more ways than one. Your forms will be saved on to your computer, which saves physical office and desk space. You can receive forms from clients, customers, or website visitors quicker. You can manage, file, and locate forms quickly and easily all on your computer. Plus, you are no longer using paper which is great for the environment.
Get with the times
Using web forms is a great way to take your website or business to the next level. There is no need to stay in the past and use old fashioned methods. Make your website or business new school instead of old school and convert over to using the new methods of filling out documents and forms with the web form method.
Your customers, clients, website visitors, and you will be much happier using web forms versus some other method. Once you begin using web forms, you will wonder why you did not start using them earlier. Filling out documents and forms the old fashioned way is something that no one enjoys anymore. Technology and the internet are changing the way that we do virtually everything.
Todd Raymer Internet Marketer
Brought to you by Vital Webs see how easy it is to build your own website today.
[tags]websites, website design[/tags]





