If you do not currently have a website, or you’re dissatisfied with your current website, you have a wide range of choices available to help rectify the situation.  One of the best options out there is to choose to use a freelance web design specialist.  While you will most certainly find many large companies offering website design, going with a freelance developer provides you with some singular advantages.  What benefits will you discover?

With a freelance web design expert, you gain access to a private specialist.  If you opt to make use of a large company, you will likely never speak one-on-one with the designer.  You might even find that multiple designers have a hand in creating your website.  While this sounds like a great idea on the surface, it can lead to some serious complications, such as poor communication, a lack of cohesion in design and theme, as well as impaired functionality of the website.

With a freelance web design specialist, you can bypass these issues, because you will work directly with the designer, rather than having to go through another person.  This eliminates the problem of miscommunication.  You will also find that the design and theme of your website will be seamless, because it will be implemented by the same individual who designed it.  This will also ensure proper functionality of your website.

Next, by using a freelance web design professional, you will gain access to some advanced skills that you might otherwise miss.  For instance, most freelance designers have a specialty, whether that’s Flash animation or something else altogether.  When you make use of such a designer, you are able to take advantage of his or her expertise.  If you opt for a large company, you may or may not be able to locate such an expert and your design will suffer because of this.

Working with a freelance web design professional is your best option if you want a custom website, rather than a cookie-cutter solution.  If you want your website to stand out from the crowd and benefit from clean design, perfect functionality and inimitable style, there is no better solution for your needs.  You will find an incredible number of such designers on the Internet, though, so you will need to ensure that the designer you choose has the expertise required to create a dynamic, compelling website for you.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Marketing has always been a necessity for businesses.  Without marketing, there can be no sales.  Without sales, there can be no business. This same cycle holds true on the Internet.  However, how do you market online?  What does Internet marketing have to do with the success or failure of your business?  Internet marketing is very different from other forms of marketing, but for all of those differences, there are a lot of similarities as well.  Do you actually need Internet marketing, though?

In this modern world, ensuring that your company has the right online marketing strategy is not only important, it is essential.  More and more consumers are coming to feel that if your company does not have an online presence, you are somehow less viable than are other companies.  This holds true for local businesses, as well as for national and even international companies.  In short, if you do not have a web presence, and you do not know what your company is doing to market itself online, then you need to get busy.

Internet marketing can be done in a number of different ways.  Banner ads provide considerable benefits, as do Flash widgets.  You’ll also find static text advertisements such as PPC ads that are targeted to consumers’ searches through online search engines like Google and Yahoo.  Affiliate marketing is yet another form of Internet marketing, which actually harnesses other people to do your marketing for you.  The beauty of this form is that if those marketers do not perform, they do not get paid.

SEO (search engine optimization) is yet another manner in which you can market online.  This is actually a series of techniques, more so than a single procedure.  It relies on using a particular density of a specific keyword within text on the Internet and goes hand in hand with article marketing, custom content development and many other aspects of Internet marketing.

As you can see, the world of Internet marketing has come a long way, indeed.  It is just as viable (or more) as traditional marketing in print, on the radio or through television.  In fact, some experts expect online marketing to dethrone traditional print promotional methods as the methodology of choice, simply because Internet marketing lets your ad be seen by millions of people, as opposed to the few who flip the page in that magazine, or tune into that particular station on the TV.

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Popularity: 2% [?]

The Internet has changed drastically in a very short time.  Web 1.0 is dead and gone and Web 2.0 methodologies have taken its place.  Where once the Internet was a place of static websites, limited interactivity and almost no personality, things are very different today.  For example, this is best illustrated by the phenomenon known as blogging.  This provides individuals, companies and organizations with the means to disseminate information, interact with others and maintain a different type of web presence.  As such, WordPress is the most popular blogging platform.  What does WordPress offer?

Obviously, WordPress is designed to be a blogging platform.  The system excels at this and provides users with the means to easily create their own blogs.  Free templates, paid templates and even custom designed solutions can be found with incredible ease.  In addition, WordPress provides some powerful tools for users to track visitors, interact with their readers and much, much more.  However, WordPress is not just for blogs.

WordPress blogs can actually be used as mini-websites for any needs.  Whether you are an affiliate marketer, a Fortune 500 company or an individual interested in selling homemade handicrafts, these mini-websites are powerful options that can increase your web presence with minimal effort.  In fact, these types of websites are becoming the norm for many people, from multinational corporations to private individuals.

Of course, using WordPress blogs for their original purpose is still the most popular option.  This is because blogging is the best way to share information and to make customers and clients aware of your existence.  As such, blogging can be the cornerstone of a powerful online marketing campaign and can provide your customer with the means to interact with you on a more personal level.  This has the benefit of providing your company with a more personable presence – your customers can feel as though they are interacting with an actual person, rather than some anonymous corporate presence.

WordPress blogs and mini-websites offer many benefits, no matter what your particular needs might be.  They can even be hosted on your own website, or they can be linked to from another online location.  These tools are some of the most cost effective options available of you desire increased profitability, increased market saturation and better public relations – that should be of interest to any company or organization.  Using such a tool effectively is also quite simple and you will find that it requires very little effort.

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Popularity: 5% [?]

For every wordpress user out there, it is a must to have certain plugins installed. Without these plugins a change to success will be very small. Your blog needs to be visible in search engines, you dont want spam on your blog, your blog needs to fit on mobile devices, you need to track your visitor stats, you want a fast loading wordpress site, etc. Below i have collected a top 10 list of must have plugins for your wordpress site / blog.

1. Akismet: If you love spam, do not install this. If you hate spam just like most of us this is a must have plugin. Akismet checks all comment, and if it is spam the comment will be moved to the spam folder.

2. All in One Seo Pack: This pack helps you to make you wordpress blog SEO friendly (seo = search engine optimization), this is a must if you want you blog positive in the search engines.

3. Google XML Sitemap: This plugin will create a sitemap about your blog, this helps google and other search engines to index your website.

4. Digg Digg: This plugin enables you to add all the social bookmark buttons to your blog posts and pages like: Digg, Reddit, Dzone, YBuzz, Twitter, Facebook, Polladium, Stumbleupon and Delicious.

5. WP Super Cache: This plugins creates static HTML pages from you wordpress blog so it does not have  to reload the PHP codes everytime the page is loaded. This results to a faster loading website.

6. WPtouch: These days a lot of people use a iPod Touch or iPhone. WPtouch is a theme package for your iPhone. It makes your wordpress website load faster and shows the content beautiful on these mobile devices.

7. TinyMCE Advanced: This plugin ads 15+ addons to the admin post area to help you write your post the way you want. Wordpress also automatically removes the <p> and <br\> tags, when you write a post. You can disable this when you install this plugin.

8. Google Analytics: We all like to keep track of our visitors. The Google Analytics for WordPress plugin automatically tracks and segments all outbound links from within posts, comment author links, links within comments, blogroll links and downloads.
8.1. Pixelstats: Pixelstats is a good alternative for Google Analytics.

9. WP DB Backup: This plugin simple gives you the option to backup your database in one simple click. Definitely a must have plugin. It also allows you to optimize database, repair database, restore database, delete backup database , drop/empty tables and run selected queries.

10. AdSense Manager: Or Advertising Manager, will manage and rotate your Google Adsense and other ads on your Wordpress blog. Like Google Adsense, AdBrite, Adify, AdGridWork, Adpinion, Adroll, Chitika, Commission Junction, CrispAds, OpenX, ShoppingAds, Yahoo!PN, and WidgetBucks ads.

Well go ahead and make sure you have all these plugins installed. If you have other plugins that you think are a must have. just leave a comment with the plugin.

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Popularity: 20% [?]

‘Join us on Twitter’, Join us on Facebook etc. –These are some of the commonly seen expressions and integral components of every organization’s marketing strategy. Almost every company is aware of the power of social media marketing but confused about the ways to leverage its power for building network & get maximized gains from the same.

Well, the answers to these concerns lie in clear understanding of the importance of social media networks, which paves way for social media marketing (SMM). As perComScore reports, today 734.2 million or two-thirds of the world’s 1.1 billion Internet users, 15 & older visited at least one social networking site in May, 2009.

To gain success in SMM, you must be able to clearly define the primary objectives of your SMM campaign. Here is a list of some common goals, valid for most businesses. However, you need to decide what suits you the best as a short-term objective, to be achieved first. 

• Brand visibility & promotion
• Customer Relationship Management
• Community Involvement with your Product
• Lead & Sales generation
• Polls & Surveys
• Hiring

Now How to execute it?

• To best leverage the power of different Web-based SMM platforms, it’s vital for you to align your core business objectives with the appropriate SMM strategy. Your strategy must be a product of your business goals and target market. For instance, if your niche target audience comprises of professionals then it’s recommended that you concentrate largely on platforms such as LinkedIn, Ecademy, Xing etc.
• Choose the most appropriate goals listed above and then the right channels to use the power of social media networks. Once you’re done with that, you can now start thinking on the lines of leveraging the power of each selected channel.
• Spread the right message about your brand on different chosen platforms on a consistent basis.
• Clearly segregating the short & long-term SMM objectives as SMM offers both short as well as long-term returns.
• Concentrate on quality, not the quantity of implementation of your SMM campaign.

We, at LimeDomains, also understand the profound significance of social media marketing, and therefore have created our groups on some prominent social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter.

Join us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter!

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Popularity: 2% [?]

Link building is very important for increasing the search engine rankings. Link building professionals should know everything in detail about link building as this would help you in achieving more success in less time. Link building professionals should be well versed with all the link building terms. Here are the 15 link building terms which a link building professional should know:

1. Anchor Text/optimization: It is the visible and click able text in a hyperlink. It plays a significant role in building text links.
2. Anchor text optimization:This can really help you to rank well in Google’s search engine & can be done by including relevant keywords in the links pointing to your website. More emohasis should be given on keywords as it will help the Google’s ranking algorithm understand what is your website all about.
3. Backlinks: These are the inbound links to a web page or website. More quality and relevant back links helps in increasing the importance & relevancy of a website.
4. Google Sandbox: This is the term where in Google places the new domains after temporarily reducing their page ranks. It restricts the seo professionals to manipulate the Google’s page ranking.
5. Image Link: This is the hyperlink that appears on an image.
6. Landing Page: This is the page where the visitors arrive at after clicking on a link. It is also known as lead capture page.
7. Link Baiting: It helps to catch visitor’s attention.With the help of this technique, one can bring more visitors by publishing unique and popular content on the web.
8. Link Farming: Building more links artificially refers to link farming. It is the process of exchanging the reciprocal links with other websites.
9. Link Popularity: This term is used to describe the worth of a website in search engines. Websites that have more quality and relevant would enjoy more link popularity.
10. Relevant Links: Links which are of same nature or category as your website are referred to relevant links.
11. No follow: By adding this tag to a link you can restricts spam link builders from bulk link building.
12. One-way links: These links points to a website without any reciprocal links.
13. Page rank: It is an algorithm used by Google for analyzing the links.
14. Reciprocal links: One can use this technique by exchanging links with the other sites. This would help both the sites to increase traffic.
15. Serps: This refers to search engine results page where you land after doing a keyword search in a search engine.

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Popularity: 6% [?]

Originally posted at Doshdosh.com

Getting users engaged with your content can result with a sale, subscription, bookmark and return visit. One of best ways to increase reader engagement is to make sure that your site architecture interlinks related content and displays them in a way which encourages the user to click around. If the first article doesn’t result in a subscription, the second might.

A term commonly used to measure visitor engagement is the bounce rate, which is the percentage of initial visitors who leaves your site after arriving at the entry page. These are visitors who ‘bounce away’ after arriving without viewing other pages on your site. You can easily find your site’s bounce rate by using stats tools like Google Analytics.

A low bounce rate means that visitors are exploring your website in greater detail. This can be inferred to mean that they are more engaged with your content. In a recent article, Jakob Nielsen suggested that the bounce rate remains an important metric.

Given growing bounce rates, we must stop using “unique visitors” as a metric for site success. Site tourists who leave a site immediately ratchet up the unique visitor count, but don’t contribute long-term value. On the contrary, bouncers should be considered anegative statistic: the site failed to engage them enough to entice even a second pageview.

Nielsen suggested that the bounce rate must be analyzed separately for four main different sources of visitors: low-value referrers, direct links from other sites, search engine traffic and loyal users. The reason for this is simple: visitors relate to your website differently, depending on their needs. The originating source indicates observable behavior patterns.

A loyal user might visit your site via a feed reader and exit after reading a new article because he/she is up to date with your archives. A user with a desire for very specific knowledge will visit your site through a search engine and can be easily tempted to click around. A casual visitor might hit one of your pages while browsing through social channels like StumbleUpon.

The point to note is that bounce rates will vary depending on the source and hence, they should be analyzed in comparison to previous sets of similar data and not across different sources. For example, the performance of search engine referrals should be measured against previous bounce rates and not against another visitor source like Digg.

Measuring Your Bounce Rate Against Overall Site Goals

However, comparing the historical bounce rates across different visitor sources will show the value of the traffic you’re receiving. Assuming that low bounce rates result in purchases, subscriptions or return visits, you can find the best performing traffic source. The important thing is to ultimately plot the bounce rates for each source against your overall site goal.

Apart from the referrer source, several other issues influence variations in bounce rates. For example, the purpose of your website, its current design and the goal of the specific entry page. It’s difficult to determine a standard bounce rate to use as a yardstick, although analytics expert Avinash Kaushik does offer some suggestions in an excellent article:

Bounce rate is a metric you’ll easily find in all web analytics tools… It won’t have all the answers for you, but it will help you focus very quickly on what’s important, show where you are wasting money and what content on your site needs revisiting. As a benchmark from my own personal experience over the years it is hard to get a bounce rate under 20%. Anything over 35% is a cause for concern and anything above 50% is worrying.

Understanding that blogs are a little different from other static sites, Avinash suggests that a 50% bounce rate for blogs is somewhat normal and a 75% rate would be a cause for concern.

Yardsticks can be useful but as I’ve mentioned, its important to not just observe bounce rate alone but its movement and impact on a specific overall goal like conversion ratios. As you are unable to ascertain the bounce rates of your competitors or peers, you need to focus more on the historical performance of your own site and study trends to discern visitor patterns.

Are lower bounce rates resulting in more purchases or subscriptions? Which type of visitors often result in high bounce rates and are there ways to change that by manipulating on-the-page elements such as link placement? What are your high-traffic pages and how can bounce visitors from it to other conversion-friendly pages on your site?

Improving Your Bounce Rate and Getting More Page Views

There is much to write on this topic. Each website has different goals or requirements so I’ll not delve too much into details but talk about overall strategies. First of all, the bounce rate is very much influenced by what is visible to the visitor. They are much more likely to click to another page when they are presented with very relevant links, call-to-actions or information.

It’s all about optimizing webpages and connecting them into a unity which adds value for both the loyal reader and the visitor who’s coming in blind from a referral site or search engine. Assume that your visitor knows nothing about your site. Assume that they want more information. Make navigation points easy to access, position links around content.

Nielsen suggests that a 2-step program to lower your bounce rates:

1. Test your site with a group of users. Ask them to enter your site from specific pages. Get feedback based on their experiences. This will give you ways to improve.
2. Expose next steps. Give visitors actions to take if they are interested in the current page. Add links to more information at the bottom of the copy or within content.

There are many ways to orient your visitors and the most important principle is to make the links highly visible and relevant to the current page. Let’s look at the BBC, a news site which I’ve always admired for their excellent interlinking practices. Here are screen-shots of individual story pages. Take note of the well positioned links on the sidebar:

For publishers, the BBC content model shows how pages can be well integrated into a cohesive unit, thus encouraging users to bounce from the entry page to another. From the examples, you’ll see that content producers can include many additional links:

1. Links to feature articles with in-depth analysis
2. Links to other news articles on the same topic
3. Links to a dedicated reference page dealing with only the specific topic
4. Links to a comment section/forum to invite participation by readers
5. Links to a Back story or general background information
6. Links to a multi-media presentation (audio/video)

You can do the same for other static sites that aren’t publications. Just keep in mind that the main goal is to anticipate user interest and needs by creating web pages which continue to funnel them from the original entry page to other parts of your site.

To best achieve this, you should regularly analyze your bounce rate, while studying your competitors and testing your site with a group of users. After amassing data, implement changes to your site and see if the bounce rate improves. Also, determine how it affects your goals. Finally, make changes if necessary.

If you’ve not paid any attention to your bounce rate before, try starting today. It might help you to dramatically improve your website.

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Popularity: 10% [?]

Originally posted at Inspectedelement.com

As a web designer, it is difficult for me to use the web without analysing almost every page I see. Web design is my passion so I can’t avoid it. It’s one of the best ways to learn what has been done well so when I see poor use of design on the web and think about the average user, it annoys me to notice that some aspects of websites, or even complete sites, are poorly designed.

Here are seven of the most common mistakes made in web design and why you need to avoid them at all costs in order to make sure you are on the right track to producing the best work you possibly can.

1. Unnecessary Use of Flash

First of all, Flash is great when used well. For example, the current state and popularity of online video streaming with sites like YouTube wouldn’t exist in the way it does without it.

The problem is that beyond this the disadvantages of using Flash far far outweighs the benefits in almost all cases. Being a browser plugin, it has a reputation of slowing down computers by using excessive CPU. Flash 10.1 however will support GPU usage to take the strain off the CPU. Which is nice.

Sometimes you’ll see Flash being used for navigation when it just isn’t necessary at all. Remember, by doing this you are hiding it away from search engines and making it less accessible to use. Avoid this like the plague as there are many great options using js libraries such as jQuery.

Jacob Nielsen’s article from way back in 2000, titled Flash: 99% Bad, still has many relevant points as to why Flash is unnecessary most of the time, especially that it breaks web fundamentals.

2. Poor Search Results

When using the search function of a website it is safe to assume that someone is actually looking for something and if it exists, poor search results may well prevent them from finding what they want.

One way of improving this is to make use of the power of the most popular search engine with the use of Google’s Custom Search Engine. With this solution, your results will be formatted in the same familiar way that they are on Google’s own pages so users will know what to expect.

3. Bad Images

There are two types of poor images when it comes to web design. The first is using images which are uninteresting or irrelevant especially with the internet being such a visual medium. Good images can convey so much meaning and get a message across very effectively. As the well known phrase goes, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ which is especially true when it comes to web design.

The second is quality of images which relates to heavy compression, blurry images, resized images and images that are stretched or squashed altering their aspect ratio. Any of the above is unacceptable in this day and age.

4. Irrelevant URL Structure

It is common for content management systems by default to use a dynamic URL usually consisting of seemingly random characters and numbers such as www.exampleurl.com/?p=52. Do you have a clue what the content of that page is? Certainly not from the URL and neither will search engines. Even if a potential visitor does see this in a result on a search engine then they’ll be less likely to follow through due it’s cryptic appearance.

Beyond that is the use of short URLs commonly seen on Twitter. Popular Twitter clients such as Tweetie are able to show the actual URL before sending you off there. When people use that option, it is generally to see what the URL is that they will be taken to and by containing a description of the page in the URL, it is possible to have a good idea of where their click is taking them.

5. Lack of a Clear Message

By not having a clear message on your site or a site you’ve designed, you run the risk of confusing any potential new customers or visitors. The longer they take trying to work out what it is the site is actually for, the more chance they will leave and try and find what they are looking for elsewhere.

A simple way of helping resolve this is to have a simple tagline, no more that 8-10 words long, located in the header. That way if someone lands on a page that isn’t the homepage, they can see the message and be clear of what the site is about without heading to the homepage or the about page.

6. Not Understanding What the Client Needs

The most important thing to get right before you get started is to make sure that you understand your client and what service or product they offer. This doesn’t only apply to freelancers or web designers who work in a design agency where they deal with multiple different clients but also those who work in-house. Think of your employers as your client as they, much like a traditional client, pay your for your service.

Making sure you have an understanding of what the client needs will reduce frustrations further down the road. Most of the time there will be changes out of you’re control that can’t be avoided but by getting your head around what is required early on will reduce any confusion as much as you possibly can.

7. Browser Inconsistencies

The average web user doesn’t know that there are differences in the way that browsers render pages, they only see the internet as one. If they come across a site that is broken in their browser then they aren’t going to know to switch to another browser to see if it works there, they’ll just move on to another site. Most users don’t even know what a browser is anyway.

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Popularity: 19% [?]

How are large retailers like GAP, Starbucks and Best Buy tackling Christmas web design in 2009? With plaid logos, pine branch background images and yellow presents of course. When it comes to seasonal and holiday web design, some retailers are more adventurous than others (or could it be that some are simply “saving money” this year?). Some retailers went all out with their Christmas web designs while others simply added Christmas pictures or subtle holiday details. Here are 15 examples of Christmas web design for your inspiration.

EDDIE BAUER

GAP

OFFICE MAX

BANANA REPUBLIC

PHILOSPHY

BEST BUY

BARNES & NOBLE

STARBUCKS

POTTERY BARN

ORIGINS

BURTS BEES

WILLIAMS SONOMA

HARRY AND DAVID

METHOD

Need a Christmas website makeover from a Toronto Freelance Web Designer? Give us a shout.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Originally written by Kevin D. Hendricks of Webdesign.com| December 3, 2009

Here’s a disturbing advertising development: Selling out your friends. It’s pretty common in social media spheres to see cutting edge new advertising techniques. A lot interesting ideas are cropping on Facebook, hoping to take advantage of the 300 million unique users.

Intel’s Fan Plan is the latest example. They’re giving discounts on Intel laptops to anyone in the Fan Plan for one day only—Monday, Nov. 30, aka Cyber Monday (the biggest online shopping day of the year, in contrast to Black Friday, the biggest in-real-life shopping day of the year). But the catch is that the more people who join the Fan Plan, the greater the discount will be.

It sounds like a win-win, right? Even Fast Company is wondering if this is the future of advertising.

The problem is that it relies on you turning salesperson on your friends to get a better deal. On the plus side you’re scoring a better deal for everybody, so it could be worse, but that subtle little issue remains. Intel is effectively bribing you to tell all your friends about Intel.

I’ve got a better idea: Create a remarkable product that doesn’t require bribery to get people to spread the word. Go ahead and offer a discount. Incentives are great. But don’t make the size of that discount dependent on how many people I tell.

Swedish furniture brand IKEA also got into the mix of manipulating Facebook with a giveaway to promote the opening of a new store. They posted photos of the new IKEA’s showrooms to Facebook and encouraged people to use a popular photo-tagging feature of Facebook. The feature is supposed to be used to identify people in photos. When you’re identified, your friends will be notified and can check out the fun new picture of you. But IKEA encouraged people to tag products in the photo with their name in order to win them. Tag a product and you can win it!

Sounds great. But what you’re really doing is misusing a useful feature and turning it into a commercial. When photos of you pop up in people’s newsfeed on Facebook, they’re paying attention because they care about you, not some product from IKEA. But if you abuse that feature to win a picture frame, you’re wasting your friends’ time. Facebook has even tightened their guidelines on promotionsand this sort of strategy could be a violation of Facebook’s terms of service.

Social media is quickly growing and maturing, and people are getting tired of being advertised to by their friends and family. People should advertise for you because they like your product, not because they want a better discount. And in the end, that’s just a better pitch. Who am I going to listen to? My friend telling me about a product he uses and loves, or my friend shilling a product he barely knows just to save a few cents?

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Popularity: 19% [?]

Search engines don’t care about web design. People do. While search engines will not index a website for its great layout, but for the content, people will forget the website that has nothing distinctive about it. No visual impact, no interest! Now, if you are a serious online entrepreneur and want to have a website that sends the right message to the visitors, you must know that there are some web design techniques simply inappropriate for a business website.

Many web design companies promise websites that respect the web standards, are usable and search engine friendly. Yes, that’s how any website should be. But these are simple tools. A professional company will mention them, but it will also let you know how a website will increase revenue, reduce expenses, bring more customers and so on. A professional web design firm will not fashion a website “out of the blue”, but conceive a design after understanding your corporate values, after analyzing the target market and respecting your brand image. That’s what you should care about when you choose a web design company.

There are many elements of web design that screw up a business website. Many are simple bad practices, other purely ugly and useless. For an unknown reason business websites with really bad web design are still fashioned every day.

One of the worst web design techniques is to use Flash instead of text. Web designers have fallen in love with Flash, but that will do a website no good: it increases the size of the page and it is not search engine friendly. Flash is great for music bands, movie sites and other sites that need to make a “cool” impression. Business websites need to send other messages: reliability, customer support, experience and so on. There are some astonishing Flash creations on the web, but the most are simply annoying, useless and visitors just hate them. Flash is exceptionally bad when the designer forgets to put a “Skip Intro” button. On a second thought, a “Skip Intro” button will suggest that the content on that page is insignificant. So far is clear: Flash pages send out mixed messages. However, if you are really in love with flash and simply must have it on your website, create a non-Flash version.

Small text could also be really annoying. If people can’t see your message, they’ll just go away, eventually to your competitors. Another bad web design practice is using too many images and animated buttons. There’s nothing worse than a website that twinkles and gets you dizzy while you try to find your way to the information through a bunch of flashy banners, buttons and useless pictures. Many web designers still use background images.

Seriously, have you ever see a global business website that has employed such a web design technique? Most of them have a standard, classic design, with simple navigation and plain text on a white background. The graphics are in perfect harmony with the content, they are not misleading and do have proper ALT attributes. There is a reason for simplicity in web design: creating websites that are simple, logical and easy to use, creating websites that sell.

It takes a real web designer to develop simple web pages that are both appealing and simple. Simplicity in web design should not by synonym with ugliness. Simple websites could be well-designed, elegant and bring other important benefits: they load faster, they are easier to scan and easier to navigate, they are quicker to design, build, redesign, maintain and they require less server space and bandwidth. Best of all: a simple web design will cost less and bring more!

If your a Toronto small business and need help with web design, feel free to contact us for a no obligation quote.

Popularity: 100% [?]

Everyone knows that today is the age of internet. Every successful company knows that a web site is an essential marketing tool. Whether you’re in the business of selling widgets, soliciting volunteers, or building your brand awareness, a carefully executed internet marketing plan can reap a tremendous return on your time and money. so that’s why they people making, and updating their business website according to the time and technology.

Depending on your web design budget and you needs. The first thing you need to do is determine your goals and objectives.

Specifically:

* Who is your target audience?

* How will your target audience find your website?

* What do you want them to do once they’re there?

* How will updates be made to the site?

* What is your timeline?

* What kind of return on investment do you expect from the site and how will you measure it?

Creating your web site can be a tricky process. Choosing the best web design company for your site is extremely important. Now it’s time to find the right web design company for your needs. Go to Google and search for web design firms and you will see how many results show. Start at the first web design result on work your way down. Examine the portfolio to see if there is anything equivalent to the web design layout you are imagining. You will be able to tell immediately if this web design firm is right for your company and its look and feel. Find out if they have the staff available to work on your entire web design needs and that they know the programming necessary to complete the job in a timely manner. Ask for references, a top end web design firm will be glad to offer up references on the web design work performed. Most web design references will be glad to talk to you about the quality job your potential web design company did on their web site.

When searching for a company, here are a few key questions to consider:

* Does the company’s portfolio reflect the kind of aesthetic that you are looking for

* Does the company work with clients in your industry? Have they previously created a site similar to what you want in scope and function?

* Were they responsive to your query, or did it take them four days to return your call? Were they friendly and helpful and take time to find out about your company and your needs?

* What kinds of guarantees do they offer for their products? What kind of support is available? Do they have a thorough testing process? What are the terms of the contract and who owns the final design, source code, and intellectual property?

Now that you’ve found a couple of different companies, and have a couple of proposals in hand, you’ll want to take some time to compare them carefully and check references. Call several of the company’s clients and ask the following questions:

* Did the company meet your goals and objectives?

* Did they follow up after the launch, or disappear once the check was cashed?

* Does the site function properly?

* Are you happy with the design?

* What does your target audience think of the design and functionality?

* Did you get the return on investment that you were expecting?

A Professional Web Design Agency may cost more in the short term but you are trying to satisfied their customer but you must Remember, when it comes to your business and your companies exposure on internet, so take your time to finding a good web design company. Your future may depend on it.

If you need a quote from a reputable web design firm, feel free to contact us today.

Popularity: 5% [?]

According to design style, web sites can be divided in to 3 categories:

* Ice Design
* Jelly Design
* Liquid Design

Where as Ice websites are considered as rigid, the box that contains the content is fixed to the left. Jelly websites are in between the flexible and rigid websites. The box containing the text centered at any resolution thus maintaining equilibrium. Liquid web sites are the utopia of flexibility; it makes the site free from all constraints. The feature, which makes liquid sites as unique, is their capability to expand or shrink to the available space on the screen monitor. They are independent on browser, window size or on the resolution the user is using.

The term “liquid” signifies that a website should flow effortlessly whatever space is provided. Whether you use a high-resolution monitor, this may mean that you need to resize your browser a little, which most people in that situation do. The key objective of liquid design is to make a website more accessible and user-friendly. Liquid design is based on the fact that Web sites should be universally accessible disregarding the tools people use to view them. It should take in consideration the culture, language, disabilities and technical details hence; the idea of liquid design emerges.

Features of Liquid design :

One of the key advantages of liquid design is accessibility. Liquid design adapts to whatever screen resolution or device a user is working upon. It makes use of the entire browser window and so maximizes the amount of content being shown on screen at any given time. Liquid layout does have its downsides. Unlike fixed width design, you lose control over line length, flow and placement of page items. Line length in particular can create serious legibility problems at high resolutions when the eye scans back and forth repeatedly. In addition, the loss of control over layout means that it is very hard to lead the user visually to the content you wish them to focus on.

Features of Liquid design Layouts :

* It allows the maximum use of space and control of space in a window
* It allows the user to set type size while adjusting layout around that size
* It can be displayed on various hardware with different physical sizes

Demerits :

* It can produce illegible or hard to scan line lengths
* It can allow images to become out of proportion to resized type settings
* It can create serious issues when printing even cut off some content

If your interested in Toronto Web Design, feel free to contact us today

Popularity: 56% [?]

In 1999, a professor with the University of Saskatchewan conducted a survey to see which web design elements were the most important to viewers. The four elements that topped the list were site navigation, page layout, content and loading speed. While the internet has evolved beyond our wildest dreams at that time, these four web design elements have remained just as crucial to a good design today as they were a decade ago.

Site organization was the most crucial, according to the original survey, and this is still the most important factor in modern web design. To keep readers on your website for more than a few seconds you must offer a clear and consistent structure to your site. This includes a navigation system that is logically sequenced, with the same icons used throughout the site. You want to make it easy for the reader to find the information that they are looking for.

Page layout not only helps keep the site organization consistent, it is also the design element that makes the page pleasing to the eye. There are many parts to consider in good page layout. Things like color, location of graphics or images and white space composition are a large factor in whether a web design is visually appealing. Your page layout should be similar throughout the site to give your web design a cohesive, professional feel.

Content is king in the internet world – if anything, this is more important today then it was then as there are so many more sites competing for an audience. The content on your page is what keeps the reader on site longer and returning more often. A good web design includes solid, up-to-date information that is presented in a way that will engage the reader. Fresh content is also very important to keep readers coming back to your site. If the content hasn’t changed in years, why would anyone want to return?

The final element that people said was very important to them was in page loading speed. While more people do have high speed connections now compared to ten years ago, there is still a large number of internet surfers who are stuck in dial-up. The more graphics you add to your web design or other bandwidth-hogging elements, the slower the page will load. Most internet surfers don’t have the patience to wait for all those flash intros and java applets so guess what happens? They click the little “x” up in the corner of the page and they’re gone.

Some things never change and these four elements of web design are just as crucial today as they were years ago. A good web design allows the reader to find what they want quickly and easily. The page layout is pleasant to look at and has the same feel to it throughout the site. The content is engaging, informational and updated on a regular basis. All pages load quickly even if the viewer is not using broadband. All of these elements work together in giving the viewer the best experience possible. Isn’t that what good web design is all about?

Feel free to view our portfolio of Toronto Web Design.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Not all websites are the same. And while all webmasters need to take web design into account, those dealing directly with money and customers have extra considerations to make. After all, for owners of e-commerce (or sales) websites, “conversion” is the number one priority. Conversion refers to turning visitors to a website into paying customers, and the “conversion rate” of an e-commerce site is hugely dependant on how potential customers feel about the site itself.

This brings the question… When designing a website, what is the difference between e-commerce web design and regular web design? Can you design an e-commerce website just like you would an informational web page? The answer is no. Though they are similar in concept and execution, there is quite a lot of difference between e-commerce web design and regular web design– it’s all in the details.

E-Commerce Web Designers

When an Internet user visits an e-commerce site, he/she is often looking to buy. But the truth is, if that potential buyer doesn’t feel good about the website, they won’t buy– even if the items for sale there are just what they’re looking for.

Since turning browsers into paying customers is the way for an e-commerce site to make money, e-commerce website designers must keep in mind the importance of creating trust and good feeling with potential customers. Before deciding to spend money, most online customers look for security, convenience, and accessibility, and a successful e-commerce site must make all three a priority. Because of this, e-commerce web designers must put a special focus on:

Branding

In order to create trust and a feeling with security with potential clients, it’s important that an e-commerce website be well branded. This means that sales websites must put more effort into logos, mottos, designs, etc., than non-commercial websites.

Shopping Carts

The ease and convenience of e-shopping carts, shopping baskets, etc., is an important factor in converting browsers into customers. Because of this, most e-commerce website designers should offer custom shopping cart design for websites. This includes but isn’t limited to shopping cart appearance, databases, product display, and email receipts.

Security and Merchant Accounts

The biggest reason why online shopping is such a huge industry is convenience. And what makes shopping online so convenient is the ability to pay online securely with credit cards. Since paying online is one of the last remaining “sticking points” for reluctant online shoppers, it’s important to make them feel safe and secure when ordering from an e-commerce site. Because of this, e-commerce web designers are specialized in creating secure websites, and often help users to apply for and create secure e-commerce merchant accounts for credit cards.

Of course, all of this specialized knowledge requires specialized training, and an e-commerce web designer needs to be trained in this highly specific field. An e-commerce web designer must know both regular web design and the specialized skills in the areas listed above, as well as other e-commerce related areas.

If you are interested in setting up a Toronto eCommerce website, we can help.

Popularity: 2% [?]

If you are a website owner that allows Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising on your site, but there doesn’t seem to be much return this article will try to explain a few reasons why.

First, let’s review what PPC is for those who may be unfamiliar with the term. PPC is a type of advertising that businesses purchase when they want focused advertising that has potential to bring traffic to their website.

The PPC ad itself is rather small and may feature less than fifteen words with no graphics. Part of the ad is in a separate color and underlined. This is the location visitors will click to visit the business link featuring a product they may be interested in. It can appear like all links within your page design.

Many businesses will use PPC ads on their website as a means of offsetting costs associated with site upkeep. Certainly websites with lots of content enjoy the premise behind PPC advertising.

The idea is simple; sign up for a PPC account and allow ads to be placed on your site. When someone clicks the ad you get some money in your account.

However, there is a problem with this concept. The predominate dilemma is if your site has relatively few visitors PPC companies may not credit your account even if someone clicks on the PPC ads. If your website is new and hasn’t really taken off yet you may not experience much benefit from placing PPC ads on your site.

Another problem some websites have with PPC is in ad placement. If visitors see your ads in the typical ad locations they are likely to ignore them. This is why you see major website experimenting with alternate ad locations. They also use this idea on those little notice that allows you to skip an ad screen that many websites use to start your online visit (you’ll notice that skip welcome screen never seems to be in a standard location, nor do they feature standard color or font size).

You should consider making the PPC advertising part of your content. Adjust the font and color of the PPC ads to match the color and fonts of your text. In many cases readers will simply assume this is extra information about whatever it is you are talking about. If you’ve focuses well enough on your keywords the PPC ad will directly relate to the text.

The last tip for PPC ad placement is related to the previous tip. Work to blend your PPC ads with your site design. In many cases PPC ads stick out like a sore thumb in site design. They should blend – not clash.

I have never been a big fan of PPC ads for use by a business that will likely get great results from solid Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies. However, for those who accept PPC ads it can be a positive financial experience. You just need to remember to market your site well to bring in substantial site visitors and then work to make PPC ads look like they are part of your content and less a part of standard web based advertising.

If need help with Google advertising or Toronto Internet Marketing, feel free to contact us today.

Popularity: 2% [?]

It takes more than wishful thinking in order to land one of your pages in the top 10 of Google, but once you understand the criteria of what is involved, you can increase the likelihood for each of your pages if you start with the goal in mind.

Rankings are based on algorithms, therefore if you are operating within the guidelines of the formula, certain results are produced consistently as a by-product of what comprises your pages.

Outlined below are a few examples of Seo Web Design including clearly defined on-page SEO principles known for producing top 10 search engine results. The first component to ranking in the top 10 results in major search engines is:

Meta Tag Optimization

Keyword stuffing (adding all of your keywords in the title, description and on the page) is a thing of the past. Not only will it blatantly get your red flagged from search engines, the human readers will have such a difficult time attempting to get the gist of your topic, you may as well say “please click the back button and leave my site” to save them the hassle.

Don’t stuff your keywords in the meta tags, keep your title on topic and short and sweet succinct title always works better than trying to stuff every possible keyword under the sun in one long / truncated title.

There is nothing more unattractive than words getting cut off in mid sentence, or even worse having to look at the dreaded pipes keyword stuffing stuffing even more keywords even more ridiculous keyword stuffing, etc. No name calling here, but if you are using still using this technique for search engine optimization, it’s time to cut the mullet and move into 2007 where things have changed a bit and people actually click on the title based on the emotional response they receive from the message.

In this way, it’s not always having to be first on the page that matters (despite popular opinion), it’s who’s title is the most compelling that gets the click.

The Description Tag

Depending on the strength of your website, you can rank for a keyword that is (a) in the title of the page (b) on your pages (in the body text or links) or (c) in the description tag alone. It’s more about the overall combination of these on-page factors that determine the ranking potential within each search engine, as they all have their own criteria for awarding relevance and relative positioning when a query is executed.

Your web page description should be concise and try to use actual search terms in your description (something most SEO companies won’t divulge). Any SEO worth their salt knows, that if you want to rank for a specific term, having the “exact match form” of that key phrase in your title and description increases your ranking potential for that term.

Keep the keywords with a higher priority closer to the front of the sentence and try not to go over 250 characters. This keeps your pages focused as well as makes each of the words more potent for ranking. The more words you use, the less potent they become. So once again, the short and sweet version works wonders for a two-fold purpose (1) the visitor, because it indicates to them what they can expect once they arrive and (2) the web bots and search engine spiders, that place a great deal of emphasis on the words in the title or in description data.

Optimizing your Hyper links

First of all a hyper link for those who are unfamiliar with the term is a fancy way to say link that includes the URL (universal resource locater) otherwise known as website or web address inside. Links can be used for internal purposes (within your site otherwise known as navigation i.e. link architecture) or for external purposes such as linking to another website you enjoy or endorse.

If the links are leaving you website and going to another site they are considered forward links or if your website receives a link from another site they are called back links. In either capacity the way that the strength of a link is assessed is from the anchor text or text comprising the link states. So, instead of using click here for a forward link an optimized version of that would contain a keyword which carries tremendous weight in search engines when referencing what the topic of the page the link leads to, as well as add addition ranking potential to the page that the link is located on.

Hyper link optimization plays a major role in SEO. By understanding the role that links play in search engine optimization, you can understand how to improve the rankings on each of your respective pages, by following a few simple guidelines.

If you can envision your website as an island, the only thing bringing in traffic are the bridges that connect it to the surrounding land masses. Without those bridges (inbound links) to connect it then then how fruitful can you expect it to be?

If you have links coming into a page, say 20 for example and 30 links leaving that page, you are in essence dispersing the link juice or ranking power for that page to the 30 pages you link to. Having a good internal to external link ratio is one of the foremost aspect of SEO, but realizing that you should try to keep your links on topic and use keywords you wish to rank for in the text of the link to make the most of each link on your pages.

Optimization of Alt Tags Alternative Text Tags

Since web bots and spiders can not parse the data in an image or flash to determine what the image is, Alt tags allow webmasters to create a clear description of what the contents of the image are. If you have an image showcasing your company headquarters an ideal way to utilize the alt tag from this image would be a company name headquarters, city, state. This way you could obtain the maximum value for this image as a contributing factor to your overall rankings with regional references as well as using the company name to reinforce your brand.

In the past, this was one of the most abused forms or search engine optimization and fell more along the lines of search engine manipulation. Companies would stuff every keyword possible in the alt tags in over inflate relevance for their keywords instead of simply creating content with value. Filters have been added to search engines to eliminate websites utilizing such tactics, but you would be surprised to note how many webmasters still use this technique. Fortunate for us and unfortunately for them, it nearly results in penalties in rankings every time pushing them lower on the totem pole for achieving top 10 rankings if even top 100 results.

Optimization of your Website Content

Optimization of your website copy otherwise known as content or words is the most important factor for ranking. Without going into too much detail, it is safe to say that the higher quality of content your pages have, the better they rank in search engines.

The reason is simple, think of the web spider as your friendly neighborhood reporter who is always looking to be the Johny on the spot to report the latest and greatest headlines to the web at large. These programs are more than just reporters, they have been designed to emulate human behavior and crawl through your pages much like a real human would. They follow links, take notes and even more so, if they like your content they come around more often to see if you have refreshed your data.

Knowing this it is important to write your pages for humans, since they actually pay the bills, but also to understand that you can create compelling text for the search engines to index as well. This is accomplished through word density, which is another fancy pants way of saying how many times a word appears on a page, and how close it is to other keywords that you have outlined as important within the document (using your links, titles and descriptions).

To add even more emphasis to a group of words for on page optimization, you can employ the header tags h1, h2, h3, and so on to reference the priority for those phrases or keywords on your pages. We explore specific uses of header tags at a later time, but the purpose for now is just to provide an overview of the basic elements involved in SEO Web Design.

Content truly is king, so the best way to grab the attention of the Google bot is to write world class content and sprinkle in optimization tactics for optimal effectiveness.

Site maps – What they are and how to use them.

A site map is essentially an index of the pages comprising your website. There are two different types of site maps;

(1) An HTML site map that is used for human visitors to find relevant pages and (2) an XML site map that is designed for spiders to connect the dots and find your entire website when it is performing indexing to create a snapshot of the contents.

Every page on your site should have 2 things in order to be taken seriously from the major search engines. Your site map and your privacy policy. Another thing you might wish to note, that if your physical street address is missing in action (in your contact page) on your website, your listings will probably have the same effect from Yahoo and some of the other engines. Penalties come in different shapes and sizes, so to avoid them it is better to be proactive and incorporate these three elements right from the start.

An HTML site map is nothing more than the link to your page with a brief description following it. This alone can affect where and how your page is ranked in the grand scheme of things. An XML site map on the other hand is something which is placed at the server level that spiders and web bots access (much like your robots.txt file) when looking for data to report back to the web.

I think that about wraps it up for this overview of the basics fundamentals of SEO Web Design, stay tuned in the future when we outline specific ranking strategies and methods that you can apply to your pages to optimize them using the principles that search engines are keen to respond to. The last thing you want to do is omit creating engaging content, after all, what good is SEO if after they arrive they just click and run as a result of lackluster content. But that is another article in it’s entirety.

If you are interested in Toronto Freelance Web Design, please feel free to contact us.

Popularity: 10% [?]

http://tgam.ca/DZo

Popularity: 13% [?]

Very cool article and excellent read.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/05/14/non-profit-website-design-examples-and-best-practices/

Posted by Cameron Chapman

Below are 15 of the most common mistakes that e-commerce sites make, as well as advice on how to avoid or fix them. Take the advice under consideration before embarking on a new e-commerce project or when thinking over your current ecommerce site, and make efforts to follow the recommendations outlined here.

1. A lack of detailed product information

When you’re shopping in a brick-and-mortar store, you have the advantage of being able to pick up an item, feel it, look at it from every angle, and read any information on the packaging or labels. Shopping online removes that interaction. Ecommerce sites need to do the best they can to improve upon the in-store shopping experience.

How often have we gone to an online store and found their descriptions to be completely lacking? And if a customer is left wondering about the specifics of a product, they’re more likely to go look for the information elsewhere. And unless your site’s price is significantly lower than your competitors’, they’ll likely just buy from the other site.

What To Do About It

Provide as much product information as you can. Sizes, materials, weight, dimensions, and any other pertinent information depending on what the product is. For example, in an online clothing store, you might include the fabric type, sizes and colors available, a size chart (usually linked from multiple products), the weight or thickness of the item, the cut and fit of the item, care instructions, and comments about the brand or designer. Using descriptive words rather than simply technical terms can have a greater impact on the consumer.

Examples

2. Hiding Contact Information

Consumers want to know that they’re dealing with a real company when they hand over their credit card information. They want to know that if they have a problem they’ll be able to talk to a real person and get the help they need. If your site doesn’t provide any contact information, or hides it so the consumer can’t find it easily, they’re less likely to trust your site, and therefore less likely to do business with you.

What To Do About It

Put your contact information in an easy-to-find place on every page of your website. The most obvious places to put your contact information are either in your header, the top of your sidebar, or in your footer. Provide multiple means of contact if possible. A contact form, email address, phone number, and mailing address all add to the level of customer trust. Remember, too, that the more expensive or technical the product you’re selling, the more likely a consumer is going to want more contact information.

Examples

3. A Long or Confusing Checkout Process

This is one of the most damaging mistakes an ecommerce site can make. You have to make it as easy as possible for your customers to hand over their credit card information and complete their order. The more steps you put between them placing an item in their cart and actually paying for it, the more opportunities you give them to leave your site without completing their purchase.

The ideal checkout process includes a single page for consumers to check their order and enter their billing and shipping information, and a confirmation page before they submit their order. Anything more than that is only an obstacle to completing the checkout process.

What To Do About It

Follow the ideal model as closely as you can. If you have to include other pages, try to make them as quick and easy to fill out as possible. Combine pages if you can, and use two-column layouts for certain sections (like putting billing and shipping information next to each other) to make pages appear shorter.

Examples

4. Requiring an Account to Order

This ties in directly to the previous item. If you require a customer to sign up for an account before they can place an order, it’s another obstacle you’ve placed in their path. Which is more important to you: getting the order or capturing customer information? Remember that the second option may mean losing some customers.

What To Do About It

There’s an easy fix for this. Instead of requiring a customer to sign up for an account before they order, offer them the option at the end of their ordering process. Give them the option to save their account information to make placing future orders easier or to track the status of their current order. Many customers will opt to save their information, and you won’t be driving away customers before they’ve completed their order.

Examples

5. An Inadequate Site Search Engine

If a customer knows exactly what they’re looking for, many will opt to use a search engine instead of sifting through categories and filters. You need to make sure that the search feature on your site works well, and preferably has filters for letting customers refine their results.

How often have you searched for a product on a large ecommerce site and been returned with hundreds of applicable results? While the variety of options can be nice, if half of those results are nothing like what you’re looking for, it’s more an inconvenience than anything else. Including a way for customers to filter their search results by category or feature eliminates this problem.

What To Do About It

Make sure the ecommerce software you’re using has a good built-in search engine, or look for plugins to extend its functionality. Ideally, an ecommerce search engine should let users search by keyword and then refine results based on the categories your site includes. Let users sort their search results based on standard criteria (most popular, highest or lowest price, newest item, etc.) as well as eliminating items that don’t fit within a certain category.

Examples

6. Poor Customer Service Options

This is similar to the hiding contact information bit above. You need to make it easy for customers to get in touch with you if they have a problem or question. Make it clear what the best way to contact you is if they have a technical question, a sales question, or they want to return an item. Offering a help request form for customers to fill out can instill more confidence than just an email address.

What To Do About It

Use a ticketing system for customer service inquiries, especially if you don’t have a phone number available. Make sure that you post a FAQ that covers common questions customers might have, like what your return policy is or what to do if they need to order parts or replacement items.

Examples

7. Tiny Product Images

Since consumers can’t physically handle the products you’re selling before placing an order on your website, you need to do as much as you can to recreate and improve upon that experience. Tiny product images don’t effectively do this.

What To Do About It

Either provide large images right on the product page or allow users to click on an image to zoom in. You want users to be able to view the image as large as is practical on an average monitor. This means an image that enlarges to 1024×768 pixels is a good size to aim for.

Examples

8. Only One Product Image

Unless your product is delivered digitally (and even sometimes if it is), you’ll want to provide multiple images from different angles. An image in each color, of the front, back, and sides, and even detailed shots of specific features can all go a long way toward making a consumer more likely to buy from you.

What To Do About It

This one’s simple: include more images. Four or five images of each product are ideal, offering enough views to allow a consumer to feel comfortable that they know exactly what they’re getting.

Examples

9. A Poor Shopping Cart Design

Your shopping cart is an incredibly important part of your ecommerce website. It needs to allow users to add multiple products, to revise the quantities or other options about those products, and it needs to remain transparent at the same time. Not exactly the easiest thing to do, right?

What To Do About It

Make sure your cart lets a user add an item and then return to the last page they were on. Even better: allow them to add an item to their cart without ever leaving the page they’re on (by using a mini cart). Let your customers edit the quantities of items in their cart or remove an item from their cart. And let them preview what shipping charges will be before they start the checkout process.

Examples

10. Lack of Payment Options

There are plenty of sites out there that only allow users to pay with Visa or MasterCard, or to only pay with a PayPal account. There’s no reason for this anymore. What about the person who has an AmEx and doesn’t have or want a PayPal account? What about the person who doesn’t have a credit card and wants to pay straight from their bank account? You need to provide as many payment solutions as is practical to optimize the number of orders you get.

What To Do About It

Use a payment service that lets customers pay with each major credit card, and preferably also with an electronic check. Adding a PayPal checkout option increases the choices your customers have, making them more likely to purchase from you. Considering different consumers have different preferences when it comes to making online payments, catering to as many as you can means you’ve expanded your customer base.

Examples

11. Not Including Related Products

You’ve probably noticed when you go to a brick and mortar store that they group similar products together, or otherwise make it easy for you to find products that are related to you. They’ll put a battery display in the electronics section, or include cell phone cases near the cell phones. The same can be done on your website, and can increase add-on sales for you business.

What To Do About It

Use an ecommerce platform that lets you include related products on product description pages. A platform that will let you manually choose related products can also give you a big advantage, since you may see relations that a software program doesn’t (such as coordinating clothing pieces to create an outfit).

Examples

12. Confusing Navigation

There’s nothing worse than trying to find a product on a site with confusing navigation. Or even worse, an online store that doesn’t use categories or otherwise separate their merchandise to make it easier to find a specific type of product. The same goes for sites that have categories with no products in them or with only one or two items. Why even bother with a category?

What To Do About It

Think through your categories and navigation elements carefully before you start putting products in your catalog. Make sure that every category has at least a few products in it, or else group smaller categories together (or include them in larger, similar categories). Make it easy for customers to look through different categories, get to their shopping cart, and otherwise move around your site.

Examples

13. Not Including Shipping Rates

There’s no good reason not to include accurate shipping rates on your site. I’ve abandoned purchases on numerous occasions because it said something like “We’ll email you with an accurate shipping quote for approval before processing your order.” When shopping online, I want to be able to complete my order all at one time, without having to wait around for an email to decide whether the shipping charges are too high. Include your rates on your site, no matter what.

What To Do About It

Most major shipping companies and the USPS offer shipping calculators on their website, and there are plugins or widgets available for most major shopping cart systems to figure shipping charges on your site. Use one. If you can’t use one for some reason, then use a flat shipping rate that’s high enough to cover whatever it is you need to ship. For particularly heavy or large items, you can always include a freight surcharge in the price (just be sure to indicate that’s where the additional cost is going).

Examples

14. Not Including Store Policies

Before a customer buys from you, they’ll likely want to know what your shipping policies, return policies, and other store rules are. And there’s no reason not to post this information in a FAQ or somewhere else on your site. Making your store policies clear upfront can save a lot of headaches later on from customers who are unhappy with an order they’ve placed.

What To Do About It

Use an FAQ or store policies section on your site to spell out exactly what your rules are for different kinds of customer interaction. It’s something that can save you tons of problems down the road.

Examples

15. Not Putting Focus on the Products

The goal of an ecommerce site is to sell products (or, at least, that’s what the goal should be). If your site puts more focus on bells and whistles or the design itself, it’s not achieving that primary goal. Make sure your site displays your products first, and everything else second.

What To Do About It

Think about how products are displayed in brick and mortar stores. While an in-store or window display may show a lot more than just the products for sale, they all contribute to showcasing the products in their most flattering light. Do the same with your website. Make sure that every design element present is doing something to showcase your products in their best possible light.

Examples

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