Aug
15
Ecommerce web design solutions – keep it simple
03:27 pm
Most of the web design enquiries coming through these days are requests for ecommerce web design solutions. Not only are we buying more and more of our products and services online, it would appear that many of us also want to sell online. Indeed, it’s not only large corporate companies trading online nowadays. In fact most of the web design quote requests come from individuals trading from home. People are selling flowers, their own music cds, chocolates. So there is a definite market for ecommerce web design solutions. It is however a very particular market segment and offering the right product at the right price is the key to securing the ecommerce web design business.
The best way to getting the right product to market is to start with the target clients profile and needs. Although we do design complex ecommerce web design solutions for corporate clients, there is a large market for the smaller customers. These customers are looking for 3 key product features: bespoke web design, budget price and simple to use. What is budget price for a bespoke ecommerce web design solution? And how simple should the web design solution be?
The web design industry is very competitive and sales is very price sensitive. Targeting the budget web design industry can be tricky. Price your ecommerce web design too low and run the risk of losing money or appearing too cheap. Price it too high and you could miss out on a whole range of the ecommerce web design market. Indeed, even an individual potential web design customer selling from home would expect to pay a price for a bespoke quality web design. People know that they have to pay a price to get a decent quality ecommerce web design.
Remember also that individuals selling from home generally require a simple backend from where they can easily upload their products. A standard and adequate web design feature set would include a dynamic category list, individual product image upload , title, description and price update through a simple secure backend page. This is all most potential ecommerce web design clients require to start selling online. Occasionally some clients may require special features like a simple stock management system. This is usually optional and is charged as an-add on from the outset. Keep the web design quote simple, transparent and explain everything before taking payment.
Security is an important issue as well. The standard ecommerce web design solution uses Paypal secure site to take credit card payments so security is less of an issue. However, if a web design customer requires secure credit card transactions on his/her own site then it is vital to use a reliable merchant provider and an ssl on the web site for security.
Filed Under E-Commerce and Tutorials | 1 comment
Aug
13
The 10 Biggest Search Engine Optimization Mistakes
10:53 am
Your page title on your home page is the biggest indicator to search engines of what your website is about. If it doesn’t succinctly explain exactly what your website offers, as well as containing your keyword phrase as discussed in Search Engine Mistake #1, then you’re missing out significantly on website visitors.
What is a website page title?
The page title is the writing in the blue bar at the top of a web page, and originates in the Meta Tags, which are a set of instructions for search engines and technicians at the beginning of your web page. These Meta Tags are not displayed in the normal view of your website. However, (assuming your are using Internet Explorer) all you have to do is click on the ‘View’ tab at the top of the page and then select ‘Source’ to view the code behind your website.
Your page title will be in-between the two ‘HTML Tags’ and (which indicates the start and end of the page title).
Your page title is also shown as the clickable title link displayed in search results, if your site has been found using a search engine query.
The most common page title mistake that businesses make
Most businesses are proud of their brand name. Unfortunately that means that they want their brand name all over their website. Including all the areas that should be used for keyword phrases instead. Businesses HAVE to find a way to take independent advice AND act upon it without their brand coloured glasses on when deciding on their website page title.
How to write an effective page title
A page title should be between 10 and 60 characters long – including spaces. Any longer, and it may be cut when appearing in search engine results. It should ideally JUST be the keyword phrase that you have decided on for your page (Refer to The 10 Biggest Search Engine Optimization Mistakes: #1: Wrong Keywords).
A good example of an effective page title would be ‘Internet Marketing Consultant’.
The second best example of an effective page title would also include the brand name – for example, ‘David Bain - Internet Marketing Consultant’. This effectiveness of this title is however diminished compared to the first example.
The worst possible page title in this example would be ‘David Bain’. If found in search engine results, hardly anyone would visit the site because the title doesn’t denote what the website is about. In addition, the chances of appearing in desired search engine results would be reduced significantly due to the lack of keywords.
Remember to think about all your website pages – each page title on each page should be optimized. Not just your home page. A good example is the website http://www.BuildYourOwnBusiness.biz where all the business article categories have their own key phrase focused category pages. Take time getting your page titles right. It will prove to be an extremely beneficial tool for significantly increasing your future website traffic.
Filed Under SEO Tips and Tricks and Tutorials | Add comment
Aug
10
How to Promote Your Home Business On Internet Effectively!!!
07:20 pm
When you are just starting out with your home business, making it grow can be quite a challenge. You need to have money in order for you to install equipments and software to help you with your tasks. If you do not have these, then you might just as well give up, since you need something to make communication with the customers easy.
On the other hand, you also need marketing strategies to make your business known among the people. If you do not promote your business well, nobody will know that you are trying to sell them items or services. If you are running on a tight budget, you may need to scrimp on equipments and marketing ideas. When this happens, you might not be able to make your home business grow.
If you want to make your business expand, you have to remember that you need effective marketing plans. With successful and strategic promotion ideas, you will be able to direct several customers to your business. If you want to lead the competition, then the best place for you to market your home business is over the Internet.
There are a lot of home business Internet marketing strategies which you can use. Some of these require fees, while there are also some which require low or no costs at all. To get you started, you need to set up a website for your home business. If you are not an expert with website designing, then seek the assistance of a professional website designer. It would be better if you spend on a service which you are sure of, rather than develop a website even if you know little about it.
When you finally have your own site, submit its URL to different search engines. Once you are listed within the directories, possible viewers might be directed to your site, depending on its effectiveness. Most sites which receive a lot of audience are those which rank within the first page of search engine results.
If you want to rank high in page results, then you have to develop effective search engine optimization ideas. You can use keywords which are related to the content of your site, or to the services or items which you are offering. You can also develop a presentable design for your website content. Use graphic designs, although not too much to make downloading easy. The texts should be bold to catch the eyes of the viewers. The colors should be pleasing and warm. Avoid bright colors; no one would want to stick to a site which uses colors that hurt the eyes. Another effective SEO technique would be link building. If you want to build links with other online sites, then opt for those which has the same content topics with your site.
Other home business Internet marketing techniques include banner exchanges, wherein you can display your site’s banner at other online sites. You can also use newsletters, discussion groups and search engine tools. A variety of these are offered for free or at specific values. It is up to you if you want to spend much or not. You only have to remember that sticking to one home business Internet marketing plan is not effective enough. You have to use it along with other methods.
Filed Under SEO Tips and Tricks | 7 comments
Aug
02
Make stylish web 2.0 horizontal menu
01:37 pm
After we finished the tutorial we need to create 2 simple images to style our CSS navigation bar: A background image (the light blue bar) and a transparent button that indicate the active state, all other elements are created with CSS.
Like in most CSS horizontal navigation bars an unordered list is used to hold the menu items:
With the next CSS code it’s possible to style the horizontal navigation bar:
#container {
width:800px;
height:600px;
padding:20px;
}
ul#navbar {
background:url(/tutorials/web20_css_bar/backgr.jpg) repeat-x left top;
margin:0;
border-bottom:3px solid #98CB00;
border-top:1px solid #00CCFF;
list-style-type:none;
height:31px;
}
ul#navbar li {
float:left;
}
ul#navbar li a {
display:block;
padding:5px 15px 4px;
font:bold 16px "Trebuchet MS";
text-decoration:none;
color:#00CCFF;
letter-spacing: -0.1em;
}
ul#navbar li a:hover {
color:#98CB00;
}
ul#navbar li a#current {
background:url(/tutorials/web20_css_bar/current.gif) no-repeat center bottom;
color:#98CB00;
}
We placed the background image behind ul element and added the two borders to the top and bottom. The li element is defined as a floated block element and got some padding to create a bigger button. The last definition is for the current state, which will show up the tri-angle. You need some server-side code (php) to get a dynamic position every time a different page is loaded.
The source files can be downloaded here.
Filed Under CSS, HTML Tips and Tricks and Tutorials | 1 comment
Jul
28
A,B,C for SEO takers
01:06 pm
SEO is not rocket science, it just requires some serious research and work. In an ideal world, a website would be built around core SEO principles from the start…unfortunately this is not always the case! Sometimes we have to redesign elements of the site so that it performs at its best.
Here are the key steps in optimising your site:
*Research your keywords, and write lots of content around these keywords. All search engines love content, so the more the better. DO NOT cut and paste from other sources, as this will get your site tagged as duplicate content. Update this content frequently, as again this will impact favourably on your search engine rankings.
*Make sure that all your HTML tags are utilised fully. Title tags and alt tags are very important. Too often I come across sites that have not used their tags fully, and they wonder why they are not receiving good rankings!
*Add a privacy policy, contact page, and a good sitemap page to your site. All of these add to the trust factor with the search engines. A good sitemap shows the search engine how to crawl your site correctly, and will help identify any problems within the sites’ structure.
*Submit your site to all of the major search engines. Some companies will tell you that this is not neccessary; they are correct in that eventually the search engines will find your site. Submitting your site, however, will just speed the process along.
*Submit your site to lots of good quality web directories. Start with the big directories, such as Google, Yahoo, and Dmoz. There are literally thousands of other directories out there that can be useful to you.
*Find places that you would like to be linked from, contact the webmasters, and exchange links. This is the most time consuming part of any SEO campaign, but also the one that can produce the best results.
*Implement a good analytics tool and use the data to enhance your marketing thrust. Google analytics is a great, free, tool for doing this.
*As an ongoing process, write good articles about your industry, and submit them to article sites. This will provide a link to your site, and if the article is reprinted, will result in more visitors to your site.
These are the general guidelines for successful SEO, but I also recommend using a PPC campaign, especially with Google. It will take you a while to get this right, but when you do, will result in great results for you.
Happy “SEO”-ing
Filed Under SEO Tips and Tricks, Tutorials and Website promotion | Add comment
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wow its great to read ur poem in...
ek dum zakkkass.
Ekdam Zhakas