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Frequently
asked questions and website articles
I'm not sure if I really need
a website.
It's all so complicated and I don't understand it.
Can you afford to ignore it? Your competitors won't. They're already
using it to improve their business, gain customers and reduce costs.
I can help you understand the Internet and eCommerce and how it
can apply to your business. You need to start somewhere, so get
started today.
I have more business now than I can cope with.
Has your business always been like this? If you have built up a
good business you already know that you can never sit still. Your
customers may leave, simply because it is easier to do business
with your competition.
You can also use the Internet to reduce your running costs eg:
why not send out your customers accounts using email instead of
incurring paper and postage costs, not to mention the time spent
stuffing envelopes.
It takes a while to fully appreciate the benefits of the Internet.
Don't wait for your competitors to get there first!
My customers like things the way they are. They're not even
using the Internet.
Are you sure? At last count, 49 percent of NZ homes had a computer
and many more people have access to the Internet at work. Latest
statistics show that 78 percent of New Zealanders can use the Internet.
As more and more customers go on-line, they will expect you to have
a web site.
Also in the very near future New Zealanders will be able to access
the Internet through their televisions. This will mean that even
more people will want access to your products and services.
Worldwide, trade over the internet in 2002 was $US2.3 billion,
and is expected to reach $US3.9 billion this year. In Europe,
internet sales over Christmas were up 86% over last year. These
figures can't be ignored.
The Internet doesn't have a lot to offer a business like mine.
How do you know? Check out what your competitors are doing with
the Internet. Using the Internet, businesses all over New Zealand
might be attracting your customers right now. Once you've done some
thinking and planning about how the Internet could benefit your
business, you might be surprised about the benefits.
It seems less personal to do business over the Internet.
Maybe. The Internet is both "high-tech" and "high-touch". Used to
it's fullest extent, it allows businesses to personalise their dealings
with customers and get closer to them by making use of information
about previous dealings and things that may interest individual
customers.
Technology always costs so much and then it doesn't work properly.
It's up to you. You can decide to start out small or to make a big
splash. The basics aren't that expensive and can be built on as
you become more familiar. I can show you what to do. It is my
goal for your business to maximize the benefits of the Internet
while staying inside your budget.
What happens if I decide I dont want my website anymore?
You can cancel your agreement after 12 month's billing. Because
I charge no upfront fees, I absorb the initial costs over this time.
I am already on the Online Yellow Pages, why should I have
a site with you?
The On-Line Yellow Pages is a very small part of the Internet. Why
would people limit their search to the Yellow Pages when they could
search the whole Internet just as easily?
The advantage of having your own web site is that you can market
on the Yellow Pages site and then anywhere else you want to by registering
with search engines.
What about Overseas Search Engines?
Your company will be registered with the major search engines
that are used in New Zealand and Australia as well as the major
International search engines.
I've decided that I want a
website, so here are a few technical questions.
What is website hosting?
Think of website hosting as the computer your website resides on.
Your website is a collection of computer files, and to be accessible
to the internet continuously it needs to be on a server (computer)
that is always on, has full time connection to the internet, and
is fast enough to handle multiple visitors at the same time.
Why don't I get website hosting with my domain name?
Your domain name is just the name that people use to connect to
your website, example www.bizlinks.co.nz. When I create a web hosting
presence for your website, I link your domain name to the hosting
space.
Should I get a "co.nz" or a ".com" domain name?
Think of who your primary audience or customers are. If you are
targeting the international market, then you can't beat a .com name.
If you are targeting New Zealand customers, then a .nz domain name
is appropriate. You can have more than one domain name pointing
to your website, so you could have both a .com and a .co.nz domain
name.
Can I get email with my domain name?
Yes, that's one of the key advantages of having your own domain
name. You can "brand" your email address as your own. As an example,
instead of bizlinks@xtra.co.nz, you can have david@bizlinks.co.nz.
You can have as many addresses to your domain name as you like including
generic addresses such as info@bizlinks.co.nz, sales@bizlinks.co.nz,
etc.
What makes a good website?
Think about why you want or need a website.
You know your business, so you are the best judge as to what you
and your customers want to get out of your website. Make a list
of what you want to achieve, eg, provide information on your products
and services, list contact information for your business, keep your
customers and potential customers up to date on your offerings,
online sales and so on. Also think about what you want your website
to achieve from a customer viewpoint. Make a list of this too.
Spy on your competition.
Why not? They will be spying on you. See what's good about their
websites and see what's bad. And don't just look at New Zealand
competition. Use search engines and check out similar businesses
in other countries to see if you find any good ideas.
Put everything together in a brief.
Website designers like customers who know what they want. Lack of
a brief can lead to a poor result, and disagreement over expectations.
It will also help if you can prepare any ideas for content (text)
and provide images, logos, photos, etc, of your products and business.
Contact some web designers.
Take your brief to some web designers. Make sure they understand
your requirements, and gauge how well they grasp the needs of your
website. Also, ask them for any ideas they have to help you achieve
what you want, ie, technology or techniques you can employ to make
your website function better. Check out some of their work. Get
an estimate of costs and decide who you want to work with. Then
agree on basic website layout and content, and firm up a price for
their services.
Work in stages.
Remember you can phase your website development. Stage 1 may be
to get a basic brochure site up, stage 2 may be to add an online
catalogue, and stage 3 may be online sales with credit card facility.
The internet lends itself to this type of approach so consider it
from the start with your designer and you can avoid major costs
to add a new feature.
Be professional.
A bad website can be a liability, so take time to get things right.
Use a reputable web designer and review their portfolio. Make sure
the web designer checks the operation of your website on different
browser versions (Netscape and Internet Explorer). Construct a privacy
policy, terms and conditions, refunds policy, etc. You may already
have this information in other material, but otherwise there are
many online tools that can help you construct these policies.
Help your website.
Make sure you or your designer registers your site with New Zealand
and international search engines. Consider even paying a specialist
to do this work. Add your domain name to all company printing, eg,
business cards, email signatures, letterheads, signs, vehicles and
advertising. Make use of techniques such as mailing lists to keep
your customers up to date. Remember that you should obtain permission
from recipients before emailing them, and include an opt-out instruction
so they can be removed from your list if they no longer want to
receive your messages. Consider advertising and other promotion
to market your website, and finally, check email regularly and respond
to information requests promptly.
Web Copy How Much is Enough?
These days, theres widespread acceptance that a website
is an integral part of the marketing plan of any business. Likewise,
its commonly accepted that web copy is a vital component of
any website. But how much web copy is enough?
The pure volume of information available on the Internet is daunting
often counterproductive. There are approximately 550 billion
documents on the web, and every day another 7 million are added.
According to an A.T. Kearney, Network Publishing study (April 2001),
workers take so long trying to find information that it costs organizations
$750 billion annually!
Yet people continue to use it. Information gathering is the most
common use of the Internet (American Express survey, 2000). And
it seems work-related searches are amongst the most common, with
48% of people using the Internet to find work-related information,
as opposed to 7% who use magazines (Lyra Research, 2001).
Interestingly, however, the average person visits no more than
19 websites in the entire month in order to avoid information overload
(Nielsen NetRatings in Jan 2001).
So how do you ensure your site is one of those 19? How do you
make your content helpful without making it overwhelming? Thats
what this article is about
Here are 5 quick rules of thumb to help you decide how much is
enough.
1) Know your audience (Reader or Search Engine?)
Think about whether youre targeting human readers (potential
customers) or search engines. This must always be one of your very
first questions, as the answer will determine your approach to content.
In general, human readers think less is more. Search engines,
on the other hand, think more is more (well, more or less
).
In many ways, it comes down to a question of quality versus quantity.
Human readers are interested in quality, whereas search engines
are interested quantity. Human readers want you to answer their
questions and make it clear how you can benefit them. And they dont
want to wade through volumes of text. Search engines want a high
word count, full of relevant keywords, and short on diagrams.
You need to think carefully about your audience. In most cases,
itll be a trade-off. A high search engine ranking is important
(or at least beneficial) to most businesses, so a happy medium is
required. The following tips will go some way toward providing this
balance.
2) Make it concise
Say everything you need to say, but always ask, Can I say
it with fewer words? The literary world may be impressed by
complex writing, but visitors arent. Keep it simple, and keep
it brief. Your home page shouldnt be more than 1 screen long.
In other words, visitors shouldnt have to scroll. Subsequent
pages can be longer, but try to keep them to a maximum of about
300-400 words each (approximately 1 scroll). A lot of people will
tell you that you also need 300-400 words or more on your home page
for a good search engine ranking. You dont. If you focus on
the right keywords and generate a lot of links to your site, you
can achieve a high ranking without losing your readers interest
by padding.
TIP: For most businesses, a good rule of thumb is to make it
conversational. The old school oppose conversational copy; dont
listen to them. Unless youre writing for an old-school audience,
feel free to write as people talk.
3) One subject per page
On this, both readers and search engines agree. Dont try
and squeeze too much information onto a single page. For example,
instead of trying to detail all of your products on a single Products
page, use the page to introduce and summarize your product suite,
then link to a separate page per product. This way, your content
will be easier to write, your readers wont be overwhelmed,
and youll be able to focus on fewer keywords (so the search
engines will get a clearer picture of what you do).
4) Make it scannable
According to a 1998 Sun Microsystems study, reading from a monitor
is 25% slower than reading from paper. As a result, 79% of users
scan read when online. So make sure you accommodate scanning. Use
headings and sub-headings. Highlight important words and sections.
Use bulleted lists and numbered lists. Use tables. Use statistics.
Use meaningful indenting. Use short sentences. Most importantly,
be consistent in your usage. Oh
and follow rules 2 and 3 above.
5) Use a simple menu structure
Try to keep your high-level menu (Home, About Us, Contacts, Products,
Services, etc.) to a maximum of about 10 items (5-8 is ideal). If
you have too many options, your site will seem unstructured and
your visitors wont know where to start. In order for a visitor
to want to come back to your site, they need to feel comfortable
when theyre there. They need to know what to expect. If they
cant identify any logic in your menu structure, they will
always feel lost. Whats more, this lack of structure will
reflect badly on your business.
The Internet can be an incredibly cost-effective form of promotion
because the cost per word to publish is so low. Dont be fooled
into thinking more is more just because it costs less. Audiences
even search engines dont want everything; they
just want enough.
Happy writing!
Reproduced with thanks to Glenn Murray who is an advertising
copywriter and heads copywriting studio Divine Write. Visit www.divinewrite.com
for further details.
Increase your search engine ranking
The methods employed to increase your search engine rankings
may seem like rocket science to you, so you have probably avoided
dealing with this issue. I am here to tell you - the time has come
to face your website! A high search engine ranking for your website
is so essential that if you have the slightest desire to actually
succeed in your business, there is no way you can continue to avoid
this issue.
At least 91% of people looking for goods and services on the
Internet find websites through search engines such as Google, Yahoo,
and MSN. The idea of optimizing your pages for high search engine
rankings is to attract targeted customers to your site who will
be more than likely to make a purchase. The higher your page comes
up in search engine results, the greater the traffïc that is
directed to your website. That's what search engine optimization
is about.
You can immerse yourself in all the technical information available
online to figure out how to optimize your web pages to achieve higher
rankings. Or you can look at a few simple items on your pages, make
some small adjustments, and most likely see improved rankings quite
rapidly. The first item you should examine is the title bar on your
homepage.
The title bar is the colored bar at the top of the page. Look
at the words that appear there when you access your home page. To
increase search engine rankings, the words on your homepage's title
bar should include the most important keywords or phrases, one of
which would include your company name.
Then clïck on all your links and examine the title bars
on the pages you access. Each title bar on every single page of
your site should contain the most important keywords and phrases
taken from the page itself. However, avoid very long strings of
keywords, keeping them to six words or less. Avoid repeating keywords
more than once in the title bars, and make sure that identical words
are not next to each other.
[ Check what are the most common key words people use to find
services like yours. Go to www.overture.com.
Click on "Visit the Resource Centre", then "Keyword
Selector Tool". ]
The next item to put under your microscope is your website content.
Search engines generally list sites that contain quality content
rather than scintillating graphics. The text on your site must contain
the most important keywords - the words that potential customers
will be typing into search engines to find your site.
Aim to have around 250 words on each page, but if this is not
desirable due to your design, aim for at least 100 carefully chosen
words. If you want to achieve a high ranking on search engines,
this text is essential. However, the search engines must be able
to read the text, meaning that the text must be in HTML and not
graphic format.
To find out if your text is in HTML format, take your cursor
and try to highlight a word or two. If you are able to do this,
the text is HTML. If the text will not highlight, it is probably
in graphic format. In this case, ask your webmaster to change the
text into HTML format in order to increase your search engine rankings.
Next we come to what is called meta tags. I know this sounds
like something out of science fiction, but it is really just simple
code. Many people believe that meta tags are the key to high search
engine rankings, but in reality, they only have a limited effect.
Still, it's worth adding them in the event that a search engine
will use meta tags in their ranking formula.
To find out if your page is set up with meta tags, you must access
the code. To do this, clïck the "view" button on the browser
menu bar, and select "source." This will pull up a window revealing
the underlying code that created the page. If there are meta tags,
they usually appear near the top of the window. For example, a meta
tag would read: meta name="keywords" content=. If you do not find
code that reads like this, ask your webmaster to put them in. This
may not do much for your search engine rankings, but any little
boost helps.
Lastly, we come to the issue of link popularity. This is a factor
that is extremely important in terms of search engine rankings.
Almost all search engines use link popularity to rank your website.
Link popularity is based on the quality of the sites you have linked
to from your links page.
If you visit Google and type in "link:" (without the quotations)
followed by your site address (no space after the colon), you will
be shown the sites that are linked to your site as per Google. Example
link:www.yoursite.com. Note that searching link:yoursite.com will
return different results than searching link:www.yoursite.com .
To find your site's link popularity on other search engines search
the phrase "free link popularity check" and try one of the many
link popularity tools available on the Web.
If you find that there aren't many sites linked to yours, or
that the sites that are linked have low search engine rankings,
consider launching a link popularity campaign. Essentially, this
entails contacting quality sites and requesting that they exchange
links with your site. Of course, this requires checking out the
rankings of the websites you want to link up with. Linking to popular,
quality sites not only boosts your search engine ranking, but it
also directs more quality traffïc to your website.
[ You can also use www.linkpopularity.com
to check the links back to your website. ]
Search engine rankings are extremely important for a successful
Internet marketing campaign. Before you go out and hire a search
engine optimization company, try taking some of the simple steps
listed above, and see if you can't boost your rankings yourself.
Don't ever ignore this all-important factor in Internet marketing.
Remember, the higher your search engine ranking, the more quality
customers will be directed your way.
Article reproduced with thanks to Dan Meiyers (www.emarketingbooks.com).
Website check list
To help you start planning your website, I've created a Check
List that will help identify your requirements. Click
here to display the Check List (PDF file 19 kb).
Statistics information
What do all those columns mean on your website statistics pages?
Total hits:
Total file requests. If a page has 2 images on it, that will register
as 3 hits - the two images and the page.
Total files:
Total file requests that made it through. i.e. the user didn't abort
part way through etc. Not all hits will send data, such as requests
for pages that are already in the browser's cache.
Total pages:
Total page views. If a page has 2 images on it, it will register
as 1 page view.
Total visits:
Total distinct visitors.
Total unique sites:
Total distinct locations visitors are coming from. If a person visits
twice, that would register as 1 unique site and 2 visits.
Total unique URLs:
The different web pages or files that have been viewed on your website.
Total unique referrers:
Pages that link to the site.
Total unique user agents:
Internet browser types.
Which total tells you the number of different visitors
to his site:
Total Visits.
Articles
7
Basics of Good Web Design (PDF file)
The
Essential Code for Search Engine Optimization (PDF file)
43 Simple Ways
to Build Trust in Your Website (PDF file)
15
tips for designing a successful web site (PDF file)
How
to write your website in 60 minutes (PDF file)
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