Small Business Design Resources

How to install and use FireFTP

Installing an FTP client is beneficial when you want to transfer large files from your computer to your web server. To learn more about it, please see what is FTP. See the video or steps below on how to install and use the popular free FTP client for the Firefox browser called FireFTP.

Here are the steps to summarize how to install and use FireFTP:

1. Go to google.com,  type in FireFTP and select the first choice or go directly to http://fireftp.mozdev.org/

2. In the green box click on Download FireFTP, select Allow if you get a message in your browser.

3. After the install is complete, make sure to restart your Firefox browser otherwise you won’t see the new plugin.

4. When the browser restarts you can find your FireFTP plugin in the Tools menu above.

5. To create a new account, go to the top next to the Connect button select the pull down to Create an Account.

6. Type in your host, which is your domain name and the password that was given to you by your hosting company.

7. Select Connect and now you’re in.

8. Left side is your computer and the right side is the web server.

9. Use the appropriate left or right green arrow to transfer the files between the two windows.

How to Install Google Analytics

Having a way to measure your website’s success is very important for all businesses. Google Analytics is free and easy to use, but many small business owners have no idea on how to install it. Take a look at the video below that shows you how to install Google Analytics.

To install Google Analytics all you need to do is follow a few simple steps:

1. Sign up for Google account.
2. Copy the provided code.
3. Paste the provided code right before the </body> tag on the page(s) that you want to track.
4. Save your code.
5. Upload the page to your server.

This is not a difficult process, but you have to know exactly where to place the code for it to work correctly.

Once the code is successfully uploaded give it at least 24 hours to take effect. Come back to Google Analytics to view your website’s progress.

What is Blogging

A lot of websites these days use blogging as a way to draw customers. Blogging means posting a fresh article to your site every day, every week, or at some other interval that makes sense to you. Blogs can be useful to customers who may check out your website regularly to find out new information related to your product, your service or your company. New customers may be led to your site using keyword searches or by following links from other sites that reference your site, or from links you embed in other articles on your website.

The primary purpose of a blog is to provide fresh content for your website to keep your customers coming back. They want to see what new products you are offering, hear what’s new in your company, and see what additional services are available. A blog is also a great way to add fresh content to your site to keep it at the top of the search engines.

But what should you write in the blog? And how can you keep coming up with new ideas for blogging?

There are some definite advantages to blogging and once you get the hang of it you might just get hooked:

1. Writing helps you think. And thinking about your business is something you should be doing every day. You can use blogging as a way to explore new ideas for your website, your product or your business.

2. Blogging invites customer feedback. Create a blog with a comment block where blog readers can post their feedback. This is a great way to find out what your customers think. You can ask them questions directly, and use the responses to begin an email contact list. The best part about this is your feedback is coming directly from current users of your website. You can even take it a step further and start sending email articles directly to your blog fans. Can’t decide whether to branch out in this direction or that direction? Ask for customer feedback directly in your blog. Everyone loves to give their opinion.

3. Blogging is a catalyst for doing research. If you sit down once a week and come up with 7 topics for daily blogs, or sit down once a month and come up with 4 topics for weekly blogs, you will remain on your toes as well have new content to keep your website fresh. You can research the competition and find out what they are blogging about, or research a particular aspect of your business, describe the special features of an existing product or introduce features for a new product and motivate readers to give it a try.

4. Blogging is a great tool for stimulating your own learning. Because you will be on the internet, checking your competition, doing your research and finding interesting things to write about, you will be acquiring new knowledge constantly about your business field. Becoming an expert in your field is an absolute must for out-maneuvering the competition and your website is the perfect place to display your expertise.

To get started blogging, map out a few ideas, determine how many words you want to write in your blog (300 to 500 is plenty to begin, but don’t restrict yourself if you get on a roll). Don’t forget to create a few links in your blog to other similar articles on your website.

Website Critique: Get paid to advertise on your car

The owner of www.cashURwheels.com created this website to be a marketplace where advertisers and business owners can connect with vehicle owners to display the ads on private vehicles. Below is a video website critique suggesting changes to make the website more user friendly for it’s target market.

Having a website that is organized well and that is geared towards it’s target market is what’s going to make a positive impact on the website users.  Below are some further explanations and examples of suggestions that I provide in the website critique video:

Homepage

• The homepage needs to explain to the user right away what the website is about in the most clear and concise form not necessarily in a paragraph form. Keep the homepage simple and to the point.

• Create prominent call-to-actions for your users so each user can clearly associate themselves with one of the categories that are on the website.

For example the image shown below from TradeorSwitch.com (future website) demonstrates the two types of categories that will be on their site: people to people and business to business.

• How this works or some sort of demo needs to be added to the homepage. This is a relatively new concept and users will want to know how it works, so give them what they want.

• Add a gallery section to the navigation or the sidebar.

Inner pages

• Move the ads to the side of the website to create more room for your content like you have on the homepage.

• Keep up with the blog. Adding articles to the blog on a consistent basis will bring in more traffic to the site via search engines and keep your site fresh.

Pricing page

• This page needs to be organized more clearly. The free plan is the same for all users so there’s no need to repeat it three times. Create a comparison chart that makes it easier to understand the options that you’re offering.

Here’s an example of a comparison chart from basecamphq.com.

More website critiques

Of course there are more things to dive deeply into making this site better such as search engine optimization, but this is a whole different subject and will require it’s own review.

If you’re viewing this review and want to add more suggestions, please add your comments below.

Disclaimer

The video website critique and suggestions are for you to review and take what you feel will better your business website. There’s no guarantee that the suggestions mentioned will improve your business. Design Leap is not held responsible for any negative outcome.

Quick Tip: Removing Checkered Background in Photoshop

In Photoshop, a checkered background represents transparency, when you save your work, the checkered pattern will not show. The only way to remove it, is to add an actual background on the layer under your image. Here’s a tutorial of How to Remove Checkered Background in Photoshop

Checkerboard pattern in Photoshop

Background removed