Small Business Design Resources

Website Critique: Buy SD cards for cheap

Bringing competitive prices and great customer service is what the owners of www.sdcards4cheap.com are striving for. Knowing that they have a lot of competition to beat, they wanted a video website critique with suggestions on how to make their website better.

Limited time offer Free Video Website Critique for Small Business

Overall Improvements

• Show your visitors what’s your competitive advantage is more prominently.

• “Click Here for Help,” throughout the whole video I’ve been referring to this as a chat icon but I’ve never clicked on it. After I did the video I decided to click on it and to my surprise, it wasn’t a chat icon. Many online users expect certain things on the website to act the same on all sites. For example, it is common to click on the logo and be taken to the homepage of a website. As you can see from the video, by just looking at the “Click Here for Help” image, I was predetermined that it was a chat icon and many users might think the same way. Either make that image say “login for help” or something that doesn’t make one think it’s a chat icon or perhaps it would be a good idea to offer online chat support for your customers. Also, I believe that by making people login to get basic help, you will turn off a lot of visitors. Perhaps create a F.A.Q. section where all users can access the page.

• Think about adding your search bar a little higher so more people can see it easier and find what they’re looking for faster.

Homepage

• Currently the homepage doesn’t require the user to do anything, add some call-to-action to prompt the user to act.

• Add promotions or simply featured items so users can see what you’re selling right away.

• Having text on the homepage is great for search engines, but you need to add images and call-to-action that focuses on your target market.

Product pages

• Make it easier for people to scan your pages and see the product names and prices.

• Create different color and/or size “add to cart” buttons.

• Look at your competitors and see what they’re doing right and follow their footstep (but don’t copy them exactly).

Manufacturers page

• When users click on a “Manufacturers” on the blue navigation menu (without selecting a particular item), there’s a list without images, make sure that you add images because it makes easier to scan through.

More website critiques

Limited time offer Free Video Website Critique for Small Business

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

If you’re reading 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.

Watch Movies of Visitors Browsing Your Website

Have you ever imagined that you can actually see what your visitors are doing on your website? No, no, I’m not talking about going through charts and pages of visitor statistics on Google Analytics or other similar analytics program. I came across ClickTale, which is a program that let you watch movies of your visitors’ actual browsing session. This is way better than just looking at charts and trying to analyze them. By viewing where your visitors’ mouse is actually going, what they type and what results they get from a click, you can evaluate the following:

• what on your website gets neglected
• what errors do users get
• what simply confuses your visitor and makes them leave
• why do they abandon your shopping cart

There’s so much more to this program so you just have to see for yourself.

How to Start a Website

I get many questions from small business owners asking about website basics. So much of what is written seems to be written by those, and for those, who already know what they are doing when it comes to having a business website. So let’s take a step back and review a few basics, because I know from talking to small business owners that there are many of you who will appreciate this information.

The two must have things to having a website live on the Internet for everyone to see are a domain name and a hosting account. Let me explain what those are and pointers on few other things that are needed to get your website online:

1. Domain Names
   A domain name is what you call your website. It is also referred to as an address or a URL. This is what the user will type in the browser to find your business. You must use a unique domain name that no-one else is using. The Internet is built using many large computers, called servers that know how to talk to each other using special addresses, called an Internet Protocol addresses or IP addresses. When you create a name like MyBusiness.com you need to register the domain name so that:
   • No-one else can use it
   • The internet servers will know how to find it by assigning an IP address to it

There are many organizations that will register the domain name for you, but we use and recommend startlogic.com.

2. Domain Name Extensions

By convention, a .com address is a commercial business and is the most widely used in the world. Other conventions used in the U.S. are .edu for educational facility, such as a university, .org for an organization such as not-for-profit organizations, and .gov used by government websites. After .com, .net and .org are the most memorable extensions. Different countries use different conventions, generally used to indicate their country. For example check out www.google.ca (Canada’s Google), www.google.com.mx for Mexico’s Google, and www.google.co.uk for the United Kingdom’s Google.

3. Hosting a Website

Some organizations only give you the name – they don’t give you a space for your website. Lets compare this to a P.O. Box. When you just get a domain name it’s like getting a P.O. Box address, you can’t actually move your stuff in there. The whole purpose to have a business website is to attract visitors to your products/services, for this hosting is required. Some companies will both register your domain name and host your website. However, domain and hosting providers can be different for one site. Again we use and recommend startlogic.com for your website hosting needs.

4. Building a website

Registering a domain name and signing up with a hosting provider does not necessarily mean you have a website live online. What you have is a space for your website to live online. Let’s take an example of a physical retail store. To have an actual brick and mortar retail store, you need to lease a space, so once you sign your lease you can move in your products and organize your store. Same goes for a website, domain name is your address, hosting is your space and now you need to build a website for your customers to view your products/services. There are two ways to build your business website. You can learn how to build your own or have a professional web designer do it for you. Building your own is the most cost effective way to put up a website but it means you have to spend time to learn something about building and maintaining it, that means taking you away from your business duties. Having a professional web designer create your website will assure you that your website is built right, user friendly and free you to work on your business.

5. Working with Design Leap

Choosing Design Leap to build your business website means you have a one-on-one relationship with a professional designer to guide you and answer all your questions while developing a business website that is targeting your ideal customers. This is the way to go if you’re looking to save time and money in the long run.

Who Needs a Website These Days?

Your business is small, you’re just starting out and you don’t have any employees. You may be asking yourself if you really need a website. After all, not all businesses are destined for internet selling. The fact is, today, more and more businesses both large and small realize that having an internet presence, even if you don’t directly sell through the internet, is vital to doing business in today’s market place. Ever since the early 80s when the internet first took hold, the importance of the medium has been steadily growing. Today if your business doesn’t have a website it’s not taken seriously, it’s the first place most people turn when they are looking for information about a company be it their address and phone number, their price list, opening hours or inventory.

Staying Ahead of the Competition.

In an article dated July 9, 2007, AdvanceMe Inc, a leading provider of funding for small and mid-sized businesses, reported on the findings of the Capital Access Network Small Business Barometer:

http://www.capitalaccessnetwork.com/documents/SurveyResultQ22007.pdf .

AdvanceMe distilled the results and made the following statement about small business owners:

“The results reveal an understanding of the importance of promoting their business presence on the Web with 68 percent utilizing first generation search engine optimization tools to help drive traffic, and another 58 percent using some form of online advertising.”

http://www.advanceme.com/press/2007/press_release070907.aspx

Having an internet presence sets you up as a first class provider and lets your customers have access to your store to answer simple questions even when your brick and mortar store is not open for business.

What are these small business owners doing with their websites?

If you have a business that is not built around internet selling, like many of the business owners in the survey, you may be wondering what these small business owners are doing on their websites. Here are some of the things they are accomplishing:

• Setting themselves apart from the competition

• Providing information about hours of operation and inventory to their customers

• Providing email access via their “contact us” page so customers can ask them questions

• Providing an opportunity for partners and affiliates to sell their products

• Advertising promotions, sales and new products or services

• Reaching customers who do not live in their local area

• Letting customers see pictures of their products

• Blogging – providing information on a weekly basis – staying in touch with customers

Reach More People, Offer a Better Service

People turn to the internet more and more frequently. A decade or two ago, people looking for a local business would turn to the yellow pages of their local telephone directory. Today, more and more people turn first to the internet and do a search on businesses in their town. Let’s say you have a dry cleaning service which really cannot be done over the internet. You may think having a website is a waste of time. But if your competition has a website, and their name comes up in the search engine, they are likely to get more business than you from travelers, new residents, and people who simply want to change dry cleaners.

If you have a website you can not only reach your dry cleaning customers, you could develop an email service to let people know when their dry cleaning is in, let them know about special offers. You could use the website to advertise extra services such as alterations, tailoring or shoe repair.

No matter what your business, with a little imagination, you will be able to think up several ways that you can improve or enhance your service with an internet presence even if all your customers are local. You could even use the website to increase income by using advertising for similar products on your site.

Getting Traffic to your New Website

So you’ve just finished creating your new website. It looks good and you are ready for the visitors, you can’t wait for the traffic to come. So how are you going to get traffic to your new site? You will now need to promote your new site. Here are a few things you could start with:

1. Submit your site to the Search Engines.
If you want people to find your site then you should start by submitting your site to the biggest 3 search engines, which are Google Yahoo and MSN. They will find your site eventually without submitting to them but why wait. You should also submit your site to all the other lesser-known search engines because some people don’t or can’t use the big 3. Can be time consuming to submit your site to most of them so Search Engine Submission Software is recommended for this.

2. Submit your site to Directories.
People go here to find other websites. Provides good incoming links when your site is listed on directories, which can over time increase your website’s popularity and SE rankings. There are so many directories that this can also be time consuming.

3. Submit your site to Classifieds.
Was once considered to be an excellent way to get traffic to your site but not as effective today, however, it still could be worth your while submitting your site to the classified sites using Search Engine Submission Software because most of those sites are considered high traffic sites.

The above three methods are great ways to promote your site and start getting traffic but they can be very time consuming if you decide to submit your site manually to the above, however, there is a much faster and incredibly simpler way to get your site on over 700,000 Search Engines, Directories, Classifieds, Online Malls and Link pages by using Search Engine Submission Software like this http://www.easy.top5submitters.com

You could also consider other ways of getting visitors to your site like

1. Article Distribution – Writing articles about what can be found on your site and distributing them to article directories with a link to your site included in every article you write.

2. Participate in Forums that are related to your sites content – Post your opinion or expertise on the subject matter, and over time you’ll be allowed add a link to your site with every post you make.

3. Add lots of related links to your site – This is reciprocal linking where someone adds your link to their site while you agree to add their link to your site – make sure the sites you link to are related to your site in some way, this will improve your search engine ranking for more traffic, eg. If you have a weight loss site you should link to other weight loss related sites like health, fitness, diet, exercise.

4. Use Pay Per Click (PPC) – Brings in quality traffic but it can get costly if you don’t know what you’re doing. Every time someone visits your site it will cost you a pre-determined amount usually a few cents. I recommend you learn all about this method before you dive in, however, you can at least set your limit on how much you are willing to spend on this.

5.Traffic Exchanges – This is where you view other people’s sites to gain credits that will allow them to view your site. Most of the people viewing your site will have no interest in your site, they are only clicking on your site to gain credits. Worth a try because it’s free to join.

6. Advertise in Ezines – This can be an excellent way to advertise your website. Only use ezines that are related to your site and have a large circulation. Allow your site ad a few months of advertising to get the best value.

7. Hit Boosters – Instant traffic to your site using software technology. Some can be quite useless but others can bring in truly remarkable results for your site. Here’s a good one http://www.traffic.top5submitters.com

There are many more traffic gaining techniques. The above are 10 good ways that will get traffic to your site and a couple of solutions to your site promotion ventures. My advice is to try the above first and then when you are familiar with them you can look for other methods.

---

David O Connell – Submit Sites to 700,000 SE’s Directories, Classifieds http://www.easy.top5submitters.
com Boost Site Traffic in Minutes http://www.traffic.top5submitters.com

Visit Site: Site Submit Traffic

---

>>Reprint/Distribution Source : ArticleWareHouse.com