Business Websites – Why Are They Important? When you run a business, one of the most vital forms of media you can utilize to increase your reach as well as increase the sales is a top-quality website. Whether you already have a website, which is currently live but not affecting sales, or you are planning your first venture into the world of online marketing, building a new website or improving an existing one, will increase traffic and sales. Having a visually attractive and functionally easy-to-use website will allow you to attract visitors and capture visitor information, and help utilize the potential of the internet effectively. Importance of website quality A business website with high-quality elements provides you with the tools needed to capture large amounts of traffic and related data that is available online. It also provides accessibility to your customers. It is a way for the people who visit the site to obtain information about the products or services, as well as get in touch with you, without the need for a phone conversation, especially during non-working hours. Every day, millions of people search the Internet for various products or services. This provides you with numerous opportunities to capture business from people looking for products or services that you offer. Just as opening a store gives your company physical presence, a good quality business website gives you the online presence you need, to be noticed. Not utilizing these opportunities could result in the loss of a number of potential sales every day, regardless of how good your product might be. Other benefits The key benefit of a good business website is the access it provides to your existing and potential customers, whom you otherwise may not be able to contact. Without a website, the reach of your business extends only to the traditional limits, and you will miss those potential customers who use the internet as their primary point for purchase research. Another benefit is the marketing you can do with a little help from a company that offers internet marketing services. You can develop a direct response site that will be highly effective in reaching the traffic on the internet. Another useful tool is a ‘subscribe’ option,...
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While every one’s visual tastes are different, there are several universal principles that successful websites embody. We’ve distilled these down for you into a simple list of critical success factors. As the web matures, visitors come to your site with higher expectations. Failing to satisfy those expectations can dramatically reduce the effectiveness of your website. 1. Quality Content People visit your site to view content, so providing worthwhile content is one of the most fundamental issues that website owners need to address. The quality of your content not only plays a vital role in converting visitors into results, but also directly impacts your search engine rankings. Good content is time consuming to produce, so ensure that you make adequate allowances for content production in your planning. 2. Usability Many sites on the web – even cool ones – fail because people either can’t figure out how to use the site or couldn’t be bothered trying to work out the innovative navigation that the web designer spent countless hours inventing. To ensure that visitors find your site easy to use, it is advisable to run some simple tests with a small number of people from your target demographic. Just ask them to perform some basic tasks on your web site (such as “purchase 2 widgets using this credit card”). You may be surprised at the results and the findings may vastly improve your website overall. 3. Accessibility People access the internet in many different ways using an increasing number of connections, browsers and devices. From fast corporate connections, high speed cable and DSL, to mobile broadband, Android Phones & iPhones, speech browsers, old browsers through to old fashioned dial-up the range is enormous. Your site needs to be usable on any of the platforms that people are likely to access it from. The key concept here is “graceful degradation”€ which simply means that whilst a simple device might not display your web page in all its glory, it should still display in a respectable manner. 4. A Good Strategy A good strategy is essential to gaining a good return on the money invested in developing your website. Ensure that you know why you have a site and what business outcomes...
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What Is More Important, Website Design or Website Content? You have recently launched an awesome new website with a great design and layout. But the content on your site is not up to par. How long do you think people will continue visiting your website? There might be a strong influx initially because your website is new, but the flow may soon trickle down when they see that your website is not offering them value. On the other hand, you may have great content, but the website design and layout is drab and uninteresting. There is no doubt, that a visually appealing website layout will increase your chances of attracting and retaining visitors. The big question is, what is more important, web design or web content? A Look at Website Design Web designers mostly design websites to fit a business objective and initially, there may be little thought put into the content side besides the usual generic pages like “About Us”, “Services”, “Products” and “Contact Us”. This is usually the standard approach that a business takes when they are starting out on the Internet and do not have someone to guide them. When a website is well designed, it indicates to the visitor that your company is professionally managed. But, on the other hand, if your website does not look good due to a bad design and layout or does not function correctly, it can make your company look very unprofessional. Many companies make the mistake of taking their website visitors’ expectations for granted. Note that if the visitors do not like what they see, they will quickly leave your website and head to your competitor’s site. For some small businesses, a company website is probably the only visible aspect of your business. Therefore your site visitors will judge your company by the way your website looks. The design gives directions to the visitor and is responsible for setting the mood. A Look at Website Content A well designed website is only the first piece of the puzzle. Content is responsible for giving information to your site visitors, getting you higher rankings on search engines, bringing value to your site and increasing your organic search visibility, which improves your...
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