Difference Between Web Design & Web Development
Web design is the aesthetic component of your business website.
Employing various photoshop programs and creative layouts, web design is the visual aspect. Web designers incorporate balance, color scheme and contrast, applying unity between layout and composition with emphasis on the most important elements of your company’s website. Good web designers also understand the importance of consistency in navigation and user experience.
Web development is the functional component of your business website.
Web development is the process of incorporating HTML, PHP, Javascript and various programming languages into the design of your website, breathing life into its landscape. In other words, a web developer’s primary goal is to construct a fully functioning website, not just a pretty one. Web developers are programming experts, determining headings and knowing when and where to incorporate landing pages. Web developers use content management systems to streamline their “construction” process. This step enables business owners such as yourself a means by which to update and maintain your company website.
6 Things Every E-Commerce Checkout Needs
One of the most frustrating experiences for me personally as an avid online shopper is the thrill of finding that perfect discounted product for which I have been searching for MONTHS only to get to the checkout process to find it rife with various complications to the point that I end up canceling my purchase altogether. I walk away from my laptop totally frustrated because I, like any other consumer, look to the internet for a fast, effective means of buying what I want and when I want it with as little complication as possible. The whole reason I avoid going to the store is for a simpler, faster checkout and I’m betting you feel the same way.
Unfortunately, many business owners don’t realize their e-commerce checkout is frustrating to consumers. You might be one such entrepreneur contributing to this frustration. Let me save you AND your business by telling you upfront that you need to optimize your checkout page. You might have the most fantastic e-commerce website in the whole of the universe, but if your checkout page is tedious and difficult to navigate, your customers won’t have the patience to complete a purchase.
Here’s the skinny: there are six things your checkout should have in order to maximize results:
One step checkout
equally as satisfying as one-stop shopping, limiting the number of steps in your checkout is a great way to increase the number of purchases in your store. Traditionally the checkout process on an E-Commerce store can be 4+ steps, with the worst offenders being up to 10 steps before a purchase is completed. Utilizing a one-step checkout option will allow your customer to fill in all of their details on a single page, before completing their purchase.
Guest checkout
People are used to getting what they want quickly these days, especially when it comes to a fast checkout experience. If possible, include an option for guest checkouts for customers (like me) who don’t want to waste time making an account. If I’m required to create an account in order to checkout, I’ll go elsewhere to another online retailer who places greater value on my time. While there’s nothing wrong with collecting consumer data, and you absolutely SHOULD, checkout isn’t the best place to accomplish this. In addition, some customers prefer not to share their information, but still want to make a purchase, so a guest checkout is a perfect option for them.
Cart contents and summary
A common pet peeve for consumers is a lack of clarity when reviewing their cart before checking out. I know I appreciate seeing exactly what’s in my cart with a clear price breakdown before hitting “submit”. Consumers appreciate the clarification of seeing their full list of the items to be purchased while having the ability to edit quantities. If the full price isn’t clearly on display and the total price must be manually tallied up prior to checkout, they’re going to move onto your competition.
Payment methods
I like options and that extends to payment methods. If I see only one accepted means of payment at checkout, such as PayPal, I might find another online retailer who accepts credit cards. You really need to provide a variety of payment options for your customers to use. I really like using my credit card because I get frequent flier miles, cash back and other perks that I cannot earn when I shop with PayPal. You will always have loyal PayPal patrons, too, so you should try to keep that as an option, but try to include a selection of payment methods for ease of checkout for those of us who like out credit card perks! Thanks!
Save abandoned carts
This sounds so cold and lonely, but in the event a customer abandons their cart because something came up, or they wanted to revisit at another time, saving their basket is a good idea. I love this option because I will eventually return and, when I do, I love that I won’t have to go back through the annoying process of finding what I want and adding it back in. This simple step goes a long way with busy shoppers who face common life interruptions throughout the day.
Shipping options
This is a BIG DEAL for consumers as unclear shipping options are an immediate turnoff, especially if items are needed urgently. If I can’t see the available options and my cost, it creates confusion regarding when I might receive the items I’ve ordered. Consumers need to see clear shipping options in order to ensure that a birthday gift arrives on time or that the perfect anniversary present arrives on or before the anniversary. Make sure your shipping options are on clear display at checkout to make for a happy shopping experience for your customers.
At the end of the day, your business exists to make you money. Simplifying your ecommerce checkout process for your customers equals more money in your pocket. Don’t forget these simple tips:
- Optimize for a mobile-friendly checkout experience.
- Don’t frustrate shoppers by asking for unnecessary info.
- Offer multiple payment options.
- Remove distractions by using a clean design.
- Eliminate surprise fees.
- Provide a link to customer support.
- Auto-save abandoned cart contents.
- Speed up sign in with a social media login option.
- Send payment confirmations to the consumer email address.
Simple implementation of these steps will offer a big payoff in the end! Don’t neglect your checkout and your customers won’t neglect you!
5 Great Opt-in Form Examples
Having an opt-in form on your website is a fantastic way to encourage your visitors to subscribe to your email newsletter! However, the cold, harsh reality is that having an opt-in form in place doesn’t mean your customers are automatically going to, you know, opt-in.
Allow me to inflate your recently deflated balloon. There are a myriad of effective methods and strategies that can easily boost the likelihood that your website visitors will sign up for your newsletter or email marketing campaign, IF you implement a few steps to entice them!
Visibility is key! A great opt-in form will be well placed and difficult to miss on your website. For example, it’s pretty tough for customers to miss a bright yellow button presenting very clear instructions: “CLICK HERE”. Am I right? The unfortunate reality is that we all are prone to missing the obvious. How many times have you gone to look for your glasses only to discover they’re on top of your head? No show of hands, please. The point is that the easier the opt-in form is to see, the higher the likelihood that website visitors will sign up! Not a difficult concept to master. Consider which parts of your website are going to offer higher visibility. For example, “above the fold” content offers tremendous visibility as it is considered the part of your screen which is viewed without having to scroll further down on the screen. Always try to place your opt-in form in an obvious spot and not in a place which requires you to scroll endlessly to find it.
Make your opt-in form so attractive that no one will be able to look away! Okay, so maybe that’s a bit much, but visual attractiveness is one of the pillars of marketing, is it not? Again, perhaps I’m restating the obvious, but for consumers, the word “form” invites visions of endless rows of boring, monotonous text and questions and rows of empty text fields. Yuck! You need to spice things up a bit and present your consumers with a visually exciting, well placed, and engaging opt-in form!
- Consider your color pallet.
- Choose a catchy word or brief phrase.
- There is power in fonts.
- Consider size/scale.
Make sure your opt-in form content is engaging! Provide clear, attention-grabbing copy which will spur readers to press on through the rest of the form! Your content should be such that it “wets the appetite” of potential customers.
Consider incentivizing readers with coupons, special offers, insight to early product launches and a VIP sign-up bonus if applicable! Remember: all consumers want to be in the know and ahead of the game. If you make them feel like it is worth their while to opt-in, then you stand to gain a higher amount of sign-ups and that means more money in your pocket! Provide consumers with value and they will be invaluable to you in return!
Almost every business owner is familiar with the “K.I.S.S.” acrostic, so you probably already know to keep it simple, Stupid! No one likes complications and no one has time to navigate a tedious, complicated opt-in form. Keep it simple! It should be very easy for website visitors to sign up and the fields should be limited. Don’t overwhelm consumers by requesting unnecessary information from them.
Opt-in forms are powerful lead magnets! A well placed, well designed button will encourage consumers to provide you with invaluable personal data and insight as to what they want, need, are willing to pay for and serve as the match which ignites open communication between you and your customers!
How to Declutter Your Website Menu
Feeling a little cluttered lately? If your website looks overcrowded, too “busy” or blindingly bright and flashy, it is highly unlikely that your site is performing as it should. In fact, you could even go so far as to say that your cluttered website:
- Distracts from your brand.
- Confuses your customers.
- Increases bounce rates.
- Stifles conversions.
Drives your consumer base to your competition.
The good news is that less is more and minimalism reigns in today’s cyber society. Your customers aren’t interested in random, meaningless functions or obnoxious animations and imagery. Your website is a virtual storefront for consumers who expect a more intuitive experience. A cleaner website makes for an expedient presentation to customers looking for information fast! Simple, clean websites have the power to:
- Leave consumers with a positive impression of your brand.
- Compel consumers to interact with your brand.
- Make it easier to explore your content.
- Lead consumers along your sales funnel.
- Increase clicks on your CTA (call to action) button.
- Boost conversion rates.
Fortunately, there are a number of things you can do to remove excess “clutter” from your website in order to make for a more compelling, user-friendly experience. Start by removing unnecessary graphics, pointless images which serve no purpose and fail to reflect your brand and irrelevant content and subheadings.
Simplify your main menu by condensing options. Keep the important links only such as “Services/Products”, “About”, “Blog” and “Contact”. Don’t make your customers jump through unnecessary hoops in order to locate simple information. Avoid a pesky mega menu stocked with numerous categories and sub links. Be sure your linking strategy is clear and incorporate secondary links in the drop-down menu and in the footer of your website if applicable. In addition, consumers spend an average of 45 seconds on a website. Internal links which connect users to alternate pages on your website are valuable as they can increase the amount of time consumers spend on your website. External links can also be valuable for improving SEO (search engine optimization), however too many links can confuse consumers. Closely evaluate the purpose and necessity of each individual link to determine which ones fulfill your goals! Think strategically!
Consider every screen by optimizing your website for all devices: smart phones, desktops, laptops, IPads, etc. Test your website on all platforms to ensure it is clear and orderly whether viewed on a tablet or a desktop!
Evaluate your content and readability:
- Avoid “fancy” fonts that are difficult to read.
- Be sure your content is engaging, employing strong SEO techniques.
- Evaluate your website for a pleasant color scheme that isn’t too harsh on the eyes.
- Check for an obvious, well-placed CTA (call to action).
- Consider average sentence length and word syllables.
Efforts to maintain a simple, clutter-free website comes with a big payoff! Enjoy improved website performance, smoother navigation experiences and greater conversion rates, all of which go to improving your bottom line!
5 Ways to Keep Your Website Content Fresh
Feeling a bit stale lately? Is your website content a tad outdated? Are your blog posts still relevant to your central marketing message?
If you are boring yourself to sleep perusing your own business website, then this post is for you! Here’s the bottom line: fresh, relevant content which accurately reflects the theme of your marketing strategy helps to build trust between you and your customers! You can’t afford to let your content go stale and maintaining a fresh approach isn’t as hard as it might seem.
Language plays a HUGE role in the maintenance of fresh content. Cultural lingo changes with the wind and what was once considered “righteous” is now deemed “cool”. Words are powerful and if you’re not speaking the language of your people (a.k.a your customers), you are automatically dating yourself and age is so much more than a number in this particular case. In addition, today’s language style has been redefined as one of inclusivity. With all of the social changes occurring regarding gender equality, for example, you need to ensure that your content speaks to your entire audience and that you aren’t inadvertently excluding or alienating customers with your material.
Jokes which were socially appropriate ten years ago are not likely to be acceptable in today’s age of enlightenment. Whether you subscribe to this philosophy or not is moot. Your business needs to be adaptable to social changes and the desires of your consumers regardless of your personal preferences and your website content needs to reflect current relevance.
While no one is trying to insult your intelligence by stating the obvious, CHECK YOUR DATES! The truth is that many business owners fail to change the dates on refreshed or recycled content. In other words, if you are planning to pull an old blog post from out of your “file” because the content is still relevant, for Pete’s sake, change the date! There is nothing worse for a new prospective customer who thinks they’ve found the answer to their problems in one of your posts only to discover the content is dated November 3, 1982. This leaves the consumer highly doubtful that the content is still relevant and they will move on to your competition who has updated material posted on their website. I can attest to this personally. Christmas shopping was rough for me when I discovered that a major 50% offer on a website expired the previous year. I won’t be doing business with THAT company. Consumers believe that true professionals don’t make rookie mistakes!
This might seem off topic, but when was the last time you watched the news or read the paper? Asking for a friend… Seriously, though, do you even know about the latest change to your entire industry? Are you up-to-date on new services and products you should be offering and have you taken any refresher courses or undergone updated training? The most successful business owners understand that it’s crucial to stay in the know and that lifelong learning is fundamental to a successful, booming business.
A simple perusal of Google can go a long way in keeping you apprised of new developments in your field which will impact your website content. Nothing says “I know my stuff” like a business owner who boasts about the newest trends in their field of expertise. Afterall, this is exactly the kind of material consumers long for! They want to achieve expert status, too! Perhaps you should set aside time each day to check out the local paper or consider a subscription to a magazine which is relevant to your field of expertise. Stay in the know!
Update those links! God may have blessed the broken road, but He cannot abide a busted link leading straight to nowhere! Okay, maybe we should leave religion out of this, but the point stands! Blog posts can be racked with broken links and nothing deters consumers like brokenness.
Broken links automatically place your website at a disadvantage by wrecking the customer’s experience with your brand and destroying your rank on search engines such as Google. The greater the amount of broken links on your website, the greater your status will plummet in search engine rankings.
I know I said I’d leave religion out of this, but it’s time to ask, “What would Jesus do?” The answer: He’d fix what’s broken. God bless!
Why Your Business Needs a Website Audit
Nothing screams “excitement” like a good, old fashioned website audit. Why? Because a website audit includes a general analysis of your business site, revealing steps you need to take in order to improve your SEO (search engine optimization) value. These tantalizing audits are great for learning about ways to improve your website’s performance, including content, overall SEO score, web stats and site speed.
Sarcasm aside, website audits truly are the cat’s meow. Of course, they sound terribly boring and snooze-worthy, however, they are invaluable to your business, strengthen your marketing and help you better connect with your consumers. Precious little in your entrepreneurial life should excite your business-owning heart more than that!
Grab your favorite beverage and get comfy in the Lazy Boy, because there are eight different types of audits, reports and analyses of which you should be aware:
- Website Audit: This in depth report includes 100+ actionable recommendations to help 2X+ website leads.
- On Page SEO Report: This report includes dozens of actionable on page SEO insights.
- Landing Page Audit: This report offers actionable insights on how to convert more clicks into customers.
- Page Speed Insights Report: This report includes issues and recommendations to help pages load faster.
- E-commerce Website Audit: This includes 100+ actionable points to boost conversions 25% or more!
- Google My Business Audit: This actionable report tells you what to optimize on a GMB profile to boost the businesses local ranking on Google.
- Competitive Analysis: Use the insights in this report to help your prospects or customers out-maneuver their competition.
ROI Analysis: Use this to answer the most important question your prospect or client is asking about your services: “Is it worth the investment?”
The end goal is always the same: ensuring that you have a reliable, powerful system in place that works! It’s like walking into a public restroom stall only to realize there is no toilet paper until it is too late. We’ve ALL been there. Don’t be THAT person. Again. Know the dangers that can bring your website down AHEAD of time so that you can fix what’s broken before things get awkward. Start performing your own website health “mini” audit!
1. Run a simple speed test.
While this simple step won’t tell you EVERYTHING regarding your website’s performance, it is a great starting point.
- Run at least three different tests in order to best average the speed of your site.
- Try to run tests from different geographical locations as you will likely have website traffic from beyond the U.S. Pingdom is a great site to use for running basic speed tests.
2. Perform your own search for your website to see how you rank.
- Sign out of your Gmail account.
- Change your location to match that of your target audience.
- Open a new window for www.google.com each time a new term is searched. For example, if you search “Joe’s Gym”, Google won’t forget and will only deliver results specifically related to “Joe’s Gym”.
3. Review your content.
- Are your contact details accurate and clearly displayed?
- Do you have strong headlines?
- Have you incorporated valuable keywords for SEO?
- Does your content effectively inform your target audience while building interest?
- Is your content search-engine friendly? Are you ranking well with Google regarding keywords and phrases for which your target audience is searching?
- How consistently are you at showcasing your brand?
Let’s revisit the awkward bathroom stall scenario, shall we? Performing a simple audit of a stall prior to sitting would result in an entirely different, much more comfortable experience. The benefits would be obvious and the procedure would end without awkward cries for help, possible appearances of an IQ deficit, and inconvenient delays. The same can be said for auditing your business website.
- You will rank higher in search engines!
- You will generate better user experiences for your ideal customers!
- You will improve your website’s speed and performance!
- You will identify weaknesses BEFORE your users do and resolve them!
- You will pinpoint your strongest, winning content!
Website audits are a win-win for you AND your consumers! We’d be happy to run any of the web audits mentioned above for your business website. In fact, mention this blog post and we’ll take 15% off.
Advantages of Establishing a Help Desk for Your Business
Customer satisfaction is the primary goal for all companies as contented customers build businesses, increase revenue and set you apart from your competitors. Your brand is strengthened when your customers are satisfied, remaining loyal to you above your competition. Unfortunately, deadlines, communication, important messages, and crucial business matters commonly fall by the wayside when companies operate without help desk software. The truth is that customers want twenty-four/seven support, proactive solutions, and timely quality service addressing their complaints and concerns at superhuman, lightning speed. Six benefits of incorporating help desk software into your business include:
- Single, one-stop solutions for customer complaints, assistance requests, queries, and support from one place
- Status tracking and monitoring of complaints, service requests, solutions, and resolutions
- Improved customer satisfaction and quality service
- Increased speed in problem resolution and efficacy
- Brand reputation is strengthened
- Improved understanding of what customers want and improved quality in delivering support, products, and services
Imagine streamlining much of your most time-consuming, mundane daily tasks by cutting out the process of combing through old emails in order to trace issues or complaints. Help desk software enables you and your staff to quickly track questions, issues, and tasks, resulting in greater adaptability and responsiveness to your customers. In addition, a help desk creates a way for your customers to solve problems on their own without waiting on the phone for hours or jumping through complicated hoops in order to get the service they require.
Help desk software enables you to prioritize and keep track of the most urgent tasks and customer concerns. For example, you can set up a system that allows you to handle consumer issues on a first-come, first-served basis or an urgency “grading system” which bumps more concerning issues to the top of the queue of issues to be addressed. In addition, more pressing issues that require your direct attention can be more efficiently optimized, ensuring no consumer feels as though their concerns have gone unaddressed or that they have been neglected for an unreasonable period of time. When customer concerns are addressed promptly and efficiently, you as a business owner can make consumers feel valued, strengthening your brand’s integrity while creating greater revenue opportunities as you increase consumer trust in your business.
Help desk software allows business owners to create a better understanding of consumer audiences. Help desks allow companies to collect and track customer data regarding commonly asked questions and concerns about products and services. As a result, you can fine-tune your products and services by utilizing this valuable information to improve upon what your company offers, creating further products, services, better solutions-oriented business practices, and strengthening customer service. Even the most loyal consumer will leave you if they feel they have not been heard. Implementation of help desk software can act as an insurance plan against consumer neglect and customer service delays, ensuring nothing and no one slips through the cracks.
Whether establishing a small business or running a Fortune 500 enterprise, help desks are used by companies across the world regardless of scale. Impressive automation prevents business owners from missing important deadlines by bumping more urgent matters to the top of the list so that nothing gets missed. In addition, help desks ensure your customers are dealing with one response, not multiple and confusing phone calls from various members of your organization, completely defeating the purpose of building efficiency within your company.
As a business owner, you have a responsibility to your employees and customers to provide the best in customer service and quick solutions to everyday concerns. Help desk software enables you to offer that support more easily while increasing efficiency within your company. Strengthen your collaborative team efforts by providing better responses resulting in greater customer loyalty. In addition, you can analyze and improve your efforts in order to fine-tune your customer service in a way that further elevates your brand’s image and consumer loyalty.
5 Questions Regarding Website Care Plans
A website care plan is best described as services (malware protection, security, backups, monitoring, etc.) which are bundled together for the purpose of maintaining optimum website security and operating condition. As a business owner, you have likely invested a great deal of time and money into building a company website of which you can be proud. Your website is likely one of your greatest lead generators and you need to protect your vital business asset. A care plan protects your asset, ensuring it continues to perform in a manner which contributes effectively to your business.
How to Respond to Customer Reviews
Reviews are crucial to the success of your business as 93% of customers base their purchasing decisions on consumer reviews. If your overall review rating falls below 3.3 stars, consumers won’t engage with your business.
Your responses to your company’s reviews play an equally important role in consumer engagement, influencing purchasing decisions. When you fail to respond, you send a message that you do not care about your customers.
Is Your Website Feeling Insecure?
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- Visitors trust companies who enforce strict website security best practices. Nothing repels consumers more than a flashing “not secure” message on a company’s website.
- Statistically, a website is hacked once every 39 seconds. If your site is lacking an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate, you can easily obtain one from a Certificate Authority online. An SSL certificate acts as an invisible barrier in preventing hackers from accessing your consumer profiles.
- Security cleanup is far more expensive than developing website security practices. It is well worth your time and money to establish website security in order to avoid costly cleanup after hackers and viruses.
- Google ranking improves and SEO value is boosted when “not secure” issues are addressed.
- Avoid losing consumers by securing your website and experience higher conversion rates and increased revenue.
Thoroughly review staff members and third parties who have access to your website. Unfortunately, partnerships are dissolved daily due to disagreements over how to manage the business, finances, and workload. Your partner leaves with all the credentials to fully access the business website and takes off with your soon-to-be ex-spouse who also has full website access. You are now left holding the bag and facing the possibility that you could lose your business entirely. How will you finance your impending divorce? Moral of the story: do not grant access to others unless it is a MUST and only allow them to access the necessary portions of your website. Fifty-six percent of employees present the largest website security threat to companies due to having been granted access privileges beyond what is necessary.
Don’t trust your business developer, your spouse, your manager nor the president of the United States unless you absolutely must. Even then, do not give anyone carte blanche. Full administrative access grants users the power to control (or steal) your business and access sensitive consumer information which can lead to fraud and embezzlement. You are the only one who should retain full administrative control if at all possible. Also, you should review user accounts on a recurring basis and remove stale users.
Consistently backup website data to an off-site platform. Redundancy is a good thing in this scenario as sole reliance upon your website host could result in the inability to restore the website in the event the host has “issues”… Always have a backup for your backup.
Backups are crucial because:
- Firewalls, security practices, and patch management tools don’t always work. When it comes to business websites, no one is immune to the occasional attack. Even worse is the fact that 68% of small business owners don’t have any sort of recovery plan in place in the event of a breach. While many companies rely on the cloud for backups, they are entrusting valuable information to the cloud provider. Consistent backups are the foundation of a solid disaster recovery plan.
- Hackers are constantly evolving in their processes. Whether infecting your website with ransomware or utilizing simple tactics such as supply chain attacks (child’s play), hackers are known for targeting the cloud and on-site information in order to obtain sensitive consumer info. One of the downfalls of digital transformation is that it has increased the frequency of cyberattacks and businesses are experiencing massive influxes of hacker attacks compromising sensitive consumer info and business financials.
- Sixty percent of small businesses whose data is compromised or lost entirely will cease to exist within six months of such an event. If the power goes out in your building and your server completely crashes, all of your valuable data is gone unless you have a backup. Regardless of the scale of your business, anticipate the worst-case scenario and be disciplined with consistent backups.
