Some Website Design Basics

When designing we focus on the basics, often easy to forget.  Christopher Merrill´s message always helps keep us focused.

A four letter dirty word – sale/s (marketing)

Marketing, once known as a four letter “S” word (sale) has changed over the years, more rapidly in the last 10 years than ever before. Gone are the days when the old adage “the product sells itself” held sway and salesmen were nothing more than service consultants to facilitate the transaction between the client that wanted the product and the manufacturer. With today’s technology and direct supply chain logistics(sales) the traditional salesman is no longer relevant.

Yet the world is still full of marketing professionals. Why is that?, well not everyone has the unique ability of a Steve Jobs from Apple- being able to create a demand for a product no-one has seen or tested-  the supreme marketing guru, unrivalled in creating demand for a product no-one knows anything about. So we need that conduit between manufacturer and buyer. We need salesmen, or more importantly someone or something to act as the new age salesman.

In the world of website e-commerce and design the salesman’s role has been taken by the SEO campaign. What am I talking about? Well as a website is really your point of sales for e-commerce, your image, your yellow pages advertisement as such. It has become your head salesman, your marketing strategy on-line, in some cases its your one and only saleman so it carries a huge responsibility.

You need to make sure you recruit well and get this part of your website correct. A poorly designed SEO approach can lead to many thousand of dollars wasted; it doesn’t matter how good your product or website is, if you don’t get the customer to your point of sale, you have nothing!

Marketing…..create the demand, deliver the experience! You can have your website on page 1 of google with no marketing spend if done right from day 1 of the design process.  OzWebExperts get the right advice!

SEO – what you really want!

Search Engine Optimisation has been written about in thousands of online blogs and many hundreds of book have been devoted to the subject.  Which is all very well if you’re a Web designer or need the expertise for some other reason.

The fact is as a website owner, you don´t really need to know all the ins and outs of designing a great SEO campaign, or learning meta tags etc. You pay for a good website design which should include an organic SEO solutions that doesn’t cost you money, and should not require you to learn how to become an SEO expert in the process.

A website these days is arguably a simple replacement for the yellow pages system. i.e most people now search online for a product or service as opposed to the traditional means. What does that mean ? Well your website is now essentially your advertising vehicle and should be structured with that in mind. A professionally designed SEO solution is very important to achieving the all important ranking in the major search engines, and get your business the publicity you need at least on a par with the old system of paying to advertise in the yellow pages.

IF your website does NOT include any user login system or registration process, then its a simple advertising medium to promote and develop your brand name and recognition.

This all means that the main focus of a new or existing website should be to drive sales and that is only through SEO done correctly.

Do that right and the people will come and buy, the design and presentation are important too for any website, but secondary to achieving a good rank within the major search engines. It’s like front page advertising for free!!

Speak to us about any questions you may have in regards to this article or any website solution question you may have.  Stay focused and good luck!

Corporate ID- The right image is everything

Today more than ever the right corporate image can mean the difference between success and mediocrity.

The chosen image should appeal to your target market, be remembered easily, reflect your company business, and above all project a clean professional image of your business. Your logo sits at the core of your business image and represents your company in the world. Be proud to spread your logo throughout your corporate identity.

Whether it be a simple logo or a complete corporate ID package, including stationery and business cards etc the image projected should be consistent across all mediums.

Don´t be fooled into accepting a generic image so prevalent these days, this is the most important marketing decision you may make. Especially if your a start-up company finding your way. Its important to do it right, the first time.

Talk to OzwebExperts about a unique design for your business today.

SiteMaps-Whats required for successful spidering

A site-map lists the URL´s of a website. It is not necessary to have a site-map within your website, but a site-map will dramatically improve your search engine optimisation results. Why you ask? well a site-map helps a search engine like google, crawl/spider your website and find all the pages and links within.

There are two types of site-maps required for a website to obtain the best results from the search engine spidering process.

1. HTML Sitemap – a basic site-map contained within your website pages and can be seen by clients for easier navigation. This is referred to as the static version.
2. XML Sitemap-  is placed within your root file of the website and contains links to all other pages and makes it easier for a search engine to crawl your website.

In short this is an often over-looked important piece of the SEO puzzle.  We recommend both types of site-maps as this aides navigation for your clients and search engine like google, Bing, and yahoo.

Please as always contact us for any questions for help you may require in regards to Site-maps or any other web design topic.

E-Commerce Websites – The Basics

Lets face it, its far easier and more convenient to do our shopping on-line these days. That’s a given.

What is not such a given when buying on-line  is does the experience include:

1. Security of your financial and personal details
2. Ease of use of website/ ability to locate required product easily.
3. Speed of transaction.
4. Accuracy of the transactions.
5. Shopping cart presentation and easy of use.
6. Efficient delivery of product/s.

For the website owner all of the above is critically important to install confidence in your client that when they purchase your products on-line the process is a pleasurable and secure one.

As the business or Website owner you also need to think about the following- Administration of the on-line store.

1. Manage stock levels.
2. Automatic processes of purchase.
3. Integrated delivery/shipping system for orders.
4. Standards based store.
5. Site architecture is well designed and manageable.
6. Manage the store from a simple to use admin panel.
7. ROI- Return on Investment is an important consideration when contemplating an on-line store.
8. Internet marketing and Search Engine Optimisation.
9. Reliable Hosting

At OzWebExperts we don’t try to sell you a pre-designed e-commerce solution. We analyse your business, your requirements,  and we use your concepts in the design process. We will tailor for you an on-line store that meets all your expectations and adheres to your budget.

Unique design or a modified template (less expensive solution), we will listen to you.

SEO- The Right Way!

Search Engine Optimisation….Is getting your business (website) ranked highly in the major search engines, Google,Yahoo, Bing (MSN) etc is the number one thing you need to do for your on-line business to be a success.
If your potential clients cannot find your business easily, they will never become REAL clients. For instance, if your website is not on the first 2 pages of Google your missing 62% of searches/potential clients.

So how do you solve this problem?-  Firstly, it is important to note that if anyone promises you a number one ranking in Google or other search engines, is likely to be a hoax.  Why ? Because a guarantee top spot is NOT possible because of the ever changing nature of the ranking process.There is no one system to achieve ranking success in SEO, however there are some basics that will make the path easier and the probability of a top ranking greater.

1. Make sure your meta tags are correctly written and placed.
2. Description tags- A succinct description of your business.
3. Make sure you write great/unique page content (don’t be tempted to copy content).
4. choose your keywords based on your page content-make them as unique as possible
5. Optimise your landing pages based on your keywords to improve the ranking of that page
6. Use Text navigation within your website, as search engine spiders view text far easier then images.
7. Once the first phase is complete (above 1-4) then we need to build relevant links. Link popularity places highly in search engine rankings formulas, and helps get your website to the top.
8. SITE MAP- why is this in capitals?- because without a site-map GOOGLE will not list your website!!! Regardless of how well you have done everything else.
9. Analytics- you need to see who is visiting your website, what pages,what time, what they are interested in, and how long they stay on your website. All of this data will help you understand and improve your website ranking.

These are just a few of the things you need to think about, but are the basic requirements for success.

OzWebExperts offers a complete package to place your business at the top of search engine page rankings and maintain your presence. Contact us for more information or a strategy designed specifically for your business.

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