Tag Archives: business tools

10 Most Common Website Design Mistakes

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Because most of us use our smartphones to find products and services, all websites must now be “responsive” designed, i.e., optimized for any-sized device. If your site is not responsive, and you plan a facelift sometime soon, this list of the most common website design mistakes can make the time and thought into a redesign more productive and profitable.
top 10 mistakes

  1. IGNORING MOBILE
    Did you know that Google penalizes non-responsive sites in mobile searches? Since 75% of searches come from Google and over 90% from the Chrome browser in mobile phones, if you want your site found in searches, your website must be responsive-designed.
  2. BEWARE OF THE FREE WEBSITE BUILDER
    It’s tempting to use the “drag-and-drop” website builders that claim to give you a full-functioning, responsive website in minutes. The problem is that because they have to be “all things to all people” regardless of your unique message and needs, these time- and money-savers use long lines of code on the back end causing them to load more slowly. If budget is a problem, we’re happy to advise you on the best, inexpensive solutions.
  3. ACCEPTING BAD DESIGN
    A website’s design requires balance. We all agree that the purpose of a website is to lead a consumer toward a favorable decision: to opt in to your newsletter, request information, make a purchase, visit your store, decide to select you to solve their problem, or share your site with colleagues and friends. Over-the-top design can be a distraction. Minimalist design can be a turn off.
  4. NOT CAPTURING INFORMATION
    Every marketer knows that to generate revenue, you need to have strategies to keep your name in front of a potential customer. Remarketing and retargeting enable your website to be easily found and opened again. These are good strategies, but pale in comparison to actually collecting names and email addresses so you can send personalized emails, newsletter, coupons, or discount notices to all who sign up or register on your site.
  5. POOR QUALITY CONTENT
    Did you know that the #1 criteria for your website ranking in search results is high quality content? It’s not uncommon today to see absolutely beautiful websites with huge images and fancy fonts deliver content as though it was afterthought. For the 20+ years that we’ve designed websites, we’ve never wavered from this: content first—then design.
  6. INFORMATION THAT’S HARD TO FIND
    When a user wants to find your address, phone number, email address, or store hours, where do they go? Not the Yellow Pages; no, they bring up your website. This information must be extremely easy and intuitive to find. If you sell a product, make it easy to find directions to your store or, if an online store, return policies, FAQs, and shipping details. When designing your layout, list what your audience must know, and make this information the easiest to find.
  7. FORGETTING ABOUT UPDATES
    Does your business stay the same year after year? Probably not. Whether you add new products or services, hire new key employees, revamp your marketing message, hold an event, grow or downsize—it’s always changing. Your website needs to reflect that.
  8. HTTP INSTEAD OF HTTPS
    Check those four letters in front of your domain name! If yours is HTTP instead of HTTPS, we recommend updating to HTTPS. Why? The simple reason is, Google prefers it. The “S” stand for “Secure”. Not having that “S” makes it easier for an attacker to deliver malicious content to your website and shut it down. To avoid cybersecurity risks in general, be sure to update your site’s framework on a regular basis.
  9. NOT CHECKING YOUR SITE REGULARLY
    There’s nothing more irritating than getting a “Page Not Found” error. This happens when something is wrong in the site’s code—usually a broken link. We recommend going through every page on your website at least quarterly; weekly if it has high traffic. If you find an error code, have your developer fix it—sometimes it takes someone who knows how to find and fix bugs and problems.
  10. NOT USING OR EVEN HAVING ANALYTICS
    Google Analytics should be installed in the code of every website. It’s free and the most useful tool you have in your online marketing arsenal. It helps you find underperforming pages, know where your visitors are spending their time, and from which page (or on which product) visitors leave your site. Another mistake is having Google Analytics on your website and never going there.

Mobile-designed Sites

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Do you use a smartphone? A recent survey shows that 46% of Americans own smartphones (Pew Research, March 1, 2012). In the USA, 101 million people (13+ years old) use smartphones, and almost 50 million report that they use their mobile browser (TechCrunch, March 6, 2012). Are we making it easy for these web surfers to view our sites?

We all use smartphones to view websites differently than we do on our desktop or even laptop computers. Mobile browsers are used for shorter, more targeted browsing. When we’re away and have a few moments of wait time, we pull out our smartphone and check a website (or app, or game!).

When mobile browsing, we are looking for what’s new, to find directions or a phone number, or to catch a quick (meaning short!) read that we’ve been meaning to get to, or to link with something that catches our eye, i.e., specific to one’s location. Been meaning to buy a product? Want to register for that event? Need to pay that invoice? All can easily be done by a visitor accessing your website via their smartphone.

smartphone

easy to read and navigate

Mobile devices have constraints different from desktop/laptop browsing. Smartphones, due to their much smaller size and cellular network, have a lesser rate of data throughput (bandwidth); they just don’t download pages as quickly. Obviously they have a smaller screen size.

Well-designed sites show well on mobile browsers. Mobile-designed sites go a step further to present the information in a way that displays even better on the mobile screen, and may not present all of the pages, large images, or the entire information presented on the ‘normal’ site. Typically mobile pages are presented in a one-column format rather than a typical two- or three-column design. Navigation is also treated differently for easier clicking.

ActiveCanvas builds mobile sites using the same content as the conventional site (so there’s no duplication) and without adding a lot of code that needs to be downloaded (so there’s not extra download time). The mobile sites are responsive to the needs of mobile users, and any extra code stays on the server- not on the mobile device.

Got your smartphone handy? Check out our site (www.activecanvas.com) on your mobile browser. Let us know what you think, and let us know what smartphone you are using.

Hosted Exchanges

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If you are reading this, it’s a given that you have at least one email account; many of us have more than one. Those in the corporate world have an IT department behind them to manage their email and their business contacts and calendar programs.

Professionals and small businesses typically do not have the luxury of an IT department to support their information infrastructure. Yet their business information (email, contacts, and calendar) is critical to the success – not to mention viability – of their business. To add to the complexity and vulnerability of a small business, we have not just office desktop computers but also laptops, notebooks, iPads, and smartphones all of which we use to keep us in contact with our lifeblood- our customers and business relationships.

A hosted exchange is a cloud-based service, which means that it can be accessed 24×7 from any of our connected devices; all that is required is an Internet connection and an account. It allows one to access all their business information on any of their connected devices. Multiple email accounts, contacts, and calendar. Sounds easy- sign me up!

Set-up is the hard part – getting them all connected seamlessly takes a knowledgeable professional. However once a system is set-up and properly working, it provides good reliable service including back-ups to protect your mission-critical data.

Recently we helped a client configure multiple email addresses, several hundred contacts and calendar to a desktop, smartphone, and laptop. Another client reports that his system is ‘a thousand times better than before’; we helped him configure a single email address, 1700 contacts and his business calendar simultaneously to his office computer, his iPad and his iPhone. With hosted exchange service professionals and small businesses no longer are at an information deficit to large corporate enterprises.

It’s a technology that no mobile professional or small business owner should overlook.