Did you know if you shop online, you could be saving hundreds of dollars compared to going directly to the nearest retailer? There are many advantages to shopping online: you don’t have to pay taxes, you can comparison shop, check out reviews and use coupon codes to save you a lot of money. Aside from the fact that you cannot feel and handle the product and that it takes longer to get the product, possibly the only disadvantage, if you are an avid shopper you can obtain significant savings by shopping online.
The first advantage is saving money on taxes. If the merchant you are purchasing from does not have a local presence in your state you do not have to pay taxes. For example, Amazon charges sales tax for orders shipped to the states of Kansas, Kentucky, North Dakota, & Washington. If you don’t live in those states you can buy a product from Amazon and save your money on sales taxes. When you decide to buy a product from an online merchant, make sure you read the fine print about where they have a local presence. If two merchants, retailer A and retailer B, offer the same product for the same price and retailer A is the only retailer out of the two that has a local presence, then you should definitely choose merchant B as your shopping target since you could save on sales taxes.
Of course, saving money on taxes is not just the only benefit. Before you shop online I recommend comparison shopping. There are many sites that can can help you comparison shop: epinons, mysimon, bizrate, froogle. All these comparison sites may have different merchants on their list so it’s good to try them all if you know exactly what you are looking for. Not only do they offer different price comparisons on products, some of these sites also provide excellent reviews on products. If you cannot find good reviews on the product you want, I recommend Amazon. Amazon is one of the biggest online retailers and, because of this, they have the most product reviews on every item that you can think of. There have been many times where I’ve changed my mind about a product after reading product reviews on Amazon.
Perhaps the most exciting way about saving money online is finding a good deal and/or using coupon codes from sites like Cheap-buys.com. What are coupon codes? They are text entries that you can input on a merchant’s shopping cart when checking out to receive a discount for your purchases. Almost all merchants have a input box for entering coupon codes as the user wants to check out. Now a lot of times you need to search for these coupon codes on the web since they don’t make it so obvious for the user to find. Why do these merchants provide coupon codes? Sometimes they want to boost their sales by telling other websites (affiliates) to promote their coupon codes. When a user visits the affiliate site they will see that they can save an additional percentage by using the coupon code and therefore the consumer is more likely to make a purchase since they can save additional money. Some of these coupon codes are for a limited time only and must be used quickly. For example, Dell once used to have a promotional coupon code for $750 off their laptops. It had a user limit and it expired within hours since the demand was extremely high.
I hope I have provided you with the right weapons for your next shopping spree. For additional tips on shopping and for coupon codes to save you money you can visit websites such as cheap-buys.com or webcouponcodes.com. By golly, you are likely to save more than a few bucks and bring a smile to your face!
The one thing you will notice on the Internet is the common
misuse of image file types. This is commonly the result of web
designers that have just learned the basics of HTML and are
getting their feet wet by creating simple pages, while not
knowing the impact the misused graphic file types are having.
Here is a breakdown of the two most popular file types and when
you should be using them:
GIF Format:
The term GIF is an acronym for Graphics Interchange Format and
was created in 1987 by Bob Berry out of Compuserve.
As a web designer, you should always think of GIF in association
with Line-Art or Clip-Art. This typically means cartoons,
drawings, buttons, text images, or basically any artwork that is
not a photograph. The reason for this is that GIF photographs
tend to bloat the file size of the image and this will cause the
loading time for your website to increase.
When you are creating a GIF image, you are able to define the
amount of colors that are used in the image. For example, you
can specify the colors of a GIF image up to 256 colors. It
doesn’t seem like a lot, but even with this amount of colors,
you are able to get sufficient photographic gradations in your
image results.
JPEG Format:
The term JPEG is an acronym for Joint Photographic Experts Group
and was created in 1990 by Eric Hamilton.
As the name implies, JPEGs were made for photographic images.
Whenever you are designing a website, always associate JPEGs
with photographs. You will do your website visitors a great
service by saving photos in this format, since they will load
much quicker than if that same photo was saved as a GIF.
When you are creating a JPEG image, you define the quality by
means of adjusting a percentage. This is useful when you are
optimizing a photograph for a website. The difference in load
time with a JPEG image at 100% quality is significantly
different than a JPEG photograph image set to 60% quality (and
most of the time, the loss in quality is unnoticeable to the
naked eye).
Other File Types:
There are other image file types for the Internet, such as PNG
and TIFF. These have their place in the overall spectrum of web
design, but for the beginning web designer, the focus should
begin with discerning the difference between GIF and JPEG.
“It’s good.”
“You’ve done a nice job.”
“I don’t like it.”
At some point, you have probably received comments like this when asking for constructive criticism of your website efforts. Unfortunately, the generic nature of these comments does not give specific information on elements that you need to improve your site.
So how do you elicit specific, constructive, targeted feedback from the public in order to improve your website? The seven techniques below, when implemented properly, will give you the constructive feedback you need to make your website the best it can be.
1. Ask both closed-ended and open-ended questions. Closed-ended questions, such as “how would you rate the site on a scale of 1 to 10?” will provide quantitative measures which, in aggregate quantities, can be very useful. Open-ended questions provide your users the opportunity to provide specific and detailed answers in their own words, thus providing a more qualitative measure of your website’s appeal.
I generally find that a 60% closed-ended/40% open-ended mix of questions provides sufficient data from both a qualitative and quantitative standpoint.
2. Give your existing website customers surveys. Your website customers are the people for whom your site is ultimately constructed, and showing that you are interested in their feedback to make your site more useful to them serves as an excellent way to ensure repeat business.
3. Develop a “focus group” whom you can approach for advice on a regular basis. One of the positive aspects of soliciting opinions is that there are many people who are more than happy to provide it on a regular basis. Your group can be comprised of customers, suppliers, friends, neighbours, relatives, or just about anyone you like!
4. Critique another’s website when asked to do so. By providing a thorough and constructive evaluation of another person’s website, you will establish a relationship with that other person. When asked, said person will usually be quite happy to return the favour.
For those of you who may wish to participate in this sort of exchange without the risk of offending someone whom you personally know, you may wish to visit a web design discussion board that offers a Site Review section and participate. The advantage to this method is that you have the option of posting your site for review; reviewing another’s site and possibly getting ideas for your own site; or, as most people tend to do, a combination of both.
The following websites, among many others, offer a site review forum:
5. Purchase an experienced, professional website analysis. For those of you who aren’t sure which questions you’d like answered about your site, or perhaps would like a more concrete plan and direction, you may wish to acquire the services of a website consulting professional. Depending on what you require in terms of feedback and your budget, website consulting professionals can analyze your website for usability; provide a detailed error and “bug” report; review your traffic statistics or raw logs; determine if your website is search-engine ready; and many other services.
One such company is My Guru Knows (http://www.myguruknows.com). Among other business advice services, My Guru Knows can provide an analysis of your web presence in such things as Internet sales, database marketing, and interpretation of web site statistics.
6. Give away a redeemable website coupon in exchange for survey information. Coupons are a very effective way to encourage your site’s users to provide you with the marketing information you require. It doesn’t even have to be an expensive item either: it can be something along the lines of “free ABC Company pen in exchange for answering these five questions”. Mind you, the nicer and more valuable the item is, the more survey information you will acquire.
7. Incorporate your survey elements as part of registration or other interactive elements of your site. Add a question or two at each interactive stage, such as “how did you find this ordering process on a scale of 1 to 10?” By breaking up your survey, it doesn’t appear as obvious to the user that you are gathering valuable marketing information. However, the downside is that the marketing information gathered will be somewhat fragmented, as some elements of your website will be used more frequently than others.
Use of these seven elements, by themselves or in concert, should lead to a substantial increase in both the quantity and quality of your website feedback and allow you to more accurately determine how to go about building your website in the best interest of your customers.
About The Author
Adam Senour is the owner of ADAM Web Design, a leading web design and development company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Visit http://www.adamwebdesign.ca for more information on ADAM Web Design products and services.
Webmasters and the New Year
It’s a time of year when people think about goals for the
future. As webmasters of revenue-generating websites, we have
these goals in common:
- Attract more visitors to our sites - Convert more visitors to
customers - Keep those customers coming back
What worked last year or the year before might be less
successful this year. The playing field changes, and the rules
of the game can also change. What should we be looking at for
2006?
Attracting more visitors to our sites
First, take a look at how well your site is doing.
- Are you targeting keyword phrases that people are searching
for these days? - Have you studied what your competitors are
doing recently? - How many inbound links from quality, related
sites do you currently have? - Has your SERP or Google PR
changed?
With some do-it-yourself search optimization tools
http://articles.websitesource.com/seo_do_it_yourself_8_16_2005.sh
tml, you can check your site’s position in search engines, view
its current Google PR, see what words your competitors’ sites
are optimized for, find out where your site is ranked for search
terms, analyze inbound links to competitors’ sites, and more.
Your site may have been the “it” site for your product or
service a couple of years ago, but if you haven’t at least kept
up with your competitors, potential customers might not make it
to your site.
Acquiring inbound links is an ongoing job. If you haven’t worked
on this aspect of SEO recently, some newer sites are probably
good candidates for a link exchange or one-way links to your
site. Start by looking at who’s linking to your competitors’
sites, and look for other sites with related but not competing
content.
Also consider the geographical areas you’re targeting. To
attract more local visitors, get your site listed in local
directories and put the name of your city and country in the
<title> tag, at least for the Contact page. To attract
more international customers, look for listings in international
directories, and offer pricing in more than one currency if
possible.
Converting more visitors to customers
You’ve got people coming to your site. Are they buying from you?
If not, why not?
Try to look at your site with fresh eyes. Better yet, get
someone else to. Do the colors and design look dated? Does the
page look good in newer, larger monitors as well as smaller
ones? An updated design may be what your site needs to keep it
looking like a quality contender in your field.
Analyze your traffic stats. If you have a lot of visitors who
don’t click beyond the landing page, either you aren’t targeting
the right visitors or they aren’t drawn in once they arrive. On
the other hand, if your visitors typically view a number of
pages and then leave, perhaps the path of information and action
isn’t clear enough. Or there may be another problem with your
site that’s turning people off.
Of course, the above must be compared with the number of
returning visitors. Consumers typically visit a site about three
times before buying.
Follow the path from arriving at the site — on any page
— to reading about a product or service, finding more
information, and placing an order. Is the path easy to follow?
Do all the links work? If you have another person looking at
your site, watch that person’s eye movement, observe if any
pauses suggest confusion, and listen to the commentary and
questions.
Check that the content is current. If you still advertise a
special that expired two months ago, for example, it looks like
no one is attending to the business.
Do you offer as many payment options as possible? Perhaps you
couldn’t afford a merchant account to accept credit card
payments when you were starting out, but you can now. If
visitors often get to the point of sale and then leave, a lack
of payment choices that suit them may be the reason.
Keeping customers coming back
Think about your successes over the past year. What products or
services were the most popular? How did people find out about
them? What positive feedback did you receive? Use all of that
information to make your strengths even better.
If you received any negative feedback, look at it as an
opportunity to improve your service or product line.
An opt-in mailing list or newsletter is a low-cost, effective
way to keep your company name in your customers’ minds. During
the order process, provide a check box for customers to choose
if they want to receive mailings from you. If they choose yes,
you have their permission to send them information about
specials, new products, and other news.
People online are becoming increasingly annoyed by spam and
aware of privacy issues. Your website should include a privacy
policy, and your mailings should include a link for recipients
to unsubscribe if they want to. Don’t send out regular mailings
more than once a month, and provide information that’s useful to
the recipients.
Content 2006-style
Regular new, quality content attracts more visitors to your site
and provides a reason to come back. Once thought of as a fad for
personal sites, increasingly more businesses are adding blogs to
their websites. Blogs provide a less formal medium to convey
information, people can subscribe to them and be notified when
they have new content, and they keep search engine spiders
coming back whenever you add new content. With thousands of new
blogs starting up every day, blogs are the wave of the future.
In this blog, we’ll be discussing what’s new and useful for
webmasters and for people who spend a lot of time online. We
invite you to stay tuned.
Important! How Site Speed Can affect Your Sales!
by: Anthony Jewell
As important as the design and the way a websites work, another
important issue can actually have negative results on not only
your customers but your business. Site speed is a very important
topic and should not be overlooked when having your website
designed or re-designed. It can actually directly hurt your
sales and cut into your profits as people do not have the time
to sit there and wait for your website to load. This is
something that good sites take advantage of only having very
small load times and bad sites seem to ignore(because they seem
to overlook download time without even thinking of site
optimization).
If it takes forever to get into your website as well as click
through it(meaning it takes forever to load each page) then
people are going to leave your site. Remember this. Just think
if it takes you 20 minutes to walk to a grocery store or 5
minutes to walk to the local market(where you can get everything
you need) why would you walk that extra 15 minutes? Simple, you
just wouldn’t walk that extra 15 minutes and this is true for a
website. If I can get what you are giving me somewhere else then
I am going to go there. If visitors leave then they do not get a
chance to view your products, but, more importantly they will
not purchase your products!
Site speed can and will lead to either more sales or less sales.
Which one it is will determine how successful your website will
be but also how long it will be around. Also you have to monitor
competitors sites to see what their loads time are and try to
match them. Start giving their customers a reason to come to
your website. Combine quick load times with great products as
well as great prices and your sales will start to sky rocket.
Remember to stay away from heavy graphical sites and try to use
more text for area(html text not graphic text that is). This
will improve performance but also will increase the click
through rate of people viewing your website. The more pages they
view the better your sales will be. Save your visitors alot of
download time and this will give them a reason to visit your
website, look around and will help increase your sales!
For a small business a website can have a massive impact on whether that small business thrives or dies out. There are several very important differences between a website built for a large business and a website built for a small business. It’s important that a small business and the website design company who builds the website for that small business are aware of those differences so that the website has the greatest positive impact.
First of all don’t try to look and act like the big boys. If you are a small business please do not plaster your site with platitudes like “family owned since 1642″ or “customer service is our specialty” blah blah. IBM and Coke can get away with having pretty sites that blather on and on using all kinds of corporate jargon but a small business cannot do that. Here’s why…
Big companies are already established brands. They can rest on their laurels now; at least they think they can. A small business website needs to grab the visitor by the throat with some hard hitting headlines and copy and get busy proving its case because before visiting that website it’s likely the visitor has never heard of that small business.
Think of it like a courtroom. The small business is on trial it’s products and services are suspect from the get go. That small business needs to prove beyond a shadow of doubt that it can provide the best value over its competitors. What’s worse is that you only have about 8 seconds from the time the visitor hits the homepage to the time they click the back button to hook them into your sales copy.
The number one difference here is the copy. A small business website needs to be a life support unit for its unique selling proposition or USP not a contestant in this year’s flashy foo foo web design award contest. Win customers not awards. Forget the animation and music and go easy on the images. What a small business needs is a lean, mean conversion machine.
Studies show the visitors don’t even consciously register images until after they have absorbed the copy on the page. Makes sense because what they came for was information not the old receptionist at the desk on the phone pictures that we have seen over and over again. They want to know who the heck you are and what you can do for them and make it snappy!
It’s brutal but that’s the way it works. A small business that knows this and applies this to their website has a huge advantage over those who don’t. So if you are a small business owner and need a website keep this article in mind or if you have an existing website take a look at it and reevaluate it’s effectiveness in light of this information. Small changes can have dramatic effects on sales conversion.
Charles Preston is President of Click Response a website design and marketing firm where you can get small business website design that converts more visitors into sales.