Web Design and Development

Online Business Strategies – How Does Your Website Maintenance Fit In?

Sometimes the best blog posts are stories that illustrate a point.  Well this one is one of those posts.  I am sharing this with you from a story I heard and realized the importance and how it could have been prevented.  So if this post saves only 1 person from  potential loss of online business, then I’ve done my job.

An Internet Business Strategy not only includes how to build business from your website, but how to maintain your website through upgrades as well as your exit strategy.  How do you exit yourself from an established website that is earning revenue for your business?  These stages are just as important, if not more than building up your website.

Maintenance as far as this post is concerned includes content management (blogging goes under this), upgrading software, changing the branding/look and feel of the website, and adding new features to the website.  Each of these situations should be implemented via a well thought out strategy and business process.  It can be very simple and as easily documented via a spreadsheet of a Word document, but it is followed religiously.

In the case of updating your website or changing your website platform, (say from a static website to a wordpress website) you will need to have the following or a similar strategy in place before you make any updates.

  • Coordinate the list of  your service providers whether internal or external….  Web hosting, web developer, online business strategist consultant, SEO consultant, marketing consultants, graphic designers, and social media consultants.
  • Document in detail, the desired changes you want to make on your website, and how you will make them.
  • Send these changes to your service providers and ask them how these changes might effect how […]

Common Mistakes Entepreneurs Make on Their Web Site

On this show, Stephanie Morgan of CID and I discuss some of the common mistakes that business owners make with their web presence.  It ranges from design to all kinds of other things such as  the search engine optimization they could be taking advantage of to how they design their website and the content they put on their web site. The good news is that many of these mistakes can be corrected very easily.  On this show, we discuss some things that you can do today to begin to make a difference in your web site’s effectiveness.  The questions and the answers to those questions that we covered include:

Question 1:    Why should I have a professional create my website vs using a web builder tool?
Question 2:    How does improper navigation or bad site planning affect the effectiveness of a website?
Question 3:    How do you capture the information from visitors to your site? And why is this important?
Question 4:    What is a website analytic tool? Why do I need it and how often should I check it?
Question 5:    What are some of the things I can do to boost my online marketing? (use keywords and research them using a tool… ranked to low- no one will see site, ranked to high – to much competition; social m
Question 6:    Video, has become popular these days. Why should I use it and it is it for me? (people see video first, so if a competitor has a video, they will be more likely to be seen first)

There were more, but you have to listen to discover what they are…  It’s worth taking a listen to discover them.

Web Design Trends that Will Make a Difference On Your Website

In this weeks show, we talked with Bob McCool  of arielMIS and the web design trends that are taking hold.  We went over the following questions:

Question 1:     Why are understanding trends in web design important?
Question 2:    What are the trends you are seeing with website design now?
Question 3:    What are some cool things I can be doing right now to spruce up my website?
Question 4:    Is it important for my website to be trendy?
Question 5:    What if I’m just getting started, can I do something affordable and effective?
Question 6:    Content Management is a term we’re hearing a lot. Is Content Management important to consider when redesigning my website?
Question 7:    Do I need to care about Mobile devices like the iPhone, Blackberry and Android when building my website?

Want to know more about web design trends?  arielMIS provides a generous hour of consulting to all new customers. We encourage you to take advantage of this time to consult with us on what you are trying to accomplish and to help get you moving in the right direction.

B’s Bytes

B’s Bytes covered what must you do to get started the right way on your web site.  Listen in for more!

Maximizing Your Website Conversion – Web Design

In this show, B. Hopkins interviews Todd Barrs of Spyglass LLC, and we discuss one of the most overlooked aspects of having an online presence….  Web conversion.  What are the visitors doing when they get to your web site?  If they are leaving right away, you have some work to do to increase the numbers of people who are staying on your web site.  The fortunate thing is that there are some things you can do to increase your web site’s effectiveness.  In this show, we discuss the following:

Question 1:    What is conversion optimization?
Question 2:    Why is conversion optimization so important to web marketing success?
Question 3:    How does conversion optimization relate to SEO?
Question 4:    Where should conversion optimization fit into a marketing plan?
Question 5:    What can website owners do to begin improving their website’s conversion rates?
Question 6:    On which web pages does conversion optimization have the greatest effect?
Question 7:    Which web page elements have the greatest effect on conversion rates?
Question 8:    Is statistical testing necessary for successful conversion optimization?
Question 9:    What tools and services are available to website owners in order to begin improving their website’s conversion rates?
Question 10:    how much does it cost to make a website?

Also, in B’s Bytes:  I give one tip to the following question:

“How do I get more people to comment on my blog?”

For 3 more tips on how to get more people to comment on your blog postings, sign up for a 30 minute free web assessment.

Setting Up Your Web Site as an Internet Business

In this show, we discuss the different aspects of setting your website up as a business and approaching your whole web presence as an asset that you can make residual revenue from.  Most people who start up web sites don’t have this in mind.  The topics we covered included:

Question 1: Why is it important to set my web site up as a business? What if I just want an online brochure?
Question 2: Why is it important to automate?
Question 3: What can I automate
Question 4: Why is it important to create systems
Question 5: What kinds of systems should I create for my internet presence
Question 6: What can I leverage with my web site?

Listen in for the answers to these questions and more…