Pointers in Making Your Website Customer Friendly

Posted on December 7, 2009 by Claremont Design

Many of the web designers are putting too much concern on developing a search engine friendly website or an SEO friendly website that they are missing the most important aspect in designing the website, which the customer satisfaction. A well-designed web site should customer-oriented; it should put the need and comfort of customer above all other.

Here are some pointers on how to make your website customer friendly:

1. Choose simplicity over complexity. It’s apparently true that simplicity is beauty. In web design simplicity is the king. Unless you are designing for web design contest or in a design company that requires showcasing the skills, keep your design simple as possible. Customers are usually not impressed with flashy content and animated graphic, especially if they don’t have any purpose or relation to the content. Remember that customer go to your website to find some information or purchase a product, so make your website easier for them to find the information they needed or the product that they want.

2. Design the site for speedy download. According to survey the top website turn-off is the very slow page download rate. Online customers’ patience is measured in milliseconds and not everyone has hi-speed or broadband Internet connections. A slow download rate can lose you huge amount of customers. So, keep page sizes within reasonable limits to ensure that they download quickly by avoiding too many graphics and videos on your site.

3. Easy Navigation. Don’t confuse your customer with scattered and invisible links. Make your links as visible as possible, place it either on the left or on the top of your web pages. Make sure that the most important and most often-accessed information is right there in the front of your customer. Make your site’s navigational logical and clear by giving concise and self-explanatory link names. Regularly test navigational link to avoid broken links and errors.

4. Avoid pop-ups. Pop-ups are the on top of the most annoying list of the web surfers. Pop-ups annoy visitors. Customers don’t stay for a second on sites with these types irritating of ads.

5. Load your site with relevant, accurate and up-to-date content. Provide accurate and relevant content and keep it up-to-date. Failure to do this will make your company look inefficient and reflects badly on your customer service levels. Search engines also appreciate content that is updated regularly.

6. Provide customer support. Make the surfing experience of your customer easier by providing FAQ’s, help pages, site map, privacy policy and terms of use. Make sure that the content of your customer support is relevant and updated.

7. Provide contact information. By providing contact information, you give your customer the opportunity to interact with you. Website that lacks contact information is not professional. Your contact info on your site makes your sites visitor to believe that you are real and that you can be trusted.

8. Encourage customer interaction. Ask for customer’s feedback via online surveys and feedback forms. Invite them to subscribe to a customer newsletter. Get visitors to interact with your site and spend more time on it. Make a visit an interesting experience for them by including useful online tools, etc. Just make sure they are relevant to your site.

9. Consider the browser compatibility. Although Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer are the two giants in web browser, this doesn’t mean that you have to over look potential customers who are using Opera, Netscape and Safari. Make sure the sure website is viewable in all browsers. In that way you can capture all possible customers, and not unintentionally reduce the number of visitors to your site.

10. Get to know your customers. Find out what makes them tick. Learn as much as you can what they like about your site, what they don’t like. If it is possible, find out what they like on your competitors’ site. With this knowledge you can improve your site more and drive more customers.

How Press Release Help To Increase Quality Traffic

Posted on December 5, 2009 by Claremont Design

Not long ago Press Releases were only used as a method of promoting products, services, company or event by the use of media. Commonly used medium is either the print media or the broadcast media. Today with the Internet, writing Press Releases is not used for promotion but to drive traffic to websites as well.

The traditional press releases are still being used in standard media outlets, but this kind of press releases are quite expensive and geographically speaking they are limited. On the other hand, there is also a new type of press releases, the online press release. Online press release is created specifically to be distributed to online press release websites as opposed to traditional outlets it is cheaper and not geographically bounded. But how do these online press releases really work and can they be effective tools for driving high quality traffic to your business?

Publicity is vital in running a business, may it be a brick and mortar business or an online business. When a business has little or no budget to spare for massive promotion, online press release is most helpful and easiest method to promote business. In fact, if you are not writing press release to promote your website right now, you are missing the best way to boost targeted traffic to your website.

There are actually several different benefits to distributing an online press release. Here I’m going to point out the three most vital benefit of using press release as SEO technique.

1. Press Releases can generate hundreds of quality back links your website. Most of the major press release sites are high ranking, meaning that the link you included on these sites can generate a high quality back link to your site. In addition, press releases can be picked up by the other sites that have similar content which creates more links leading to your site. This can effectively help boost your PageRank and search engine rankings.

2. Press releases increase the power of search engine optimization. When you publish an online press release you get a chance to include links pointing back to your website. With it you can also have the control of anchor text of those links, and you also get to fill the press release with the keywords and phrases of your choice. With this method, you can get the press release that is highly valued by the search engines.

3. Regular distribution of press release can build good business reputation. With regular press releases you can emboss a brand name at the forefront in minds of the people. Keeping a business in front of the public is one of the best ways to promote business and press release is a great way to do so. It can make your website can be a “household” name. The more often the website appears on the net the more it perceived as an expert in its niche.

It is true that the traditional press release is still more powerful but the online press releases are also quickly making its presence notable. With online press releases you can improve your online presence, get quality back links, improve search engines ranking and drive more quality traffic to your site.

Driving Traffic To Your Website With Twitter

Posted on December 3, 2009 by Claremont Design

The main goal of creating quality website and implementing SEO is to drive traffic into your site. There are several methods that good search engine optimizer are using to drive traffic, one of them is through the use of social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and the recent hype the Twitter.

Twitter is a networking site similar to Facebook where the users are only allowed to post short message (140 characters). These messages are called Tweets. Tweets can be posted as often as you want, they can be used to update friends and family in a casual way via the tagline “What’s happening?” You can follow other users, and other users may follow you in return.

Follow other users, and you’ll be able to read their tweets. When they follow you, they’ll read your tweets. A business should follow everyone who is following them, because when they follow you, it means that they want to engage in a conversation. This is an opportunity to make a connection with your existing or prospective customer.

So, you might be asking “Can Twitter really help my business?” The answer is “YES!” Let me share to you some numbers that you need to know. Every day 5 to 10 thousand new people join Twitter, in June 2009 the Wall Street Journal reported that the number of Twitter accounts has grown to 32.1 million from 1.6 million a year ago. That’s a lot of opportunity waiting for your business!

Here are a few more how twitter can drive more traffic to your site:

1. Your tweets or message can read by hundreds and thousands (depending on how many is your follower) of people instantly. This means, so you don’t have to chase after customers. Potential customers will find you-for free.

2. You can provide discount coupons and special offers in a matter of seconds with a Tweet.

3. You can establish a good reputation by by offering advice and/or referring people to interesting business-related articles. But try to go easy on self-promotion, when you have establish your reputation, people will come to trust your advice and will be more open to visiting your website to find out more about you and your business.

Twitter is a micro-blogging platform that will allow you to communicate with thousands of people instantly. These thousands of people are your potential customer. This is a very cool platform and is really becoming popular in the world. Everyone is using it! Twitter is a tool where you can contact thousands of people, based on how many people you have following you. Twitter is a fantastic way to drive traffic and promote your business.

Happy Tweeting!