Thursday, December 28th, 2006
Do you have a website? If so, are you confident that it is good? When designing your website ask yourself these things:
- Is my site design pretty or ugly?
- It is one thing to want to spice things up, but it is easy to go overboard with graphics and create a distracting, hideous site. When talking about design, less can be more. A nice, clean look gives a more professional look. Over doing it can actually hurt your site and appear amateur, despite all the time and effort you put into the shiny graphics.
- Does the visitor know who we are or what we do?
- Your homepage should let the user know what you do. Not only for search engine reasons, but so potential customers don’t click away from your site because you don’t have a clear definition or identity.
- Do I have content?
- People must have a reason to visit your site. Having good content that is updated frequently can get some attention for you.
- Are people coming back?
- Along with maintaining an arsenal of content on your site try to make the visitor a long term one. My last post touches base on this.
- Have I taken a really fresh look at my site lately?
- This is huge. This is a common scenario: You work on your site for a week. Things are looking better as you go. When it’s done you think you have a masterpiece. You show it to someone else and they think your site’s a mess. How does this happen? If this has happened to you then more than likely the reason is because you have isolated yourself. Compared to your initial stages of your site it may look good, but compared to others it may still need a lot of work. If you don’t keep yourself fresh by looking around at other sites and showing your work to others for feedback then you may fall victim to this.
There are just a few things to consider when building a website. There’s more to it, of course, and I will touch on that another day. Until then, safe journey to you, and here’s to having the web working with you!
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Friday, December 22nd, 2006
It’s that time of year again. The holiday season is coming to a close. I will be away from computers this weekend (something pretty alien to me). I will be back and Blogging after that, though. So here is wishing everyone a fantastic holiday weekend!
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Friday, December 15th, 2006
Internet Marketers will agree, it’s great to have someone find your site, but what are you doing to pull them back in? Keeping in contact with them is a great way to not only provide a brand reminder, it also serves to pull the reader back to your website.
How do you keep in touch, you ask? One simple way is through email. You could publish an eNewsletter and send it out weekly, monthly, quarterly, or whenever you want. this will provide the reader with lots of useful information, and should always include links back to the site with more content. Outstanda provides services to create and manage your own eNewsletter with no software to install. Feel free to contact us for more information on it.
Also key: Content is king! Provide the reader with substance that keeps them coming back. If you have good content that is updated frequently you give readers a reason to come back and explore your page. That content will also help your SEO, an added bonus!
So when working on your website always remember to keep your audience coming back. Keep in touch. It’s a nice way of saying, “I’m still here.”
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Wednesday, December 6th, 2006
I recently started using a new tool for organizing my work day tasks. A web tool that is simple, free, quick to use. What is it? Google. Yes, Google, that same giant that has been around for years. By using an add-on I can manage my daily tasks without having to resort to some expensive, high tech software.
I just add it as my homepage and I’m set. It is so simple, and I am sure many are out there using this feature as well. I guess maybe this Blogger is just easily amused. Either way, it is one way to keep organized.
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Wednesday, December 6th, 2006
I once heard that if “average people” start investing in the stock market, professionals knew it was time to get out. I am not sure if that is still true today as it is so much easier, but it probably was true 10 years ago.
If you enjoy creating buzz online, you have to be cutting edge. If everyone knows a product creates buzz, there is probably a good chance that its usefulness as a tool to create buzz is on the downturn. Maybe not, but often this is the case. It just gets too crowded and people stop paying attention.
So what can you do to be cutting edge and know about buzz tools before they become mainstream? Here are some ideas for you.
- Read technology magazines and business magazines
- Sign up to be a beta tester before products are out
- Meet other people who are cutting edge and build a friendship with them
- Educate yourself on what to look for. Don’t sign up for the newest sp @ m tool or other shady technologies
- Help products you like, grow, by referring friends to it
- Blog about new things. Chances are you will get a lot of hits if the new technology is building more buzz
Once you start doing these things, other people will email you when they find something new that may interest you. It gets easier to find new things when this happens.
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