Tag Archives: SEO

Disadvantages of using Yellow Book/HIBU pages for Your Online Web Presence

Computer Tips, Web Wise
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No Yellowbook

In the past (many moons ago), Yellow Pages, Yellow Book or HIBU have been a great way to advertise and promote your business to a large audience.

Then came the internet and it went to the web as yellow pages websites.  However, over the past several years there has been a decline in these types of websites and for good reason due to the following disadvantages vs traditional web design firm or professional services:

Not Owning Your Website: This is probably one of the most important disadvantage of owning a yellow page website is that you are basically renting it from the yellow page company and do not actually own it.



In other words, you are paying a yearly rental to the yellow page company to host your website. To this regards you would lose your website if you dropped out of the program or don’t renew your contract.

Not Owning Your Domain Name: When registering your website (that WWW URL that distinguishes you from the rest) through a yellow page/HIBU company, you are essentially not the owner of your domain name .

Yellow page essentially owns the rights to that name, for minimum of a year. They say they will release it and transfer the ownership (generally for a price) after the contract is up but will do everything in their power to make sure you continually pay the expensive monthly fees for hosting and domain name.

They will also tell you how important it is to maintain your advertisement in the big thick yellow physical book that everyone tosses away, unless your in your 70’s, which is probably not the target audience you’re looking for.

And not only does transferring the ownership of the domain name cost money but they have the upper hand and it can possibly lead to legal issues if you no longer want your website with them.

Immensely Expensive Option: It is vital to note that by owning (renting) your website via yellow pages you have to pay an initial cost for creation and hosting along with paying a rather expensive yearly rental fee to stay in the program.  The cheapest monthly options they have are still 70% higher than our monthly hosting fees.


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How to Increase Purchase Conversion Rate to Buy Your Products – eCommerce Store

Web Wise, Website Tips

Launching a website to sell products is an exciting time for any business. Especially a new business. You have a product, or products, you know is great, many have told you so, and now you want to open it up to the world.

So ideally you contact us to provide you a professional turn-key eCommerce site that puts you in the right direction.

But one of the first things that new businesses find out when launching a website to sell products is that sometimes its hard to get folks to buy the products, that you know is great.




Just because you have a great product and suburb designed website, like the ones we build, there are still many factors that play into the purchasing decision of the visitors.

Even if your sales are pretty decent, it comes to a point where you view the website analytics (which we provide with our Web Care Services Plans ), and would like to increase the conversion rate.

What do you mean conversion rate? 

Let me explain. Say in a period of a month, your website analytics shows you had 200 visitors, but you know you only had 10 customer purchases. In short this translates into you having about 190 folks that visited your site and decided not to make a purchase.

Which all honestly, that may be fine, as some may be landing on the site just wanting to know more, and are now shopping around. Eventually they may come back. Or it could be competitors checking the site with never an intent to purchase.  So take the numbers with a grain of salt.

You want to increase this conversion rate (who wouldn’t), but how?

We have compiled our tips we have provided in the past and include them below for free (some folks will charge for this marketing consultation).  So try these suggestions one at a time to validate what is working, and what doesn’t. Or implement all of them to get the most out of your eCommerce sales.

  • Make Sure You are Leveraging Sale Prices
    • Many eCommerce sites, like the ones we build, provide functionality so you can add a regular price and a sales price. Make sure to leverage them.
    • Consumers like feeling like they are getting a savings, regardless if they actually are. Its called consumer optics.
  • Temporary Decrease the Price of Product(s)
    • Competition/pricing play a major role in successfully selling like products on the market.
    • For testing pricing conditions, you can drop the prices by 25% for a period of one month and see if there is a change.
    • If you see sales increase, you may have found that your normal price is a price that folks are not willing to pay for the product.
    • One trick, is to reduce your product to fit in that price range. If your price that was not selling including 10 items, change the product to only include 7 and keep it at the 25% reduced price that seemed to sell.
  • Entice Folks with Coupon Functionality (price discounts)
    • Everybody likes surprise discounts
    • We can build in the coupon functionality into any site, where a gentle (one-time per visit) pop-up occurs either having them email for a coupon, or presenting the coupon immediately, forcing them to continue to purchase to save money.
    • Keep the pop-ups minimal, and keep in mind, many folks are utilizing mobile devices so it must be done well, and don’t aggravate the visitor with additional pop-ups, scroll things or other things. The website should sell itself as is (if built by Northwoods Web Designs).
  • Promote the Darn Thing
    • This isn’t a baseball field, just because you build it, does not guarantee they will come.
    • Want more free marketing advice? Make sure check out the Official Social media Platform Checklist for Best SEO & ROI of your eCommerce Site.
    • If your selling food products, get out and go to trade shows or the like that are related to the products you sale.
    • Get your business card out there, get the word, many of the biggest sites on the internet started from local word of mouth which drove sales online and eventually spread.

Hopefully these tips and suggestions will prove useful. If there are any additional ones you think should be added, please leave a comment.

Advantages of Mobile Website Optimization

Website Tips

 

If you look around you will see nearly everybody with a smartphone such as a Android or iPhone. According to recent study by Pew Research Center report nearly two-thirds of Americans now one which they use to access the Internet on a regularly basis for viewing websites.

In order to provide an optimum experience for all these folks, websites need to be mobile friendly to ensure that the website is optimized for smartphone display.

There are a number of advantages, besides not losing out on business, when you have an mobile friendly optimized site that should help convince you of the need.




Faster Download Speed

Mobile websites are designed (coded) specifically for mobile standards and optimal download speed, which means less waiting and more browsing your services or products.

Improved User Experience

Nobody wants to browser a desktop website on their mobile phone. In fact Google will rank your website lower in search results if it is not mobile friendly. According to  mobile website usability , it proves mobile-optimized websites improve user experience and satisfaction which is important as we all know how important first impressions are.

Better Engagement

A mobile website is geared to show optimum call to actions such as click-to-call to improve user engagement.

Improved Search/SEO performance

A mobile website provides improved rankings on mobile-friendly search engines such as Google and Bing, and also allows placement in a growing number of mobile and local directories just for being mobile-friendly.

Accessibility

A mobile website can be accessed from anywhere. No longer is your website limited to laptops or desktops. This provides the ability for your website to be accessed by more people more often.

Competitive Advantage

If you website doesn’t look good on a mobile display users will typically opt out quickly and move on to one that does. Get the competitive edge by making sure your website is mobile friendly.

More Flexible and Cost-Effective Than App Development

There is no need to have a custom app build for Android, iPhone or other mobile phone platforms to showcase your services and products. A well mobile friendly optimized site is all you need and will provide the usability needed for a small display. Showing only key items so the user can take action on them quickly.

Really Don’t Have a Choice Anymore

**Updated** Now more then 52% of website traffic is accessed via a mobile phone

From the latest statistics, more then 50% of website traffic is accessed via a mobile phone.  So unless you don’t care about the 50% of the population accessing your website effectively, its not really an option like it was years ago.  The world changes, and this is a big one when it comes to online website development. Northwoods Web Designs builds all new websites with Responsive Web Design in mind.

Thinking About Developing a Mobile Website?

If you’d like to learn more about developing a mobile-friendly website for your organization, simply let us know by contacting us for a free consult. We’ll be happy to learn more about your needs and offer recommendations.

As you can see, optimizing your website to assure its mobile friendly not only has a ton of advantages, but its no longer a choice to not do it.

 

How Long Does It Take For a New Site to Appear in the Google Search Results?

Web Wise, Website Tips

Google Find If Index Your Site Yet

Here is the typical scenario: you’re a small business owner and you’ve just launched your new website to the world. Now you are wondering how long will it be before people searching the web find your site in the search engine results page (SERP)?

Since its brand new, the search engines do not know anything about it, so therefore cannot display it to anybody searching for it.

So some things need to occur before its “searchable”.  The site needs to be indexed by the search engine.  There’s no specific set time for Google to initially index your site, can vary based on several items such as:
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