Category: Everything about the Web

10 Small Business Website Errors That Drive Customers Away

10 Small Business Website Errors That Drive Customers Away by Brad Shorr.  Available from <http://www.forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2016/12/18/10-small-business-website-errors-that-drive-customers-away/#593f057c4611> []

Visitors seldom leave a small business website with a neutral impression. For most prospects, your small business is an unknown quantity, so their first impression of your company will either make them more comfortable doing business with you or less comfortable. For this reason, you want their first experience with your website to inspire them to contact you—not your competitor.

These are the 10 biggest website problems that can drive potential new business away:

1. “Look at Me” Content

If you think burying prospects under a mountain of features, benefits, and self-praise will convince prospects to buy from you, think again. Information dumps and inwardly focused website content are big turnoffs. Website visitors want to know what’s in it for them, and they want to know quickly. Always write from the prospect’s point of view, and keep it at a high level.

2. Blurry Branding

Many small businesses try to communicate excellence in everything: “We’re the best,” “we’re the cheapest,” “we’re the most innovative,” etc. All this does is confuse prospects or make them think you’re mediocre at everything. Like big, successful brands, try to be known for one thing, and hammer that point home. Think about Apple: It does lots of things well, but most people are attracted to its products because of its design excellence. What differentiates your company in a meaningful way? That’s your brand.

3. No Credibility Elements

As I mentioned earlier, many small businesses can be unknown quantities. To overcome buyer skepticism, you must have powerful credibility elements on your website. The most impressive types are customer testimonials; BBB and other well-known accreditations; and statistics about your number of customers, volume of sales, and other pertinent data that makes your company look big, growing, and successful. Without credibility elements, website visitors have only your marketing propaganda to go by, and that won’t be enough.

4. Clumsy Contact Options

If your website doesn’t make it easy for visitors to contact you, they won’t. Small business websites frequently lack easy-to-use contact forms, and many don’t even display a phone number. Clumsy contact options can drive site visitors crazy. Good contact forms have only a few required fields and include a privacy statement to reassure prospects you won’t sell or give away their email address. It’s also imperative to send prospects a confirmation email after they submit a form.

5. Poor SEO Structure

Because your small business is not a household name, you need customers to be able to find you in Google search results when they are looking for the products or services you offer, but don’t yet know that you exist. Many small business websites are poorly structured for SEO, making it difficult or impossible for Google crawlers to understand the content and rank it accordingly. The result? You are invisible in Google searches, a deficiency that over time could cost your business hundreds or thousands of sales leads or online orders.

6. Using Stock Photography

Small businesses are usually on a tight budget, so using stock photography is a tempting way to cut costs on website design. Big mistake. This isn’t 2002; prospects have seen thousands of websites and have likely seen your stock photos a hundred times. Stock photography conveys a lack of imagination, a company that is going through the motions and presenting a false image. It should be called “schlock photography.” Instead, spend a few hundred dollars on a professional photographer to take interior/exterior building shots, headshots of personnel, and useful photos of products. It will make your company feel real and add credibility in a big way.

7. Typos

Website copy must be free of grammatical errors, spelling errors, vague statements, and other defects that tell customers your company doesn’t pay attention to details, lacks sophistication, and is content to do the job halfway. Few businesses have professional writers on staff, but they are easily found online, as are editors. Skilled freelancers are affordable, and can transform negative-impact content into content that prospects find irresistible. Obviously well worth the investment!

8. Confusing Navigation

Creating user-friendly website navigation is far more complex and nuanced than meets the eye. Strong navigation is intuitive and simple, and makes it easy for visitors to quickly find what they need and get back to where they were. Small businesses often botch the job by having too many navigation labels in the header, using non-intuitive text for their labels (e.g., “People” versus “About Us”), failing to use sidebar and/or breadcrumb navigation to supplement top-level navigation. A lot of navigation issues can be corrected by observing actual users explore your website.

9. Not Showing Your Work

Small business websites that talk in generalities are not going to persuade visitors that you can deliver the goods. To build credibility and also provide insight about how you get results, make sure your website has detailed case studies, a portfolio with brief narratives and images of successful projects, and/or data showing specifically how you helped customers save money, improve throughput, or whatever else it is you do that makes your products and services valuable. Unfortunately, a lot of small companies try to shortcut the website work, and fail to provide this type of information, which is often right under their noses.

10. No Mobile-Friendly Website

This last point is probably the most important of all. Today, more people access the Internet from mobile devices than from desktop computers. If your website is not mobile-friendly, you are writing off half your potential audience—maybe a lot more depending on your business. Beyond that, a mobile-unfriendly website hurts SEO, and is likely to hurt it a lot more in the coming years. The best mobile option is usually to have a responsive design, making your website adjust automatically for optimum display on any size screen.

Avoid these 10 errors and you can transform your website into a lead- and revenue-generating machine. Plus, because so many small businesses fall into these traps, by avoiding them you will give yourself a substantial competitive advantage and get more than your fair share of business from online sources. That alone will add value to your company.

10 Small Business Website Errors That Drive Customers Away by Brad Shorr.  Available from <http://www.forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2016/12/18/10-small-business-website-errors-that-drive-customers-away/#593f057c4611> []

Protecting Your Online Presence with 3 Simple Tips

Protecting Your Online Presence with 3 Simple Tips by Carolina.  Available from <https://www.hackread.com/protecting-your-online-presence-with-3-simple-tips/> [Dec 19, 2016]

It is safe to say that over 80% of our lives are now stored in the cloud. Work and study are now conducted online. Universities such as Bradley University are making it possible to pursue an FNP degree of your choice without leaving the comfort of your home. Unfortunately, there has been a lot of cases of identity and information theft over the past few months. As we get closer to the end of 2016, information security becomes more important than ever.

Go through our How-To section here at HackRead and you will find a lot of tips and tricks on how to protect your online presence. In this article, we’re going to review some more tips that will help you work and study online without having to worry about your information getting stolen.

Have a Trusted Computer

One of the easiest ways to minimize the risks of information theft is by accessing your office network or the online learning program’s platform using a computer you can trust. This can be your own laptop or desktop computer that only you can use.

Take proper steps to add security measures to the laptop. An up-to-date antivirus, firewall software and good user management are all that you need to get started. When you access the family nurse practitioner course you’re taking online, for instance, you don’t have to worry about other users stealing your login info.

Write It Down

Do you know that you’re more likely to have your password stolen online than when it is written down in a notebook and stored at home? Writing down passwords actually enables you to have different passwords for different accounts, which means you can secure your online presence further without a problem.

Work out a way to write down passwords without actually mentioning the account they are for. For example, you can use initials to mark which passwords are for which accounts. Keep the note safe by storing it in a locked drawer or another safe place around the house.

You should also consider using a tested-and-tried password management software. 1-Password and similar software can help you store passwords for multiple accounts safely. Even better, these apps can also suggest a strong password for your accounts by generating random strings you can use in one click.

Test Your Security Questions

One last weak link to fix is the password recovery option you use on different accounts. We often choose security questions that are easy to remember. Unfortunately, most of the security questions – and their answers – are about things that information thieves can also find online.

The name of your first dog may be posted on your Instagram or Twitter account. Your story about that visit to your aunt’s house may reveal her name and the answer to another security question. Your favorite teacher at high school and other common security questions are just as easy to guess or figure out.

Switch to a security question only you can answer, apply the previous tips we’ve covered in this article, and be sure to stay up to date with the latest security tips here on HackRead.

Protecting Your Online Presence with 3 Simple Tips by Carolina.  Available from <https://www.hackread.com/protecting-your-online-presence-with-3-simple-tips/> [Dec 19, 2016]

Top 12 Tips for staying safe online

Top 12 Tips for staying safe online by Kuwait Times.  Available from <https://www.zawya.com/mena/en/story/Top_twelve_tips_for_staying_safe_online-ZAWYA20161215052009/> [14 December 2016]

As the popularity of online shopping increases in Kuwait, so does the likelihood of falling foul of cyber crooks, not necessarily because they are putting in extra effort during the festive season, but simply because more of us are doing more online shopping at this time of the year, and we’re on the lookout for the hottest deals.

Sophos has put together the following cyber security tips to help you focus on family, food and fun over during this season, rather than dealing with the headache of stolen credit card details or important documents lost to ransom ware.

1) Clean up your passwords before you start shopping
Don’t use the same password on more than one website. If the crooks get one password, they’ll immediately try it on all your other accounts. Make your passwords as long and complex as you can; in fact, consider using a password manager, which will come up with a unique password for each website automatically.

2) Update your devices
When patches come out, most of them fix security holes that the crooks either already know about or will find out about soon. Don’t put off security updates because “later will be fine”. Follow our advice: patch early, patch often.

3) Back up your files
Whether you’re taking your laptop on holiday, or staying at home with your faithful desktop this festive season, don’t forget to back up your precious documents on all of your devices. That way if your files are lost, stolen, “reconfigured” by a teenaged “expert”, or, worst of all, held for extortion by ransom ware, you can still get your data back.

4) Watch out for booby-trapped ATMs when shopping on the High Street
Watch out for modified ATMs when you withdraw money. Crooks often glue fake parts onto or around ATMs in the hope of covertly reading both your card data and your PIN. If you see an ATM with any components that look as though they don’t belong, report it to the bank and the police. That way you protect yourself and everyone else too.

5) Beware of login links in emails
With so many emails flying around over the festive shopping period, it’s a popular time for cyber crooks to use fake ‘phishing’ emails to trick you into handing over personal data. When an email urges you to click on a link to login to your account and change your password, or some similar sort of subterfuge, it’s probably crooks trying to trick you onto a fake site that will look exactly like the real thing, except that the crooks get your password, not the real website. If you want to check a transaction on one of your accounts, open your browser and browse to the website yourself.

6) Look for the padlock in the URL bar when shopping online
A padlock in the address bar and a URL that starts with “HTTPS” means the website uses an encrypted or secure connection. All major websites, not just financial institutions, use HTTPS these days, so if you see a site that’s asking for personal information but doesn’t have the padlock, you can be sure it’s a fake.

7) Watch out for bogus courier emails
During this time, you may very well get products delivered to your home, so you’ll be expecting a visit from a courier company. Crooks know this and send fake emails about bogus delivery problems, hoping to draw you into their web. If you want to contact a courier company to check on a delivery, look up their phone number or email address yourself – don’t use any links or information from an email.

8) Don’t email your credit card details
Sometimes you’ll try to buy that special gift , but your credit card won’t go through. In perfectly good faith, the seller may ask you to email through your card details to try again later. But that email could end up in the hands of cyber crooks, even if the seller handles it with care once they’ve received it. Remember: if in doubt, don’t give it out!

9) Turn off Flash on your devices
Want to do one single, simple thing to improve your security, now and forever? Turn off Flash, or uninstall it altogether if you can. Booby-trapped Flash files are still a popular way of spreading malware, and with fewer and fewer sites actually requiring Flash, it’s safer to do without it altogether.

10) Change default passwords before using any new home video devices
Whether it’s a new baby monitor, home surveillance system, or any other internet-enabled camera, it probably has a default password. If you don’t change the password then you are making it easy for a cybercriminal to hack in and watch whatever you’re filming. That could be you, your house, your baby, or something else that you’d prefer to keep away from prying eyes.

11) Think before you share on social media
Maybe it sounds obvious, but over sharing on social media is a bad idea, and there is no better time to remind you of this than the party season. Whether it’s photos of other people, your credit card details, the fact that you’re holding a really amazing party on Friday night or anything else, stop and think before you share. Once you post it, you’ll never be able to take it back.

12) Upgrade the software on any new devices before using them
Even “new” computers and hardware devices usually need updates right away. After all, between when they were made and when you first use them, the crooks have had time to find new security holes to attack. If you want to protect your new devices, always patch before using them, even if it’s Christmas Day and you’re dying to try out your brand new present.

Finally, make sure your computers at home are secure. Sophos Home is free and allows you to protect up to 10 Windows and Mac computers from malware, ransom ware, phishing and more. You can have different settings for adults and kids, and the web filter lets you block ads. It’s an easy-to-use solution that takes minutes to download and get started. And remember, when 2017 comes around, all of these tips will still be valid. In other words, as much as we’re urging you not to let your computer security guard down over the festive season, we’re also encouraging you to keep your security guard up every day. Cyber security is for life, not just for this season.

Top 12 Tips for staying safe online by Kuwait Times.  Available from <https://www.zawya.com/mena/en/story/Top_twelve_tips_for_staying_safe_online-ZAWYA20161215052009/> [14 December 2016]

3 Core Elements To Stay On Top Of When Launching A Website

3 Core Elements To Stay On Top Of When Launching A Website by Michael Lyons.  Available from <http://www.business2community.com/web-design/3-core-elements-stay-top-launching-website-01734513> [December 19, 2016]

If you’ve ever launched a website, you know that Murphy’s Law does in fact exist: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. From small grammar mistakes to plugins that make the site inaccessible, you must be prepared to troubleshoot both the expected and unexpected. Below are three core elements to account for when launching a new website, and tips on how to make each go more smoothly.

Content

The more content that you have on your site, the more organized you must be. Here’s a list of some of the things to watch out for when you’re juggling content for your new site:

  1. Content version control (or lack-thereof)
  2. Losing assets
  3. Wrong content/media in the wrong location on the site

To avoid these pitfalls, here’s a couple recommendations to help your content launch goes more smoothly:

  1. Assign a “Content Manager:” Similar to a project manager, this person’s role isn’t to create the content, but to make sure everything is in-line, organized, and the right assets progress accordingly.
  2. Don’t use email as storage: Any assets that are transferred via email should always be saved into a centralized storage location (CMS, shared folders, etc.). You should never have to “look back” into your email to find an asset that someone sent you. As soon as you receive it, save it in a shared location.
  3. Digital storage/organization tips:
    1. Organize assets by website structure: consider setting up your folders according to your site structure. This way, there’s a 1:1 match between the content and where it should reside on the site, minimizing the chance that the wrong content ends up in the wrong locations.
    2. Plan for multiple versions: have separate folders for each round of content revisions – ie version 1, version 2, etc. That way, when you get to the final version, every asset is included and everyone will know where to pull the latest update from.
    3. Files of a feather flock together: folders should sit next to folders and files next to files. Whenever a file sits next to a folder, that means it’s time for a new folder. I realize many people have their own naming conventions that they remember, but it’s better to build an organizational structure that doesn’t require you to be there to find something. While creating nested folders within your storage system may take a few more clicks to access, it will pay off in the time you won’t have to spend sending files to people who could instead find them themselves.

Design

The two big design factors you need to account for when launching your site are:

  1. Browser compatability
  2. Device compatibility

If you have a responsive website (you should), it can and will appear differently depending on which browser and device your visitors are on. While doing your testing, it’s important to download different internet browsers and do a spot-check to make sure everything looks how you want it to. It’s also a good idea to check your web analytics to see which browser the majority of your traffic uses; then, you can prioritize your testing with that browser.

Similarly, your site elements will appear differently on different size screens. Pull out your phone, tablet, and a couple computer sizes if possible to see if everything looks right. It is also important to note that there could be SEO implications, as sites that are not responsive or mobile-friendly could be penalized in search results. A great tool you can use instead of manually looking at different screens is called Screenfly. You simply enter your URL, it’ll pull up your site, and you can pick virtually any device brand, model, size etc to see how it appears.

Functionality

Elements on your site can look pretty, but if the plumbing doesn’t work, then your Demand Generation efforts will be for naught. Be sure to double check that:

  • Links are working properly.
  • Form submissions are leading to the right ‘Thank You’ pages as well as sending the correct data to your database.
  • Any automated follow-up emails are triggering.
  • 3rd party site integrations such as marketing automation, sales CRM, SEO plugins, social plugins, etc. are working properly and not interfering with other site functionality.
  • Any old content is redirecting to the respective new page(s). If you have high-traffic pages, you don’t want to lose that SEO “juice.” Using redirects to the new site locations, will make sure you don’t lose out on that valuable traffic.

Pre-launch quality assurance testing is not optional. It’ll save countless hours of fixing later. However, not everything will be caught pre-launch. Here’s a few tips to minimize the bumps in post-launch damage control:

  1. Launch when traffic is low: Sites have different traffic patterns depending on audience, so check your analytics to see when would be best.
  2. QA is a team effort: You should have multiple eyes testing the site, then reporting bugs to a single person who will prioritize them. Read more on When Mistakes Happen here.
  3. Prioritize bugs: Bugs should be prioritized based on urgency and impact. Urgency refers to how quickly the bug must be fixed (based on site priorities, site-usability, etc) and impact refers to how big the bug is – what are the downstream ramifications of the bug? High urgency and impact bugs should be addressed first.

Summary:

  1. When launching your site, you must account for content, design and functionality elements to make sure everything’s running smoothly.
  2. Accountability and organization are critical to ensure bugs and their fixes don’t fall through the cracks.
  3. Post-launch bugs are inevitable, but they should not all be treated equally. Those with high urgency and impact should be prioritized.

Launching a new website is a strenuous endeavor, often including many parties. With so many balls being juggled simultaneously, it’s easy to let something drop. However, an organized process and clear lines of accountability will greatly reduce the firefighting needed.

3 Core Elements To Stay On Top Of When Launching A Website by Michael Lyons.  Available from <http://www.business2community.com/web-design/3-core-elements-stay-top-launching-website-01734513> [December 19, 2016]

10 Small Business Tips for SEO, Content Marketing and More

10 Small Business Tips for SEO, Content Marketing and More by Annie Pilon.  Available from <https://smallbiztrends.com/2016/12/10-small-business-tips-seo-content-marketing.html> [Dec 03, 2016]

When it comes to marketing a small business, there are many different methods you can use. There’s SEO, content marketing, email lists and more. If you want to learn more about marketing your business using some of these methods in 2017, take a look at the tips from members of our small business community below.

Watch These Marketing Trends in 2017
If you want your marketing plan to work in 2017, you need to understand all the latest trends, tools and methods available. In this Midas Media post, Nat Rubyan-Ling shares some marketing trends you should know for 2017. And BizSugar members comment further on the post.

Get Better Insights About Your Audience
If you want to create content that resonates with your audience, then you first need to learn about them. There are some essential tools and methods you can use to get useful insights, as this post by Jenny Knizer on the Content Marketing Institute blog points out.

Find an Interesting and Profitable Niche for Your Online Venture
Whether you’re creating a blog, an ecommerce store, or any other type of online business, you need a niche. Since there are already so many different types of businesses online, you may need to get creative in order to find a niche that is both interesting and profitable. This MyBlogU post by Ann Smarty includes some tips.

Use These Customer Retention Strategies That Work for Small Businesses
Once you’ve executed your marketing plan and gained new customers, you still need to work hard to keep those customers coming back. Luckily, there are some tried and true customer retention strategies that can work for small businesses. You can see some of them in this Plousio post by Evan Tarver.

Learn What to Do After Creating Your Buyer Persona
If you want to market to specific customers, you first need to create a buyer persona so you understant who you’re marketing to. But even that isn’t enough. For more on what to do after you’ve created your buyer persona, check out this Magnificent post by David Reimherr. And then see what BizSugar members are saying about the post here.

Rank for Your Competitors’ Keywords
There are many different schools of thought when it comes to using your competition to gain search traffic. In this post, Neil Patel examines some of the pros and cons of this concept for different types of businesses.

Build a Marketing Budget for 2017
Before you really get started on your marketing efforts for the new year, you need to set some kind of budget so you don’t reach beyond your means. This Search Engine Journal post by Jacob Baadsgaard features some tips you can use to create a marketing budget for 2017.

Use Marketing Velocity to Increase Your Sales and Revenue
Marketing velocity is the speed at which your marketing efforts work to deliver results. So its an important concept for marketers to understand. In this crowdSPRING post, Ross Kimbarovsky details some ways you can use marketing velocity to increase sales and revenue. And the BizSugar community also shares thoughts on the post.

Help Your Ecommerce Store Recover From a Growth Setback
Running an ecommerce business isn’t easy. You’re likely to face setbacks at some point or another. So understanding how to recover from those setbacks is paramount. Shayla Price shares some tips for doing just that in a post on the Kissmetrics blog.

Get the Most Out of Your Holiday Emails
Email marketing can be an especially effective tactic during the holiday season. But in order to get the most out of it, you need to really understand your subscribers and what they’re looking for this holiday season. To see more tips about getting the most out of your holiday emails, check this Marketing Land post by Scott Heimes.

If you’d like to suggest your favorite small business content to be considered for an upcoming community roundup, please send your news tips to:  sbtips@gmail.com.

Typing Photo via Shutterstock through article source
10 Small Business Tips for SEO, Content Marketing and More by Annie Pilon. Available from <https://smallbiztrends.com/2016/12/10-small-business-tips-seo-content-marketing.html> [Dec 03, 2016]