If you’ve found yourself thinking that a new business website is just what you need to jumpstart your company, but that the price of having one professionally designed is tough to swallow, then you are not alone. In this economy, business owners are being faced with the twin challenges of getting more creative with their marketing – online and off – while still keeping costs down.

It’s no surprise that many are tempted to invest in a new business website, but cut corners in the process. Sometimes there’s just no way around it, but be careful where you try to save. Here are three terrible ways to try to lower the cost of a business web design:

By using a template. The problem with template sites isn’t that they can never look good, it’s that they rarely look good once you have installed and uploaded them. It’s easy for a site to look great with stock photos in dummy text, but only one that’s built for your company is going to help your business stand out from the millions of others on the web.

By going with the lowest bidder. While you don’t always get what you pay for, making business web design decisions based solely on price tends to get people in trouble. Why? Because there are only so many ways to reduce the cost of the business website, and cutting the amount of time and features that go in is the easiest one.

By skipping a copywriter. No matter how great your site looks, the words on your pages have to be persuasive enough to get visitors to take action if you’re going to see any return on investment. Either invest the time you need to get the words right yourself, or the money to hire a professional writer – there’s no sense in saving a few dollars on writing if it’s going to cost you much more later.

More and more, a trip to a business web designer’s office is like visiting an auto showroom. You can talk all you want about what’s important to you, or what you are hoping to find, but few business owners understand what it is they are looking for other than something pretty and shiny. They know what looks good, but that doesn’t give much insight into what a website looks like “under the hood.”

But as important as layouts and web designs are, performance is incredibly important when it comes to earning back the money you’ll spend on a quality business website. With that in mind, here are three things you should look for in any sample you like. They might not be obvious, and they may take a little work for you to check out, but we can promise it’s worth it:

Website loading times. There are a lot of truly beautiful business websites out there that turned out to be terrible business tools. Why? Because in this day and age, no one is going to sit around for 15 or 20 seconds while your site loads. You might think that doesn’t stop them, but if your design team is stuck on old software or ideas, they can really slow your site down.

Ease of navigation. In the same way, there are more choices than ever on the Internet. Hoping that customers will hang around long enough to find what they’re looking for isn’t good enough – they should be able to reach their ultimate destination in three clicks or less. A good business web design team will help you create a site that’s as easy on your customers’ patience as it is their eyes.

Capability across browsers, computers, and smart phones. A modern business website doesn’t just have to load in several different browsers and computer setups, but may have to be accessible via smart phones and other mobile devices, as well. Regardless of whether you are going to offer separate mobile sites, make sure that what you’re getting can be viewed by customers with any kind of Internet access.

With e-mail, those of us who are careful – or have made the wrong kinds of mistakes in the past – know how important it is to “think before you hit send.” Guess what? The same applies to anything you’re tempted to put on Twitter. In fact, whereas an e-mail might only go out to a single person, or even a group of contacts, anything you tweet has the potential to be shared with the whole world.

With that in mind, here are four very good reasons to reread each and every tweet one more time before you send it out:

Reading your tweets only takes a moment. Whatever you can say in 144 characters or less you can read in under 10 seconds. That’s reason enough to look for typos, unintended innuendos, etc.

It’s easier than you might think to be misunderstood. The world is full of people who lament the fact that their words were misunderstood. It only takes one mistake for people to change their entire opinion of you and your company, so make sure that you’re looking at your tweets from someone else’s perspective.

You never want to say the wrong thing in a public forum. There are some things that are only said or discussed behind closed doors for good reason. Don’t share information about yourself or your company that doesn’t belong on a website that could be seen by thousands or millions.

There’s one last chance to change your mind. We have all said and written things in a moment of anger or frustration that we wish we could take back. That’s part of life, but it can be a much bigger problem if your unhappy moment has been tweeted for the world to see.

It only takes a few seconds to read what you’re about to post to Twitter, but taking the time can save you a lot of trouble later.

A surprising number of business owners and web designers place a supreme importance on search engine optimization, but fail to make the most use of the visitors they do receive. In other words, they do a great job of attracting traffic, but a poor job of turning that traffic into sales.

In order to help you avoid the same mistake, here is one great way to make your search engine optimization campaign more effective: Make it easier for visitors to return to your site.

Have you ever found yourself looking for a book that you knew you owned, but just couldn’t seem to find? Well, your potential customers have that same feeling all the time. They vaguely remember finding some product, resource, or information, but are often unable to remember where it was, or how they even came upon it in the first place.

Obviously, you don’t want that to happen, since it’s a waste of all of your hard work… not to mention the time and money you’ve invested in search engine optimization. With that in mind, here are a few quick suggestions to help you bring more visitors back to your site:

Encourage them to bookmark your pages. Why not remind visitors to bookmark your pages? Sure, many of them might ignore the suggestion, but more than a few won’t.

Offer a free newsletter. We all like to get free information, especially if it’s accompanied by discounts, special deals, and other insider information. The more subscribers you have, the more regular visitors to your website you’ll gain.

Mention content updates. If you have the kind of business website that features new articles, information, and insight all the time, then why not tell people about it? If they like what they have seen so far, they may decide to return.

Search engine optimization ultimately comes down to one thing: keywords. Whether it’s adding them to your page titles, or generating more content for your website or blog, having the right words and phrases – the ones that people are searching for most on Google, Yahoo, and Bing – is what makes the process go.

And so, it only makes sense that, when looking to maximize your search engine position, you should do whatever you can to work in as many keywords and phrases on your business website as possible… or does it?

On the surface, more is definitely better. But a deeper look at the art and science of search engine optimization will show that it isn’t just about quantity, but quality. In other words, obsessing about keywords isn’t likely to get you the result you’re hoping for. There are really two good reasons why:

Having too many keywords actually works against you. Referred to within the SEO community as “keyword stuffing,” endlessly cramming different words and phrases onto your page tips off search engine spiders that you’re trying to game the system. And so, rather than increasing your SEO visibility, you actually end up hurting your site’s position – or even getting it banned altogether.

Sloppy writing is bad for conversions. Assuming that you’re hoping your SEO plan will actually lead to more sales or inquiries, then your site needs to be as persuasive as it is keyword-rich. Taking the time to craft headlines in paragraphs that make sense, while incorporating keywords, is preferable to finding unnatural ways to fit more keywords into an existing draft.

A good search engine optimization plan can certainly do wonders for your business, but that doesn’t mean that the search for more keywords and phrases should trump everything else. Use common sense when adding them to your site, and you’ll get the result that’s good for all the parts of your online marketing plan.

The Other Use for Important E-Commerce Keywords

E-commerce websites and search engine optimization go hand in hand, and so most owners of online stores are already very, very familiar with the most important keywords and phrases they need to use. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that SEO isn’t the only place on your e-commerce site where you can make use of keywords – they can also sit in product descriptions to help your customers find what they’re looking for more easily.

Why should that be important? Well, imagine that you are potential buyer who has a desperate need for a specific product. But, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t seem to remember what it’s called, what the brand name is, or how it differs from the one you had before (for example).

In each of these cases, the one thing that would help you out would be to search by keyword or product category. And although most e-commerce sites have these as options, more than a few have product information that is incomplete, outdated, or hard to access. These might seem like small mistakes, and they are, but over time they could end up costing you a substantial amount of money if a high number of visitors aren’t able to search your catalog.

Chances are, you’ve already devoted a lot of time and energy in the past to the study of keywords. But just as you want your site to be visible to search engines; it’s important that every product you sell is just as visible to your customers, too. If it’s been a while since you have updated the keywords on your product descriptions, make a point of going through them again soon. And if you have the kind of content management system that doesn’t currently allow for keyword searches, talk to us today about making your online store more profitable.

If you regularly read about what’s new in the world of online marketing, then you already know that social media can be a wonderful tool for bringing new customers to your business. There’s only one problem with that, though: The people who need it the most – small business owners and the self-employed – don’t have enough time to devote to it.

Simply put, you can’t just run a successful campaign on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn and leave it on autopilot. To really make your mark takes a constant flow of fresh content and interesting ideas.

That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, though, or that you should give up on trying to find new customers through social media. Here are a handful of quick tips to help you make the most of the massive Internet trend of this social network marketing:

Stay on message. To find new customers, you have to create content that is attractive to new customers. Refrain from posting information only about your personal life, and look for details that potential buyers might be interested in.

Keep on task. By the same token, part of the reason so many business owners struggle with social media marketing is that they get distracted. As much as you want to see someone’s joke of the day, or vacation photos, save those for part of the day when you don’t need to be productive.

Set time limits. How long should you really be spending on social sites… at least as a marketer? Limit yourself to 15 or 20 min., and then move on to something else. That’s long enough to make some posts if you are following the first two tips.

Track the results. A lot of business owners tend to get very interested in social network marketing right around the moment they start to see results. Keep track of customers, visits to your website, and other success indicators, and you’ll have an easier time finding a few minutes to throw into the project.

Hire a team of social media marketing experts. If it seems like too much work for you to fit into your busy schedule, that doesn’t mean you have to miss out altogether. There are all kinds of social media marketing experts and contractors who can help you maintain your profiles and reach your business goals.

Websites of  today have come a long way in the last 8 to ten years, thanks in part to new technologies, software,  and more powerful hosting solutions.  Old static web-pages are being phased out in favor of dynamic, database driven sites.   Modern websites are shifting from static web design to dynamic website designs as businesses rely more heavily on the ability to edit and maintain their websites by themselves.

In no market is this more evident than the Non-Profit sector.  The need for multiple content providers and webmasters who can volunteer to help with the website can save significant money while providing content in a timely fashion as well.  This cost saving can work equally well in a corporate environment.

Content Management Systems can be deployed to the client’s requirements using a product like Joomla very attractive designs can be implemented quickly and at a lower cost then traditional sites.  Dynamic website designs are often more interesting and compelling to visitors.

Joomla  web designs empower users with the ability to upload information on their own, using password protected administration.  No longer must a user have knowledge in HTML or know any other expensive design tool or language to update or maintain a dynamic website design.  It is all done on the site with a built in WYSIWYG editor.
Another reason that dynamic website designs are on the rise is that they are better for complex interactive sites.  Businesses are realizing that websites are now playing a very important role and they are taking tem seriously as a tool to grow and improve their business and its image.

While database hosting may cost a bit more designing dynamic sites needn’t cost more because of the availability of open source products like Joomla.

By Mike Sachoff

Nearly all consumers (97%) now use online media when researching products or services locally, according to a new report from BIA/Kelsey and ConStat. Among consumers surveyed, 90 percent use search engines, 48 percent use Internet Yellow Pages, 24 percent use vertical sites, and 42 percent use comparison shopping sites. “The Internet has indeed become an integral part of consumers’ local commercial activity,” said Steve Marshall, director of research, BIA/Kelsey. “The data suggest we’re at an inflection point where the balance of power in local shopping is shifting to online.” The study found on average, consumers are using 7.9 different media sources when shopping for products or services locally, up from 6.5 sources in 2009 and 5.8 in 2008, indicating an increase in audience fragmentation. Additional finding include: * 58 percent of respondents report using an online coupon when shopping for products or services in their local area in the past year. * 19 percent of respondents made an appointment online in the past six months for a service besides a restaurant reservation (e.g., business appointment, health-care appointment, auto service or personal service). “The increase in audience fragmentation presents challenges for advertisers looking to connect with local consumers,” said Peter Krasilovsky, vice president and program director, Marketplaces, BIA/Kelsey. “These challenges may be outweighed by the targeting opportunities available with tools like coupon promotions and appointment scheduling, the latter being among the best lead sources possible, since you know where people are actually going.”