Colour Theory

No article about choosing colours would be complete without at least mentioning colour theory-the science that explains how colours go together. However, we won’t be going into detail about this, except to mention its importance in colour palette selection. While choosing colours can be done without knowledge of colour theory, for the colour scheme to work, the colours must follow the theory. In other words, if you know and can apply colour theory, you will find choosing effective colour palettes much easier. For more information, visit this link for an excellent primer.

Psychological impact of colour

This is dependent on factors such as age, gender and culture as well as personal preference. For example, every culture has different colour associations, and as a result it can be very difficult coming up with a colour that will suit all cultures (for more information, please see this article). The only way to select a colour palette that will appeal to your visitors is by knowing your target market.

While few people will have the time or budget to do a full-blown survey of a target market, an informal poll may be better than nothing, although you should be aware of the potential for misinterpretation. If you are fortunate, your target market’s reaction to colours will have been studied already, and a quick web search should provide you with some guidelines. Another good way to find out what colours work well for your market is to visit successful competitor websites and see if there is a common scheme in use (e.g. blue is often used by corporations: IBM, Microsoft).

Legibility

The consideration of text colour in combination with background colour is worth mentioning separately, as written content is normally the most important aspect of a website. High contrast text is easiest to read, and for this reason, black text on a white background is often preferred. However, beware of high contrast colour combinations that cause the boundaries of the colour to appear to “vibrate”, as in the following example:

Accessibility

In the US alone, 2,800,000 people are affected by colour-blindness (http://depts.washington.edu/ophthweb/statistics.html), and so this is an important consideration for any website. Colour blindness is more common in males, and also differs in prevalence depending on race, so again, knowing your target audience is important. By using tools such as Color Oracle you can replicate what users with the three main types of colour vision defects will see when they look at your website. For some more general advice on what to avoid and best practice, try the following.

If you are expecting elderly users or users with impaired eyesight, this is another consideration for colour, with high contrast colour combinations become more important (of course in combination with a larger font size).

While you do not have to limit the website colours you use so that they look the same to all your visitors, you can take accessibility seriously and ensure that your website can be used easily by everyone. As with all accessibility issues, automated programmes can only provide best guesses, and you should really see how your target market copes with your colour scheme by carrying out testing and getting feedback.

Conclusion

There’s a lot to think about before choosing your website’s colour scheme. What is clearly important is that you know your target market and their attitudes towards colours. Equally important is the ability to choose colours that work harmoniously together, to create a good aesthetic impression. Finally, a website that cannot be read easily or even used at all will leave visitors and potential customers with a very bad impression of your business.

You may or may not be aware that the anchor text of a link (i.e. the text that is clickable in a link) is very important for search engine optimization. Search engines see the anchor text as being a description of the target of the link. For example, if you have a website about “green widgets”, then people are likely to link to you in the following manner:

Here is a link to Green Widgets

This tells the search engines that the phrase “green widgets” is connected to your website, and so when someone searches for that phrase, the search engines will consider your website a good match, and your website will likely rank well.

Anchor text is also important within your own domain. So if you were linking from one page on your website to another, you may choose to link using “small green widgets” if you wanted that page to rank well for that phrase.

And so we come to the tip! All you have to do is add an anchor-rich link from your sidebar or footer to the page on your website that you want to promote. Assuming your sidebar/footer is the same throughout your website, you will now have as many links with your targeted anchor text as you have pages!

And that’s it! With that small amount of work, you should see an improvement in your page’s search engine rank for the targeted text within days or weeks. As with any SEO technique, experiment, and don’t overdo it. If you are obviously trying to game the search engines, don’t be surprised if their alarm bells ring, and your website is penalized!

What are they?

They are both small downloads that allow you to use your internet browser to enter a virtual 3D space. However, these two plug-ins take two very different approaches to dealing with 3D: while ExitReality allows you to view any existing website in a 3D space, a Google Lively environment must be created before it can be viewed.

Both applications are still betas and therefore a little ropey around the edges, and still ironing out bugs. Here is one quick review of ExitReality, and this video gives you an introduction to Google Lively:

The ability of ExitReality to turn ANY existing website into a 3D space is ExitReality’s biggest selling point and gives it a potentially crucial headstart. This feature opens up the whole Internet to a 3D ExitReality experience. Google Lively, on the other hand, requires a sufficient uptake of users willing to create 3D environments before there are many 3D environments to visit. This is no doubt Google’s intention: a gradual increase in websites offering Google Lively spaces, leading to increased incentive for users to download the plug-in, leading to more growth etc. And with the financial and marketing powerhouse of Google’s name behind it, it stands a good chance of succeeding.

Will either of these pioneering programs prevail? At the root of this question is another more fundamental one: do 3D websites have any advantage over 2D websites?

Benefits of 3D

Familiarity with our real world

The closer computers get to emulating the real world, the easier they will be to handle. At times, the ability to provide a 3D environment will make possible some online tasks and improve the ease of others.

Allows “face-to-face” interaction with visitors

When browsing a website with others, interaction with other visitors is limited to, at best, a list of names. With these plug-ins, visitors can “see” other visitors as other avatars, and over time the level of interactivity will increase.

Potential for commercial use

A 3D environment in programs such as Second Life, has already made possible conferences and meetings. While a separate program such as Second Life is a burden to download and learn, a 3D environment incorporated in a browser will make it easier to use as a tool, allowing e.g. online business meetings, educational opportunities

Greater opportunities for design and communication with visitors

Rather than being limited to a two-dimensional canvas, designers are able to create objects, textures and other elements of a 3 dimensional world. This freedom allows far greater opportunities to effectively convey the message of a website, and can enormously improve usability.

Problems with 3D

Unnecessary complexity

Often a user does not want the added functionality of a 3D world to navigate, they just want to “get in and get out”, e.g. read a news article. A 3D world requires greater bandwidth, and processing power and for a simple site will not improve ease of navigation.

Privacy

If you visit a website, you do not necessarily want to be seen by other visitors, or interact with them.

2D does not transform easily into 3D

While ExitReality makes great efforts to convert the 2D world into 3D, there are real problems in doing so. Good website design involves the careful alignment of page elements, such as headers, content boxes, sidebars, buttons etc., to communicate effectively with an audience. If an automated application tries to convert these, something is always lost.

What does the future hold?

There is a sort of inevitability to 3D. It’s been a long time coming, but it has long been a holy grail for technologists, and we are seeing it mature with more and more films being made in 3D. Looking at these two latest offerings, there is still some way to go before a 3D website is a stable option for any company, but this is a technology in its infancy, and future changes will bring better results. As many aspects of computer technology develop exponentially, we can expect to see this sooner rather than later.

However, whether or not all websites will adopt 3D interfaces is another question altogether, due to the diverse goals of different websites. A more likely scenario is that some websites, e.g. social websites such as Facebook, will be early adopters, while others websites will remain flat and 2D for a good time to come.

The two main methods of monitoring your website are log analysis and page tagging. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, though page tagging is increasingly popular due to easy set-up and more detailed monitoring capabilities.

Log Analysis

There is software that can read the records (log files) of your web server and extract statistics. This software has to be installed on your server and then analyzes the data that is produced as visitors request files and interact with your server.

There are four main free options available, one or more of which are often pre-installed by web hosts (including Real Free Websites!):

Screenshot of AWStats results page

AWStats

Powerful software that displays statistics in an attractive manner

Webalizer

Produces fast and simple reports, but is no longer in active development

Analog

Software that is aimed at a more technical audience

W3Perl

Another option offering powerful anaylsis

Page Tagging

Page tagging software relies on JavaScript code placed on your webpages that is run every time someone views a webpage. The following software options are touted as standalone solutions, and each produces a good range of statistics.

Screenshot of Google Analytics results page by veen

Google Analytics

The big player in the pack and a free offering from Google, this provides extensive statistics, in a user-friendly format

W3Counter

Also free for smaller websites and claims to offer more features than Google Analytics, including live search results. However, for the free version, you are required to put a small image on your website

Xiti

Another free option that requires an image on your website. It also offers paid versions with more features

Open Web Analytics

A mature open source alternative. It offers all the benefits of open source, including being free, and fully customizable, but setting it up requires some technical ability and MySQL database and PHP support

Piwik

Another open source solution with similar benefits and technical requirements.

Whereas the above software is general purpose, the following software is more specialized and does not offer comprehensive statistics, but they can complement or be used to verify other tracking methods:

Screenshot of HitTail results page

CrazyEgg

There is a limited free service that allows you to visually see which areas of your webpages are receiving the most clicks

HitTail

They offer a simple version that tracks searches in real time for free.

Be Aware

If you use a third-party tool that sends data to another server, you are sharing statistics about your visitors and your website, and, as a result, your business, with whoever is providing that service. This is why Google, for instance, has invested so much in Google Analytics - Google thrives off data, and as many have chosen to use this free tool, Google now has a rich flow of information flooding into their hands. “Knowledge is power”. If keeping your website usage data private is important to you, then you should choose software that is installed on your own server or software that clearly states that your data will be kept private.

Also worth noting is that in Google’s terms of service, Google reserves the right to charge for the service:

Google may change its fees and payment policies for the Service from time to time

Most, if not all, of the commercial software will have similar stipulations. This is something to consider before becoming dependent on any one tool, and is another argument in favor of installing multiple monitoring software.

One final point is that proprietary software also means that the provider will decide what information should be collected and how. Normally, this will be fine for most users, but you may want greater flexibility in using your data. If you want your information analyzed differently, you will have to switch provider or choose an open source model, which will allow you to write your own code.

Conclusion

Bear in mind that the accuracy of these monitoring tools is never 100%. For example, the JavaScript tracking scripts rely on visitors having JavaScript enabled. If it’s not enabled, they pass by without being registered. Some visitors may also have chosen to block selected JavaScript to protect their privacy, and again these visitors will not be logged. On the other hand, log analysis software cannot account for webpages that have been cached on other servers or by browsers, leading to inacurate reporting of total visitors.

The solution to this lack of accuracy? There is no bulletproof answer, but if you use multiple tools, you can take an average reading and be confident you are close.

Do you need help installing one of these tools? Real Free Websites can help.

Why monitor?

It has been said that “you cannot change what you do not measure”. For example, if you don’t know what your visitor numbers were before changing the design of your homepage, how will you know if your numbers have changed afterwards? In this case, has your design change succeeded? It’s impossible to say! In which case, you should have saved your time and money and not changed anything.

Monitoring allows you to access details about how your website is being used and by whom. By interpreting your statistics, you can change and improve your website to better meet the goal of your website. Another key reason to monitor is that it allows you to understand the source of your visitors, helping you to refine your strategies to increase visitor numbers and improve search engine optimization (SEO).

How to monitor

In the early days of the internet, one of the most common appearances on a website was a “web stat counter” - often a small graphic indicating the number of visitors that had visited the website. Monitoring tools have developed considerably since these early days, and there are now highly sophisticated solutions (see some recommended website analytic tools).

There are two main methods of collecting website analytic information:

Log Analysis

Software that analyzes the traffic details sent and received by your servers

Page Tagging

Code that is placed on a web page, and which sends visitor information to a server

While neither method is perfect, page tagging is used more commonly nowadays as it allows for greater information collection than log analysis. However, as with all monitoring, a combination of approaches is best.

What to monitor

Depending on what software you install, you will be surprised at how much information you can collect about your visitors.

There are three key areas to study:

• How people arrive at and leave your website
• Who your visitors are
• And what they do

How people arrive at and leave your website

Understanding this area is vital to increase targeted visitor numbers. Arguably, this is the most important area to monitor and act upon, as without visitors, your website may as well not exist.

You can use web analytic software to find out:

• Which websites your visitors are coming from
• Which search terms that brought them to your website

Visitors to your website will come from either:

1. Directly inputting your domain name
2. Through search engine results pages
3. Or from links to your website from other websites

Any popular source of visitors should be investigated: for example, where are people finding your domain name - perhaps from an offline advertisement or your business card? What search terms are leading to visitors to your website? Are these keyphrases you have targeted? Which websites are linking to yours and what is the context of that link - a positive review, an advertisement, etc.?

By understanding how people are finding your website, you can see where your marketing has been successful, or where it needs to be stepped up. You may also find that a marketing strategy you overlooked or rejected has potential to be very rewarding, e.g. perhaps there is an unlikely keyword combination that has led to a number of visitors to your website, and you may decide it is worth optimizing some webpages for this term. Or you may have found that a website design review has led to many visits, and you may decide to submit your website to other design competitions.

Who your visitors are

The amount of data you can find out about your visitors is fairly limited, but you can still collect some useful information, including:

• Country of origin
• Browser language setting
• Technical settings including browser type, screen resolution, connection speeds

Obviously, knowing how someone arrived at your website can allow you to guess what type of person they are, e.g. visitors from Digg.com are likely to be technically-minded, young and male. You may need to do some detective work to decide what kind of person is coming from a website you are not familiar with. Similarly, search terms may give you clues as to the type of person: e.g. a search for “hairdressers new york” is probably a female based in New York.

If you are attracting the “wrong” type of visitor you are wasting their time and using up your web server’s resources for no reason. The “wrong visitor” is any visitor who is not helping your website to achieve your website’s goals - in other words, not your target market. While it may be pleasing to see your traffic statistics soaring, if you cannot monetize or “convert” these people they are not relevant to your website’s success, and may be detrimental, by overburdening your server and slowing down your website’s response time.

What people do on your website

An screenshot of a Crazy Egg heatmap

This is of critical importance for your website’s success. If you are getting visitors, that’s a good start, but unless the visitors are behaving in ways that will lead to achieving your website’s goal, your website can still be a failure. By understanding what people are doing on your website, you are able to see what is or isn’t working, and to make improvements to your website - whether that is the design or content.

You should make sure you are able to answer the following questions:

• Which pages are most visited and least visited
• How long they are spending on which pages
• What they click on on each page
• Which path your visitors took before they bought your service/product (“converted”)
• Which pages they are leaving from

Being able to tell which pages are the most visited helps you to determine what parts of your content is most valued by your visitors: knowing what your visitors value allows you to provide a better service and helps guide your website’s growth. Knowing which pages are least popular either means these pages are not found or that the content is not valued by your visitors. In either case, you should take action!

The ability to tell what your visitors click on per page is very useful when you are fine-tuning your webpage. With this ability and using A/B split-testing, you can accurately assess the impacts of any changes you have made. For example, moving a button further up the page or altering the button’s colour may increase the numbers of clicks it receives substantially.

Some of the most useful information that website monitoring will provide you with is the route that visitors that have “converted” took. By studying how visitors that bought, sent a form, visited a page etc. travelled through your website, you can attempt to increase and improve the conversion process.

Equally important is knowing which pages people are leaving from and trying to understand why. Do all your visitors leave from page “X”? If so, is there an obvious reason? Maybe your visitors make it all the way to a payment form before exiting in disgust when they see the length of it! Whether or not there is an apparent reason, the message is clear that the page needs changing or increased promotion.

Conclusion

Don’t underestimate the importance of monitoring your website: making changes to improve your website has no meaning unless you can see the before and after effects. Similarly, ensure you are looking at the right data, otherwise you will not be able to tell the results of your changes.

When assessing websites, it is tempting to assume the website with the greatest eye appeal has the best design. There are many websites which are extremely beautiful, with clever, inventive designs that lead to a “wow” reaction. While there is nothing wrong with this, if you want to have a successful website, it is not enough to just make a good-looking design.

Design is not art

Art is very different from design. Art is a personal interpretation, often leading to a very subjective reaction in viewers. Of course art has a place on the Internet — for example artists displaying their portfolio — but if personal artistic expression is not the goal of the website, art should not be included in the website’s design.

What is good design?

Good design is closely tied to the goals of the website. The design should be working to ensure the goals of the website are met, and should not be about creating a beautiful visual experience for a visitor. Although it is likely that creating a positive visual impression will help meet your website goals, it is not a requisite. For example, Google’s homepage is not breathtaking, but it is designed to be highly functional and effective.

A good website design will draw a visitor’s attention to the areas of the page that are most important (from the owner’s point of view). Not only this, but the visitor will be shown elements of the page in the desired order, and the design will help to lead to visitor behaviours conducive to “conversion” — whether that be filling out a form, downloading an E-book, etc.

In contrast to art, a good design is not subjective: all visitors should find the design easy-to-use, clear, effective and appropriate. Good design does not preclude fancy or involved designs and it is possible for good designs to range from bare-bones simplicity to extremely ornate. For example, for a website selling flowers a designer may decide a decorative floral background would lead to greater sales than a simpler design. However, the key is that every element of the design should work towards furthering the website’s goal.

Why good design is not easy

The prerequisite to creating a good design is having a clear website goal and knowing the target market. If you do not know what these are, you are not ready to create your website — unless you want to take a scattergun approach to website creation.

Unsurprisingly, creating a good website design is not easy. A web designer has to know how a target market will respond to a design and how to manipulate elements of the page to encourage the desired behaviour. This involves thorough knowledge of internet user psychology and behaviour (e.g. visitor eye movement patterns) as well as the key concepts of website design (e.g. the use of contrast to draw attention). It is this unseen, but vital knowledge that you are paying for when you hire a web designer.

Here is your opportunity to give your website a health check - without spending anything! Real Free Websites is giving away 3 FREE website assessments!

Photo by orangeacid

We’ll put your website under the microscope

We will take a really careful, close-up look at your website’s design and code, as well as Google rank for any terms you specify. We will then provide you with a completely free report assessing which areas might be affecting your website’s performance and what could be improved to make a difference to your conversion of visitors.

Obligation? What obligation?

There is absolutely no obligation to use Real Free Websites to make improvements to your website.

How to get your free report

To get a free website assessment just leave a comment below with the website you want to have assessed, and we will contact you. The first 3 requests we receive will get a free website report. So, if you don’t see three comments below, then you still have a chance to get a free assessment!

One condition: only one website assessment per person.

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Ranking only for country search

While “power” is no doubt a non-competitive term in a mainly Spanish, Quechua and Aymara speaking country, it is still surprising that a page offering a WordPress template download is the number one result, especially as there are approximately 16,200 results. I can only imagine the surprised reaction as my Andean visitor realized that this download did not offer him/her any sort of “power” whatsoever!

Interestingly, if you “search the web” for power, the Real Free Websites page doesn’t appear in the first 800 results!

That makes much more sense, but it just makes the “searching pages in Bolivia” result all the more crazy. Real Free Websites is not based in Bolivia, does not have a server there, and yet it is coming up in the “pages from Bolivia” search. The only connection between Real Free Websites and Bolivia is a link from the Portfolio page to Care Bolivia. Oh, and now there’s this page that mentions Bolivia - so no doubt even more confused Bolivians arriving here…

How Google connects websites to a country

Google associates websites with countries using a variety of factors. One obvious way is through domain names, e.g. .co.uk is the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) for the UK. Google also looks at web host location, although the importance of this is likely to be in decline as more people host their website remotely. More recently, Google allowed webmasters to set the geographic target of their website using Google Webmaster Tools.

Google also seems to make assumptions based on the data it has for websites. This data can be drawn from many different sources, such as on page information and language, Google searches, clicks from the search results page, and Google Analytics (a popular web stats tool).

It may look at the volume of traffic from one country that accesses a particular website, and statistics of the pages that link to it (and the volume of traffic these pages receive). What is clear from this result is that Google will also use statistics about the pages that the website links to (in this case Care Bolivia).

What does this all mean

It means that Google isn’t very good at deciding what pages belong to which country. Further proof of this comes from SEOmoz, where Duncan Morris highlighted an error in Google’s ranking for Apple in the “pages from UK” search. Apparently Apple’s UK subdirectory does not even rank for the search term “apple”!

It also means that a black hat, or malicious, search engine optimizer may be able to take advantage of the fact that Google’s results can come out strangely. By doing something as simple as linking to a website based in your target country, you may be able to get Google to think you are associated with that country. If you want to try that, good luck to you, but act fast, as they’re probably already looking in to it, and bear in mind, if you get caught, you may well be penalized by Google!

• A lower quality website with full functionality
• A higher quality website with limited functionality

How do you decide which option is best for your business?

How much functionality do you really need?

How important is each feature you would like your website to have? Revisit your website goal and try and drop as much as possible without losing the core functionality of your website.

For example, do you really need the system to be fully automated now? Could you manually keep a record of users to begin with? Often the number of users/buyers you will first receive will be easily manageable.

Develop slowly

A gradual approach to web design is the ideal way to go when you are not 100% sure of what your end product should be. Even when you feel certain what your website features you need before completing the website, you will find your opinion changing as you:

1. become more familiar with the technological possibilities
2. see and use the website in real life
3. get feedback from testers and users.
4. get new ideas as your website developments

By avoiding creating a full-blown complex system, you will reduce your costs and any losses you will incur if your business does not succeed. Once you are doing better, you may decide you need the automated functionality, but equally, after seeing how your visitors interact, you may decide that a different approach would work better. By starting simply, you have developed an improved functionality. If you had committed to a large, complex website, you may be unable to make significant changes without going back and spending much more money.

Good for SEO

Did you know that some search engines, including Google, give an improved rank to older websites? In fact the age of the domain is one of the most important factors involved. By getting your website established early, you will get a headstart on building your domain’s trust and rank.

You can’t go wrong

This does not mean you should ignore planning and launch your website immediately. Planning your website is still a crucial element of success. However, when planning your website you should consider the points in this article.

When in doubt, you cannot go wrong with starting small, and ensuring you have a solid base on which to refine and build additional functionality and features. A basic website that is of good quality with fewer features will always be a better decision than a cheap (or even expensive!) website with a wealth of features.

Photo by fdecomite

The Halo Effect

This rapid reaction to a website is multiplied by a phenomenon dubbed “The Halo Effect”, which is a psychological effect described by Answers.com as:

“An effect whereby the perception of positive qualities in one thing or part gives rise to the perception of similar qualities in related things or in the whole.”

So the initial response to your website that your visitor experiences is incredibly important. The first impression that your visitor has is so powerful, it affects their mindset, causing them to see your website offering in either a positive or a negative way.

How to Create a Positive First Impression

All you have to work with is a small digital canvas, which is the user’s interface. This may be a tiny cellphone screen, or small 14 inch monitor or perhaps a large 24 inch LCD (it might also be a screen reader, but that is another topic). Whatever the dimensions of the user’s device, you have a limited 2 dimensional window in which to sell your website. As a result every pixel matters.

So how do you use this limited space effectively? You need a website design that is appealing to your target market audience.

Firstly, you need to be certain who your target market is. If you know who they are, then you need to know what they like. The easiest way to find this out is to study websites that you know to be popular with your market. Make a careful note of the colours, tones, shapes and style of the design.

Knowing the type of website design that is popular with your target market, you can now develop your own website design. Ideally, you want a design that is utterly unique, but contains the styles that appeal to your market.

Unfortunately, while creating a simple website is straightforward, creating a powerful design and user experience can only be done with extensive design knowledge and experience. Some examples of what a good web designer will consider:

Find out why website design is probably harder than you think: what makes web design complicated.

Conclusion

Of course the other big influence on people’s first reaction to your website occurs before they have even seen the design. The speed at which your website loads is often cited by users as a very important factor in a favourable impression - although some research suggests that perhaps usability is more important than raw access speed.

While speed and usability should not be overlooked, the creation of a website with a powerful, appealing design for your target market is vitally important to stand out from the crowd of other websites. If you have the necessary skills, take your time and make every corner of your canvas count; if you do not have the time or the relevant experience, hire a good web designer.

Hard facts on failure rates are hard to come by (one informal survey suggests that approximately 70% of business websites in the UK are no longer live after 3 years) as private companies do not have any responsibility to report their performance, but the percentage of online businesses that fail is likely to be close to statistics collected for all businesses (one study cites a failure rate of 64.2% within 10 years). Depressingly, online businesses tend to do even worse than offline businesses.

Why do they fail?

Sometimes the failing is due to inadequate website planning. Failing to plan often leads to a flawed design, weak content, and poor usability, which translates into low sales or visitor conversions.

However, a website can be planned, designed and executed to perfection, but can still result in failure. The reason is simple when you step back: business is business whether in the “real world” or on the Internet. In the real world, you can design and build a store perfectly, but if you’re selling something that is wanted, or nobody knows about your store, then you will fail.

A lot of people seem to think that they can create a website and that entitles them to the share of the millions of Internet users worldwide. This is simply not the case. The internet is a ferocious marketplace. It is the great leveller, where you have to compete globally on the same playing field as any other individual, company or corporation. While this equality can work in your favour as you can compete with larger entities, it also means that everyone else in the world can compete with you.

Internet marketing is as competitive as any offline marketing. The bigger players have marketing budgets and departments focusing on selling their websites. Do you have a strategy to compete with that? There are many promotional strategies that you can and should employ after your website is finished.

Strategies for success

Here are three suggested options, that will keep you from wasting your time and money. While they are valid standalone options, they are not mutually exclusive.

1. A sound business plan

This is the most obvious way to avoid failure, and should be a no-brainer. It is unfortunately, all to often neglected or given reduced importance in the “magical land of the Internet”. There are enormous numbers of resources both offline and online for creating a business plan.

Make sure you actually listen to what your business plan tells you and don’t try and force the business plan to say what you want it to say. If the business plan suggests your potential profit is paltry, then by all means re-examine your model, but don’t tweak reality to give you a false sense of security.

2. A stripped-down tester website

If you can make a website or get a website made at a low cost, you may decide it is worth your while to go ahead without an in-depth business plan. However, at the very least your idea should have a stripped-down basic business plan.

3. A hobby website

Instead of approaching your website as a business, treat it as a pastime. If you don’t expect to make money off it, you cannot fail. Obviously this strategy will only work if you are passionate about your website idea, and have the motivation to keep it going even when you are not making a profit.

Conclusion

Whichever method(s) you choose, don’t forget that you still have work to do after completing your website. You cannot just sit back and expect for success. Even the best web application or website will fail if no-one knows about it.

If you have found yourself to be unfortunate enough to have a failed website, then try to take heart in the old cliché: failure helps you to learn. Next time you’ll make the big bucks.

Picture credits: The Fail Website.

• Is this the first time you’ve needed a website?
• Are you bewildered by the quantity of choices on the internet?
• Scared by huge prices?
• Drowning in jargon?

Arm yourself with the basic know-how to make a successful website. This no-nonsense guide is the ideal starting point for people who see computers as a tool and not much more. We will take you along from an initial vague website idea through to the ongoing promotion of a successful website.

Background knowledge

Visit the links in this section to brush up on your basic knowledge. Spending a bit of time learning the essentials will provide you with a frame of reference and make future learning much easier.

Listed in order of usefulness:

• An Introduction to the Internet
• An Introduction to Different Website Types
• An Introduction to Web Hosting

An overview of website development

This presentation summarizes the key steps that should be completed to create your website.

Or if you prefer you can read an article about website planning.

Now you understand what is involved in good website planning, you’re ready to tackle each step in greater detail.

How to Develop Your Website

STEP 1: How to set your website goal

A transcript is also available: How to set your website goal.

STEP 2: How to identify and target your market

A transcript is also available: How to identify and target your market.

STEP 3: How to write your content

A transcript is also available: How to write your content.

Do you need a web designer?

A transcript is also available: Do you need a web designer?.

STEP 4: How to choose your web designer

A transcript is also available: How to choose your web designer.

STEP 5: How to choose your domain name

A transcript is also available: How to choose your domain name.

STEP 6: How to choose a web host

A transcript is also available: How to choose your web host.

STEP 7: How to launch your website

A transcript is also available: How to launch your website.

You’re not finished yet: Why completing your website is not the end

A transcript is also available: Why completing your website is not the end.

STEP 8: How to promote your website

A transcript is also available: How to promote your website.

Ready?

Real Free Websites is ready to help you wherever you are in your planning: contact us.

Transcript

Slide 1: HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR WEBSITE

Because what good is your website without visitors

Slide 2

• Step 1: How to set your website goal
• Step 2: How to identify and target your market
• Step 3: How to write your content
• Do you need a web designer?
• Step 4: How to choose your web designer
• Step 5: How to choose your domain name
• Step 6: How to choose your web host
• Step 7: How to launch your website
• Why completing your website is not the end
• Step 8: How to promote your website

See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 3

Start with the basics

Slide 4

You should already have done this:

• Submitted your website to search engines
• Submitted your website to web directories
• Sent out a press release
• Put your website address in your email footer, stationary, business cards, etc.

Slide 5

Continuously monitor your statistics

Slide 6

Collect and analyze data

• Which pages are visitors exiting/entering? Why?
• Which searches are leading to “conversions”? Why?
• Which pages do visitors spend most time on? Why?

Use this information to develop a marketing plan

Slide 7

Optimize your code for search engines

Slide 8

Target the right keywords and phrases based on:

• Your monitoring
• Research of your target market
• Research of the levels of competition for those keywords and phrases

Slide 9

Change your code if necessary

• Use keywords and phrases in page titles, meta tags, header tags, your content, and hyperlinks
• Provide the option of plain text links
• Keep it natural: write for humans

Slide 10

Build your domain authority for search engines

Slide 11

Build links

• Create quality content
• Create linkbait/viral marketing
• Provide free products or services
• Create widgets with a link back
• Design website templates with a link back
• Offer a reciprocal link exchange
• Write articles for other websites with a link back
• Target links from high quality/authority websites

Slide 12

Register your domain name for longer than 1 year

• Search engines are less likely to assume you are a spammer
• 5 years or even 10 year registrations are possible

Slide 13

Optimize your website for social media

Slide 14

What is social media?

• Online tools for sharing of content (often multimedia) in an interactive manner E.g. Facebook, Second Life, Twitter, YouTube, Digg

Slide 15

Use specific techniques for each social media website

• Become an active user on whichever social media website your target market uses
• Learn how the social media website works and how you can use it

Slide 16

General recommendations for attracting attention from social media websites

• Use multimedia on your website, e.g. audio or video
• Use widgets to encourage bookmarking
• Develop a community around your website:
  • Promote your RSS feed
  • Send out email newsletters
  • Comment on blogs
  • Be active on online forums

Slide 17

Consider online advertising

Slide 18

If you have an online marketing budget:

• Try pay per click advertising
• Pay for a banner advertisement
• Contact appropriate websites and arrange advertising directly

Slide 19

Don’t forget offline media

Slide 20

Offine media is important too

• Send out press releases
• Advertise in newspapers, magazines
• Encourage word of mouth

Slide 21

Promotion is an ongoing process Always get feedback from monitoring your visitors, and make necessary changes Providing quality content is the single best way to raise your website’s profile

Slide 22

You’ve now seen how to promote your website. This is final step in a series of presentations on the process of good website design. See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 23

Need Help? Ask the experts at guiding you through website development: www.realfreewebsites.com

Transcript

Slide 1: WHY COMPLETING YOUR WEBSITE IS NOT THE END

A successful website needs ongoing effort

Slide 2

• Step 1: How to set your website goal
• Step 2: How to identify and target your market
• Step 3: How to write your content
• Do you need a web designer?
• Step 4: How to choose your web designer
• Step 5: How to choose your domain name
• Step 6: How to choose your web host
• Step 7: How to launch your website
• Why completing your website is not the end
• Step 8: How to promote your website

See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 3

Finish the website… …sit back… …and let the customers roll in?

Slide 4

[Picture of a decaying wreck]

Slide 5

Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Here’s what happens if you don’t upkeep your website

Slide 6

If you don’t update your website:

• Your website will sit undiscovered for long periods
• You will get occasional visitors from search engines
• If your website offering is incredible, you may get customers from word of mouth
• Most likely, nothing will change after months and years

Slide 7

First, check whether you are achieving your GOAL

Slide 8

Continuously monitor your website

• Use your website statistics
• Is your website achieving its goals? And why?
• You may need to alter your business plan E.g. Target a different market, change your offering, alter the design

Slide 9

6 reasons why website updates are good

Slide 10

1. Updated content allows your website to focus on the ever-changing marketplace Marketplace change occurs due to shifting:

• Needs
• Fashion
• Technology
• Competitors

Slide 11

2. Updated content makes your website appear “alive” and so more genuine and trustworthy

Slide 12

3. Updated content gives a reason for visitors to return to your website

Slide 13

4. New content increases the chance that your website will be found in a search

Slide 14

5. New content allows you to reflect changes within your company or organization

Slide 15

6. Updated content allows you to stay current with changing search engine optimization best practice

Slide 16

Regularly adding quality content leads to

Slide 17

1. Increased authority of your domain for search engines
-Leads to increased visitors from search engines
-Leads to increased trust and conversion of visitors

Slide 18

2. Greater future appeal of your website to visitors
-Leads to increased repeat visitors
-Leads to increased chance of future conversions

Slide 19

3. More content for visitors to read
-Leads to increased time spent on website by visitors
-Leads to increased chance of conversion or future visits/conversions

Slide 20

4. Increased chances of creating a very popular webpage
-Leads to major traffic from social media websites
-Leads to increased chance of conversions

Slide 21

In summary, without monitoring, you won’t know what is working and what isn’t.
Regularly updated quality content is good for your website

Slide 22

You’ve now seen why completing your website is not the end. This is one of a series of presentations on the process of good website design. See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 23

Need Help? Ask the experts at guiding you through website development: www.realfreewebsites.com

Transcript

Slide 1: HOW TO LAUNCH YOUR WEBSITE

Step 7: Don’t forget these crucial steps before going live!

Slide 2

• Step 1: How to set your website goal
• Step 2: How to identify and target your market
• Step 3: How to write your content
• Do you need a web designer?
• Step 4: How to choose your web designer
• Step 5: How to choose your domain name
• Step 6: How to choose your web host
• Step 7: How to launch your website
• Why completing your website is not the end
• Step 8: How to promote your website

See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 3

You probably don’t want your website to be visible before official launch
If so, hide development of your website

• Use password protection
• Or redirect visitors to an explanation page

Slide 4

Upload your files:
You or your web designer should upload the website using File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

Slide 5

Test

• Test the design works on multiple browsers, screen resolutions and operating systems
• Test the functionality
• Test the accessibility
• Proof read the content

Slide 6

More testing!
Get people from you target market to try out your website

Slide 7

Get feedback from testers

• Redesign if necessary
• Retest, get feedback etc.

Slide 8

Add visitor analysis and tracking

• Add code to your website to track visitor numbers and details E.g. Google Analytics
• This will allow future monitoring and improvement

Slide 9

Double check
Run through all your checks one last time

Slide 10

Decide when to go live
Choose a day and time when your website will be best received by your target market

Slide 11

LAUNCH! Remove any password protection and go live

Slide 12

Tell everyone
Tell everyone you know online and offline about your new website

Slide 13

Submit your website
Submit to

• Social media websites E.g. StumbleUpon.com, Digg.com
• Search engines and website directories E.g. Google.com, Dmoz.com

Slide 14

Make a press release
Write and distribute an online (and offline) press release announcing your website launch

Slide 15

Avoid the temptation to launch early.
Ensure you have created the environment for the start of a successful website.

Slide 16

You’ve now seen how to launch a website. This is the seventh step in the process of good website design. See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 17

Need Help? Ask the experts at guiding you through website development: www.realfreewebsites.com

Transcript

Slide 1: HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR WEB HOST

Step 6: You need a home on the Internet for your website

Slide 2

• Step 1: How to set your website goal
• Step 2: How to identify and target your market
• Step 3: How to write your content
• Do you need a web designer?
• Step 4: How to choose your web designer
• Step 5: How to choose your domain name
• Step 6: How to choose your web host
• Step 7: How to launch your website
• Why completing your website is not the end
• Step 8: How to promote your website

See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 3

What is a web host?

1. Stores your website on a computer
2. Receives requests from visitors’ computers
3. Sends visitors to your website

Slide 4

First, decide what your hosting requirements are

Slide 5

Bandwidth (volume of data transfer)

• How much traffic are you expecting?
• Most websites will only need low bandwidth
• Websites with a lot of large files (e.g. videos) may need more

Slide 6

Disk space

• How much space do you need for your website files?
• Most websites will only need a small amount of space
• Websites with a lot of large files (e.g. videos) will need more

Slide 7

Server Side Language

• Your website may be written using a specific coding language
• What coding language are you/ your web developer going to use?

Slide 8

Functionality

• What specific features does your website require? E.g. mailing lists, databases, email forwarding, secure servers

Slide 9

Now you can choose one of 3 types of hosting

Slide 10

Shared server hosting

• Many clients using one shared server
• Suitable for small to medium-bandwidth websites
• Ideal for new websites

Slide 11

Virtual private hosting

• Partitioning a server into several virtual servers
• For higher bandwidth websites

Slide 12

Dedicated server hosting

• One server per website
• For large websites that require very high bandwidth

Slide 13

Now decide which hosting features are important to you

Slide 14

Support

• Are there guaranteed response times?
• 24 hours a day, 365 days a year?
• What is the process to get a human response? – Avoid web hosts with multiple layers of automated responses
• If you prefer speaking to someone, do they have a phone helpline?

Slide 15

Server uptime

• Do they guarantee a high percentage of uptime?

Slide 16

Price

• Are there monthly or yearly fees?
• Are there hidden fees?
• Cheaper not always best, but not always worst either

Slide 17

Geographic location

• Less important, but better if the server is close to your target market to maximize response times

Slide 18

What about free web hosting?

Slide 19

Free Hosting?

• Usually supported by advertisements
• May suffer from poor server uptime
• May have reduced bandwidth
• Non-existent customer support
• No grounds for complaints

Slide 20

How to make the final choice

Slide 21

Read testimonials and reviews
While not always reliable, these can give you an idea about quality

Slide 22

Visit websites hosted by the company

• Test the website response times (but bear in mind bad web design can also slow a website’s response time)
• Contact the website owner for their opinion

Slide 23

Take a trial

• Look for a money-back guarantee
• Try out the web host for a period

Slide 24

Without a good web host, your website will suffer. Choose carefully, and start with a basic plan – you can easily upgrade later.

Slide 25

You’ve now seen how to choose a web host. This is the sixth step in the process of good website design. See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 26

Need Help? Ask the experts at guiding you through website development: www.realfreewebsites.com

Photo by aussiegall

Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine is working on a book called Freeconomics. The theory behind this book is that companies are increasingly offering services and products for no cost at all, as technology marches forward, reducing costs so much as to be negligible. If Anderson is right, the outlook for the consumer looks particularly rosy.

Of course, there is nothing new to free. Free has long been financed by cross-subsidies, such as advertising or future sales or services. The difference, as Anderson sees it, is that the technology that powers the Web has led and is leading us to a point where the cost of offering services and products is very close to nothing.

We can see this clearly in web hosting, where costs are continually dropping, while features offered continue to improve. In time, it is not too much to expect to see zero cost web hosting offered.

In website design, web designers now routinely produce free website templates, although a customized website design still costs money. Real Free Websites is able to offer websites with no design fee by offsetting the cost of producing a custom website design with paid web hosting. Whereas web hosting costs are tied to technology and increases in efficiency will continue to lower costs to zero, web design is very dependent on human inputs. Technology can and does aid the process, but this is still marginal. Over time no doubt the assistance from technology will increase, and reduce the necessary man-hours that currently go into web design. However, as can be seen from comparing current automated web design software with manual coding, there is still a long way to go.

The great thing about Free is that it heralds innovation. Free cuts down the barriers and opens the gates. People don’t have to worry about losing money or taking risks. They are free to experiment, create and grow. We are pleased to be making a small contribution to this development.

A number of others have written about Freeconomics:

• Read Anderson’s article on Wired Magazine or a shorter version on the Economist
• The Guardian Online provides a lengthy summary
• Read Write Web provides an alternative view of Free, warning of its dangers and why it may not be such a good thing and leading to monopolies

Update (21 July 2008): Domain names with .info extensions may be slightly deprecated now. As the cheapest domain names available and therefore a favorite with spammers, Google may start to be penalizing them and now ICANN has approved a new policy allowing the registry service, Afilias, to disable abused .info accounts.

Transcript

Slide 1: HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR DOMAIN NAME

Step 5: Your domain name is your identity

Slide 2

• Step 1: How to set your website goal
• Step 2: How to identify and target your market
• Step 3: How to write your content
• Do you need a web designer?
• Step 4: How to choose a web designer
• Step 5: How to choose your domain name
• Step 6: How to choose your web host
• Step 7: How to launch your website
• Why completing your website is not the end
• Step 8: How to promote your website

See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 3

What is a domain name?

• Your unique internet address
• Can be registered for a minimum of one year
• Registered as yours through a domain registrar

Slide 4

IDEAL Scenario: www.ideal.com
Domain name is

• The same as your business or a keyword related to your field
• Short
• Memorable
• Easy to spell

Slide 5

REALITY: www.bestnamesalreadytakenimaginationrequiredtofindagoodname.com
Best names already taken Imagination required to find a good name

Slide 6

How to test domain name availability

• Test by typing directly into your browser address bar
• Only use a registrar’s search box when you are ready to buy
• This will prevent unscrupulous parties stealing your domain name ideas

Slide 7

Time to get imaginative

Slide 8

1. Come up with a domain name

Slide 9

Use a brand name?

• Easy to find an available domain
• Can be short and easy to remember But, without promotion no one will have heard of your brand and will not be searching for it

Slide 10

Use keyword filled name?

• Keywords in the domain name help people identify the purpose of your website
• Using keywords in your name will boost your ranking for searches of that word But very hard to find anything short that is available

Slide 11

Use a combination?

• Using keywords in your name will boost your ranking for searches of that word
• Allows people to identify the purpose of your website But lengthens the name, and may appear tacky

Slide 12

Use hyphens?
Originally: expertsexchange.com
Now: experts-exchange.com

• Use hyphens to divide up the letters differently
• No clear difference from search engine optimization point of view But hyphens are harder for people to remember

Slide 13

Use a clever subdomain? E.g. del.icio.us

• Del.ico.us has registered icio.us and then created a subdomain “del”
• Subdomains are provided by your web host and should be unlimited at no extra cost But knowing where to put the dot can be hard to remember

Slide 14

2. Choose a domain extension

Slide 15

Generic Top Level Domain (gTLD)

• Some extensions have prerequisites, e.g. .edu or .gov, but most are open to anyone
• Appears to be no difference in search engine ranking between extensions
• People’s reaction to extensions are different – may prefer local extension, and/or .com

Slide 16

Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD)

• Some countries have strict prerequisites E.g. .ca (Canada), .fr (France)
• Use a ccTLD if your market geographically targeted ? You will benefit in local search engines E.g. Google.co.uk

Slide 17

3. Poll your target market

Slide 18

Get feedback from your market

• How do they react to the suggested domain name?
• Can they remember it?
• Do they misspell it?
• Which extension do they expect to use?
• Rethink if the reaction is not positive

Slide 19

4. Consider registering multiple domain names

Slide 20

Multiple domain names
Misspellings: www.mybusness.co.uk
Variations: www.mybusinesses.co.uk
Other extensions: www.mybusiness.com

• Can send additional direct traffic from misspellings of your domain
• Prevent competitors benefitting from misspellings
• Register .com if available – people will use .com if they’re guessing
• Don’t go overboard in buying all potential variations

Slide 21

5. Choose a domain registrar

Slide 22

A good domain registrar Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

• Is ICANN accredited
• Has a low price with no hidden fees (e.g. for transferring a domain name, changing contact details)
• Offers an easy-to-use administration interface
• Provides good customer service
• Allows easy transfer of a domain to another registrar

Slide 23

6. Register your domain!

Slide 24

Register Register your domain for more than 1 year, so

• You won’t lose it after forgetting to re-register
• Search engines will give greater authority to your domain

Slide 25

The domain you choose will be the first impression of your website. Make sure it’s a good one.

Slide 26

You’ve now seen how to choose a domain name. This is the fifth step in the process of good website design. See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 27

Need Help? Ask the experts at guiding you through website development: www.realfreewebsites.com

Transcript

Slide 1: HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR WEB DESIGNER

Step 4: What to look for when you need help making your website

Slide 2

• Step 1: How to set your website goal
• Step 2: How to identify and target your market
• Step 3: How to write your content
• Do you need a web designer?
• Step 4: How to choose a web designer
• Step 5: How to choose your domain name
• Step 6: How to choose a web host
• Step 7: How to launch your website
• Why completing your website is not the end
• Step 8: How to promote your website

See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 3

There are an ENORMOUS number of web designers to choose from So how do you choose?

Slide 4

Web designers fall between two extremes….

Slide 5

Design-oriented- Looks great
Function-oriented- Looks bad

Slide 6

Design-oriented- Works badly
Function-oriented- Works great

Slide 7

Find a designer that combines both: Design and Function

Slide 8

To assess whether a designer is any good, you first need to be able to spot:
GOOD design

Slide 9

Good design achieves the goal of the website
Design is all about communication
Does the website’s design help to convey the message?

Slide 10

Good design works well in all browsers, on all operating systems and at all screen resolutions
Test the design on different computers with different settings. Does the design still look good?

Slide 11

Good design is visually appealing to the target market
Design is not totally subjective
Certain designs will appeal more than others to the target market.
Does the target market like the design?

Slide 12

Good design is easy to use
How easy is it to find what you are looking for?
Is the navigation user-friendly?

Slide 13

Good design is fast-loading
How quickly do the pages download? -It should not be more than a few seconds

Slide 14

Good design is search engine optimized
Are there effective page titles?
Does the code contain Meta tags?
Are the internal links keywords?
Is text (not pictures) used for the important content?

Slide 15

Good design is universally accessible Is the website accessible to disabled users?
-Ask someone disabled to test the website
-Use automated testers (e.g. Cinthya Says)

Slide 16

Good design pays attention to detail
There should be nothing that looks out of place
Do all the page elements work together? E.g. Complementary colors, similar icons
Does everything on the page line up perfectly?

Slide 17

Should you hire a design freelancer or a company?

Slide 18

Freelancer:
More personalized service?
More resources?
Company:
Less expensive?
Faster service?

Slide 19

No clear distinction
Increasing overlap between freelancers and companies E.g. freelancers working together

Slide 20

Making the choice

Slide 21

Website portfolio
This is the obvious place to go to see the quality of work
Study the websites and look for evidence of good website design

Slide 22

Testimonials
Take these with a grain of salt, but it’s always good to see what others say
Consider contacting website owners through the portfolio page

Slide 23

Free Quote
Most web designers will provide you with an approximate quote for free
Ask questions and see how helpful they are
Find out what they consider important in web design

Slide 24

It is worth taking your time in choosing. A good web designer will offer in-depth knowledge and experience that will help you throughout your website development

Slide 25

You’ve now seen how to choose a web designer. This is part of a series of presentations on the process of good website design. See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 26

Need Help? Ask the experts at guiding you through website development: www.realfreewebsites.com

Search Engine Optimizers

Search Engine Optimization often abbreviated to SEO, is the process of changing a website to make it search engine friendly, and increasing the chance of a website appearing higher up in the search engine results pages.

Unfortunately, due to the:

• Intangible nature of the product (there is normally no change in the appearance of a website, bar minor text changes)
• Lack of clarity resulting from not knowing how a search engine determines ranking
• High average charges for SEO work
• General lack of understanding about what SEO involves

-there are a large number of rogue SEO companies looking to make a fast buck - without providing any significant value.

Before you even think of signing on with an SEO company, make sure you do some decent research, and talk to someone trustworthy who really understands SEO at a technical level. The key activities of SEO are actually very straightforward, but it is knowing what website changes are needed and where that distinguishes a good SEO company.

You have been warned…