There is a simple solution to this problem in the form of a CMS (Content Management System) which enables you to change, add or delete content on your website whenever and as often as you choose and you don’t have to be a computer genius or technical wizard to use it.

If you are one of those companies in a FMCG environment for example but don’t have a CMS it obviously wouldn’t be very practical for you to ask your web designer to make constant alterations to your website content every day; it simply wouldn’t work but a CMS would mean you could carry out those content changes yourself.

In an older post I said that content management systems are suitable for just about any online business, but really come into their own for companies with a rapid turnover of stock or those where information changes on a regular basis.

These types of businesses simply can’t afford to wait for web companies to make the required changes, but that said, any type or size of business investing in a CMS could find it quickly becomes an indispensible part of their online operations.

With a CMS, you are in control of your website and not just the copy but also the images so in effect you can change the look of your website as well. If you haven’t already got a CMS then have a word with your web design company to discover more about their capabilities and other ways they can benefit your business.

Until next time.

On the whole, website navigation should be a very simple affair but occasionally you come across sites that manage to turn it into more of a chore rather than part of a pleasant browsing experience, and it really shouldn’t be like that.

The internet has been around for some time now and a whole generation has since grown up never knowing life without it. Web design has moved on and users are more web-savvy than ever before but unsurprisingly, still have little or no tolerance for hard-to-navigate websites that force them into finding their own way around.

It’s essential that your website is as easy as possible to navigate because visitors won’t hang around for too long if it isn’t so here are a few tips and pointers that should help.

·        Clearly defined page links are essential and importantly, link directly to the page they’re meant to. Sending them somewhere else will only leave them dazed and confused, not to mention frustrated. 

·        Pages with no navigation usually mean having to use the back button to return to the previous page. They are best avoided by ensuring every page on the site has a basic navigation menu. 

·        Naming your tabs clearly means visitors won’t have to solve clues. Clear page headings should tell them exactly where they’re going.  

·        Larger and more complicated websites require much more than a simple navigation menu so using drop-down boxes is generally the preferred method of extending the menu. 

Most visitors know exactly what they expect from a website in terms of functionality and those expectations are generally very high, but no matter how technically brilliant the website itself might be, users will still want the navigation to be as easy as possible. 

Until next time.

However, that saying only applies to visitors who have successfully entered a website where the attention-grabbing process can begin. Getting on to a website is one thing, but excessive loading times often mean that those valuable seconds you thought you had have been used up long before a visitor has even seen your landing page.

It’s no secret that web users are fickle and often hard to please but please them you must if you want visits to your website to be profitable ones; something that long loading times simply won’t achieve, so here are my five tips from an older post that should help to reduce your website’s loading time.

Content

Splitting large pages of content into smaller ones is a good start and has the added bonus of turning the copy into more readable blocks – something that will go down well with visitors. 

Images

Too many images will really slow down loading time – use them sparingly where possible and keep their file size small.

Widgets

Widgets - more often than not they’re not needed or even appreciated by visitors but they will certainly slow loading times.

Flash

Intro Flash movies and embedded music that play during loading are annoying at the best of times and most visitors tend to skip them anyway.

Tables

Using CSS layers instead of HTML and nested tables will increase loading speed quite noticeably.

This isn’t a definitive list because there are other things that contribute to slow loading times and I will be looking at them in a future post. The speed at which the internet works isn’t as awe-inspiring as it once was because it’s been part of our everyday lives for so long we now take it for granted and so when we do happen across a slow loading website we lose patience extremely quickly, so if your website isn’t loading as fast as you think it should, then a word with your web design company would be well advised sooner rather than later.

Until next time.

It’s good that online purchasing transactions, communication and information-finding are now generally very speedy affairs but because of that, users’ expectations have also grown and although it’s been said countless times before, a website really does only have a few seconds to capture a visitor’s attention enough to keep them on the site and continuing on to read the other pages.

As a business website owner, you will obviously be aware of what your website is supposed to do, its purpose, the products and services it offers and what it’s saying to visitors, but are all those things quite that clear to the visitors themselves?

There are many examples of websites where the homepages or even landing pages give little or no indication of what is being offered to visitors but instead go for something which perhaps the website owners consider as being arty or clever which unfortunately is often more than enough to send visitors looking elsewhere rather quickly.

In a previous post I said that to be truly effective, a visitor should know exactly what your website is for the moment they arrive on the landing page, and with only valuable seconds to capture a visitor’s attention, it’s important that those seconds aren’t wasted by distracting features such as Flash intros for example that often take a long time to load and which many visitors will skip anyway.

There are a couple of reasons why visitors could leave your website if it doesn’t immediately tell them what it’s for and one obvious reason is that of the ‘seconds to grab their attention’ rule.

Visitors don’t want distracting music or fancy Flash animation – they want information and anything that gets between them and that information is simply a barrier they often won’t bother to try and pass because it’s far easier to leave in favour of another website.

Another reason is that visitors need to be shown where to go and told what to do when they land on a website. This isn’t because they are incapable of finding their way around (unless your website’s navigation isn’t up to much, in which case speak to your web design company) but because it’s far quicker and easier if your website does it for them.

Visitors are now far more web savvy and demanding than ever before with higher expectations which includes expecting everything to happen almost instantly without having to take time to think about it, and if they have to think what your website is all about then maybe it’s time to change it.

Until next time.

Reading my local newspaper last week I inevitably reached the first page of the job section and the point where I normally close the paper and put it away, but not this time. The page I was looking at contained a list of web design vacancies but only the job titles not the job descriptions because they had all been replaced with QR codes.

Smartphone-owning job seekers only had to scan them to be taken to the various websites of those advertising the vacancies where they could learn about the jobs themselves and apply immediately for whatever positions interested them.   

It looked quite strange seeing so many QR codes together on one page but nevertheless, here was yet another way of utilising them, this time for recruitment purposes.

It’s worth mentioning that as not everyone owns a smartphone, it renders QR codes useless to a percentage of mobile users. However, with indications being that many are naturally upgrading to smartphones when their contracts are up for renewal and those who can’t wait are simply buying them, this should quickly become less of an issue.

Whatever other uses are yet to be devised for QR codes, they appear to be rapidly gaining in popularity and becoming a very efficient method of quickly and easily getting visitors to websites, although there are some that believe they are simply a passing fad and will disappear sooner rather than later. They may be right but without the power to see into the future we won’t know for certain until it happens.

Until next time.

The town of Monmouth has been chosen by Wikipedia to take part in their first QR code project by inviting residents to provide the content regarding the town itself, for example, famous residents, notable locations, town history, attractions, personal memories and trivia. In fact anything tourists may be interested to know.

As a community effort, any Monmouth resident, school, college or business can contribute information to the project and on any particular subject. The QR codes will then be placed on plaques at over 1000 locations throughout the town where visitors will be able to scan them with their smartphones from the start of the project which is expected to be sometime during April this year.

Interestingly, the content in the QR codes won’t be confined to English or Welsh speakers only as Wikipedia will be giving visitors the option of reading the information in multiple languages; over 270 other languages in fact. If the project is successful, it would be no surprise to see it extended to other towns and cities in the UK and almost certainly in other countries as well.

An interesting use for QR codes which should hopefully prove effective and successful for both Wikipedia and visitors to Monmouth alike whilst at the same time offering more exposure for QR codes and their possibilities for the future.

Until next time.

As trends go, perhaps the most talked about and more important one is the need for businesses to have mobile optimised websites. Mobile, or to be more precise, smartphones have had a massive impact on web design and this looks set to continue well into 2012 and beyond.

The phenomenal and continuing rise in the number of smartphone users has freed website visitors, consumers and social network addicts from the restrictions of traditional PCs and put the internet firmly in their pockets and a staggering choice of apps ensure that accessing websites, communication and online purchasing is as easy on mobile as it is on a standard computer.

Web designers have managed to compact websites into the much smaller screen spaces of mobile devices and even smartphone cameras are now being further utilised as scanners for reading the growing number of QR codes to be found in magazines, websites and newspapers.

There were of course other web design developments of note during 2011, but there’s little doubt that mobile has made the biggest impression and impact of all and probably has a lot more to give in 2012 – we’ll see.

In the meantime, I would like to thank all our readers for being with us over the past twelve months and wish each and every one of you a very happy New Year and hope you continue reading in 2012.

Until next time.

Even websites can become old and jaded so this last post offers a couple of suggestions for refreshing the visual aspect of your website with a makeover which may not be as costly as you might think but could give your site a whole new lease of life.

Think about changing the layout – just moving the images to another position would make a difference or perhaps consider displaying them as a slideshow as a change to being static.

Take a look at your images – do they still reflect your line of business or have you diversified and could do with updating to something more fitting?

If feasible, try and steer clear of generic and stock images by getting a competent photographer to take some original photos for you – failing that - have a go yourself.

How about your colour scheme? Would your site benefit from different shades or a total change of colours?

Is your site too busy? Think about reducing some of the content and creating more white space for a cleaner look.

Just a few simple suggestions of ways to refresh the look of your website and your web design company can make it happen. I go back to what I said in the first post of the series regarding the rise of smartphones and the need for mobile-optimised sites.

They are now a must-have if businesses want to capture mobile users but are extremely unlikely to ever replace standard sites due to their diminutive size which is why your main website shouldn’t be neglected because there will always be room for both.

Until next time.

Like any other part of your site the copy must be kept in good order and benefits from being regularly refreshed or occasionally rewritten. However, there are some basic checks you can carry out to ensure that at least your current copy is up to scratch.

Read through the copy to identify errors such as spelling mistakes or poor grammar – invite someone else to do the same – they might spot something you’ve missed.

Check the facts! Is your copy imparting up to date information to visitors? If your business has changed or diversified your copy needs to reflect that.

Is your copy consistent? Check that it doesn’t contain different spellings or variations of the same word – for example, ‘website’ and ‘web site’.

Does your site contain more copy than it needs? If your copy is padded out but not saying actually anything, consider removing anything that’s not relevant.

If you don’t do so already, break up blocks of copy with the use of headings and bullet points – this makes it much easier for visitors to find what they’re looking for.

Good copy is as vital to the success of a website as the web design itself and the two can’t be divorced from each other without affecting that success. If you can afford to hire a copywriter for your written content it would be money well spent, but if not, then the tips and points I’ve listed should at least help to improve what’s already there.

In the third and final part of ‘Don’t Overlook Your Website!’, the subject will centre on refreshing the look of your website.

Until next time.

It’s true that more and more visitors are using mobile devices for online activities like shopping, email and social networking but regardless of how high or quickly those numbers grow it doesn’t mean that your main website will become redundant.

It’s a fairly safe assumption that PCs won’t be consigned to the scrapheap anytime soon just because smartphone usage appears to be going through the roof and beyond, so whilst a mobile-optimised website is now a must, a standard (for want of a better word) website still holds the same importance as it ever did.

Checking that every element of your website is working correctly is time well spent and is something your web design company will be happy to assist you with. In this the first of three posts, I’m going to touch on a few things you can do to keep your website healthy, starting with a few simple tips for SEO.

Test your website’s internal and external links to ensure they are working correctly.

Look at the sites you’ve linked to – are they similar businesses to yours or totally unconnected?

Check through your website copy – are your main keywords and search phrases present and in the right density?

Consider adding a site map to your website – great for easier navigation and helpful when search engines are indexing your site.

What I’ve mentioned are very basic points and only a tiny part of the SEO process but they are also things that website owners can check for themselves and not a bad thing for them to experience their own websites from a visitor’s point of view.

In the second part of this three-part post on looking after your website, I’ll be covering the subject of copy.

Until next time.