The blog entries for this month are all around ‘Loving your site’.  And I do think this is really important for your online success.  Showing your site the love and respect it deserves can come in a variety of different forms.  From design, content and mobile presence to SEO and social, it is important that you give all aspects of your site the care they deserve if you want to succeed.

The online world is fiercely competitive and you’ve got to really put in the hard yards if you want to succeed.  Companies can make or break depending on the strength of their online presence.  There are now reverse models of companies becoming so successful online that they are opening up bricks and mortar stores to help meet the demand for their products.  If you want that level of success, then read on.

Creating online success isn’t rocket science, but it does take thought, insight, preparation and hard work.  With so many competing websites available at the click of a mouse, what are you doing to attract visitors to your site and keep them there? While you may have many great ideas, they are not going to work if they are not implemented in the right way at the right time.  I have seen so many sites that have continually been ‘developed’ by the business owner with no structure or strategy in place.  This just leads to messy sites that are impossible to navigate, which then leads to high bounce rates and low visitor interaction.  It doesn’t matter if you have the greatest idea on earth to get customers to interact with your brand on your website – if they can’t find it, they can’t use it.

Many companies underestimate the importance of solid information architecture.  In ‘Information Architecture for the World Wide Web’ by Rosenfeld and Morville, they define information architecture as being “the categorization of information into a coherent structure, preferably one that the intended audience can understand quickly, if not inherently, and then easily retrieve the information for which they are searching”

There are many ways to structure your website in a way that is easily navigated and digested by your customers.  To choose the best method for your website, you need to think about your target market, their online habits, the amount of information you have on your site and how you want this information to be consumed.  If you have key pages that you need to be seen or if particular parts are only going to make sense if the visitor has viewed another page first, then this needs to be taken into account.  If your target market is not big website users, then you need to look for a simpler structure as opposed to something more interactive that will keep more web savvy users interested.

By taking a step back and looking at your site’s current structure and then comparing this with what your target market is going to be looking for, then you should be able to get some idea of changes that need to be made.  But if you are really not sure where to begin, then it can be an idea to call in the professionals.  While it may seem like a huge cost for some businesses, both in time and money, you have to look at the benefits a successful website can bring. By looking at the information architecture of your site now, and creating a structure and implementation strategy, then you are going to be in a better position in the future to grow both your website and your business.

It’s important to love your site in order to keep it in top condition. However, sometimes it’s the smaller things that can make all the difference when it comes to your users staying interested in what you have to offer. In the wrong hands, a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get editor) can be detrimental to your content.

Formatting is the key to ensuring a consistent website. The font controls in some CMS editors may cause your site to fall victim bad formatting. In the past, I’ve seen users apply multiple fonts, font sizes and colours to a single article. This is not a good look for your site, and can make it very hard to read the article. To be safe, make sure you allow your website’s premade text styles to take care of the formatting for you. Some safe uses for text formatting are the bold and italic tags. For headings, be sure to use the appropriate heading tags (h1, h2, h3 etc). Your template should also allow for blockquote tags, which can be used for testimonials.

Another element that can be destroyed by CMS editors are images. It’s important to ensure the images used on your site aren’t pixelated and haven’t been stretched. Stretched or pixelated images look horrible, lower the overall appearance of the site and will likely cause your users to bounce. This is commonly caused by a user manually stretching an image using the CMS editor. The proper way around this is not to resize images using your browser. Use Photoshop to resize (or for a free alternative use GIMP to do this) your images, which will provide a properly sized image without any pixilation or distortion.

To ensure you and your users continue to love your site, give it a check and make sure your content is looking sharp. Follow the tips above to avoid any messy formatting, and use your WYSIWYG editor correctly.

Let’s face it – when it comes to creating a site that has high traffic numbers, looks good and meets the needs of its target market, it can become an expensive exercise. That’s why loving your site is half the battle. Why go on the cheap when, with a little investment, you can create a digital asset that can produce much needed income month after month? Why risk your company’s reputation by using a second rate digital agency? After all, your website is your digital presence and can be the backbone of your business.

Today even with the best graphic designer, without traffic to your site, it’s going to be hard to convert any prospects into potential customers. Simply looking at the traffic numbers for your site is far from “loving your site”. To have a full appreciation for your site, you need a holistic approach of both good design, good SEO and a clear online strategy.  These components together will entice your customers to keep on coming back, or at the very least become aware of your products and services.

You can simply not make money online without putting money into a website.  As they say – you’ve got to spend money to make money.  Today the internet is way too competitive, with thousands of websites competing for nearly every niche out there. It is far too well established for an entrepreneur to just come in like they could back in early 2000’s and purchase pay per clicks for a few cents per click. Instead expect to pay a dollar a click or more. Or even better find a traffic specialist that knows how to get free targeted traffic. At itsimple we love giving your site the attention it deserves, so find out today how you can love your site and  take it to the next level of success.

Ok, so this title doesn’t sound that great but don’t let this article title fool you. We are all the ‘impatient’ and ‘lazy’ public when it comes to surfing the web. I find myself becoming more impatient with websites that take too long to load, have lousy navigation that makes it difficult to find the information I am looking for or have too many big slabs of text to scan through (yes scan, not read) before I find my relevant reading material.
So why don’t sites streamline their content and decrease the amount of text on their pages?

Unfortunately, in order for Google to see us and rank our site as having good quality content we need these slabs of text to get indexed. Well-crafted content will help boost your websites search engine performance while making it comprehensive for the human user.

Here are some tips to help overcome the problems we (the impatient and lazy public) have created for ourselves on the web.

1. Host your website on high quality server.
   This is a tricky one, with so many hosts out there and pricing ranging from a couple of dollars per month to a couple of hundred per month, it is hard to separate the good from the bad.  If you are developing the site yourself, jump onto forums and ask for advice and recommendations. If you are hiring a developer, ask them. They should be experienced with multiple suppliers
2. Long loading flash sites
   Flash (I believe) is not for full websites.  Often you will have to sit and wait for an entire site to load before you can start browsing it in flash.  I will often just close the window and move to the next site when I see that loading bar slowly make its way across the page.
3. Don’t bloat your site with fancy scripts
   With the rise of jQuery and html5, we are seeing more and more sites loaded with JavaScript.  While there is nothing wrong with JavaScript, we tend to see sites loading multiple scripts that have been pulled out of tutorials, or downloaded as jQuery plugins and overcomplicate the web pages. This is totally unnecessary most of the time.  JavaScript can be the perfect tool when it is well written, but is only necessary if you want a simple rotator or tabbed content section that breaks up those big slabs of text left for Google to chew on, or to improve the user experience in a functional area of your site. Other than that, code ripped from multiple sources to make your site seem fancy for the sake of it can often affect in-browser performance and cause visitors to move on.
4. Summarise your content
   Use headings to break up your content, but also make them informative and relative to the detailed content below them. Your website is not an essay, it is more like a brochure promoting and selling your service or product.  Information should be in broken down content that the user can explore more deeply if they choose to.
5. Site map
   If your site content is extensive, a link to an html site map in the footer is a must.  People need to navigate your site with ease, but they also need to understand where they are clicking to – so make page titles and site map links informative and well organised.
6. Searchable content
   If you are going to make your content searchable, make sure the results returned are accurate.  There is nothing worse than trying to search a large website that has a terrible search engine.
7. Videos on the home page
   One of my favourite features (if well implemented) is a video on the homepage of a website that offers a particular product or service.  I have noticed this on multiple websites that offer a service and increasingly on the android market. This is great because you get to see the concept of the product in action and an explanation of how it is going to benefit you.  But be careful, having a video is not enough to do the trick; there are several elements that are crucial if you want to pull this off properly.

• The video must be professional
• Usually rather than have someone talking to you, an entertaining presentation with illustrations tends to be more effective
• It needs to be short and to the point
• It must be opt-in rather than opt-out. This means absolutely NO AUTO-PLAYING. It may seem like a good idea to have it play automatically but most people will get annoyed and just close the page to get the sound to stop. The only thing more annoying than an auto-playing video is this

So there are a few ways to create content for your site that is efficient and effective, that gives the user what they are after, and make the web a better place.  If you have any ideas to add to this, please leave them in the comments below.

Web design trends move quite fast. For example, over the last 3 years our own website has gone through 3 different designs as we’ve evolved as a company. Web design trends come and go, but it’s important that your site follows some basic fundamentals that will ensure it will at least age gracefully.

If your website’s bounce rate is too high (users arriving at the site and then leaving in under 10 seconds), it’s likely because the users first impression of the site isn’t ideal. When a user reaches the site and leaves so quickly, they haven’t had time to read through what’s on offer. And while the content on the site may be fantastic, if their initial contact with your website doesn’t impress them, they will simply jump to the next site that does.

Websites that were only designed a couple of years ago can already look like they were designed by someone 10 years ago, if they weren’t done properly the first time. Unfortunately, many out-dated methods of web design are still being employed today.

We want to make our users feel comfortable and engaged when they visit our sites, and that cannot be done without a visually aesthetic and easy to use website.

Some common design elements that should be avoided at all costs include:

• Very narrow single column layouts
• Poor colour contrast between the text and background.
• Lack of evenly spaced and/or formatted content
• GIF animations or ‘walk on’ screen videos
• Any use of the Comic Sans font
• Pixelated images, or images that haven’t been properly sized
• Having a mismatched colour palate

If you recognise that you have some of these undesirable elements in your site, it might be time to re-evaluate the way your website has been designed.
At itsimple, we’ve seen firsthand how redesigning a well optimised, but visually tired looking website can boost your enquiries within weeks. So if your website design is lagging behind the competition, or if you’re just after a change, it may be time to look into redesigning your site.

These days there are so many strategies going around forums on the internet that no one really knows who to listen to. There are gurus out there that made their money back in 2000 when it was still one two cents a click on AdWords. Those days are long gone, but these people are still selling their advice today without updating their strategies.

So how do you keep up to date with the latest SEO strategy? Well the answer is simple – get a professional. A professional lives and breathes SEO 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Just imagine all the time you will need to spend to even try to catch up with someone with this experience.

Even after a couple of years of training in internet marketing, you still need to have a good understanding of how to build a website. And let’s face it – if you choose to make your own site with WordPress, then you are restricted by the features of the plugins. When you go to a digital agency, they normally have all these great people in a team together ready to hear your proposal and to put together the best solution for your business.  They have the experience and knowledge to know what is going to get the best results for you, and can offer a range of solutions.  If you choose an experienced agency, in a matter of a few weeks you could have your site up and ready to interact with your next customer. With so many options out there for consumers, when it comes to your online presence, it’s best to do it the right the first time.

So make a new year’s resolution come true and put your business online. But don’t forget to make sure people can find it as well.  If you are going to invest in your online presence, make sure you include SEO.  Because you don’t want your competitors to be found online first!

Google has said that one of their greatest challenges for 2012 is the large number of advertisers who do not have a strong mobile presence.  With Australia having such a high smartphone penetration (above the UK, US and Japan), having a solid mobile strategy is vital to success.  Last year, over 20% of the internet searches in Australia were from mobile devices*.  That is a huge number and shows just how necessary a well-constructed mobile presence is.

Despite the growing popularity of smart phones in Australia, nearly 80% of businesses advertising on Google do not have mobile optimised websites*.  That means that those users who make up the 20% of internet searches coming from mobiles are constantly being taken to poorly performing sites that are not meeting their requirements. Is that the first interaction you want someone to have with your business?  As the saying goes, the first impression is the last impression. So would you want someone’s first impression of your business being shaped by a website that cannot function on their chosen browsing device?

This lack of mobile optimisation is very frustrating for users, but presents an excellent opportunity to businesses.  What to stand out from the crowd?  Get ahead of your competitors?  Increase your sales?  Then get a strong mobile presence and wow your potential customers with an easy to use, informative mobile site.

*Data from Ipsos Research study done in conjunction with Google.

So you have this beautiful new website with shiny buttons, loads of great, helpful, useful, quality content that is easy to navigate and directs customers to the reasonably priced products and/or services that you offer.  But who is going to see it?

So you sit up late at night spamming everyone in your address book, joining forums and shamelessly plugging your website (and possibly getting banned from them in the process). You run out of steam and stop.  Then you watch the traffic you were slowly building drop back off too.  You know you have a great site with great content so why is traffic dropping off so quickly?

Do I have to do everything myself?

No, you don’t have to do everything yourself.  Adding Facebook Like buttons, Twitter Share Link buttons and Google Plus 1 buttons is a great way of inviting your visitors to share that great content with their friends and hopefully so on.  Implementing the code is as simple as configuring the button via any of the links just mentioned, and copying and pasting the provided code to your website. If you have a content management system, you can often paste the code to your template, and it will be included on every page.

My personal opinion is that Facebook and Twitter are the two most important ones to date, but with the rise of Google plus and the way it can affect your search engine rankings, the +1 button is becoming more and more important.  But that is probably not all you should use.  There are so many other great services that allow visitors to share your website with people they are connected to.

Here are a few popular ones:

• AddThis
• ShareThis
• LockerzShare

The theme of this month’s blog is ‘new year, new site’. But if you already have a website, how do you know if it needs to be improved, or if you need to get a new site altogether?  By doing your own site audit, you should be able to identify any areas that need to be upgraded in order to make your website a success.  To do an audit of your own website, here are some steps to follow:

1. Make sure you know what business goals you want your website to achieve before you start.  Do you want to be making sales, generating leads or creating a brand identity?  How are you measuring the success?  Do you have realistic targets in place?
2. Once you understand what you want the website to achieve from your perspective, you need to look at it from your customer’s point of view.  Why are they visiting the website?
3. Start from the beginning of your customer’s journey.  How do they find your site?  Do you show up in search results for relevant search terms?  Do you know what your audience is searching for when they come to your site? Do you have links from your social media pages to your website?
4. Once you reach your website, remember to think like a customer.  Navigate through the site.  Look for specific products or services.  Fill out an enquiry form.  Try and find your contact details.  Make a purchase if you have an ecommerce store.  What is your experience?  Can you find all the information you think you need?  Is it easy to get specific details that would make your customers feel at ease – sizing information, shipping costs, delivery times, phone numbers, and office / store locations?  This list of what people are looking for can go on and on, but you should know what you customers want.  And if they can’t find it on your site, they will look elsewhere. Remember, it only takes a few seconds for a potential customer to move to your competitor’s website.
5. List everything that you weren’t happy with, or found difficult, on your site.  Ask family, friends and colleagues to go through the same process and see what they come back with.

Once you have identified any areas that need to be fixed, changed, deleted or added, you need to weigh up whether your current site structure will be able to provide the necessary functionality.  I often meet clients who want to build on their current site as they have already invested in it, which is understandable.

However, sometimes the resources required to build on existing sites can be much greater than the resources required to start again.  This can be for a range of reasons, such as the site using an old or ill equipped platform, old coding practices or poor site structures.  While having out dated development techniques on a website is not always visible from the user end, it can seriously delay new developments and can hinder any SEO activity.

So if you are looking to move your online presence forward in 2012, start by doing your own website audit.  You will then be in a better position when talking to a website developer or digital agency.

Flash is great technology, and it certainly still has its own uses on the web. At the same time, it needs to be removed from many other places on the web.

If your website is using Flash for an image slideshow, drop down menu, or even to display some page heading text in a fancy font – we need to talk.

Using Flash for these elements has been negated by the introduction of CSS 3 and jQuery, and jQuery Mobile. In the last 12 months alone, the increased support from Adobe and also web browsers for CSS 3 and jQuery has made for some really exciting possibilities when it comes to web design and front end development.

Below are just a few reasons to move away from using Flash on your website:

Long Page Load Times

As a user, Flash on websites can be a real pain. Flash elements generally take a long time to load, as they have to rely on the Flash Player plugin to render the content rather than the browser itself. Using CSS 3 or jQuery provides super lightweight solutions to all your old flash components using far less code and will make the page load much faster. You should find more users staying on your site for longer, rather than leaving when they’re told they need to update their Flash Player to view the site.

Limited Mobile Support

Flash on mobile? Forget about it. iPhones cannot play any Flash, period. Android devices can currently play Flash content. However Adobe recently announced they will be dropping Flash support for mobile devices, which effectively means we will see a further decline in the overall use of Flash on websites.

So what can be used? HTML5 and CSS 3? Certainly. But if we’re looking to replace the need for Flash on mobile, we can go one step further – using jQuery Mobile. jQuery mobile is a very cool framework that allows us to create mobile websites with all the interactive trademarks of a mobile ‘app’. This means screen transitions, swipe navigation, popup dialog boxes and so on. Check out www.itsimple.com.au on your mobile to get an idea of what it’s like.

Non-SEO Friendly Flash Headings

Another use for Flash, which I touched on earlier, is text and page headings. Using Flash to render text is not a great idea, especially from an SEO perspective. Google still has trouble reading Flash properly, and as a general rule, HTML based text is always the best. The reason for websites doing this to begin with, is so they can display non-web standard fonts on their web page. But again, this isn’t the best way to go about doing it.

The better alternative is to use Google Web Fonts. Using this method, fonts are rendered by the browser rather than relying on flash. Because the fonts are stored in Google’s cloud, they can be viewed by anyone, regardless of what fonts are installed on their computer or mobile device. Mobile users and anyone with an out dated Flash player will be able see the site as it was intended, if you use this method.

So while Flash does still contribute to some applications on the web, it’s not something that should be used to implement site features, such as image slideshows or drop down menus.  With the development of CSS 3 and jQuery, there are smarter and more user friendly ways of getting the functionality that we use to have to rely on Flash for.