Web Impakt

When looking at a lot of the websites in Idaho Falls, many of them serve the purpose web pages did initially for businesses. As was mentioned to me in a conversation, they are just putting up a billboard in cyberspace. Still not understanding the power of the internet for their businesses, many business owners are feeling the need to get online and are simply creating a web address with content that is no more than a virtual sign on the information highway called the internet.

In order to save money, these business owners turn to do-it-yourself website design programs and many of them do a good job of getting things started. But, there is more to creating a website if you want it to be an effective means of creating business through it. 

A new trend in adding professional media interaction to websites is the use of Flash Media. Flash introductions, banners, boxes, and now coming to the scene are Flash transparent videos. The Flash media offers you a method of providing visitors to your website with information you feel they should know about your business without having to click for information. The new trend of transparent videos allows you to do a virtual greeting to your potential customers and explain what your site has to offer. If you are camera shy and don’t want to put yourself on your website, you could hire a company to provide you with a virtual spokesperson that can put together a video with an explanation of your company and website. These actors go off of a script provided by your business. 

When applying Flash media to your website, you will need to work with a company that will make sure the file sizes don’t impair your potential visitors’ ability to load your website. A completely Flash driven website isn’t a good idea because of search engines not being able to read the content of your website, however, according to an article on WebProNews, search engines are expected to rank websites higher if they contain images and video in the upcoming year.

 There are a few things to consider when selling products online. The first and most important is providing your customers with a safe and secure method for making their purchases. Second is deciding how you are going to do that.

 Options come to mind such as PayPal, SecurePay, etc. There is also a list of shopping carts to choose from. Compatibility varies between these and so do their features. You will need to decide among them which fit your situation and customer base best.

 Your situation could be that you only have a few products to sell and are limited on funds to set up online purchases through your website.  Or, you could have lots of products to sell and feel your customers would be better served showing them their choices in a shopping cart before checking out. You may also want to have access to and be able to provide your customers with current account information including order status and the option to send updates on products and newsletters.

 These payment gateways can be a direct part of your website, or you can send them to the payment gateway’s site to enter their payment information. With both methods, you can provide your customers with a safe payment process.

 Costs vary as you consider the features you want to use and offer to your customers and can be a factor in which method you choose. The benefit of having a payment method provided through your own website is earning the credibility of having a secure payment gateway logo on your site and maintaining your website image on the pages they are checking out on. Many view it as more professional to be able to make the complete transaction on the website they are buying from rather than being sent to another website.

 Starting with a lower cost payment method to start can work great for beginning online business and can eventually lead them to being able to afford the more interactive and custom shopping carts with integrated payments.  An example is one of our clients.  Peachy Cheap sales just one scrapbooking product per day and an extremely low price. Initially they sent their customers to PayPal to complete their purchases. Now, they have decided to add the features they couldn’t offer before and provide secure online payments and check out through their own custom shopping cart.

To give you an idea of how these options appear, here are a couple websites we’ve done.  Chocolate Box Creations uses PayPal outside of their website, and as mentioned, Peachy Cheap has an integrated method of collecting payments.

Click on images to view larger
   

If you are not sure which is best for you, we would be happy to help explain the differences to you and give you advice based on your situation.

With the market on a downward trend and consumer confidence down, now is the time for businesses to find opportunities to expand their outreach to their customers. A strong presence on the internet is a viable option for every business to get to customers they don’t already serve.

Wait a minute… According to American Research Group, Inc the average amount people plan to spend on the internet this holiday season is about half of what was spent on average last year and people who plan to buy online are down from 36% to 30%. Why should I invest more into the internet when online purchasing is predicted to be lower now? With the entire economy struggling, one should expect a decline in online purchases as well. What isn’t down, however, is the number of customers going to the internet to get information to make their purchase decisions. According to Bazaarvoice, 72% of shoppers plan to research their products online and 83% of shoppers said online product reviews or evaluations had at least some level of influence in their purchase decision.

My father-in-law is a perfect example of how the internet has changed the way people shop. This Christmas he wanted a Nikon D80 digital camera, and used a lot of time researching the best deal here in town. As the ads for Black Friday came out, he was increasingly excited as he found deal after deal on the camera.  The first ad showed a discount from over $800 to over $700. Another company had the same camera for sale for $649.  He was committed to going to that retailer on Friday until he found a better deal still while researching the camera online.  He came to me extatic when he found he could by the same camera with the same accessories for only $579 plus shipping. He never shopped on the internet before, but is determined to do more online buying in the future.

With a growing number of your customers turning to the internet, an effective website has become a must have for businesses today. We have already covered the components recommended to create an effective website, and I recommend you review it again.

Right now is the time to get more aggressive and, most importantly, more efficient in obtaining customers. An effective web design paired with successful internet marketing will open your doors to more customers and put you in a better position to compete.

Once your website is built and looks and functions the way you want it to, there is one final hurdle to overcome: Search Engine Optimization. What good is your beautiful, fully functional website if you have no visitors? It takes a focused effort to get your web site displayed high in the search engine results.

An effective website is one of the most cost-effective forms of advertising. It is critical for most businesses to have a functioning and optimized website. 80% of the people on the Internet use a search engine, like Google, to find what they are looking for. Most people won’t even look past the first page of results. This results in some tough competition between you and your competitors to get into the top results.

There are numerous ways to get your website displayed high on the search engines. A dedicated professional SEO team can help you accomplish your online goals.

In order to have an effective website, you need a website plan. There are three important parts of creating an effective website:

1. Define Audience
2. Define Purpose
3. Define Marketing Plan

The most important part of the website plan is to define your target market. It is essential to define who your chosen demographic will be. Once your target market is defined, the design and copywriting will be consistent to appeal to your chosen audience.

There are many purposes to having a website, these may include one or more of the following:

1. On brochure showcasing your company’s products and services
2. An E Commerce site selling products
3. A company information site that facilitates communication between customers, suppliers and employees.
4. An entertainment based site

Narrowing the purpose of your website and what you want it to accomplish will improve your chances for success. Defining your website purpose before its creation will ensure your website is optimized to achieve your goals.

Hundreds of websites, similar to yours, are vying for the same website visitors as yours. It is important to understand that along with a website, a defined online marketing plan will allow your online presence to be as successful as possible.

It is important to thoughtfully plan your website before implementation, this will allow for you and your development team to understand your website objectives and successfully achieve them.

There are many important components of website design. The average visitor to a website may only see images and content but are other important elements involved in creating a successful website. Those components will be covered in the next three blog posts:

1. Sound Programming and a well planned framework
2. Goal-Driven Design, Accessibility and testing
3. Search Engine Optimization and a strong web marketing strategy

It is a well known analogy that a successful website is like an ice burg. The website visitor only sees the images and content but there is a large hidden foundation that ensures the website visitor leaves the site trusting the source and finding what they were searching for.

There are many benefits to creating a custom web application for your small business. The number one reason is that it will save your small business time and money. Creating custom web applications for your business will enable you move your small business ahead.

Does your small business manually perform any of the following tasks by hand on paper:

Tracking inventory
Tracking customer information
Data entry and re-entry
Employee schedule

There are many small business processes that a custom application would streamline. Web Impakt is will create custom software that is specifically priced to small business. We provide software solutions that are customized for your small business needs and processes.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. RSS is used to publish frequently updated content like your favorite blog or news site. Signing up for an RSS feed of a website blog, forum or article feed allows you to scan the headlines for items of interest. This means you get up to the minute feedback from your favorite Idaho Falls based websites and national websites.

Microsoft’s latest version of Internet Explorer (IE 7), has built-in support for RSS feeds. Press CTRL+Shift-J to open IE’s Feeds Center. This article from Microsoft.com walks you through all the information about IE7’s RSS Feeds feature.

A wide array of feed readers are available. Check out this article from crn.com, it shares the pro’s and con’s of the web’s most popular feed readers.

Then number of websites offering RSS feeds is growing rapidly. Stop wasting time checking all your favorite sites and blogs for updates just sign up for their RSS feeds!

The latest web design buzz word is “Web 2.0.” What does it mean?  Basically, Web 2.0 is the second generation of web development.  Wikipedia explains the history here.  A Web 2.0 website allows for a rich user experience including: blogs, pod casts, wiki and feeds.  Web 2.0 uses technology like Ajax to make an internet application perform like a desktop application.To design a site with Web 2.0 in mind,   the navigation must be simple and the design must be clean and uncluttered.   A bold logo and strong colors are usually incorporated into a Web 2.0 web design.   This  fontshop.com article displays some of the latest in Web 2.0 logo design.   

Here is a Web 2.0 how-to design guide , that will walk you through even more details about how to achieve a Web 2.0 look and feel.

Web Impakt strives to keep up with the latest technology.  Contact us today to update your old website to Web 2.0.

  Similar to the literal definition of a forum “A public meeting or assembly for open discussion” a web forum is “A web site that allows for individuals to meet for open discussion.”  Web Impakt has created many forums. 

The Southeast Idaho Singles forum posts many announcements and allows singles from the Idaho Falls area to meet.   

Web Impakt has also created a very successful form for our client Bradley Business Group.  The Chiefs Network Forum is only for invited users but has over 600 registered members.

Creating a successful online community takes a lot patience and hard work.  Some successful forums include  Gamespot forums, Reality TV World Forum and Small Business Forum.

Here are a few hints to create a successful forum:

• Be an expert on the forum topic.   Make significant and original posts.
• Find a group of people to start the forum with you.  It is difficult to create interest if you are the only one posting.
• Create a newsletter or mailing list.  If there is interest in the newsletter, switching over to a forum will be easy.