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.

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.

I came across a website last week that I found interesting. As a means to create another source of income, he added Adsense by Google to his web site. In fact, his website had 3 locations on the home page where Adsense provided information to people visiting his website that were related to his company.  If you don’t know what Adsense is, an example of it is below and information can be found at http://www.google.com/adsense

Not only was the presence of Google a little too strong on his website, the ads generated on his website didn’t just lead to articles related to his business specialty, they directed people to his competitors. His website, to me at least, didn’t tell me he was trying to get my business. As a disservice to him, I got more information about his competitors than I did about him.

So when is Adsense appropriate?

If your website is strictly informational, and you are not trying to sell anything from it, Adsense can be a great way for you to make an otherwise non-profitable website create an income.  If you are trying to sell products or services from your website, there is a way to make Adsense work for you.  In setting Adsense up with Google, you can select to prevent competitors’ ads from showing up. 

In my opinion, Adsense is available as filler for a newer company that doesn’t have enough content or access to information for their visitors to view. Even if you are filtering out competitors, you are redirecting your potential customers away from your site and may not get them back. Even though it may take more time and resources from you or your site administrator, your website would be more attractive and credible if you selected articles and added links directly to them. Other appropriate links would be to direct visitors to association websites that lend credibility to you (i.e. BBB, Water Quality Association, American Orthopaedic Association). These websites are strictly informational and, if your business is associated with them, they add confidence to the potential customer visiting your website about you and your business.

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.

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!

  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.

This is a pretty bold statement considering I don’t know what your business does. If you are in business today, having a website is essential. Websites are the business cards of this era. It is often the first place people go when making decisions on whom they should do business with. Thousands of companies have websites and you can be certain that your competition already has one.

Other benefits of a website include:

*  Allows your business to complete in a global market

*  Allows you to provide more company and product information

*  Is less costly than any other type of media

*  Allows you to change your product and service info for less money than reprinting catalogs and brochures

*  Allows you to reach potential customers 24/7/365

According to this comscore press release, a massive 772 million people were online in May of 2007. Don’t let these users pass you by. Web Impakt can help you design a functional website that will get these customers contacting you!

*DEAFENING MUSIC*

*AMAZING DISPLAYS*

*MIND-BLOWING TECHNOLOGY*

You might think I am describing the last rock concert I went to, I’m not. I am describing the last Flash site I went to. I left the site shortly after getting there because I was annoyed at the loud music and having to wait for the menu to show up.

There are times when interviewing customers for a new site, they are sold on the idea that their site needs to be created in Flash. Macromedia Flash (now Adobe) is animation software that web developers use to develop interactive and lively interfaces for web sites. Flash sites are very showy and web customers love them. Visitors and potential customers to their sites usually don’t.

Flash sites pay a high price for their dynamic nature. They usually come with longer loading times, higher costs and less accessibility. Back in the day of dial-up-modems, we were used to waiting for a page to load. Today, with our speedy DSL connection speeds’, waiting for a page to load is out of the question. Most users will hop back out to Google and find a play they can get their information quicker. Another disadvantage of a flash solution is cost. Web Impakt charges 3 – 4 times as much for a full flash site then we do for a html based site. Finally, a huge drawback of flash is that it isn’t tremendously accessible to users or search engines. In order for a user to see your super expensive flash site, they have to download a flash player. Search engines will by pass your site unless you have made huge concessions to help them index your site.

The answer to having a cool website with all the Flash benefits is simple. Web Impakt, has found that a hybrid site is the answer. A nice mix of html and flash gives our customers the cool look they want while allowing users and search engines to quickly find what they are looking for. 

Le Ritz Hotel, in Idaho Falls, is an example of a Web Impakt hybrid site.

Remember, next time you are thinking you want to have your site done 100% in Flash, refer to this flow chart by theGoogleCache.com.

SEO is a daunting task for even the most experienced web designers. Many businesses pay huge fees every month to ensure they stay in the top rankings for specified key words. For those of us who don’t have the money to spend on reaching the top of the search engines, this article is for you.

Below is a list of specific items that we at Web Impakt build into each site we create for clients:

Title Tags – The title of each page should be a short description of the page content. This is one of the most important and basic fundamentals of SEO.  The title tag is displayed at the top left corner of the browser.

Meta Tags – These are hidden tags that the SEO spiders use to help index your site.

Heading Tags – Your web designer will use these in all of your pages. Important keywords like your business name should be enclosed in <H1> tags with secondary words followed up with <H2> tags.

Search Engine Submission – Each time Web Impakt completes a site we submit it to the top engines.

If you don’t go through Web Impakt for your web site creation, make sure your web development company has completed the above tasks.  These are very rudimentary tasks that every web design firm implement.

The SEO work is not complete after the web site is created and posted.  The following is a list of SEO tasks that non-technical people can accomplish to boost search engine rankings:

Inbound Links – SEO spiders measure the popularity of your site by calculating the number of incoming links to your site. Be aware that there are good and bad backlinks. Keep all of your inbound links coming from reputable sites.

Quality Content – Quality content will skyrocket you to the top of the search engines. Web Impakt provides content writing packages but most of the time our customers opt to provide content. After all, the customer knows about their product and what they want to say. As noted in our business blog posting, a blog can assist with the content portion of SEO.   When writting content, make sure to include your keywords.  Go here or here for keyword suggestions.

Search Engine Optimization is a delicate operation. You can’t use any of the above methods to much or they will lose their effectiveness. Good luck and may high search engine rankings be with you.

Blogging can have many advantages for your business. This BusinessWeek article suggests that blogging will give you an edge over your competitors.  Below is a list of reasons why your business can benefit from a blog:

1. Presents your business as committed, enthusiastic and dynamic. Web Impakt is sometimes so busy I don’t have time to update our portfolio. A blog allows my clients to hop on the website and see that Web Impakt is still going as strong as ever.
2. Positions your company as an expert. If you are a company in a field that requires skill and experience, a blog is the perfect way to show case what you know. Especially in a technical field, a blog lets your customers know you are on the cutting edge.
3. Blogs increase corporate credibility. A blog allows you to put a face and voice to your company.
4. Search Engine Optimization, a blogging fringe benefit. Search engines love new content and blogs are an excellent source. Blogs are an easy way of updating content without having to contact your web development company and being charged for the changes.

If you are interested in starting a blog for your business, Web Impakt can help. You don’t have to be technical or spend a lot of money to start your business blog. Contact us today for details.