20 Website Mistakes That Cost Me Three Years And $22,000

Written by Catherine Franz


Continued from page 1

12. Do not add any pages torepparttar site that do not pertain torepparttar 118392 visitors' reasons for coming to your site. People do not have time for irrelevant information.

13. You do not need an engineer or a web site designer to design your website. In fact, while they would not like to hear this, you do not need them. They may do everything right technically, but they do not know how to get people to stay at your site or buy from you.

Marketers know how to do that. While 98% of engineers and web site designer claim they are marketers, less than 1% know anything about marketing. The truly rare commodity is a fantastic marketer who is savvy about web site design.

Building your site is just like building a house: without an architect who knows about layout, structure air flow, etc., all you have is a construction company buildingrepparttar 118393 house from their sense of style, direction and beliefs.

Know whererepparttar 118394 advice is coming from and hire them only for their expertise. If you are reading an article on marketing onrepparttar 118395 Internet that was written by someone who is a web site designer, a red flag should go up.

If you are talking with a marketer who does not have web site design experience and you are looking for help in building your web site, raise that flag again. The rare person withrepparttar 118396 unique combination may be hard to find, but we exist -- I designed my learning to be one of those rare ones.

I have helped many people clean up their web site after they have worked with web designers and/or marketers. And trust me,repparttar 118397 clean up is more time consuming than starting all over.

14. Don't make your buyer feel stupid while they are inrepparttar 118398 process of buying from you -- inrepparttar 118399 "cart" process. Internet service providers (ISPs and web site hosts) do this frequently. Just one example of this is when they ask their nontechie buyersrepparttar 118400 option, "Choose your server"

The majority of their buyers have no idea what this means. They do not understand that you are asking if they want a Unix or Windows based system. Moreover, even these same buyers are asked in this manner, they still do not have any clue what arerepparttar 118401 advantages or disadvantages of either one.

So, they feel stupid. You will lose more buyers with questions like this. The buyer feels frustrated and 99% ofrepparttar 118402 time leaves without buying. Look on your site, are you asking any questions that makerepparttar 118403 buyers or visitors feel stupid?

15. The most common place to click on any web page isrepparttar 118404 top left-hand corner. Putrepparttar 118405 choice to go torepparttar 118406 next page or to pickrepparttar 118407 most popular page or product in this location. Ifrepparttar 118408 purpose ofrepparttar 118409 page/site is different, you may want to putrepparttar 118410 back and forward buttons there.

Don't put graphics, especially your logo, onrepparttar 118411 upper left hand corner. This is prime real estate for your website. If you have a retail site, place your top-selling item in this space or a drop down menu of three ofrepparttar 118412 top selling items.

16. Answerrepparttar 118413 visitors' main questions in one easy-to-find and readable paragraph. Don't makerepparttar 118414 font too small to read and do not make it go acrossrepparttar 118415 page requiringrepparttar 118416 reader to scroll. I've seen young web site designers use small fonts on their website which wants to attract a market that’s in their 40s and 50s. Fact,repparttar 118417 older you getrepparttar 118418 biggerrepparttar 118419 font.

17. Don't talk down to your visitors. They are intelligent people who will not stand for it. They will leave and never come back. There is a difference in talking down and presenting a conversational style. Talking down is like explaining it to your child;repparttar 118420 other is like talking to another adult. Technical people have a big tendency to talk down to nontechnical people.

18. Make it easy for them to share their comments with you. Whether it is about a hyperlink that does not work or other errors they have found. They may want to tell how much they appreciated your information. Create a place on every page where they can feel comfortable about submitting their comments. Comfortable also means that they have a choice on whether to send their contact information or not.

19. Organize your site fromrepparttar 118421 visitors' point of view. If you are not sure, ask some typical visitors. "What questions did they have when they landed onrepparttar 118422 first page?", is a great question to start. Get them to walk you through their thinking. You will pick up some patterns afterrepparttar 118423 first three or four. This isrepparttar 118424 best research you can do and it will save you years of revisions.

Do not ask family members or friends. Ask clients who have just finished visiting your site. They are familiar visitors and they will want something different from a new visitor. You need to set up your landing page to handle both familiar and new visitors without being confusing.

20. One ofrepparttar 118425 most valuable pages in a web site that is sadly overlooked isrepparttar 118426 "thank you" page. If someone signs up for your ezine or places an order, include a popup saying "thank you for visiting." Use whatever way you can think says it best, but don't leave it out. The other half of this equation is not to looserepparttar 118427 opportunity to cross sell or up sell onrepparttar 118428 thank you page.

First, say thank you and then give them an offer they cannot refuse. Onrepparttar 118429 thank you page, you can provide a coupon for 10 percent off on anything inrepparttar 118430 store or 10 percent off on any overstocked or limited stock item.

Now that you have these tips on what mistakes not to make, you need to put them into practice. Choose three and start completing them. Then move on torepparttar 118431 next three and keep moving throughrepparttar 118432 list. You will be excited ofrepparttar 118433 results.

Bonus Tip 1: 60% ofrepparttar 118434 buyers opt out of purchasing a product onrepparttar 118435 Internet in betweenrepparttar 118436 first cart processing page andrepparttar 118437 last page. It is usually because it took too many clicks to completerepparttar 118438 transaction or it took too much time to think about it or to make choices. Check your web site and eliminate any obstacles or places that do this so you can reduce this percentage on your web site.

Bonus Tip 2: If you have questions on your page, divide them into categories and don't put them all on one page. Spread them out between pages. It looks easier and faster torepparttar 118439 person answeringrepparttar 118440 questions. Give them an incentive to move from one page torepparttar 118441 next and give them encouragement betweenrepparttar 118442 incentives.

Catherine Franz, a Certified Professional Marketing & Writing Coach, specializes in product development, Internet writing and marketing, nonfiction, training. Newsletters and articles available at: http://www.abundancecenter.com blog: http://abundance.blogs.com


Unlimited Bandwidth in Web Hosting

Written by Ashish Jain


Continued from page 1

Statistically speaking, a T1 Internet connection (huge broadband) equals approximately 500GB per month and costs around $1200 per month. So how can it be possible to getrepparttar same or unlimited for $30 a month?

There are a lot of ways you can be duped by these ‘ unlimited’ hosts; here are just a few of them:

The secret of ‘unlimited’ is actually buried inrepparttar 118391 Terms of Service byrepparttar 118392 host. Do not be surprised to find that unlimited = 15 GB.

The host may restrictrepparttar 118393 sort of files that you can host on their server. Generally image galleries and audio/video files attract a lot more downloads thereby resulting in higher bandwidth consumption. So if there are no files of this type, your site won’t really require a lot of bandwidth.

Some newly opened hosts use it as a scam. They take your money and after a few months when their server starts to become slow or reaches its limit, they run… with your money!

Some hosts outline in their Terms of Service that you can have unlimited bandwidth as long as you qualify for it. i.e. Your site must use less then, let’s say 2 GB of bandwidth in order to qualify forrepparttar 118394 unlimited bandwidth feature. As soon as your site goes over that limit they either start charging you for it or cut off your downloads altogether.

In life it’s a universal truth that you always get what you pay for, and it’s no different for web hosting.

If a host is using a cheap advertising gimmick like ‘unlimited’ bandwidth they maybe lying about a few other things too. Their ‘dedicated’ support team could be a single person (the hoster itself in most cases) sitting in front of a computer and taking your calls.

Do you really want unlimited bandwidth hosting from hosts that have very limited resources at their disposal? Or, do you want to go for a host that has spent thousands of dollars on setting up a good network infrastructure, servers, and a highly qualified and dedicated support team? The choice ultimately is yours and yours alone.

Ashish Jain M6.Net Web Helpers http://www.m6.net


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