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

Written by Catherine Franz


"Learn from other’s mistakes," my Mom always advised me. Learn from mine, save three precious marketing years, tons of frustration, energy, and come out way ahead ofrepparttar game. Best of all, this will not create a loss of sales, as it did for me.

1. If you use a shopping cart, check ifrepparttar 118392 zip code request appears beforerepparttar 118393 city and state onrepparttar 118394 order form. Most carts don't do this. Why is this important? Because if ordering is not easy, I mean real easy, for your buyers, they drop out inrepparttar 118395 process. Ordering should be as effortless as possible forrepparttar 118396 purchaser.

Ifrepparttar 118397 zip code is beforerepparttar 118398 city and state and is set to drop their city and state intorepparttar 118399 next two fields automatically, it savesrepparttar 118400 purchaser's time. Believe it or not, this one "little" item leaves a memory chip and they will rememberrepparttar 118401 experience inrepparttar 118402 future. Did you know that 60% of buyers opt-out and don't completerepparttar 118403 transaction because ofrepparttar 118404 little things?

2. Do you have boxes or radial buttons that they need to check off inrepparttar 118405 ordering process? If you do, then go ahead and fill-inrepparttar 118406 checkmark "in" for them. Let them uncheck it if they do not wantrepparttar 118407 choice you gave them. Again, making it easier to buy from you and reducerepparttar 118408 chance of them leaving before completingrepparttar 118409 transaction.

If you have a questionnaire or survey form, check allrepparttar 118410 "yes" categories or one ofrepparttar 118411 radial buttons for them so they don't have to dorepparttar 118412 work. They will rememberrepparttar 118413 experience as "easy" and it will be imprinted in their minds forrepparttar 118414 next purchase or experience with you.

3. Many people forget to set uprepparttar 118415 "error page" on their web site. Do not leave that to chance. Ask them questions onrepparttar 118416 error page so that you will know what occurred. Example: "Tell me how you saw this page please." Add your e-mail address. Hyperlinkrepparttar 118417 address and spell outrepparttar 118418 full address for those with different browsers. Make it easy for people to identify any errors on your web site so you can fix them quickly.

If you think that will never happen to you and that you have checked your links repeatedly, it can still happen. Software has glitches and they happen to berepparttar 118419 best ofrepparttar 118420 best. In addition, an error page is a great place to add other hyperlinked navigational bars (a list ofrepparttar 118421 main areas of your web site). Also, offer an opportunity for them to enroll in your ezine here as well.

4. Omitrepparttar 118422 metaphors. Most adults do not haverepparttar 118423 time orrepparttar 118424 patience to play games onrepparttar 118425 Internet. If your market is teens, this is a different story. Teenagers will enjoyrepparttar 118426 entertainment.

If you offer an entertaining feature on your site, you will need to carryoutrepparttar 118427 theme throughout your site, otherwise they will leave as soon as it stops. This has occurred quite often lately as professionals add video to their site (considered entertainment) and thenrepparttar 118428 rest ofrepparttar 118429 site is flat. They get a lot of hits torepparttar 118430 video and then no response onrepparttar 118431 call to action that they have set up.

5. Please do not activate "under construction" pages. Wait untilrepparttar 118432 page is ready and then upload it. If you are using FrontPage, you can remove it fromrepparttar 118433 Navigational system by right clicking onrepparttar 118434 page and turning it off.

6. Don't beat aroundrepparttar 118435 bush with your visitors. Make your message so clear that even a ten year old will understand it. Makerepparttar 118436 language conversational -- easy English.

7. Make your "buy me" buttons "Amazon" blue. Backed by good research, Amazon has trained millions of their visitors in this color and in their design style. Use their success to your advantage. Visit http://www.amazon.com to see what "Amazon" blue looks like.

8. Do you offer a search form on your site? You need to. Once again -- making it easy for your visitors to findrepparttar 118437 information they want quickly. Here is a tip that I learned only a few months ago that has paid big since. After all I have read and learned overrepparttar 118438 past 10 years, nothing was every mentioned about this. When someone searches for something and it is not found, set up a default-selling page.

Here are a few ideas on how to userepparttar 118439 default page when their search comes up empty. Offer them a 10% coupon for something else, or for anything on your site. Tell them this is a one-time offer (they will not know otherwise). Onrepparttar 118440 other hand, you could provide a list of available discounts or offer them a choice of sections to proceed to. Do not let them getrepparttar 118441 "Can't find a match" message at any time.

9. When collecting visitor information for your database, do it one step at a time. Do not try to do everything at once. If you offer an ezine,repparttar 118442 first step is to ask for their e- mail address only. After they type that in, take them to another page to answer questions.

Alternatively, you can send them an auto responder asking them questions. Better yet, send them to a survey page after they have subscribed to your newsletter. You will enjoy an increase in subscribers and survey submissions.

10. If you use drop down menus for your states or countries, remove them. "Techies" like drop down menus, but visitors don't. Letrepparttar 118443 visitor type in their state and country. It is ten times faster and much easier than looking through a long list searching for a state and country. Even ifrepparttar 118444 United States is atrepparttar 118445 top, it still makesrepparttar 118446 buyer search.

11. The best way to give your visitors what they want is to keep it simple. This is especially true forrepparttar 118447 landing page of your web site. The landing page is your main or index page.

What do you want your visitors to do when they reach your site? If they are there to subscribe to your ezine (electronic newsletter), send them to that page by giving them that immediate option. Then send them to a page that focuses them on subscribing. Give them allrepparttar 118448 information they need to make a choice and to subscribe. If they are first-time visitors, where do they click first?

For example, if you are a coach, ask them if they want to know more about coaching. If you are a virtual assistant (VA), send them to a page or two about what a VA does and how you help your clients. After they get torepparttar 118449 next page, give them choice of different areas where you can help them as a virtual assistant or a coach.

Walk them throughrepparttar 118450 process in steps, "hold their hand" as you lead them through allrepparttar 118451 things that you can do for them. Create a walk-through easy-to-follow effect. It will pay off in profits.

Unlimited Bandwidth in Web Hosting

Written by Ashish Jain


Bandwidth explained:

Bandwidth isrepparttar amount of data transfer that you are allowed to have for a hosting package i.e. Let’s say you have a web page that is 48KB in size, now each time a user opens your site and goes to that page S/he downloads 48 KB of information on to their computer. If a 100 users view that page one time each then there has been a total of 4800 KB of data transferred fromrepparttar 118391 server on which your files are stored forrepparttar 118392 computer of users.

Size of web Page: 48 KB Number of users who viewedrepparttar 118393 web page: 100 Total amount of data transferred: 48KB * 100 = 4800 KB

Bandwidth isrepparttar 118394 term that is used to denoterepparttar 118395 amount of data that has been transferred from your web space.

The amount of bandwidth that you require while choosing a host depends on two factors:

> The size of your site. > The popularity of your site.

If your site is not very huge and you do not have any audio/video downloads and it’s not very popular i.e. not a lot of people visit your site then you do not really require a lot of bandwidth, on a average a web site uses up only 500 MB of bandwidth per month. Or if your site is small but extremely popular then you might have to go for a web hosting package that offers high bandwidth.

Onrepparttar 118396 other hand if your web site is huge, providing audio/video downloads, as well as being very popular then you would certainly require a huge amount of bandwidth. Let’s say you have a video file that is 150 MB in size and in a single day a 100 visitors downloadrepparttar 118397 file. This means that 15 GB of bandwidth will have been used. If you multiply that by 30 days forrepparttar 118398 month it comes to 450 GB.

The unlimited bandwidth controversy

For some time now a lot of hosting companies are supposedly providing "unlimited bandwidth" for their web hosting packages.

It’s absolutely true, you can have unlimited bandwidth. However, you will need an unlimited amount of money by your side! Jokes apart, if you ever come across such a host it would be best to turn around and run backrepparttar 118399 way you came from.

Just think, if you can get unlimited bandwidth for $25-30 a month then why aren’t big companies like Sun, Microsoft etc. not hosted there? In fact, why isn't everyone hosted there? For that matter, if unlimited is a standard feature then why don’t allrepparttar 118400 hosts offer it? Is it because it is expensive and requires better hardware? No, it’s because some hosts are honest and don’t give in to such gimmicks.

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