Going into January 2009, I wasn’t 100% sure what to expect.  January is always a web design company’s busy season as companies and retailers have Christmas revenues and are ready to go with all those projects they had been putting off the last 3 months. From everything I’ve seen, business is definitely increasing.  Freelance sites are busier than this time last year, as well industry chat boards and forums are filled with questions.

Businesses should be spending more money on Internet Marketing, which could include SEO, pay per click and online advertising.

Why you ask? The simple answer would be online marketing is much cheaper than traditional print and media marketing and yields far greater exposure.  Instead of paying $2000 for a small newspaper ad or $5000 for a city wide mailer, businesses should opt to spend that money on internet marketing and reach people in the search engines and through online advertising.

A good SEO campaign for 1 year with an ethically priced company would cost less than that one newspaper ad.  How much more exposure would 15 to 30 well ranking keywords in Google yield in a year over one ad in a local newspaper, or one mailer?   Yes, the newspaper or mailer would be seen by far more people but how many of those at that exact moment are interested in what you are offering.  SEO on the other hand, puts your website in front of those looking for exactly what you have to offer.  That is by far the most powerful way any small to medium business can spend their marketing budget in tough economic times.

If you don’t have an SEO company or an internet marketing company, than keep reading below as we’ll give you vital tips on what to look for in a good SEO company.

So many people who come to us for website designs are so focused on the overall design, the navigation and that it looks professional, so much so that they overlook their content.   Now don’t get me wrong, a professional, modern looking website is very important - for the first 10 seconds… to build consumer confidence and to visually demonstrate what your site has to offer, once on the site they stay for the content.

This is where so many ecommerce sites now fail.  Not only do a lot of ecommerce sites to fail to provide reasonable information about each product but they have horrible pictures.  Horrible in the sense that they don’t look professional, or they don’t match in size throughout the site, or they are blurred, or they are small, you get the picture (no pun intended).  Horrible in the sense that they cost these websites sales!

The picture is likely the biggest selling factor of any ecommerce store.  People want to know what they are getting and expect and accurate depiction of the product.   Shopping online has it’s limitations as most people like to feel and touch a product before they buy it in a brick and mortar store, however you can’t do this online so they expect very good photos.  They expect photos that are clear, show the whole product and the exact product they will be getting and if available in more than one colour, they expect to see all the colours. 

So many ecommerce store owners either rely on their suppliers or manufacturers to supply the photos or take an unprofessional photo themselves.  If your supplier or manufacturer doesn’t have all the photos you need or offers unprofessional photos then:

1. Invest in a tripod, background and some photo lessons

2. Hire a professional to photograph the products

If you opt to take the photos yourself, the photos don’t need the highest resolultions, they only need to be 72 dpi, so any standard digital camera can take the photo.  You do need to make sure you have a good background and consistent lighting.  You may then need to hire a graphic designer to clean up the images for you afterwards.  Also consider taking the photo from other angles if its a larger product or has a lot of elements or details (obviously you wouldn’t need to do this with a t-shirt, but with a car engine you would).  Also makes sure you take photos of all the different colours available and if it comes in a box a photo of the closed box as well as any extra products that come with it (Tiger Direct is a good example of this they typically have a photo of the box, the product and all the wires, cables, batteries etc that come with the product). 

This may seem like so much work and a real investment of time and money, but not having a great photo to show off your products will loose your business valuable sales!

Do you have a website or about to get one?  Than you need to understand the 15 second rule, or at least ensure your web design company does.

The 15 Second Rule is essentially how long you have to convey to website visitors:

1. What you do or what you have to offer
2. How professional your site is
3. How easy it is to navigate your site

5 years ago this wasn’t so much an issue but many search engine users know that when searching not all the results are valid and therefore over time an “evaluation” behaviour has evolved where searchers evaluate a website within 10 to 15 seconds to determine if the site does or has what they are looking for and also looks at the overall design for appeal.

What does this mean in terms of your website’s design?

It means that visually with graphics, images and large font text you need to communicate the general products or services you offer visitors that can be looked at and processed in less than 10 to 15 seconds.  It means you need an uncluttered page, well labelled navigation and photos, graphics and text that very clearly reflect the topic of that page. Remember this doesn’t just apply to the home page but all pages, since every page of your site can be used in the search engines to drive relevant traffic to your site. 

Do’s

• A good banner/header that is visual and clearly shows your business name and a related slogan
• All images and graphics reflect the topic of that page
• A main title sentence bolded and in bigger font at the top of the page that describes that page
• Bullet point text instead of long drawn out paragraphs
• Break text up in sections and put a header title to each paragraph
• Have a visible, well labeled navigation and use a drop down navigation to easily group pages together instead of using top and side navigations
• Make sure everything on your site works the way it is supposed to work

Dont’s

• Have a cluttered home page with lots of little boxes of different information
• Have too many images as it makes it hard to scan the whole page an absorb the over all message
• Have too many different navigations - some sites have a navigation bar across the site, plus a side vertical navigation bar and then also put a navigation above their header or down at the bottom with the copyright text. 
• Have lots of text in a small font or one long page, instead break it into a few pages

Lastly what it means for your site is that you need a current and update design.  Your website makes such an incredibly strong first impression of your business that having an outdated design from even 3 or more years ago is the same as having a brick and morter location in a run down strip mall on the wrong side of town.  It’s functional and affordable, but doesn’t leave a great impression. 

This doesn’t mean you have to break the bank and redesign your site every 2 years.  What it does mean is that you need a professional design, time lasting design with professional looking graphics, buttons and navigations.  When designing or redesigning your site don’t go for the latest trend stick with a design that is true to your business, that acts as graphical representation of your business.  Don’t design in the latest trends. 3 years ago black/dark coloured sites were all the rage, now it’s beiges with blues or beiges and pinks with big thick borders.  But what has happened to the black/dark websites - they now look outdated.  Equate web design to car designs, that Grand Prix, Camery or Intrepid that looked so cool 5 years ago looks so outdated now doesn’t it? The same happens with website trends and this can reflect negatively on your business.

Lastly, make sure everything works!  So many sites have missing graphics, broken links, mis-aligned graphics or buttons or have different fonts on different pages.  All these things will deter a visitor and reflects very poorly and usually causes a visitor to leave instantly.

 Have site now and want to know how to tell if it meets the 15 second rule?

Usually your website visitor statistics can give you a good clue.  How long does the average visitor stay on your site, what are the average number of page views, what is your site’s bounce rate (number of people who leave after only visiting one page).  There is no definitive average that shows your site is doing well or not but if you don’t have more than 2 or 3 average page views and have a bound rate higher than 60% and the majority of visitors spend less than 30 seconds on your site you may need to re-evaluate your site and consider fixing it up.

Don’t have these stats?  Sign up for a Google Analytics account which is free and they will provide you all this great information and more.