Happy Guru Nanak Jayanti

Happy Dassehra !!!

Color of your Website !!!

Color choice is very subjective. A color could involve different reactions in different people. Colors are a very personal choice and therefore choosing a color for your website is even more important. We want to portray a site in a particular way and therefore the color or colors we use play a very important role.

You might not realize how important a color is for a website, but as it is true that different colors effect people's psychologically in different ways, the use of color in a website becomes even more important. Websites are driven by the traffic, so it is important to hit the correct psychy of the visitor.

Colors stimulate senses and excite people. Colors give the feeling of warmth or cold. If a site needs lots of action like buying online, it should have more of reds as red color makes people act fast and makes them feel powerful. If you are selling stuff that is feminine, soft pink with red will enhance passion and thus increase sales.

It is very important to keep in mind your audience, your product and your market strategy before deciding on a color for your site.

Mixing colors would definitely enhance your sites performance as it would cater to different psychological factors of a human mind and bring them together in unison. The combination of colors is very important when making a strong statement about your product.

Picking a color for your site does not mean picking your favorite color, but instead, work for your audience. Always use your brand colors on your site. People should be able to relate your site with your brand by just looking at the colors.

Secondly, a site too dark or too soft will not leave any mark. Have a combination that is not very dominant but equally spread and balanced perfectly. The combinations are very important and so is maintaining the balance. Black, red, orange, etc. should not be too dominant but when used appropriately, they define the site and give it that energy.

Always keep in mind your target audience. If you are catering to young visitors bright colors would work well, but when dealing with senior section, it’s better to go soft and less aggressive. It’s also better to stick to maximum 3 colors in a ratio of 60%, 30% & 10%. Primary color- 60%, secondary color-30%  & accent color-10%.

We have seen blue as the most used color when it comes to websites. This is because -

1. Blue is the color of trust
2. Blue is the color of corporate world
3. Blue denotes calmness and tranquility
4. Blue means smooth sailing

Using blue with a very strong color like red or yellow or orange could be used on sites that want some action from its visitors- like online shopping site. Blue will give a sense of trust while Red/Yellow/Orange will enhance the action aspect.

Colors give meaning to the site even before the content is read by the visitor. A visitor by just looking at the site and its colors will decide whether he/she wants to stay or leave. Use colors to enhance your users emotions and create value. Use colors to your advantage by combining different colors, but avoid overload of colors. Stick to maximum 3 colors.

Look at the colors used on your site and see whether it goes with your brand. If you find a conflict of colors, go for a change.

Happy Coloring  !!!

Choose the Perfect Domain

Having the perfect domain name is an extremely important aspect of your online presence. It is similar to choosing a company name because the domain name could help build your brand and define your market position.

Confusion arises when we need to decide a keyword domain or a branding domain. It is very important to keep in mind that your domain name is the online identity of your company, so choose on a name that fits in the best.

Whether using a keyword domain or a branding domain , keep in mind the direction of your business as well as the purpose of your website. Whatever you choose always keep it simple and easy to type. The shorter the domain the easier it is to memorize.

 If you are using keyword for your domain, keep it short and clean. And if using a  branding  domain  name, don’t go beyond 10 characters. Also avoid changes like ‘x’ instead of ‘ex’ or ‘u’ instead of ‘you’. This is because if someone jus hears the domain it is not clear whether it is ‘u’ or ‘you’. So while searching for your site people could use wrong characters and end up not finding you at all.

Also avoid hyphens.  People while remembering names, don’t remember the hyphen. In the internet world a site name with hyphen is considered fraudulent.

Domain name is the first the first piece of marketing tool for your online presence and also effects offline marketing. A domain name that is catchy and easy to remember attracts visitors.

It is very important to properly research and think before deciding on a domain name. Make sure it is not copyrighted or trade marked by any other company. Also avoid domain names that resemble your competitors domain. People will judge you wrong and not rely on your services.

Also before deciding a domain name see that the same name is available on other social media sites for eg. in Facebook, Blogging site, Twitter, Instagram, Google +, etc. you would definitely want same name on every social media site.

The trick to a great domain name is

1. Keep it simple
2. Keep it short
3. Easy to spell
4. Avoid trouble
5. Be innovative

Domain names sell quickly. So if you are starting a new business or a website, choose a domain name as quickly as possible and get your Domain Registered asap.  

Importance of Content in a Website

A website companies of three main components graphics, content and the Domain / Hosting. Most of the clients know the importance of graphics and the design aspect of a website, but most of them do not give much consideration to the content they are putting on their on their website.

Design is important as it sets the professionalism of your company or Grand, but at the same time the information put on your site is equally important. A very pleasing and eye catchy website is of no use to your visitors if the information provided on our site is irrelevant.

Putting together the content for your site can be a very over whelming experience, but keep in mind that a good content is very important for placing your site at a higher position with search engines.

The content or the information put on your site gives value to your brand and increases traffic. An informative content will allow visitors to stay longer and re-visit your site again and again. Also, add value to your site with use of  images or visuals. Text images, videos etc., are all important when placing the right content on your website.

Original content             

Another very important aspect of content is that it should be unique and original. Don’t place any think that is already there in 10 others sites. Also keep updating the content so that your visitors have a reason to visit again. It helps in Search Engine Ranking. It’s not important to update every day like the news website do, but do add or change content every few months.

The Title and the Meta-tags

Always give title to your pages and give the small description in the description tag. Google highly places such pages while indexing.

Keyword

Another important aspect while writing down your content is the use of keywords. Using the right keyword on your site will help you in search ranking. Don’t over stuff your sites with keywords but do use them in your content strategically.

Content is the King. This is very true as it is not just important to have a web address. But what you put on your site is the key. It cannot only make or break your brand image, but also helps generating the much required traffic. The best way is to write your own content as you know your services best. But if you are not comfortable, take professional help from copy writers. Don’t neglect the content on your site. It is the face of your company’s online identity and content will help your create a very strong and pleasant one.

While putting your content together, always keep in mind what your audience wants. Don’t just put anything on your site. Give information related to your services, products and all that what could be of interest to your visitors. For example if you are into selling pipes, there is no points putting information of ‘how to plan a party?’ You can get a bit creative and start a blog. Sometimes our product or service is such that not much information can be put online. In such scenario start a blog and start writing articles your view point on various aspects of your industry. This will generate traffic to your site.

Content also does not have to be just words. Get creative and add interesting graphics to your content. Info-graphics podcast, graphics, options for download, they all add value to your content.

Your website should be live and very dynamic in nature. 

So happy writing….

Does your website need a Redesigning?

Till a few years back, clients were visiting your website from their desktops. Then came Laptops with varied screen sizes, then smartphones. You know that you have had the same website design for some time now and you need to change it. But why should you change or redesign your website. Is it because of how it looks or are there other reasons as well. Redesigning your website does not mean just changing the look and feel of it, but it also means upgrading to the latest technology and improving on functionality, presentation and the content of your website.

Why is everyone redesigning? 

It is because everyone wants to upgrade and be at par with the technology. Just look at your site and see whether it fits in well in the modern world….

Is your website responsive?

The most important reason to redesign your website is to make it responsive. Gone are the days of desktop browsing. Now we need website that can be viewed on smartphones with ease. New devices are coming up and we need our website to be ready for multi device browsing. A Responsive layout of your website helps you to achieve this goal. No one wants any of our clients to hove a bad viewing experience when it comes to our site.

Messy Home Page….

The home page of your website needs to be clean and inviting at the same time  give out the most important information in the first 3 sec. of the viewing of your site. Home page should clearly direct the visitors on what they should do further.

The Navigation should be clean and clear. Confusion can cause visitors to leave unsatisfied. The directions and messages form your site should be clean and clear. Have analytic on your site to know the most common exit points and then work on it.                

Fresh and Healthy images…. 

Your business has evolved and so should your website. The kind of images we used 10 years back to bring forth our messages are very outdated. The digital world has also evolved in past few years. So has the use of images and info graphics. Put on your site more relevant images and fresh images. You are yourself bored of seeing those images on your site aren't you !

Is the content on your site updated regularly?

It is very important to keep changing and updating the information you put on your site. Even your products have evolved. Are you able to make these changes on your own?  

Well answer these question and you will know that you need redesigning.

Are you on the Search Engines?  

If you are nowhere on search engines then you need to work on your site and make it SEO friendly. The first thing that needs attention is the content and how it is presented on your site. Most search engines like fresh content and navigable tags. Web technology has changed & you need to upgrade your site to make it visible on search engines as well as on various browsers.

Finally it is your call on whether you want to redesign or not, but if your sites has most of the above situations, then it’s better to upgrade and redesign. Technology is moving fast and if we do not bring ourselves to its level now, chances are we will be left far behind.  

Digitization is the word today. So it would be nice from the business point of view as well to be updated and suffice with the latest trends and versions.

The keys to redesigning would be – Content – Responsive – SEO Friendly.             

Why Google Recommends Mobile friendly Sites ?

Well, we saw it coming with the number of smartphone users increasing. This was in inevitable. We want our sites to stay relevant, readable, attractive and easily navigable to all visitors through various devices.

Having a mobile friendly site makes it view able from any device and that’s good for business. A normal website is accessible on any devices, but the poor visibility makes the experiences very unpleasant.

The trend have changed, everyone is on smartphones. We need to think seriously about going mobile first. With the variation coming in each day in the mobile industry, it has become more necessary to have everything mobile friendly.

Google has itself now recommended and every site needs to go Responsive. A mobile friendly site provides letter user experience and retains the visitors.

There are 2 types of mobile design. First is an original website and a subdomain dedicated to mobile version like – www.example.com and m.example.

Here m.example.com is the mobile site and visitors when accessing a site from a tablet or phone, are redirected to this mobile version of the site.

This is how mobile friendly site were created when this whole game started. It had some flaws like duplication of content, any changes to be made in the content had to be done on both regular and mobile etc.

The second form of mobile friendly designing which is now more prevalent, is to have CSS file define the output of a site as per the device it is being viewed with. In this there is no need to create two different sites (as in the first option) but instead certain codes control how a site is visible for various devices and screen sizes. There are termeded as Responsive websites.   

There are –
    - Aesthetically pleasing
    - Only one url
    - Cary to edit / maintain
    - User friendly
    - You can customize the content

Google has also recommended to web developers to go you Responsive Web design (RWO).

Why google recommends RWO?

1. Makes it simple for users to share and link with one URL
2. Helps google algorithms precisely assign indexing properties to the page without the requirement of signaling the existence of corresponding mobile or desktop pages.
3. Maintaining becomes easy as there is no duplication of content
4. No redirection required hence quicker loading of the site.
5. Google bot needs to crawls just once. This enhances crawling efficiency resulting in google indexing more of your sites content.

A website optimized for mobiles surely gives the business advantage over its competitors whose sites are not mobile friendly.               

Happy Guru Purnima !!!

SEO: Key to successful marketing

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is not a new phenomenon on the internet front. But still a lot of people are unaware of the ream and the concept of SEO.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process by which we can considerably affect the visibility of a website on various search engines on a keyword obviously the more frequent and higher you site appears on a search engine, the more visitors it will direct towards the site.

It is very evident that most of the people, who want to buy any product or avail any service, search for the same first of search engines. Therefor it is very important that you shop up in the result on search engine.

If you think you do not need SEO, you are wrong. All types of businesses can benefit from having SEO incorporated on their website. SEO ensures that you site is visible when people search for a particular keyword. It establishes Brand credibility as well. Every business wants to grow and grow and you cannot grow until your customer he came aware of your services are products without SEO your website will he lost in the heap of milliners of others such websites

Sales and Conversion

It is obvious to increase sales you need more customers and to have more customers, you need to be visible more SEO helps your site to be visible when required (on keyword search) even if your business is doing considerably well, SEO can double those numbers.

SEO is Organic

A very important aspect of SEO is that its result is organic and that means its ‘Free’ once you are there you can stay up there for as long as you comply with the guidelines of the Search Engine. And ones you are visible, traffic to your website will increase.

This is surely letter then the paid marketing ad campaigns for which you have to shell a certain amount and they last for a limited period or till you have the funds organic SEO is ‘Free” and ‘Forever’.

Keywords

Keywords and the right content are the key to your SEO success. Keywords are the words or phrases on which your appears on the search engine.

The first step towards getting your website search engine optimized is to define the keywords depending on your products and services. Also keep in mind now you customers search for your kind of services and products. Once your keywords are in place, incorporate them in your website content. The density of the keywords in your content should be as per the search engine standards. Any less or more will not help at all.

A part from having a keyword rich content, pay attention to Meta tags, URL’s for each page titles link buildings and all other marketing techniques. A very important point is to keep your content updated keep adding on new stuff. Google loves to see new content.

Take SEO as a serious marketing strategy.

Another important aspect with Search Enginemarketing is that you can track and have analytical data to improve on further strategies. Tracking software such as google analysis help you know exactly where traffic comes from the keywords that are generating more traffic and from which part of the world you are getting your visitors. This data you can use further to enhance your online or offline marketing strategy.

SEO does not guaranty money minting as it depends on your hard ward, quality of your product and service, and your determination to succeed, but it can surely put you in the front for the world to see.

What makes your website successful?

Internet is where the game is now. Every business either has or plans to go online. But with everyone going online and having a website it is very difficult to grab attention and being traffic to your own site. There is no rule as such for making a website, but surely there are a few key points that can increase the chances of your website getting noticed in the flock. 

Web designing is not just art but it involves a whole lot of other skills as well. There’s copy writing, typography, to layout, navigation the designing, programming – all fused together. The key is to have a site that is easy to navigate, is aesthetically pleasant and has features and content fulfilling the purpose.

To achieve the purpose, web designer just needs to think strategically it’s not about simply designing a website and its user interface. It is about designing to accomplish the designed objective. 

Establish the goals -

A lot of times organization themselves are not clear on the purpose of their website. Before designing a website a designer must be clear on the purpose of the website. Be clear on what is to be achieved through the website – whether you want to sell products, to inform and update or just provide you services.

Identify your Audience -
It is very important to design as per the purpose and the audience keep in mind the age, gender, profession etc. while designing. An entertainment site offering music downloads is very different from a engineering company website.

Go by the Brand Image - 
Web designer and the organization many a times look at the latest trends of same design and want to incorporate the same in their own site. Be careful while designing you site about the brand and its image. Every industry needs to follow a certain feel and diverting from that feel is making a big marketing blunder. If you are making a website for a NGO, you cannot give it a very glossy Rock kind of a feel. Therefore a site has to go as per the brand image.

Good quality content -
Content is the king. The content on your site should be relevant and informative. If the content is irrelevant and illogical, bounce date will increase. Also good relevant content is appreciated by Google and helps in Search Engine Ranking.

Easy Navigation -
A website should be easy to navigate with clear graphics, if a visitor is unable to use the site and navigate easily he will immediately leave the site.

Easy Accessibility -
Smart phones are the new accessing tools.  People do every possible activity on the net through smartphones compatible across platforms or A website needs to be mobile friendly and it loses a sizable audience.

Regular Updates -
It is very important for organization to regularly update their site with fresh content. A stale content kills a site. Fresh content attracts visitors’ interest for new updates.

Though there are no hard and fast rules for creating a successful website, but these points can surely help a site attract graphic and retain its visitors.