The vast majority of individuals between the ages of eight to eighty have a mobile device of some sort with most either owning a smartphone or having access to one so it is not surprising that people are questioning the need for a home computer or laptop. The vast majority of tasks can be completed without any problem on a smartphone ranging from reading and sending emails to doing an online shop but are there applications that do not translate well from a computer to a mobile device or should we all just ditch our cumbersome computers and buy a top of the range smartphone instead? As had previously been stated for most ordinary people’s needs a mobile device is fine but if you are a person who uses a computer to write more than an occasional letter perhaps your are an author or journalist then a smartphone just will not do. The frustration of trying to type on a small keyboard is one of the main problems as is the ability to organise your work and format it appropriately. If you enjoy photography and like to manipulate the images you have captured, a computer makes this process much easier […]
Designing your business website for the first time
When you make the decision to increase your company’s web presence by developing a website it can be a daunting prospect especially if your computer skills are not advanced. There are two main choices open to you and those are to learn the skills to do this yourself or to employ the services of a web developer to design your business website for you. If you decide to build your own website there are lots of online videos and other content to instruct and enable you to develop an individual site however there are also companies that offer a template based design so that some of the basic programming has been done and you only need to upload your company details and images. This is beneficial to many who are unsure of their competency in this area and can result in a simple web presence with little cost. If you have sufficient funds in your marketing budget it is probably wise to employ a web developer to design and build your business site as the resulting site will look more professional overall and will be able to be optimised so that it ranks higher on searches made, thus hopefully producing […]
Marketing your business, essential or unwarranted?
When setting up your own business it can be an anxious time as you try to decide what your set up costs are going to be and what the most effect ways to promote your business are. Marketing costs can be high as you try to make your business known but is it essential that you promote your business in this way or are there alternatives. The answer to this question very much depends are the type of business that you run. For instance if you are running a business that is online based such as web design then it is expected that you will have an online presence of some sort whether it be a website or a social media business page on the other hand if your business is a local one that caters for local customers such as a childminder it may not be necessary to outlay money on marketing. Many business owners carry out useful market research to find out what medium their clients prefer to use to access their services. Should your target clientele be the elderly you may find that a majority do not use computers and so spending money on online marketing may […]
Giving your website a design and content overhaul
Websites, like most things, can get stagnant overtime if there are little changes made to it and there often comes a time when you need to have a complete overhaul of your site. Some companies chose to do this in stages and improve sections of the site bit at a time, but when doing this you must take extra care to ensure that the site doesn’t look disjointed and that all the elements still work correctly with each other as they should do in the mean time. If you have the funds and the man power it is often better to put up a basic site for a few days and get the changes done to the site in one go. Ideally your programmer should take a copy of the site and work on it offline so it doesn’t disrupt the new site. Conversion rate is often a reason why many businesses decide to update their website. It may be that the search engine optimisation element is working as it should and you are getting a lot of traffic to your site, but that traffic is not converting. If this is the case you need to have a look […]
How to improve your conversion rate
So many businesses spend a lot of time and effort trying to attract visitors to their site but lose sight of what the end goal is. There is no point in have loads of traffic if none or very little of those visitors convert to sales or enquiries. If you find that you are getting a lot of visitors to your site, but they are not buying or completing your enquiry form, then you need to look at improving your conversion rate. There will always be several people that come to your site and leave for no apparent reason (often referred to as bounce rate). This may be because they are looking for something that you do not offer, or the sites takes too long to load or that they changed their mind for example. These people will be included in your bounce rate figure and this figure often shown on many stats packages, records the number of people or percentage of people who have left without interaction with the site. If this number is high, then you need to start carrying out some investigations to find out why they are leaving. On average you can expect to have about […]