In this economy, it isn't about doing more with your Internet marketing… it's about managing time and expenses efficiently. For that reason, customer relationship management (or CRM) is becoming more important than ever. Businesses in all industries are working so hard to identify sales opportunities that they don't want (and can't afford) to watch them slip through their fingers because of poor data management or follow-up.

With that in mind, a lot of new and existing clients are turning to us for custom web programming that supplements their existing CRM efforts. We have seen this firsthand, with our own clients, as we help them to do things like:

Integrate online and off-line CRM systems. If you have proprietary (or custom-designed) CRM systems that you use to manage buyer relationships, why not integrate them with your business website. Or better yet, look into cloud computing CRM solutions so that data is always accessible and up-to-date.

Develop apps that help meet CRM goals. If it seems like everyone has an app these days, there's a good reason for that: app development has gotten less expensive, and you can use small pieces of mobile software to let customers track orders, manage account details, and so much more.

Tie CRM and social media together more closely. As we've written the past, social media and CRM make for natural friends. With a new web app or custom programming solution, you could move customers seamlessly from one to the next, collecting information and producing more targeted offers at the right times.

Put automated follow-up systems into place. Automated marketing, client management, and CRM are big topics because they can free up huge chunks of employee time while improving your profit picture. Best of all, automating CRM systems doesn't have to require a big investment of time or money.

Program web apps to meet ongoing CRM challenges. No two custom CRM solutions are the same, because no two organizations have exactly the same needs or goals. Much of what we do involves finding out what the real business mission is, and then creating a tool to match.

Are you making the most of CRM and web programming to keep in touch with customers and market to them effectively? It only takes one phone call to the WebRevelation team to get our CRM experts finding new solutions and profit opportunities for you. Let's schedule a free consultation today.

In some cases that might be, but a lot of companies are finding that social sites are difficult places to spread marketing messages. In fact, it could be that social platforms have more value for customer service and CRM than they do for gaining new business. 

That's because social media profiles are built on relationships, not transactions. Here are a few ways to use your social profiles with customer service and CRM goals:

Solve problems and answer question publicly. When a customer e-mails you and you send a response, you benefit from keeping them satisfied or furthering a sales opportunity. When you do it publicly, however, on a social media site, you also answer that question and improve your visibility with dozens or hundreds of other buyers, too. That's why, so long as you aren't spreading sensitive information for all to see, your social profiles can be great for handling routine customer service inquiries.

Find distinct customer segments that you can market to. One of the underrated features of a strong social media campaign is the information you can find about buyers (or groups of prospects) simply by looking through profiles. Don't worry, we aren't talking about cyber-stalking; instead, we are encouraging you to find out more about your best customers, and notice similarities between them so you can find others just like them.

Create links between your social profiles and online CRM systems. There are any number of ways that you could tie Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to custom CRM systems, account updates to targeted marketing, and more. The fact that tens of millions of people use social media site on a daily basis should encourage you to find ways to move friends, fans, and followers from your profiles to other pages and customer management systems.

If you're looking for more ways to connect social media and customer service, or simply want new ideas for growing your business online, now is the perfect time to talk to the team at WebRevelation. Why not call or e-mail us today to arrange for free consultation?

Let's be clear: there is nothing wrong with trying to break into new markets, and reach new people. Still, studies have shown time and time again that the biggest and most frequent orders (or the most profitable accounts, if you sell services) tend to come from repeat buyers.

Of course, the best way to encourage customers to stay with you is through robust CRM. The better job you're doing of getting to know your customers, keeping in touch with them, and maintaining things like account details and points of contact, the easier it's going to be to grow those accounts. 

In fact, here are four ways you profit from stronger CRM:

1. Fewer accounts that slip away or are lost to competitors. Marketing experts will tell you that most sales are made, and most accounts are won, on a "top of mind" basis. In other words, the more intentional you are about contacting important customers regularly, the more you just happen to be "at the right place at the right time."

2. Better follow-up on sales opportunities. A good CRM package doesn't just keep account details, but can help you track new opportunities. That's important, because without these kinds of tools, it's easy to lose track of possible sales, especially when they don't finalize immediately. Few businesses can afford to let potential customers slip through the cracks, and CRM functionality can make all the difference.

3. More targeted marketing opportunities. In a perfect world, you could match a personalized sales message to each single client or opportunity. Since that's not normally possible, however, your best option is to use strong CRM systems that differentiate your customers and prospects into groups, allowing you to send timely, targeted offers to different buyers in each major category.

4. Less time wasted for your sales and customer service teams. One of the "soft costs" associated with poor CRM is the waste of time shared by business owners, managers, and employees. Your team has better things to do, so why not let your CRM system take care of routine tracking and account maintenance activities?

For most businesses, there is more revenue growth to be found within current accounts then there is in new ones, at least in the short term. Are you making the most of CRM and sales opportunities within your roster of existing buyers? If not, let the WebRevelation team show you how easy it is to enhance those relationships with streamlined CRM solutions.

If that sounds like an overstatement, consider things in a different light: the bulk of the money you'll make this year is probably from existing customers. The more efficient your CRM systems are, the more of that revenue you can gather and keep… and the less of it you'll see "spill out" to your competitors.

That makes automated CRM features important to the bottom line. Here are three features we are helping our customers to implement and profit from:

1. Custom programming for web databases. Having your website be able to collect information from customers and store it in a database is a good start, but what if you have extra fields, need stronger analytics, or want to do some processing that requires advanced functionality?

In that case, custom programming can be the perfect solution. By allowing you to tailor your CRM package to immediate and long-term needs, it can help you reach new levels of effectiveness (and ROI) with marketing and account management.

2. Automated responses and follow-ups. Automated messages and reminders can serve a number of functions, from simple straightforward marketing to account updates, data collection, and so much more. What's best about these solutions is that they are easy to implement, and take an enormous burden off of you and your employees.

That means your team can focus its energy where it matters, without having to worry that customers and sales opportunities are going to "slip through the cracks." Even just a few automated tools can drastically transform your business.

3. Advanced customer differentiation and marketing profiles. In 2013, knowing your customer is every bit as important as finding more of them. By using automated tracking systems, you can learn to identify different segments of your customer base, and even customize your marketing seamlessly.

For that reason, automated CRM that helps you gather, track, and utilize customer analytics can show a high return on investment very quickly.

Not only is automated CRM more important than it used to be, but it's also getting more affordable and easier to implement. To see how small changes in your business could benefit you in a big way, call 972-478-7127 to set up a free consultation and CRM demo.

With that in mind, are you making the most of your business website as a crucial customer service tool? Most companies we meet with aren't. Here are a few ways to use your business website to keep more buyers and grow customer relationships:

Post FAQs and downloadable documents online. A lot of what customers really want to know (that is, common customer service inquiries) can be covered in frequently asked questions and downloadable documents like product manuals. By making those available online, and easy to find, you cut down the time needed for your staff and your customers.

Have an easy navigation structure with clear contact information for different parts of your company. Few things are as frustrating as coming to a business website and knowing that the information you're looking for simply has to be there… if only you could find it. Make pages simple to navigate, and ensure that it's always easy to reach a member of your team by telephone or e-mail.

Allow customers to change their own orders and account details. Depending on your web structure, this could require a bit of custom programming, but it's well worth the effort. That's because, despite the old advice that building customer relationships is all about being friendly and personal, many of your buyers want to be able to save time by changing orders and account details without picking up the phone or stopping by in person.

Make your website mobile-friendly. Nearly everyone is attached to a smart phone or tablet these days, and if your customers can't access your business website through mobile devices, then you're missing out on opportunities to make them happier.

Customer service is about a lot more than simply being friendly when you see your most important buyers. By upgrading your business website, you make it easier for them to do the things they want and need to – and that's what strong customer relationships, and brand loyalty, are really all about.

Need help upgrading your business website, or putting together a comprehensive Internet marketing strategy? Let the team at WebRevelation help! It only takes one quick phone call - 972-478-7127 - to setup a free consultation.

SEO isn’t a purely a technical concept. At its core, SEO revolves around marketing. As technology changed and evolved, SEO became more content centric. SEO gives brands with good content, especially smaller operations, the ability to put themselves in a winning position. SEO boils down to technology and human behavior. Content marketing and content management systems play a large part in this relationship. 

The Shift
In the past, content marketing and SEO departments generally have been separate disciplines. Originally, CMS systems weren’t designed with SEO as we know it in mind. SEO was a totally different game. Mastering SEO would help brands trick their way to the top of search engines. Uploading thin content just to have something on your website, forgetting about design and focusing on rankings are ways of the pasts. 

As Google has shifted to focus on quality, relevance and content, it's essential that brands bridge this gap and time lag between authoring and optimizing content. Published content that isn't search engine friendly with errors that can be easily penalized by Google. To make the most of this content marketing opportunity and it's important to optimize content as you write it.

Integrating your content and SEO process provides you with learning, scale, and efficiency across content and SEO teams. Users can create and optimize in sync without having to switch from SEO tools to CMS systems. 

The result is great content that is SEO friendly that allows you to maximize results from search (search rankings, traffic, conversions, and revenue).
As an organization you can coordinate content creation across SEO and editorial teams to ensure the content turns is optimized, of high quality and produced efficiently. Any content changes can also go live sooner and impact results faster.

The Relationship Between CMS and Content Creation
Having a content management system empowers people within your organization to actively contribute relevant content to your website. What type of content am I talking about? This content could be blogs, news, adding to your growing portfolio as you complete new projects or adapting your descriptive information to reflect your evolving business. Your business is alive and changing. Search engines reward websites that regularly contribute quality content because they expect for your site to be an extension of your living business. 

SEO as You Go
Before you start adding content to your site, make a strategy. What do you want to accomplish with your site? What does your target audience search for online? Those are the kinds of topics you want to address within your site. Here’s some SEO best practices to apply to your content as you write:

• Create a simple directory. Avoid having subdirectories and using directory names that have no relation to the content in them. 
• Improve your URL structure. URLs that are simple to understand and easy to remember will help people reach your content. Use real words in URLs. 
• Use brief, but descriptive titles. If it’s too long, search engines will only show a portion of it in the search result. 
• Accurately describe page content. Titles that don’t specifically describe what they’re about could get lost in search. Often, inferences won’t cut it, even if they’re cute or funny. Be as direct as possible. 
• Customize your post by being as unique as possible in content descriptions. Also, mention any sub-topics in the content. 
• Offer exclusive content. When you’re writing something, find your unique perspective and insight. Ask yourself, what can I offer that will set this apart from anything else online?
• Write content that’s easy to read. You’re not writing a scientific study. Make sure what you’re writing isn’t boring. Don’t fill sentences with unnecessary or difficult to understand words and ideas. 
• Organization is key. Don’t write a long block of content. Break things up with subheads and bullet points. 
• Create content directed at the user, not the search engine. Your content should be easily accessible to search engines, but should accommodate the visitor’s needs as well. 

Concluding Thoughts
Empowering content writers with SEO capabilities allows your business to scale the impact of your SEO team. Technology and CMS integration enables your content team to make optimizations that drive traffic and conversions. SEO professionals can also analyze error distribution, identify common SEO errors and the source of these errors, and take corrective action.

They added a personal element to search. Most small brands discovered over the past 18 months they don’t know how to work with this new element in search to increase traffic, and continue delivering quality content. In this blog, you’ll find some suggestions to utilize Google+ work for your search traffic’s benefit.

You’ve got to think about Google’s search engine like a giant web instead of an engine.

Before Google+, search traffic was much more predictable. While Google constantly changed their algorithm, search was a predictable flow; it was, keywords + backlinks + quality content + competition = winner. The Google+ era completely transformed the system, so you had to actually participate on social platform for more traffic. It’s a brilliant, dirty trick, but it’s their world and we’re just all trying to succeed in it and reach as many eyes as possible. 

In the past, a site with no history could, when created in accordance with Google’s rules, drive massive traffic. That’s a big reason a lot of people are still struggling with the new rules. Now, the process works in reverse. The more attention and authority you have the more traffic you receive.

You need to connect with your market on Google+, so they can drive traffic to your site. The larger your Google Plus network, the more chances you have to drive traffic. You want to activate as many people to advocate and share your brand. You’ve got to strive to be relevant instead of just existing in the Google universe. 

What You Should Do Now
First, start connecting with your target market on Google+. Add them to your circles. An easy way to do this is add shared circles from other Google+ users. You would be surprised at the number of users who have hundreds of people in their circle, and can provide you with access to their circle for free. All you have to do is add the circle to your list of circles. 

Second, join relevant Google+ Communities. If you want to find the best prospects for your business, you might want to consider joining Google+ Communities. If you have ever participated in a forum or Facebook group, you can easily use a Google+ community.

Third, add your name to Google Authorship. Google is starting to help bloggers increase their personal search relevance by creating Google Authorship. Google Authorship links content you write on certain sites to notify Google of your status as an author on a particular site. If anyone blogs on multiple sites you can increase your authorship, and in essence carry your Google reputation across the search spectrum.

Google+ has changed the search and social media game. Are more people still using Facebook for daily social media use? Yes. But, ask yourself how many people use Google on a daily basis. Driving the most people to your basic information is what you’re striving for. One of the best things about this is that you’ve got a great, low-cost opportunity with Google+ to drive additional search traffic to your website. 

Does Size Really Matter?
Most people agree size matters, but over the last decade, technological advances have changed the game. Some spent countless hours designing to fit all the different screen sizes and trending devices people are using to access the web. Designers tend to develop a site according to screen width, i.e. 320, 768 and 1024 pixels. In reality, the opposite exists. 

Varying screen sizes makes it tough to restrict to one single common width size. Creating a bunch of designs based on the screen size isn’t a viable option either for designers. Normally, designers tend to create three static layouts that keep alignment with the nearest width. This approach is much better, when compared to the desktop only, static site as it caters to at least one column, a simplified version for the mobile and also a touch-friendly version for the tablet. 

Thinking In Percentages
Creating designs for your responsive layout requires you to set many of the dimensions in percentages. This approach ensures that your content grows and shrinks, on an even basis, depending upon the variable screen sizes and also on the screen size it is being viewed on. Your content will cover up to 90%, instead of maybe 50% of the screen. This is possible as the content is centered on a screen size that is a few pixels smaller than the next available breakpoint.

Choose breakpoints based on the area where your content breaks, instead of the device screen widths. Rather than creating a design and then trying to fit it in the screen slot, you should find out the width at which your content begins to struggle. If you start with a 1400 wide design and slowly shrink the browser until a content piece breaks the layout or gets close enough, then that determines the next breakpoint. It doesn’t really matter whether it is at 1200, 800 or 673, if the content works great, then you should not look at changing the layout. You might end up with strange numbers and also might have several breakpoints as well.

Content Focus
Earlier we talked about picking your breakpoints based on where your content breaks and not your screen width. Do it this way because there’s too many different devices out there with different screen widths and they keep making new ones. It’s impossible to decide on consistent breakpoints for all these devices. So, let the content be the deciding factor. 

Concluding Thoughts
The point is to not get hung up on how something looks on the latest iPad or the new Nexus, but to make sure your breakpoints are suited to your content and that your design looks good no matter what screen it’s on. Determining a set of definite breakpoints, for responsive projects is tough, as more and more screen sizes are making a beeline into the horizon every day. Relying on these tips will help your content br displayed in the best possible way. 

More and more people look to search engines to find content, instead of a site's homepage. The search engine takes the user directly to the information they require and can completely bypassing the sites homepage. Obviously, this deep linking seriously reduces the prominence of the homepage. 

Add to this factor the rise of RSS feeds and more people accessing information via mobile devices, and you begin to see the focus shifting from the website homepage towards the individual pages of content. That is not to say homepages are no longer important, they are simply not as important as once they were and so do not justify the level of competition they receive in some organizations.

Don’t rush the homepage
By starting with standard textual pages, which makes up the majority of the site, you get to set the design style before it gets diluted by the land grab for homepage real estate. Once the client is on board with the design they will perceive it as being more important and so are less likely to allow it to be railroaded by content demands.

A homepage should reflect the sites content at the highest level and signpost the user to key content deeper in the site. In the majority of projects I work on the client hasn’t finalized all of the content in the initial design stage. It is hard to create an effective homepage until you have a full understanding of what content it is meant to signpost and represent.

Communicating the importance of white space
In the case of homepage design the heart of the conflict between designer and client is often a perception of the importance of white space. Every designer knows that white space is a fundamental tool of good design, but designers often won't express why whitespace is necessary in a way the client can associate with. 

Or in other words; the more you add, the less importance anything has. Designers sometimes sell white space on the basis that it looks better. Instead sell it on the basis that every item you add to the page detracts from the main message. 

You might want to suggest that a user has 10 points worth of attention they can give to the homepage. Every “module of content” added to the homepage takes a minimum of 1 point. More points should be assigned to more important elements. This approach will quickly show that the more you add to a page, the more likely important elements are going to get lost in the crowd. Use this as a method to focus the clients mind on what is important.

A clean homepage will help users navigate a site easier, make it look better and keep the visitor's focus on important content. 

The Hazards of Creative Freedom
The greatest gift a client can give is creative freedom. On the other hand, the worst thing a designer can do is allowing themselves total creative freedom. It should be in the client’s interests to leave the designer to do their thing because a good designer can identify the key elements required to make the project a success. The client can tell us the problem they need a website to promote a new product and it’s up to the designer to create a solution. The good designer gets to the design stage with a big list of constraints from the discovery phase: they know the demographic, branding guidelines and, through various conversations with his contacts there. For the responsible designer, the truly open brief doesn’t exist. And even when they have got a set of constraints from the client, they might well impose still further constraints upon themselves.

Time
The first constraint to put upon yourself is time. Speed helps in the early stages of a design because you get down key concepts without focusing on details. Working fast also helps switch your brain functions. It encourages use of the right side of your brain and it’s the right side of the brain that does the creative heavy lifting. If you have a serious time limitation, you aren’t able to rationally analyse your work. You simply don’t have time. Instead, if you force yourself to rely on the subconscious and intuition, you will be using the, creative, right side of your brain. You can produce acceptable designs working from the left side of your brain, but they will have been processed rationally, based on existing solutions. Force yourself to use the right side of your brain and you can get away from these rationalised processes and make decisions based on instinct and gut reaction - and it’s here the original and innovative processes can take place.

Separating Creativity and Art
It’s worth noting that there is a separation between creativity and design. Exactly what we’re calling these is semantics, but the above process is one to encourage free, unrestricted, thought with the goal of promoting innovation. This is the creative process. The design process requires you to take the creative work and pull it into a more cohesive shape. For a website designer this requires assessing how the creative designs can also be usable, functional, designs. We’re building websites not making art.

Your design should guide the user through the process. It shouldn’t overly embellish. Sometimes the embellishments are appropriate, but you need to understand why they’re needed. Understand what elements (font, colour, image type, text size, line weight) are required for the design and embrace them. These are the constraints that will allow your creativity to really shine and offer site visitors the best usability experience. Try utilizing symbols to creatively increase site usability. Symbols are useful for categorizing, clarifying and cautioning users about certain actions. A good example of symbols being used for constraint in design would be the error sound that a site makes when an entry is incomplete or invalid. This serves as a warning to the user that additional actions are necessary.

Focus
Setting limits is not solely about not using design elements. It is much more about focusing on the few genuinely important elements that are required to convey the message of your website, and adding in other design elements only when they support the key elements. Choice doesn’t give us freedom. 

Constraining user behavior instead of enabling it may initially seem counter-intuitive, by limiting user actions they can actually focus on perfecting those limited options. Understanding and implementing constraints will help users engage your design with minimal error. Too much choice is often confusing, disabling and dissatisfying.

Incentives
Once, I signed up for a company's newsletter for $1 off my bill every month. A lot of customers will connect with you for a small value. This value doesn’t have to be monetary, but most customers need an incentive to receive another brand email in their inbox. They are probably already receiving a lot of similar emails. Think long term. Signing up is half the battle. You want them to actually open your emails. Get creative and find an angle. Exchange with them something you have of value for their email address. This value could be exclusive, behind-the-scenes access or even exclusive coupons.

Regular Newsletter
Your goal isn’t only to build a giant email list. You only derive value from it if the people in your list care about what you send them. If they delete every email you send, your effort was a waste of time. A regular newsletter’s purpose is to maintain and boost long-term relationships with your subscribers. After a list is built, this is an opportunity to communicate, compel them to buy and continue to offer the value they initially signed up for.

Online Archive
Some subscribers want a preview of what they’re getting into before they commit. Maintain an online archive of past newsletters and email correspondence to let interested visitors see what they should expect in the future. If your newsletter or emails typically offer value, an online archive can help you grow your subscription list.

Multiple Signup Locations
Different people decide to commit at different points in the perusing process. You can’t know when a certain visitor will want to sign up. Place the form obviously on the web page. Make it easy for them to find a way to sign up without having to search for one specific page. Try integrating your value proposition into a “Hello Bar” and drive attention immediately to signing up. A “Hello Bar” is a small bar that stays fixed at the top of a page while you’re on a website.  

Give Them a Reason to Trust You
Most people are jaded by the bad practices of other brands, businesses and spammers. Provide your subscribers every assurance you aren’t one of those brands. Under your signup form or on a signup page, let them know how often you email out and what they should expect. Brands that email every day, especially frivolously, annoy the typical consumer. Provide a link to your privacy policy. This will tell people how you intend to use the information you’re collecting. Show subscribers you have nothing to hide, you will protect their private information and that you won’t share it with any third party.

Google Analytics can provide you a lot insight into your website (traffic, conversions, etc.), but it will also compare your results to your industry average. This insightful tool will give you an idea of how well you’re doing digitally when compared to others in your industry.

If you’re in a highly competitive industry, you’ve got to have a website that sets you apart from your competitors. Give your customers a digital value they can’t resist.

SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is necessary for your website to compete. Several factors impact how your high your website appears in search results and if your competition appears first. Concentrate on content creation. Regularly posting fresh content makes your site more appealing to search engines and their automated indexing programs. Also, new content is an incentive for visitors to return to your site after the first visit. Pay attention to the keywords you’re using in your site’s content because it factors in. Focus on the search queries that yield the highest total traffic. To determine the most effective keywords, Google Analytics or Google's Webmaster Tools program provides traffic data for different search queries. Effective SEO strategies are constantly changing. It’s crucial to monitor the trends, SEO news and your site’s effectiveness. You may be due for an overall site update to stay competitive.

Design
Your website’s design should complement your content. A site’s design should be attractive without being distracting. A clean design, with lots of white space, no dense copy and clear offers will translate well to your unique visitors. Avoid huge blocks of content. A homepage isn’t the place to provide the essay about your company. The homepage is merely the gateway. The important information and deals should be differentiated and jump out to the visitor. The site design should facilitate the buying process in the best way possible.

Easy Communication
Don’t make your customer jump through a lot of hoops to know more about your company and to connect with you. Make communication as easy as possible. Some sites require a visitor’s email address before viewing key information about a product or service. The casual customer, who is shopping around, could be driven away by this action. Too much personal information too soon causes customers to be sensitive. Include a contact us page on your website with an in-browser contact form. Eliminate the need for your customer to go through another step by having to open their own email to connect with you.

Strong Central Message
Successful websites aren’t cluttered, employ a clear call to action and have a strong central message. Give a direct, concise summary of what you’re about, what you offer and why you’re the best choice over your competition. Assume they know nothing about you and what you do. Give them all the information necessary information to choose to do business with you. Also, clearly state the next step in the purchasing process. If they can buy, sign-up for services or get a quote through the site, make it very clear and obvious. You will want to direct customers to the next step at every possible avenue on the site.

Accessibility
You should strive not to prevent anyone from purchasing your products or services. It should be unacceptable for one person to be turned away because of an inaccessible site. The more complicated the website, the more opportunity you have to confuse or lose your customer. Users should be able to find the information they need. If you’ve got information your visitors want, it should be on your website. If visitors are disappointed by a lack of information, they’ll go elsewhere. 

If you’re selling products, pay close attention to how a user adds products to the shopping cart. I have a big problem with online stores that force users to proceed to a shopping cart page every time they add a product. This action slows down the shopping process and the inconvenience alone can deter customers from purchasing multiple items. Sites with one-click “Add To Cart” buttons give customers a clear call to action.

Dispose of Lengthy Forms
Don’t waste people’s time. Refrain from requiring an email address before accessing most of the information. In most cases, if your request is premature you will drive users away. Be clear and concise when you’re requesting information from a user. The user should understand the reasoning behind sharing information and know they can trust you with their private details. If you only plan to email your customers, you might not need a phone number. The more information you request, the better the chance of driving away the cautious customer. 

Focus on providing a positive user experience. This will translate into a positive view of the brand. Utilize compelling headlines and subheads. Visitors can scan for information easier with good headlines. 

Regular Updates
Regularly updating content fosters trust with the customer. Updates lets them know you still exist and are operating. It also gives them the best decision-making information possible. If you’ve got specials or sales, don’t keep them a secret from your website. Keeping the user informed through every step of the sale process is a great idea. A company that shows it cares about their customers, even after they've finished shopping, will make a user far happier and far more likely to return.

Offer Payment Options
This may sound obvious, but offer a reasonable selection of payment methods. Not everybody has a credit card, and those that do don't always want to use them. Consider alternatives to the usual methods. Options like PayPal and payment upon pickup may endear you to the online customer. Make the user's life easy and give them what they want.

Give Visitors Value
This may be the last listed, but it is an important suggestion. Understand why your brand and website is special. Give important content the best placement. Great customer service, low price guarantees and free delivery are all examples of factors that endear your website to customers over your competition. Be the authority in your field. If your website is branded into a user’s mind, they’re more likely to think of you when they need that certain product or service. Make your digital customers a special offer they can’t refuse. 

Are people looking for something, not finding it and then leaving the site? Analytics and surveys are the best tools to really understand why visitors are leaving. Use an analytics tool to remove obsolete pages and build on content pages with high traffic. Select “The Biggest Loser” within your website. This is a page that is receiving a lot of traffic and has a high bounce rate, but contains important content with the potential for improvement. 

After working on all these different areas, be sure to test, analyze, adjust and repeat.

The difference between a good website and a bad one is often amateurish designer mistakes. Eliminating bad and ugly design mistakes won’t guarantee pages will be more attractive, but it generally enables more effective communication. Features of web design can be divided into categories: the good, the bad and the ugly. Bad design missteps aren’t the end of the world, but can make pages look unprofessional and awkward. Ugly mistakes can often render a website ineffective and sometimes harmful to the reputation of a person, business or brand. After all, every website is a direct reflection of a brand’s professional digital image. 

The Good
A good web experience puts users in control and empowers them to be engaged. Utilizing Content Management Systems (CMS), clients update content themselves without assistance. CMS empowers the client to communicate quickly on their website, generally without needing help. 

In a solid design, consistency is crucial. From colors to messaging, branding should be clear and consistent with the offline presence. Every website should accomplish a clear goal. Users should easily understand the call to action. Good designs are organized in a way that engages visitors. Text should be easily readable and links will stand out. Links are often considered a website’s call to action. Using different colors or underlines for links will help them stand out. 

The Bad
It’s important to remember that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. There are design qualities that distinguish a designer’s competency to execute a good website. Starting with a basic principle, images on the website should be crisp and clear. Using a grainy image smaller than the standard browser size (1024x768) as a page background is an amateur designer’s first giveaway. Poor color scheme choices and a lack of contrasting colors are other amateur mistakes. 

Most designers agree, the most crucial component of web design is typography. Typography and font choice impact a lot of website components. For example, overused, plain fonts like Times New Roman aren’t distinctive and can be hard to read. Typography is important because it’s the messenger carrying the main message. Don’t overlook its importance. 

The Ugly
Inferior web design is a curse. As we tell our clients, your website is often your first impression in an age where we are dependent on Internet information. A bad website can be very damaging to branding and reputation. One of the worst things a designer can do is prioritize style over substance. Users are impatient and expect pages to load quick. With this attitude, designers must stop incorporating elaborate animation and visuals that delay pages from loading. An extensive use of flash will slow down pages for web users and completely exclude mobile users from certain content. 

Some of the worst features are truly ugly design choices. Busy pages with large blocks of content, that lack a reasonable use of whitespace, leave visitors confused and annoyed. Problematic sites lack imaginative, well-planned navigation. Navigation and organization are crucial components of a website’s success or failure. Designers have to accurately anticipate what topics visitors will be looking for when they come to the site. Visitors shouldn’t have to click multiple links and buttons to find information. Designers have got to organize the data to be discoverable. Sounds like an easy task, but it’s not for the lazy designer. 

1. Too much flash
Flash was once used in cutting edge design, but now it’s mainly just a headache. Flash isn’t functional on most mobile devices. Designers are replacing Flash with JavaScript, CSS and HTML to relay dynamic content. Modern web design shouldn’t include elaborate hover effects and animation on content-based websites. Your design strategy should be less about impressing people and more about enabling people to access your website’s content effectively.

2. Text is hard to read
If you’re still relying on fonts like Times New Roman or Tahoma, your web design won’t stand out. Customized typography is abundantly available. There are many specialized fonts that will help your design pop and make content easier for visitors to read. There’s a fine line though. Choosing a font that’s too bizarre could make reading difficult. Use a sans-serif font. This font type is often best for readability. Text should be scannable. Utilize subheads, highlighted keywords and short paragraphs. Also, give users the option to resize the text if they need to.    

3. Too much clutter
Everything is best in moderation. Including too much content can drive traffic away from a site and increase the bounce rate. Readers will tire of excessive information and probably stop reading. Keep content concise and relevant. Avoid including large chunks of information. Bulleted lists can help you break up information. Also, too many links congested in one area are ineffective.

4. Unattractive screen resolution and contrast
If a site’s overall color scheme hurts a user’s eyes, the content will be ineffective. What looks best from a design perspective isn’t always the most functional. There has to be an adequate amount of contrast for text to be readable. The optimized layout for websites is 1024 x 768 pixels. In modern design, users should never have to scroll horizontally to view a page. It’s difficult to design around every resolution and device people will access your site on, but use analytics tool to determine what people are using most often to view the site when planning an update.

5. Site doesn’t function on mobile.
Mobile functionality is necessary for every site. Is your site responsive and adjusts to a mobile screen? A complicated website design won’t translate well onto mobile. The existence of mobile shouldn’t deter you from designing cool things for computer users, but you need to have a mobile site. It’s an easy fix and will allow mobile users to access a simpler, more concise site viewable on smaller devices.

6. No clear direction
An effective website is easy to use. Common website navigation issues can be avoided with some effort. Provide your visitors direction. Assume your visitor is going to make mistakes and won’t understand jargon. Put yourself in the user’s shoes and look at how the site functions objectively. Organize content in a subtle way that provides a roadmap for visitors to easily discover what they’re looking for. Links shouldn’t be too small and should change color once they’re clicked on for easier user navigation.

7. Changing archived page URLs
Some change URLs of outdated pages when they are moved off the main page into archives. This can make it difficult to maximize good search engine placement because page links to your site become broken. When a site’s created, it should allow content to be moved into archives without having to change the URL. If URLs change every few days, promoting your content will be nearly impossible.

8. Image overload
Many of the mistakes designers make revolve around excessiveness. Finding the right balance between imagery and type can be difficult, but it’s crucial. Talented designers often want to overload users with cool imagery, but in most cases simple designs are more effective. Don’t give the reasonable user a chance to be confused or annoyed by elements on the site. Animations can be cool, but often slow page loading. Use animations sparingly and tastefully. Never underestimate the power of whitespace in web design.