Understanding Your Design
During the mockup phase you’ll receive a full size rendition of your web site design. When we discuss your layout it’ll help if you understand the parts of your design that we are focusing on and I’m hoping this blog article will help.
When creating a web site its ideal to have the same look and navigation throughout the site. Changing the look or navigation on each page can confuse your customer and make them more likely to leave your site to shop somewhere else. The only exceptions are catalog pages that may utilize categories to help make browsing easier, as long as the customer can still access the rest of your site too! Preferably you want to be able to get to anywhere on your site in 2 clicks or less and direct access is even better. The more accessible your products are, the more likely the customer will spend time browsing your site and finding an item they want to purchase. If your customer has to click “catalog” and select the “category” they want each time they want to look for another item, they will quickly become frustrated and shop elsewhere.
Web designs, especially those on cart systems, are built and coded in a template system. This means one or two files run the entire site. The content is the area within the template that changes depending on the page that the visitor is looking at. Generally I wont design for content because that will change on every page, instead I design for the over all look of the site. If you do have pages that need alternative navigation or design that requires another template to be made and not included in my design packages. Please ensure to specify that you require more than one look, or template before your project begins so that you are not surprised with the additional design fees associated with them.
Below are a couple web site examples that may help you understand the parts of the web layout and template.
Read More…
10 Reasons to Avoid Free Websites
I see this a lot, really, a LOT. Someone decides they have an awesome idea for a new business and starts researching how to start a web site to sell their product. Obviously, its human nature to try to get the best deal we can and free sounds amazing! Or does it? Here are my top 10 reason to avoid free web sites.
1. Is it really free? Sure, the basic personal version is free. Did you consider you may want more space, add on a domain, a different look, and oh did you want email as well, we can do that but start adding on the fees. Sorry guys, but the free is part is usually just to get you in the door and signed up thinking you found a great deal.
2. Who are you really promoting? So you think you are promoting your products or services, but really you are also promoting their services and interests as well. I’d say %99 of free sites have either advertising or pop-ups that they throw onto your site. So when your visitors visit and get side tracked by the add they stuck in your margin and click-off, did the free site really help you get a sale or did they just get a sale for one of their advertisers? Not to mention, its just annoying to see when trying to shop!
3. Unprofessional. When I go shopping for a product I may have hundreds of choices for where to buy it. I’m going to ultimately buy from a site that looks secure and trust-worthy. If they have ads or are using a free template seen on 20 other sites I’ll probably pass them up. I’m going to buy the product from the site that put more effort into their storefront. Would you rather buy a new computer from a reputable store or from someone selling from the trunk of their car? Which one are you going to be more willing to turn your credit card information over to?
Read More…
New Photography Site
My husband has been doing photography for a bit now and finally asked me to create a website for his photos. I spent the weekend finishing the setup and loading a sample of his photos.
What does this mean for my web design clients? Custom stock photography! We will be slowly building a large collection of images that can be used for stock photography for everything from web sites to advertising. Our goal will be to offer stock photos that will be of use to WAHMs and other small businesses for a reason price, with out needing to buy large amounts of credits to do so!
Eventually we may decide to expand this to product photography to go along with my graphic editing services. You’ll be able to have Web Savvy Mama not only design your website but supply the images to go along with your products! Of course, this is still a bit in the future, but the white box I made my husband build is just itching for use!
In the meanwhile, what would you like to see pictures of?
Web Design Package Picker Now Here
It was time for a change or two, just wait until you see what I’ve added. The Web Design Package Picker is here and ready for use! Instead of filling out the quote form you can simply follow the prompts to get information and package details for your upcoming web design project. Start with a basic package and then add on items from the A La Carte Menu for an even more customized experience. Still prefer a custom quote? The Custom Quote Request form is still active and available for use as well.
Once you are satisfied with your choices you can even choose to order right away to get your design project started. Of course, this feature will only work when I have room for new clients. When my schedule is full the ordering feature will be turned off.
Need to just order maintenance units for an update? You can now do that as well! Just email me first to find out how many units your updates will require and you can pop right on the website and order them instantly!
I’m hoping the new setup will help answer some commonly asked questions and make the quote and ordering process easier on new clients. Let me know what you think and what else you’d like to see added to the A La Carte menu!
You have a web site, now what?
Having been a web designer for 6 years and working with small businesses for over 7 years, I’ve heard this a lot. “I have my web site, how do I get traffic and sales?” A lot of people think that once you have a web site, that’s it, work done. Nope! It is a never ending process to keep your site listed properly and make sure your potential clients can find you. Even more important, turn your visits into sales! Don’t have a site yet? Start here: I want a web site!
First of all, there are a few things that should be done even before you get to this point that I will touch on briefly.
1. Have a professional looking web site. Make sure your graphics look nice, your colors all flow, your coding is clean and you have good navigation and content. This first step is the most important step to keep visitors on your site. Web Design Rules According to Web Savvy Mama.
2. Know your market. You should already have browsed the web and found out who your direct competition is. What is working for them? What can you do to set yourself apart from them? Don’t rely on cheaper prices to get you a sale, this only works for physical products with professional looking websites. If you sell digital materials or a service, you are going to have to solely rely on word of mouth, portfolio and the impression your website gives. Why? You get what you pay for. While your cheaper item/service might be just as great as a competitors, potential customers may not look at it that way. Be competitive in pricing, don’t low ball your worth. Also know what your customers are wanting, not just what you want to give them. How can you convince them you have what they need?
Now on to the nitty gritty. You have a web site, you’ve done your research, now what?
1. Work on your SEO! Search Engine Optimization is super important. I’d say that the majority of my clients have found me through Google. This means you have to know what your keywords and phrases are and how to promote yourself in the search engines. It is such a big topic that I can’t get into it here, but I did write an article in 2007 that still has a lot of good information in it to get you started. Web Site Optimization, SEO.
2. Advertising, how and where. This falls back on knowing your target market. For me, mine is small business and specifically work at home parents. I first researched where those people tend to hang out on the web and focused my advertising there. For some this may be a large web forum or web site. Find out what it takes to do various advertising on those sites. Signature links on forums have worked well for me in the past. Again, keep in mind the keywords you want to benefit from the SEO! You can also try Google adsense but unless you have a larger budget or very specialized keywords, chances are its not going to be much bang for your buck. Participate in popular blog giveaways, get featured on other web sites and get friends to talk about you. Word of mouth advertising is the best advertising! Do Facebook and Twitter help? Most likely not, unless you already have a big following on your personal accounts and can piggy back from there. You can use these social network sites to help with SEO though!
3. Get a blog! This goes back, again, to SEO. It also generates something that visitors may want to come back to read and gets them onto your site again. I’ve written about this as well so read more at Add a blog? Yes Please!
You have the traffic, lets turn those visitors into sales!
1. Have a product that will sell!
2. Professional site with a cart.
3. Competitive prices.
4. No dead links!
5. Clear navigation.
6. Your visitors need to be very clear on what you are selling.
7. Clear form of contact method. They need to know they can reach you.
8. Offer something that no one else has. (Product, service, atmosphere, this could be anything!)
Web Review: Not your Mama’s Cloth Diapers
Not Your Mama’s Cloth Diapers is a retailer of Cloth diapers, diapering accessories and a wide range of natural products. Our goal is to get as many families in cloth diapers as possible. In order to support these goals, we offer diapering solutions for almost every budget. We can get you cloth diapering for less than $70 to $500. We also offer consulting on finding the right solutions for your specific situation. We carry, as a compliment, a range of natural and organic products to help save your family’s health, money and the environment.
Sasha has requested that Web Savvy Mama do a web review of her web site so she could see where your site needed work and where it was done right!
How this works: I will review this website on both technical and artistic properties and give each a “pear rating”. I will also include why the site got the grade it did and what things could be done to improve the site.
See how her site did after the jump Read More…