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Reasons why your website may not be generating traffic

Kaushambi — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 11:16:00 +0000

Building a website can be a nightmare for most small businesses. There’s always the question of outsourcing it or going the DIY way. There’s also the entire backend of handling affiliate marketing and promoting your website to generate enough traffic and leads, which will rake in the monies. If you’re an entrepreneur who is stuck in this cycle and are wondering where you’re going wrong, here’s a lowdown on why your website may not be generating enough traffic.

Is the content and design of your website substantial?

We’ve come across plenty of websites that reflect an image completely different than what they stand for. Every color you use, every design palette that you consider must be reflective of who you are. Trust us, you might put all the energies in bringing use traffic on your website and eventually put them off because you’re a broking agency and you’ve used a multi-colored combination or you’re a jewelry designer and your website just looks too plain. Also, keep the tone and content of your website solution oriented, not to throw more jargon at them. Your visitors are checking you out to get solutions to their problems, not to appreciate how technically perfect your website is.

Is your website interactive and updated regularly?

Did you think you could get away with not updating your website at all? Simply updating your sales brochure or media links is not the answer. Believe it or not, it is extremely simple for an average user to figure out how seriously you take your products and services just by one look at your website. An old copyright date, static blog, redundant contact address or old media links are instant giveaways. Also, make sure that your website is replete with RSS feeds, widgets, videos, podcasts, polls, tags and any other interactivity that may apply to you. You have to get your viewer to trust you instantly.

Is your website SEO rich?

How do you expect to generate traffic and leads if it isn’t keyword rich and shows up on the tenth page of a Google search? We agree that showing up on Google isn’t as simple as adding keywords but it’s an important. While making your website and advertising copy keyword rich, you also need to take care that the copy doesn’t sound tacky, like many keyword rich texts do. You may want to also make sure that you have promoted your URL well enough, put up links in related forums and given it enough legs to crawl over the web.

Accessibility to all platforms

Your website should solely be designed depending for what kind of customers you are expected to have. If your customers are the type to look you up when they’re on the go, you need to make sure you have non-Flash versions of your website available for all mobile platforms. Keeping simple things in mind like configuring your website to load in HTML if it is image heavy etc. play a critical role in turning web traffic into buyers and customers.

Is your website designed for sales?

You must have absolutely smooth and efficient payment gateway options if you going to sell online. In fact, your website, through its design, interface and copy should direct the traffic in such a way that potential customers are automatically taken to the product or the sales pitch. This is much better than leaving them on their own to maneuver their way through the website.

Simple things like ‘Read More’, ‘Click here for more details’, ‘Take a free trial here’, ‘Speak to one of our existing customers for a review’ etc. can work wonders when embedded well with the design and interface of your website.

Google Analytics may tell you that a reasonable amount of web traffic is coming to your website but if none of them are being converted into leads, then you have the above mentioned points to think about.

Top 5 Free Website Builders for Small Business Owners & Entrepreneurs!

Kaushambi — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 09:51:00 +0000

An online presence – What was once considered to be amusing, has now become a necessity for all businesses and entrepreneurial setups. Even many individuals are setting up their own niche websites showcasing their talents, hobbies etc.

However, most of them are not aware how easy it is to create a good looking website. Infact, there are many easy to use free online website builders that can do a perfect job for you instead of spending your hard earned money on hiring website designers and web developers. You don’t need to be a computer genius to use these because they allow you to build your website through simple interfaces that even dummies can master.

Here are 5 free Website Builders that you should look at:

Wix

Wix is an online website builder that was released in 2008. One of the strong points of Wix that stands out is the ability to create cool flash websites in a matter of minutes. You don’t need to have a design degree to come up with cool design ideas because Wix will provide you readymade templates that can be edited and tailored to your requirements.

Add to this, the ability to create a mobile website, a Facebook page and a range of ecommerce functions, Wix definitely has earned its spot in our list of top 5 online website builders. Wix also offers hosting services and other premium plans that you can check out at Wix.com

Weebly

Weebly is definitely a player to reckon when it comes to building websites online. Weebly was ranked 4^th in Time Magazine’s list of 50 best websites in 2007. That was a long time back and Weebly has evolved further into a comprehensive website builder offering drag and drop features, preset themes and templates, an easy user interface and hosting services.

And for all you tech savvy users out there, Weebly also allows you to edit CSS and HTML of a site. Signing up is free and similar to other service providers, Weebly has premium plans that you can check out at Weebly.com

Webs

Little needs to be said about Webs because it has been functioning and evolving as a hosting service and now as a website building service since 2001. Webs offers the usual array of hosting and website building services plus some great apps, statistical data and analytics, mobile sites, themes and templates to suit virtually all segments of blogging, design portfolios and businesses.

Like most other website builders, a free subscription will mean that Webs will place their own ads or banners on your website. To check out the premium plans and other features on offer, visit Webs.com.

Moonfruit

The very moment you visit Moonfruit, you are greeted by a banner that says "Pick a design. Launch your site" This is extremely comforting for non technical users who want to get a website up and going without too much hassle. Moonfruit partners with the biggies of the online industry like Getty Images, iStockphoto, PayPal and many more to give users a power packed website building experience.

Based in London, Moonfruit also claims to be the number one hosting site in UK and a stunning figure of more than 4 million websites have been made on their platform. A simple user interface, great design options and tools, ability to publish for computer and mobile platforms, blogging and other top tools bring Moonfruit to our list of top 5 website builders. Check out what’s on offer and subscription details on Moonfruit.com.

Webnode

Webnode was launched in 2008 in a Czech and Slovakian version. By 2010, Webnode was functioning on 12 different language platforms and reportedly, had more than 2 million users. The layout of this online website builder is simple and clearly laid out. With themes that support personal websites, business websites and ecommerce portals, Webnode allows a classic drag and drop usability function and an array of gadgets and widgets.

Labeled as a "quick and dirty way to build a Website or blog, relatively painlessly" by a popular blogging portal, Webnode definitely scores when it comes to ease of use. To find out more about how you can make payment gateways, business statistics, innovative designs, professional outlook and much more simply a click away, check out Webnode.com.

So there you have it – 5 sites that will help you create a great online presence at nearly no cost. Website creation is not a tough job after all!

Is Facebook Trying To Build The Next Yahoo Answers?

Ankit Agarwal — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 03:59:06 +0000

Social Networking turned a new leaf with the launch of Facebook. Facebook caused a paradigm shift in how Social networking sites were perceived and took the idea further to bring lots of sticky additions to its platform. From sticky games and tons of interactive applications, Facebook has almost up gobbled up its much older peer- Orkut.

The recent Open Graph project is a testimony to the fact that Facebook is much more than helping people discover peers/friends. Even with all the issues concerning privacy, Open Graph experiment seems to have picked up and people are now sharing stuff with the click of a button. No wonder industry experts are touting Facebook as a threat to Google what with Facebook’s explosive traffic and innovative advertisement platform

Apparently, Facebook is quietly building its very own version of Yahoo Answers or for that matter, Google’s recent acquisition Aardvark. Facebook is keeping it under wraps and is planning to leverage its huge user base to build a crowd sourced Question-Answer platform

In an appeal to interested users to become beta testers, Facebook is trying build a huge data depository of rich information with the contribution from its user base itself. As mentioned on it’s official page.

We at Facebook are preparing to launch a brand new product to the world. We think it will be as exciting as Facebook Photos and Facebook Events, but we need your help to make it great.

As a beta tester, your job will be to ask great questions and provide great answers about your favorite topics. Economics? Skydiving? Relationships? Mexican Restaurants? It’s up to you. You’ll be the first person outside of Facebook to use this product

The incentive for early users being an opportunity to be seen as an expert and also a trip to Facebook headquarters. The opportunities for Facebook are however endless

An extension/alternative to organic search :

A user generated database of relevant questions and answers about anything and everything under the sun. Throw in the Open Graph feature and the platform becomes a recommendation engine. With millions of active users, the relevancy and freshness of the platform become a bonus

Opportunities for Individuals/SME’s To Showcase Their Expertise :

Individuals and even SME’s could answer relevant questions and showcase subject matter expertise. This could very well create job opportunities for individuals and leads for businesses

The opportunities could be endless but a lot will depend on the execution. I have not been an avid user of Yahoo Answers but whatever little I have used it, the quality of answers is not satisfactory. Whether Facebook is able to maintain quality of information in a totally crowd sourced platform is something that will determine the success of the product

What do you think of this development from Facebook? Are they only trying to create the next big alternative to Yahoo Answers or there is more to the development than is visible?

Web Wednesday: India News Digest

Arun Prabhudesai — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:04:37 +0000

If you are new to Web Wednesday, here is a short explanation of what it is.

This will be the first edition of our Weekly News Digest of Web Wednesday and we start with a real Big story – The Google Chrome OS launch announcement

Google to launch its own Operating System (OS) – Is it going to be the next best thing?

Time will tell if the recently announced Google Chrome will be threat to Microsoft or not, but one thing is for sure – Microsoft will be watching every move that Google makes in this space with a Hawk’s eye.

And Why not, for the first time Google is now threatening their bread and butter business.

Since the time announcement has come about Google launching the O.S, the blogosphere has been going bonkers with it.

Excerpts from the announcement:

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010.

We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web.

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.

For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favourite web technologies.

Checkout what TechCrunch has to say about Google Chrome OS

There seems to be very less action happening on the India Webospehere and so I will concluding this edition of Web Wednesday with just one story (albeit a very important one)

Note: We are looking for guest authors for our subject-wise News Digest feature that we have launched recently. As a guest author, you can pick -up any one of the 6 days (Mon-Sat) to feature your posts. Do get in touch with us if you are interested. You can mail me arun AT trak.in or simply use the contact form