Tevye Brown

What is a responsive website?

When a website can adjust itself to any popular mobile device or desktop computer it is called responsive. It does this whether you open the website on a desktop, on a mobile device horizontally or vertically.

What makes responsive technology so great for your small business?

In short, it saves you money while making both your site visitors and Google happy. Prior to responsive design, to make sure your website looked great on both desktop and mobile you had to create and maintain a separate website for each; one for mobile and one for desktop. Responsive design allows you to create and maintain one website that works on both mobile and desktop.

What is responsive website design?

To look great on both desktop and mobile your website requires a different layout and fonts and sometimes totally different elements. Older, non-responsive websites, require the user to pinch, pan, scroll and zoom to view the website making for a very frustrating experience. Responsive website design makes sure that the proper adjustments are made so that your website is easy to read, is easy to navigate and user-friendly no matter what device it is used on.

How does it work?

Modern websites have a lot of programming embedded in each page. This allows the website server to determine the width of the device where the website is being opened and adjust the programming so the website looks its best on that device.

Key features of responsive design

The fluid properties of responsive design allow flexibility. All elements adjust to the screen size of device. There is no compromise of quality. The graphics and aesthetics stay the same. Even images resize without affecting the image quality. All these key features make responsive web designing a successful phenomenon.

Why should you switch to responsive website designing?

First, since you are maintaining one site, not two it saves you money. Second, since the technology is built to accommodate any device, even devices not yet invented, it reduces the complexity of site development and maintenance. Third, since responsive design makes it easy to adjust the website to new features or content it makes updates and changes much faster. Lastly, Google recommends it as a best practice. For these reasons, it is important to have a responsive website.

Those are the four technical reasons. The main reason is to deliver a great viewing experience to your site visitors. 85% of website visitors that have a bad mobile experience will leave and never return. Just as important, you will lose business to your competitors if users have trouble finding the information they are looking for on your website.

In 2016 Americans spent 51% of their time on mobile-based devices which is considerably more than the time then the 42% they spent on desktops or laptops.
In April 2015, Google announced a ‘mobile-friendly update’ that gives better rankings to mobile-friendly pages in Google search results.

One emerging reason people are using mobile devices is Voice search. Studies show that 56% of on the go searches have local intent.

TIP:?

Make sure you check your website on multiple devices Even if you must use someone else’s phone or tablet. In 2017 the majority of your customers and prospects are using their mobile devices to find and learn about your business. Make it as easy as possible for them by making sure your website delivers the best user experience both on desktop and mobile.

Contact forms are the easiest way to ‘have a conversation’ with your site visitors.  You can get in touch with people for whatever reason with the help of a well-designed contact form. It could be simple with a few basic details or you could make it thorough and in depth. However, there are certain tips you must keep in mind to develop something that catches the eye and helps you get authentic information in an effective manner.

Use the following steps to help you create an effective contact form for your Local Business website.

1. At the top of the page make it clear what the benefit is to your website visitor. Let the viewer know who they are leaving the information for.
2. Make sure you use the same branding as the rest of the site.
3. Label each box. Make the labels short and to the point.
4. If the form requires the user to think for even a second, include a description that makes it clear what they should enter into that field.
5. Make sure to mark the required fields. Check that the form provides clear and informative error and warning messages.
6. Add a little fun. Color and images, even some clever text on the page, make the form a little more interesting.
7. Limit the number of fields. Keep it simple and short as possible. This will get you the highest conversion rate. Too many fields is not only a lot of work it also makes the form look cluttered.
8. Instead of using a ‘done’ or ‘submit’ button, go for something more aligned with the activity. If they are signing up for a list, use something like “Sign up now”. If you are offering an eBook, you could use “Get my eBook now”.
9. Make the CTA button prominent. Make it brightly colored, in a bold font and stand out from the page. If you can’t see the button from five feet away it doesn’t stand out enough.
10. If there is ‘no’ or ‘decline’ button make sure it is less prominent that the ‘yes’ or action button.
11. Make sure the form is mobile friendly. On a mobile device, in addition to making sure the form adjusts to the device, the text and input fields may need to be larger on mobile devices. Since a majority of users will visit your site from mobile devices, this is an immensely important factor.
12. At the end of the form, write a little message that tells the user what will happen after they click the ‘send email’ button?
13. Include a message below the button to ensure them that you will not send them spam messages and that you will keep their information safe and not release their information to another party.
14. Try to avoid including a ‘captcha’ as that minimizes conversions. Instead use ‘honeypot’ field if that is available.
15. Make the form(s) available on multiple pages. More the forms, more the chances people provide their information.
16. Make sure you direct them to a Thank You page after they submit the form.
17. It’s ok to include additional information on the thank you page. You can even include an additional offer or bonus.

One of the most important, yet often a neglected, website pages is the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions). Most local businesses spend a good percentage of their time answering the same questions over and over again. These calls will never be eliminated yet having a comprehensive FAQ section on your website can save a great deal of time by answering the most important and frequently asked questions.

Often when I suggest this to a client they tell me that they like talking to their customers. They feel that talking to the customer often increases loyalty and, to some extent I agree. On the other hand, in today’s busy world where every adult is trying to cram more activities into their work day, many times the customer would rather pick up their smart phone and quickly go online rather than call. Having a place on your website where they can get their question answered saves both you and your customer time.
Let’s have a look at some of the top tips that can come in handy for you when creating a FAQ for your website.

Use Simple Language

The first rule you need to follow when writing a website FAQ is to use simple, short, easy to read language. The general advice for any website content is to target an 8th grade reading level. Using unfamiliar business or industry terms in this section will, quite possibly will lead to more frustration, not less.

Write from Audience’s Perspective

The easiest way to know what to put in the FAQ section is to keep track, on paper or in your head, of the questions you and your staff are frequently asked. Another tip, something most of us forget to do, is to listen to your answers to those questions as you are talking to your customers and prospects. If you have a short memory like me you could record your phone call and listen to it later or have it transcribed. This is a quick and efficient way many businesses use to create website content. Lastly, remember to write from the perspective of the audience. Use the words ‘you’ and ‘your’ instead of ‘me’ and ‘our’.

Avoid Irrelevant and Unnecessary Questions

Never write FAQ just for the sake of writing. Make sure all the questions that you have written in the FAQ section are relevant and serve a purpose. Irrelevant and unnecessary questions in the FAQ section will fill up space on your website for no purpose.

Maintain a Flow

It is important to write questions in an organized manner. Again, think about when you are speaking to a new customer or answering questions about a particular type of product or service. What does the customer ask first, second, third? Put the questions asked first and most often at the top. You should also sort the questions into categories and give each one a sub-title on the page. One subsection can have questions related to placing an order another section related to the delivery of products. This will make it easier for the user scan through the questions and quickly find the answer they are looking for.

Search Feature

When there are a number of questions on the FAQ page, make sure there is a “Search” feature. This gives your users a way to save time by going straight to the answer they need without having to go through all the other questions that are not relevant for them.
To sum it up, the FAQ section of your website deserves as much attention as other parts of your website. This will save time for both you and your staff, and just as importantly, your customer and prospect. Following the top tips mentioned above will help you decide on the appropriate questions to include and an easy style of delivery that your customers will appreciate.

If you are anything like most local business owners you have a limited budget that you try hard to use wisely. The idea of having a high-quality website designed by a professional may seem like an unwise way to use your limited dollars.

If you think about it, your website is your digital storefront. In this internet connected age your website is your online representative, your online storefront. Your online visitors judge your company by what they see, or don’t see online.
First Are you professional? Do you to quality work? Do you write and speak well? Are you easy to work with? Take a look at your website with fresh eyes. If you knew nothing about your or your company how would you answer these questions?

Because you have limited funds for discretionary purchases, on the surface, it seems like a good idea to opt for a DIY solution to design and build your website. Yet, like anything else, taking the cheap route may save you some money now but will deliver poor results in the end.
Let’s have a look at some of the reasons explaining the importance of hiring professional services for designing the website of your business rather than relying on the DIY tutorials and methods.

A Professional Look

While the tutorials may help you to build a working website, but the professional look will be missing. Since a website serves as a reflection of the business operations; hence, a gaudy or dull looking website will create a negative impression of your business and the result will be lesser traffic and customer interest.

Customization/Personalization

With DIY methods for building a website, there are limited customization options. On the other hand, if you are hiring professional developers, you can get your website designed the way you like. You can add the specialized features that will help your website to serve the visitors in the most efficient way.

Poor SEO Performance

SEO, the analytics that determines the ranking of the website on the search engine, is continuously evolving.

The bottom line is that SEO is a complex topic that requires enormous amounts of time and testing to get right. In addition, the platform and host you choose can enhance or hurt even the best SEO efforts. DIY websites tend to have poor SEO performance due to inferior hosting and/or platform and poor SEO technique. Hiring professionals to create your website will use the latest SEO practices to gain visibility for your site in the results of search engine. In addition, most of the DIY website builders use old SEO-unfriendly systems, which hurt the chances of your business website appearing in the top search results.

A Time-Consuming Fair

Most of the DIY website builders advertise that they can produce quick results. However, most of the time, this is not the case. In truth if you are a novice user, they are easier to use, at first. Then, after a short time you will experience great frustration when trying to create a great business website.
If you are like most local business owners you don’t have enough time in the day now; imagine adding a few hours a day for the next 3-4 weeks to get your business website up and running. However, hiring a professional, in addition to producing better a better result, your website will be up and running in the given timeframe with little involvement on your part.

No Ownership

The content you are posting on your website that is created using DIY builders no longer remains yours. Most of the DIY website builders have this clause in your terms and conditions section that states that your contract with that company can be terminated at any time, without any major reason. It implies that your website can be taken off at any time i.e. one day your website is up and running and the next day you don’t have control over anything.
To sum it up, the best options, without any doubt, is to a professional for creating the website for your business. The expense of hiring a professional may seem costly at first and my only become obvious to you once the website is launched and the feedback starts rolling in.
In upcoming posts, we will include survey results to give you a better understanding of what is important to customers and prospects visiting your website.