Monday, October 24, 2011

Designing A Jewelry Website That Appeals to the Users

The web designers need to think of the need of their clients first when they design websites. The need and target users of each client is different and the designers need to implement suitable elements in each site that is ideal to the client requirements. When it comes to designing the site for a jewelry company, the graphic designers need to be creative and make the site look aesthetic.

The photos of various shaped jewelry can be used in such a website and the individual ornament images can act as dividers and headers in a page. Flash design can be implemented in such a site with a touch of creativity. For instance, a jewelry website can have Flash based slideshows that can be used to showcase the various collections of the company targeted at diverse age groups.

The Website design companies making the site of a jewelry company also needs to be careful about using the images. They need to use properly optimized ornament and jewelry images in the sites. Maintaining a balance between image quality and file size is required. The color scheme and content of the side also needs to be in sync with the image of the company. Ideally, the color scheme used in the site should not be too gaudy or crude. Jewelry resembles elegance and using deep earthy colors in the background works well for such sites.

The jewelry website should contain all the information and shipping provisions for the interested customers. The process should not be complicated and a section should be there for customer feedback as well. To reach out to the maximum number of target users, the links to popular social networking sites need to be provided in a jewelry website. The designers also need to implement proper SEO methods in such a site for the same purpose.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

7-Point Strategy to Improving User Experience

A great website with all the right components: design, content, structure, navigation, will no doubt be tremendously useful to its visitors. But, user-experience goes beyond a good website. Anyone searching the product you offer won’t just land on your site and make a purchase. Web shoppers are bound to window shop a little before they finalize a product. In effect, user-experience starts at the window-shopping phase.

Step 1: Research
Let’s assume you are looking for a good quality SLR. You would want to explore all your options before you buy a camera that suits your need and budget. While searching on the web, you come across a YouTube review that has been uploaded by a company DigiCam Pros selling SLRs. The review is thorough and gives you all the information you are looking for.

Social media advertising is a great way to get your business noticed in the web market.

Next, you go for a price comparison of SLRs. You look up Google and voila…DigiCam Pros pops up again. Although their cameras aren’t the cheapest in the market, you still visit their site because you are really impressed by their video.

Optimizing your site to rank high in organic searches automatically puts your business at the top of your competitors still grappling for a foothold SEO.

Step 2: Website Visit
DigiCam Pros website is not only informative, but also professionally designed, easy to find your way through and gives you exactly what you need.

A good website does not necessarily have the most creative of designs. Readable content and easy navigation benefit users, which coupled with simplistic and aesthetic design, make your site workable.

But you are still apprehensive about ordering online and having to wait a few days before the camera is delivered to you. So, you decide to give DigiCam Pros a drop and instead, buy the camera from your local cam store.

Step 3: Mobile Website
Unfortunately, none of your local camera shops have the camera you want. You remember DigiCam Pros, and that with a little extra money you can order the camera delivered within the time you want. Just to be doubly sure this can be done, you check DigiCam Pros on your iPhone.

DigiCam pros is not only available but the mobile version of the website makes it incredibly easy for you to order your camera. Within minutes, you have paid DigiCam Pros and your camera is on the way.

Note that mobile devices have limited display ability. You must design your site to not only squeeze into your mobile screen, but squeeze in with all the essentials required to market your product. Your website should advocate speedy downloads of content, images, etc, to score on usability.

Step 4: Support Forum

Your camera was delivered on time and it works great. However, you suddenly encounter a problem, and no matter what you try, you cannot seem to get around to solving it. In desperation, you visit DigiCam Pros and discover a Support Forum.

A Support Forum for your product is generally a great way to invite customer interaction. Besides user generated keywords help the SEO of your site.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the answer you are looking for. You cannot contact the customer service either because it’s off business hours.

Step 5: Monitor Social Media
To vent your frustration, you update your Facebook status or Tweet expressing your dissatisfaction with the product and the company. Next day, you receive an unexpected response from DigiCam Pros apologizing for the problem and asking you to avail their live chat facility or call customer service.

Social media advertising is not only superbly beneficial for your business networking, but also helps you keep tap of your customers, and product feedbacks thereof.

Step 6: Customer Service
You are absolutely elated by the service you receive. Customer service not only patiently listens to your problem but also offers helpful suggestions and demos to solve it. They also offer to replace your camera; no questions asked.

Setting up of a good customer service system helps your customers easily contact you with their feedbacks, suggestions. Not having a good customer support system not only causes you to lose potential clients, but also foster a disgruntled group of customers.

Step 7: Beginnings of a Relationship
Impressed by the service you receive, you make another Facebook or Twitter post, praising DigiCam Pros. You are also open to emails from them suggesting new upgrades and accessories, and turns out you avail most of their offers.

Word of mouth may not seem much, but it does have remarkable impact on your company’s reputation. As an advertising tactic, it’s capable of producing assured results. A system of sending out targeted emails is also important to keep your customers hooked to your website.

In conclusion, good user experience does not begin with just presenting a good website, nor end at closing a sale. A lot else has to be taken care of before a business can build a bank of loyal customers.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Bloggers Alert! Do You Have Returning Visitors?

As bloggers, we are obsessed with daily visitor count, twitter mentions, and inbound links because as solo-activists, we do not have enough personal connections with people who can tell us what we are doing right, what we should not do, and how we should improve.

In our search for a number measurement to confirm or negate assumptions about our work, we turn to analytics. A daily visitor stat seems to attract us the most. Especially for those just started a blog, a daily visitor count is rewarding and exciting. However, stats have little use if your blog does not benefit visitors.

In other words, if your blog does not give visitors a reason to return, your efforts as a blogger remains unrewarded in the long run. So, first things first – forget about daily visitor count and instead start focusing on enriching your blog with content that visitors run to, time and again.

How to Make Sure Your Blog has returning Visitors?

Your focus should be on how to make the majority of your first-time visitors revisit your blog. To achieve a decent number of returning traffic, you must give your visitors a reason to return; something valuable like a subscription for personal tips, interaction on social network, product offers, etc.

The easiest way to understand what possible advantage to implement in your blog for visitors is to put yourself in their shoes. Example: If you were visiting a travel blog, would you only be happy with paragraphs of information on a particular destination’s scenic beauty or would you rather read first-hand information about how to get there, where to stay, what to eat, what to wear, what to buy, what to visit, etc? Now translate your preferences to your visitors’ and you’ve got a list of things you must include in your travel blog.

Now, all of the aforesaid information need not be included in one post. In fact, breaking it up is a smart way to ensure interested visitors revisit for information. Additionally, you can offer the following to your niche readers: Free eBooks, Premium eBooks, Humor/Personal Stories, and a Social Community through social media sites, not to mention Expert Advice, Personal Tips, and Personal Insight into holiday destinations. If you are a business offering ticket and hotel booking facilities, there are Discount and Service packages you can offer.

However, just offering tons of valuable information is not enough. Your visitors should be able to find the exceptional content you are publishing everyday. Hence, a sidebar section for popular content, and daily updates, is a must. Additionally, if you are offering a free ebook or subscription, it should feature at the top of your blog.

Which brings us to question: How will your visitors know when you have updated new content if you don’t make it easy for them to get the updates?

The answer: Use a few features like RSS Subscriptions, Newsletters and Social Site status updates to let your visitors keep track of your latest blog activity.

Bottom line, unless your readers can answer the ‘what’s in it for me?’ question by themselves, there is little chance they will revisit your blog. So make sure you provide enough temptation to keep them glued to your blog, because honestly, web users are an elusive lot and value-added, regular information is your only chance to ensure revisits. And once you have implemented features solely meant for visitor benefit, try Google Analytics for spotlights on new and returning visitors. The difference will be marked.

Monday, March 7, 2011

How To Add Your Business in Google Local Listing: Tutorial and Tips



Learn how to add your business in Google local listing from WebGuru Infosystems.Follow our step-by-step guidelines to have a better exposure in location based search results.