Visitors From Mars

Last Updated on Monday, 8 June 2009 12:28 Written by a2e Monday, 8 June 2009 12:28

He Visits You Each Day

In a former life I worked for the parent company of a group of companies. Each company within the group had it’s own budget but the parent company managed most of the IT needs. As the “Internet” person for the group I spent many hours in discussion with company “internet” people. (note the small “i” there). In small companies it’s very easy to get a reputation for being ITK (in the know) and as Computers and the Internet was then new technology, but public technology, this led to “office experts” springing up all over the world I suspect. I had an almost daily battle against these home grown likable experts fighting back all sorts of things they thought were essential to a project.

Some I battles I lost like having a policy of plain text only for Email – that one the whole world lost :-). But one I seldom lost after the first few toe to toe fights was how to get the best out of a web site. My career before the Internet became a tool that could be used was mainly focusing on Visual Basic Interface design. So the placings of buttons and colours etc had become second nature to me already. A typical example of a win for me would be the time I was asked to investigate why a company wasn’t getting any leads from their very expensive new web site. One look was enough to tell me what was needed. All the content was their but it was behind a big Java intro and I swear the was a disco going on in the server. Once past that the visitor was faced with a page full of technical jargon clearly intend as documentation for flying your average 747 blindfold.

It was about this time I thought up the notion of designing websites on the basis that any visitors to that site will be travelling from Mars. You should assume they don’t have a clue what they are looking at and you should use that to your advantage. After a short question and answer session what came was was the company really only had one use for the web site and that wasn’t winning prizes for it’s art content. All they really wanted to do was get their cateloge out to download. The solution to the problem was simple enough, a cut down version of the site keeping all the keywords and providing a slick navigation to further detail if needed but on the front page a big button saying “Download Our Latest Catalog”. The difference was something like a 20 fold improvement overnight.

If you only take one thing away from this story it should be to treat your potential visitors as Visitors From Mars, don’t assume anything but make sure you understand your intentions of what you want from them are very clear in deed. This pays in a big way and if you don’t think this has anything to do with your site I willing to bet it does. The one way this idea works against so many sites is in the way they use advertising on their site. Here’s what I mean;

Good For Google But...

You’ll notice like a lot of web sites this blog carries a AdSense placement in the header. If a visitor comes to the site and their eyes fall on that advert and that takes them away to another site without reading a word here, then fine, That’s my intention. Sure I would have loved everyone to stay but I’ll take the slice of cash via google every-time thanks. You see, I’m not selling anything here and so the more people I can attract to that banner the better. But is that true for your site ? what’s you first criteria ? I would say an auction sites number one aim is to get people to browse the auctions and stay long enough to register. Under those intentions placing advertising on your front door mat could be costing you more then you think.

Giving Traffic Away

Best to move ads away to the bottom where people will be when they are concidering leaving. If it’s a new auction site my advice would be to remove all advertising. Advertising works on the visitor in a swinging motion. Too much puts them off and it’s effect can be equated to the strength of your traffic low traffic higher effect. The weaker your traffic flow the less advertising you should show. You need traffic to drive advertising and then select the best advertising that suits your visitor profile.

How to Choose Web Design Company?

Last Updated on Sunday, 29 March 2009 06:10 Written by a2e Sunday, 29 March 2009 06:10

How to Choose Web Design Company?

Author: Jayesh

Once you have decided to have a website for the betterment of your business, next step is to choose a professional web design company that can produce great  result in the form of very impressive and useful website that can bring lot of business.

Before deciding on which web design company to choose, you should first determine the main aim and purpose for your upcoming website. Once the aim and purpose have been identified, then only move on to choose a reliable web design company to develop your  website

Choosing a web design company to create a custom web site design can be a big decision for your business. Most people will not return to your web site without having a professionally designed  web site. In order to achieve ideal results, it would work to your benefit if you carefully select a web design firm because the best possible outcome for the company’s profits will be produced.

The first step in your searching for a reliable web design company is to check the company’s reputation. Simply make a survey or ask around in your local community as well as perform an online research to check if there’s any negative comments about the web design company shall be fruitful. In addition, how long the web design company has been in business shall be taken into consideration.

Next, it is important to see the web design company’s portfolio, view some samples of websites that the web design company has done. Viewing some of the company’s previous work will be able to show you the quality of the end product that the company is able to produce.

Evaluate the web design company to see whether they have any experience in developing the type of web site that you want. The web design company should be able to understand the aim of your website and be able to provide a design that is able to suit your needs.

Only one thing you must keep in mind is that “Cheaper is not always Better” So you have to pay according to quality of work you want.

Crafty Live Support

Last Updated on Monday, 23 March 2009 05:55 Written by a2e Monday, 23 March 2009 05:55

One of the biggest problems with a new auction site is maintaining a level of use that gives comfort to a new visitor. What I mean by that is a people look for evidence of a an auction site being used to give them confidence that they can sell their items there. Another way to increase visitor confidence is to show them you are putting in a major effort. You may want to give the impression that the company behind the site is bigger then it actually is.

At one time live support was only for top-end site with the resources to throw at that but now with the help of a product called Crafty Syntax Live Help (CSLH) – ed. yes I know terrible name but the product works well and it’s open source too.

Live Support Window

Crafty Syntax Live Help (CSLH) is an open source live support solution that helps customer support with live help functionality that can be proactively pushed to visitors to your site or requested by the consumer. Crafty Syntax includes a large range of features to allow multiple operators, multiple departments and multiple languages to be used. Crafty Syntax Live Help is free and is programed in PHP with MySQL for the database. Other highlighted features include the ability to create your own questions, auto inviting visitors, referrer tracking, page tracking, ability to view what the customer is typing as they type, multiple chat sessions, sound alert, leave a message if offline, push URLs, quick responses, Customizable graphics, and multiple operators. runs on your server and is open source GPL.

I must say the web site and whole branding of this product doesn’t do it justice and a lot of people could be put off for that reason alone. Don’t be worried to much about the install it’s not difficult, you can quickly get up and running but one word of warning if your hosting is on a budget. In the admin section you’ll find all sorts of data collecting options. Keep an eye on the number you turn on as not only can it make accessing your admin area sluggish it could slow down your site while also collecting a lot of data can fill up your space rather quicker then you might think.

If you decide to go for the install make sure you also install the front-end client software. This is a really neat way of keeping a eye on whats going on on your site. Not only does it give you an easy start-up options on your computer, it also give a nice feeling inside as it pings away in the background telling you know someone has visited your auction site :-)

Design wise the icons and chat windows are fully configurable to meet the design of your site.

Getting Feedback

Last Updated on Monday, 23 March 2009 12:08 Written by a2e Monday, 23 March 2009 12:08

Why sit in the dark wondering if your site is liked or even suits your customers, why not ask them ?

The are plenty of ways you can do this, from a simple one time email campaign to requests included in newsletters. The most valuable feedback though is that given without probing or incitement. A customer volunteering their feedback is rare in today’s busy world so a system like the one  provided by Kampyle is a valuable tool to site owners as it makes the process very easy and clean. 
Via the provision of a simple bit of code you can give visitors instant access to forms that help you monitor the site’s performance while collecting valuable input submitted by your users 24 hours a day.

The forms are not intrusive but are efficient and work in a number of ways. The simple way, the user clicks a button to rate the site. If they want to leave a message they can choose to click any one of your customised options and a form opens to allow them to enter further details. That could be anything from general comments to specific areas you want feedback on.

Kampyle is your ear to what your customers think about your site, you can learn a lot about them and yourself by using it. It can only make your site better.  But you don’t have take my word for it because the you can get the system free in it’s basic form,which to be honest provides all you might need to get start on the right track.