Static Yellow Pages ad or Dynamic Website?

The other day someone turned up on my door step to deliver the Yellow Pages directory. Personally I feel that printed phone directories these days are a waste of paper and a waste of money for Sensis to produce them. I can't recall the last time I opened a phone book to look for a number, years I would think. These days I, like many people go straight to Google and search for what I need. It got me thinking though...

Why do people still spend thousands of dollars on a Yellows Pages ad every year? Things in business change so often and quickly that a static ad that you place now is not necessarily relevant or correct in 6, 8 or 10 months time, but you're stuck with it. For around the same amount of money you can get yourself a new website that can reach more people (potential customers) and allow you to update it when ever you want. Maybe you have introduced new products, maybe you want to sell online, or maybe you just want to update the message you portray to your customer. With Australia being one of the biggest users of the Internet, and having one of the highest penetration of Internet use per head of population you're crazy not to have a website.

More Content

Yes thats right, this is the second post on content in a row. Why I hear you ask? Well simply, content is one of the most important aspects about your website. Without good, appropriate and compelling content (especially on your home page) you're not going to entice visitors to stay on your website.

Here are some tips for making your home page content work:

• DO make it blatantly obvious what your website is about
• DO set the theme and tone for the rest of your website
• DO tie your layout with your call to action
• DO make website's homepage text easy to scan
• Do make it a cinch to contact you
• DON’T make me think
• DON’T try to promote everything
• DON’T have a Flash spectacular as your homepage
• DON’T scare the wits out of your visitors with music
• DON’T use images that take an age to load

These tips were taken from an article on the Flying Solo website. You can read the full article here.

Content, Content, Content

The content of your website might appeal in different ways (or not) to different people. Having content on your website that appeals to your target audience is one of the most important aspects of your website. If someone visits your website and the content (especially on the home page) does not grab them and tell them what they want to know, they'll leave. This could result in lost business for you.

Visitors to your website also like content that is updated on a regular basis (blogs are good for this). Updated conent will keep people coming back to your website, and while they may not become a customer after their first visit, by keeping them coming back again, and again, they may become a customer in the future. Keeping visitors coming back to your site is called "website stickiness".

Some content types that you might want to consider for your website are:

• Blogs
• Testimonials
• Product Reviews
• Competitions
• News Feeds
• FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions).

Many people don't like writing, or feel that they aren't good at it. If that sounds like you never fear! There are professional Copy Writers who specialise in writing content for the web that is carefully worded to entice visitors to your website and provide them with the information they are looking for, and to convert them into customers.

Have a look at your website as if you are a potental client looking for information on your products and services, and see whether or not your content is up-to-scratch. Once you've done that do the same on the websites of your competitors, and compare. Which website provides the information you are looking for?

Is you browser current?

Most of us would use our web browser at least several times a week, but is your browser the most current version and giving you the best experience possible on the Internet?

As web designers and developers there are a bunch of rules, guidelines and standards that we need to follow in order to produce websites that work in all Internet browsers, however there is one browser that is still hanging around that causes us all sorts of grief and add hours to the development of your website. This browser is Internet Exploer version 6 (IE6).

IE6 is now several years old, and when Microsoft released it they decided that they wanted to set the standards for Internet site design so did not design their browser to follow the standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The result of this is that as designers and developers that do follow the W3C standards the websites we produce do not quite look or work as expected in IE6. We need to spend hours on a project "tweaking" your website to ensure that it does work in IE6 as there is still a reasonable percentage of IE6 users out there.

So what can you do to make our life easier and save many hours (and as a result reduce the cost of your site development)? UPGRADE! Its that simple.

According to Internet usage statistics in November 2007 33.2% of Internet users have IE6. In November 2008 this dropped to 20.0%. While thats a great reduction is the use of IE6 it still isn't enough for us to forget about IE6 when developing your site. Personally I think this needs to be below 10% before that can happen.

As a comparison FireFox is becoming a more popular browser. Not only does it follow the standards, and as a result make our life easier and your Internet experience better, it runs faster and is more secure. In November 2007 33.6% of Internet users had FireFox, and this rose to 44.2% in November 2008.

Upgrading is easy and painless. You can download updated browsers from the following links.

Firefox (PC & Mac)

Safari (PC & Mac)

Internet Explorer 7 (PC)

Opera (PC & Mac)

Happy upgrading! and remember, by upgrading you're making the Internet a much better place.