by Nick Throlson | Jan 9, 2018 | Guest Post, Web Design
We all know what a great website has. It has an aesthetically pleasing landing page that draws your visitor in. It?s a site that has user design in mind and is easy and simple to use. It is a website with great content, stunning visuals, and perhaps even a few videos. Today, great websites are powerful, clean, and modern, but that?s not all. There is so much more to a great website than what is on the page. That is why the greatest-looking website in the world will still not be good enough if it doesn?t have these five elements:- A Strong Team
A website simply wouldn?t exist without someone behind it. Similarly, a great website won?t exist nor could it run without a great team. That is why you should focus on other areas of your business, aside from just the business aspects. Hire HR advisory services to ensure that your entire business is optimized and ready, creating a greater business value.- A Focus on SEO
If your website does not have a focus on SEO, then you might as well stop now. Having a website that cannot be found is a website that has minimal organic reach. This means that you will likely have to continue to pay advertising costs to get new people onto your site, only without any guarantee that they will buy from your site, subscribe, or do anything other than click on and off.- A Focus on Security
Though it might seem like your website is secure, there?s a chance that your website is un-secure, putting both you, your business and your customers at risk. That?s because hackers can access your simple security protocols and can either completely lock you out, hijack your computer, and so much more. They will then either sell the information you have, like names, emails, and passwords, or they will blackmail you. Avoid this by increasing your security, keeping your website updated, and using the appropriate software to keep your hardware and even the cloud secure.- Organized and Backed-Up Data
If you want your website to be a success, you need to have your data backed up. The better you organize and categorize your data that is on your website, the better you?ll be able to protect your company and your content. Do this, and you at least have a backup option if your website goes down, is hacked, or damaged. Similarly, having this organized and backed-up data will provide better customer service.- The Human Element
Customer service should always be at the top of every single company?s focuses because without great customer service you have no customers. Even great products can suffer if the service offered by your company fails, which is why it?s important to keep a human element to your website. Contact information, respond to comments and even have a pop-up chat that people can use to get real answers from real people.A website is your global doorway to your company, no matter how big or small it is. To have a truly successful website, however, you need to make sure your company is running smoothly because a great company has a website that reflects it.
by Nick Throlson | Jan 8, 2018 | Web Design
Analyzing your website performance is a must for anyone who relies on their website for business. However, not all metrics should be added to your dashboard, here are some metrics that definitely might be avoided. Bounce Rate. Bounce rate shows how many people only visit that one page before exiting a site. While it may have been useful at some point, today it is irrelevant. Think of landing pages which only have one page and their purpose is to generate form submits. And what about websites that are only one page long, those get bounce rates at 100%. Therefore, this metric should not be paid much attention to. Time on site ? Most people believe the longer someone stays on the site the better. However, that is not always the case. Some of the best customers are the ones that interacted the least amount of time as they were ready to buy and did not waste time. Active Users - ?Active users? metric shows you how many unique users visited your website within a day, week or month. This metric is useless unless you compare it to the previous day, week, month. However, that also holds a problem as it does not account for seasonality factor. For example, if you were to compare last week of the year versus mid-week in January you will get very different results due to the holidays. These are just a few metrics that should be avoided when building your dashboard. The other pitfall to avoid is to look at data sources separately. You will not get a full picture by looking only at Google Analytics or Facebook Ad Performance, or your email marketing performance. However, if you combine all sources you will be able to see the whole picture. For example, combining Facebook Ads and Google AdWords will allow you to see what percentage of marketing spent goes where it will also allow you to compare cost per conversion across multiple sources and across campaigns. There are different ways to analyze your data and there is no universal solution that fits all. Thus, it is advisable to build a custom dashboard that fits your business needs. Start your dashboard build out by asking yourself what data you need to see first, then figure out where the data lives and what metrics you are going to use to answer your question.
by Nick Throlson | Jan 4, 2018 | Web Hosting
At Throlson Web Design we host all our clients WP Engine we have not had any issues just success with WP Engine?as our hosting we couldn't be happier for them landing this huge investment and hope this year brings many improvements in this ever-changing Web Hosting community.WP Engine secures 0M investment and announces revenue milestone.Web Hosting is vital for websites success and sticking with a company who has a great vision and that is professional and dedicated to providing the best service possible.
by Nick Throlson | Jan 3, 2018 | Web Design
Needless to say, 2017 had been quite eventful in terms of technology and left the doors open for the new technologies which make the mark in this year. Now, since 2018 is about to embark, you can just witness a tremendous of competition existing out there be it in mobile or web. So, if you are not updated, the probability of losing your consumers undeniably augments.Here we will be talking about the websites because most of the businesses heavily rely on them for capturing the user base. In such a scenario, businesses are left with only two options - intact the website according to the trends or sit back with the orthodox strategies and fundamentals for governing their business chronicles.The moment has finally arrived to revamp your website in a way users love. Spare out some time from your busy work roster and plunge into crafting the exploding website, with the top trends listed below.Vibrant and sparkling colors Well, the concept of mixing and matching the colors is endowed by the year 2018. Website designers can use the vibrant, sparkling and bright combination of unique color schemes. Reason being - users love it and they are pretty much eye-catchy as well.Despite using the safe and elegant colors, the designers can use the enlarged images, attractive buttons and clickable images. In 2018, the business can plan something that doesn?t match the suite and strive for imparting a humongous and inimitable experience to the users.Therefore, the designers can think about adding some ignited colors for encouraging the users and to keep them tailored for a long time.Illustrations will add essenceAdding custom illustration plays a great role in adding substantiality to your websites. They contribute simplicity to your websites in a much bigger way when compared with the high-quality images and pictures.For instance, Shopify uses highly creative illustrations for showcasing its core business ideation and concerns. Other than illustrations, you can also go for adding attractive GIFs, SVG?s etc. for making your website even more bolstered.Just remember while adding the aforementioned key pointers, step aside and view it from the perspective of users. A cozy website with too many elements can be abandoned by the users, thus process with a complete brainstorming and verified planning.Switch to mobileIt is very important to make sure that your website fits the mobile version without any operational, functional or display bugs. Owing to the current scenario, 40% of the website traffic is being generated from smartphones thus you cannot miss out on having the mobile version of your website.People are nowadays addicted to mobile apps, and in order to earn impressive results, make sure that your website loads quite faster over the mobile. AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) can be used by the designers and mobile app developers for making the loading time quite faster. It helps to trim down the code and the media files at the time your website is being opened in the mobile phones.Therefore, in case you are looking for a bigger and huge traffic from both the mobile and web-version, AMP is the one to keep an eye on.Videos will fetch the users Instead of writing elongated text on the websites, business and the designers can use videos for making the users stay on the websites. Using and integrating the videos on the website is certainly not a new trend, but in the year 2018, we can view it taking a major shape.For delivering the complex business operations, videos can come as a major rescue. They propel the users to see your offerings and the value they are attuned to.Asymmetry and typographies will dominateSimply you can use the zigzag rows of words and phrases that go exactly with your sparkling colors, remember we discussed it in very first point. Isn?t great to display words in white with the bigger typography and in a different shape on your black colored designed website. Well, it sounds quite amused and awesome.You can use broad letter words for emphasizing your brand core value plus it will also help you to stand tall among your competitors. In 2018, for sure the concept of asymmetry accompanied big and bold written texts will fetch a massive momentum, as they not only fits to mobile but also adds an extra attraction to your overall website.Concept of flat design will bloom It helps your website to look clean and fresh.? The concept of flat design is not new but when it is modified with the bold texts, asymmetry and bright colors, it becomes quite capable of attracting a vast user base.Therefore, it turns out to be a perfect choice for remodeling the website and in case you are getting ready to serve your clients with something really extraordinary.AI will continue to dominateAI had made a clear-cut way in the mainstream of businesses with the help of Chatbots. If you are not aware of the term, it is an AI-powered interface that interacts with your clients 24/7 in a very flexible and interactive way.Well, AI contributes a lot to make your website design advanced and still, there are more inventions to be commenced by the AI on the surface.Now, since 2018 is around the corner, it?s the right time to get your websites on heels for capturing a user base. These trends have already embarked into the current landscape and are continuously replacing the traditional concepts of website development.Hence, plan your strategy based on the above designing trends and deliver your users something innovative and magnificent this year, while showcasing your services and products with a really captivating approach.
by Nick Throlson | Dec 21, 2017 | Business, Web Design
In this day in age, your company simply cannot survive without a website. Even if you?re a local business who sells products from a physical store rather than online, you still need to have your name out there on the internet to be competing for customers. Even when people are looking for local businesses they will be browsing online to see what?s available, a nice website could possibly snag you a new customer. If you do trade online, it?s even more important since this will be the face of your business. It?s what customers will see first, it?s your chance to make an impression. If your current site isn?t up to scratch, here are just a few of the ways you can go about improving things to improve your business in general. A Professional, Streamlined LookThe first and most obvious change you could make to your website is a new design. If your current layout looks cheap and amateurish this will lead customers to think the rest of your business is the same way. There are lots of talented web designers out there who can create something tailored to your business and make it look incredible. You need the right fonts, colors, headers, the right amount of whitespace on the page. Ads shouldn?t be too crowded or clutter up the page. It?s worth spending the money here and investing since it?s such a crucial part of your business, it?s likely to be the difference between success and failure. A Live Chat FeatureLive chat is becoming more and more widely used. It?s something that customers love and can really help to boost business. It makes your company and site look more professional, and if you have customers that are on the fence about buying from you, being able to have their query answered hassle-free via live chat it could sway them. Not every customer will pick up the phone to resolve an issue before buying, and not everyone has social media accounts to speak to a real team member on there. Live chat makes it easy for them and can do great things for your business. Clear Contact DetailsWhen a customer is thinking of buying from you, one of the first things they will look at is how easy it is to get in contact if anything goes wrong. Make sure the page to your details is clearly linked and visible. It should contain a business email address, a landline telephone number, and your physical address. If you want a more impressive looking address, invest in a mail forwarding address. Here you will appear to have the address of a stunning office block on Google maps, but your mail is just sent there and forwarded on to you. An Easy Verification SystemIf you run the kind of business that requires documentation from customers (perhaps for equipment hire or financial products such as a loan) you could include a real world identity verification option. This software can be easily integrated into your site and makes everything quicker and easier as opposed to having to upload and email information. It allows customers to scan things like IDs, bank statements, utility bills and more. If these are the kinds of things you need from customers in your business something like this could be ideal. A BlogFinally, a blog is an excellent addition to your website. It shows that you are knowledgeable in your field of business. This can help to make you look professional and trustworthy which customers will love, especially if they?re new to shopping with you. A blog can also easily integrate into your website, and over time can help to improve page rank. There are lots of freelance writers online you can hire to write posts for you, they don?t cost much and you get great content to add to your site every week or a couple of times a week. If you?re not on board with blogging for business yet, it?s something you definitely need to implement as a way to boost business. There are plenty of ways you can improve your business website, many of which depend on the specific kind of website you run. However, it should be neat and tidy with a professional edge and blog at the very least. Is your business website in need of an update? What features have you/ will you get installed that is specific to what your company sells?
