Landing Pages vs Microsites

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Landing Pages vs Microsites

While they are different from one another, microsites and landing pages are both used in conjunction with search engine optimization, search engine marketing and online advertising for more targeted content. Here is a short look at landing pages vs microsites.

Landing Pages
Landing pages are usually one-page creations that focus on a particular offer and specifically on leading the visitor to take certain action. Landing pages are used for direct marketing campaigns and are considered to be essential to the success of these campaigns. All savvy marketers use and test hundreds of different landing pages in order to optimize conversion rates.

Microsites
Microsites are one or more Web pages used for a number of purposes:

-Consumer goods companies may want market new products, because the main website may leave the product underexposed; a microsite will focus on that particular product or service and provide extensive details and information.

-A magazine may want cover time-sensitive and popular events, such as the upcoming presidential election or some world championship and may leverage a microsite.

-A software company may offer its clients more information on a product, which cannot be posted on a simple landing page and adding several pages to its main website would mean burying the information and relying on visitors to feel their way through to the specific information.

In most cases, microsites and landing pages are created to convert visitors into leads. A Microsite also results in increased SEO opportunities.  Microsites are typically hosted on a different domain than the primary website and contain sometimes multiple pages of topic-related content for high organic search rankings. Most savvy marketers tend to use both microsites and landing pages somewhere along the way. And if microsites are hosting on multiple-C IPs (SEO-hosting), the results can be even more considerable.

My Website is Ready. Now What?

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  • Do you have a website that was recently completed and you are wondering what to do with it now that it is ready?
  • Do you feel that the completion of the website is not the “end” of your web presence strategy?
  • Do you feel that you need to take further action and do “something” with your website?
  • Have you every asked the question “My Website is Ready. Now What?

If yes, then please read on.

It is critical to understand that your website is not the end, rather it is a means to achieve an end, and that is to attract more visitors, create more business, increase sales and boost profit. Your website needs to be taken care of, “nurtured” and promoted in order for it to be of value to you. Whether your website is an online store, a corporate website, a portal or a personal website, it needs ongoing attention after it is completed.

So, what do you do with your website once it is ready?

Here are a few tips to consider:

1. Keep your website content updated – this is crucial. Keep the content – this includes relevant copy, news, product & service information, contact settings, media (video, images), blog posts, articles and more – updated at all times. Search engines love regular changes – for them, it is a clear indication of an active website and that bodes well for regular indexing by search engine spiders and crawlers. Be sure to target relevant keywords in all your content for proper search engine visibility. Also, know that a robust content management system will greatly ease the pain associated with keeping your website content updated and as an added bonus you will no longer need to depend on your website designer.

2. Promote your website well offline – make sure you include your website address on your stationery, business cards, flyers, brochures, email signatures and any other marketing collateral and offline material.  If you use promotional items, make sure that your website address is on such items: be it cups, pens, mouse pads or t-shirts. And remember to place your website address on your signage. And everywhere else that can help you drive more traffic.

3. Promote your website well online – Search Engines are commonly used to search for a company or service or product on the Internet. Your website needs to be promoted on the Internet via organic (natural) search engine optimization so your potential customers can find you. The bottom line is that is your site should list in the top 10 SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) for all top search engines for best ROI. You can also use other Internet marketing techniques such as email marketing, affiliate marketing, newsletter marketing, article syndication, RSS feeds, press releases and social media marketing. And, oh, don’t forget to create and maintain a useful and relevant blog (preferably attached to your website) to keep your visitors engaged and informed about your company.

4. Add features to attract and retain visitors and make your website a happening “place” – add features to your website that provide value for your visitors to keep them coming back. This could be something as simple as relevant articles or studies, or a free e-book, or a special offer, or pertinent information about what they are looking for. It could also be in the form of valuable tips, or even free tools that they can use. Make your website a “happening” destination!

5. Make one individual an owner of your website – make someone responsible for the website and its content – this could even be you! The owner’s responsibilities would be to keep the site updated, keep it running smoothly and to monitor it. Review your website regularly. And follow the above 4 steps regularly.

6. Add visitor tracking and website analytics – add a visitor tracking and website analytics systems to your website and review the reports with your owner (if that is someone other than you) regularly. Visitor tracking and analytics systems will provide you with intelligence and insights as to the number of visitors that come to your website, where they are coming from, what they are looking for, how the search engines are driving traffic to your site and what keywords are driving them to your website. This information enables you to properly update your content and also allows you to continually tweak your online promotion endeavors.

Your website is an extension of your business. It needs to be treated in a similar way. Consider it to be an investment, not an expense.

Custom vs Template Website Design

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The visual design of your website is what separates you from your competition. To attract more visitors, your website needs stand out from the rest and needs to be attractive, uncluttered, easy to navigate and simple to understand. Here is a quick look at custom vs template website design:

You can have your website built from the ground up or you can buy a pre-made website template and use it as it is, or you can have this template customized to give it a more original and distinct look. Bear in mind that there are limitations to the extent of customization for a pre-made website template.

Differences between a custom web design and a template design

A custom website is designed from the ground up for a unique look and feel and is created with meaningful and pertinent content. It is is built after a significant amount of research and analysis to suit branding and business requirements.

A template-based website is generally built using a pre-made website template package that has most of the common pages already designed. When you buy customized banners online, you’d know that the same website templates are used as preset backgrounds, main navigation links and masthead areas. In theory, you just need to add content and your website is ready. In reality, it is not as simple as this.

You can liken a template-based website to a pre-fabricated house and a custom designed website to a properly architected and constructed home. Furthermore, a pre-made website template is generally used for multiple websites so the creators of the template can offset their investment in building the template. A custom designed website is unique in its look and feel

If you are lucky enough to find a template that suits your business style and image and if your content fits the template, then a template-based website can be an economical choice.

A custom designed website usually costs significantly more than a template – mainly because it is specifically built to your requirements and make your web presence unique.

The Mobile Web Comes of Age

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The Mobile Web Comes of Age

According to a report by the BBC, as of the writing of this article, there is a 25% increase in the number of people accessing the internet from mobile devices. This huge increase has been made possible largely because wireless access technologies have advanced. The mobile web comes of age!

The iPhone is the first mobile phone to give users an enjoyable internet experience that is also easy to use. iPhone allows you to access the internet anytime, anywhere and without limitations from your mobile carrier or content restrictions like text scaled down to fit the screen.

RIM’s Blackberry is also gaining popularity in the smartphone arena. You can accomplish a large number of tasks required by modern day business: accessing the internet and checking your e-mail account in real-time anywhere and anytime using powerful GPRS and EDGE technologies that use embedded Web browsers.

Nokia phones are also storming into the market and some Nokia phones have a Blacbkerry Client built into the operating system that allows them to leverage RIM’s (Research In Motion) extremely reliable infrastructure.
There are three main operating systems used on mobile phones. Symbian OS has been designed for Nokia Smart Phones, the Palm OS for PDAs and Windows Mobile.

The Apple iPhone uses a version of Apple OS X, but this is the only phone that does so and it does not have complete smart phone functions…yet.

Windows Mobile is a more intuitive system to use on your mobile phone. The system connects easily with your PC and includes many useful tools, as well as first-class entertainment functions through Windows Media Player.

If you are planning to do business over the internet, it is a great time now, especially if you are willing to cater to mobile device users. The best way to start with this is to have a version of your website specially developed for mobile device users and have it format properly when a mobile device accesses your website.

So, which Mobile platform do you use?

6 Common Website Development Mistakes to Avoid

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6 Pitfalls to Avoid When Developing a Website

Planning on getting started with a new website project? First thing, make sure you have a good SEO offering company to back you up as just making a website won’t help you get more traffic. You could learn more here on your own, but I would still recommend you get the assistance of professionals. Here is a list of 6 website development mistakes to avoid:

Striving for the most attractive website in the world
This is probably the most common mistake. A lot of people spend countless hours creating a“beautiful’ website without considering what is best for optimal performance. If you have a business where beauty and creativity of your website is critical and you have a development company that can support you in creating that piece-of-art, then perhaps the time, money and effort is well worth it. It is better, though, to create a professional, tidy website that meets your needs, rather than to spend time creating a piece of art that may never be completed!

It takes serious effort to generate business from your website and it is much better to invest time and effort in marketing and keeping your website updated

2. Most feature rich website in the world – Do not try to add all the possible features in one effort. Website development is an evolutionary process. Start with a minimum, required feature set, then plan to add features as your needs grow.

3. Website with richest content – Again, it is not possible to add every single bit of appropriate content at the onset of your project, or to have the best content in one step. Plan to have the basic content required to make your website functional first. Once your website is launched, you should work on constantly updating and adding content.

4.  Website with great animation and flash effects – Flash and animation effects look cool, agreed. But do not overdo it. Flash and other animation effects make websites heavy and it takes longer to load the website. Normal users do not like waiting for websites to load. Even search engines don’t like slow websites. Flash and animation also add costs to development. I suggest keeping the effects to a minimum.

5. Totally bug-free website at launch – No matter how much you test a website, issues will come up on the website when you are ready to launch it. It is better to launch a website when you have covered the majority of issues and there are no major functional problems on the website. If you are expecting heavy traffic on the website immediately after the launch, plan your website launch so that traffic builds up slowly and you can work on fixing residual issues or bugs while the initial set of users are on the website. Consider planning a Beta launch with a restricted set of users who know that they might encounter some issues on the website.Keep reviewing the website after the launch and get the updates done to fix any issues.

6.  Getting the website completed in shortest span of time – Do not expect or plan to get your website done overnight. Website development is an involved and iterative process. From conceptualization to final launch, it takes a good amount of time for each step.

You can minimize the time by working with a project plan, tight set of requirements, and engaging aggressively with the development team. If you attempt to compress the time it takes for each step, you will end up stressed out and with a poor quality site on top of it.

The development and launch of your website are only a small part of a successful web presence. The post- launch process is actually much more critical, and time-consuming as well.