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Actual for You - Designing a Customer Focused Web Site
Small Business Website Design and Woman Entrepreneurs As a female, small business owner and web designer I often hear other women entrepreneurs who would like to have a web presence but haven’t a clue where to start and are intimidated by the technology and lingo. From URL, Hosting and Server to coding languages such as XHTML, PHP and ASP it sounds like a foreign language and can easily overwhelm people.My experience and success in web design have come from not only providing great design work and customer service, but also the ability to determine the effective and practical solutions. Understandably many women avoid this form of advertising since it is a very male dominated industry. Some women feel intimidated or embarrassed because they don’t want to sound foolish or be taken advantage of. There’s nothing worse than hearing about a website solution that could have been accomplished for less money since the designer proposed an overkill solution. A practical solution should be provided, one that allows the site to What is the objective of the site? Is it to provide information, to produce direct sales, or just a brochure-ware site showing the company and its capabilities? Is it intended to generate enquiries from new customers or to keep existing customers informed? Objectives will include the detailed information on any existing brand identity and the image the company wants to portray to the world at large. Remember your Web site is now the first port of call for a potential customer. Recent researc Conflict Resolution And Understanding The Cost Of Conflict A search is carried out on Google - the most used search engine currently on the internet - every 0.003 of a second, searching over 8 billion Web pages. If your Web site does not match the searchers’ enquiries your chances of trading successfully and your business ‘making it’ on the internet are low. The World Wide Web is like one huge shopping mall, every Web site offering products and services; some ‘shops’ are well lit and easy to access, however, the majority have the lights turned off, their shutters down and the ‘closed’ sign on the door.Understanding the cost of conflict is a major factor in persuading contesting parties to attempt conflict resolution and turn their conflict into collaboration.Stewart Levine in his excellent book "Getting to Resolution – Turning Conflict into Resolution" identifies four costs of conflict:Direct costsProductivity costsContinuity costsEmotional costsWhenever you get bogged down in an unresolved conflict, all four of these costs begin to mount. The conflict meter starts running. This is often not fully appreciated by parties to a dispute – especially in the early stages when monetary consequences seem the only concern.However as the conflict takes hold, all four costs begin to take their toll.It is a wise conflict resolution facilitator who makes sure that the parties to the dispute fully understand that all four costs are running as this helps them see the mutual adv Making your company Web site attractive and popular is more than just putting a picture of the product or a description of the service onto a Web page and publishing it on the Web. There are a host of issues which need to be addressed to ensure success, but before a Web developer is even contracted, the bigger picture of strategic marketing needs to be addressed. It is important to understand that marketing is not sales, strategic marketing provides the structure to help us collate information and through it understand our customers. This is information that we need in order to sell successfully. Applying this to a company Web site, before any development work is carried out on the Web site we have to be clear on who the customer is and why they are likely to buy. In describing the target customer, such factors as gender, age and socio-economic group are essentials while further information such as technical capability and language level can also be useful. By carrying out primary market research – and this means not just reading reports or looking at statistics, actually get up from your desk and go and ask your customers - we will be able to find out most of this information offering a greater understanding of the customer profile. Including this information in your design brief puts the Web developer in a much better position to produce a site that the end user will feel affiliated to and comfortable with. What is the objective of the site? Is it to provide information, to produce direct sales, or just a brochure-ware site showing the company and its capabilities? Is it intended to generate enquiries from new customers or to keep existing customers informed? Objectives will include the detailed information on any existing brand identity and the image the company wants to portray to the world at large. Remember your Web site is now the first port of call for a potential customer. Recent research Latent Semantic Indexing, Silos & Long Term Google Traffic r shutters down and the ‘closed’ sign on the door.It always amazes me how many complaints there are when Google changes its algorithms due to the abuse the search engines receive from the underhanded webmasters. When, if they built their sites correctly in the first place with the searchers/surfers needs in mind instead of the quick buck, they wouldn’t have to worry. Lets’ face it, Google and the other search engines are constantly battling the cheats and as a result sometimes the innocent get caught up in the necessary algorithm changes. Well now Google (and the others not far behind I’m told) will not have to suffer too much of the black hat treatment any longer. For instance, you have probably noticed that when you do a search on Google of late, you more than likely find what you’re looking for quite quickly. The amendments I dare say are still underway.You only have to consider this for a few minutes before it becomes blatantly obvious that your site should be done properly the first time to save all this corr Making your company Web site attractive and popular is more than just putting a picture of the product or a description of the service onto a Web page and publishing it on the Web. There are a host of issues which need to be addressed to ensure success, but before a Web developer is even contracted, the bigger picture of strategic marketing needs to be addressed. It is important to understand that marketing is not sales, strategic marketing provides the structure to help us collate information and through it understand our customers. This is information that we need in order to sell successfully. Applying this to a company Web site, before any development work is carried out on the Web site we have to be clear on who the customer is and why they are likely to buy. In describing the target customer, such factors as gender, age and socio-economic group are essentials while further information such as technical capability and language level can also be useful. By carrying out primary market research – and this means not just reading reports or looking at statistics, actually get up from your desk and go and ask your customers - we will be able to find out most of this information offering a greater understanding of the customer profile. Including this information in your design brief puts the Web developer in a much better position to produce a site that the end user will feel affiliated to and comfortable with. What is the objective of the site? Is it to provide information, to produce direct sales, or just a brochure-ware site showing the company and its capabilities? Is it intended to generate enquiries from new customers or to keep existing customers informed? Objectives will include the detailed information on any existing brand identity and the image the company wants to portray to the world at large. Remember your Web site is now the first port of call for a potential customer. Recent researc Google Search Engine Submission provides the structure to help us collate information and through it understand our customers. This is information that we need in order to sell successfully.Search engine submission is definitely the key to build a successful online business. An online business model without an emphasis on search engine rankings would definitely not provide the expected dividends.The search engine model that’s truly the most successful ever is Google. That’s why its said that if you are able to crack Google and get your website rank high- preferably in the top ten, then your online business is bound to grow vertically.The way to approach the above foresaid aim (High ranking on Google) can be achieved through proper and planned Google search engine submission. However, the Google search engine algorithms change often and that makes it impossible for an individual to keep track of the same. To make things easy for you are the professionals- the search engine optimizers who are the real masters of the search engine trade.When you utilize professional search engine submission services, you will not only observe increased traf Applying this to a company Web site, before any development work is carried out on the Web site we have to be clear on who the customer is and why they are likely to buy. In describing the target customer, such factors as gender, age and socio-economic group are essentials while further information such as technical capability and language level can also be useful. By carrying out primary market research – and this means not just reading reports or looking at statistics, actually get up from your desk and go and ask your customers - we will be able to find out most of this information offering a greater understanding of the customer profile. Including this information in your design brief puts the Web developer in a much better position to produce a site that the end user will feel affiliated to and comfortable with. What is the objective of the site? Is it to provide information, to produce direct sales, or just a brochure-ware site showing the company and its capabilities? Is it intended to generate enquiries from new customers or to keep existing customers informed? Objectives will include the detailed information on any existing brand identity and the image the company wants to portray to the world at large. Remember your Web site is now the first port of call for a potential customer. Recent researc How Club Flyers are Developed guage level can also be useful.More often we wonder how the printed materials are being developed. What strategies are being used and what significant process is involved. How come that these advertisers are able to bring out colorful club flyer prints and captivating designs.Basically the development of innovative and artistic club flyer designs starts with a creative process. Designers and printers work together to come up with good designs and impressive prints. Now the following are the process on how your club flyers are being developed.The very first step in developing your flyers starts with the layout plan that you hand to your printer. Your layout plan contains all the features you want for your material from its colors, designs and contents.Second, rendering your printing jobs to your printer – your chosen printer will bring into being through the layout plan you had made. With their skills and knowledge in handling the printing jobs you are assured with quality and compe By carrying out primary market research – and this means not just reading reports or looking at statistics, actually get up from your desk and go and ask your customers - we will be able to find out most of this information offering a greater understanding of the customer profile. Including this information in your design brief puts the Web developer in a much better position to produce a site that the end user will feel affiliated to and comfortable with. What is the objective of the site? Is it to provide information, to produce direct sales, or just a brochure-ware site showing the company and its capabilities? Is it intended to generate enquiries from new customers or to keep existing customers informed? Objectives will include the detailed information on any existing brand identity and the image the company wants to portray to the world at large. Remember your Web site is now the first port of call for a potential customer. Recent researc Industrial Adhesives-A History of Industrial Adhesives An industrial adhesive is defined as anything that is used in a fastening or bonding application in any manufacturing industry. There are several different types of adhesive that are used regularly – epoxies, hot melt, sealants, acrylics, thermostat and silicon adhesives. And something many of us are familiar with - cement and mortar are also considered to be industrial adhesives.Different industrial adhesive types have different properties or features and can be used effectively for different purposes. Some adhesives have particularly good bonding qualities – for example, hot melt adhesives which can be repeatedly softened and hardened by alternate heating and cooling.Also particularly versatile are so-called pressure-sensitive adhesives, which – as the name suggests – need only very slight pressure to adhere to most surfaces. Pressure sensitive adhesives are available in water, solvent and latex based forms.UV curing adhesives will give a strong and What is the objective of the site? Is it to provide information, to produce direct sales, or just a brochure-ware site showing the company and its capabilities? Is it intended to generate enquiries from new customers or to keep existing customers informed? Objectives will include the detailed information on any existing brand identity and the image the company wants to portray to the world at large. Remember your Web site is now the first port of call for a potential customer. Recent research has shown that viewers will make a decision on the suitability of a company in 20 milliseconds based purely on the image they are seeing on their computer screen. What is your Web site saying about your company? Make sure your Web developer is fully informed. It is also important to identify the gender of your client base. This has been much ignored to date, possibly to the detriment of many businesses. A recent survey reported that women were ‘Dunces of the dashboard’: many of those surveyed did not understand the purpose of most of the switches or lights on their own car dashboard (BBC Breakfast 3/3/06 Note 1); no comment was made in the report as to why this is, although it just might be because most cars are designed by men. Much research and writing exists on how communication differs between genders; since a Web site is by its nature a communication, it should make sense to have a Web site targeted at female buyers designed and developed by a female designer or team. The same obviously applies to a male audience, if this is your target then contract a male designer to build your site. Recent research at the University of Glamorgan supports this (Note 2); it has shown that gender makes a big difference in the perceptions of the viewer. According to their research over 77% of Web sites showed a predominantly male design, reflecting the higher proportion of male designers in the marketplace. An interesting statistic when according to Judy Hoyt Pettigrew (author of Women Mean Business: The Secret to Selling to Women), as much has 80% of purchases are made by women. Another consideration is geography and culture. Is the Web site going to be used to target a particular community or sector? Make sure that this is your focus and provide information that is of value to your viewers. Data that helps the decision making process can be the difference between a sale and no sale. In a recent survey from AOP (note 3) over 80% of business decision makers use the int
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