Why Your Website Must Be Responsive

Here’s Why Your Website Must Be Responsive

by Tim Parker

If people visit your website on their phone, do they just get a miniaturized version? How about on their tablet? Responsive web design makes sure each visitor has a good experience at your site, regardless of the device they're using. 

Image source: GraphicStock.com

If you’re like many small business owners, you have little knowledge of how websites work. You either hired somebody to do it or you bought a website template and figured out how to make some simple changes to fit your brand.

What is it?But the coding of your sites means nothing to you—You don’t have to be a website program but you do have to understand responsive design.

Unlike most techno terminology, the definition is in the term. Responsive, in web terms, means the same thing as in your own life. If you’re responsive to your customers, you listen and react to what they say or do. The same holds true with your employees and your family.

A responsive website reacts and makes changes based on a host of factors. The most notable is screen size. A responsive webpage changes image and font sizes, as well as moves elements around to fit the screen of the user.

If they’re viewing the site on their phone, the website has a design optimized for a mobile phone screen. On a tablet, the site will look slightly different and on a computer screen, even more different. Pretty cool, isn’t it?

Is it Really That Important?

Yes, but don’t take our word for it—let the stats do the talking.

According to Pew Research, 58% of American adults own a smartphone and of those, 63% use it to browse the Internet. As of August of last year, Facebook said that 78% of its 128 million active daily US users accessed the site on mobile.

There’s very little that “experts” agree on but there’s little doubt that mobile usage will continue to grow and the amount of people accessing your site on a traditional computer will fall.

Still not convinced? If you’re the type that browses the web on your mobile device, you’ve surely found yourself looking at a microscopic rendering of what somebody calls a website. You zoom in but after about 10 seconds of pure, unadulterated annoyance you go somewhere else hoping that your eyes are not permanently crossed. If that website was responsive, that story would have never played out.

As a business owner, you have to make sure that when your customers come to your site, their experience is positive. If your site causes even the smallest bit of stress, they’ll leave.

How about now? Are you convinced? Your website HAS to be responsive.

More Reasons to go Responsive

Google Loves it!

Nobody really knows how Google decides which websites are worthy of its front page but there’s no doubt that Google loves responsive design. Here’s what the company said:

“We recommend webmasters follow the industry best practice of using web design, namely serving the same HTML for all devices using media queries to decide rendering on each device".

That might seem a little to techy but this simply means that your site should be responsive. Yahoo and Bing also prefer it.

It’s Cheaper than the Alternative.

A little over a decade ago, the mobile web was becoming the next big thing. At first, developers were creating two websites—one for traditional computers and one for mobile. If you wanted to view the mobile site, you placed an “m” in front of the site and there it was. (Remember “m.yoursite.com?”) Technology developed allowing websites to automatically know the device accessing it and could automatically switch to the mobile version but now, there’s no need for two sites.

Responsive design is saving companies major bucks because responsive design is built into the site design. Nearly all new website templates have it and developers can easily include the code in most cases. The alternative is to “save money by not upgrading and watch your customers click away without giving you a chance.

Your Customers Want it!

The customer is always right, aren’t they? If more than half of your customers came to your store and said they wanted a certain item, you would get it, right? Your customers are coming to your site from their mobile devices. They might have found a link on Facebook or other social media platform but what if (gulp) you paid for online advertising and they came to your site but couldn’t read it? What an awful waste of marketing dollars.

The Good News

It’s probably not difficult to make your site mobile. If it’s a small, not-so-complicated site, simply buy a new template, install it, and make some tweaks. Platforms like Wordpress make this very easy. If you aren’t a tweaker, hire somebody. You can probably get the bugs worked out for a couple of hundred dollars or less.

If your site is custom made or has a lot of functionality that doesn’t make a simple template change possible, a good coder won’t have much of a problem adding the responsive programming in a short period of time.

The change isn’t likely to exhaust your technology budget but even if it does cost more than you hoped, the money you’re losing because your mobile customers can’t see your website is probably far more of a hit.

Don’t wait—get responsive. You’ll see an increase in your website traffic
.

Alternative To Social Networking Google Social Networking

Alternative To Social Networking Google Social Networking:

These days, Google seems to have its hand in every aspect and facet of the internet. While Google previously did not have anything to do with social networking, but now they are building a presence in the social networking arena as well. Soon, google social networking will be the standard for social networking, as Google has become the standard for many things, including searching through search engines, paid advertising, e-mail, calendar and even web applications and web documents.

We all are aware that social networking websites are beginning to take over the world, at least online. The big social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace are excellent places where people can connect to other people and even market their companies and reach new customers. There are millions of people using these social networking sites, and businesses are beginning to use them as well. Leveraging a social networking site to its fullest potential is a great way for a business to reach out to new target markets and garner larger customer bases.

Just when you thought that the community networking thing may have completely reached its maximum threshold, Google social networking shows up at the party with a completely new project. Google has shown up at the party with a social networking site of its very own, one that is known as Orkut. Orkut may be a strange word, but it is appearing to be a serious contender when it comes to comparing Orkut to other social network websites on the internet.

Orkut has already gained a serious amount of popularity in Latin America and in Asia, and now it is beginning to make a splash in the United States as well. Google social networking is trying to become a very large giant online, and dominating the social networking market is one of the ways that this can be achieved. They want their own piece of a pie that MySpace and Facebook have been capitalizing on for a good long time. The following behind Orkut in China and Japan alone has tripled over the past year to include more than 11 million visitors in a single month.

Time is really going to have to tell when it comes to whether or not Google's Orkut will get as big as the other social networking giants like Facebook and MySpace in the United States. What is known is that Google does have a good idea of what they are doing, and they have proven themselves to be strong players in a lot of very large markets.

If Google can figure out how to offer more than what the other social networking sites are offering, then they can certainly get in on the action that these other social networking sites are already capitalizing on. If you are not already using Orkut by Google, log into your Google account today and check it out. You are already halfway through the registration process if you have a Gmail account or another account with Google, so jump online and start putting your profile together today for Google Social Networking.

Promoting Your Blog Through Forums

Promoting Your Blog Through Forums:

The most challenging part of blog writing is how you will promote the blog to the world wide web. A lot of blogs are swarming the world wide web – blog about love, relationships, gadgets, games and much much more. What can you do to attract more readers? Is there a special way to enhance the traffic of your blog? The answer is yes. No complications, it is just a plain technique – the usage of forums to promote your blog.

In forums, a diversity of people will be able to view your blog. That means different sets of online dwellers will be able to access your blog easily and might be able to back link your blog to other websites. Forums are very helpful since it is very interactive. Members of certain forums could easily share which blog is helpful or not. Which of the blogs are entertaining or just a boring blog. Just the same, forums will give way to your blog's popularity.

Forums are very helpful since it is very interactive. Members of certain forums could easily share which blog is helpful or not. Which of the blogs are entertaining or just a boring blog. Just the same, forums will give way to your blog's popularity. That means different sets of online dwellers will be able to access your blog easily and might be able to back link your blog to other websites. Forums are very helpful since it is very interactive.

Members of certain forums could easily share which blog is helpful or not. Which of the blogs are entertaining or just a boring blog. Just the same, forums will give way to your blog's popularity. That means different sets of online dwellers will be able to access your blog easily and might be able to back link your blog to other websites. Forums are very helpful since it is very interactive.

Members of certain forums could easily share which blog is helpful or not. Which of the blogs are entertaining or just a boring blog. Just the same, forums will give way to your blog's popularity. That means different sets of online dwellers will be able to access your blog easily and might be able to back link your blog to other websites. Forums are very helpful since it is very interactive.

Members of certain forums could easily share which blog is helpful or not. Which of the blogs are entertaining or just a boring blog. Just the same, forums will give way to your blog's popularity. That means different sets of online dwellers will be able to access your blog easily and might be able to back link your blog to other websites. Forums are very helpful since it is very interactive.

That means different sets of online dwellers will be able to access your blog easily and might be able to back link your blog to other websites. Forums are very helpful since it is very interactive. Members of certain forums could easily share which blog is helpful or not. Which of the blogs are entertaining or just a boring blog.

Members of certain forums could easily share which blog is helpful or not. Which of the blogs are entertaining or just a boring blog. Just the same, forums will give way to your blog's popularity.

MLM E-Mail Newsletter Campaigns - Do's And Don'ts

MLM E-Mail Newsletter Campaigns - Do's And Don'ts:

MLM (aka Multi Level Marketing) is a very interesting world, competitive, innovative and tricky.  It's not for the faint of heart, nor for those who don't have the time or ambition to constantly keep in touch with their prospects.  An MLM marketer need to be on their toes, be creative and not only willing to find their prospects just about anywhere, but willing to keep in touch with them on a regular basis.  The only way to stay in business is to service your customers.

So, what do you do?  There are a number of ways to successfully handle e-mail newsletters campaigns.  And conversely, there are a number of things to NOT do.  The first thing you MUST NOT do is use names of people who have not specifically asked to receive what you are mailing out.  These are called "opt-ins".  If you do tread on thin ice and try this, don't be surprised if your mail outs get classified as spam and treated as such.

If you want people to respond/subscribe to your newsletters, and be able to target your marketing efforts, then you have to make it really clear how they do that, and where they can do that.  A link to your form or an online form must be on your home page. Having said that, the other pointer is, don't ask too many questions.  Keep it simple and just stick to the basics – ask their name, and perhaps two questions – ie. Demographics and interests.

To be really safe with your registration process, use something called double opt-in, rather than just the single opt-in. This allows sober second thought by the potential subscriber, because the double opt-in for e mail newsletters requires confirmation.  It makes more sense for you as well, since by confirming they DO want to subscribe to your e mail newsletter, you KNOW they're serious, and not just kicking the tires.

How to Learn Blogging Software

How to Learn Blogging Software:

A lot of blogging software is specifically designed to be
simple to use, but even the least intimidating blogging
program can feel very overwhelming to somebody who
has not spent a lot of time learning the ins and outs of
different kinds of software. Particularly for newer
bloggers, learning how to use the interface of blogging
software is the most difficult part of blogging. If you are
somebody who feels comfortable expressing themselves
in another medium, it may prove to be well worth your
time and effort to learn blogging software, but that
doesn't mean that the task will be easy.

The main thing that will help you find success as you
learn how to use a new kind of blogging software is to
try and take things slowly. Many people get so excited
about learning to blog that they try to rush into the thick
of it and start exploring the most complicated features
of a program right away. This can lead to getting
confused and feeling frustrated, and all too many
potential bloggers burn out during this stage of the
process.

If you take your time learning the basics of
your blog software program before you move on to
more advanced techniques, you will be more likely to
retain what you have learned, and to keep feeling
positive about your ability to understand the world of
blogging.

What Do You Want From Your Blogs? Results..

Blogging Guide for the Best Results:

If you're looking for an outlet, a blogging career may be the answer to your problems. You can do many things when you're writing blogs. However, not many people have become successful bloggers. The internet has only room for effective bloggers and not for sporadic and unknowledgeable bloggers. Here are some blogging guides that you can make use to get the best results.

First, you must be a serious and professional blogger. If you want to become a well-known blogger, you must be able to blog frequently. You must post new blogs with fresh contents weekly; if you can post several times a week, even better. Try this and you can attract a ton of traffic to your site. You can gain more exposure by blogging frequently. If you can't blog often, you have to inform your readers. This way, your readers will not forget you.

If you're a new blogger, you can request fellow bloggers with high PRs (page ranks) to exchange links. When Google and other search engines rank pages, you can benefit a lot. You can also get high rankings if you have many links with high PR pages. Exchange links are also very useful for bloggers. You can do this with your friends, relatives, colleagues, and other bloggers.

If you want, you can use Google to search for those who want to exchange their links with yours. However, you should only exchange links with those that are related to your blogs. If not, don't exchange links. Unrelated exchange links will not be of any good to you.

If you're a blogger, make sure that you register with Technorati.com. High rankings in this site can also mean more readers and possible subscribers for your blog posts. Aside from Technorati.com, you should also register with feedburner.com. If you still haven't registered at these two websites, register now. Conduct a research about Technorati.com and feedburner.com to find out more about these sites. You can also ask fellow bloggers about such sites.

Many bloggers use Blogger but it won't hurt if you try WordPress. By using the latter, you can access free templates that you can download.  It also has over 1000 plug-ins that can help in enhancing your blog features. You can install this for free but first you need to have a domain and you should register your very own webhost.

Your blogs should also be responsive to search engines. Budding bloggers may find this a bit difficult but if you only try, you can benefit from it in the future. In all your blogging efforts, you must always focus. This way, you can write effective and interesting content that can catch the interest of many readers and subscribers.

These are some of the most effective guides that you can find online. You can follow these guides to attain success as a blogger. You can search for effective guides to help you in your blogging career. Try them now especially if you're a new blogger.

Advertising in Yellow Pages

Advertising in Yellow Pages

Some people believe that yellow pages do not receive response like other advertising methods do and this is true to some extent but not in totality. When talking about traditional yellow pages, there sure is a decline in number of people opting for advertising in it. According to a recent report, even the most attractive advertisement in a particular section is not getting the response from callers like they used to get before. On the contrary, the prices of placing ads in directories are on a rise, which speaks a different, story altogether.

In reality different categories are witnessing different rates of decline. Like the lawyers category is seeing the maximum decline, where as emergency service provider's section has the same call rate. And sections like mobile phones, real estate and furniture are seeing a rise due to the increasing customer demand. Altering the size of the advertisement or changing the look cannot do wonders any more.

Experts suggest that relying on yellow pages to get customers isn't enough. Other options should be considered as well along with it. With the Internet reaching every home, nearly half of the Internet users use the net everyday. They prefer to buy stuff online, from the comfort of their homes. Research should be done on the Internet to get reviews about the product. People, who don't usually shop online, also are also opting to shop online as information is provided at the click of a mouse. It is easier for people to trust as customers who used the product give their feedback about the product after using it.

A relatively newer concept is the yellow pages going online. The good thing about them is that they are updated frequently unlike the printed directories and can be viewed from any part of the world. According to researches conducted, the response increased by twenty five percent every year. So those who are interested to invest in yellow pages advertising can think of going online.  Directories are submitted to search engines, which on typing a keyword or phrase bring the results. Small and local businesses, too, can land on the pages brought by the result. The cost of creating a website can be saved if all the relevant information about the company is included in the online yellow pages. Look out for the date to renew the directory listing, and if there is a need to change the advertisement, it is not a big problem on online yellow pages. Some starter websites offer to place advertisement in their yellow pages for free. Search out for such websites on the Internet.

Larger businesses can start their own websites and place links in the online yellow pages. Articles can be framed about the business and can be submitted to Ezines and websites related to the area of business. Some websites also allow posting articles for free. The purpose of the yellow pages is basically to get potential customers but that doesn't mean that existing customers should be neglected. Steps should be taken to strengthen the relationship with them and to retain their trust by maintaining the standard of the products supplied to them. Once they are completely satisfied, the price-rise won't bother them and they will talk about the company to people they know, which will fetch new customers.

The objective is to work smartly and select the right method of advertising. If a business isn't using any other method for advertising apart from using yellow pages, it can cause problems and the products may not sell. Analyze how much money is spent on placing ads in directories and estimate whether the amount of customers the business gets is desirable. Whenever a call is received from a potential customer, ask them how they got to know about the enterprise. This will help to analyze which advertising method is ideal for the business. It is never late to correct the mistake and go for the right method.