How To Design Your Website To Maximize Traffic Attraction And Retention

Designing your website might seem like a matter of taste, but this is simply not the case if your end goal is to get as many visitors to your site as possible. You have to design your site with purpose, taking your intent into consideration as far as what you want to achieve goes.

If you want to maximize the number of internet users coming to your website that will actually stick around, there are a few things you’ll want to keep in mind. Oddly enough, many of these points for consideration can actually be thought of as fairly obvious once you think about it.

Easy On The Eyes

No one likes to visit a website that just screams clutter and horrible color palettes. This is supposed to be obvious, at this point, but far too many people seem to still create websites that bombard the eyes with far too much information. Not much can save you from that unless you actually redesign the whole thing, not even if you buy targeted traffic by the truckload.

What you really want to do in order to increase user engagement and retention is to give them a simple enough layout and design that they can take in at once without trouble. This means that in the one or two seconds they arrive at your site, they’ll already have some idea as to what it’s all about.

Efficient Navigation

Once you’ve convinced your visitors to actually stick around, you’ll want to give them an easy way to navigate your site. This means that every page must be clearly positioned on the menu in such a way that it’s intuitive to the users. If they are looking for a particular page, for example, they shouldn’t have to work too hard to actually find it.

This means your blog section should be prominently positioned right at the top. The same goes for your shop, services, about us, and so on. Getting quality web traffic becomes much easier if you remove all of the obstacles blocking your users from fully experiencing your site.

Obvious CTA

Just as you want to make it as easy as possible for your users to get around your domain, you’ll also want to do the same in leading them to your call to action. This means big, bold, and blinking buttons that practically scream “Click Me!”

Without obvious CTAs, some users are not going to be able to actually find what you are trying to sell them. It’s just a matter of fact that not all internet surfers are tech savvy. As such, they’ll need as much help as you can possibly give them.

Clear Content Structure

In case you are following some sort of content marketing strategy that involves producing high-quality articles or media, you’ll want to focus on the structure. Keep it clear, uniform, and consistent all through your site. This means that the fonts must be the same, spaces need to be systemized, and categorizations must make sense.

A lot of users can be incredibly neurotic when it comes to these elements. If they see one discrepancy, they lose motivation to read further and would simply leave your site.

5 Things You Didn’t Know About WordPress Website Builders

If you’re thinking about starting your own blog or website, then you’ve probably heard about WordPress, which is one of the most popular blogging platforms to use. However, whilst WordPress may have started out aimed at personal and small business bloggers who wanted to attract more visitors to their site with awesome content, it has now grown into one of the biggest blogging platforms and content management systems worldwide, offering much more than simply blog hosting. So, if you’re eager to learn more about WordPress, here are five facts about the software that you may not have known.

#1. Create an Online Store without coding

Today, business owners with all hopes and dreams can use WordPress as a base for their growing online presence. If you’re hoping to focus on selling products online rather than creating regular content, then WordPress website builder can help you out with online store capabilities provided through WooCommerce, a plugin which is available on the premium and business plans. You can create an attractive online storefront, upload attractive product photographs, videos, and descriptions, turn on reviews, and ensure a secure, user-friendly online payment system in just a few simple clicks. Many Premium themes are compatible with WooCommerce, allowing you to create a custom, unique site for selling your gear.

#2. Members-Only area

Many successful sites are membership sites or communities where people get together to discuss thoughts on a certain topic online. You might think about social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter where anything goes, or community forums that focus on a particular niche, such as parenting, gaming, or student life. If you’ve got a good idea that you think people will want to come together and talk about, you can use WordPress to put together a members-only website using BuddyPress, which ensures secure sign-ups and logins, organizes forums, and gives users the ability to personalize profiles. Using this feature to turn part of your site into a forum or chat room allows for optimal customer engagement and can help with market research.

#3. Get Paid on Time

If you’re considering setting up a business as a freelancer, then you’ll know that one of the most important things for you is making sure that you are paid in full and on time every time you do a job for a client. Using WordPress, you can set up your own secure invoicing system, which is much easier than creating invoices yourself, and cheaper than paying for a third-party invoicing service. Using a plugin called ApproveMe, you can manage all your invoices and sales, create and send digital invoices, and take online payments directly from your site. Even better, it is fully integrated with the most popular WordPress form building tools and online storage services such as Dropbox.

#4. Build a Mobile App

For business owners today, having a website alone is often not enough since most of the big names in business have already produced a mobile app. No matter what you are selling online, chances are that the same or similar product is available via an app somewhere. Thankfully, developing an Android or iOS app for your business is no longer an expensive and lengthy process with an app developer. Using WordPress, you can create simple mobile apps using your website as the backend with the help of AppPresser. This plugin includes a visual app builder that’s suitable for all experience and skill levels, and integrates well with other popular plugins such as WooCommerce and BuddyPress.

#5. Create Micro-Sites

Lastly, WordPress supports a large network of sites under one main install, allowing users to create a network of micro-sites. An example of this would be colleges and universities, which often use micro-sites for each department or campus whilst under the same college branding. WordPress Multisite is included in all free and paid WordPress installs but is deactivated by default. Multisite is also a useful tool for directory sites.

As you can see, WordPress is no longer a simple tool for creating engaging written content! No matter what type of business you are considering starting, WordPress is the ideal tool for creating attractive online stores, engaging online communities, and managing your business payments and income. If your brand continues to grow, you may even find the use of WordPress multi-site useful, and there’s no need to find an additional tool for app-building.

Do you know anything about WordPress that you think is worthy of a mention? Which features do you find the most useful for your business? We’d love to hear from you in the comments.

5 Things to Consider When Choosing a WordPress Host

WordPress is a wonderfully lightweight and versatile platform for website development. Its barebones minimum requirements mean that it can be run on almost any web server and consequently there are innumerable web hosts to choose from. This is great in terms of offering website owners a greater degree of choice over who they choose to host their website, however, it also means that there is a lot more to think about when trying to decide on a suitable WordPress host.

If this is your first time choosing a web host then you will need to familiarize yourself with a whole world of new terminology and be prepared to learn quickly on your feet. Before you can start looking at WordPress hosts, you need to decide exactly what it is that your website will require. What sort of website is it? Is it a website for your business? Or is it a dedicated e-commerce site? The type of website you are running will affect your considerations.

Everyone’s requirements will be slightly different, but these five considerations are things that everyone needs to keep in mind when making their decision.

Speed and Performance

In order to provide your audience with the best quality web browsing experience, you will need a website which is supported by a server running the best hardware available. When looking at different hosts you should try and find the precise specs of the server that you are looking at. Pay attention to the memory (RAM), the processor (CPU) and the amount of storage space (ON HDDs and SSDs) which will be available to you.

The amount of Ram and CPU usage that your website will require depends entirely on the type of website that you will be running, as well as the usual makeup of your visitors. If your website, for example, is one that creates viral content and regularly welcomes a large volume of traffic, then the most basic hosting packages aren’t going to cut it for you. Similarly, if your website is prone to large spikes in traffic at particular times then make sure that you have the headroom to handle the extra capacity.

Transfer Speeds

The amount of disk space you have shouldn’t usually matter, after all, many hosts offer websites unlimited disk space. What really counts is the speed with which the host can serve up information from those hard disks to the user. You want to choose a host that offers low transfer speeds, even under high load websites that need to use an extra Content delivery network service to speed up their website other then their hosting services.

Support

The importance of support as a consideration will depend a great deal on how familiar you already are with WordPress and hosting in general. Those with less experience will definitely want to make sure that the host they choose offers comprehensive 24-hour live support. Among the biggest WordPress hosts, this kind of tech support is becoming the standard.

However, for even the most experienced website owner, there is always the possibility of something going wrong suddenly and unexpectedly and you want to be as well prepared for this as you can be. You should scout out potential web hosts for the level of support that they offer with their hosting packages.

Up Time

Up time refers simply to the amount of time that your website is available – or up – for external visitors. Most services will guarantee an uptime of at least 99.5%, many advertise higher, some advertise just at 99%. As long as you are seeing a clear 99%, and the WordPress hosting service makes mention of redundancies for when something goes wrong, then you can be sure of good up time.

The Type of Hosting

There are 4 different types of hosting service that someone starting a WordPress site can choose from, so you will need to decide which is the best for you:

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is the cheapest variety. If you’re looking at a free hosting plan then it will almost certainly be shared with other websites. For small websites without much traffic, shared hosting is a great solution. If you have children who want to learn web design, for example, shared hosting allows them to put their website on the internet and see it.

VPS

A virtual private server essentially gives you a dedicated slice of a larger server. It is the same principle as shared hosting, but each individual receives more space and resources.

Dedicated Hosting

With dedicated hosting you will receive an entire server to yourself. It is the most expensive option and is only really suited to big businesses and extremely high traffic.

Managed WordPress Hosting

This is the best option for those who are new to running a website. Under a managed hosting plan, someone at the company will take care of all the technical stuff, you will only have to worry about creating content.

According to WordPress SEO agency SEOKRU These are most basic options that you need to lookout for when selecting a WordPress hosting service and will have an effect on your future website performance, speed, SEO search rankings, ROI and conversions.

Medical and Online Technology

Technology has its footprints on every functional area of life. It has assimilated in our lives and has become part of our living. It is the driving force of the medical and healthcare field also. The innovative surgical treatments based on extensive research, 3D videos, latest tools and machines are forecasting the future of medical field. Informational Technology has also supported the field as when you have a glance of some decades back it would be easy to conclude how far you are just because of technology.Continue reading →

Important Things To Know Before You Start Trading Forex in 2018

Forex trading requires accurate and comprehensive knowledge of all the data affecting the financial market with a general knowledge of trading technology in light of the technological progress made by the Internet before making any decision that you can make a profit or lose. Therefore, each Bitcoin Code trader should look at the following in order to enrich his knowledge of Forex: Continue reading →

Trade Show Booth Display Design Tips To Increase Engagement

When a company participates in a trade show every single detail is important for the design of the booth. The first time exhibitor usually tends to make various mistakes that automatically limit the engagement that is gained. You go to such an event because you are interested in promoting your brands, products and services. Because of this, you do want to consider the following design tips.

Brand Everything

No matter how large or small the booth is, you want to be sure that branding is on point. Consistency is key for the entire booth. Even the portable trade show displays you might use in other parts of the trade show have to be consistent. Think about different items you are going to have at the event. Be sure everything is branded and when you exhibit anything, the brand’s theme should be consistent across all the design materials, ranging from images and banners to the freebies you are handing out.

Be Clear About What The Company Does

Remember the fact that many of the people that visit your booth know nothing about you. If your company is not renowned around the world, like Microsoft or Google, you want to highlight exactly why people should care. A great idea to do so is to have a large banner that states what you do. This may not seem as being smart in terms of design but it is effective and at such an event you are mostly interested in engagement. At the same time, when you are clear about what the company does you only get people that want to learn more.

Try To Stand Out

Standing out of the crowd is a necessity since many companies will have a booth at the trade show. A great way to do this is to use a bold, strong color. In many cases we see companies opting for white, gray or blue. If most booths are branded in these colors and you stand out by using bright orange, people take notice. In addition to booth design, make sure you design some bold flyers that will be aligned with your colors and messaging, as well. Obviously, you need to take branding into account. If you cannot go for a bold color, having people move around and invite people to the booth is a safe option. However, bold design is normally what attracts most interested people.

Stop Being Serious

Industry trade shows are normally boring and repetitive. People see the same things over and over and nothing fun is present. You just have a few seconds to catch the attention of people so why not do all that you can to show that the brand is playful instead of serious. Think about what stands out at trade shows. Is it the booth with one person and a laptop or the one that has an air hockey table right in front? Turning the product into a game is something you want to think about as this is highly engaging for a trade show.

As a final thought, it is a good idea to stop taking yourself so serious because people that come at these events are already ready to talk to you. They are much more likely to engage with the fun brands.

Is Wired Internet Access Always the Best Option?

As wireless technology is pushed more and more actively upon us, some people have started to question its long-term potential due to its current state. And while it’s true that wireless can be a bit unreliable in some situations right now, especially when talking about mobile solutions like 3G and LTE, it’s sometimes the most appropriate option in terms of expenses involved when there is nothing else available in that particular area.

Sometimes, it’s simply logistically unfeasible to run a wired connection to a specific location, and in those cases, it’s good to know what your options are and what type of Internet coverage will work best for your area.

Wired

A wired connection is almost always the best option when the location allows for it, and it’s not hard to recognize the benefits. You will often get unlimited data and other great extras that are normally very expensive on most wireless contracts, and speaking of price, wired access tends to be the cheapest option in many cases.

However, it can also tie you down to a specific place if you don’t want to run an additional wireless router, and this is not always ideal when you want to do some work on the go.

Satellite

A satellite connection has the benefit of working pretty much everywhere in the world, but the benefits more or less end there. Other than its great accessibility, you won’t get too much out of a satellite contract. You’ll have to deal with constant reliability issues, and your speeds won’t be very impressive at all. On top of that, satellite access can be prohibitively expensive in some areas.

But, when you have no other option, this can still work in terms of providing you with a reliable access point that can fulfill the requirements of your daily work.

Mobile

Mobile access is becoming more and more accessible, and while the coverage is great in most cases, the speeds and prices usually aren’t. You’ll typically be very restricted in what you can do online, and streaming videos every day is pretty much out of the question unless you want to pay hundreds.

Some mobile providers tend to be restrictive in what kind of content you can access on their networks too, so you may find the situation to be very unfavorable if you want to do some regular browsing on a daily basis.

Fixed Wireless

Last but not least, fixed wireless is a great option if you want to combine the flexibility of a wireless connection with the reliability of a wired one. It may not always work depending on where you need it, but if you live in a suitable area covered by a good internet provider, you should find fixed wireless to be the best alternative to other wireless solutions.

Prices tend to be very good on this market too, so you shouldn’t have to worry about spending too much money on your investment, while you’ll be able to enjoy your strong connection for a very long time in the near future. There are some great predictions for the development of fixed wireless services, and it will be interesting to see if they play out.

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