8 Critical Elements Every Website Homepage Must Have

Are you thinking of creating a website for your business? Since it is the best way to reach your potential customers, you have to be very particular about its various aspects. Your visitor's buying decision should be triggered after visiting your website. Your website design and features should grab the attention of the visitors so that they spend more time there.

 

Since homepage is the first page which will pop up when a visitor visits your website, make sure it has all the important elements intact. Your homepage should summarize your business in a nutshell. Designing the homepage of your website in the best possible way is a must for your business marketing. Listed below are some of the most significant factors which should be considered before creating the homepage for your website.

1. Use Attractive Headlines

Instead of over-stuffing your homepage with content, use relevant and catchy headlines. Remember that you have got less than 15 seconds to impress your visitors. Go for attractive and catchy headlines which will engage your users. Your headlines should be captivating enough to ensure that your visitors will visit your website again and again.

2. Give Short Descriptions

Your headlines can attract your visitors but you will need description to keep them glued to your homepage. The homepage has got less space and many things have to be integrated so go for a short descriptions. Add short description about the products below each headline to help your potential customer take a buying decision. You can convert your visitors into customers by description.

3. Provide Easy Navigation

Your visitors will stick to your website if you will provide them with an easy navigation. Since you cannot integrate everything on the homepage, you will have to make your visitors go for other pages as well. Try to make the navigation within your website as easy as it can be. Your users should not face any problem while surfing different pages of your website.

4. Integrate Direction Indicators

A good homepage should have the proper indicators to guide your visitor to their favourite page. Being the owner of your website, you would certainly like your visitors to visit certain pages first. Make sure that your visitors move to those specific pages first and then to other pages. Use arrows to guide your user throughout your website.

5. Incorporate Social Media Buttons

In today's world the impact and utility of social media is phenomenal. By incorporating different social media buttons, you can connect with millions of people around the globe. You should use social site buttons on your homepage. Once clicked these buttons should redirect your visitors to the profile pages of your business. You can get direct feedback from customers for improvement.

6. Show Testimonials and Awards

It is always better to show your achievements and appreciation on the homepage. You can use testimonials and awards as a useful marketing tool to promote your business. Positive feedbacks and prizes makes you more credible in the eyes of customers. Your past happy and satisfied customers can bring you new customers with their words of appreciation on your homepage.

7. Proper Call to Action

Any website without proper call to action will not serve its purpose. Your homepage should use call to action. If you want to use your homepage as an effective marketing tool for your business, call to action is a must. Your visitors might get confused without call to action and leave your page. Use call to action if you do not want to lose any valuable customer for your business.

8. Relevant Images and Videos

If you want to use your website's homepage as a marketing tool, images and videos can help you in a significant way. Your images and videos are going to convey things in a detailed and easy way. Your visitors will find it easy to connect with the images than the content on your homepage. Use images and videos to connect to your visitors in an interesting and engaging way.

Top 10 Elements of a Great Website

Being a business owner, the most important thing that matters to you is your business website. It is a medium to get more clients for your business which is your ultimate aim. Since your website is of utmost importance for your business, proper analysis should be done before creating it. There are certain factors which separates a great website from a good one. Listed below are ten most important elements which can make your website a great one. 

 

1. Easy Navigation

User-friendly navigation should be used to help your users while surfing your website. Easy accessibility should be there to facilitate users from one page to the other. Use a sitemap to facilitate both the user and search engines experience to get you higher ranking. You should strike the right cord by going for the interactive menu and not the annoying one.

2. Perfect Visual Design

You just have 1/10th of a second to impress your visitor when they visit your website. Nice graphics and proper visual representation could be used to draw and engage them. Use a visual design which will be appropriate and not too much. Use scrolling text, animation and flash intros only when required to emphasize on a point for maximum effect.

3. Relevant Content

Content is and will always be the king for your website. Your visitors will be glued to your website if you will give them fresh, unique and relevant information. The text on your website should be concise and easy to read to make it user-friendly in every aspect. Right content will make your website more engaging, popular and effective.

4. Be Web Friendly

Being web-friendly is the most important element of any website. Make sure that the developers take a note that your website runs smoothly on all major browsers. Proper implementation of SEO with all the tags and meta description is required to get a better ranking. Do not forget to incorporate all the necessary factors which will affect your website's ranking and performance.

5. Maximum Interaction

Your website should be interactive and should hold the attention of your visitors. All the pages in your website should be highly engaging, influencing your visitors to contact you. Better interaction will lead to more conversion which is every site's ultimate goal. You can go for maximum interaction but do not go for annoyance as it will work as customer's repellent.

6. Provide Information Accessibility

Do not be under the delusion that your customers are having a lot of time for searching your contact information. Make sure that you have your contact information and details on your website main page so that your visitors can contact you. Easy accessibility of all the relevant information is the key to keep your visitors happy.

7. Focus on being Intuitive

You can win over your customers by providing them exactly what they are looking for. Create an intuitive website so that your visitors can get everything they need. Do not make your website unnecessarily complex and think about the feasibility of your customers. Creating the most relevant website for your visitors should be your aim as it will bring you more business.

8. Help Yourself in Branding

Your website should be a replica of your physical company, if any. You should make sure that it shows your brand logo and other important information. Your visitors should relate to your company by looking at your website. It will add to the credibility of your business. Customers wants to deal with a reliable company with all informations intact.

9 Fastest Turnaround Time

Your site speed is one of the main reason why your customers could switch to your competitors. The upload time of your website should be minimum to attract more visitors. Make sure that your website get loaded within few seconds. The longer your website will take to load itself, the more customers you will lose. Create a super fast website to get maximum business.

10. Top Conversion Ratio

Customers visiting your website is important but conversion is also equally important. You should integrate everything in your website which will make customers go for it. Try to increase your customer base by including all the latest advancements and technology. Include all the necessary tools which will help you in increasing the conversion ratio of your website.

12 Ways Your Website is Driving Customers Away

Having a business website is the need of the hour in this competitive world but does it serve its purpose every time? Having a website should not be your ultimate aim, you should target at attracting maximum web traffic. Gaining more viewers will ultimately bring more business for you. Capturing viewer's attention and engaging them is a tough job in hand and should be properly handled.

There are many reasons why your website could work as a customer repellent. You should make sure that your website does not include any feature which can drive your customers away. Your visitors should not be left disappointed after visiting your website. These are the main reasons why your website could drive your customers away. Take proper measures to manage these features so that your visitors flock towards your website. 

 

1. Musically Incorrect

Unwanted and disruptive music can ruin your customer's whole experience. It can ruin the mood of the visitors and piss them off leading them to leave your website. Do not go for rude and unpleasant music as it will surely annoy your visitors.

2. Too Flashy

Using heavy images and a lot of flash items will increase the load time of your website. A website which takes a lot of time to upload will never attract visitors. The purpose of your website should be to give information and not to entertain your customers. Avoid flash and heavy images.

3. No Unnecessary Pop-ups

Pop-ups are the absolutely last thing which your visitors would love. Whenever a visitor surf your website, he should not be forced to deal with pop-ups. There might be a possibility that it increases your click-through rates but it should not be over-used.

4. Avoid Walking Ads

Quite similar to pop-ups, advertisements too annoy your visitors. Do not go for disruptive, inconsiderate and annoying ads as it can irritate your visitors. Try to make a good impression when someone visits your site so avoid ads as it is definitely not the way to it.

5. Show Contact Info

Do not believe that your customers are having a lot of time and they will willingly waste it on searching for your contact information. Display your contact details properly and on the main page itself so that customers can find it easily.

6. Stop being Mysterious

Use content which is easy to find and understand by your visitors. Your visitors will not be amused by your mysterious way of displaying your information. Be straight and to-the-point while presenting your content in your website.

7. For the User's Convenience

Your website should be designed in such a way that it facilitates your user while using it. Use easy to understand content and interface so that your user will love it. All your pages and features should complement each other so that user finds himself at ease while visiting your website.

8. Never Go for Black Backgrounds

Make sure that the background you use for your website co-ordinates with the text color. Background color like black or grey makes it almost impossible to read the text. Choose a background color which does not hurt your eyes while reading the content.

9. Legible and Readable Text

Select a font size which is easily readable by your visitors. Proper font and typeface is very important for making your website visitor's pet. Legible and readable content will attract more web traffic which will ultimately increase your revenues.

10. Content Delivery

There will be many visitors who would like to read the blogs and other information as per their convenience. You can make your customers happy by giving them an option to import the content in their email. Export the content in your customer's email inbox to satisfy them.

11. Easy Search for User

Your website should take into consideration the search feature. Your user should be provided with the option of search to make his navigation easy. Integrate an easy-to-locate or easy-to-use search button to help your user whenever he visits your website.

12. Be Socially Active

Social-site activation is a must if you want your website to become popular among your customers. These social sites like facebook, linkedin and twitter can help you popularize your website among visitors. There is a huge community which can be tapped with the help of these social sites.

7 Crucial Things Your Website Might Be Missing

The first and foremost thing that matters for your business in this competitive world is a website. Without a business website, it is very tough to survive and grow with so much competition all around. Having a website is not good enough, you will also have to make sure that it functions well. You have to see that search engines shows you on the first page of SERP. 

  

Search Engine Optimization is the most important factor for your website. It is the reason why your website will be more available or unavailable to your visitors on the search engines. Below mentioned are seven most important tactics which can be followed to gain a higher rank and more traffic.

1. Unique & Relevant Content:- Nothing can be compared with the importance of content for a website. Even if you have the latest features and best design, your website will not become visitor's favorite unless you have the right content. Try to give your visitors relevant, fresh and unique content so that they come looking for it again and again. Your website will become a visitor magnet if you will have the most sought after information on your website.

2. Use Important Keywords:- Keywords used in your website's content is of utmost importance. Use the keywords which are maximum searched by your visitors. Do not over-stuff your website with keywords rather sprinkle it uniformly throughout the pages of the website. If you have selected the most searched keywords for your website, you are most likely to generate web traffic and also get a higher rank for your website.

3. Importance of Links:- Both inbound and outbound links are very important for higher ranking of your website. Linking to other websites and getting links back from them is a simple and useful measure to increase your site's ranking. Link building is very important for gaining the trust of your visitors and search engines as well. Search engines rank your site on the basis of the number and kind of links you are getting for your website.

4. Site should be Superfast:- One of the main reason for your visitors to switch to your competitors is your site speed. Your website should not take much time in loading. High resolution images and flash elements should be avoided to decrease the loading time of your website. Make sure that your web hosts are not having hosting issues which can also affect your site speed. If you want to gain more visitors and get a higher rank by search engines, make sure that your website is fast.

5. Social Media Involvement:- Your website should be present on maximum social media sites in order to generate more traffic. A huge chunk of your actual and potential customers are present on these sites so you can tap them from there. Search engines give a lot of importance to likes, comments, share, etc while ranking your website. Increase your friends, followers and shares to increase your community to stand out from your competitors.

6. Use more Call-To-Action (CTA):- If your website is not using proper call-to-action buttons, you might lose the much needed traffic. Use all the proper CTA so that your users are guided properly while using the website. Use clear commands like “Call us now!”, “Request a Demo” or “Buy Now” so that your visitors can easily select what they are looking for.

7. Use Analytics Tools:- Proper use of various analytics tools will allow you to track and manage your visitors. Analyzing your visitors data will give you various inputs for the relevant changes that should be made. The kind of visitors coming, total time spent by them and other important insights will give you tips to make changes in your website. Visitor's behavior can give you important traits on which you should be working to attract more traffic.

10 Reasons Why Your Business Should Have a Website

It is never easy to run a business in this highly competitive world. There are bound to be many ups and downs during the course of business and you should be ready to tackle everything. Do not go for shortcuts while creating a robust online presence for your business. Making yourself visible on the internet is the key to gain maximum web traffic. Listed below are some of the most important reasons why you should have a website for your business. 

 

1. Make Your First Impression Count

Your customers are the most informed lot, all thanks to easy accessibility of internet. Make yourself visible on search engines so that they can get information about you. Try to attract them with the best first impression on the internet. Your website will help them get reviews about you before they can visit your shop. Your online presence can make a lot of difference.

2. Compete with Your Competition

Your competitor is always upfront to take an edge over you. Do not give them a chance to outsmart you by failing to have your business website. Do not lose business to your competitors who are taking the advantage of a great web design. Create your business website and make your site popular among your customers.

3. Make Yourself Available 24*7, 365 days 

 

By having a business website, you can cater to maximum customers around the globe at any point of time. Global customers can visit you according to their time which might be unusual for you. Business website will give you an opportunity to target these customers 24*7 and 365 days a year. Online presence will make it convenient for both you and your customer.

4. Cater to Global Customers

As said above, World has become a globalized village due to the advent of internet. You can serve to the needs of customers from a distant place if you are available online. Creating your own website will help you come in contact with these distant global customers. You can turn your local business into a global one with a website directed towards serving customers worldwide.

5. Better Customer Service for Customer Loyalty

You can cater to the needs and requirements of your customers more effectively with a business website. You can reply to your customer's queries and get their instant suggestions and feedbacks. Your customers can place an order or send a query without being concerned about the time. Connect with your consumers to understand them better and serve them in the best way.

6. Create a Professional Image

Having a specific business website speaks volume about the professional approach of your brand. Your customers will have a better image about your business, if you will have a strong online presence through a website. A well-designed website can instill faith and confidence in the mind of your visitors. Help your business build its professional brand image by creating a website for it.

7. Most Effective and Efficient Advertiser

Your business website is your best advertiser which promotes your product or service in the most effective way. Website is your best promotional tool which works for the popularity of your business among your visitors. It is your electronic brochure which can be easily updated and designed according to the requirement of the business.

8. Know Your Customer to Get More Leads

You can use your website to collect various information about your valuable customers. Through several forms and surveys, you can gather important inputs for your business. Many a times these information gives you lead about the actual and potential customers. You can create a stronger and healthier bond with your customer with the help of a website.

9. Fast Service for More Popularity

In this fast moving world, people are too busy to wait for a product or service. In order to gain their trust, you have to be always present for them. With a beautiful and professional website, you can give your customers everything they want. A business website can offer all the information to your visitors at one go and at any given time.

10. No Growth without A Website

Even imagining a popular business without a website in this market scenario is tough. You will miss more than only your customers if you will not have a website. Having a website is not good enough, having a well-designed professional website should be your aim. Create a website which is effective and integrates all the features to make it a hit among your customers.

Top 10 Reasons To Opt Drupal For Your E-commerce Website

Since you have decided to take a plunge in the e-commerce industry, you need to choose your CMS wisely as it is the platform on which your online store will thrive. If you want to have an edge over your competitors, you should choose nothing but the best. Since there are various free CMS available on for internet, you have to be careful while selecting one for your business website. Drupal is one such CMS which is robust and fully customizable to give you the best online store. It provides the best e-commerce website experience to your visitors. Listed below are 10 top reasons why Drupal has an edge over other CMS.

Flexible Payment Modes Available

The one thing which makes most of the online shoppers cautious is the payment for their shopping. You should provide flexible payment options to cater to different needs of the customers. Thanks to Drupal, you can provide the customers with everything they need in a professional online store. Let them choose payment modes freely and easily through the various payment gateways on your site.

Option To Set Versatile Price Slabs   

Your customer base will not be limited to a particular country, design an E-commerce website which will cater to the needs of customers all over the globe. Drupal helps you tap customers worldwide by designing a different price policy for different customers. You can set sundry price slabs depending on the location, packing and item weight.

Product Description                    

You should highlight your most popular and distinct product in the most exclusive way. You can easily highlight your most distinct product with Drupal to get the better insights of customers about your products online. This will help you uplift the service quotient enabling you to present your products in the most professional manner.

Security is Unbreachable   

Drupal helps you to design the most secured pages which will make your e-commerce more protected. If you have installed SSL certification on your website then securing your online store will be very easy for you. Drupal helps in enhancing the functionality of your website depending on the module that you are using for your website.

Easy To Control various Analytics       

Managing and controlling the entire e-commerce website will be very easy with Drupal. It provides single system making it easier to control SEO, conversion rate optimization (CRO) and website analytics. You can manage and control your website with much ease and comfort. With such easy backend control, your online store will never trouble you as far as managing it is concerned.

Community Feature to help                

The huge community which supports this CMS helps you to manage and run your online store effectively. Even your customers can manage some of the features and make them more user-friendly. Through various community and forums available you can add maximum customers in your loop without any creating any hassle for your valued customers.

External Systems Integration   

With Drupal, you can extend your functionality by integrating RESTful API to your platform if you require it for better functioning of your online store. With this unique feature, you can give your users every reason to visit you again. Also with feeds module feature you can import content from other systems without facing any problem.

Management Tools            

Various order management tools which comes integrated with Drupal allows you to manage, update and view all the orders that has been placed on your e-commerce website. Tracking order and controlling any discrepancy will help you build the trust of your customers. With Drupal you can also send update notifications from your website.

No Need to Spend Anything

The best part about Drupal is its professionalism offered at no cost. There is no concept of premium plugins for which you need to shell out extra as in case of Wordpress and Magento. Since it comes free does not mean Drupal is less worthy in any way, infact it is better in more than many ways from other CMS present in the market. You can get the best without paying anything.

WYSIWYG Manager

The WYSIWYG editorial manager will give you many reasons to add it to your website. This one-of-its kind manager powered by Drupal will help you in managing your site easily. You can represent all your e-commerce payment settings and contacts. You just have to change the settings according to your business requirements and you will be ready to use it.

Top 12 Reasons to consider Joomla as your CMS

Are you planning to create your own website? The first step towards creating it would be choosing the right CMS. There are many factors which should be considered before going for your content management system. Factors like cost, quality, flexibility and management are some of the key elements which should be taken seriously if you are planning to go for CMS. Though there are many CMS present in the market which might be alluring at first sight, there are very few which are winner on all the parameters.

Joomla is one such CMS which has everything what it takes to become the most extensive and comprehensive website development platform. Being developed on PHP language, it uses MySQL to store data. It allows users to easily put their content on the website as being an open source it works on template system. Though there are many reasons which makes Joomla the best CMS, listed below are the top 12 reasons which will make you fall for it as your CMS.

1.Free Open Source

As it is an Open Source Platform, Joomla boasts of being the most cost-effective website development platform. It is free to download and customize according to your business requirements. You can easily modify the codes and and make it suitable for your website. Since the initial cost involved is very less, Joomla is preferred over other CMS.

2. Fast Loading of Site

One of the most common reason for your visitors to go to your competitor could be your slow website. Your visitors are more likely to visit you if your website load time is really less. With its powerful core features, Joomla can make your website really fast. You can make your visitors love your website by providing them with fastest website developed on Joomla.

3. Easy to Install and Use

There is no need to spend your hard earned money on web experts while developing your website. You can easily handle the installation and setup of your website. With joomla it will not be more than 15 minutes to install and work on your site. If you are still worried about it, you can go for “one click installation” and get everything done within the shortest span of time.

4. Larger Applicability

The best part about Joomla is the wide utility it provides. You can design a website for anything ranging from news portals to recruitment sites. Joomla will give you liberty to design a website for any nature of business you are dealing with. The kind of diversity it provides as far as usage is concerned is phenomenal and will give you every reason to prefer it over others CMS.

5. Multilingual

Do not get bogged down by the language barrier. With its multilingual feature and cosmopolitan system, Joomla is here to give you a much bigger market. You can choose from Hebrew, Catalan, French, Portuguese, Spanish and many other languages. Joomla makes sure that you do not lose any customer due to language barrier.

6. No Security Issue

If you are using Joomla, feel relaxed about the security and privacy of your website. It has features which can limit the accessibility till the authorized user allows to do so. Your visitors cannot simply get access just by typing the URL in the address bar, they will have to get the permission from the respective user if has been checked for some security reasons.

7. Community for Support

There is a big community of developers and designers behind Joomla, so you can get all your issues resolved quickly. It is backed by the principle of sharing and thus members contribute their time, knowledge and skills for others. This all-time support from various community and furums will help you solve all problems pertaining to your website.

8. Stunning Template for attractive Design

Nothing strikes your visitors while visiting your website than a striking design. You can get access to more than 8000 extensions(plugins) allowing you to design the most attractive website for your business. Choose the best template which creates the best impression and expand the functionality of your website with all the latest features and elements integrated in it.

9. Relocation made Easy

With Joomla, relocation of your website to a different developer is very easy and simple. Since coding is written in the most professional and precise way, you will face no problem in shifting your server also. Relocation can be done to other developer without any bugs and to a different server without any anomalies.

10. Interactive Admin Area for better Control

With an intuitive admin area, you can manage your website with ease and comfort. Even if you are a beginner in the field, you can easily handle your website. The backend process has been made super easy for you to get the best admin control. Multiple navigation tools and WYSIWIG editor are integrated to make you feel more powerful as an controller of your website.

11. Responsive Design

Resposive design is the need of the hour, Joomla helps you create a responsive design for your website. Your website can operate and function well on all sized devices. With more and more people using smartphones, Joomla makes sure that you do not lose your potential customers. Your website will function effectively on all hand-held devices be it smartphones or tablets.

12. Updating is Simple

Since a lot of people are working continuosly on the upgradation and improvement of Joomla, it is always in allignment with the latest technology. You will get the most advanced and latest features and attributes integrated in your website at regulat intervals. Joomla can be updated with just one-click and makes you untroubled about the technology you are using.

10 Reasons to consider WordPress as the best CMS for Startups

Wordpress has taken a giant leap from where it has started. Used mainly as a blogging platform it has gradually become the most sought after content management system. It has emerged as the most popular website development platform specially among the startup businesses. Small businesses or startups are attracted towards it mainly because it is free, efficient and offers many features with no maintenance costs. With time, Wordpress has become one-stop solution for high quality and effective website building. Being able to cater to the needs of all size of businesses has made wordpress the most popular content management system in today's scenario. 

 

Though there are many reasons which are instrumental in making Wordpress the most popular content management system, the top 10 reasons are listed below. These are the main reasons why small and start-up business have chosen it as their website building platform.

1. Quick and easy installation

Installing and using Wordpress is like a cakewalk.. Most of the wordpress hosts offer a one-click install service. Even if it is not one-click install, the manual install will also be very easy to process. This easy installation has made Wordpress a frontrunner as it enables the user to understand the website set-up in case it is needed in the future.

2. Most Cost effective for any user

The main reason why small businesses are considering Wordpress as their website creation platform is its cost-effectiveness. It is absolutely free, the only thing which will cost you something is the domain name and hosting package. From the initial package you can monetize Wordpress through adverts and e-commerce according to the size of your business. 

 

3. Content can be Managed easily 

You can select the different attributes of the websites easily. Various themes and plugins can be chosen after proper understanding and installation. The intricate code and the HTML text is very easy on on your eyes and do not force you to get bogged down. The features and attributes are designed to suit user on every account. 

 

4. Maximum Customization Possible

Wordpress allows you the maximum customization as it comes loaded with hundreds of features and plugins. You can design a tailor-made website of your own which exactly suits your needs and requirements. All the features are created exclusively to save your time, provide great functionality and also SEO compatible.

5. Worldwide Community and Forum support

Since it is an open source CMS, there are many community and support forum for you as a beginner. You will get frequent free Wordpress updates to ensure that all your security and bug issues are resolved. Since so many people are associated with each other on the forum, be rest assured that someone is always there to help you come out of any problem.

6. Fit for All

As said earlier Wordpress is no longer considered as just a blogging platform, it has evolved itself into an effective CMS for website creation. It has emerged as the most popular website development platforms for all size of businesses. Wordpress has become most popular among small business start-ups who wants to grow without spending too much on their site development. 

 

7. Constant Improvements to keep you Upfront

The most unique thing about Wordpress which sets it apart is its constant-evolving nature. Since it is open to general public it always offers a scope of improvement and upgradation. Various communities and social forums are active giving innumerable inputs and insights to improve the performance and functionality of your website.

8. Management made Super-Easy

Wordpress has enabled even the beginner to use and manage his website in the most prolific manner. Creating and editing content has been made super easy to allow the best user experience. The most simple and easy interface has allowed you to add new pages, images and videos so fast that you can save your time for promoting your website.

9. Responsive Website

Apart from giving all the latest updates to keep you parallel with your competitors, Wordpress also help you create responsive websites. Your website should function well on all the devices on which it is opened. Wordpress comes mobile-ready so that you can maximise your website's accessibility through tablets and smartphones.

10. Great future Ahead

As said it has come a long way from merely a blogging site development platform to becoming the CMS which caters to more than 60% of the websites. From giants like Ford to small business startups it has served its purpose well. The popularity and robustness of Wordpress can be judged from the fact that more than 22% of all the websites present on web are built on wordpress.