The Importance of Redesigning Your Website

The Importance of Redesigning Your Website

Redesigning a website takes time and money, but in the end a revamp is a wise investment. Your website is essentially a virtual business card, and your strongest online marketing tool.

https://fueled.com/tech-industry/fueled-website-development/

Whether you’re looking for the best web development in LA or revamping in NYC, make the most of business by keeping your website fresh, up-to-date, and user-friendly.

Outdated

The Web is constantly changing: Web technology that was once considered cutting-edge is most likely out-of-date today. A website makeover will give you and your business an advantage in the competitive, online sphere..

In fact, design is a leading factor in user trust. According to a study titled, “Trust and Mistrust of Online Health Sites,” 94 percent of the participants agreed that an updated, better looking website is more trustworthy than an outdated design, even if the information displayed on both is accurate and of equal quality.

Usability

If your readers are unable to find what they’re looking for quickly, they will leave. To prevent visitors from clicking on competitor sites, it’s important to ensure that your website design is user-friendly. Ultimately, users shouldn’t have a problem with navigating the site or finding your contact information. The best designs feel intuitive: try to capture this element when redesigning your site and you’ll have an excellent web marketing tool at your disposal. 

Social Media

Most websites have a social media bar or plugin – if your company site is missing a social feature, then you’re probably ranking below your competitors. By including a social network bar on your page, users will be able to tweet, share, or pin your content, giving you and your business free and easy advertising. This feature also increase brand loyalty as customers are able to engage with your company on a whole new level.

Rebranding

If your company has recently undergone rebranding, you’ll need to update your design to reflect your new marketing strategy. Rebranding includes more than a fancy new logo and color scheme to match –rebranding also requires updated content.

In addition, if your site’s purpose has changed or your business’ identity has taken a turn, then the layout should correspond to your new goals.

Mobile-Friendly

As mobile usage grows so does web app development, it’s important to ensure that your site can be viewed on a variety of devices, including tablets, smartphones, laptops, and desktops. By optimizing your new site for mobile, you’re guaranteed to reach a larger audience than you would with a website that is not mobile-friendly. 

Additionally, recent algorithm changes from Google that were announced in 2015 underscore the importance of mobile-optimization: websites not formatted for mobile will appear lower in the search results than those that are mobile-ready.

Website redesign can be intimidating, but partnering with an experienced design firm will not only speed up the process, but will relieve any technology-related stress you may have. It’s also important to note that the term “redesign” doesn’t necessarily mean you should change every aspect of your site. In fact, a website redesign could entail simple changes, such as making functional modifications (e.g. mobile responsiveness). 

 

Content in Web Design

Once a visitor is a customer, it’s important to keep them coming back. The work doesn’t stop after the initial website launch, and any good web design company will help you understand the other factors for success, like engaging content. Posting fresh, relevant information on your website will ensure your site improves SEO while driving new and returning traffic.

https://fueled.com/tech-industry/fueled-website-development/

Keep Visitors Coming Back With Engaging Content

When it comes to web marketing, content is king. Engaging content can include anything from infographics, to videos, to opinion posts.

An infographic is one of the most basic ways to present information in a visual way; hence the name, info + graphic. Infographics are statistically proven to drive views faster than other types of content and are a powerful way to get your information out in a simple, visual format. In fact, studies show that infographics are shared and liked on social networks up to three times more often than other content.

Cater to Your Specific Audience to Drive Traffic to Your Site

There are three important factors to consider when driving traffic to your site:

Jargon – keep your target audience in mind when creating the content for your site. Speaking the same language of your customers will keep your audience comfortable and engaged.

Content – your readers want interesting content, which means self-promotion should be kept at a minimum. Visitors are more likely to return to a site if the content is fun and unique. Photos, videos, and customer testimonials are a few ways to keep your business relevant.

Communication – sending out a newsletter is a great way to build a relationship with your visitors. Newsletters offer information on products and industry news.

Ensure That Your Content is Organized

Customized landing pages increase customer engagement and create segmentation for your website, making the entire user experience more enjoyable. For example, if you sell products, it would be a good idea to feature products based on what customers previously purchased. An easy way to feature products is to incorporate the “AddThis Targeting Audiences” overlay to your website.

If you run a marketing campaign, you should create a landing page specifically for that campaign to boost traffic. For example, Zulily runs targeted social media campaigns for themed sales with custom landing pages.

Another way to drive traffic is to organize your content in chronological order, so visitors will know that the content they’re viewing is relevant and new. You should also keep popular content up front – having a section that features “What’s Popular” will make users feel as though you have a large audience. 

Your job isn’t done after your website is designed, developed, and launched. Having original content on your site that is updated frequently is one of the easiest and best tools for successful web marketing.

H1, H2 & H3 Title Tags are Important?

H1, H2 & H3 Title Tags are Important?

It recommend using H2 tag as subheadings to further help readers/bloggers/geeks/bookworms that scan content blocks. The H1 tag is the title, H2 tag provide major points within the page, H3 tag are used as a paragraph header - all summarizing subsequent content. It helps to provide a structured approach to your content for readers as well as contextual keys for search engines.

H2, H3 tags fall under the "hundreds of little details" category. You may see a minor change in changing your H2 tag to specific keyword-based subheadings, but you most likely will not see a drastic improvement. However, that is what a lot of on-page SEO is: lots of minor details that just add up.

Summary: It's correct - not a BIG issue, but all those details ADD UP UPON  PASS TIME.

Yandex.Direct and Google AdWords compared

By Alytics Director of Development Alexander Egorov, special to East-West Digital News / Jul 16, 2014

The Russian search engine marketing (SEM) market is unique and, to a large extent, different from the SEM-markets of other countries. The main difference lies in the fact that most of the search traffic is concentrated on the local search engine Yandex.
According to various estimates, Yandex’s share of search engine traffic in Russia ranges from 60% to 65%, while the share of Google, its closest follower, is about 25%. Thus, the main competition in the SEM market unfolds between the content providers Yandex.Direct and Google AdWords. In terms of functionality, these systems have differences.

• Ad formats

Both systems place text ads but with different restrictions. The header length on Yandex.Direct can be no longer than 33 characters, while Google AdWords allows for 25. The length of text ads is limited to 75 characters on Yandex.Direct and to two lines 35 word long lines on AdWords. The average length of words in Russian is longer than in English.Long titles and texts characterize Yandex.Direct as being a system that suits the peculiarities of the Russian language better and is more adapted for the Russian market.
In 2013, Yandex introduced another ad format that is different from the Google AdWords formats. For advertisements that are placed on partner sites of Yandex’s advertising network (called YAN), it is now possible to add images. The main feature of this format is that it can be added for remarketing ads, which undoubtedly greatly increases their effectiveness.

• Usability and flexibility

Yandex.Direct system has a relatively simple and intuitive interface. Its simplicity makes it more popular among Russian advertisers, especially those whose experiences in contextual advertising are relatively weak. However, for experienced advertisers, AdWords is a more user-friendly system that provides important tools for mass editing, flexible configuration, and quick optimization. All of these features make AdWords more attractive and very popular among advertisers with thousands, and even tens of thousands of ads and keyword phrases.

• Manage advertising display position

Yandex Direct shows each advertiser the recommended rates for taking up a specific position in the contextual landscape that allows an advertiser to at least get the right ad block. Google AdWords does not give this opportunity to be in a requested position. This factor is an issue for Russian advertisers when dealing with AdWords.

• Advertising networks

The major sources of traffic for both systems are their own search engines. However, both systems have a network of partner sites. The ad networks of both systems also includes a variety of content-based, news, entertainment, and business sites. In addition, Yandex.Direct shows up in the results of search engine portals Mail.ru and Rambler, which traditionally are third and fourth place in terms of search traffic.
The size and quality of these networks is difficult to compare objectively, but they can be compared on the flexibility of settings and placement targeting. Google AdWords offers more targeting options such as remarketing, targeting by user interest, targeting by site category, and targeting by keyword. Yandex offers the following targeting capabilities: retargeting, targeting by keyword, and targeting by user interest. However, it is impossible to control the interests, as they are automatically matched to the selected keywords. Yandex does not give a choice of partners for ad placement, while Google allows this. The format of ads placed on partner networks also differ. Yandex.Direct allows you to place text ads or text and image ads (ads with a picture), while Google AdWords allows you to place text ads, and banner ads in various formats, as well as promotional videos on Youtube.

• Competition and cost-per-click

Having the largest share of the search market makes Yandex.Direct more attractive to advertisers than Google AdWords. Today, according to experts, the number of advertisers is over 350,000. Therefore, it is generally believed that competition on Yandex.Direct is greater and fast growth bid in many niches. As a result, cost-per-click (CPC) for Yandex.Direct in higher on average than for Google AdWords.

• Management conversions and CPA

Every year Russian advertisers become more “advanced” and it is necessary to manage not only the placement of advertising, but also its economic returns. AdWords for many years now gives advertisers a tool that enables them to manage conversions with reference to CPA. Yandex has not yet provided anything like this. At the end of 2013, Yandex Direct finally released a similar tool, which allows the setting of weekly budgets and a desired target price action. Comparing the two tools is of course difficult. It can only be added that experts say the Yandex tool provides a significant impact on contextual media campaigns.

• Availability API for third-party developers

The growth of Internet penetration in Russia and the fact that Russia has become the European country with the largest number of Internet users have resulted in the growth of keyword queries on search engines. This makes large advertisers develop their own applications for context systems for the automation various processes via API. Yandex.Direct API is open to virtually anyone, while Google AdWords accepts only large advertisers with high turnover and a payment history of no less than six months. In addition, advertisers are forced to undergo a certification process of their applications for the Google AdWords API, which is certainly a barrier.

• Automation

The Russian contextual advertising market continues to grow at a rapid pace, which is resulting in a more complex environment for its management and control. Such a situation is driving the development of the automation advertising market in Russia. The period of 2013-2014 is marked by the advent of various automation systems. It is also worth noting the appearance of Russian startups in the segment, such as Alytics; the increased competition from foreign players like Marin Software and Adobe AdLens; and a change in strategy among market veterans, characterized by a round of new investments into the platform eLama.

• Discount policy

Yandex.Direct has a special Discount policy for regular customers with large advertising budgets. The discounts can be as high as 23%. Google AdWords does not offer discounts to its customers.

*

Summing up the comparison of the two systems, there are several key points. Yandex.Direct is a leader in search engine traffic. Google AdWords provides more sophisticated and advanced tools for settings and targeting. Competition on Yandex.Direct is more intense than on Google AdWords. It is worth noting that, despite the many differences between the systems over the past few years, they approach each other and inevitably become more like each other. This trend will continue in the future, while each player will hope to come up with something unique to strengthen his position and push out his competitor.
Alexander Egorov is the Director of Development for the smart content platform Alytics. He is also an expert on CPA-campaigns and effective online media, and a consultant for CPA-contextual advertising campaigns. He has more than 9 years of experience in integrated online marketing (including to some degree within CPA and ROI) and contextual advertising campaigns for: Price.ru, Credit Bank of Moscow, Aeroflot Airlines, Tour Operators Pegas, DSBW and TezTour, Svyaznoy Bank, Saxo Bank, Central Department Store, MIAN, publisher Ferra, and the Finn Flare store.
This article is an excerpt from a comprehensive research study on Russian e-commerce and online marketing channels by East-West Digital News. To receive an executive summary at no charge please contact report@ewn.com. 

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Topics:

Analysis, E-marketing & advertising, Internet, Search engines & SEO

What does blueprint download stand for?

Blueprints are a series of documents that together describe the content and structure of an assessment. These documents define the total number of tasks and/or items for any given assessment component, the standards measured, the item types, and the point values for each.

Recomiendo Leer esta Carta.

Querido Optimista, pesimista y realista....

Mientras estabais ocupados discutiendo sobre el plato de comida.

Me lo comi !!

Saludos Cordiales,

El Oportunista.

CMS, Content Management System

Knowledge Center

CMS Comparison: Drupal, Joomla and Wordpress

• Article ID: 1052
• Last updated on April 4, 2013
• Authored by: Rackspace Support

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If creating a website for your business is on the horizon, you may be wondering which content management system (CMS) is the best choice for you. Here’s a look at three of the most widely-used ones. All three are open-source software, each developed and maintained by a community of thousands. Not only are all three free to download and use, but the open-source format means that the platform is continuously being improved to support new Internet technologies. With all of these systems, basic functions can be enhanced ad infinitum with an ever-expanding array of add-ons, contributed from their respective communities.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution here; it depends on your goals, technical expertise, budget and what you need your site to do. For a simple blog or brochure-type site, Wordpress could be the best choice (while very friendly for non-developers, it’s a flexible platform also capable of very complex sites). For a complex, highly customized site requiring scalability and complex content organization, Drupal might be the best choice. For something in between that has an easier learning curve, Joomla may be the answer.
When you have questions or need help, will you be able to find it easily? With all of these systems, the answer is yes. Each has passionate, dedicated developer and user communities, making it easy to find free support directly through their websites or through other online forums or even books. In addition, paid support is readily available from third-party sources, such as consultants, developers and designers. Each of these systems shows long-term sustainability and longevity; support for them will continue to be readily available for the foreseeable future. The more time and effort you are willing and able to invest into learning a system, the more it will be able to do for you. With both Wordpress and Joomla, you can order a wide range of services and options off the menu to suit your needs; with Drupal, you’ll be in the kitchen cooking up what you want for yourself, with all of the privileges of customization that entails.
See the comparison chart below for more insight into the differences in these top content management systems. Still not sure? Download each of the free platforms and do a trial run to help you decide.

	Drupal	Joomla	Wordpress
Homepage	www.drupal.org	www.joomla.org	www.wordpress.org
About	Drupal is a powerful, developer-friendly tool for building complex sites. Like most powerful tools, it requires some expertise and experience to operate.	Joomla offers middle ground between the developer-oriented, extensive capabilities of Drupal and user-friendly but more complex site development options than Wordpress offers.	Wordpress began as an innovative, easy-to-use blogging platform. With an ever-increasing repertoire of themes, plugins and widgets, this CMS is widely used for other website formats also.
Example Sites	Community Portal: Fast Company, Team Sugar	Social Networking: MTV Networks Quizilla Education: Harvard University Restaurant: IHOP	Social Networking: PlayStation Blog News Publishing: CNN Political Ticker Education/Research: NASA Ames Research Center News Publishing:The New York Observer
Installation	Drupal Installation Forum	Joomla Installation Forum	Wordpress Installation Forum
Ease of Use	Drupal requires the most technical expertise of the three CMSs. However, it also is capable of producing the most advanced sites. With each release, it is becoming easier to use. If you’re unable to commit to learning the software or can’t hire someone who knows it, it may not be the best choice.	Less complex than Drupal, more complex than Wordpress. Relatively uncomplicated installation and setup. With a relatively small investment of effort into understanding Joomla’s structure and terminology, you have the ability to create fairly complex sites.	Technical experience is not necessary; it’s intuitive and easy to get a simple site set up quickly. It’s easy to paste text from a Microsoft Word document into a Wordpress site, but not into Joomla and Drupal sites.
Features	Known for its powerful taxonomy and ability to tag, categorize and organize complex content.	Designed to perform as a community platform, with strong social networking features.	Ease of use is a key benefit for experts and novices alike. It’s powerful enough for web developers or designers to efficiently build sites for clients; then, with minimal instruction, clients can take over the site management. Known for an extensive selection of themes. Very user-friendly with great support and tutorials, making it great for non-technical users to quickly deploy fairly simple sites.
Caching Plug-ins	Pressflow: This is a downloadable version of Drupal that comes bundled with popular enhancements in key areas, including performance and scalability.	JotCache offers page caching in the Joomla 1.5 search framework, resulting in fast page downloads. Also provides control over what content is cached and what is not. In addition, page caching is supported by the System Cache Plugin that comes with Joomla.	WP-SuperCache: The Super Cache plugin optimizes performance by generating static html files from database-driven content for faster load times.
Best Use Cases	For complex, advanced and versatile sites; for sites that require complex data organization; for community platform sites with multiple users; for online stores	Joomla allows you to build a site with more content and structure flexibility than Wordpress offers, but still with fairly easy, intuitive usage. Supports E-commerce, social networking and more.	Ideal for fairly simple web sites, such as everyday blogging and news sites; and anyone looking for an easy-to-manage site. Add-ons make it easy to expand the functionality of the site.

3 Ways to Get Free Blog Content.

3 Ways to Get Free Blog Content

CONTENT MARKETING

By Tatiana Aders, Published October 10, 2013

The bane of most digital marketer’s existence is regularly feeding branded blogs with quality content. Generating enough content to be considered relevant in your industry is a grueling process that requires constant creativity and a highly organized operation. However, doing so will generate a reliable stream of prospects to your website.

But what if I told you that there were channels out there to help supplement your content generation efforts for free? Here are a few reliable channels that can serve your blog content needs in a supplemental fashion.

Public Relations Pitches

A little-known secret outside the PR industry is that there are just a few software applications out there that PR professionals use to locate and reach out to journalists. Submit your blog to Cision and other databases, and you will receive at least 2-3 pitches per day from PR professionals. The pitches aren’t always the most relevant, but the high number of pitches result in at least a few decent content pitches from PR pros.

When I do receive a pitch for a story that I find relevant, I always make sure to let the PR agent know that it must be . You can quickly double-check original content by copying & pasting a few sentences into search engines in quotes. No results means that it’s original! The search method can also detect spun articles if the search returns sentences that are 90% the same.

If the content is original and well-written, then I almost always invite the writer to become a regular contributor. If your blog is attractive to writers then you will be successful earning regular contributors over time.

Write for Us Page

It is a great practice to set up a write for us page for your blog. This is a great way to attract savvy writers and SEO writers to contribute to your blog. However, this method can be a double-edged sword if you attract SEO writers that are just too aggressive. It is a good policy to make sure that the content is original and hasn’t been spun. Also make sure that the writer understands that you won’t allow more than one external link. Furthermore, the link must be relevant to the story and you as the publisher have control over the anchor text. Following these best practices with SEO writers will avoid spam on your blog.

Follow these best practices when setting up ‘write for us’ pages and SEO writers will find you!

Industry Blogger Outreach

Reaching out to popular bloggers in your industry is a great way to get content for your blog, but you must understand the ‘economy’ of this transaction to be successful – your brand wants free content and the blogger wants additional coverage.

Just remember that your blog must be attractive enough to earn an effort from these writers. This means that your blog can’t be a dead-end publication. Your content must be regularly shared & promoted on social networks. If your team is not regularly supporting your blog and earning social media shares then industry blogger outreach probably won’t be successful.

If you are regularly promoting your blog content on social networks and earning shares, then use this data to motivate a blogger to add content to your blog. In your pitch, be sure to mention all of the promotional channels that your team uses to promote blog posts.

Writer/Publisher Symbiosis

Just remember that your contributing writer has to get something out of this relationship too and focus on that value. If both parties are diligent in creating value then this can be a symbiotic relationship that adds value to both parties. Don’t forget to empathize with the writer and make sure that you are adding the most value. Adding more value to your contributing writers will significantly increase the value that you get back by earning higher quality content and writers.

Read more at http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/3-ways-get-free-blog-content-0635602#t30MtxRsTGXm6OYY.99

How to Reach the Right Audience With Display Advertising.

How to Reach the Right Audience With Display Advertising

05th August 2013 Posted in Display

 

It doesn’t really matter if you are a big company or a start-up, your customers are on the Internet in almost every aspect of your life; they use it for fun, work, information, shopping… and I’m sure that you want to reach them wherever they are and not only when searching on Google, but also on the Google Display Network.

What is the Google Display Network (GDN)?

Just to make sure that we all are on the same page, the GDN is comprised of Google properties like YouTube, Google Finance, Gmail, and others that offer display advertising, as well as a network of millions of partner sites and mobile apps on which you can place your ads. Having said that let’s add some interesting data here; the GDN allows you to reach the widest possible audience globally (582M total unique visitors per day), having access to almost 93% of the web.
Well, I know what you are thinking - “93% of the internet is far too broad to target” - and I agree, but I’m sure that we can both imagine how vast the diversity is. It has been proven that there's a severe disconnect between where Internet users are spending their time, and where marketers are spending their money trying to reach them. As I don’t want it to happen to you I’ll try to give you an overview of the different targeting methods that can be used in order to reach the users that you are looking for.

Why use the GDN?

Display ads on the GDN can be an effective media choice across a large variety of goals from branding to direct response and can reach consumers at every stage of the purchase funnel. They also help to drive engagement on Search; after being exposed to a Display ad, research has shown that consumers are significantly more likely to click on a sponsored link.
For example, a user may first become aware of your brand by seeing a GDN ad while browsing one of their favourite websites. They may then click on this ad, take a look around your site and make a mental note to revisit it in the future.  After they have left your site you could use Remarketing to remind them how awesome you are or even offer them a discount to encourage a direct response.

Using the best targeting methods, bearing your goals in mind and optimising the campaigns accordingly are a must. We’ll have a quick look at the five core targeting methods that can be used to reach your audience but first we need to understand that there are two main ways to target on the GDN:

• Content: We’ll reach our audience using the web content at the point of relevancy

• Audience/behavioural: We’ll reach our audience based on online behaviour using cookie data

Targeting methods

Topics
Google’s engine scans the content of every page on the GDN and categorises them into one of over 1,500 pre-defined categories. You can target categories from as broad as sports to as specific as football, which means that you can be as broad (due to the massive amount of inventory behind it) or as specific as you want while still staying relevant to the subject you want to target. Find all the categories in the Ad Planner tool (it’s free!). As Google analyses each page, this is a content based targeting method.
Placements
If you already know some specific websites on which you’d like to run your ads, the placement targeting method is what you are looking for. This is a very precise solution as you are picking the websites you’d like to appear on. You can choose to target the whole site, or go even further and run on multiple pages of a single site, on just one page within a site or only on specified parts of a page within a site. If you need some ideas to find placements you can again use the Ad Planner tool (it’s still free!). Don’t forget that this targeting method is auction based which means that you’ll need to bid and win the auction to see your ads running!
Contextual
If you are familiar with search you’ll find this targeting method very friendly, as you’ll need to build a list of keywords to run your ads. It’s worth mentioning that keywords are broad match on the GDN and that now there is no limit to the number of keywords you can use per ad group (the limit used to be 50 keywords). Start being specific with brand keywords and product keywords and then expand your keywords list. Make sure you are using your best keywords from your search campaigns.
The way it works is simple: Google’s engine scans and analyzes the page in real time as it loads and matches the keywords that you are bidding on. The analysis made by Google here is different to how it works for topics. In this case the analysis matches individual terms rather than concepts; it’s based on words within the content of a page instead of subjects of the page and your ads will be eligible to appear on any page conaining the keywords.
Interest
This is a behavioral/audience targeting method which lets you reach users based on their interest.  You might be wondering… how does Google know my interests? Well, don’t be scared, but when we surf the web, Google stores a cookie to remember every visit on GDN websites and will infer interest based on the content, recency and frequency of our visits. This is how we’ll see ads based on our interest, regardless of the page content (If you are now curious, click here to find out how Google categorized you!). Don’t forget that the topics targeting method is based on content whereas interest is behavioral based. There are more than 1,600 interest categories that you can find in the AdPlanner (did I mention that is free?)
Remarketing
This is another behavioral/audience targeting method which allows you to reach users who have already visted your website. Bear in mind that 97% of new visitors leave your site without doing what you want them to do so we should make the most of this amazing targeting method to chase our visitors and remind them how awesome we are. I would recommend reading the post that my colleague Tom wrote a few weeks ago to find out everything about remarketing.

Even though this is just an overview you can see that there are many ways to reach the right audience with display. At Periscopix we run many campaigns on the GDN and have had great results. If you are thinking of testing it but are not sure how, give us a shout!