Whilst this story is another show of mob stupidity in reaction to the Pakistan cricket betting scandal and a more shocking example of cruelty towards animals, it does show what can happen when you have adverts running on your website.
Click on the image and then have a look Related Partners section at the bottom of the image. I think you’ll agree it’s a little inappropriate. The lesson here is to double check everything !!!
Rather than launching in to get a website set up as fast as possible, have a plan that includes what you want to achieve from your website, how you’re going to market it and identifies the people that you will work with. You’ll need a different plan depending whether the website is the business, like an online store which should be at the hub of your online marketing plan, or if it supports your business, in which case your website is one of many parts of your marketing mix.
The days where simply having a website was enough are long gone. Now, getting a website should be just one step in your ongoing marketing plans. To have an effective website that gets results you need to market it.
This means that you either need the time and skills to market it yourself, or you need to allocate budget to outsource your marketing.
Aim to include a mix of activities like Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Social Media Marketing (SMM), Email Marketing and Blogging.
If you want people to be able to find your website in search engines and then spend time finding out what you have to offer, you need great copy. Using carefully selected keywords in your copy in the right places is a core aspect of optimising your website for search engines. And if you’re planning to write and share blog articles, your success is all based on valuable content that you’ll create.
Plan your web copy at the same time as you plan your web design and development.
Whether you choose to build a database of email subscribers, a network of followers on Twitter, members of a Facebook group or connections on LinkedIn, have a plan for expanding your network and an easy way for people to connect with you.
If you have an e-newsletter, add the subscribe box to the top right area of your website. If you’re on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, add the icons to part of your website that appears on every page, like the right hand column.
Think of your website as the hub of everything that goes in and everything that goes out. Aim to build many many high quality links coming in to your website, which is important for your search engine ranking. And likewise, add links out to other websites. This makes you a good web citizen because you’re helping others build inbound links.
This article is an excerpt from Grassroots Internet Strategy and the full article can be found here
We are experiencing problems on our website which is hosted with Plus Net. Despite it being down since Friday afternoon and them having the weekend to fix the problem, it is still not available at the time of writing this article.
How a company the size of Plus Net can plan to upgrade their servers without:
a. informing their hosting clients about a potential outage and allowing them to make contingency plans – how hard is it to email all with a common courtesy
and
b. going about this change with what what seems like no contingency plan for any sort of outage such as this.
In this day and age, can a web design and graphic design company afford to be without their website for over 3 days. I would suggest the answer is no.
Problems and unforeseen circumstances do occur in life and in business, but what annoys any customer is the waiting with no contact, no information; apart from a service update page buried in their website and no prior warning communication. Customer service and courtesy can help any company when problems occur – making the customer feel valued can be the difference between a glitch and a goodbye.
Will we continue with Plus Net – I’ll let you make your mind up on that one.
Whilst browsing around the internet, it is very likley that you will have come across a 404 page. This page is displayed when a website like cannot be resolved and the physical page does not exist on the website – it will give you a message stating 404 – Page cannot be found. These can occur for a variety of reasons such as spelling mistakes, accidental removal of a page or even database problems. What ever the issue, they all lead to one outcome – an unhappy visitor.
To safeguard against broken links and 404 pages you can take the following steps:
You will be relieved to know that you do not have to do this manually – it can be done in a few clicks. Using link checking software such as Xenu will provide you with a list of all the broken links and orphaned pages on your website. This should be done by your website adminstrator on a regular basis. If it isn’t – ask why
By providing the visitor with a little bit more information leaves them feeling valued and much less disappointed. Whilst no website wants to serve a 404 page, in the unlikely event of soemone linking through to it, having some fun with it can be provide a much btter experience for the visitor. Offer them a site search, a link to the homepage, an apology, even inject some humour into the page and coupled with a page which retains your brand, you will find people getting more from your website.
Some examples of great 404 pages are shown below:
