Canadian Small Business Women

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Dos and Don’ts of Web Content Writing

How can you write engaging and persuasive web page content? Here is a checklist that can help:

  1. Benefits

Do start with the most compelling benefit of your website and turn it into a bold headline. Don’t start with a useless welcome slogan.

Bad: Welcome to our Jewelry store

Good: Unique Handcrafted Jewelry

 

  1. Empathy

Do focus on the needs of your website visitors and prospects. Don’t talk about your problems first.

Bad: This website was launched two days ago, so excuse the omissions.

Good: Please contact our customer service for prompt response.

 

  1. Consistency

Do follow a consistent formatting style throughout your website. Don’t make it look like a multicolored illustration with 10 fonts and 20 colors.

Bad: Use of different colors in each paragraph and different font types and sizes for each heading.

Good: One font color and size for text and one font color and size for headings (Arial and Verdana are the most recommended fonts for web content).

 

  1. Simplicity

Do make your web content sound simple. Don’t use difficult and confusing words. The visitors should get your message immediately. They are not going to make too much effort to understand if you are being too academic. They would simply click away and you may lose a potential sale.

Bad: Despite their current stature, the persistent competitors are doomed for failure due to their total ineptitude.

Good: The competitors lack the skills to succeed.

 

  1. Scan ability

Do make your web content scan able by including lots of headings and bullets. The visitors should know immediately what you are trying to tell them. Don’t put big blocks of text on your web pages, which are impossible to read, and very boring.

Bad: A block of text with no paragraphs, headings or bulleted points

Good: Bulleted points with headings and short paragraphs.

 

  1. Concise

Do try to be as brief and as concise as possible when writing content for your website. Don’t go on and on about a subject providing irrelevant details which do not interest your visitors.

Bad: A 400-word history of your company’s achievement

Good: A few bulleted points listing the major achievements

 

  1. Interesting

Do write in a friendly and interesting manner. Don’t sound boring and impersonal. Your visitors should enjoy reading your web content and get hooked to it.

Bad: Our Company is very efficient, reliable and affordable and we have been around for years. We also have a very impressive portfolio of clients that we have previously worked for. We are definitely the best choice.

Good:

Reasons we can serve you better:

Great customer service

Competitive prices

Vast experience

 

  1. Error free

Your web content should be free of spelling and grammatical errors and punctuated correctly. Don’t write the web content in a hurry and upload it without proof reading. If you have mistakes in your web content it would make you look unprofessional.

Bad: This ia an exclusive ofer

Good: This is an exclusive offer.

 

Erum Zehra is a digital entrepreneur and the founder of Prestige Interactive. Prestige Interactive specializes in creating stunning business websites for female entrepreneurs to propel their business in the limelight. Download her FREE Website Planning Template today to design your website layout for success!(https://prestigeinteractive.ca/freebies). 

Instagram/ https://www.instagram.com/prestigeintca

Facebook/ https://www.facebook.com/prestigeintca

Twitter/ https://twitter.com/prestigeintca

LinkedIn/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/prestige-interactive

email/ info@prestigeinteractive.ca

Website http://prestigeinteractive.ca

How to Design Your Small Business Web Site

You are all set to give your business global exposure through the internet. It’s about time you started building your web site, right?

Wait…have you planned for your web site?

Planned??

Yes, imagine what would happen to a house if you built it without planning it first! Web sites meet the same fate if they are not planned before they are built. And yet, a lot of web sites are being built that way! They appear confusing and haphazard and have no focus.

But you want your web site to be different, right?

Then let’s get to the process of planning a web site by answering these questions:

  1. What is the purpose of your web site?

We come to the foremost question in our planning process. Your website should have clarity of purpose. A common answer to this question is ” to sell my products/services”. But what can you do to make sure that you sell? Here are some ideas:

  • Attract a lot of visitors to your web site
  • Encourage repeat visits from the visitors
  • Offering useful information for your visitors
  • Have attractive photos and interesting descriptions of your merchandise
  • Emphasize the unique product features/benefits
  • Offer special prices/deals

Come up with a unique and clearly defined purpose for your web site. How can you achieve your goals if you have not defined them clearly enough?

  1. Who are you building your website for?

Again, do not fall into the trap of thinking that you are building it for everyone, for you will end up catering to no one at all. Possible target audiences for your web site can be:

  • Current customers/Targeted traffic
  • Potential customers/Search engine traffic
  • Suppliers of your raw materials
  • Retailers who can stock your product
  • Distributors
  • People interested in knowing about your company ( press/media etc.)
  • People interested in knowing about your products (researchers, advertisers etc.)

You may choose to design your web site for all the above audiences. However, a much better approach is to determine the type of audience which is the most important to you and then focus more on that audience. The more focused your web site, the more impact it wi;; have on your target audience.

Remember that your potential customers cannot be just anyone surfing on the net. They are people who have a need (whether realized or unrealized) for your product. Come up with a customer profile/avatar including demographics and psycho-graphics of your customers. This will give you a much better idea of the appeals you should be using to convince your customers.

Search for clues of unfulfilled needs. What do they want which is not being done? What are they dissatisfied with? What problems do they want solved? The answers to these questions may lead you to a winning business idea. All successful businesses achieve success through satisfying an unmet demand, the right way.

  1. What information should the web site have?

This depends entirely on your goals and target audience. For example, if you intend to gain repeat sales from your current customers through your web site, you only need updated and accurate information of your products and an easy and hassle-free ordering system.

On the other hand, if you want to cater to potential customers and want increased hits to your web site, you will need to provide valuable information to draw these customers to your web site. For example, a web site selling herbal soaps may provide informative articles on skin care and herbal ingredients etc. This will attract people interested in natural skin care to the web site. If they find the offered information useful, they just might buy from you. Even if they don’t buy, they might bookmark the web site and visit again. The more they repeatedly visit your web site, the higher the chances that they would buy from you.

  1. How should the information be organized?

The information must be organized well to ensure ease of navigation and usability. Remember to view your web site from your visitor’s perspective. Highlight the information which your visitors would find interesting and not that which you consider important. Group similar batches of information together and keep the navigation consistent throughout the web site. Do not build a menu with countless choices on your home page. This confuses people and they leave without exploring further. Don’t put more than 8 links in your main menu.

       5.What visuals and color scheme should be used?

This is the final step in your web site plan. People usually go through this step first. The result is an unimpressive and confusing web site with no obvious purpose or interest. If you decide the visuals and color scheme at the end of the planning process you can come up with original ideas which suit the content and image of your web site perfectly. Your design would seamlessly flow together, and your web site would give a well-organized and impressive look.

You might have come across numerous web sites with no obvious color schemes or consistent visuals. This is a result of bad planning, or more likely, no planning at all. Do not plunge directly into web design, without giving any thought to the planning process. There is no point in building a web site which is not optimized to achieve its purpose.

Are you ready to plan your website? Download our FREE Website Planning Template today to design your website layout for success!

 

Erum Zehra is a digital entrepreneur and the founder of Prestige Interactive. Prestige Interactive specializes in creating stunning business websites for female entrepreneurs to propel their business in the limelight. Download her FREE Website Planning Template today to design your website layout for success!(https://prestigeinteractive.ca/freebies). 

Instagram/ https://www.instagram.com/prestigeintca

Facebook/ https://www.facebook.com/prestigeintca

Twitter/ https://twitter.com/prestigeintca

LinkedIn/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/prestige-interactive

email/ info@prestigeinteractive.ca

Website http://prestigeinteractive.ca

5 Essential Reasons Why Your Business Needs a Mobile-Friendly Website

Mobile-friendly, or ‘responsive’ design is a “big thing” in web design right now. But if you’re not a designer or developer, you might be wondering what this term means, or why it’s important. You might also be wondering if your business’s website even needs to be responsive. Well, let me tell you that having a responsive website is no longer just an option – if you want to keep up with the market and other competitors, it’s a requirement.

First of all, what is responsive design? ​

Responsive design is a way of building a website so that content is automatically scaled up or down to fit professionally on different screen sizes. This includes hundreds of different devices, from phones, laptops, tablets and giant monitors, all with varying screen dimensions. The way that these different devices display information on the screen can be very different because of the dimensions.

The ultimate goal of having a responsive website is to give users a seamless experience when visiting a website. It is often difficult to navigate websites that are not responsive – usually involving a lot of scrolling, missed content, cropped images or awkward formatting. This makes it frustrating for users to get the info they need. Have you ever been looking through a website and had to scroll left to right because the content didn’t fit on your phone screen?

Exactly. This can be frustrating and actually deters people away from websites.

Responsive website design replaces the need to create a separate website dedicated to mobile users – now, one website can be built that automatically matches the device being used.

So, why does your business need a responsive website?

 

1. To target the majority of internet users​

One of the most powerful tools in the new age of web development is having a mobile-friendly website. Why? Because mobile traffic is responsible for over 50% of total internet traffic – and this number is expected to rise. This means that more and more people are beginning to not only use their phone for the ‘gram, but they’re also making more purchases directly from their phone. Mobile e-commerce will be responsible for about 67% of total e-commerce sales by 2021. That’s why now, more than ever, it is imperative that your website is mobile-friendly to accommodate people on their phones. You’ll be able to target the majority of internet users if your business’s website is optimized for phones.

  1. Lower Cost and Website Maintenance Fees

Maintaining and updating separate sites for mobile, desktop and tablet audiences gets expensive… quickly. By the time you do the same update on all 3 different versions of the site, you’re racking up hours with your developer like no one’s business.

Your business can actually save money by using responsive design, and therefore only having to maintain a single site. The edits only have to be done once and will automatically be reflected on all screen sizes. The number of mobile users is only expected to increase, so it’s better in the long run that your business invests in a responsive website before your customers start asking for it. 

  1. Support thumb scrollers

Yes, I see you! I often find myself scrolling through a recipe or blog post on my phone using only my thumb. Since phone screens are getting bigger and bigger, areas of websites are getting harder to reach. Try it real quick – pull out your phone and hold it in your right or left hand. Try to reach your thumb to the top corner on the opposite side. Straining?

Yes, it’s only a minor inconvenience to stretch your thumb to reach a button. But if visitors don’t find your website super easy to use, they might just give up. If there’s an important part of your website in that top corner, for example a call-to-action or button, your users will get annoyed that it’s a little hard to click. Thumb-friendly websites take responsive design one step further to make sure that even thumb-scrollers have a great experience.

  1. It’s all about the UX (user experience)

Having a clean, responsive website allows visitors to navigate through your site easily, and get the information they need quickly. If someone visits your website on their phone or tablet and the formatting is messed up or images are cut off, your business might come across as unprofessional. If your website isn’t built to accommodate mobile users, they might leave the site quickly and head over to a competitor’s website. Responsive web design offers a much better user experience, and leaves your website visitors with a great first impression of your business.

  1. Improve SEO (and your site’s exposure!)

Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is a free way to get your website to the top of Google’s search results. Google crawls your business’s website and looks at a ton of different things in order to rank your website among their search results. Google looks at your overall website structure among a host of other things, and gives preference to websites that are the best of the best. Of course, this includes whether or not your website is responsive. If your website is mobile-friendly, this can give you a giant boost in search results, bringing you closer to the top of that list. The closer you are to the first page of Google’s search results increases your ability to get quality website visitors checking out your business.

 

Does your business have a website? Do a quick responsive test!

Click here. 

Did you get a green light? Sweet, your site passes Google’s responsive test. You might already know why responsive design is so important. Great job!

Did you get red Xs? It’s time to consider a website refresh to make sure that you are accommodating people on their phones, tablets, or other devices.

 

I’m Sydney from SL Creative – digital strategist & director with a passion for good food, and good design. I build ready-made websites and hand-crafted brands for the food and travel industry.

sydney@slcreative.ca

www.slcreative.ca

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Is Engagement On Social Media A Return On Your Investment?

Malene Jorgensen

When people talk about social media marketing, there seems to be a focus on what you are getting in return. How is your timely investment measured? How is that investment related to sales? Some people tend to believe that just because you start sharing links on Facebook and Twitter, you will make money. Sure, there are success stories of people making lots of money online with their businesses, but this is far from the norm.

In other words, just because you are sharing links to your e-commerce store or your online products doesn’t mean you will see any returns on this investment. Instead, you may need to change your view of social media marketing all together to see just how useful it can be.

It really isn’t about how many products you sell every time you share a link. Instead, it is about the relationships you create on the network and about how you continue to nurture them. The investment really comes down to the engagement you have on these networks. If you start conversations, chances are that you will gain some loyal customers. So, when you do end up releasing a new product or service, people are more likely to invest in them if they are suited for their needs.

If you have thousands of followers who are excited about your business and you aren’t seeing any purchases, the problem may not be with your social media marketing. One common problem I stumble upon often is that people will disregard their Twitter or Facebook followers because they aren’t seeing any sales. But your social media marketing efforts may be paying off. The followers may be coming to your website – which is the goal of social media marketing – but they are turned off by your website. Then, they leave again without making a purchase.

You can find out whether this is a problem by implementing an analytics system to your business website, so you can see how many people are coming from Twitter or Facebook. You need to analyze all the steps in your social media strategies to determine what isn’t working. Only then can you find your social media success – and see the returns on your timely investments.

 

Malene Jorgensen is an entrepreneur, author and speaker. Jorgensen is passionate about online content, blogging, online business development and e-commerce. She owns an international media publishing company and a design studio. Jorgensen has written several books that are sold in over 50 countries. She is also obsessed with coffee and Twitter. You can reach Malene Jorgensen at Website | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram 

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