It’s impossible to keep up to date with all the latest techniques and trends when you’re running a website. And when you search for advice online, it’s even harder to know which online marketing, sales and search engine optimisation articles you can actually trust
When the world’s biggest search engine starts offering bite size tips to help you reach more people online, it’s worth listening.
That search engine is Google, and it exerts enormous influence over who sees your website.
Appearing high up search results lists can translate directly into extra revenue for your online business. And that means it’s a good idea to get whatever information you can from the search giant.
Towards the end of last year, Google announced a new mobile app: Primer.
Primer is free and offers a series of short, sharp guides to online marketing. Each takes four or five minutes to complete, so you can learn something new while waiting for a train or queuing to buy lunch.
The guides cover areas like content marketing, public relations and search advertising. They give a somewhat Google-centric view of the world, but as Google accounts for over 85% of UK searches that’s arguably no bad thing.
Primer doesn’t really get under the skin of the topics it covers. But if you want a quick overview of a subject, it’s a good place to start – and it can almost certainly get you thinking about new ways to reach customers online.
Google Primer is completely free and available for Android, iPhone and iPad devices. Learn more and download now.
IT for Donuts is our regular feature where we explain a tech term or answer a question about business IT.
If you're redesigning your website, you need some inspiration. And if you're working with a web designer or agency, they're likely to ask what sort of sites you like.
To help you get ideas, here are five sources of web design inspiration:
1. Behance
If you're a web designer, you'll already know that this is one of the obvious candidates. Behance is a giant portfolio website, full of work from web designers all over the world. You can spend hours exploring it, using powerful search tools to find ideas of interest.
2. Little Big Details
Little Big Details is all about the little touches and subtle polish that help make a website truly engaging and memorable. It showcases animations that make you chuckle, messages that make things easier for users, and other little details that contribute to the overall experience of a website.
3. GoodUI
GoodUI is a little different from the other sites in this list. It's not really about how your website looks, but is full of great ideas that can make your website easier to use and more successful. If you want to increase your conversion rate, there are loads of ideas here.
4. Media Queries
Sorry to get technical, but media queries are a way of using cascading style sheets (CSS) to make your website look different on different screen sizes.
You probably don't need to know how all that works. However, the knowledge may help you understand why the Media Queries website is full of examples of sites that use responsive web design to adapt to different screen sizes.
5. siteInspire
siteInspire is a showcase of great web and interactive design. The site claims to contain over 2,500 searchable examples of beautiful, clever and usable websites. It's certainly a great place to look for the inspiration for your own site.
Has your website ever crashed? When it happens (and it happens to every website, at some point), it's a crisis because you can't do any online business. So, here's what to do when your website goes down
If you've planned ahead and set up website monitoring, you should get notified quickly if your site goes down. Alternatively, you might notice yourself or get a message from a potential customer. But no matter how you find out, it's important to ask these five questions.
Let's eliminate the obvious first. Make sure you own internet connection is ok.
See if you can get onto Google, the BBC, or another popular website. You can also use a service like Down for everyone, or just me? to be sure that your website is actually down.
Have you recently changed or updated your website?
If your web browser seems to load something but displays a blank page (rather than showing 'waiting' or 'connecting'), it could be an issue with your coding or website software.
See if you can roll back to an earlier version of the site. Does this fix it?
If you've got a little technical knowledge, you might be able to identify the problem yourself. If not, skip this one!
Open up Command Prompt on Windows or Terminal on Mac and send a ping to your website address to pinpoint any server issues.
If you get a response like 'unknown host' then there's likely to be a problem with your website domain. If the message says 'timed out' then it's more likely to be a problem with your server or network.
It's probably time to call your IT people. Make sure you keep their direct numbers handy for occasions like this.
Hopefully, you'll have a good relationship with the people who build and manage your website. A quick phone call should reassure you that things will be fixed in no time.
By this stage, you've probably realised you're facing a website issue that isn't going to be solved in a few minutes. But you still don't need to worry. Instead, start communicating.
If you have social media accounts for your business, use them! Customers understand that technical problems happen, and will be more patient if they know you're working to fix things.
If your website or online app is particularly critical to your customers, you can also provide more detailed updates via a service like StatusPage.io.
Copyright © Nick Pinson is director at iWeb Solutions.
Customer relationships are central to your business success. No matter whether your company is a giant corporation or a one-person micro-business, you must give your customers the care, understanding and attention they deserve
Customer relationship management (CRM) software has been around since the 80s, helping businesses provide better experiences for their customers.
CRM software gives you a hub to track and manage interactions with customers. It helps you get organised by saving contact details and logging communications in one place.
Without a good CRM system, many companies would feel overwhelmed trying to keep up with the needs of their customers. This can lead to lost business due to poor customer care.
CRM software used to be the preserve of bigger businesses. The time, effort and budget required to set up CRM meant it simply wasn't practical for small companies.
Today, this stigma persists, even though the rise of cloud computing has brought CRM within reach of much smaller firms.
While traditional CRM software had to be installed on a server in your business, cloud CRM packages work online. You sign in to a website in order to access the software, view customer details, log calls and so on.
Cloud CRM software offers all the typical benefits of cloud computing. For instance:
With most cloud CRM providers offering free trials, even the smallest businesses can test CRM software with minimal commitment.
Traditional CRM software would take hours to install on a server. You might also need serious training to get to grips with the feature-heavy package. But with cloud CRM, you simply have to sign in online and you're ready to go.
Well, ok, it's usually a little more involved than that. You still have to invest time in choosing your preferences, uploading or entering customer details and learning how to use your CRM system.
However, cloud packages usually prioritise ease of setup and use over feature complexity. That means you'll often find them to be fairly intuitive. Most also offer wizards, tutorials and walkthroughs to help you get started.
CRM software is no longer a one-size-fits-all game. Most cloud packages offer several feature levels. You can either pick the one that suits your company best, or start with the most basic package and then upgrade if you need to.
Often, these packages can also be customised in other ways. Because they run online, you may be able to connect other cloud services, add-ons or extras.
These enable you to access extra functions, or perhaps connect your CRM software to another business system. For instance, you might be able to connect your CRM software to your cloud telephone system, so a customer's details appear on the screen automatically when they call you.
With so many possibilities available, it's clear that customer relationship management software is no longer limited to big businesses. Are you ready to give it a try?
Blog ©2015 DMC Software