Internet marketing has become highly competitive and only those who are repositioned will have their websites indexed and ranked on the top hits of search engines. It is certain that website owners need to seek competent SEO experts who are able to use ‘white hat’ techniques to achieve your Internet marketing goals. Search engines like Google have become very strict and you need to engage with a SEO firm that can produce long term website ranking. This way you are able to increase your website traffic and returns on investment (ROI).

You’ve heard the expression, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. When people see a picture or an image, they attach their frames of references to it and create an immediate perception about its meaning. Take a second and look at a picture in your office or an image on your computer screen. Be aware of the immediate thoughts that come to mind and the emotions that hit you. When people see your company logo, the process is no different. The question is, “What is your logo saying to them about your brand?”

Is your business the first choice of your target customers when it comes to the products or services you offer? Do you think you stand out from the competition? If you promote your business the right way, you will easily stand out and get most of the market share. But if you promote the wrong way, your target customers will leave your business as fast as they can. They will create their own conclusions regarding your company. Sometimes the conclusions are accurate, other times they don’t even close to coming to the right conclusion. If you want your customers to pick you over your competitors, you must do everything to impress them and get their sympathy. 

When clients initially come to HB Jamaica, our team always makes a point of asking them if they are satisfied with their website’s performance. Many of them find this to be an intriguing question. They know their sites can be doing better, but they’re just not sure how.

Online retail sales have increased 14 percent since July, according to a recent MasterCard report, and now eMarketer is optimistically predicting these numbers to double during the upcoming holiday season, despite a global flailing economy.

If you’re an “online-only” business then the design and layout of your web site can make or break you. In this article I’m going to explain how and why you should step into your customer’s shoes and take a good long look at your web site to see what’s wrong with it and what you can improve to increase your sales.

The most important part of your website is the layout. If you were to ask your wife/sister/brother/friend to visit your web site and order one of your products do you think it would be an easy thing for them to do? Would your site navigation or difficult-to-read text confuse them?

Looking at your web site from the perspective of a potential customer can help you see and hopefully fix any potential pitfalls standing in the way of you turning your current visitors into profitable customers.

Here are a few things that you should look at from the perspective of your (potential) customers:

Web site navigation: Do you have a clean, simple and most importantly CONSISTENT method of navigating pages on your web site? If the menu on your home page is different to the menu on your other pages then you have a problem.

Loading time is an important part of any website’s user experience, but it is vital in eCommerce. Sometimes we can get caught in the aesthetics of a site and end up sacrificing speed. Unfortunately slow loading time, not bad design, is a leading cause of site abandonment. Check out KissMetric’s infographic below to learn more about the affects of a slow site. Then use our 3 tips to help better your load time and your conversion!

Check your Speed: The first thing you want to do is check your current speed. Luckily there are some great free tools that let you do this:

• Pingdom
• Page Speed
• Web Page Test

Rearrange your HTML Document: It’s important to place the Stylesheet References at the top of your HTML document and the  script references at the Bottom.

Only two components per hostname are downloaded by browsers at a time. By placing the <head> of your HTML document st the top of your page, your site will load faster because it allows your pages to render the styles progressively. Thus by choosing to place the script references at the top, you block other mor essential elements from loading of the page.To quicken your load time, place script references before the closing <body>.