6 Dreadful Design Mistakes to Avoid in Website Design Overall rating: ★★★★★ 5 based on 23 reviews
5 1

BlogSimplio Labs Blog

“Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.”

Albert Einstein

6 Dreadful Design Mistakes to Avoid in Website Design

Business Advice, Web Design Tips No Comment

web-design-01

SEO restricts the creativity of the designers, and thus web designers ignore SEO while web designing! But if SEO is ignored, your beautiful web design will just go to waste when you don’t have visitors to your site at all. Do not hope for free traffic from search engines if you have not followed the standard guidelines of a webmaster to make sure the visitor gets a good user experience.

We list 6 dreadful design mistakes to avoid in web designing, so that your website isn’t lost in rankings of the search.

1) Putting valuable information on images

information-in0image-01

It is quite obvious that search engines understand the text content. Though serving images, podcasts or videos to the audience engages them, your main motive must be drawing audience to them first. Search engines look for keywords in important locations. The most vital content of your website might be ignored if you have put them in images or flash files. Try and use text to display essential names, links or contents. Do not make the mistake of replacing the text headers with pictures. The best way to practice using images is to include the keywords in the images’ alt texts.

2) Ignoring the visitors on mobile

mobile-visitor-blog-image

Consumers spend around 69% of the time on smart phones. Hence, you must ensure that your website is responsive to the mobile audience as well. Though the responsive design of the website isn’t mainly a ranking factor, it is recommended by Google to the webmasters to turn their sites into a mobile friendly one. A design that is responsive will provide a consistent experience to the users on all devices. It will also increase the engagement of the audience in your website.

3) 404 page

joomla-404-error-page

You would not wish to lose the audience who would have entered a wrong URL or have opened a broken link given on your website. You might want to give a good experience even to such audience hoping they will reminisce your brand later. You would have also designed a good looking 404 page. However, you would have forgotten to provide a link back to your page. This might seem a tiny issue and web masters tend to miss it quite often. This can lead to loss of rankings on the search engine.

4) Unwanted pop up ads

pop-up-ads-01

These ads will not be indexed by the search engines. They aren’t even actually a portion of work plate of the designer. Such intrusive ads might compel the users to hit the close button the moment they pop up. That is the reason Google chrome blocks them by default. However, they still make it to the mainstream usage because of extraordinary results they get.

5) Using too many frames or flash

seo-images-01

Flash can be attractive visually, but search engines do not index them. A home page designed on flash can be one of the biggest blunders in SEO. 78% of users say that they dislike flash. You should not be using flash even in vital aspects of your website as it can affect usability of the website.

6) Filling up the webpage

crowded-webdesign

All those visually attractive animations, graphics, widgets and redundant codes will result in slower loading of the page. Besides being a bad experience for users, they are also one of the essential factors in deciding search engine rankings. Avoid stacking your web page with such images.

 

Is SEO a Good Investment For Your Business?

Business Advice, SEO Tips No Comment

is-seo-a-good-investment-for-your-business

This might come out as a surprise for you, but actually, Search Engine Optimization or SEO isn’t at all a good deal of investment to promote your business. As a digital marketing company it is not easy for us to admit that because we offer SEO services.

For few businesses, SEO is not quite a good choice when compared to other marketing strategies. Nonetheless, SEO could prove to be highly beneficial for most of the businesses by generating greater sales and leads. So the next question would be how you will know if the SEO is actually good investment for your business.

  • The demand factor

For SEO to work, you must have enough potential customers who look online for the services or products you offer. If there are less or no audience at all, who would be searching for it, there is no point even if you rank high in the list. There would be no one to look at your site. And thus, there is no need for SEO. Don’t forget SEO is all about engaging online customers – if your customers don’t exist online, what’s the use?

  • The competition

When we talk about competition here, we are not pointing at the businesses that are similar to yours and competing with you. When we say competitors, we are particularly talking about the “SEO competition.”

Your competition in the SEO is with all those businesses who are already trying to rank higher in the keywords that match yours. If you have to rank higher in the Google’s search list, you have to outrun all of those businesses to make it to the top. Hence, the second step is to decide the strengths of your competition. If they are potentially unbeatable when it comes to ranking high, it is better you don’t choose SEO. However, if the competition is not too strong, you can always go for it!

  • The number factor

You must know that the target of SEO is not to obtain high ranks in Google. The mission is to effectively create sales and leads, so that it turns out to be a prospective investment. This implies numbers play a prominent role. The numbers may differ for various businesses. However, the procedure is quite similar. You must ensure that you can efficiently make more money than you are planning to invest in the SEO.

So, what exactly are the numbers we are talking of?

  • The number of searches your target keywords
  • Estimated click-through rate
  • Estimated conversion rate from visitor to customer
  • Total revenue per customer

Here is an example my Mainstreet ROI:

  1. 2,000 searches per month
  2. 30% click-through rate (assuming you’re ranked #1 according to this research.)
  3. 2% conversion rate from visitor to customer
  4. $500 revenue per customer

“To calculate your estimated revenue from SEO simply multiply all 4 of the numbers above to get $6,000.  Next, compare your estimated revenue to how much you need to invest in your SEO to determine if the numbers make sense.”

The three factors to consider will help you determine if you really have to pick up SEO for promoting the business you are running. Think over carefully about all the tiny aspects that matter, and then only come to the conclusion.

 

Will the Latest Google Core Ranking Algorithm Update Help My Site?

Business Advice, SEO Tips No Comment

google-algorithm-update-01

After series of updates for Panda Algorithm, Google confirmed an update of their core ranking algorithm earlier this year.  And just a few weeks ago, webmasters were seeing changes in rankings due to the core ranking algorithm update.

This article covers a brief update of the latest core algorithm update and whether the latest Google Core Ranking Algorithm Update help your site in improving search engine rankings.

Core Algorithm Update by Google

Google has updated its core Algorithm on January 12th this year and website owners have already started experiencing the change in their website rankings. Initially there was confusion whether it is due to a new Panda Update or due to the change in the Core Ranking Algorithm Updates.

But after Google confirmed the modifications in their Core Algorithm Updates and addition of Panda in calculating their Core Algorithm, the confusion got cleared. Webmasters who were waiting for the latest update of Panda were first in confusion that there was a Panda Update which was expected this month.

Later after Google confirmed its core Algorithm update and addition of Panda to its rankings, webmasters now understand the importance of Panda getting into the core Algorithm updates.

Continue reading

The Top 7 Online Marketing Trends That Will Dominate 2016

Business Advice, What's New No Comment

2015 has come to an end and this means a New Year, and possibly new things in the digital marketing word. Here is a list of 7 online marketing trends which will take the marketing to a whole new level this 2016.

google-friendly-website-01

(c) Google

 

7. Mobile Will Completely Dominate Desktop

Last year the Google updated its search engine algorithm; this latest update heavily favors mobile friendly websites and list them on the top of the search engine list. This updated algorithm even favors mobile optimized sites over the desktop web sites. While it is well known that desktop traffic won’t fade away completely, but obviously Google is expecting that mobile web traffic will dominate in 2016.

expensive-advertising-01

6. Online Advertising Will Become More Expensive

More and more companies are looking to adopt an online marketing strategy, and in 2016 as demand goes up prices will too.

Continue reading

6 Ways to Boost Traffic to Your Ecommerce Site

Business Advice, E-Commerce No Comment

If you are a company which is engaged in eCommerce then it is imperative that you boost traffic to your site. Studies and surveys have often shown that an increased traffic will result in an increase in sales. Increasing traffic to your site is really challenging so we have come up with this list of the top 6 overlooked ways to boost traffic to your eCommerce site.

social-media-campaigns-01

1. Social media campaigns

The best way to boost traffic to your e-commerce site is by getting involved in a social media campaign. This allows you to contact your customer base directly. The best type of social campaign would be the one which has a strong message in it. It is best that you keep your customers engaged and show them that you care about the cause as it can bring in more traffic to your e-commerce site.

 

blog-01

 

2. Creating a good blog

Content is the bedrock of any eCommerce site and what could be better than to make the customers share their own stories on your blog. Having a content strategy is prevalent in almost 80% of companies which tells you how important it is; but to make them work to your advantage is a different thing. It is best if you can make them talk about the relevance of your products in their life which will make these blogs seem more realistic and honest and will deliver a valuable message.

 

promote-via-apps-01

 3. Promoting your products via Apps and more

There is no better way to promote your products than putting them in an app. There are apps for almost everything imaginable and more of these apps being developed every day. This is why it will be prudent to either develop apps by you or sign up on a site which will help you make your product more visible to the customers.

 

virtual-presentation-01

4. Virtual presentation of your products

It is always advisable to show off your products in real time. This is why we recommend that you make videos of your products and upload them, so your customers can see the products. There are two ways you can employ to publish these videos. The first one is to give third parties like YouTube and others the responsibility to publish it. While, the second one is self-hosting, this is also a powerful method that puts your site on the higher echelons in terms of videos.

 

domain-misspellings-01

(c) Laura Roeder

 

5. Buying Domain Name Misspellings

It is better if you can buy misspells for your domains rather than invest in the variations of domains such as .org.net and more. The beauty of misspells is that, suppose you have 5 misspells and they have an average 7 visits per day, then as a result, you will have a total of 35 visits from them in a day.  This is a very sound strategy to employ when you are trying to boost traffic for your e-commerce site. (i.e., receive.com common misspellings are receive.com, recive.com)

 

customer-reviews

6. Customer Reviews

According to market surveys, as many as 88% of customers trust online reviews which has prompted most of the companies to have some sort of review receiving mechanisms in their online and offline stores. Therefore, increasing traffic can be made easy if you are being able to convince your customers to write reviews on your e-commerce sites or about their experience with your products and services. (Source)

 

Looking for eCommerce solutions? Simplio Web Studion can help you with that! Check out more information here.

 

6 Calls to Action for a Business Blog

Business Advice No Comment

Calls to Action for a Business Blog
The ‘call to action’ simply means that your blog is far more than just a simple read and let go. It will help you turn your readers who are anonymous into the leads which are identifiable. Putting a call to action would mean that you want your readers to engage with your blog and benefit from it.

Some of the calls to action are: ‘click the link below to know more’ or say ‘comment in the box below’. The benefit or the engagement that your audience will receive can be conveyed only with the effective ‘call to action’. But before that you must be sure about the result you want to gain from the ‘call to action’ you are trying to engage your readers with. Here are 8 most important and the most effective calls to action advices for you:

  • Sharing the post on Facebook

This call to action will help you increase the shares of your blog post. The more it will be shared, the more active your blog will get. The social networking sites are the best way to increase your readers and also become popular. After all, the idea behind writing a blog is to convey your ideas to the world. What can be the best way? Isn’t it? Use ‘call to action, such as ‘click on the link below to share the idea with your friends on Facebook’ or ‘click here to share the post on Twitter’. This will also mean that you want everyone to benefit from your blog.

Continue reading

Optimize Your Google Adwords Campaign in 30 minutes

Business Advice No Comment

Getting a stable position in the Google search is not an easy job and not an impossible one as well. Google AdWords are the best way to get to the top and get featured as the top search. However, the only thing that needs to be kept in mind is to have a master strategy to achieve your goal. Further, the new updates launched every 2 or 3 months is making the task all the tougher.

google-adwords-optimize

Google AdWords Campaign helps you to optimize your campaign to a very fine level. The things that need to be kept in mind for the best result are what all matters! You need to plan your campaign in a way through which you can outrun all your competitors in the world of internet searches.

Let’s see how!

  • Have your predefined goals

You need to be goal oriented as to why this AdWord campaign is your need and which areas you want to focus upon. This may differ from company to company, business to business, but the only similarity would be that you must have a plan. It may be a few, many or all of the possible goals from the list below:

Continue reading

5 Things to Do in AdWords Daily

Business Advice No Comment

google-adwords-001

AdWords Campaign requires a proper analysis and maintenance of data on a daily basis. There are many areas that require daily attention. But, not all are equally important. There are some of the many important areas that require more attention as compared to the others.

Let’s explore them!

  • Checking the keywords below the first page

Keywords that are below the first page are generally of no use to the advertisers and also they tend to get no or very less traffic. So at times checking the bid below the first page may get you a really good traffic if you have a good score.

Thus, make it a point to invest some 15 minutes more and check the keywords below the first page too. You can sort these on the basis of column for a more sorted view.

  • Optimizing the bids in low positions

Profitable optimization of bids that are in low positions may seem to be time taking and a loss in terms of business. Check for the terms that were able to generate good business at a good CPA. Boost the terms that were you providing good sales, but didn’t have a good number of impressions. Focus more on them and try to get good ranks.

Continue reading

4 Reasons Why Your PPC Ads Aren’t Making You Any Money

Business Advice No Comment

ppc-ads-not-working-01

72% of the business owners in their initial stages prefer to spend their investments on PPC advertising rather than spending it on search engines. What they fail to see is succeeding in the PPC advertising isn’t a cake walk but is a tough journey. Even the best of the online advertising agencies have failed in reaching the targets in advertising campaigns. Though we don’t deny that people do make money out of PPC ads, we also tell you that it requires a lot of hold on the understanding of PPC ads. Only then can you get considerable returns from your invested money. The success in this domain can only be acquired by sheer brilliance and not with a tide of luck. If you are tired of facing failures in PPC advertising, this article is for you!

We tell you 4 major reasons why your PPC ads are not garnering you any money and ways to set it right!

  1. Failure in targeting

This is the most important cause of your failure in the venture. If the targeting is not done, you are sure to lose your money in vain. Targeting is basically selecting the right audience to view your ad. Quite often, it happens so that your PPC ads are displayed to the internet users who are of no use to your business. If you have not targeted your ads properly, your chances of making any money from them will be very low. The best way to solve this problem is to clearly tell your ad agency about the persona of the customer you are targeting and ensure that your ad reaches only to them. Continue reading

Google’s Keyword Tool isn’t enough for your Digital Marketing Campaigns

Business Advice No Comment

google-keyword-tool-01

There was once a time when only the PPC experts and agencies providing SEO services were prudent about keyword research. But the times have changed. In this era, which mainly runs on the internet, everyone in the digital marketing ought to know about researching keywords for all domains of digital marketing.

Importance of Keywords

If I am a regular blogger, I need to know what sort of terminologies are popular among the specific segment of the market in order to upload blog posts that connect with people who happen to visit their website. For quality content marketing, keyword is an important parameter. Even an email marketer must be aware of the keywords that are sought for, by the people, so that the customer is engaged with quality content. Same is the case with social media. Hashtags are deliberately used so that our voice and messages reach to a large number of prospective audiences.

We must take it as it comes. Staying in digital marketing means we are going to need to learn about keywords and research on it.

Most of the specialists will advise Google Keyword tool to begin with. But why prefer the common style? “Always take the road less taken” is what I believe in. However, the Google keyword tool is not really efficient and here are a few problems associated with it.

Problems with Using the Google Keyword Tool

One of the most obvious facts is that all digital marketing agencies are using the Google Keyword Tool. In most of the cases, that is the only tool being used. This only means that everyone is seeing at the same data. This will steal uniqueness from your analysis. Data is always a data and unbiased to any fluctuations. However, you could always learn more and explore more keywords. This is not happening and hence, the marketers are worried. Even if a single tool was used, there is too much of data to be solely comprehended by any living individual. So if you had to concentrate just on numbers in the keyword planner, you would not overtake other competitors in the industry.

Keyword Data Is Vast

Over the years, Google has collected a humongous amount of data from all the keywords that were searched for. As a matter of fact, the data collection is so vast that Google could actually group keyword data into monthly searched volumes. Owing to the fact of overwhelming data, there is certainly a bit of noise as there is so much research to do on various keywords. Hence, it makes difficult for you to land up on keywords that actually suits your purpose. This in turn results in keywords that are not really effective.

We must accept the fact that keyword planner must not be the sole tool for researching on keywords. When we are campaigning for various PPC ads, it is imperative to use effective keywords and that can be achieved if we used tools beyond this one.

(Source)

Good experience

★★★★★
5 5 1
SimplioWebStudio did a great job

Project accomplished

★★★★★
5 5 1
Project accomplished

Plugin developed successfully

★★★★★
5 5 1
Plugin developed successfully

ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL PROJECT

★★★★★
5 5 1
ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL PROJECT

Thank you Simplio team

★★★★★
5 5 1
Great experience

Working with Simplio Web Studio was a fantastic experience.

★★★★★
5 5 1
Working with Simplio Web Studio was a fantastic experience. The service provided was amazing and professional. It was a delight to work with Nir, who went the extra mile to meet our demands in a timely manner. He really made our vision a reality by creating us a classic site, but moreover the relationship we formed is something our company really appreciates. It was a pleasure working with Nir and the team at Simplio Web Studio. We highly recommend them to all and we look forward to working and doing more business with them in the future.

a great project

★★★★★
5 5 1
a great project

All the best

★★★★★
5 5 1
All the best to Simplio

My website is Live

★★★★★
5 5 1
My website is Live , thank you Simplio

From beginning to end, the team at Simplio provided top of the line customer service.

★★★★★
5 5 1
From beginning to end, the team at Simplio provided top of the line customer service. The web developers are incredible and made sure we got exactly what we were looking for! They truly went above and beyond to make us happy and we couldn’t have been more pleased with their talents. We would highly recommend them. Thanks so much Nir!

After over two years of research we chose Simplio.

★★★★★
5 5 1
After over two years of research we chose Simplio. We are so far very satisfied. These people answered the phone on a Sunday and fixed a problem that was not even their fault. It was the host company which I had chosen that had caused our site to go down.

Outstanding in both knowledge and professionalism.

★★★★★
5 5 1
Outstanding in both knowledge and professionalism. Nir and the staff at Simplio are Excellent in branding, web design and overall web presence. Definitely recommended!

I cannot even imagine having another company managing my Presta shopping cart.

★★★★★
5 5 1
They are now part of the Diastasis Rehab business team after working with them almost a year now. I cannot even imagine having another company managing my Presta shopping cart. After a bad experience with a programmer, I needed a new programmer (one that knew prestashop shopping cart) and most important one that I could trust. Finding all three was a difficult process! Lucky for me I found them. I cannot say enough about the diversity of services that this company provides. Every step of the way they make amazing suggestions to increase my sales and they get back to be right away either by email or phone. They have even created a simple and easy check out program for Presta Shop. They are actually a one stop shop! They updated my SSL, are setting up and changing my server to a dedicated one, setting up streaming of my DVD, website design, creating a specific program for address verification on Presta cart and handled the integration of Presta cart with my fulfillment house. I am now working on developing an APP with them

Simplio really helped me out of a jam.

★★★★★
5 5 1
Simplio really helped me out of a jam. They did exactly what I needed on a very tight time frame (with little notice too!!!!) They are my new go-to guys for any Prestashop needs! Thanks Simplio!

Excellent service!

★★★★★
5 5 1
Excellent service! Nir was exceptionally helpful in solving a lot of issues with our website and making the user experience more smooth. He understood the needs of our school and helped improve the website tremendously.

impressed

★★★★★
5 5 1
What impressed me most about working with Simplio was their attention to detail and excellent communication. Not only are they talented developers, but, they are also pleasant to work with and highly professional. Highly recommended!

professional service

★★★★★
5 5 1
What a profissional service Simplio offers.I hired them to rebuild my website for my business and they were creative and professional. Nir was on top of the whole project from day one, until he delivered the project on time. I will defiantly recommend Simplio to anyone who is looking for website services. From creating, designing to maintaining your image online. Good Job Nir and the rest of your group.

Great Logo

★★★★★
5 5 1
Great Logo, Very happy

fantastic to work with

★★★★★
5 5 1
Simplio was fantastic to work with. They were fast, communicative and incredibly helpful to me. I highly recommend them to anyone who needs help with their digital needs!

Awesome experience

★★★★★
5 5 1
All details and requests were met in prompt an friendly manner. Would recommend on any day to anyone who wants to feel their business is in great hands.