SmallBusinessNewz

Does Your Website Need a Makeover?

How do you respond to change? Is it a like or dislike? With change, there isn't usually a middle ground, because most people either love it or hate it. Interestingly, there are obstacles to both sides of the change spectrum. For instance, if you implement too many changes to your business, consumers will not be able to keep up. On the other hand, if you shy away from change, consumers will think you are out of date.

5 Key Ingredients to Surviving in Online Business

This is a basic list of key things that are critical to having a successful online business. This article is more for the person who is new to online business rather than the seasoned professional. 1. Design I really can't stress enough how important a professional-looking design is for attracting sales. Quite frankly, many people will just not trust a site that is poorly designed.

What Do Visitors Want Out of Site Search

Jared Spool is one of the few user experience pros who focuses on Web site search. And when he says something, I pay attention. His post yesterday crams into one article more about site search behavior than most people will ever know. But I have one disagreement with him. It's rare, but it happens.

Navigation and the Scent of Information

When I was in college, there was a class that occurred every semester where we always knew when its most popular exercise was taking place. Students would be everywhere on campus with blindfolds on, being led by their guide person to classes and lunch.

Make Your 404 Pages Count

The general purpose of having a custom 404-error page is to keep your visitors on your site if they find themselves having clicked on a broken link. Why go through the trouble to create the customize page if it doesn’t even fulfill this basic purpose? I recently ran across a custom 404 page that did everything but what it should.  

SBM Unleashed: It's All About Common Sense

Continuing our coverage of the Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference, let's look at what was discussed in the workshop called "A Common Sense Approach to Online Marketing". Common sense is something we like to stress here at SmallBusinessNewz, because often times, these are the things that get overlooked, particularly in marketing. The SEO Pyramid

Get Your Product Categorization Right

Like a sound site architecture and directory structure, product categorization can play a significant role in how both search engines and users are able to access your products. There are two important things to consider when determining how to categorize your products. 1) Is each product assigned to the most appropriate category or categories? and 2) is multiple categorization creating duplicate content? The first issue frustrates your users and the second the search engines.

The Best Investment You Can Make for Your Online Business

The ROI of Search Engine Optimization, Usability, and Analytics. I’ll tell you why I love what I do. I love helping other people be successful in their business. And this industry provides the tools for making an impact. Right now.

Dreaming of Navigation That's a Cakewalk

I laughed when I read SEO and Usability: Don’t Beat a Dead Horse, which is a response to my SEO and Usability: Be That Stallion and Round Up The Herd. He has a point and I though it was likely a sign that I’m a usability idealist. Carlos del Rio wrote: