Janric Website Design

There was chatter in various SEO forums at the end of last week saying that people were seeing many signs that there would be a PageRank Toolbar Export (aka Update) this weekend for an August update.

Well, I was away for a couple of days and didn’t expect it. Although it is long overdue, recent updates have been based around the start of the month, not the end of the month. So, I relaxed (for once!).

There are many little things that happen before an update that could be indicative or could be little more than SEO superstition. New sites / pages being added more slowly than normal, a few search engine result changes here and there and so on.

So, when we start seeing all of these coming together we begin to get excited. But whereas people were suggesting it would be last weekend, I wasn’t confident. And given that I was away I couldn’t check anyway!

But I am expectant (again) of an update to the Toolbar PageRank this coming Saturday night. And at least this weekend I am safely home an will be able to see the effects of any changes on Sunday morning.

Fingers crossed that it comes and it is kind to me!

Here is a good example of how you have to be very careful in what you display on your website to make sure that you are capturing all possible sales.

These guys made an offer of a £1 domain name and hosting, which sounds great! But, they discovered to their cost that their basket was a little confusing.

At first, they displayed that the domain name was only £1 in the text, but when potential customers added it to the basket it appeared as full price (£12.99). It wasn’t until the potential buyer clicked on the checkout button that the £11.99 was discounted.

They realised their mistake because 30% of people were finding the domain and then dropping out without buying it!

Instead, they improved the basket so that the moment the domain is added to the basket you see the discount. And bingo, the drop out rate immediately dropped to 1%!

Obviously, when you are paying to get traffic onto your website there is a huge difference between 70% and 99% of interested people buying the product, so it is well worth spending the time and effort to check that people are not cancelling out at some point because of some silly reason such as this.

Click the link to see how it works now.

Many of my customers are dealing with the wedding trade in one form or another so a quick look today at wedding cake stands.

If you are making some wedding cake creations for your customers, then you will want to make sure that the spectacular displays that you are making are well shown off to your happy customer’s guests whilst being secure for the duration of the festivities.

For all of this, you need top quality wedding cake stands. A wedding cake stand will show off however many layers of cake you have been asked to make whilst holding them safely together.

For the duration of the reception, your cake will need to be on show to the guests and it could be at risk of being knocked by accident during this time. For that reason, the stand must be a quality piece of workmanship that will survive the treatment that it will receive. If you just use a few simple supports between the layers, you could be trying to explain a total mess on the floor to a rather disappointed newly married couple.

The stand does not just have to hold a few large layers. A recent trend is for many small cakes, or at least on the additional layers. Many couples these days will have a single full layer that they will ceremonially cut and then the other layers coan comprise of a selection of small fairy cakes. These fairy cakes can be different shapes and sizes, ready for guests to reach out and to help themselves.

Not only is this decoration something interesting to look at, but it is highly practical in meaning that the layers do not need to be cut before giving out to guests to enjoy.

Do not just go for the basic idea all of the time, look around and see what you can find.

Too many people assume that the way to increase a website’s traffic is by marketing it to new visitors. Yes, this is ultimately necessary. But it is not the only tool available.

In actual fact you might be able to help your website better in the long term by concentrating on the visitors that you currently have on the site. Those that are finding you in the search engines and those popping by often, for example on RSS feeds.

Have a look at your bounce rate and see where it is highest. Is there anything that is obvious? Does it indicate that you site is not working on a certain browser or that people are not finding what they are looking for straight away?

Look at what people are reading and see if you can give them more of what they want. Encourage them back and build that important loyal following.

And for the online shop, make sure that the products that you are offering can easily be found. Look at what items people often look at and what they often buy. Is there a pattern? Can you make changes to ensure that potential buyers find what they want? Can you show them that other visitors that looked at that item eventually bought another item?

It is well worth spending time to look at what you can do to encourage existing traffic to browse more and come back later. Quite often the changes needed are just one offs, or it is a matter of writing on certain topics instead of a broader spectrum.

But with a band of loyal readers you will slowly see your website stats on the up.

Here is an offer I thought I should pass on to readers – £1 for a .info URL AND a “site builder” for a 10 page website, with 5 email addresses!

Now, you cannot go wrong with that! Just buying the .info domain name would normally cost you around £8 – £12 depending on your source, so throw in hosting as well with this deal and you have a really great package.

Even though I wasn’t thinking of building a new website at the moment, I am tempted to just to try it out! With it only costing £1 I can’t see how I can possibly fail to turn that into a profit in the first year!

I just need to think up what new website I want to build and create it.

It is a fantastic deal, I can’t think of anything better (aside from free / being paid to do it!), so if you want to find out more, have a look at the £1 website offer details by following the link provided.

And if you do take up their offer, let me know! Leave a comment and a link to your new site and straight away you have given yourself the first plug. I would be interested to see how people use the tool and the offer.