When you decide to build a website for your business, there are so many things to consider. It can be confusing to deal with the conflicting information out there about what constitutes a useful website, as well as matching it with your own vision. As you work everything out in your mind, try to avoid making these mistakes.

* Ignoring the Rules of Accessibility – It’s very important to understand the rules of accessibility, not just so that differently-abled people can enjoy your website, but also to help search engines access your site better.

Link to rules – http://www.w3.org/

* Including Irrelevant Content – From images to audio, to text, you want to avoid including any type of content that is not relevant to your audience and the message you want them to take away from visiting your website.

* Contact Info Is Not Readily Visible – Nothing is more frustrating than wanting to contact a business but not knowing how. Don’t hide your contact information from your website visitors. It’s imperative that they can contact you.

* Unnecessary Entry Pages – You’ve seen websites like that; the ones that you have to “click here to enter.” This is completely unnecessary. It can be an impediment to your audience finding the information they need, and is absolutely a problem for search engines.

* Including Automatic Audio – Some websites have sound that comes on the moment the visitor goes to it, or if the cursor goes over it, but this is also a bad thing to do. Let your visitor choose when the sound comes on and goes off so that they aren’t irritated.

* Not Updating SEO Regularly – Search engine optimization involves ensuring that the right keywords, headlines, sub-headers, and information are in each page, plus that you provide enough information off your page to help get links back to your page. Learn all you can about SEO to make the most of this organic means of getting traffic.

* Too Many Graphics – Graphics are important for a website and add to the look, feel and mood of your website. But, you don’t want to have too many, because it will make your website load slower and cause your visitors to get tired fast.

* Unorganized Navigation – Learn how people tend to look at websites. When they read paper, it’s left to right, but websites they read vertically and sometimes in an F pattern. If you can understand that, you can put the important information where they’re most likely to view it.

If you can avoid these mistakes, and in fact perfect each item here, your website will be that much more inviting and useful to your audience. You’ll get more visitors to come to your website, plus you’ll get more of them sticking around, answering your calls to action and more.

Building a website is one of the most important marketing materials you’ll ever create for your business. You can use the website to demonstrate your skills, announce your sales, and communicate with and educate your audience. Today, a website is an essential element in getting the word out about a business. Here are eight website builders that work and that anyone can use.

1. WAHMDrive.com – This website builder is simple to use for an e-commerce site or a regular website. It has many wonderful features, from a catalog to a shopping cart. There are limitations to it but if you’re just starting out and need a site up fast without hiring someone, this builder really does work.

2. Wix.com – Drag and drop functionality allows you to build powerful, beautiful, and attractive websites easily. This builder is very good for anyone who wants to have a lot of images to show on their website, such as photographers. They are displayed beautifully and aren’t hard to build either.

3. Weebly.com – This is actually a WordPress-based builder using drag and drop functionality. It looks great and works great too. That’s why so many people choose to use it. Don’t use the free version, though; always upgrade to the paid version for the best looking websites as well as the most attractive websites to your audience.

4. Squarespace.com – This visually attractive, mobile responsive builder is very powerful and flexible for many of your website building needs. The only drawback really is whether or not you are patient enough to figure out how to create websites that are as awesome as their samples. The templates are designed for artists, designers, and people who care more about visuals than the back end in terms of search engine optimization.

5. WordPress.org – Self-hosted WordPress is by far one of the most popular website building software that you can get. For a good reason too: it’s free, and it’s easy to understand and use. You can find a lot of people to help you in terms of contractors, and the fact is, it works very well and you can create very complex websites with it as long as you find the right plugins and themes. WP is the best builder when it comes to SEO.

6. WordPress.com – Many people realize that this is really a blog builder, but if you upgrade to the paid version you can make quite a detailed website that does everything you need it to do without having to worry too much about the inner workings of the technology. It’s more limited than the .org version but it’s a lot easier for a novice to use, too.

7. SBI! – This is a website builder that seeks to have all-in-one functionality so that you don’t have to know much about technology. You can learn more through their website http://www.sitesell.com, which can tell you everything you need to know about the software as well as the entire program that comes with the software that will help you build your online business from scratch.

8. SimpleSite.com – This builder is truly for someone who has no idea how to build a site or what to do. It will lead you through step-by-step screens that tell you exactly what to do to build your website. It helps you with all types of websites. The functionality isn’t as high as some of the others, but it does work well for a brochure-type website.

Having a website that you’re proud of promoting and that gets the job done of telling others about your business, is an important part of running a business today. These builders can help you.

When building a squeeze page it’s important that you understand who your audience is and what the purpose of the page is before getting started. Then, to optimize the squeeze page appropriately consider the following.

1. Keep It Simple – Don’t go nuts with putting every last thing in every last squeeze page you make. You don’t want pop-ups and pop-unders on the same page. You don’t want too many keywords to gunk up how readers view your page either. You want the page to read well for real-life visitors, while at the same time attracting the search engines to rank you higher.

2. Know Your Keywords – Study the keywords that your audience uses to find you. It doesn’t matter what other people think about your keywords, it only matters what your audience is using to find you. Look for high value, low competition keywords to use to attract your audience.

3. Keywords in Titles – Not only should the titles on your page be keywords, they should also be in the proper heading style. If the search engine recognizes it as a header, it will place more importance on the words than if it’s body text.

4. Optimize Title Tags – If you look at the top of any webpage, there is a title for the page. Take advantage of this area to define what the search engine sees about your page. If you don’t control this area, every page of your website will have the same title tag. Differentiate each page in order to get more hits from search engine.

5. Use META Descriptions – Every page has a META description that will define how the search engine displays your search results to the reader. Make the most of this feature. If you use WordPress to build your sales pages, you can use a SEO plugin like YOAST, which allows you to control the META description and even see a preview of what it will look like before publishing the page.

6. Keywords in Subheadings – Creating subheadings with keywords and header tags will help not only lead your user’s eye down to what you want them to read and describe the actions you want them to take, but it will also draw attention to the search engines.

7. Keywords in Links – Make links within the squeeze page with words that are keywords and specific about the link. Don’t use words like “click here” – use words that describe what they’re clicking such as “100 Stroganoff Recipes” instead. Most people understand that underlined words are clickable now.

8. Keywords in URL – If you can include a keyword in the URL of your squeeze page, that is a very good use of a keyword or keyword phrase. Don’t go too crazy with the keywords, though; you want the page URL to also look nice.

9. Use Descriptive Keywords in Alt Tags – Search bots cannot read images, so it’s up to you to provide descriptions to the images that you have in your sales page. Use more than “pretty blue flower” to describe the image. Instead use words that are particular to your offer.

10. Craft Awesome Headlines – Headlines in squeeze pages are important because people do not read horizontally online; they read vertically. Bolding a headline using headers and making sure it’s an important keyword, will not only lead the search engines to rank you higher, but it will also help your audience read your page better.

11. Create Actionable Copy – Your squeeze page copy should include keywords that make sense. Don’t overdo it because using more than two percent keyword density in your pages will send alarms to the search engine that your site might be spam. Instead, create copy that leads your viewer to perform some sort of action.

12. Consider Adding Video – Video is often shared, which adds an additional dimension to the sales page, but while a search engine bot can’t really watch the video, it can read the tags and notice that there is a video. And since users like video a lot, the search engine is more likely to put that page toward the top of the results.

13. Responsive Design – People don’t exclusively use their PCs when looking at sales pages. In fact, a lot of people use their mobile devices while they’re waiting in the doctor’s office or visiting a coffee shop. The more responsive your design is, the more the search engines will like your page.

Using these tips to create a fully optimized squeeze page to get more search engine traffic will work. Try making one or two changes at a time to make the effect even more useful for getting more search engine traffic. Search engines also like websites that are updated often – and since sales pages and squeeze pages don’t typically change much, improving your page over time is another way to garner more search engine traffic.

When a business owner builds a website, they often forget the one way to market a website that has nothing to do with technology. Marketing the website offline is a great way to get the word out about your website and what you offer. Using business cards, brochures, t-shirts and other premiums, plus being active in your local community, you can get the word out about your business.

* Business Cards – Don’t forget to put the URL to your website on your business card. You can even put a QR code on the back of the card to encourage them to use their smartphone to visit the website.

* Flyers and Brochures – Don’t discount flyers, brochures and other printed materials that you can create and give out when anyone asks questions about your business. Keep some in the car, and ask people to allow you to post your flyers in their business.

* T-Shirts and Premiums – People love wearing t-shirts with different business names on them. Why not put your business on the t-shirts you wear instead of someone else’s? This is a great way; if you can create something a little different you’ll get more questions.

* Window Decals – That real estate on your car can be put to great use when promoting your website offline. Be sure to make the information big enough so that people can really see it. Choose a catchy URL too so that people can remember it while driving.

* Sponsor Events – Whether local or not, you can pay to sponsor events. This means you’ll appear in the brochure, perhaps on signs at the event, and maybe be mentioned by the hosts of the event by voice during speaking parts of the program.

* Host an Event – When you host an event, you’re a very noticeable presence. Your business name will be everywhere, you will be everywhere and people will get to know you and come to visit your website.

* Attend Events – When you attend live events, you can draw a lot of attention to your business by handing out cards, wearing t-shirts when appropriate, even giving out premium products like pens, cups, and so forth so people remember you when the event is over.

* Teach Locally – You don’t have to be a certified teacher to teach classes. Some areas have lifelong learning centers that enable anyone who is an expert to teach something to people who want to learn something.

When it comes to marketing, don’t leave any stone unturned. That includes marketing your website online and offline. Don’t forget that not everyone, even today, uses search engines or means online to find information. Some people still use old-fashioned information and paper to find the information they need.

Improving your page load speed can increase conversions and drastically improve the user’s experience using your website. Thankfully, there are some very simple things that you can do to improve your page load speed.

The More You Have on a Page the Longer It Takes to Render

These are called HTTP requests, and they bring in the components of all the things on the page – from images to style sheets and everything that makes your website look as it does. But there are ways to minimize the HTTP requests so that it doesn’t make it take longer. Even a few seconds of improvement will mean higher conversions.

Use the Information on Google’s Webmaster

Google Webmaster gives you all sorts of tools to use, including something called Page Speed Tools. This allows you to analyze the speed of your website, as well as gives you suggestions of what to do to fix it. You can also use Chrome to install various extensions that help you keep your site running fast.

Be Sure to Compress Where You Can

If you are creating very long, high quality pages, they are likely huge and require a lot to download to your visitor’s computer. When you can reduce the size of the pages, which also lowers the HTTP response, you can get the pages to load faster. There are many tools that you can use to help you compress pages, for example GNU Gzip which is open source software. However, if you’re not experienced you need to ask your web host to ensure that your server has the right settings.

Link to Gzip – http://www.gnu.org/software/gzip/

Ensure that Browser Caching

If you don’t know what that is, it’s the way that a browser downloads parts of the website on the user’s computer into their temporary storage when you call up the website more than one time. This will make the page load faster each time they visit your website. It’s an important way to speed up a page.

Format Images Properly

On websites, the best form for an image is JPEG, which will load the fastest. Next is PNG, and finally do not use GIFs unless you must for animated gifts. Never use BMPs or TIFFs as they will not work correctly. You can change the type of image you have by using free open source software such as GIMP’s photo editing software that is a lot like Photoshop, but free.

Link to GIMP – http://www.gimp.org/

Optimize Your Style Sheets

It is thought to be better to use only one external CSS style sheet. Every additional style sheet will increase the slowness of your website. The more you can combine external CSS files, the better the speed of your website will be. If you’re not sure about how to do these things, you may need to seek out an expert.

Reduce the Number of Redirects on Your Website

Many people use redirects for affiliate programs and other reasons to make the link look prettier or to hide the affiliate link code. However, while these are great uses for redirections, try to keep them to a minimum. Redirects take more time to send the code to the user and will slow page speed.

Most people expect pages to load super-fast, so you want to do all you can to maximize the speed at which the page loads – especially if you’re hoping they will purchase the item you’re promoting.

Use Fewer Plugins

Many people use website builders like self-hosted WordPress to build their websites. These builders have little applications called “plugins” that expand the functionality of the website. These are great, but it’s important that you find or purchase themes with as much of the functionality already available as possible and use fewer plugins to accomplish what you need for your website.

Page speed is a very important part of your web design if you want to keep people on your website long enough to make a purchase. If the site loads even seconds slower than they desire, they’ll click away and not buy.

When people search for information online, they look for about the same things that a search engine does. They do the search and then evaluate whether or not the information is authentic and useful to them. If you always seek to provide high value information to your visitors, you’ll be a lot more likely to not only attract a high quality of customer to your website, but also to keep them there. Here are some great ways you can provide that high value that people are looking for.

* Develop White Papers – A white paper is an authoritative paper that either persuades a consumer toward a particular product using facts, or describes problems and offers multiple solutions to the consumer. You can provide white papers on a variety of topics for your audience that will be seen as high value to your audience, whether they’re free or not.

* Create Videos – A great way to provide high value to your audience is to make videos for them. You can create “how to” videos, explainer videos, and other types of demonstration videos, or even just informational videos about topics that your audience cares about. Make them short, no more than three to five minutes. The value will be perceived as very high when it’s information they want.

* Write EBooks – Another way to provide high value to visitors is to offer eBooks about the topics they care about. In this way that they can read the information on their Kindle or other reading device away from the website.

* Form an Inner Circle – One really great way to provide a super high value to your audience is to create a members only area, paid or free, where people have to be approved to join. You can now do this via Facebook private and secret groups. People like feeling exclusive, and this is a good way to do it.

* Host Monthly Webinars – Offer periodic webinars or teleseminars for your website visitors. If you offer them monthly, based on various topics of importance to your audience, you’ll up your authority quotient with your audience exponentially.

* Conduct Case Studies – Once you’ve been around long enough, you likely have some success stories that can be shared. Collect case studies about people who have used methods you describe. You can even collect studies about people who have succeeded using methods like yours. This will make the audience feel like they’re truly getting a lot of value out of the information provided.

* Interview Experts – Your audience will absolutely love it if you interview movers and shakers within your niche. What’s more, the more you interview experts, the more people will view you as an expert. That’s how Oprah became the guru we now know today. Not only has she learned from those she’s interviewed, but her audience sees her as an expert in a variety of fields.

Most bloggers don’t really understand the power in providing value to their visitors, so they miss out. But now you know that providing high value through the various types of content you offer can increase the traffic and even improve traffic loyalty.

When people click through a pay-per-click advertisement, or a link on your message board, or guest blogging bio, you want them to go to your webpage and stick around. You want them to read your content, see your offers, and then finally take the next step to answer your calls to action. But, many people do bounce off the site. Bouncing means they visited but left quickly.

You can view your bounce rate in Google Analytics. So, how can you reduce your bounce rates?

* Increase Speed – When you can increase the loading speed of your website, you’re going to automatically have fewer bouncing visitors. People are impatient and do not like to wait around for something to load.

* Don’t Burn Out People’s Retinas – Certain colors, like blue and gold, do not translate well to online reading. In addition, you need to space out your paragraphs differently than you would for print. It’s okay to separate your text into more paragraphs for online reading.

* Improve Your SEO – Search engine optimization is important for your website. If you have a lot of bounces you may be using the wrong type of content to attract your ideal audience. Or, worse, your content is boring. Improve the content and the SEO, and you’ll have fewer bounces.

* Study Your Target Audience Better – Another factor in bounce rates is poor understanding of your target audience. If your advertisements, blog posts and content marketing (and any marketing for that matter) is not well-targeted to your audience, then you need to improve your targeting.

* Avoid Pop-Ups – Some pop-ups are fine, but you need to not have them show up the moment someone gets to your site. A better option is to have a slider come up from the bottom right of the website or for the pop-up to appear as the person is trying to exit the website. Immediate pop-ups scare people away from your website.

* Create Natural Navigation – The best navigation is not very noticeable but naturally leads your visitors to where they want to go. Don’t be clever with link and button names. Instead, be direct about where the link is going to send your visitor, and use less navigation on the front page. Having fewer choices will avoid confusion.

* Use Proven Design Techniques – Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Look at well-made websites that have good traffic ratings. You can get a plugin for Chrome to find out what page rank each site has.

Link to plugin – https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/open-seo-statsformerly-pa/hbdkkfheckcdppiaiabobmennhijkknn?hl=en

* Know the Reason for Your Website – If you don’t know the purpose of your website then no one else will know either. Ensure that you have mapped out the website before building it so that you know and your visitors know that the website is clear about its message.

Bounced traffic has a variety of causes that you need to research. You can use Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools to help you discover ways to reduce your bounce rate. But, one of the most important things is to ensure that your website speaks to your target audience so that you attract the right people in the first place.

When it comes to online marketing, nothing is more important than your CTA. The call to action tells the viewer what exactly you want them to do. Usually when it comes to CTAs, less is more. You want your audience to have one or two choices of actions to take for each video, no more. Some will be “share,” some will be “like,” and you may ask people to comment. There are different ways to do it all without seeming like a used car salesman.

You know that CTAs are important in all your written content, but you may not be so sure how to go about it with your video content, or why it’s so important. But, CTAs are important in all your communication with your audience. Having said that, each video will have a different purpose, therefore a different type of CTA.

* Remember the Buying Cycle – Your CTA will depend on the part of the buying cycle the video addresses. Some people will come to a video due to wanting to learn more information; in that case they may want to “subscribe” so that they can learn more.

* Use Specific Action Words – Instead of trying to be tricky when it comes to the words that you use for your CTAs, let them know what they get if they like, share or comment. “To get more videos just like this please subscribe.” “If you want to enter the contest, answer the challenge question in the video below.”

* Avoid Niche Jargon – It’s tempting to use words that are considered jargon within your CTAs, but it’s a mistake. You need to use CTAs that speak to your audience in a clear manner that makes no mistakes about what you expect from them.

* Remember the Audience – Everything is always about your audience, and never about you. Everything you say and do needs to be something that shows that you understand their pain and can help them.

* Think: One or the Other – When it comes to CTAs it’s imperative that you don’t give them too many choices. You want to think in terms of “this or that” to ensure that they follow your CTAs smoothly.

* End Cards Work – An end card is a picture or video added to the end of each video that gives them a CTA. The CTA can change depending on your purpose for the video. You can create various end cards to add to the right video, depending on the purpose.

* Have a Contest – A great way to draw attention to a CTA is to host a contest of some kind. A contest can help encourage more shares of a video without even trying, while drawing attention to a different CTA such as engagement via commenting.

* Send Them to Another Video – A CTA often not considered is to send them to another video via an annotation or link in the description. Sending your viewers to more of your videos is a great way to improve views.

The CTA is likely the most important part of your video. Without it, people may not watch more, like your video, share it with others, or comment. While it may seem like you are selling and yes, you hate selling, if you don’t have a CTA in your video you’ll miss out on the benefits of having videos in the first place.

One of the most important marketing materials that you can have today is your website. Your website will help you find business, quality business, and make more sales. The website works for you when you’re sleeping to provide your audience with information and access to your thoughts and ideas.

* It’s Your Online Storefront – Whether you have a bricks and mortar store or only an online presence, you need a good website to act as your storefront online. This will be available all the time to your audience and help you get more customers.

* It Works 24/7 for You – A website is on 24/7, 365 days a week. If you set it up right with a good FAQ, easy contact information, autoresponders and more, it can sell for you without you even being there.

* Load Time Matters – When it comes to how fast your website loads, there are many ways to make it quicker. Your audience will not give you much of a chance when it comes to loading times. If your website doesn’t load quickly within a couple of seconds, they’ll click away and go to another site.

* SEO Makes a Difference – Using proper search engine optimization practices can not only help your audience find you, but it will also keep them interested enough to stay on your website to search for information.

* A Good Website Elicits Trust – When a website has good design, loads fast, and has top-notch information, it really makes a big difference. You want your audience to come to your website and feel trust in your offerings based on what they see.

* The Right Layout Gets More Action – Understanding how your audience looks at and uses websites can help you make the website more useful. Most people read in an F-pattern, and like to scroll and read major points on a site before reading the meat of the information.

* Your Color Scheme Makes a Difference – You don’t want to blind your audience when they come to your website. You want the colors to help them feel comfortable and able to read everything that you offer.

* It Represents You – Your website represents who you are and can be unique to you and your niche. You want the website to be something you are proud of sharing with the world, and truly represent who you are as a person and business owner.

It’s important to understand that every aspect of your website is important. If you don’t know how to build a good website, you can outsource it to someone who does. When you do hire a professional, be sure to check out the websites they’ve created to ensure that they are getting good traffic and look professional.

If you want to have a successful business today, you must have a website with regularly updated content. The reason is that this is how your audience will find you. Search engines love new content, and your audience will love new content. New content adds value to your website and blog for your audience as well as for the search engines.

* They Have a Website So You’d Better – It’s a fact that your competition likely has a website. If you want your audience to patronize you over your competition, then it’s imperative that you have a website. It will help you stand out among the crowd.

* Websites Help You Provide Better Service – With the technology that exists today, you can create a helpdesk easily that will automate a lot of customer service issues and education. For example, you can set up a course on your website for your audience to sign up for or download. Or, you can provide a FAQ for your audience to help them with common concerns and problems.

* You Can Educate Your Audience – A fabulous way to educate your audience is via your website and blog. You can post articles, videos, podcasts and more about different issues that affect your customers and audience. This enables them to self-help before seeking out direct help from you.

* Websites Are a Number One Advertising Method – Most people use their mobile devices more than any other method to search for businesses to patronize. Because of this fact, if you don’t have a website and online presence you may miss out on a lot of business.

* Websites Never Close – This is especially true if you sell products over services. People can order from your website 24/7. You can be open all the time instead of only when you’re present.

* Everyone Is Online – Well okay, maybe not everyone, but most people are online today using smartphones and mobile devices. This means having a website gives you a good opportunity to get information to your audience if you’re online too.

* You Can Make Income When You’re Sleeping – Want money deposited into your PayPal account while you’re asleep? Then get a website and sell your products on it and you’ll be cashing in while you’re dreaming of the beach.

* Enables You to Deliver Info to Your Audience – A website is a lot of things. It’s a brochure, a blog, a community, and interactive educational space. It’s also a way to deliver information to your audience in a way that they will understand and like.

The fact is, if you don’t have a website, you’re missing out on more than half of your audience. Some people won’t even do businesses with you if you don’t have a professional-looking website. Therefore, you need to do what you can to ensure that you have the best website you can afford. Fortunately, you can either create a website yourself or pay someone to make one for you relatively inexpensively.