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Three of the Best Website Builders for Time-Crunched Graphic Designers

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By Teddy Hunt

OK, so perhaps you’re a graphic designer who knows he or she can create one hell of a website that impresses visitors. But sometimes there’s just not enough time, and you have to leave the hard work to the Internet. Whether you want to create an online portfolio to showcase your work, or a website that people can visit when they need your services, there are plenty of options out there to meet your needs and get a functional website running.

With that said, here are three of the best website builders available if you’re too “busy” to do it yourself.

lazy designers

Wix

Wix currently has more than 43 million registered users, with about 45,000 new ones joining every day. This website builder works well for photographers, musicians, small businesses, and yes, designers. It’s especially great if you’re a beginner so to speak, since it’s relatively easy to use and features a “Help” function that’s well thought out and easy to use. Here are some other pros and cons of Wix to think about before taking a test drive.

  • Impressive templates. Wix includes more than 280 templates or you can create a customized one.
  • Drag and drop interface. Simply choose what you need (text, pictures, slideshows, etc) and put them where you want without restrictions. Although it’s not the easiest builder to use out of the three, it works well.
  • Support and help. As stated earlier, Wix provides unmatched support and help. There are buttons you can click on for answers when you’re stumbled all over the website. With a VIP plan, you get one-on-one support.
  • Advertisements on the free version. Unfortunately, if you’re using Wix for free, your published website will include ad logos on the side and bottom of it. All three of these web builders have ads in some form or fashion in the free versions, but Wix has a considerable amount more. You’ll have to upgrade to get rid of the ads.
  • Can’t change templates. Once you decide on a template, you’re stuck with it. So choose wisely.
  • Won’t manage complex e-commerce needs. Want to build an online store? Stay away from Wix.

Weebly

If you’re looking for an easy-to-use website builder that doesn’t sacrifice reliability, look no further. Weebly is perfect for graphic designers who want to showcase their portfolio without much effort put into building the website. Here are some other pros and cons of Weebly to think about before taking a test drive.

  • The best drag and drop builder on the market. Yes, even better than Wix. There isn’t an overwhelming amount of tools, but still more than enough to build a functional and professional website.
  • Free. Not only is Weebly free for most users (or really cheap for those who want to upgrade), but the advertisements are minimal. No limits. No credit card information required. No pressure to upgrade.
  • Range of templates. Even with a free account, there’s a template for everyone (and you can change it).
  • Won’t manage complex e-commerce needs. See con about Wix.
  • Limited amount of designer-caliber templates. But Weebly is changing this rapidly, so it won’t be a con for long.
  • Basic blog functions. If you want to blog on your website, you’ll have to get used to the basics. Unfortunately, Weebly lags behind when it comes to blog post organization and management. Also, you can only promote your posts through Facebook and Twitter.

Squarespace

Squarespace launched in 2004 and has since used memorable marketing videos, good publicity, and stunning example websites to push itself to the top of the website builder food chain. It currently runs more than 1.8 million websites. Although most probably won’t appreciate what Squarespace has to offer, graphic designers most certainly will. Here are some other pros and cons to think about before taking a test drive.

  • Commands your attention. The templates on Squarespace are beautiful and rich with imagery, making it look like you poured your heart and soul into designing your blog or website.
  • Responsive templates. Meaning you can resize your browser and your content will automatically adjust to provide your visitors with an optimized viewing experience. This is so crucial for end user engagement. It’s critical to note in web design the advancement of photo quality coupled with the popularity and on-the-go convenience of tablets.
  • Extensive styling options. Squarespace offers them, other website builders don’t.
  • More difficult to use. Simply put, you need to invest some time and effort before taking advantage of all the tools that Squarespace offers. If easy is what you’re looking for, look elsewhere.
  • Drag and drop feature not as smooth. Wix and Weebly’s drag and drop interface seem to work smoother.
  • You can customize everything without going into codes. This is actually a con for the average Joe, but to an experienced graphic designer this might not mean much.

All three of these website builders work well. It all comes down to your wants, needs, and abilities.

Have you used one of these before? What was/is your experience like?

Author’s Bio: Teddy Hunt is a freelance content writer with a focus on technology. When not behind a computer, Teddy spends the majority of his free time outdoors and resides in Tampa, Florida.

Photo Credit: anoldent via Compfight cc

It’s All “About Us”

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By Myrna Vaca

The “About Us” page on your website provides a great way to give your potential customers the lowdown on why they should be doing business with you and to remind your current customers why they are purchasing your products and services. Unfortunately, some companies pass up this golden opportunity to tell the world how great they are.

Other than your home page, “About Us” is probably the most widely read section of your website. Visitors go there to find out more about your company and to decide if they want to continue searching your website for additional information. Don’t disappoint them.

Tell Your Tale

Your initial goal in creating your “About Us” page should be to grab the visitors’ attention and encourage them to stay a while. The story you tell should be interesting and well-written; if you’re not a writer, consider hiring one to turn your thoughts into a literary masterpiece – or at least into an engaging narrative.

Here are some ways to give people some insight into who you are and why they should trust you enough to do business with you. This is especially important for online stores because your customers don’t see you face-to-face.

  • Include a short bio about your background, education, experience and credentials, along with a photograph of yourself. If you have employees, include information and photos to introduce them to your potential customers as well.
  • Offer information concerning the products and services you provide.
  • Put together a statement that tells your potential customers what sets you apart from your competition.
  • Explain how and why you started the business.
  • If there’s an interesting story about the products you sell, tell it. And don’t be afraid or too humble to tell people about what motivates you. Tell them why you can’t wait to wake up every morning and get to work.
  • Do you have a vision for your business? If you do, tell your potential customers about your dreams and where you’d like the company to be in a decade or so.

Spreading the Word

There should be other important information on your “About Us” page besides your personal story and the story of your business. Here are some other important details for you to include.

  • Testimonials – These will help you establish credibility. Your satisfied customers are your best advertising.
  • Awards – If you’ve been cited by a professional or community organization, tell people about it.
  • Media coverage – If the local newspaper or an online magazine has published a story about you or your business, provide a link on your “About Us” page.
  • Press releases – If you aren’t a writer, hire one to put together press releases about your business. You can send them to print and online publications, and you should have them available on your site as well.
  • Newsletter – If you don’t have a newsletter that you send to customers and potential customers on a regular basis, maybe you should consider establishing one. The “About Us” page is a good place for a link that allows visitors to sign up for the newsletter.
  • Blogs – If you or your employees are blogging about your products or services, it’s a good idea to provide a link from your “About Us” page.
  • Social media – Make it easy for people to interact with you with links to your Facebook page and other social media platforms.
  • Picture this – Photos are great, but only if they are of real people and places.

Consider Your Customers

Now that you’ve put together all the important information about you and your business, you should dedicate some of the space on the “About Us” page to your customers and those that you hope will someday be your customers.

  • Facts are important – Boast about it if you know that your products are shipped on time 100 percent of the time and that you ship the right product 99.5 percent of the time.
  • But don’t make stuff up – If you don’t have statistics that make your business look reliable, don’t fabricate them. Instead, explain what your goals are and how you intend to meet them.
  • Congratulate yourself – Tell your potential customers about the important certifications you’ve earned and awards you’ve won. You’ll have to decide which ones are important and which ones aren’t.

Your “About Us” page can serve as a great marketing tool, but just because you’re happy with the page you create today doesn’t mean you should be satisfied with it tomorrow. You should continually update the page, especially when you enhance your education or experience, obtain major customers or gain a foothold in new markets.

Author’s Bio: Myrna Vaca is the Head of Marketing and Communications at Lyoness America, where she directs media relations, branding, advertising and website development. Lyoness is an international shopping community and loyalty rewards program, where businesses and consumers benefit with free membership and money back with every purchase. Check out Lyoness on Twitter.

Benefits of Using a Website Builder

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By Zubin Kutar

If you want to start a new website, you have two options. You can either go through the long and frustrating process of creating code for every page, or simply use a website builder. Some of the most popular website builder tools in the market include Squarespace, Weebly, Wix, Volution, WordPress, GoDaddy, Webs, Yola, 1&1 and Homestead.

Here are some of the benefits of using website builder tools.

1. No need for technical expertise

To build a professional website, you don’t have to be a graphic designer or web designer. Even if you don’t have technical knowledge, you can use website builders to create an attractive and fully functional site. You can choose from a wide range of templates which allow you to customize the font styles and colors. In addition, you can add graphics, images and other design elements according to your needs. With just a few clicks, your site can be up and running within minutes.

2. Reduced time

One of the main disadvantages of hiring a professional designer is that it might take a long time before the site is ready. Creating a custom site requires a lot of time for writing and testing code. In addition, the web designer might also have other projects taking up his time, thus delaying your work even further. Since website builders come with inbuilt code and scripts, you can set up your site much faster. This also means that you don’t have to spend any time testing your inputs and parameters to see if they are functional.

3. Reduced cost

If you intend to use your site for business, it would be advisable to go for a custom website design. However, if you have a limited budget, a website builder can come in handy. Once your business becomes profitable, you can then hire an expert to upgrade your site. Website builders can also significantly cut down startup costs when you want to launch several websites.

4. Stock images

Photos and graphics play a very important role in enhancing the appearance of your web pages. Website builders usually come with a wide variety of free graphics and stock photos. This will save you the cost of having to hire a professional photographer or graphic designer. Since there are different kinds of stock photos, you are likely to find great images which are relevant to the theme of your site.

5. Drag and drop design

Once in a while, you might want to change the look and feel of your website. Instead of spending lots of time writing new code, you can simply use a website builder to make the desired alterations to your site. For instance, to move any of the elements in your site, all you need to do is drag it to its new position and drop it there. This means that the appearance of your site can be transformed in a matter of seconds.

6. Content management

Website builders make it easy for you to add and update content on your site. These tools offer you access to a ‘backroom’ area where you can post your text content, as well as upload images. In addition, you can edit the content just as you would with a word processing program. Website builders allow you to add as much content as you want, whenever you want.

What is your favorite website builder?

Author’s Bio: Zubin Kutar is the founder of an internet marketing blog where accomplished writers and bloggers share their tips, strategies and stories. Read some of his inspirational posts and connect with him on Google+.

Tips to Effectively Optimize Your Website with Multivariate Testing

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By Ruben Corbo

If you follow the branding convention adopted by most large companies, you’d note a uniform application of key branding elements, such as logo, slogan and trademarks across all their corporate websites. Big business also optimizes all forms of online interaction, be they blog, social media profiles or corporate portals. To optimize your website, you also can implement tactics that larger players use, provided you adopt a few essential tips and perform multivariate testing thoroughly.

Basics of Multivariate Testing

In multivariate testing, you select specific attributes of your website and test them simultaneously. This technique is also called “multi-variable testing” or “multi-variable assessment,” and the variables here refer to the website’s attributes. These include user-friendliness, design, layout, compatibility with smart phones, and browsing requirements—say, browser type and security level, depending on the page a user is reading. Unlike multivariate testing, A/B testing only focuses on two operational scenarios and assesses a single attribute.

Website Optimization 101

Also known as portal enhancement, website optimization covers the mishmash of things—say, esthetic, programming and security—that a company does to elevate the stature of its website in search engine rankings, increase conversion rates and generate cash in the long term. To perform website optimization, adopt a tactic that fits your budget and operational model. You either do it yourself or use online tools to help you convert traffic to online sales. You also can hire an SEO specialist to analyze your content and search ranks, track conversion rates, and rummage in the website’s data to understand what’s going on from an optimization standpoint.

Running Effective Multivariate Tests

To run an effective multivariate test, you should understand not only the fundamentals of the test but also things like usage requirements and testing steps.

Usage Requirements

You typically would need multivariate testing if you operate a highly trafficked, complex website with stringent coding requirements and security layers. This type of testing is also suitable if you want to improve the “look and feel” of the portal, an element that becomes as important as ever for a site that experiences heaving readership on a daily basis. For a modest-traffic portal, such as blog or personal website, I recommend A/B testing instead.

Testing Steps

Follow these steps to run an effective and efficient multivariate test, but remember again that you can use online tools or hire an expert if you run a complex operation or simply need to have a specialist coordinate the assessment.

  1. Evaluate your website to determine what must be fixed.
  2. Set the way you want to test batches, specifying such attributes as user-friendliness, security, information and “look and feel.”
  3. Choose test variations.
  4. Run the multivariate test.
  5. Analyze results and decide whether a new test is needed to confirm the results.
  6. Implement the results on your website—that is, fix or improve it according to the results.

Take-Away

Believe it or not, your website says a lot about your company, how seriously you take online commerce, and the operational importance you ascribe to the comfort of readers, shoppers and your existing customers. So adopt effective measures to optimize your corporate portal. In a digital era in which the first impression invariably counts, it is in your company’s economic interests to design and deploy an attractive yet informative website. Multivariate testing can help in this process, but make sure you do your homework in advance, apply specific steps, and glean relevant information from specialized portals.

Author’s Bio: Ruben Corbo is a freelance writer that writes about technology, gaming, music, and online marketing especially topics about A/B Testing and multivariate testing. Ruben has written several online marketing articles related to the topic of converting traffic to sales which you can find out more novice information on Maxymiser. When Ruben is not writing he is composing and producing music for short films and other visual arts.

Intention Counts

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By James Ellis

A website can be and do just about anything. It can be a brochure, a greeting card, a catalog, a conversation space, an announcement, a research tool, a library, a photo gallery, a way to spark ideas, build connections, engage people and speak about your corner of the world.

But it can’t really do all those things (unless you are Google or maybe Facebook, in which case, “hi!”). It can do one or two of those things well. It can do three or four of those things well with an exponential increase in resources, but that’s it.

So instead of spending millions on a legion of developers, creative directors, content managers and the staff to populate their respective armies, maybe you should focus your intention down to one thing.

What is your website supposed to be or do? Boil it down to a phrase a five-year-old could understand.

Amazon was a bookstore. Now it is an everything store. Google is a search engine. Those are easy, mostly because they have smart marketers and leadership who knows that you need to excel at one thing before you expand to something else.

But what about the website for your favorite coffee shop? It could be a brochure: hours and location with a pic of a cute barista. It could be a branding peice: pictures and animations that are warm and inviting about the idea of coffee and scones. It could be a business development peice: Get you excited about the idea of hand-roasted select gourmet coffee and how it will make your life better. It could be a store: place your coffee order and schedule a pick-up time or delivery. It could be a research tool: Everything you could want to know about coffee from different regions of the world, how it should be roasted, what the types of roasting levels mean and how they affect taste.

One coffee shop, four intentions. Each intention shapes the nature of the website, who uses it and why. Intention therefore determines the site’s success

For example, will more people come to your coffee shop because they know more about all the different coffee varieties? If your goal is to sell more coffee, then maybe that intention doesn’t align with that objective. If you spend 3,000 words talking about thirty different coffee varieties, and you only sell two, what was the good in that? You may have just gotten them excited to go to another coffee shop.

Nailing down the intention of your site, especially in relation to your total marketing strategy and your business strategy, increases your likelihood of success. Now I’m going to go drink some coffee.

Author’s Bio: James Ellis is the Director of Digital Strategy at FLIRT Communications. His latest book, Google Analytics for Small Business is currently in beta. He’s giving away discounted copies if you are willing to help make it even better.