Website Building Blocks

Building Blocks of a Website

We all know and love websites. For business owners, your website may be what you rely on to inform customers about your product and services and to bring customers into your business.

Despite being very important to us however, many of us do not understand how websites work or what it takes to run a website.

Here are the 3 core building blocks of a website:

Domain

Your domain is your URL or digital address that users can type into a browser in order to access your website. When a user types this URL into a browser, it actually takes a complex process behind the scenes.

First, a request is sent to a global network of servers that form the Domain Name System (DNS). You may have heard the term DNS records. Every website has their own unique DNS records. These store information specific to your website, including your website’s name servers. All of this is managed by a hosting company, which we will cover next.

After the request reaches the Domain Name System, these servers search for the “name servers” that are associated with the domain you have typed into your browser. A name server is simply computers called a web server, managed by your hosting company.

When your hosting company receives the request initiated by a user trying to access your website, the web server will fetches your site and send this data back to the user in their browser.

Hosting

Since you now know what a domain is, what is a hosting company? Often, this may be the same place that you purchased your domain. In other cases, you may have purchased your domain separate from your hosting. Some common hosting providers include GoDaddy, WPEngine, BlueHost, SiteGround, and many more!

Regardless of how it is set up, hosting is service that provides the technology needed for a website to be viewed on the internet. This is where your website is actually stores on the internet. A website needs to be “hosted” or stored on computers called servers, which we discussed above.

When you pay you hosting provide, at the most basic level, you are paying for the storage of your website as well as the ability for users to find your website through a domain. However, there is a lot more that goes into this.

Content Management Platform

This is most likely the part you may be the most familiar with as it is what is used to actually edit the content of your website. A content management platform or CMS is simply a software platform.

Most commonly, there is a Graphic User Interface (GUI) that allows interacting with a website’s database to be user friendly. While websites use HTML (the Hypertext Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), you do not to be a developer who can write in HTML or CSS to edit your website because of GUI.

On the CMS, the every day person can create post, edit pages, update and publish content, and design the look of your site. Using themes and plugins, business can build beautiful, impressive websites without a developer.

One of the most common CMS platforms is WordPress. Others include SquareSpace, GoDaddy, and Wix. In some cases, you may even have a custom CMS solution if your site was built by a developer.

To learn more about or to get help creating a new website, contact Adventure Ad Agency today! We are happy to help improve your existing website or start a new one for you.

10 Step Website Self-Check

What makes a website great? What makes a website terrible? The quality and effectiveness of a website really comes down to ten main elements. All of these ten elements are pretty simple, but due to the wide variety of options in each category, sometime people make websites overly complicated or confusing, or maybe on the other side of things, they make it boring and dull.

Fear no more. We have broken down these ten elements for you a created a 10 Step Self-Check Test for you to use to rate your website. What do you think your score will be.

  • If you have 2 or less elements, your website is an F.
  • If you have 2-5 elements, your website is average and is a C.
  • If you have 5-8 elements, your website is pretty good and receives a B.
  • If you have 9 or 10 elements, your website is fantastic and is an A.

Good luck! Here is our 10 Step Self-Check Test:

  1. Home Page: Your homepage is your front door, your welcome mat, your first impression, and your first impression is one of the most important. It sets the tone. While this may sound silly, think about the way you feel when you open your home page. Does your homepage leave your audience with the right feeling?
  2. Design: The way you set up and design your website will make a big impact on the experience your user has. The most important design element about a website is if it is functional. Can your user find everything they need to find easily? Does the layout make sense for the purpose?
  3. Timeliness: This is simple. Is the website being updated? Look at the last social media post and see if it was in the last week or two. Are you regularly posting new content? At the very least, is all the information correct and up to date.
  4. Searchability: Most people come to websites with a purpose, not just to look around. The search bar needs to be somewhere easy to find so that people can use it. Your menu also must make sense and clearly direct your audience to information through helpful categories or whatever is best for your purpose.
  5. Branding: Does your website stay true to your brand? Is your logo thoroughly incorporated through the website? The easiest thing to forget is to maintain your brand on every section of your website. Your logo should be the same across sections and social media platforms. The colors and theme of your website should go not only with what you are trying to convey, but also you brand.
  6. Credibility: A section of your website need to be devoted to showing that you are a legitimate and serious website. For a company, this would mean including you mission statement, certifications, a portfolio of your work or services, and other additional resources to build credibility. Often people like to showcase their employees and give background on the company’s purpose and founding. All of these benefit the credibility of your site which is an ever increasing problem online.
  7. Headlines: Your headlines are important. They bring your audience into what you are trying to tell them. Whether it is a blog post, a news blurb, or a helpful tip, creative and engaging headlines make the difference between people clicking to read and just passing over it. Do you have thoughtful engaging headlines?
  8. Social Media: In the world we live in, most websites will also have corresponding social media accounts, even if it is just a Facebook page or a LinkedIn account. Optimally, a website will add as many social media accounts as makes sense for them. Whether or not they are incorporated into the website well is usually the problem. What is the point of having them is they don’t work together with you website. Plus, the most important thing is that you add as many as you can keep updated.
  9. Audience: Remember who your target audience is. If you are trying to sell children’s toys, make the website more user friendly for a younger audience. Make it a fun, colorful, exciting experience. If you are a dentist, you may not need as much color and fun, but you will need to appear professional with a clean website that is easy to use.
  10. Overall: At the end of all of this, it is the combination of these nine other areas that leave an overall impression. When your user leaves the website, they will leave with either a good overall feeling of being satisfied or a bad overall feeling. The big question is which does your website give? Does it leave your audience satisfied and do you believe they can find and enjoy finding what they need to on your website?

How To Get The Most Out Of Your Website

Most business owners know that in today’s age a website is a must in order to drive traffic to your business. But do you know if you are using your website to its full potential? In today’s blog, we will help you learn how to get the most out of your website.

There are several important aspects to having a successful website. We strongly recommend having a call to action prominently displayed at the top of your home page. A good example of this would be to display your company’s phone number so customers can easily contact you. You should also include any social media links to your company’s Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube page.

Another recommendation is to have a quick contact form where customers can digitally get in touch directly from the home page. Depending on your type of business, a live chat that pops up when customers enter the site may be helpful. We recommend this for any business that customers may have a lot of questions about (attorneys, designers, etc.). Professional photography and a modern, clean design will make your website look professional and credible. We suggest adding candid photography to show the real aspects of your business. A few other things to keep in mind are to ensure that your site is mobile-friendly, has a quick load time, includes your contact information in the footer, and always lead visitors toward conversation.

In addition to the design aspects of your website, the content is also important. You want to have very detailed content on each page. The more keywords, the better! We recommend having about 1,500 words per page. Having a blog will also help you add more content. One blog post per week should suffice in adding more content and creating credibility. In addition to a blog, adding testimonials to the home page and throughout the website can help with the credibility of your business. Your reviews on various review sites (Yelp, Facebook, Google+) are important, and you should feature the best ones on your website.

Now that you know what elements your website needs to contain, we need to go over how people can find your site. Unfortunately, there’s no secret formula to ensure Google will put your site at the top of people’s searches, but there are various factors that you can control to help. The first important aspect of a searchable website is keywords, which are the search terms people use to find your website. After all, what good is a killer website if no one can find it?

Keywords can range from very general to very specific. General terms get a large volume of searches, but may not be exactly who you are trying to target. Specific keywords get less traffic, but it is more likely that these people will find your website helpful. External links will also help your website make it to the top of Google. This is where a blog comes in handy. Linking your blog posts each week to your Facebook will immensely increase your number of external links. You may also want to consider increasing the number of pages on your website. This gives Google more content to sift through. Having a separate page for each service you offer is a quick way to boost your page count, but make sure each page is filled with quality information.

Last but not least, work on getting more reviews! We know this can be daunting for fear of negative reviews, but try to have exceptional customer service to outweigh the negative reviews with the positive ones. Sites with higher and more reviews typically end up at the top of Google’s list.

Utilize these tips to get the most out of your website. If you would like us to analyze your existing website and give you specific suggestions, please contact us today!

It’s A Great Day To Be A Small Business Owner

Being a small business owner can be stressful, but luckily your marketing doesn’t have to be. It’s the golden age for marketing. There are so many platforms and opportunities available in today’s world that our ancestors couldn’t have even imagined.

  • Social media gives us free access to a global audience
  • YouTube is like a free TV spot. You can post your own content for the entire world to see.
  • Ebooks allow us to publish our own content without a publisher or contract.
  • Website Building Sites like Wix or WordPress allow us to create our own website for little to no cost!
  • Podcasts give us our own radio station – were we can pick who talks and what is said.

All of these sources are available to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Smartphones have changed the game so now you can reach your customers with just the click of a button. The great part about all of these options is that you are in charge. There’s no TV producer, no magazine editor, no news reporter to pick you. You pick yourself, and that is the beautiful thing about the golden age of marketing.

With these new technologies you can reach a wider audience, move at a faster pace, tell more interactive stories, and customize your content. Research and analytics can show you who buys what, and how and why. You can get inside your customers head and tailor your message specifically for them. You are able to give the customers what they need and value based on the power of analytics.

With platforms like Twitter, you can market real-time to real people. Customers can engage with your brand in front of the entire world. You can interact with global issues that are happening now to make your brand seem more “human”. Your marketing now not only gives customers information, but also gives them an experience.

Transparency is everything. Show your customers who you really are and give them a behind the scenes peek at what you do. New platforms make marketing much less formal so your customers can get to know the real you and what your brand is all about.

With technology ever changing and the global market growing, you have a lot to consider when creating a marketing strategy. Luckily, many platforms make it simple to express your brand in any way you want. The next age of marketing is yours to do with what you want. You have the freedom and the power to define your own marketing.