According to web analytics company StatCounter, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 is now truly a relic of the past with less than 5% of market share in the U.S. and Europe.
For years, IE6 caused headaches for developers and prompted many users to switch to alternative browsers. It was full of security holes and it broke nearly every web standard in the book…
Read the rest of this story here: http://mashable.com/2010/06/01/ie6-below-5-percent/
With the latest revisions of Google Docs to HTML5, it’s now easier than ever to move your important documents to the cloud.
See the full article at Mashable: http://mashable.com/2010/04/12/google-docs-editor-features/
The Internet offers a wealth of new opportunity for small businesses, but web surfers are a sensitive bunch. One wrong move and your new customers could be forever lost in the ether. Keep them happy by following these website usability guidelines.
Get organized. Most Internet users appreciate a familiar website layout and can become confused when presented with nontraditional formats. Give them what they want. Visitors typically start scanning a web page at the top left corner and move diagonally down to the bottom right, so it makes sense to place your logo and navigation at the top of the page. The main content and teasers to deeper information should be in the center of the page.
Easier = better. Visitors should be able to find any content on your site within a few clicks. Arrange your navigation in descending order of popularity with concise and obvious labels. Be wary of fancy drop-down or pop-out menus, as they can be cumbersome and annoying to use (but effective if executed properly).
All the news that fits. The age-old newspaper term “above the fold” is also applicable to website content. Most visitors should never have to scroll horizontally. If it’s not possible to fit the contents of your homepage in one screen (requiring no scrolling whatsoever), be sure to make the most important content the most visible.
Ask for the sale. The call to action is one of the most vital and often-overlooked components in small-business websites. Don’t forget why you have a website in the first place. Your new potential customer visited your beautifully designed, highly usable website and read your well-crafted marketing literature… but then what? You should have a line of copy at the end of every page with a brief but convincing sales pitch that includes your contact information. Better yet, include a lead form on every page that utilizes a hook to get users to submit their information. Free consultations and whitepapers are good resources and provide incentives to visitors to submit their contact information.
1) Users scan your website starting at the top left corner and move diagonally down to the bottom right of the page.
2) A deliberately placed navigation with clear labels helps visitors quickly find the content they’re perusing.
3) Always place the most important content “above the fold” so that visitors don’t have to scroll to find it.
4) Create a clear call to action and offer a simple lead form for potential customers to make initial contact.
Read the full article here:
http://blog.entrepreneur.com/2010/03/putting-your-business-on-the-map-with-google-maps.php
If you’ve ever googled a geographical area looking for a specific product or service, you know that local business listings pop up near the top of the search results. Google “dentist” followed by the name of your city and state or your ZIP code, and Google presents you with a list of dentists in the vicinity.
If you do business locally, try googling your business in the area you serve. If your company doesn’t appear in the list, click the “Local business results for…” link above the Google Map results to see if your business is listed there. Based on what you discover, you have two possible next steps:
Adding Your Business Listing to Google Maps
To add your business listing to Google Maps, head to Google Maps and click the link for putting your business on Google Maps.
Follow the onscreen instructions to sign in or create a Google account, and then complete the steps required to add your business. The process is really simple–it’s just a matter of entering information about your business on a series of forms.
Add as much detailed and relevant information as possible to make your listing a bigger target and more helpful for consumers. Be sure to include a photo and your website or blog address! At the end of the process, Google informs you that it must verify your business before your listing will appear. You can choose to obtain a PIN to verify your listing via the U.S. Postal Service or have Google call the business phone number.
Following are a couple important things to remember about the verification process:
After receiving the PIN, log into Google Maps and enter it in the appropriate field. Within a day, your listing should be indexed on Google Maps.
Editing Your Google Maps Listing
Having a local business listing on Google Maps is great, but even better is having a detailed listing. To edit your listing, first click the “More info” or “# reviews” link next to your listing in the Google Map search results. Then, click the “Edit this place” link and use the resulting form to edit your listing. (You must have a Google account and be signed in to edit your listing.)
The first time you claim your listing, you must go through the verification process by obtaining and then entering a Google verification PIN, as described in the previous section.
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