Posts

Showing posts from June, 2019

Taking a business online

In this lesson, we will look at the differences between online and offline customer behaviours. We'll also cover how audience segmentation can help you choose where to focus your digital efforts when moving online. So what are the key differences between a customer in a physical shop and a customer online? Imagine you just set a personal goal to improve your fitness, and now you need new running shoes. In the offline world your journey might go a bit like this: You visit the local shopping center, going from shop to shop. Ultimately, you make a decision based on price, quality, returns policy, friendliness of staff, and stock availability. You process all that information, head back to the store with the shoes you liked the best,and make the purchase. When it comes to online purchasing, you're likely to engage in four distinct stages throughout your online shopping journey. These principles are described in the 'See, Think, Do, Care' framework, and offer a useful

The benefits of an online strategy

So you want to know more about online business strategy, or perhaps improve your current strategy? In this lesson, we'll explore how creating an online strategy for a business can have a positive impact, what a good online strategy looks like, and common things you can implement to achieve your business goals. An online business strategy helps get all the ideas out of your head and into a usable format. This can help define objectives to work towards, and increase your clarity and focus. Imagine you've set a new fitness goal to become more flexible. Now, going for a 10 mile run may be great for your cardio, but it won't help you achieve that bendy yoga positions you've got on your eye on. In order to do that, you'll base your workout around key areas that will help you achieve your goal, in this case becoming more flexible. Running may be a part of it, but stretching is more likely to help you succeed. Likewise, identifying actions tailored to your goals will

Website design do's and don'ts

You have heard the expression "You only get one chance to make a first impression", right? Well, it holds true online too. This lesson can help you avoid common mistakes in your website design that can drive visitors away. We'll cover how to make sure your pages load fast, making your site mobile-friendly, general accessibility and the quality of your content. First, you need speed. Internet users aren't famous for patience and if your pages take too long to load, they'll leave. There are lots of technical things that you, or whoever builds your website, can do to speed things up, like choosing the right technologies and hosting solutions. But there are also some simple fixes. If you have images on your pages, use the smallest ones you need. Ditch large high-resolution files if they're only going to appear as thumbnails. Plenty of software programs can resize or compress images to make them smaller and this translates to faster loading time. Simplify yo

Make your website easy to use

Welcome to our lesson on website usability. That's digital speak for making it easy for visitors to find what they're looking for and accomplish what they want. We'll go over the best ways to improve usability from how to provide simple and clear navigation to the importance of consistent layout. We'll also explain how your writing can make your site more effective. Sounds good ? Well first look at navigation, the stuff that guides visitors around your site. Good navigation means arranging your site in a way that makes sense for your visitors. If you have a physical shop, like a bakery, think of how your products are grouped there. Big items, like cakes and breads might be in one area, while individual treats, like muffins and cupcakes, are in another. On your site, you can organise things the same way and have the main menu navigation tell visitors what they'll find in each section, like signs in your shop. In spite of all this, your site may not make perfe

Websites and your business goals

It's time to take a look at meeting your customers in the middle. That is, how your website can unite your visitors' wants with your business needs. We'll walk you through how to think like a customer, and design your website accordingly - all without losing sight of your own goals. So you're starting to design your site. As you do this, keep your goals in mind, but also consider what your visitors are looking for. Marrying what you want people to do on your site and what they want to do is the secret to success.  Here's an example, think of the last time you went to a website looking for a phone number, may be you wanted to ring a shop to ask a question or get directions. Was the number easy to find ? If you're a business, be sure to put your phone number in a very visible location, may be even highlighted it on every page of your site, you might even consider adding some text encouraging visitors to call now and make your contact page easier to find, in