NuZoo uses a Parallax website scrolling design for the new Calmark Group website. Parallax scrolling involves the background moving at a slower rate than the foreground, creating a 3D effect as you scroll down the page. Calmark is a national leader in mailing services, combining expert creative, marketing and campaign strategies with production specialists and postal authorities to help non-profits reach their fundraising goals.
Why Parallax Website Design?
Parallax website design brings the user experience to a new interactive level of online viewing by encouraging visitors to scroll through the entire page. It makes page visits last longer and the story-telling approach guides visitors through the site.
The Parallax website makes it fun and engaging, creating depth using layering, and directing visitors to calls of action.
This is the fourth website NuZoo has designed for Calmark. Most recently we produced the DonorConnects website. DonorConnects offers non-profits a social media platform, combined with a strategic direct mail program, to identify donors with the potential for becoming leaders, sustainers, ambassadors, mid-level and major donors and planned givers.
I got an official-looking document via snail mail today from IDNS – Internet Domain Name Services. The registration for one of my domains, MitzvahStudio.com, is scheduled to expire July 10.
If I “Act Today!” I can re-register MitzvahStudio.com for just $45/per year, $80/2 years (Recommended), or $180/5 years (Best Value).
IDNS is telling me this as “A courtesy…switch today…take advantage of our best savings.” They tell you upfront what the pricing is and for how long, when your domain expires, and if “you accept this offer” you’ll be switching your domain name registration to IDNS. The language is so friendly and helpful, the document is so official, they even offer suggested companion names with .net and other extensions.
Is This a Domain Renewal Scam or Just Doing Business?
So is this a domain renewal scam, or is ISDN just getting new business in guerrilla marketing fashion? Technically, they aren’t offering anything they won’t provide. But if you get a letter like this don’t fall for it. ISDN will lock you in at exorbitant prices and make it difficult for you to leave. ISDN is all over the Internet and with a little searching I found many mentions of them.
Because I’m in the web business I happen to know that those “best savings” are far above what you’d normally pay, 3-4 times above going market rate. The expiration of my domain isn’t imminent and I prefer to register, and keep, my domains where they are currently registered. Plus my current registrar frequently sends me emails with discounts.
If you look closely on the document under Domain Name Expiration Notice, their domain name is www.idns.ag ~ I never heard of .ag so I looked it up. It’s an extension for the country Antigua. When I went to the IDNS site after clicking around on a few pages I realized it had changed to www.ins.to. I never heard of that extension either, so I looked it up ~ it stands for the country Tonga.
ISDN also leads you to believe that “Privatization of Domain Registration and Renewals now allows the consumer the choice of Registrars when initially registering and also when renewing a domain name.” You’ve always had the right to register and renew your domain name anywhere you want.
If you get a letter like this from IDNS, or any other company you don’t know, offering friendly and helpful service don’t send any payments or credit card info. Contact us ~ or your web design company or website host ~ in case you are not sure about a reminder email or snail mail you receive.
12 Fundamental Tips for SEO To Increase the Number of Visitors to Your Website
The amount of information about SEO or Search Engine Optimization is endless. It can be easy to get lost in the plethora of information you can find on SEO. This important website marketing strategy has been proven to enhance your audience’s experience on your website, as well as draw them there in the first place. Before SEO your website might have never reached your audience when they searched on Google and the other search engines; but now, SEO targets your website’s key words so specifically that it is near impossible that your audience won’t be reached. Here are some of the most important tips for SEO today.
1. Know Your Topic
Your website needs to have a topic with content that people can find. This concept sounds simple enough, but you need to know what your topic is so you can optimize SEO to its full potential. If you aren’t correlating your topic with the right SEO strategies, you could be attracting the wrong audience. That being said, although it’s the simplest concept, it’s a crucial aspect when utilizing SEO.
2. Use SEO for Individual Pages, Not Just Your Homepage
One of the biggest misconceptions about SEO is that you only need to utilize it for your homepage. The information your audience is looking for isn’t always on your homepage. What the visitor is looking for could be found on one of your website’s individual pages. Instead of making the visitor search your entire website for what they are looking for, when you use SEO for all your pages, the visitor can be taken right to the page they need.
3. Develop a List of Key Phrases
Before making your list of key phrases that relate to your website, you need to understand what your specific audience is searching for. Consider what they would search for when using a search engine to find what your website offers. Now, compile a list of key words they would use to find your website. Make sure your keywords are simple and words that your audience would use when searching the web. Refrain from using jargon that your audience wouldn’t use. These keywords will become what appears when visitors search for your site, so make sure they are relevant to what your website is about. Use Google AdWords Keyword Planner to help you with this.
Webmaster tools can be very helpful when wanting to get more traffic to your website. Search engines such as Google and Bing have Webmaster tools that are easy and free to use. Through these tools you can see what keywords websites are already using and what keywords tend to bring in the most people to websites. When using Webmaster you can also check your websites search traffic and analyze how many people are visiting your site daily.
5. Sign Up for an Analytics Account
Similar to Webmaster, analytics can help you inspect your website’s statistics, traffic and more! The most widely used analytics service is Google Analytics. Through Google Analytics you can discover how many people are finding and engaging in your website through search engines. Not only are you getting a number of search engine visitors, but you can also find out what people are doing on your website when they get there. Free web services such as Webmaster and Google Analytics are free and help and grow websites so there is no reason not to take advantage of these amazing resources.
6. Know How Your Pages Appear to Search Bots
Different Search Engines may view your site differently. You want to make sure that your website is consistent and appears the same on each browser. One tool you can use for this is Webmaster. With this tool, you can see how your website appears to visitors in search engines such as Google and Bing. This makes sure your website is consistent when using all search engines and browsers. Don’t forget to test this for each individual page within your website!
7. Make Sure Your Website is Mobile Friendly
Having a mobile friendly site is one of the most important tips for SEO. Nowadays, people are using their phones constantly, which is why mobile compatibility for websites is so crucial. To have a successful website your site needs to be computer AND smart phone friendly. It is important for you to know how many of your visitors are coming to your website via mobile devices. You can find out an exact percentage of mobile visitors your website gets through your Google Analytics account as well as how it compares to computer and tablet visitors. It is important to distinguish between mobile and computer users when it comes to website visits. How do you know if your website is mobile compatible? You can use Google’s free mobile friendly tester to find out. Once Google verifies your website, they will tag it as mobile friendly. This will also make your website appear in more mobile searches instead of just web searches. Another important thing to note is to avoid using flash for videos on your website. Instead, use html 5 player – this works on both computers and mobile devices whereas flash just works on certain devices and certain browsers. Or you can use YouTube videos which are viewable on everything.
8. Use Responsive Web Design
Using Responsive Web Design, or RWD, is a great way to guarantee that your website looks great on every device whether it is a tablet, laptop, or Iphone. RWD provides the optimal viewing and interaction experience. It includes easy reading, convenient navigation, and a limited amount of scrolling and resizing. The important thing to remember about RWD is that what your website looks like on a phone will be the same layout and design on a computer. You will save tons of time and energy coding for both computer and mobile when you choose RWD.
9. Concentrate on Page Performance
The first thing you should do when analyzing your page performance is measure your page load speed. Slow web pages are annoying to visitors and often make them leave and search for something else, so you want to make sure your website is fast and efficient. When measuring your page load speed, you want to know your page’s Time to First Byte (TTFB). Google recommends your website to have a <200 ms TTFB.
10. Analyze and Fix Slow Page Loading
You can check your website’s load speed through Google Page Speed. Through Google Page Speed you will find out what areas or aspects of your website are causing the slow speeds. Google Page Speed will give you suggestions on how you can fix your website and alternatives for a faster website. Once you change and fix your website you can compare and find out how your website has improved in speed.
11. Measure Organic Search
What is your search intent for your visitors? Do you want them to buy a product? Download a link? Watch a video? Whatever your intent is, you want to know if your visitors are converting to outcomes that you want. You also want to measure how many of these visitors are organic, which means they didn’t come to your website because they saw an advertisement, instead they came to your site because your site correlated with their search terms. You can easily find and analyze this information through Google Analytics.
12. Fix Any Problems and Execute Strategies
Through this list of tips for SEO you probably have noticed something you could improve about your SEO strategy. SEO is all about driving people to your website and accumulating results. As long as you follow these tips for SEO your website will increase in visitors and accumulate the results that you want. To put SEO in the simplest terms possible, the higher SEO ranking you have results in more people finding your site which results in more and better outcomes for your website.
Your website is one of the most important aspects of your business. It can be hard to keep up with all the latest updates.
However, there are big website mistakes that businesses make that potentially hurt your company.
Here are some of the most common website mistakes businesses make as well as how to fix them.
Focusing More on Traffic Versus Conversion
Too often people think the more traffic, the more conversions which is a very common website mistake. People focus on trying to get as many visitors as we can, but aren’t getting enough people to take action. Why? Well one of of the main reasons is, you aren’t reaching your targeted audience. You may be getting a lot of viewers but not the specific viewers that need your service. So what can you do? Changing the wording on your site is a potential way to increase conversions.The copy on your site needs to be phrased in such a way that’s customized towards your target audience otherwise known as content marketing. Website conversion rate is nearly 6 times higher for people who engage in content marketing according to SmartBugMedia.You need to add consistent content to your website as well as high quality content. This will help with SEO and eventually conversions.
Hiring Your Neighbor to Build Your Website
This is one of the biggest website mistakes of all. Yes, there are many free online web builders that anyone can use. However, it looks unprofessional and does very little for your business. Without an original domain, you won’t rank anywhere on Google Search. Another issue is if you try to move websites in the future, you risk losing credit for all links aimed at your website according to AmericanExpress. Free online builders come with standard and overused templates that won’t represent your business in the best way. Another downside to using a self web builder is tracking traffic onto your site. Hire a web design company. Web designers can tailor the design to compliment your uniqueness and branding. A good web design company can manage the stats, compile reports for you and make recommendations on landing pages, changes to site structure and content to help boost your organic ranking.
Website Isn’t Optimized for SEO
Tailoring your website for SEO is your best opportunity to get ranked on Google Search. Write with subheads and highlighted keywords. Keep texts bold and short and content in an inverted pyramid order. You want the most important content at the top. Page titles should start with your business company name followed by a brief description of the site. Don’t start with words like “The” or “Welcome”. All the little things you do for your website can add to your search engine ranking such as having a blog, linking to authority sites, and writing original content.
Website Looks Too Busy
Squeezing in as much information onto a page is no longer welcome. One of the most common website mistakes is having a cluttered and confusing website without having a sense of flow and easy navigation. People need a clean looking website especially when viewing from mobile devices. Tabs and links need to be easy to find. It’s all about simplicity now. You might want to show off all your best work and photos, but it can be a little overwhelming to a viewer.
NuZoo uses a Parallax website scrolling design for the new Calmark Group website. Parallax scrolling involves the background moving at a slower rate than the foreground, creating a 3D effect as you scroll down the page. Calmark is a national leader in mailing services, combining expert creative, marketing and campaign strategies with production specialists and postal authorities to help non-profits reach their fundraising goals.
12 Fundamental Tips for SEO To Increase the Number of Visitors to Your Website